Star Citizen Alpha 3.8.1 OPEN PTU

Welcome to Some more Star Citizen and a state of the PTU we have had a 3.8.1 d & e patch and it appears that it is now on OPEN PTU to all backers with a game package.

Let’s talk about changes in the latest 3.8.1 PTU Patches and the State of the Game / PTU at this stage and what is left to do before LIVE. If you want to get involved with that here is the PTU FAQ .

Patch Note Summary

3.8.1 d 

• Added a cooldown on player bounties of the same player.

• The door sound effects should now be correct for the Area18 transit system.
• The non-medical beds in the 890 should now have logout functionality.
• Fixed Platinum Bay being disconnected from the rest of Shubin outpost on Lyria.
• Overclocked power plants should no longer cause an unrecoverable ship shutdown.
• Red text should no longer randomly appear when updating character selections on the character customizer
• Fixed an issue where recovery would trigger despite the player pressing “]” to decline.
• Fixed a server deadlock, 5 server crashes & 6 client crashes.

3.8.1e

• Toned down some lens flare effects.
• Updated nose collision on the Caterpillar to allow damage to the main/front door.

• The Pisces should no longer appear as placeholder text on commodity kiosks.
• Entering a ship via elevator at Area18 should no longer kill the player.
• Fixed bounty missions not progressing and unlocking further variants.
• There should no longer be misaligned collision blocking a suite in the 890 Jump.
• Players should no longer get first degree battery changes for killing NPCs inside destroyed ships.
• Players should no longer randomly die in the EzHab area upon exiting the transit system at Area18.
• Fixed an issue where if multiple players set their preferred ICU to the same medbed and die at the same time, one would spawn at map origin.
• Fixed 2 server crashes & a server deadlock.

There was a mistake with the Cutlass Red is not intended to have 2 shields. It will have 1 medium / S2. That does seem to of caused some anger from people that originally bought the ship with the 2 hardpoints for shields in mind HOWEVER the role of the Cutlass Red remains unchanged & the addition of the medibed gameplay for the Red and 890 is a welcome addition to the Verse imo at least in the short term.

Beyond that It appears that SOCS is still being dialled in with CIG trying to fix bugs and optimization issues with this tech… we do also know that CIG plan to optimize it further and Servers/Network Code in General from Patch to Patch anyway BUT SOCS is pretty core to any more optimizations. I am assuming that Player Desync is being worked on as part of this.

SOCS is such a massive element of the core game engine and touches pretty much every other part of the game and CIG have said it was not performing as they wanted it to at this stage and needs more work… 

They said that they had “fixed our most severe server crash, but we will see how what new things pop up.”

The slower texture loading could be a debugging thing from CIGs end as well for testing data.

The lens flare effects are no longer entirely blinding!

They are still tracking down 30k errors / client & server disconnects. It’s these kind of crashes and disturbances to game play that are some of the most important to fix.

We know that CIG have tested Server Player Caps above 50 and those tests seemed to go well.

Neutron Repeaters & Sledge Drivers still seem OP & Bugged.

Apparently CIG were testing a quick way of doing character resets as well without having to recopy your account across to the PTU.

Another thing that CIG seem to be trying to do is get rid of any aUEC exploits so you can’t make millions of monies without much effort, this is because they seem to be close or ready to implement platform persistence, giving CIG the ability to easily choose when to reset progress… meaning that if there are no terrible exploits and bugs you could see progress copied over to 3.9 and other major patches THAT SAID 3.8.1 will have a wipe at least when it goes live!

Large groups of players were able to log out in the 890 Jumps beds and log back on apparently (when the owner if still in server)… I need to test that at some point myself and to what extent it works.

CIG are working on some auto-gimbal changes and improvements for 3.9

So Where are we with the Current Known Issues & Bugs for the PTU?

Well there are boat load of currently listed issues as of 3.8.1 e that CIG have noted, this does not guarantee that they will be prioritizing fixes for these HOWEVER they range from minor to game breaking in severity. I would expect CIG to focus on those game breaking bugs before 3.8.1 LIVE and try to fix as many of the others as possible.

• The initial shader load is significantly slowed in this build, resulting in large sections of purple textures and invisible items/NPCs. This may be encountered frequently with larger cities and ships.

Work-around: Allow the area to load and then do not delete your shader folder. Once a region of the PU is loaded it should load smoother next time.

• Active scanning of ships may cause a client crash.
• Cargo capacity will fluctuate when extracting mineable materials.
• AI ships do not recover from EMP disables.
• Sometimes repair services are unavailable when they should be present.
• After a ship is repaired, detachable components will remain attached to the ship when destroyed and a duplicate component will fall off.
• Repair fails if you select repair and refuel simultaneously.
• Once an Animus spare magazine has been emptied the player can no longer equip fresh magazines in the same slot.
• Ships can be displayed as “unknown” after destruction, be available for spawn, but not appear on their specified hangar.
• Entering or exiting via EVA can sometimes cause the player to turn/spin suddenly and harm themselves.
• Objects can fall through the floor when dropped.
• An extra static train can appear at Lorville and prevent the use of trains.
• The visuals of the ships on the rental screen may have missing areas or disappear completely.
• CryAstro services may not work at various stations and major ports.

Work-around: Hover before landing and request services just above the pad.

• Rentals and/or rental timers may not work when renting a second ship.
• If a player’s ship is destroyed after bed logout they will return to the server at origin.
• NPCs may sometimes be doing usable animations in places that they shouldn’t.
• Countermeasures are not working as intended to deter missiles.
• The 890 Jump does not have the correct cargo capacity.
• The Combine Cannon and distortion weapons are not working as intended.
• Elevators at Port Tressler and Everus Harbor may not show up when called.
• If the quantum travel marker is at the edge of a moon or planet its possible to QT through the moon and explode..
• Purchased commodities will often visually not appear in the ship’s hold.
• NPC beacon notifications will sometimes display an incorrect distance.
• AI ships can often get stuck in the middle of their motion and not advance further.

There is still obviously issues that they need to solve before 3.8.1 goes to LIVE HOPEFULLY the influx of players for the OPEN PTU will help & they are making progress though.