Star Citizen 3.10 Combat Update Teaser

Star Citizen with some news about what’s to look forward to this week AND a teaser for some changes that are coming to ships in 3.10.

There is some stuff to look forward to This Week in Star Citizen. It is Alien Week still so that means a variety of alien ships in the RSI store until Friday… I think they should have the ships available to rent for free from rental terminals during these kind of mini-sales… as it’s easy for them to do AND gives players the opportunity to try them before they buy.

Wednesday will bring a comm-link covering flight & combat changes for Alpha 3.10. 

Also, the Banu are expected to deliver us a special message. I don’t know if that’s going to be just something in lore, a post OR maybe another ship/vehicle sale?

For Thursday we have an alien-themed episode of Inside Star Citizen, looking at the updated art of the Esperia Scythe, Glaive, and Blade as well as a Feature Sprint Report.

This Friday at 3pm UTC is a Star Citizen Live focusing on the Sounds of Star Citizen.

Alien Week Ends on Friday the 19th as well… so if you were looking to pickup a Banu Merchantman or another Alien Ship then you have a limited time THAT SAID… all ships will be available in game at some point!

3.10 is in Evocati Currently as well and if the tests go well we could see it go to wider PTU this weekend or early next week talking about 3.10.

There are various updates coming to 3.10’s Flight & Combat Model as well as some ships getting updated, rebalanced and more with the Khartu-al, Banu Defender & Many Other Ships will seeing changes in 3.10 as well. We saw a post on the Aopoa Khartu-al Update going into a bit more detail of the changes to that ship and hints at the methodology that CI are using:

The Khartu-al, as the light attack craft of the Xi’an military, was always intended to be a highly maneuverable ship. As such, it forgoes a traditional main thruster for an array of maneuvering thrusters on articulated rigs.The flight changes coming in Alpha 3.10 led to a few modifications for the ship.

Ship Handling

We’ve applied unique handling characteristics to the Khartu-al that are especially apparent when flying in-atmosphere. The pitch behavior has been almost doubled and now utilizes the alien ship design to re-balance the rotations in all directions. While normal ships tend to have a drastically different “pitch acceleration” vs. “roll” vs. “yaw”, we’ve balanced the Khartu-al to excel in all three.

Defense

We identified some weaker areas of the ship that resulted in parts breaking off more easily, which crippled the handling. The hitpoints for the four joint pieces holding the ship’s wings have now been buffed. The default shield was originally a stealth-type component that didn’t allow a lot of damage to be absorbed before shield faces were compromised. This has been changed to a higher-grade industrial item to improve resistance.

Offense

Weapons-wise, the Khartu-al was at a disadvantage for a large “light” ship which, in conjunction with the above-mentioned issues, meant it would receive more damage than it was able to handle and return effectively. To compensate for this, the hardpoint size has been increased from S3 to S4, and the default loadout changed to a gimballed S3 item. This allows players to make use of gimbal and auto-gimbal modes to increase hit chance and, for those who want to, swap to fixed S4s.