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BALLISTIC WEAPONS NOW DO A LOT OF DAMAGE!

Star Citizen Alpha has had a new PTU Patch 3.14.0h… it’s still Wave 1 so limited access BUT I wanted to look at the Patch Notes and state of the game as of this update.

There is an Ongoing Ship Capacitor, Balance, and Polish Pass that is likely going to take a while to get right BUT as of this patch:

They have done further core tuning for ships. S1 to S4 ballistic repeaters and gatlings have been re-tuned to be extremely powerful but very low on ammo. 

Small ship ballistics now have much more limited ammo but significant damage. They are meant to be used sparingly, carefully, and may not be well suited for drawn out engagements but are very powerful if well timed. If you are running ballistics, they are very good if you can hit your target BUT remember to rearm your ship regularly!

In real stats terms it looks like Ballistic Repeaters & Gatlings have gone up in damage by around 70% but have also seen a drop in ammo by at least 2/3rds (66%)

More Ship Changes – They Changed Caterpillar turrets to repeaters. Decrease weapon regen delay for every energy weapon. Reduced EMP damage. Removed inactive, powered off weapons from convergence calculations. Increased Terrapin hull HP. Increased health of Constellation and variants for various multiple parts. Slightly decreased health of S1 shields. Increased health and regen of S2 shields. Reduced p52 and p72 health. Reduced Arrow hull and nose slightly health. Streamlined HP on Reliant. Swapped default loadout of F7C with laser repeaters instead of ballistic gatling due to low ammo. Reduced delays on S3 and S4 shield generators.

S1 Shields have had a nerf, dropping their health a little and their regen… tho S2 shields had a huge buff 50% extra health and 150% increase in regen. S3 shields saw a buff on their regen delay, halving it to 5 seconds… something that I very much welcome!

Orison has seen a Polish Pass with new rolling physics to the orison leaves. As well as multiple lighting and performance optimization passes to the landing zone.

The Law System has seen updates to Armistice Zones Removing missile dumb fire as a crime in those areas AND Changing the trigger from any hit to hits over the friendly fire threshold.

Ships and Vehicles

  • Change the default power plant on the F7C-S Hornet Ghost
  • Slightly widened and softened the aurora entrance proxies to help with placing objects inside
  • Updated lighting for the Constellation cockpits
  • Added new emerald tint for the constellation emerald
  • Updated initial default zoom position when opening the Starmap
  • Locked ping controls to scanning mode
  • Added menu option for increasing missile count to loop or not loop
  • Updated IFCS landing dust minimum angles for the directional effect
  • Added Game settings option to lock ping controls to scan mode

There are various Major Bug Fixes

  • Joystick control binding settings should now appear in the options menu
  • Fixed a bug that allowed NPCs and players sitting on seats at Everus Harbour to shrink size with each use
  • Fixed an issue causing some party markers to not display to other party members
  • Cycling camera (F4) from 3rd person to 1st person point of should no longer cause the ship scanning UI to temporarily appear
  • Player ships should no longer be impounded after landing at their assigned pad
  • Fixed an issue causing unmaned station turrets to incorrectly trigger Aggravated Assault charges upon destruction
  • Fixed an issue causing hunger and thirst values to decay much faster than intended
  • Fixed an issue causing scanning mode to be incorrectly used while on foot
  • Fixed an issue that allowed AI NPC pilots to turn ships faster than allowed
  • Fixed flickering lighting inside the orison shuttles
  • Fixed an issue causing players not to be able to retrieve weapons placed in the Gladius weapons rack
  • Fixed an issue causing the FOIP Camera to not be focused on character when they are seated in turrets
  • Fixed an issue causing some manned turrets only fire in a very limited range
  • Enter ship animation should no longer be glitchy and jumpy for multiple single seat fighters
  • Hornet variants should no longer sometimes bounce after landing
  • The parasite ship docked with the constellation should no longer be able to be targeted independently of the main ship while it is docked
  • Dining/conference table in the Constellation Phoenix should no longer have an incorrect texture on it
  • Attaching and removing any optics from the Ravager shotgun should no longer cause it to be misaligned and obstruct player view when ADS
  • The Crew Elevator on the RSI Constellation Andromeda should no longer be missing it’s platform surface texture
  • Bartender should no longer be missing at G-loc bar in area18
  • Demon Fang Combat Knife asset should no longer be missing
  • Fixed 4 Client & 3 Server crashes as well as 2 Server Deadlocks

There are still various Known Issues

  • Gas Clouds on Crusader appear to have moving graphical artifacts that appear as dots. Current clouds are still in development and not final. See note at the top of patch notes.
  • Orison objects & textures loading very slowly
  • XXL Hangars in Orison Dunlow Space Port are exhibiting invisible ceiling collision when ships try to disembark, even after hangar doors are fully retracted
  • Missiles do not follow flares as a countermeasure
  • Single location will only appear if the player spools their drive before setting destination on the starmap (Workaround: Spool quantum drive before opening the starmap and then open it and set route)
  • Various UI markers are faded and hard to read
  • Unable to scan for FPS or ROC-sized mining deposits until very close
  • Large black cubes and bright light particles can been seen within the snow storm clouds on microTech & in the “dust” storm on Hurston
  • Security Ships do not recognise illegal goods onboard a ship when being carried by a player
  • Players can clip through the exterior door of the 890 Jump whilst it is docked
  • The Player is unable to QT in Succession without Toggling the QT Drive off/on again
  • Landing gear proxies are missing on certain ships
  • Docked vehicles have misplaced collisions
  • Port Tressler is missing QT marker when Player returns to microTech planet

Something that has been removed from that known issues list THAT SHOULD STILL BE THERE is Ship Positional Desync… which is still very much an issue.

Something else that was found in a bit of a datamine of the files was mentions of the Foundation Festival and various skins for a multitude of ships.

The patch is very much making progress and lots of changes are being made to stats and balance… it’s hard to tell what CI want to do in regards to it’s release… are they going to spend a long time in PTU balancing? Or are they going to get something that works, go live with it and then make variants of components balanced with 3.14.x patches? Or they might send it to Open PTU and keep the patch there for ages?

Whatever they do… getting the weapons, ship tuning and power balance all correct and in a good place is going to take a long time… remember they are currently balancing without component variants (so all S3 shields are the same stats atm).

I am liking there intentions here tho… BUT it’s something that will have to be done again and in a much larger way once we have physicalized components… but maybe if the general style is all locking in by then… then it will be easier to do?