Star Citizen 3.16 Will Release By Xmas

Star Citizen Alpha 3.16 is planned to hit live server on or before the 24th of December… more vaguely sometime next week. However there have been some changes to the patch and Cloud Imperium have made some statements:

Star Citizen Alpha 3.15 took longer to get out the door than we had initially planned, which has limited the amount of time we have to stabilize the 3.16 code base. For this reason, we’ve opted to branch from the 3.15 development stream to avoid risking overall stability (which has been the best we’ve had in years). Taking this approach means we’ll be operating on the same code base that’s currently on the live servers, while manually integrating 3.16 features (specifically those we deem low risk to integrate).

It was important for us to try and limit content moving back a full quarter to Alpha 3.17, as we’re eager for you all to have refreshing and engaging content to play over the holiday break and into the early new year. For this reason, in addition to next week’s release, we also plan to release a content patch (3.16.1) when we return from holiday break. This patch will include some of the content that we were unable to integrate before the holidays.

So what is moving out?

New Derelict Spaceship Points of Interest and Laser Trip Mines are planned for 3.16.1 now.

DNA Head Upgrades and Mining Gadgets have been pushed to Alpha 3.17.

Area 18 Hospitals, the Dying Star Update, Grav-lev Updates and Jumptown 2.0 have all been confirmed to make the initial 3.16.0 release.

Star Citizen Alpha has had a 3.16.0e PTU Patch:

Gravlev has been getting various improvements through iteration on the 3.16 PTU and just had a polish pass:

• Bikes should not get flung into the air nearly as much when touching geometry side-on such as rocks or buildings
• Invisible suspension is now far better at ignoring meshes such as rocks, plants and so on
• Bikes should no longer be able to hover on the side of walls (and get pushed away from them)
• Bouncing/oscillating in certain places (for example new babbage) should no longer occur
• Speed limiter no longer affects height control
• Height control no longer causes the bike to oscillate or shake
• Bikes should no longer get flung into the air when disembarking
• Bikes should not be randomly or unfairly explode anymore, nor should they take damage unfairly
• Hover height is now shown on the HUD where altitude would be
• Default speed limiter speeds have been lowered slightly

There’s been a Mounted Guns Polish Pass making more in line as an infantry suppression weapon. This will reduce projectile velocity and RPM, reduce projectile damage per hit, reduce projectile weight (this will reduce force reactions on players), as well as giving projectiles a higher spread. Greatly increased how long players can fire the weapon before it shuts down.

Some more Bug Fixes:

They’ve Added ‘service unavailable’ messages when the service request for searching friends fails

• Fixed an issue causing UGF missions to not count kills toward the mission objectives
• Fixed further issues with Bounty hunter missions stalling indefinitely if leaving the area before it updates on a slow server
• Exiting Gravlev vehicles should no longer cause it to fling you into the air
• Fixed an issue causing bikes to oscillate up and down on their own
• Social AI should no longer have difficulty navigating past the archway asset at the Area18 hospital entrance
• ReplaceMe textures should no longer be seen on the base of various exterior art assets of jumptown locations
• Fixed an issue causing the Emergency Elevators to not send a valid player to the hospital once the Admit Patients UI has been activated
• Area18 Hospital pharmacy kiosks should now populate with items for purchasing
• Players should no longer become trapped on collision surrounding the vending machines in the lobby of the Empire Health Services hospital in Area18

There are still some known issues that CI are needing to get fixed for a live buil like being able to add friends on the front menu, repairing and refueling issues, medical beds not healing… as some of these can be pretty game breaking. 

In some other Roadmap News we’ve had some new features added to the the Progress Tracker:

Lockable Containers – will add the ability for designers to lock entities with either physical or electronic locks, which can be opened with a key or forced open via cutting, destroying, or hacking the lock. 

FPS Devices T1 – While throwable and consumable devices already exist within Star Citizen as grenades and MedPens, further work on this system will enable us to more easily create new items with different effects when used. This includes the development of deployable devices, or items that can be carried around as part of a player loadout, equipped and deployed onto a surface. 

Both these pieces of work are planned for completion in Q3 2022.

Boom! That’s it for your Star Citizen News today. We are expecting a new gravlev based ship or vehicle to be revealed in the next week or so and for it to potentially be flyable in Alpha 3.16.

Though I am not ecstatic about features slipping as I have said in my last few videos this was an expectation I had, a smaller (hopefully) stable 3.16 before end of year and a small 3.16.1 update in January. Mining Gadgets were a surprise they were pushed as it looked like they were mostly ready.