Update:Star Citizen Alpha 3.18.0

Star Citizen Alpha 3.18.0 is a major update which introduces Persistent Entity Streaming, Gen12 Scene Renderer, vehicle and FPS salvage gameplay, the Vulture, Scorpius Antares, vehicle soft death, the long-awaited cargo system refactor, sand caves, 600i & MSR derelict settlements, Security Post Kareah activation and new race tracks.

= Major updates =

= Full patch notes = Alpha Patch 3.18.0-LIVE.8389318 has been released and is now available on the LIVE environment!

It is strongly recommended that players delete their USER and Shader folders for the Public client after patching, particularly if you start encountering any odd character graphical issues or crash on loading. The USER folder can be found (in default installations) at C:\Program Files\Roberts Space Industries\StarCitizen\LIVE. The Shader folders can be found here C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Star Citizen.


 * Database Reset: Yes
 * Long Term Persistence: Disabled (Full Wipe and Reset)
 * Pledge Copy: Enabled
 * Starting aUEC: 200,000

Known Issues

 * Game clients may close without error or crash handler
 * ASOP Terminals are unusable and fade to black when accessed
 * Harvestable Deposits may be invisible to players, cause collisions or become unavailable for scanning, mining or salvage gameplay
 * The Trams are out of sync with the station timers, causing trams to overlap or not appear on time
 * Elevators and Trams are "Jittery" during transit of Player Character
 * Players may occasionally be unable to exit a ship seat
 * When flying near another ship, ship seems to hit an invisible box that kicks it in random directions
 * Reclaimer main on-elevator control panels do not respond to input
 * Cargo may be invisible in multiple ships after being purchased
 * Unable to view ships inventory through NikNax
 * When attempting to start a refinery job, players receive the following error ; Something went wrong (Error code: 20)
 * Security Contractor Evaluation is not re-offered upon failure
 * Combat Service Beacon Progress / Rating inconsistent on missions
 * Security Work Assesment Remaining Hostile NPCs Not Spawning In
 * PTV wheels at the Orison BTR area can clip into geometry and become detached from vehicle
 * The snub fighter attached to Constellations lacks interaction prompts to enter it, making it unusable
 * Some ship wreckage erroneously give "No Material" text and do not let you salvage
 * Markers Will Randomly Disappear After Quantum Travel With No Route Set
 * The NPC Coffee Vendor is missing from the various 'Coffee To Go' stalls located throughout Stanton

Locations
The Addition of a large derelict settlement on Daymar using parts of the StarRunner & 600i, as well as some habs adapted to the biome, to create a point of interest with included missions. The addition of the new Sand Cave Archetype across multiple planets and moons in the Stanton System, including Hurston, Magda, Ita, Daymar, and Wala each with their own unique sand cave formations. These new sand caves include the brand new land crustacean known as the Stone Bug with it's new harvestable, the Stone Bug Shell. Addition of many new racing locations into Stanton. With this update we are including 6 new and community driven racing locations into the Persistent Universe with updated assets and set dressings to make each racing location a unique and rewarding experience for players to test their racing skills. These Racing Tracks include: Hurston - Lorville Gateways (The Start of the Time Trial missions that leads to further track unlocks), Daymar - Yadar Valley, Orison - Caplan Stadium, Grim HEX - Miner’s Lament, Euterpe - Icebreaker, and ArcCorp - The Sky Scraper. Implementing a race track into the Orison Vision Center on Crusader in the same location as the most recent Invictus Launch Week, designed for the Greycat PTV.
 * Daymar Crash Site
 * Sand Cave Archetype
 * Stanton Racetrack Locations
 * Greycat PTV Race Track

Gameplay
This refactor of the ship cargo system allows both found and purchased cargo to be picked up, moved around, and placed into the cargo grid of a ship. The Cargo system has been completely re-written and with this refactor, the cargo boxes that you see in the ship, are actual, individual boxes which can be added to and removed from the grid via the use of a tractor beam and snap to the grid for perfect placement. As part of this refactor, we’ve rebuilt the Commodity Kiosk UI in Building Blocks which will be used to buy/sell cargo to/from the ship/player inventories, and had to update not only the standard trading commodities, but also the harvestable and mineable entities. Security Post Kareah will be taking a more central role in Stanton's security. Crusader Security have moved in a full-time staff and have begun storing confiscated contraband aboard. The station will be off limits to all civilians, unless given prior authorization. Kareah has undergone a full art redesign polish. This includes a new evidence and contraband processing office addition with interactable contraband dispenser, new traversal pathways, new color schemes and branding, and updated set dressing and cover around the whole interior. The interior and exterior of Kareah have been updated with armed admin AI and reinforcements including new crusader security loadouts and police detectives in kevlar.
 * Physicalized Cargo T0
 * Security Post Kareah Reactivation

Inside Kareah, criminal players will now be able to trigger a boss to spawn after killing several AI. After this boss has been killed players will be able to loot them and find a code on their body that will unlock a terminal inside the evidence storage room. After unlocking, players will be able to activate the contraband machine to dispense drugs. The player will be able to keep getting drugs out of the dispenser until a set amount of items are generated (randomized amount between 15 and 20 items). Once all items have been retrieved, the security terminal will lock itself, and upon leaving, the contraband room the door should lock not allowing players access to the area.

Along with the Security Post Kareah Reactivation, we are introducing a new mission type called Retake Location. Initially only at Security Post Kareah, this new mission type is generated for players when a location deems itself under attack (e.g. when X amount of a location’s population is killed). This mission will generate for players outside of the location and will allow players to go to that location and lawfully enter and remove all hostile attackers. Each attacker a player kills will give them a bonus after completing the mission. Any players in the area contributing to the mission will get part of the overall reward. Addition of Bounty, Assassinate, Clear All, and other missions that take place on the Inspiration Park platforms created for Siege of Orison. This includes eliminate all missions similar to the current UGF missions. For these islands the player will be tasked with killing everyone in a given building. These Mercenary missions available from Crusader Industries will have three difficulty curves, ranging from an easy clear of one building, to a hard clear of three buildings. Similar to eliminate all missions, Eliminate Specific Missions will task the player with killing single or multiple Bosses based on difficulty. For players to qualify and receive these missions they first need to complete Security Work Assessment for Crusader Security. Racing time trials have finally come to the PU! Players will be able to test their skills versus set times on the newly added Racing tracks around landmarks in the PU, earning rewards based on performance and even unlocking more tracks as they progress. Players can pick up the first racing mission for the outskirts of Lorville and with enough racing prowess, get reputation to move onto the rest of the Time Trials around Stanton! This T0 implementation is focused on Ships and includes reputation progression tracks. (Note for PTU: Currently after completing the Lorville racetrack Time Trial, reputation will unlock the rest of the racetracks at once. This is intended to help test them during PTU and will have normal track unlocking later on in PTU)
 * Platform Assault on Orison
 * New Missions: Time Trials Racing T0

The first implementation of Salvage into the persistent universe, which includes both hull stripping as well as repair. This includes both performing hull stripping and repairs by hand, as well as hull stripping using the systems aboard the Drake Vulture and Aegis Reclaimer. Using highly advanced compression technology, these tools can break down ship and vehicle exteriors, converting them into Recycled Material Composite (RMC), and store them in the canisters attached. The player then has the option to either use this material to repair their ship using the FPS multi-tool by filling in damaged areas or they can sell this material as a commodity. This feature also has the addition of many new, discoverable derelict ships in space around places like asteroid belts with many more common smaller ships and much rarer larger ships for players to salvage.
 * Salvage - Hull Scraping

Vehicle Hull Scraping
Salvaging while in a vehicle is a mode like mining. To be able to scrape the hull of a newly "found" wreck, the target must have it's shields turned off (Indicator in UI will informs about shield state). To enter and exit Salvage mode hit 'm' (Default keybind). Players can right click to cycle through attached Beams in the sub item slot. By Left Clicking players can activate and deactivate the scraper beam. There are 2 modes players can be in while salvaging by pressing 'G' (Default keybind), Converging and Fixed Mode. Fixed mode acts like weapons and points the salvage beams directly where the player aims the ship while Converging mode lets players gimbal the beams independently. Left alt + Mouse wheel will move converging point while Left alt + Right click will switch between vertical and horizontal converging mode. Players will need to manually remove filled storage boxes from the ship's salvaging area using a using a handheld tractor beam or by converting it into RMC canisters for repairing.

FPS Hull Scraping & repair
To utilize FPS Hull scraping mechanics, players will first need to acquire a Grin Multi-tool, the Salvage and repair module for it, and the ammunition canister for the salvage and repair module. As will ship hull scraping, players will be able to strip away the hull of a ship while it's shields are down (Indicator in UI will informs about shield state) and store the Recycled Material Composite (RMC) in the canister. Players can cycle between salvage and repair mode by pressing 'B' (Default keybind) a which will allow them to either scrape away materials or use collected materials to repair the hull of a ship. Introduction of vehicle ‘soft death.’ Now, if one of a ship’s critical components is destroyed, the ship will remain intact but stranded, leaving its contents and crew hanging in the balance. Soft death is key to the Salvage career, as abandoned vehicles can be ripped apart for serious profit by ships like the Aegis Reclaimer and all-new Drake Vulture. During ship Soft Death, players on board will not be killed and left stranded in the nonfunctional ship with MFD, weapons, engines, and thrusters being disabled. Soft Death will allow players to exit pilot and turret seats to leave or enter the ship. Expansion of prison gameplay with a new suite of missions and sandbox activities to give inmates more opportunities to earn merits or to aid in their escape from prison. The prison and it's mine are now filled with an emergent population of prison guards and civilian prisoners' with lootable items. Players will be able to loot contraband located throughout the prison mines and from bodies and sell to the prison kiosk for merits. This includes a brand new Prison Escape Delivery Mission, where players have to find and loot an item in the escape route and then deliver it at the nearest outpost, upon doing this the player then will have their criminal record wiped by the mission giver. Players will now incur a punishment for suiciding in the prison, however if they retrieve their gear from their dead body they can pay off this merit value instantly.
 * Vehicle Soft Death
 * Sandbox Prison Activities
 * Request landing has a new default keybinding of ALT + N
 * Disabled bed log around Outposts
 * Improved layout of commodity price alerts journal entry to list by commodity type rather than location
 * Removed Physical Pressure from Distortion Weapons

Ships and Vehicles
Addition of Drake Interplanetary's light salvage ship known as the Vulture.
 * Added New Ship: Drake Vulture

Weapons and Items
Addition of the new multi-tool salvage attachment into the PU. This new attachment attaches to the Grin Multi-tool along with the new salvage ammunition canister to allow players to scrape and repair the hulls of vehicles.
 * Greycat Multi-tool Salvage Attachment

Core Tech
Implementation of the Persistent Entity Streaming core technology into Star Citizen. Making use of services such as the Entity Graph and Replication Layer, this will allow every dynamic object in a shard to persist within that shard, irrelevant of whether it is owned or held by a player.
 * Persistent Entity Streaming

Locations
Addition of 30 new, small Derelict Outpost locations across more planet-side locations in the Stanton System. These are additional variants of those already placed on microTech in 3.17. Each location features a collection of ruined outposts in varying degrees of degrade along with missions and AI inhabitants. Adding dozens of additional rivers and lakes with biome-specific object rulesets around bodies of water and distributing these around microTech and Hurston. Complete rework of the restricted area tech around landing zones. Instead of ships being autopiloted away or destroyed upon entering a Restricted Area, players are now given more freedom to fly and maneuver around cities. Upon entering a Restricted Area, players will now be given a text warning, a countdown, and an arrow pointing towards the exit. If the countdown ends, or they go further into the Restricted Area, the player will be teleported to a safe location, their ship will be impounded and they will receive a misdemeanor crime stat. This feature also applies to Ground Vehicles. Players outside of a vehicle won’t receive a countdown but will be teleported to safety if they venture too far into a Restricted Area. Added base AI to populate caterpillar crash sites. Added kill specific and kill all missions. Including a general polish pass and visual improvements. General polish pass to the Reclaimer including additional buildings and general visual improvements.
 * Small Derelict Outpost Expansion in Stanton
 * New Rivers in Stanton
 * Added Parallax Interior Window Shader for Buildings Around All Landing Zones
 * Restricted Areas v3
 * Caterpillar Crash Sites Improvements V1
 * Derelict Settlements - Reclaimer V2

AI
Updated many NPC loadouts throughout Stanton with new Shopkeeper outfits, Earth Fashion Dress, Hospital Surgeon outfits, Service hats and aprons in shops, and armor sets.
 * NPC Loadout Updates

Gameplay
Addition of new Local Courier Delivery Missions around each Stanton planet system. These new missions are based around the local delivery companies for each planet system in Stanton and give players a more focused area for deliveries. There are 4 new Delivery reputations based on the area you are in. Red Wind Local Delivery, Ling Family Local Delivery Route, Covalex Local Delivery Route, and UDM Local Delivery Route. These new missions can be acquired after completing the intro missions for the local delivery company in your area. Added ability for long term persistence (LTP) items to stack in inventory. Added transfer all button to inventories that work based on selected filters. Added visual feedback attempting to quick move an item that won't fit in the target inventory. Implemented toggle option to the top right of the player's inventory to always show/hide item ports for equipping gear. We have overhauled many aspects of the law system to be less punishing for players with lower level crimes.
 * Courier Delivery Missions Update
 * QoL Inventory Updates
 * Law System Improvements

Players with a Crime Stat (CS) 1-2 can no longer be attacked lawfully (their ship marker won’t be red to players) and AI and defenses will not attack them on sight. Murder will still give a CS3 so this will be our new threshold for being able to be killed on sight. Players with CS1-2 will be able to request and receive landing permissions at ATCs. Security ships will not attack players with CS1-2 and will instead scan and tell the player to pay off their fines. The vast majority of crimes can now be paid off as fines rather than needing prison time. However, more serious crimes are very expensive. All crimes accumulate so should you get a couple serious crimes or many minor crimes, you will still reach CS3 though you can still pay it off should you be able to reach a fine terminal (difficult as you will be shot at by defenses and not be permitted to land). As is the case already, security will attack a CS3 player while requesting their surrender and players can power down their ship to surrender. Players are now able to surrender at Fine Kiosks found in rest stops and landing zones, should they not be able to afford to pay off their fines. As before, surrendering gives the player a 25% discount of prison sentence. We have lowered the threshold for CS1 so that it displays when the player gets any minor crime. This is to show the player they have a law issue that needs taking care of. The threshold for CS2 remains where it was and warns players they are either getting dangerously close to CS3 or, if they got it from a single crime, tells them that was a particular serious crime. Players have 1 week to pay off fines for a more reasonable price. Should they allow the fine to escalate, it doubles in price. Given we have made hacking Crime Stats more challenging by limiting it to Kareah, we have greatly reduced the time it takes to remove each infraction.
 * Bed log out is now blocked in landing areas
 * Claim Jumper Missions have been temporarily disabled for 3.18

Ships and Vehicles
We have done a pass on ground vehicle speeds with some gaining and some losing max speeds. Greatly increased Ballistic weapon shield penetration. Ship armor now grants 50% physical resistance, increasing ship durability against incoming ballistic fire. EM and IR adjustments to shields to support more accurate missiles, reduced overall signal strength, and made them more consistent. Increased shield down delay from 5 to 10 seconds. Distortion does not scale the power output of power plants. Distortion weapon explosive radius has been increased. Distortion weapon heat development has been decreased. Distortion health pool has been increased, it should take a good while longer now to disable a ship. Power plants will turn off binary and take 300 seconds to recover. Coolers cannot be distorted. Item health has been balanced so that a single missile hit cannot instantly kill them. Updated component damage for coolers and power plants.
 * Ground Vehicle Speed Changes
 * Vehicle Balance Tweaks
 * Greatly increased the hull health of the 600i

Core Tech

 * Enabled Gen12 Rendering
 * Physics Optimizations
 * Server Performance Improvements
 * Updated Commodity Kiosks to Use Building Blocks Tech

Bug Fixes

 * Players should no longer receive a Bad token/Missing text on main menu after server crash
 * Combat Service Beacon mission progress and rating progression should no longer be inconsistent
 * Remote Turret aim assist should no longer be broken
 * "Reset to SCM" binding should no longer set vehicle speed to ~80% of the vehicles top-speed instead of the vehicles max SCM speed
 * Players should now correctly receive a flight suit and helmet in their inventory when respawning at hospitals
 * UGF Missions should no longer be missing NPC spawns to complete the mission
 * Hangar elevator collision grid should no longer push players through its path when called
 * Fixed players being unable to call elevators from hangar interiors
 * Cutlass Black Reinforcement AI should now correctly exit the ship
 * The Corsair should no longer nose down without pilot input when flying in a straight line in atmosphere
 * Commodities should now correctly appear in the Commodity Kiosks and be sold
 * The Orison Shuttle to the vision center should now correctly arrive and not get stuck
 * Fixed an issue causing players exiting Klescher to have no head or mobiglas
 * Ship should no longer fall out of quantum when Pressing B or Missile Mode
 * QT markers will no longer disappear when traveling between planetary markers until QT drive finishes spooling
 * Security AI should now spawn in their correct loadouts
 * Hostile AI should now correctly leave their spawn closets
 * PvP Bounty should no correctly complete if the target suicides after being downed
 * Players should now be attached to the cockpit seats in the Star Runner during the enter or exit animations
 * Weapons should no longer holster and unholster themselves repeatedly
 * KLWE scope optic crosshair should no longer be missing
 * Inner Thought wheel Back / Exit button UI should no longer be missing
 * Animations should now correctly line up for Female player characters in the Greycat Industrial STV
 * Fixed various screens, terminals, and kiosks failing to load their UI and only displaying a black screen
 * Fixed purchased ships not being recognized after making an insurance claim

Technical

 * Fixed 8 Client Crashes
 * Fixed 6 Server Crashes

Arena Commander 3.18 Patch Notes
With 3.18 Arena Commander (inc. Star Marine) has been the start of a focus of Quality of Life and bug fixing following discussions & feedback from players. As well as the successful integration of Persistence Entity Streaming into the module. We are extremely excited to elevate AC to a better state and encourage players to contribute to IC Reports and Feedback threads so we can continue improvements to the Arena Commander module.

System / Balance

 * Persistent Entity Streaming successfully ntegrated into Arena Commander & related systems
 * Added grey screen effect when dead for all modes
 * The system used to white/blacklist ships from game modes has been completely reworked
 * BleedOut will now award the shooter, both for causing the bleed out and for all bleeding damage inflicted afterwards
 * Several UI systems have been updated to Building Blocks
 * The 3 topmost scoring players in all game modes now gain an additional 2000, 1500 & 1000 score, respectively. While all other players gain a 500-score participation award
 * In team game modes Victory now rewards 2000 score, while defeat rewards 500 score
 * The top scoring player in any game mode is now awarded MVP, displaying in the Game Feed
 * Hemorrhage now displays as a secondary scoring event
 * Ballistic Pickup amount increased from 50% to 80%, split across all ballistic hardpoints
 * Items & Vehicle should now appear alphabetically in the Rental/Customization screens

The following ships are now rentable in Arena Commander
Aegis Hammerhead, Reclaimer, Vanguard Harbinger, Vanguard Sentinel, C8 Pisces, Carrack/Expedition, Aopoa Khartu-al, Nox/Kue, Argo Mole/Carbon/Talus, Raft, Banu Defender, Consolidated Outlands HoverQuad, Drake Dragonfly, MISC Hull-A/Prospector/Starfarer/Gemini, Origin 890 Jump, RSI Mantis/Scorpius.

Rental/Inventory System Change
As a temporary solution while the system is reworked inventory (including rentals) when used will no longer lower their availability, meaning you only need to have one of any item to equip to all vehicle slots. In short, usage of any item should not affect its availability.

Additionally, rentals that are equipped will no longer expire. As this is a temporary solution the UI may not display this accurately.

Modes

 * Increased player limit of FreeFlight from 8 to 24
 * Decreased required player count for Last Stand from 6 to 2
 * Removed 3rd Person Camera from Elimination
 * Last Stand now displays your objective in the top right of the screen
 * Duel, Battle Royale & Squadron Battle have been limited to Light & Medium Combat Ships
 * Classic Race has had its allowed ship list expanded

Maps

 * Adjusted skybox in Dying Star to match the upcoming Pyro System
 * Dying Star has undergone a visibility pass, reducing cloud density, glare and size of smoke particle effects which lead to poor visibility and motion sickness for some players

Bug Fixes

 * (Game Wide) Closure rate marker fixed to give correct velocity towards target rather than full relative speed
 * (Game Wide) Fixed an issue that caused player ships to flip uncontrollably when entering OCs, most notably space stations such as Grim Hex & Dying Star
 * Damaging a friendly with a missile now correctly gives a negative score based on the damage dealt
 * Damaging a friendly with a missile in modes where friendly fire is disabled will no longer damage the friendly target
 * Explosions and Collisions now follow friendly fire rules
 * Last Stand will no longer respawn an already spawned player at the start of a round
 * Duel Mode should no longer affect the Battle Royale Leaderboards
 * Classic Race should no longer give warning messages by the law system
 * Text on the FPS Loadout Customization screen should now be more visible
 * Fixed various issues with collisions of asteroids in Broken Moon & Dying Star
 * Fixed various issues with missing geometry in Dying Star
 * Fixed various issues causing poor performance in Dying Star
 * Fixed a rare bug where players would spawn extremely far away from the playable area in Dying Star
 * Fixed various vis-area issues across OP Station Demien, Echo11 and The Good Doctor
 * Fixed several ways players were able to get out of bounds in OP Station Demien
 * Fixed various issues where killing a player would not award the full score pool, most notably when getting headshots
 * Fixed an issue where ships would duplicate repeatedly for players who were stuck on the loading screen
 * Fixed an issue where the Save Changes button would disappear in the Arena Commander & Star Marine Loadout Editors
 * Fixed an issue where players would spawn into ships with missing components
 * Fixed an issue where a player could spawn into a ship that had no seat, causing the player's character to get into a bad state
 * Fixed an issue where the player would retain the recoil camera shake from death to their respawn
 * Fixed an issue where destroying another ship in Squadron Battle would award 10k team points rather than the value of the destroyed ship
 * Fixed an issue where players who killed themselves in Squadron Battle would give their team -10k points
 * Fixed an issue where friendly fire would affect the team score
 * Fixed an issue where occasionally when renting an item, you would experience a large hang
 * Fixed an issue where on rare occasions players would spawn outside the playable bounds
 * Fixed a large client hang caused by repair pickups
 * Fixed an issue where bleed out kills displayed incorrectly in the game-feed
 * Fixed a crash when loading into an empty team-based game mode
 * Fixed an issue where self-destructing awarded positive points
 * Fixed an issue where an attacker would receive -1 kill if the target bled out
 * Fixed an issue where the marker for medpen & ammo containers was not appearing
 * Fixed an issue where attackers would not be credited for kills against players who killed themselves
 * Fixed a crash when acquiring pick-ups
 * Fixed a crash on finishing an Elimination match
 * Fixed a crash when joining Team game modes

Technical

 * Fixed 10 Crashes
 * Various optimizations to systems including Playable Area, Game Rules and Rental Services

= Trailer =

= References =