Star Citizen Alpha 3.24.2

Start Citizen Alpha 3.24.2 is a minor update for Star Citizen.
Launcher should now show: VERSION 3.24.2-LIVE.9381373
Characters in this new environment have been built from Long Term Persistence(LTP) data. Currently with LTP, certain player states such as personal hangar layout, custom characters, and in-game purchased consumables are not saved between releases which will cause some items to be lost in the next update.
Items not saved to LTP Include: Hangar Decoration Customizations (Decorations will be returned to player's home location inventory), Medpens, Ammo, Ongoing Rentals and Refinery Jobs, and Character Customization (Make sure to Export your Custom Character)
*Long Term Persistence: Enabled
*Replication Layer: Enabled
*Server Crash Recovery: Enabled
*Starting aUEC: 20,000
==Known Issues & Information==
For 3.24, Server Crash Recovery will remove all current missions and mark them as abandoned. This behavior is not the intended outcome in the long term and will be changed in an upcoming refactor. This will not reduce reputation when this occurs. This could cause a few trespassing issues in locations like UGFs.
*PU - Social - AR markers - Party markers are not visible to other party members
*The Argo ATLS currently cannot be destroyed (Not intended end goal and player inside is still vulnerable)
*PU - LTP - Ships / Weapons - Purchased Tractor Beams do not persist in LTP
*Multivehicle - PU - Vehicles / Components - Unable to pull components out from their sockets
*PU - Stanton - Transit - Trams from Lorville Metro Centre to Teasa Spaceport will rapidly rotate when leaving the station, which can push the player out of bounds or kill them
*Corsair co-pilot loses manual gimbal after remote turret (STARC-130625)
*PU - Stanton - ArcCorp - Area18 - Locations / Art - Multiple areas across A18 have visarea/portal issues
*PU - Stanton - UI / Locations / Vehicles / Kiosks - Vehicle Rentals / Purchase Kiosks preview image will overlap transaction UI once purchased
*PU - Harvestables - Game Code / Planet Tech / Mining - Planets and Moons have no Harvestables/Mineables (Asteroid Fields not affected)
*PU - Stanton - Multivehicle - MFD - MFDs can be interacted with while in mobiGlas
*PU - Commodity Kiosks - Multiple Locations - "Failed" error appears when buying RMC from Commodity Kiosks
*PU - Stanton - UI / Shipping & Delivery Kiosk - Shipping & Delivery Kiosk(Covalex)'s screen will be stuck on "Please Standby" after pressing "Pickup"
*PU - Stanton - Landing Zone (LZ) - New Babbage - Personal Hangar - Locations / Art / Graphics - A large opaque plane will be visible when viewed from the ASOP/Storage Access area if hangar doors are open
*PU - Locations / Physics - UGF - The interior of UGFs inherit the planet or moon's gravity
*AC - Spawning not possible after rejoining lobby
==Features and Gameplay==
===Characters===
*New Hair and Beard StylesAddition of multiple new hair and beard styles into the character creator including a Long Afro, Twin Braids, and both Groomed and Long Style African Beards.
*Character Creator DNA3.24.2 brings in over 20 new DNA heads to add much more variety for players to create with many new skin tones and facial structures.
*Tattoos and PiercingsAdd variety and personality to your character creations with dozens of new tattoos and piercings.
===Locations===
*New Caves Two new cave system archetypes have been added into the PU allowing players to explore inside Acidic and Rock style Caves.
**Acidic Cave Archetype: Adorned with luminous pools of water and dramatic stalactites and stalagmites, these caves coming to Stanton, as well as the upcoming Pyro system, provide a captivating setting for exploration, FPS missions, missing person missions, and more.
**Rock Cave Archetype: Illuminated by bioluminescent mushrooms, these caves coming to Stanton, as well as the upcoming Pyro system, provide a unique atmospheric location for exploration, FPS missions, missing person missions, and more.
*Hangar Spawn Logic UpdatesWhen retrieving ships into newly created persistent hangars, we now also check for existing vehicles and store them. Also, when despawning ships we wait for async response to the vehicle owner query - (else we'll destroy ships where that's not been received yet). This avoids ships clipping into each other after spawning them into non-empty persistent hangars.
*Additional Location Polish Pass
**Hangar Elevator and Alarm Sounds have been temporarily muted
**Newly Updated Stanton Skybox
**Hangar Cargo Platform Lighting Polish Pass
**Improved Item Kiosk Camera Positioning
===Gameplay===
*Quantum Travel PolishWe have made large adjustments to Quantum Travel speeds, accelerations, fuel storage, use, and prices in 3.24.2 that will help balance movement around the PU. Ship fuel take sizes have been balanced across all ships to adjust for archetype with some getting less fuel and others being able to hold more. Quantum Drives have all been adjusted for fuel use, speed, and acceleration to balance ship travel based on shorter and longer distance archetypes. Cooldown times have not been adjusted.
*Starmap UI PolishImplemented hovered marker info panel to display condensed information about the marker hovered with the cursor. The primary marker info panel will now display the full information for only the selected marker, which will mean the panel information will never erroneously change when trying to interact with the set route button.
*Additional Gameplay Updates
**Escape Key to exit is now available on Kiosks, Terminals, and mobiGlas
**Updated All Hauling Missions to have Zero Reputation Change on Abandon
**Temporarily disabled cursor showing on elevator panels/supporting non-focused kiosk mode; now requires interaction mode to see a cursor on an elevator panel once again. (This is temporary for the time being since we're missing some additional feature work to make it function properly on every terminal like ASOPs)
===Ships & Vehicles===
*Added New Ships
**Zeus Mk II CL
**Zeus Mk II ES
*Vehicle HUD & MFD ReworkRework of the core functionality of MFDs and HUDs, including a full visual update and manufacturer styles. This new update fully replaces all aspects of the previous HUDs with a much more dynamic and intuitive design using building blocks that is ready for upcoming tech such as the resource network and includes new annunciator panels, target status, communications, diagnostics, weapons, engineering, and more. This also includes a new configuration screen to adjust settings that were previously only done in the game settings menu. Keybinds have also been adjusted and are customizable to assist with maneuvering the updated MFDs and HUDs to allow keyboards, joysticks, and gamepads to have short and long presses to focus on screens and select views. Added buttons to quickly select a weapon preset: 1 to 4, all guns plus the individual additional groups.
*MFD/Hud Polish and Marker DeclutteringWe've made lots of adjustments to how much information is displayed directly in view with a large de-cluttering pass on markers. A set amount of on screen markers are now considered "Essential", meaning that they are always on display (this includes essential items such as hostile/locked/pinned/selected targets, objectives, navpoints, assigned hangars/landing areas, and party markers within distance). Non-essential markers will be hidden by default. This only affects on screen markers and the radar will still display essential and non-essential items. This is a large step in making sure relevant information is clear in your view. To see non-essential markers around you without the radar, you will need to use the ship ping (TAB default for keyboard players) which will reveal them for 10 seconds. Along with this we've made further marker performance optimizations. Removed Turret Markers from the Starmap/Radar. Separated materials for starmap, holo radar, and screen radar to allow adjustments per context. Removed all edge markers from radar and fixing issues with determining whether a marker is within the volume on screen radars. Added stroke to Unpowered pips, and fix percent rounding wrapping of last pip. Removed Turret Markers from the Starmap/Radar.
*UI Readability ImprovementsMade numerous updates to Holographic MFD visuals and other holographic elements to improve legibility. Improved legibility of Many HUD Elements. Scaled down chromatic aberration on lower resolutions / factor in chromatic aberration options setting. Magnification hookup setting for Aiming Elements. Fixed TVI Opacity Logic. Crosshair Contextual weapon ammo counts. Aiming UI: Sized elements based on frustum ratio instead of absolute pixels but keep line widths and text sizes sized to pixels. Updated vehicle objective quad to be chevron instead. Added new AR geometry material, updated markers, and offscreen marker material. Updated contextual weapon info. Made further reticle visual improvements. Radar Visibility Polish: Shrink radar sphere of screen radar and increase/improve clarity of markers and other elements to compensate.
*MFD button bindingsA lot of MFDs button bindings were unlocked, some are still hidden away while we work on some stuff. Right now you will find bindings for:
**Select which MFD you want to cycle to
**Change the displayed page of a selected MFD
**Directly jump to a specific MFD page
*Options for persistent ship settings + MFD pageShips and gunnery seats have so-called persistent settings for things like IFCS decoupled, IFCS gravity compensation, etc. which can be set in the configuration MFD page. Those settings are persistently saved whenever you store your ship. However when you spawn a new ship in AC or when you got a replacement ship via insurance in the PU those settings are lost (because technically you have a new ship). 3.24.2 there introduces a new set of options for every persistent setting. When you as a player enter a ship seat for the first time (and only for the first time!), the game will copy your options to that seat. From there onwards things will be persistently saved again. So if you spawn a ship and your friend enters a ship seat for the first time before you do it, the ship will use the default settings from your friend instead. Once the default settings have been set by anyone, they will not be automatically be changed anymore and need to tweaked manually via the configuration MFDs. We will iterate further on this in later releases.
*New weapon grouping system + MFD pageVehicle gunnery seats now come with a changed grouping system and access to a new weapon group configuration MFD page. Instead of having two fire buttons there is only one fire button, but up to four different groups for your guns. By default weapons are fired with LMB and you can iterate forward and backwards through your groups with the mouse wheel. Weapon groups contain both guns and “non”-guns like EMP or QED devices. By default all guns will be added to fire group 1 and after that split out by energy, ballistic and distortion guns sorted by projectile speed. Players are able to edit all gun weapon groups with the new weapon configuration MFDs. For QED and EMP devices custom and un-editable weapon groups are created after the guns. Button bindings that have been added:
**fire selected weapon group
**iterate to next and previous weapon group (no overflow → you cannot switch from the last to the first group)
**iterate to next and previous weapon group (overflow → you can switch from the last to the first group )
**Short bindings to directly access every weapon group separately
**Short bindings to fire gun groups independent of the currently selected group.
**Please note that due to a bug we have not assigned the intended default binds of LALT+WASDQE because that will currently reset the non-modified function as well.
*Speed limiter (ships & turrets)The speed limiters have moved to LALT+MW as MW is now used for switching weapon groups. There is currently still a bug where using LALT+MW does not block the weapon groups changing.
*Precision Targeting & Mining ModeSince precision targeting is now available in almost all operator modes (except salvage) the following default bindings change: Toggle Laser Type is now on LALT+LMB
*Additional Ship & Vehicle Updates
**Added New Ships to Shops: Argo ATLS, F7C mk2, Mirai Pulse, RSI Ursa Medivac, ARGO MPUV-1T, Aegis Sabre Firebird
**Added Retaliator Modules to Component Shops
**Added default options for the new ship settings which are applied when a ship spawns for the first time
**Updated all attributes for ship components (excluding weapons)
**Recharge rate for weapons have been balanced
**Shield generator balancing pass
**Salvage and Mining will now function while in NAV mode
**Vehicle Experience Weapons Tuning: Reduced damage of all cannon ammo by 10%
**Reduced Overall Hull and Thruster Health for the Hornet Series Ships
**Reduced Cannon Max Ammo and Regen Rates
**Greatly Increased Ship Turret Health Pools
**Reduced A2/C2 Held Countermeasures
**Updated Sabre Raven default weapons
**Removed gimbals from non weapon turrets
**Tweaked weapons pool sizes and added engineering buffs to some vehicles to fix weapon power deficits
**Ground Vehicle Emission rebalance
**Refueling/Repair Time has been rebalanced
===Weapons & Items===
*Multi-tool UI UpdatesThe multi-tool system has been updated with new behavior to remove use of Aim Down Sight (ADS) while using the tractor beam with 2 new modes, Traversal (left MB) and De-tatchment (right MB) To make the Tractor UI more legible and usable with the new, non-ADS system, we added new indicators to distinguish between Traversal (LMB) and Detachment (RMB) modes and done a full UX update on the interface.
**Traversal (LMB): 4-arrows moving icon
**Detachment (RMB): Chain link icon
**Added Repair tool UI to show part maximum repairability of a target
*FPS Weapon Balancing
**Rifles
***Rifles have had their horizontal recoil toned down to make them far more consistent at distances contesting SMGs.
**There's a large bias towards people loving the S71 with it's much more relaxed recoil profile so tuning the rifles horizontal recoil down will make them more consistent across ranges.
**P4AR
***Reduced visual recoil
***Reduced Horizontal aim recoil per shot from 0.07 to 0.02
**Karna It's had a damage increase to become more of the high skill, high damage weapon you'd expect where it depends on hitting initial shots far more The alt fire mode fire rate adjustments are to make less 'deadtime' in the weapon Slightly increased visual recoil. Adjusted recoil over time min start value from 0.5 to 0.75. Increased Horizontal aim recoil per shot from 0.033 to 0.05. Increased Vertical aim recoil per shot from 0.26 to 0.345.
***Magazine size increased from 30 to 35
***Increased the fire rate of alt fire from 60 to 350
***Damage increased from 16 to 17.5
***Karna Weight adjusted from 6.9 to 4.20
***Karna Magazine weight adjusted from 1.62 to 0.60 (Karna weight was a heavy outlier compared to other ARs)
***Adjusted Karna Recoil to start consistently then get more inconsistent as it fires, this is done to help it fit into that more 'AK' category we have carved out for it.
***Minor adjustments to visual recoil to improve visual fidelity`
**SMGS Aim return time is how long it takes for the weapon after firing to return to it's default position SMGs were snapping really hard on this so for visual fidelity the return times have been increased Keep in mind the stated return time is not actually how long it takes, it's got a longer duration then stated because it has extra settle / bounce time
**C54
***Smoothed out return aim recoil
***Increased maximum aim return time from 0.75 to 1.1
**Custodian
***Adjusted min / max return time and curves to be in line with other SMGs
***Damage increased from 11.1 to 11.11
**P8SC
***Smoothed out return recoil
**Snipers The following sniper adjustments are intended to make 1HK to a non-heavy target viable at longer distances as the old values were too punishing and not allowing the sniper fantasy to be possible
***Smoothed in sniper aim down sight procedural animation
**P6-LR 
***increased distance before damage fall off from 200M to 550M
**Scapel
***Increased distance before damage fall off from 150M to 335M
*Additional Weapons & Items Updates
**Added Behring P8-AR Rifle Mags to Shops
**Temporarily removed the MultiTool reload screen until battery draining requires reload to function
=== Core Tech ===
*Render to Texture Shader Improvements
**Added additive blending of source pixels to scene with multiplier
**Added additive blending of bloom with scene (with multiplier) along with a saturation factor
**Combined hard drop-shadow offset with blurred soft shadow, along with individual multipliers for both
**Added chromatic aberration with custom offsets
*Additional Core Tech Updates
**Graphics Options Changed to Make Fullscreen Borderless the Default Option
**Removed outdated Fullscreen Option
===Arena Commander Updates===
*Frontend Restyle & ImprovementsThe Arena Commander Frontend (main menu) has had its visual overhaul. Alongside this visual upgrade we have made several quality-of-life improvements and feature additions, from “Remember My Selection” for mode selection to a Force Launch feature. Squadron 42 meets Persistent Universe in this blend of UI styles, establishing style direction for future Arena Commander UIs.
*Game Modes
**Free Flight
***Player Limit Increased to 24
***New Map: The Good Doctor
***Travel over 100 years in the past and explore both inside and out this unique Hatfield & Harding facility on Mya, in the Leir System. A historical snapshot of a beautiful location with a harrowing sinister past.
**System & Balance
***Mini-Map: Alongside Security Post Kareah, all Arena Commander locations have been updated to support the mini-map HUD feature.
**REC Pricing
***All vehicle REC pricing have been halved.
*MiscellaneousAll locations featuring the “holosphere” have had it replaced with the soft playable-area system, this should resolve a number of graphical issues caused by the loading/unloading of this legacy asset.
==Bug Fixes and Technical Updates==
===Technical Updates===
*Fixed 8 Client Crashes
*Fixed 4 Server Crashes
*Fixed 2 Server Deadlocks
*Fixed an Arena Commander Crash
===Bug Fixes===
*Fixed multiple issues causing ships to not be stored (STARC-126447)
*Fixed multiple issues causing landing zone freight elevators to become stuck on loading contents (STARC-124244)
*Argo ATLS Walking carrying cargo on ship should no longer cause damage (STARC-127265)
*Camera / Advanced camera controls compatible with vehicles should now porperly work for the ATLS (STARC-127286)
*Fixed an issue causing items to rotate unexpectedly when placed using the Argo ATLS (STARC-127252)
*Fixed - When tethering the Argo ATLS tractor beam to a vehicle that excess the beams mass, the vehicle is dragged to the floor
*Launching an item with the Argo ATLS tractor beam should no longer cause the tractor beam to break and not respond
*Fixed ship warning/alert text being very small and difficult to read (STARC-107924)
*Bed logging in orbit of Arccorp from a ship should no longer cause a player to spawn near the center of Stanton (STARC-124956)
*Fixed an issue allowing furniture to be used to grief in armistice zones
*Fixed an issue causing freight manager kiosk icons scale excessively large at 4k (STARC-127329)
*Unclaimed Cargo Awaiting Transfer Warning Message should no longer Persists after logging out (STARC-123856)
*Fixed an issue causing hangar alarm sounds from other players hangars to play inside your hangar with excessive volume (STARC-123336)
*Commodity and Stor*all containers should no longer cause ships to explode from collisions while moving boxes with tractor beams (STARC-64005)
*Fixed - Players with special characters in their windows username will experience a shader cache file error when attempting to launch the game (STARC-124864)
*CureLife ParaMed Medical Gun should no longer cause the Downed / Bleed out Audio to loop indefinitely when the player drops or holsters the medgun (STARC-120723)
*Fixed an issue causing cargo elevators tonot accept Ore Pods from mining vehicles
*Fixed multiple Visarea issues in the Drake Cutlass Black
*Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to move items from a Location to Personal Inventory
*Players should no longer be able to skip the hangar elevator animation by sitting on a vehicle while using the ship terminal
*Fixed multiple issues causing storage Access Kiosk Stuck on "Loading Contents" errors
*Fixed the target bracket UI not displaying around the target correctly
*Klescher Rehabilitation Facility temperature should no longer be -273c in parts of the Prison, causing players to freeze to death
*Fixed extra geometry inside the RSI Constellation Phoenix cargo bay
*Fixed FPS LAMP optics so they can now be toggled on and off on available sights
*Fixed Constellation Series Ships elevator interactions not being functional
*Fixed multiple issues with player hair not rendering correctly
*Mouse / camera movement should no longer be springy while the actor is moving
==References==