Star Citizen Alpha 3.2.0 Changes Overview and Patch Notes

Star Citizen Alpha 3.2.0 is out. The highlights of the new publicly available big update include basic mining, Quantum Linking and new flyable ships among other things!

Star Citizen Alpha 3.2.0 is now live and brings a number of new features, game systems and items to the Verse. The highlights of this update include the introduction of basic mining, quantum linking gameplay, four new ships you can purchase and fly around, new missions and more.

The first iteration of Mining allows you to scan for deposits via your Ship (using the ping mechanic) and find zones with rich fields. The mining process is further split into several phases. Fracturing is a new system that allows you to, well, blow up rocks. From the bits of rocks you can then extract ore, which can be later sold at GrimHex, Levski and Port Olisar at specific kiosks.

Star Citizen Alpha 3.2.0 Mining Opeartion — Star Citizen Alpha 3.2.0 Mining Operation

The Quantum Linking system allows you to form a party with the players you intend to play. This can be done from the lobby, from the InGame friends list or by simply interacting with the player directly infront of you. Once you are grouped, anyone from the team can activate their quantim drive and calibrate a course to any location. The data will automatically be send to the rest of the group members, provided they are within 10km range.

New outlaw and lawful missions “destroy probe” have been added. Further more the MobiGlas now shows mission objectives in order from from oldest to newest.

The Legacy Marine and Outlaw armors have had their appearances seriously upgraded and polished.

Four new flyable ships have bee added to the game. You can purchase them for real money. The Anvil Hurricane, Esperia Blade, Aegis Eclipse and Origin 600i Explorer made their first appearance in the Verse. Of course a ton of additions, updates and changes have been made to many of the older ships and their parts.

As it is the case with every update, bug fixes and quality of life improvements have not been forgotten.

Check the Full Patch Notes below for an in-depth look at what exactly is new or changed with Star Citizen Alpha 3.2.0.

NEW FEATURES

General

Added sensitivity settings for xbox controller.
Implemented new Groups System.

Group members can be added from the contact list of the MobiGlas, the contact list of the main menu, or by direct interaction (F) with a player.

AR Markers will appear for all party members.

All party members will be granted access to each other’s ships.

A party chat channel is created on the contact app of the MobiGlas.

Universe

Added the mining gameplay mechanic to the moons of Crusader (Daymar, Yela, and Cellin).

Mining Gameplay (using basic keybindings)

Prospecting for Deposits: To scan for deposits, use the “ping” mechanic. Enter the ship’s scanning mode (TAB) then hold and release LMB to scan. Any minable deposits will appear highlighted with a UI box for distant zones of deposits and specific markers for closer rocks. Note: A ping will also temporarily increase passive radar detection range.

Scanning Deposits: While in scanning mode (TAB), place the crosshair over the mineable rock to gain more information. Alternatively, enter mining mode (M) and aim the mining reticle at the rock you wish to scan/mine. Your ship will automatically begin the scanning process and reveal the contents of the rock.

Fracturing: Use LMB to activate the ship’s mining laser. Keep the “Rock Energy Level” inside the optimal window (green) by adjusting the “Laser Throttle” using the mouse wheel. Once the “Rock Energy Level” is inside the optimal window the “Fracturing Sensor” bar will begin to increase and once at 100% the rock will break apart into smaller chunks. Chunks that can be further shattered/mined will highlight orange when targeted whereas chunks that are now extractable will highlight purple.

When the “Rock Energy Level” bar exceeds the optimal window and goes into the red, the “Overcharge Sensor” bar will begin to increase. If the “Overcharge Sensor” bar goes to 100%, the rock will explode violently damaging the your ship and destroying all extractable material.

Extracting Ore: To extract ore from the purple highlighted bits of rock, switch from “Fracture Mode” to “Extraction Mode” using RMB, then using LMB to activate the extraction tractor beam. The “Cargo Capacity” bar will begin to increase as the ore is extracted to the ship’s cargo.

Selling Ore: Ore can be sold at GrimHex, Levski, and Port Olisar at specific kiosks located near the Admin Clerk desks. Interact with these kiosks (F), select the Prospector from the top left ship drop down menu then select “Sell to Refinery”.

Stores throughout the verse have been expanded with shopping kiosks that allow the player to directly purchase and equip items from a single interface.
Dumper’s Depot now offers ship weaponry for sale, with different locations offering different styles of goods.

Grimhex: Energy ship weapons, weapon mounts, power plants, and quantum drives.

Levski: Missiles, missile racks, and coolers.

Port Olisar: Ballistic ship weapons, weapon mounts, and shields.

Quantum Linking, or party based group quantum travel, is now enabled.

Quantum Linking Gameplay

1. Form a party with the players you intend to link with. This can be done from the main lobby, from the friends list in game (F11 to bring up, RALT to activate cursor), or from in game by interacting (F) with the player directly.

2. Anyone within the party can activate their quantum drive (B) to spool and calibrate to any location and anyone who calibrates will automatically send their calibration data to any other members in the party who are within 10km.

3. After the group settles on a destination that one of the players has calibrated to, everyone needs to align to that same destination and spool their drives.

4. The initial Calibrator should see a list of members of his party on his Calibration UI and their spool status (the little empty circle next to their name that fills when they start to spool) along with a status for party alignment (circle and name will highlight).

5. Once everyone is spooled and aligned, the Calibrator holds “B” to initiate quantum travel and everyone who is aligned, spooled, and within 10km of the Calibrator will enter the jump as a group.

Added orbital path generation for Quantum Travel, allowing more direct travel around planetary bodies to near surface destinations.
Wanted value now goes up once the ship is despawned when illegally parking rather than immediately upon touch down.
Added new clothing, the Port Olisar Collection, to Casaba at Port Olisar.
Set-up new screens for comm array terminals.

Missions

Added new outlaw and lawful “destroy probe” missions.

Ships and Vehicles

Added: Anvil Hurricane.
Added: Esperia Blade.
Added: Aegis Eclipse.
Added: Origin 600i Explorer.
Ships now have scanner/ping functionality.

To enter scanning mode, press “TAB”. Hold LMB to charge a ping pulse. Press “V” narrow the ping focus and “C” to widen it.

Added remote turret camera view and controls to applicable ships

Remote turret control stations can now enter this view via the interaction system. Implemented on Ursa Rover, 600i, the Reclaimer, and the Super Hornet.

Added an “overclock” feature to individual components available on the Power: Items MFD.

To overclock, go to the power MFD and select the “Items” tab. From there, you will be able to “Power” off individual items as well as “Overclock”. You are also shown a power bar for each. For some of your components, overclocking will increase their performance at a steep power cost.

Added: ASAD Distortion Repeaters (Size 1 – 3).

FPS

Added: Kastak Arms Scalpel Sniper Rifle.
Added: Klaus & Werner Demeco Light Machine Gun.
Added: Gemini F55 Light Machine Gun.
FPS weapons are now included in dynamic economy pricing.
Added headshake on recoil.

Arena Commander

Added the Blade to Vanduul Swarm game mode.

Known Issues:

Master ships will not see newly logged in party members on the calibration HUD unless they exit and reenter the pilot seat.

FEATURES UPDATES

Feature Updates

General

Updated loading screens for all game modes.
Joystick can now control pitch/yaw while in free look.
The chat window is now open by default and available in third person.

Universe

Players should automatically get pulled out of Kiosk interaction when inactive for a period of time.
Set-up new RTT screens on shopkeeper terminals.
Quantum travel now has a calibration time, dependent on distance to destination, and a separate spooling time before becoming activatable.

Press the quantum travel key once (B) to activate spooling, which will bring up local possible destinations (some long range travel, such as to Delamar, will still require StarMap interface). Aligning the nose of your ship with the intended destination will automatically began the calibration process. Once complete, push and hold “B” to begin quantum travel.

Improved quantum travel target alignment functionality.
Minor visual updates to ASOP terminal screens at Port Olisar.
Rebalanced pricing of goods and services throughout the verse.

Missions

Mission objectives are now ordered on the MobiGlas for oldest to newest.
Doubled mission rewards, decreased influx of goods to require large-scale shippers to be more dynamic in their routes.
Updated comm array screen interactions.

FPS

Updated legacy Marine armors and added them to armor shops.
Updated legacy Outlaw armors and added them to armor shops.
Updated glass PBR for helmets.
Changed rolling when prone to state switching rather than push to hold.
Adjusted weapon recoil and spread behavior.
Added a lean system to FPS combat.

Leaning left and right is activated by using the Q and E keys respectively.

Expanded the ability to pick up objects to more navigational states and contexts.
Improved stop, initial step, and turn animations for the player avatar.
Changed the weighting of the on foot 3rd person camera.
Rebalanced recoil, spread, and damage for FPS weapons.

Ships and Vehicles

Updated all ship weapons to new item system.
Updated retro thruster art and animation on the M50.
Added landing gear compression to Starfarer Base and Gemini.
Complete Rework: Aegis Avenger including increase in base size, increase in hardpoint size, changes in default loadout, new animations, along with interior and exterior revamp.
Updated the MISC Prospector to have a tractor/siphoning beam and a laser cutting beam for mining, as well as supporting animations.
Own/Self status MFDs are now on and selectable for the Retaliator.
Updated the visual effect of the Khartu-Al’s quantum travel.
Update for cockpit animations of the Reclaimer.
Shield health is now a single pool divided per face rather rather than individual pools.
Updated the Drake Herald with landing gear compression.
Expanded the flight ready interaction set triggers to prevent overlap with door interactions on the Hornet series.
Lowered power plant output to create meaningful consequences to power allocation.
Rebalanced heat generation and cooling to create more meaningful consequences to components and ship functioning.
Reduced the shield and power plant available slots on the Sabre.
Increased passive and active power draw for ship weapons.
Set up shield generator power use to be proportional to the amount of shield energy required.
Updated ship atmospheric terminal velocities to correct some ships being able to exceed them.
Lowered base IR and EM signatures for all ships.
Enabled paints in the VMA and setup the Aurora to equip its various paint schemes.
Repositioned and centered the HUD on the Sabre.
Increased the range of AMRS Scatterguns, range and damage of APAR scatterguns, and increased the spread of all scatterguns.
Updated Reliant to only carry 1 size 3 gun rather than 2.
Retuned boost scale of Razor and variants to match other ships and made variants closer to base model.
Refactored and full balance pass on G-force induced stress effects to increase clarity of, range, and fix missing elements.
Quantum drive now uses full power when spooling/traveling.
Resized the 85x flight HUD.
Lighting update for the Starfarer series.

Arena Commander

Temporarily removed ammo pickups from Arena Commander pending a fix for ammo drops not working.

BUG FIXES

Reskinned multiple jackets to fix t-shirt clipping issues.
The top thrusters on the Dragonfly should now rotate.
Outposts should no longer have ATC communication or landing assignment.
The landing system should no longer report the ship as landed too far from the surface/pad.
The punk hair style should no longer having missing LODs from certain angles/distances.
Weapons rented with REC should no longer be usable in the Persistent Universe.
Fix for item ports on the vehicle manager app (VMA) sometimes showing isolated text.
Corrected Terrapin thruster orientation issues.
EVA entry into the Prospector should no longer get the character stuck in a falling state.
Limited excessive field of view changes in director’s camera controls.
Added missing countdown timers for self destruct in the Constellation series.
Background stars should no longer appear in front of the planet on Dying Star.
HUD warnings in the P52-Merlin should now be the proper color.
Players should now show up on the FPS radar consistently.
Automated turrets at Comm Arrays should now function properly.
Grenade audio should now be effected by pressurization.
The player should now be able to look around while crawling forward.
The player’s pistol will now fire in the direction its facing while crawling.
Control should now be locked when entering quantum travel, preventing arrival spin out.
Modified internal collisions for the Ursa Rover to prevent the player form clipping through the roof.
The player should no longer snag or hitch when transition between interior/exterior of ships.
The shields should now properly cover the Khartu-Al and Reliant in their various flight modes.
Fixed an issue where the persistent universe loading screen was shown on game boot up.
Temporarily removed explosive damage from the Combine Cannon to fix issues with hit prediction.
Players should no longer be missing their ankles when wearing Waylite shoes.
Players should no longer be able to mount weapons on utility slots not intended for them.
Unbinding fire group 1 should now work properly.
Squadron Battle UI should no longer appear at the top of the screen after dying in free flight.
Fixed an issue where the power triangle hotkeys were incorrectly calling other keys causing unintended results.
Keybinds are now tied to hardware IDs to fix windows reordering.
Fixed an issue where two players bed logging out at the same time would disabling the logout prompt for one.
Players should no longer log back in at PU origin after bed logout in certain ships.
Gravity on the landing pads in Arena Commander free flight should now be more consistent.
Players should now be able to be killed by grenades when within the physics grid of a ship.
Fixed a small gravity gap near point B on Station Demien.
The Khartu’s lateral thrust show now work properly when in landing configuration.
The start line graphic for Arena Commander race modes should now properly swap from stop to go at the start of a race.
The manned turret of the Gladiator should now rotate properly.
Fixed an issue where ships couldn’t self destruct in racing modes.
Ship and spawn locations should persist after bed logout, even if the player changes regions/servers.
Corrected damage type for size 2 Tarantula ballistic cannon to only physical.
Removed accidental damage bonus for R97 shotgun.
Small lights on the Sabre series should no longer glow during forward acceleration.
Fixed an issue where players could get stuck in the door of the Prospector.
Fix for vehicle aim/look controls not accounting for roll.
“Track” on ASOP terminals should now work properly.
Fixed an issue where shields were missing audio effects.
Fixed an issue with the ADS animation of the R97 shotgun.
Fixed some flipped decals on the Starfarer exterior.
The left side, rear thrusters on the Vanguard should no longer have exhaust firing in the wrong direction.
Players should no longer occasionally spawn into Arena Commander without their flight suit helmet.
Gimbal lock should no longer prevent manned turrets from moving.
Eslin, the Levski ATC guy, should be properly at his station.
The manned turret of the Reclaimer should now function properly.
Crashing while carrying a box should no longer attach that box to the player’s hand.
Players should no longer start Star Marine matches with their weapon holstered.
The Terrapins weapons should no longer appear to constantly jitter.