Update: Star Citizen Alpha 4.2.0

Star Citizen Alpha 4.2.0 - "Storm Breaker" is a major update for Star Citizen, introducing dynamic rain and adding radiation functionality.

Exterior proxy polish pass to Space Stations and Landing Zone locations to reduce areas that can be used to clip into many of these locations from the outside

Added bigger cloud formations to Pyro IV

Increased Pyro IV temperatures

Major updates

Patch Notes

Star Citizen Alpha 4.2 has been released onto the LIVE Environment! Launcher should now show: VERSION 4.2.0-LIVE.9873572 Star Citizen Alpha 4.2 LIVE Storm Breaker

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, in-progress refinery jobs, and in-game purchased consumables are not saved between releases which will cause some items to be lost in the update.

This release is highly focused on the new Storm Breaker Activity, ASD Locations, New Ship Updates and Additions, and QoL Updates.

• Long Term Persistence: Enabled
• Server Meshing: 5:5:600 Player Shards
• Starting aUEC: 20,000

Gameplay

New Persistent Sandbox Activity: Storm Breaker Similar to the Align and Mine sandbox of Alpha 4.1, Alpha 4.2 brings with it a new series of persistent sandbox locations linked to the ongoing Regen Crisis narrative.

• ASD Data Centers

Located on Pyro 4, these facilities allow intrepid explorers to begin uncovering the lengths to which Associated Sciences & Development have gone in combatting the current threat to humanity's ability to conquer death.

• ASD Shuttle Stations

Found on Pyro 1 at the outskirts of two enormous never-ending storms and deadly radiation zones, these stations allow visitors safer passage into the disturbances during their investigations within.

• ASD Research Facilities

Hidden in the dangerous confines of Pyro 1's deadly storms, intrepid players are encouraged to explore these supposedly abandoned facilities and uncover what ASD has worked so hard to keep secret. These facilities also have one-way freight elevators that allow players to send items from inside the Lazarus Facility out to the shuttle stations.

New Environmental Hazard: Radiation Implementing dangerous radiation zones in specific locations, forcing players to adapt with specialized gear and strategic navigation. Player's may encounter full areas that have been irradiated, rooms that would be deadly to enter without proper gear, and items and fauna that are dangerous to hold or be near.

This update adds new Radiation accumulation, resistance, and falloff thresholds to player status effects. These effects will appear as new visual and player status cues with REMs on the HUD and can cause consequences resulting in player injury or death if not treated.

This update adds new player outfits with high radiation resistance as well as a base level of radiation resistance to all previous armor types.

Adding multiple new ships and vehicles to the ever-expanding Wikelo's Emporium: Mirai Guardian QI, Anvil Mk2 Super Hornet, MISC Fortune, Aopoa Nox, Mirai Pulse and RSI Ursa Medivac.

These ships and vehicles, in addition to previously added ones, can be unlocked by bringing the NPC Wikelo a number of favors in exchange for rewards.

Equipment swapping now has some hierarchy when swapping out gear using the new looting UI. This iteration will attempt to transfer items equipped on the outside of the player’s armor, such as weapons, grenades, medpens, and backpacks, to the newly equipped armor or undersuit. However, items stored inside the armor (e.g., internal storage or pockets) will not transfer.

When swapping gear, for example, looting an enemy’s armor, the system will first attempt to move all externally attached items from the old armor or undersuit to equivalent slots on the new one. If the new gear does not have enough attachment points, excess items should be placed into the player’s backpack. If there is not enough space in the backpack, the remaining items will be dropped on the ground.

This behavior is exclusive to the latest looting UI and not the old interface, so kiosks will continue to function as they did before.

• All medbeds will now protect players from damage for a small amount of time after respawning. This effect will last 30 seconds while in the bed and will be canceled if getting out of bed before the 30 seconds are up.
• Increased refinery job speeds across all types and updated to allow complete orders to be loaded onto cargo ships.
• Reward Balance for Rayari Gathering Missions
• Updated Bounty Hunters Guild missions to use the rebalanced encounters from Patrol Missions V1
• Slightly increased the numbers of Kopion in Acidic Caves

Charaters & AI

New Player Hairstyles Added four new hairstyles to the character customizer, including 2 longer and 2 shorter styles.

Ships & Vehicles

New Vehicles: ARGO ATLS IKTI, GEO IKTI, and IKTI RAD These new ATLS combat and mining variants are found in game through various means.

The IKTI and GEO IKTI are a new trade deal from Wikelo for various components.

The IKTI RAD is exclusively found at the new ASD Facilities in Pyro.

New Vehicle: Esperia Prowler Utility Introduction of Esperia's newest stealth hauler. The Prowler Utility's 32 SCU cargo hold is easily managed with an integrated tractor beam, matching practicality with visual flair.

With S4 pilot weapons, a dual S3 turret, and quad S2 shields, the Prowler Utility provides the tools you need to safeguard your payload and safely reach your destination.

The Scanning Mode UI has been updated with further visual improvements. Lowered the required base emission to scan for a ship pilot's name from 80% to 10%, allowing you to identify a player's name more quickly and from farther away.

Additionally we have streamlined ship targeting markers:

• Limit the number of non priority chevrons to 5
• Example: Neutral targets
• Targets show as chevrons until you Target or Pin them
• Scan wave reveals all valid targets with their names and distances

Updates to Shields to reserve buffer per-face instead of as one pool

Currently, the reserve pool stores all shield health in one pool, then distributes evenly back again. This can lead to easy distribution of health between faces again, e.g. if one face of four is fully down then the reserve pool will store 3/4 the health then distribute it evenly to all faces again. With this update, shields will now store each face separately in the reserve pool to avoid this redistribution.

Each reserve face stores a % of the current faces health, and regen up to a % of the max face health. When going from faces to reserve, regeneration won't start the reserve until the face is fully empty. When going from reserve to faces, only ignore regen delay for regen coming from the pool - still get the delay for normal regen (it’s currently ignored for both).

With the release of the newly added Prowler Utility, many balance changes have been made to the base Prowler to bring it more inline with its intended role in the universe.

• Reduced Esperia Prowler Series Cross Section Values by over 50%
• We've made moderate health, damage reduction, and Critical Damage Threshold Increases
• Wing and Joint Health has been increased to further reduce them being broken off
• Lesser Torque Imbalance Multiplier
• Small increase to Quantum fuel amount

• Greatly increased Idris Series capacitor ammunition
• Increased turret rotation speeds while adding rotation acceleration and deceleration times
• Increased Idris alpha damage to meet S7 damage weapon standards 2306 to 6750
• Greatly increased hangar door and ramp health
• Added missing gimbals on turrets
• Retuned remote turrets traversal speed.

• Starlancer Series: Moderate Starlancer series SCM/NAV/Boost max speed increases. Reduced light range on ramp and drop door projectors
• Starlancer TAC: Updated hydrogen tanks to 48 SCU and quantum fuel tanks to 3.35 SCU. Weapon/turrets ammo max count buffed. Side turret max speeds reduced with added acceleration and decelerations times

Across the board, missiles and torpedoes have been readjusted to increase minimum lock ranges and lock timers, added a minimum activation distance for fired torpedoes (~1500m), decreased min/max explosion radius on hit, and increased health.

• Greatly Improved Torpedo Tracking Capabilities
• Explosive Ordinances Will Now explode when Distorted and the Safety is off

Set ground vehicle driver to be same baseline (0.1) as a ship pilot. Standardized scan baselines to signal quality range requirements for ships and ground vehicles scan information:

• 0, 0.1 - poor signal
• 0.5 - medium signal
• 0.76 - good signal

• Flight turbulence has been readded to ships. This we be most noticeable in storms and when near ground surfaces where proximity flight disturbances occur
• Added Flight Blade controllers and Behring CST-313 Castillo bomb rack to PU shops
• Updated all 300 series loadout kits to use 1:1 gimbal size setup to match current game design as originals used size down gimbals
• Increased ship soft death ratio. This will cause ships to enter soft death at a higher health pool.
• Updated all engineering component's health scaling with increases and decreases across components
• Swapped Regen & Slapdown balance for shield generators
• ATLS Variants can now be called using the freight elevator in the hangar after delivering it to the location on the ASOP
• Updated ship UI messaging to reflect the average distortion of the power plant(s) as a percentage
• Enabled countermeasure actions while in scan mode
• Added gimbals to ground vehicle remote turrets
• Reduced the Anvil Asgard/Valkyrie cross-section emissions
• Changed the Singe Cannons to be bespoke to the Banu Defender
• Greatly increased Polaris and 890j hangar door and ramp health
• Updated Gladiator to allow missile swapping
• Slightly increased the Anvil Valkyrie and Asgard max ammo capacity
• Increased Anvil Centurion max turret ammunitions
• Slightly restricted the Polaris turret gimbal movement to avoid them clipping through the ship
• Slight reduction in Gladius max pitch velocity
• Added missing C8 Pisces armor damage reduction modifier

Weapons & Items

Volt "Prism" Shotgun A revolution in tactical firepower. Starting as a high-impact, close-range weapon, this adaptive weapon evolves as you fire, building heat and transforming into a precision slug shotgun capable of punishing enemies at a distance with terrifying force. Operators must monitor heat buildup carefully. Sustained fire can lead to overheating, reducing efficiency and leaving you exposed. Environmental factors play a crucial role, and atmospheric temperatures will affect heat generation, meaning your battlefield tactics must adjust with your surroundings.

Delivers a rapid injection of both Canoiodide and Hemozal to not only treat radiation exposure but also improve a patient’s overall vitals, getting patients stabilized faster than ever.

• Decreased pellets per shot from 12 - 8
• Increased damage from 3.66 to 4
• Decreased ADS spread modifier from 0.66 to 0.75
• Increased min spread from 2 - 3
• Max spread increased from 5.85 to 6.5
• Increased yaw recoil from 0.3 to 0.45

• Volt Shotgun Mag added to shops
• Environmental suit added to shops
• Adjusted Volt Weapon series modifiers to improve hipfire recoil feel
• Updated all environment suit tolerances to approximately -150c to 175c
• Added a base radiation resistance to all armors

Core Tech

Dynamic Rain Adding dynamic rain in specific locations around both Stanton and Pyro, as a first step toward Genesis: Dynamic Weather. This includes rain and cloud formations, lightning, new audio updates, and water pooling and character/clothing texture shaders for more atmospheric experiences at planetary locations such as Hurston, ArcCorp, Bloom, and many other moons and planets around Stanton and Pyro.

Added flight blades and bomb rack item types to LTP Records Added fauna harvestables to LTP Records post 4.2:

• Kopion Horn / Irradiated Horn
• Marok Gem
• Ranta Dung
• Amioshi Plague
• Irradiated Valakkar Fang (Adult/Juvenile/Apex)
• Valakkar Skin / Chitin

• Tech update to add ability for locked doors to require multiple forms of authentication to open such as having to wear specific clothing, armors, or helmets. This tech is currently used at the new ASD locations in Pyro.
• Routed Item Recovery item spawns through the player's home inventory if the target medbed doesn't have a valid Landing Zone. This will be a buffer zone for items to be stored in the player's home location to add additional levels of reliability for when the player's spawn point no longer exists.
• Refactored of how we handle cleanup/lifetime of entities spawned by mission location modules to allow better handling after DGS crash recovery
• New Spawn Closet subsumption logic to pause and reset auto spawn tasks. This will help limit locations to the amount of FPS AI we set for the area.
• Slightly reduced water light reflections to be less intense due to intense flashing
• Terrain Physicalization performance optimizations
• Area18 traffic CPU to GPU performance conversion update
• Further 3d comms call visual polish pass
• Made various client and server performance improvements
• Made various networking improvements

Bug Fixes

SC Alpha 4.2 contains just over 190 bugfixes for issues occurring in 4.1.1, 64 of which originated from the Issue Council

• Fixed an issue causing players to receive an "We are unable to deal with your request at this time" error when retrieving ships
• Origin 300 Series customizations should now function
• Heart monitor should no longer continuously beep and never stop after being revived
• Cargo Containers should no longer be loaded into cargo grids offset
• The Idris K laser should now deal correctly calculated damage
• Refinery Orders should now be able to be loaded onto cargo ships
• Fixed an issue causing the Advanced HUD to randomly go missing if a multitool is equipped to the player's hip
• Vehicle Doors, Ramps, and Elevators should now be able to be closed after a breach and repair
• Players who bed logout should now be able to locate and QT back to their ship
• Players should no longer see many duplicate PVP bounties for the same player
• The Idris rear ramp should no longer have much lower health than intended
• The Idris Torpedo nose health should no longer be incorrectly low
• The Idris_P Fuse should no longer be locked and broken
• The Idris Series Turrets should no longer be missing gimbals
• Wikelo ship components should now be able to be equipped in the Vehicle Manager
• Fixed an issue causing VJoy and several PIPs to go missing on all remote turrets
• The Idris Series should no have proper Exterior lighting
• Fixed an issue causing the Idris series capacitor levels to be insufficient for its turrets
• The Klescher Prison escape route fan should now properly stop spinning after entering the code
• The Idris-T Turret damage should no longer be incorrectly low
• The Ace Pilot ship destructions should no longer cause the pilot body to be destroyed along with it
• Fixed excess framerate drops while near the Pyro jump point station in Stanton
• Internal Ship Components should now be able to be placed back into the component bays after removing them using a tractor beam
• Fixed an issue causing players not to be able to re-dock their snub ship back to the Constellation Series
• The Executive Hangar death zone should no longer remain present after all comp boards have been inserted
• The Esperia Prowler should no longer be missing its two shield generators in the Vehicle Loadout Manager
• Ruin Station Hangars should no longer have secondary doors that block players from exiting them
• Fixed an issue causing the Contested Zone freight elevator to display an Internal Error when attempting to move items to the warehouse
• The Polaris should no longer shoot down its own torpedoes with its PDC turrets
• The Target MFD should now correctly show the distance and velocity of targets
• Fixed an issue causing the Area18 restricted flight zone to go missing
• The Starlancer TAC Capacitors should no longer be lower in its turrets
• PVP Bounty Missions should no longer be active and appear after the target player has been arrested or logged out
• Players should no longer click through their mobiGlas onto their ship MFDs while sitting in the cockpit
• The Freelancer MIS should no longer be missing its missiles
• Nested vehicles should no longer despawn after traveling away from the hangar
• Players should no longer fall out of the habitation area of the ARGO RAFT during Quantum Travel
• Players should now be able to fill freight elevators to full capacity with commodity crates
• Fixed an issue causing the Crossroads of Crime Arena Commander map to be missing its main light source
• Fixed an issue causing many elevator panels to go grey and not be interactable
• Wikelo's DCP Armor sets should no longer be missing and should correctly be given as a reward when completing the respective missions
• Fixed an issue causing many AI around the PU to jitter and walk in place
• Players should now correctly be able to tractor beam cargo off of the Drake Caterpillar cargo grid while in EVA outside the ship
• The Esperia Prowler HUD and MFDs should now correctly update when scanning
• NAV Mode should no longer be accessible in snub vehicles by storing and retrieving them
• The Ursa Rover variants should no longer be missing audio on opening and closing the ramps and doors
• Fixed an issue causing many previous mission markers to remain visible throughout the NPE tutorial mission
• The Dynamic Crosshair should no longer be missing from DCP Helmets
• Kopion Kill Counter should now correctly appear and update after the player arrives at the marked mission caves
• The MISC Starlancer Series liveries should now have correct text names
• Fixed an issue causing PVP contracts to fail when the target player switches authority zones in the PU
• Fixed an issue causing HUD objectives to periodically appear and disappear during gameplay
• Fixed an issue causing vehicle power to not be assignable to weapons until they are disabled and re-enabled
• Aphorite ore display should now correctly have texture in the refinery shop
• Players and AI should no longer be able to shoot through glass windows

Technical Updates

• Fixed 5 Client Crashes
• Fixed 8 Server Crashes
• Fixed a Hybrid-Service Crash

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