This HUGE Update Is Finally Here - Star Citizen 3.18 PTU

Star Citizen's 3.18 update finally released on the game's Public Test Server this week, adding some incredible new features, technologies, and gameplay to the, finally, "persistent" universe.

Performance graph and dev response

600i Wreck Site

MSR Wreck Site

Someone getting their vulture salvaged while AFK

NPC soft death can loot pilots

Cool box and persistence testing

[buzzfightbeer]

Anywhere there are asteroids, you can find salvageable vehicles. I just QT to Yela and head into the belt. TONS of stuff to hull strip. It is such a chill game loop and I enjoy it way more than I thought I would. I have not even gotten to the changes in combat, soft death, racing, etc. yet. This patch is awesome!

[fwdcnorac]

This persistentance and cargo refactoring is really a game changer in terms of emergent gameplay. Say a player is hauling a caterpillar fully loaded with say something valuable. How many crates are there after pops? What happens when their aggressor gets interrupted in their salvage by some other random players? Could end up being mini Jumptowns all over Stanton and it would be 100% organic.

[nekomancer]

Soft death is really cool in atmosphere. Now the ship wreck will actually carry on with the momentum and fall to the ground

[explodogames]

kinda cool that the dead ships help locate the problem on the race track lol

[TheSpearPoint]

Some of the most concise 3.18 feature coverage I've seen so far!

[MrMozkoZrout]

Aw damn i am one of those people that are incredibly skeptical about the Star Citizen and i always thought that in the end when it releases it will be very trimmed version of the original ideas and it will be just more polished Elite Dangerous or something. But this update and the tech it brings is huge. The wreckage and persistent models and disabled ships like wow that is big. It allows for scavenging, recycling and repairing. All of those space sim mmo type game keep talking about these and how it could be carriers for players and type of gameplay and it basically never works as well as everybody imagines because so far nobody was able to keep all of the player made wreckage to stay and all that but now ? Maybe all of that player influenced world and all is going to be actually viable which is crazy. Sandboxiness like this is where future of games should be heading. This tech is insane.

[HeavyComponent]

I'm looking forward to this update, I just hope the server issues are less punishing. This is the reason why I quit playing in 3.17 when 3.17 was my first play through. I could almost never finish a mission or whatever because something stopped me from finishing. Either server issues or my ship flying away so I was over it and uninstalled it. I hope it's a better experience in 3.18 because it looks really good.

[acegoat]

I love the moving cargo around in the Vulture. It makes me feel way more immersed and like it is a Space Sim. If everything is just done for us then there is no real immersion or fun for me. I hope they keep it and add it to more future systems!

[Raelhenn]

I'm tired of people complaining about having to get out of their seat to move the salvage crates. Just have an extra person dedicated to organizing the crates. These same people have been advocating for crew gameplay, but the moment they get something that needs multiple people to be efficient they complain cuz they want to do it alone

[scifrygaming]

I don't mind the moving of boxes when your hull scraping. It breaks up the monotony of sitting in the seat. I like it :)

[mosseon]

i think the more advanced gameplay for scrapping should be salvaging whole components. The bringing the whole race set up is the point i think. like each racecar driver brings a pit crew, tools spare parts and transportation for their racecars. putting too much convenience in these kinds of games is their slow death.

[SwedishYouthHumanist]

Regarding manually placing boxes in the Vulture:

the ship will hold other salvage than just RMC in the future (like guns, components, fuel etc) so I imagine that's the reason for you to go down and decide where things should be placed. I hope this is future proofing.

[psycheisssdelic]

imo the devs shouldve made an automated system in the cargo hold, with robotics that moves all the stuff around automatically. wouldve looked really cool.

[Pantalaimonpan]

Not sure where CIG wants to go with racing, but I think having death looming over the race could be a nice addition, so you have to challenge yourself without pushing too hard. Maybe at the moment with the invisible walls of death this approach would be inconvenient, but I would enjoy serious races where the fear of death might be a good additional factor to consider.

[maxtiberius]

In the defence of the Vulture having to move the crates it does encourage multi-crew gaming.

For example - Have a crew mate with the back door open floating out to hull scrape with the hand tool, as soon as you’re close to 2 crates stacking up ask them to jump back in and move the crates so the pilot can carry on, adding to efficiency and more profit to share.

[tigerchuu]

The moving of the boxes make sense to me when salvaging especially in the context of how the game will play in the future. The mining boxes will have to be moved manually in the future as well, the only reason they are not currently is because of the mechanics and tech not being there yet. You will also have NPCs or friends move things for you most likely so it will be less tedious.

[emaritimonds]

@levelcapgaming Just a heads up that JadeStarwatcher is a woman. It's important since we're a minority in the game's community.

[HollowBagel]

Take a shot for every time this guy makes a video about Star Citizen with a title like "This Will Change Everything".

[sc_mercilios]

Again Salvage is for a niche group the people it was created for will appreciate the stacking of the boxes and having to deal with that, I'm pretty the industrial orgs and group aren't the ones complaining about the stack of cargo and ejecting the salvage material.

[nicholasjaeger]

The one thing that makes no sense with the vulture is it is a one man crew, but seems to have the work of 2 people. So if it was a multi crew ship that you had a second person back there moving stuff while you scrapped would be ok. And why is there not a built in crane of some sort to move these things?