PTU 3.18 Available (Wave 3 / Open PTU!)

[Brictoria]

As of today, PTU is now open for wave 2!

I had been wondering when this would happen.

They were (are?) getting very close to having to release a 3.17.6 patch to include the Valentine's day (Coramor) skins\items (Feb 11 in game lore). As it is, there's only about 10 days to go with wave 2 before either 3.17.6 or 3.18 will be needed on live.

And, while typing this, I realised that my planning\budgetting for a Feb 14 event\ship sale just went out the window - hopefully the Phoenix Emerald pops up in a "cheap" pack with LTI that is available for a few days, not a 3 waves, "x months insurance", limited hull sale... With my luck, though, it probably won't be offered in any form.

 

[Dirtbag_Leader]

hopefully the Phoenix Emerald pops up in a "cheap" pack with LTI

Unfortunately I seriously doubt it; CIG seems to have been very loathe to allowing the Phoenix to be gotten with LTI. . .

 

[Leofev]

I think the bit there in asset creation is about the team implementing the new tool features and parts into the game.

For those who don't know what is being discussed, the station on the Vulture that spits out the salvage crates can also be used to 'craft' multitools, the tractor attachment, and salvage attachment canisters.

It's the first iteration of anything 'crafting' related, although I think this is far from the final form of what we see. I'm not even sure that this is a long-term feature for the Vulture that it will keep.

 

[Brictoria]

And, while typing this, I realised that my planning\budgetting for a Feb 14 event\ship sale just went out the window - hopefully the Phoenix Emerald pops up in a "cheap" pack with LTI that is available for a few days, not a 3 waves, "x months insurance", limited hull sale... With my luck, though, it probably won't be offered in any form.

Correction to above: The Emerald isn't a February\"Coramor" release, it's a March (St Patrick's Day) release - There are too many holiday "sales" they run at this time of the year (Christmas, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, St Patrick's day) which in my head merged.

Interestingly, the Lynx (which comes with the Phoenix - both standard and Emerald) is due to have work finish on it in late March, so there may be hope for its release at the St Patricks day sale, with a green variant, and possibly bundled with an LTI Emerald - At least I can hope this happens...

 

[Brictoria]

One interesting feature of the 3.18 PTU: The C8 Pisces (not to be confused with its more effective siblings: The C8X and the C8R) has apparently been made purchasable in-game.

Given that it is currently only available through the purchase of the Carrack in the pledge store, could it be that CIG will be adding this to the pledge store as well in 3.18 (or some time soon thereafter)?

 

[Leofev]

If you were looking forward to that big patch that was supposed to come out today... The Austin offices are in an area currently hit with power outages from severe weather, so I'm expecting it to get pushed back a day or two... or three.... or.....

But I'm not a CIG representative, so dafuq do I know? I'm willing to be presently surprised and to be wrong.

Edit:
They finally put out a new message right as I finished writing this.

(Thursday) We are working on publishing a new PTU build today, however this may be subject to outages/storm issues in the area.

So maybe(?) a patch today!

Edit 2:
Patch notes just went up, so expecting patch to be out shortly.

Star Citizen Alpha 3.18.0 PTU.8356208 Patch Notes - Star Citizen Spectrum

Star Citizen Patch 3.18.0-PTU.8356208 Alpha Patch VERSION 3.18.0-PTU.8356208 has been released to the PTU, and is now available to test! It is strongly recommended that players delete their USER...

robertsspaceindustries.com

 

[Brictoria]

It has the greatest invention of all time, the Move all button

And, to go with that, the addition of internal storage for ships which lack an interior or storage compartments:

 

[Drowez]

And, to go with that, the addition of internal storage for ships which lack an interior or storage compartments:

Amazing added features. The cargo for the single seat ships is nice.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

I'm starting to get the feeling that they are flashing out this patch with so many things is because we won't be seeing anything worthwhile throughout the year, or two...

The "little" lifechanging improvements like the loot all button are awesome, I got nothing against it. Actually I'd be fine with having a well developed QoL-feature rich, STABLE release to play for a year without basically pointless patches breaking the whole thing every couple months. I don't know about you, but I feel like I have plenty of things to do in the game, they just need to actually work for a change.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

PTU NOW OPEN TO WAVE 3 ALL BACKERS!

 

[Leofev]

PTU NOW OPEN TO WAVE 3 ALL BACKERS!

View attachment 24150

Just saw this a few minutes ago, adjusting thread title accordingly! Hope this means a live version isn't too far out.

 

[Brictoria]

Amazing added features. The cargo for the single seat ships is nice.

Ground vehicles also received this feature (load up after hostile bunker missions):

Importantly, it is shared, not personal, storage - meaning anyone can add\remove items...

It is also nice that the Aurora's have had their ladders removed and replaced by stairs (A change that I think the 300 series should also have made to them).

The 300 series also received a little QoL update as well:

Additionally, there may no longer be a need to have spare flightsuits and helmets in the Carrack (or 890) for use if you need to respawn there (and derelict 890's that are there for salvage can have another use) for bunker missions, etc.:

I'm almost tempted to download PTU and test some of this myself, rather than wait until 3.18 releases...

As a side note, with all the changes\new features in the patch, what are the odds that we get more new ships in it besides the Vulture and the Scorpius Antares?