Star Citizen Alpha 1.1.5 is live! Today’s patch updates Arena Commander with two newly flyable ships and a host of bug fixes, balance changes and ‘under the hood’ features. You can access 1.1.5 now. The complete patch notes are available here.

Player Count

We’re proud to announce that the Battle Royale and Squad Battle modes in Arena Commander can now support up to sixteen players! We will add this feature to additional game modes in the future. Our engineers are hard at work on increasing the overall player count, with plans to go beyond 16 in future iterations.

Balance Changes

With 1.1.5, we’ve revisited balance across the board. This patch stops just short of a number of systemic changes we’ve been working on, so 1.1.5 represents some drastic shifts in preparation for that – and to get a little better perspective on the game for when those systems come online.

• Ships are now tuned to retain momentum, meaning that combat skews a little further towards planning an attack and reacting against your opponent. This also means less blacking out from common maneuvers.

• Twitch actions are still very important, but are in limited supply with the new boost consumption rates.

• Shields and hull health were increased across the board, increasing Time To Kill to the point where pilots under fire have the opportunity to react. To balance this, shields take much longer to begin recharging, so it is much less likely for combatants to find themselves in an infinite loop of regenerating shield health.

• Missiles have been given disruption damage in addition to their traditional attributes, and so are much more effective at bringing down shields. This, coupled with increased tracking distances, make missiles more effective on approach. Increased locking time makes them less useful while actively in the fray, so they are now better at softening up the opponent than blowing it out of the sky.

• The Mustang Delta can now swap out the rocket pods for other Size 2 weapons, the Avenger can now equip Size 2 weapons on the wings, and the Aurora now has a top speed of 175.

• Shields now only reduce ballistic damage by 30%, but armor no longer has a significant effect on energy weapons. The down side is that it now takes much longer for ballistic weapons to bring down shields.

• The range and velocities of weapons have been retuned, and gatling guns now fire while spooling up.

• The Joker Suckerpunch has also seen an increase in disruption power – this should help bring down those powerful shields – and the damage for weapons have been rescaled according to their size. In addition, weapon mounts have had their slew rates reduced according to their size. The choice between fixed and gimbaled loadouts is more meaningful than ever.

Some of these changes affect the balance of power between controllers – mostly they don’t. The real focus is on elevating the level of tactical play and decision making in everything from loadout to combat maneuvers to choice of battleground, and all the wild spaceship shenanigans in between. Overall, the broad strokes of these changes seem to have been largely successful during early testing, so while there are certainly changes left to be made, compromises to be found, and behaviors to be improved, the vision of what Star Citizen can be only grows clearer.

Our design is for different types of weapons to impact shields and armor in different ways. Shields should be most effective at blocking energy weapons that have no mass, while ballistic rounds can pass through them (with some loss of kinetic energy) and then damage armor. With armor, the opposite is true: energy weapons are especially effective against armor, while it is more difficult for ballistic shots to penetrate it. Ultimately, the pilot is forced to make gameplay choices about how best to balance his defenses: more armor to protect against ballistic rounds, or better shields to counter energy weapons? Similarly, attackers must choose the type of gun they think will be most effective for a particular situation: energy weapons, balanced between their recharge ability and how well shields can block them, and ballistic weapons, which carry limited ammunition but which can hit at armor with little attenuation from shields.

Kruger P-52 Merlin

Originally designed to pair with the RSI Constellation, the P-52 Merlin is now available to all pilots! A dedicated parasite fighter, the Merlin is designed to be transported from place to place aboard a larger ship. Boasting a centerline Gatling cannon and a Lightning Power engine, the Merlin is a fast, maneuverable ship that packs a surprising punch! Ideal for racing, local reconnaissance and fast combat.

Backers who own the Constellation Andromeda and the Constellation Aquila can fly their Merlins today! Additionally, pilots who have a Constellation Phoenix, 890 Jump, Idris or Carrack in their fleets will be awarded a loaner Merlin in place of their parasite ships that are still in development. Anyone else interested in trying this new fighters can pick one up in the RSI Pledge Store

Vanduul Scythe

Fast becoming the symbol of the Vanduul Race, the Scythe is the foot soldier in every raid and the target of every human fighter pilot. Featuring a hefty weapons payload, the Scythe’s real asset is its maneuverability, found in the twin main and twelve maneuvering thrusters.

The Scythe is now flyable, which means that early backers who picked one up during the initial campaign can now access them! Additionally, Imperator Subscribers will have access to fly the Scythe in Arena Commander based on their subscription time. You can learn more about the Subscription program here.

Wwise

Star Citizen Alpha 1.1.5 overhauls our audio system with the new Wwise system! We asked the audio team to put together an article on what this update means, which you can access here.