Star Citizen Patch v2.6.1 Full patch notes can be found here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15743-Star-Citizen-Alpha-261 Important Issues: For users encountering GPU Related crashes on NVIDIA cards, please ensure that you have performed a clean driver installation of driver version 378.49! The "Contacts List" button on the Universe page does not work. Hangar flair item are not persisting through client restarts. Players may experience excessive desync when interacting with the Greycat Buggy. New Features Game Systems: Arena Commander Balance Changes To unify scoring with Star Marine, player kills are now scored separately to Vehicle Damage. Revenge kills and Resurgence awards have been removed from Arena Commander for the moment. Lowered the spawn rate of pirates in Pirate Swarm slightly to provide a less drastic difficulty curve. Improved the weapons issued to the Aces in Pirate Swarm mode. The number of missiles and countermeasures awarded from pickups in Arena Commander game modes have been lowered. Only currently dead players will be resurrected after a boss wave in Multiplayer Pirate or Vanduul Swarm, no additional lives will be provided. This is to better balance the modes now that repair and restock pickups are available in the game mode. Suicide in Arena Commander now carries a score of -200 points. Updated the shields and fuel for the Constellation variant in Pirate Swarm. Star Marine Balance Changes Revenge kills and Resurgence awards have been removed from Star Marine for the moment. In-match loadout customization is now implemented! During a Star Marine match, while your character is dead, you will have the option to change out your loadout before respawning. Additional dialog lines during matches have been added. FPS weapons have received a balance pass to improve viability. Added a +25 Hemorrhage scoring bonus for causing another player to bleed. This bonus is not awarded if you cause yourself to bleed. Multiple changes have been made to both OP Station Demien and Echo Eleven maps. These changes are to help prevent spawn camping and balance times between control points, as well as plugging up exploits. Leaderboards In-game leaderboards are now implemented for both Arena Commander and Star Marine, so you can now review your standings in any given game mode within the game client! Spectator Mode and Camera Changes With 2.6.1, we have made vast improvements to camera behavior and now allow players to enter our Pure Spectator Mode. Pure Spectator Mode can now be entered through Private lobbies by starting a match by checking the “Join as Spectator” box next at the bottom of the screen. There are new cinematic submodes available to Spectator Mode, including First Person View and Focused Action Cam. Cinematic cameras, in and out of Pure Spectator Mode, should now better align with the player you are watching. ** This includes ensuring your target is facing upright, and behaving appropriately when encountering walls or barriers. Cameras should now properly Save and Load views regardless of map or mode type excluding Crusader. Advanced Camera Controls have been improved to be more precise and smoother in transition. Fixed an issue where players could not move or adjust their camera if they died while exiting their ship. Made saving and loading of cameras persist between game sessions. Ships: The Super Hornet has received a full visual update, encompassing art, animation, damage states, and VFX. Ship weapons, mounts, and turrets have received a health buff so they won't be as easily destroyed by splash damage. The jerk levels of ships should now better scale with boost. Ship SCM speeds have been re-adjusted to provide a greater range of speed between ships. Projectile speeds have been tweaked, so that targeting pips of different weapon types will be closer together for easier targeting. The Retaliator, Starfarer, and the 85x have had a pass to improve interior culling and graphic performance. The Mustang series has had an optimization pass to improve graphical performance. Pilot facial idle animations have been added for all ship variants! Technical: Groundwork aspects of our ongoing network refactor have come online - the first iteration of Network Message Ordering. Strictly Ordered Network Messaging moves the game away from CryNetwork client-server handling of networked objects, over to our new token system with a strict priority system for managing messaging between client and server nodes. Mega Map The new Mega Map system allows for much quicker loading time when switching between maps. In this initial release it will only be enabled for single player maps (Hangars and single-player Arena Commander), but we will be expanding this to include multiplayer maps in a future release. Multi-Region Servers We now have servers available in the US, Europe, and Australia! You can choose what region you would like to connect to via an optional drop-down, when connecting to any multiplayer instance. Selecting "All" will currently default to the best available region, but that will change as we build and improve on the functionality of our region support. Updates and Fixes Star Systems: Crusader Fixed a number of lighting culling issues in Port Olisar EZ Hab. Fixed an issue where the Crusader ASOP terminal would sometimes incorrectly provide a "All Pads are Full" message. * This does not fix issues where the landing pads are blocked by debris from destroyed ships, or full from disused ships not despawning. Fixed the missing audio for the weapons shop door in GrimHEX. Improved the atmospheric audio around GrimHEX and the Crusader shops. Fixed an issue with the GrimHEX lift audio would play in a continuous loop. Removed the scavenging sites from the asteroids around the ICC Probe Mission 2. Fixed a number of issues with missing audio for the Yela wreckage sites. Area 18, ArcCorp NPCs in customs now have a selection of random animations instead of being very creepily synchronized. Hangars Fixed some audio clipping problems in Revel & York Hangar. Fixed an issue where part of the Khartu-Al flair model was sticking out of the display case. Fixed a number of lighting issues on the three Race maps. Fixed a number of lighting issues in the VFG Industrial and Aeroview Hangar. Removed the elevator UI from the Hangar elevator. ** Users will need to proceed through the game menus to transition from Hangar to ArcCorp or Crusader.