► 5.28.2026: Service Hotfix
A service hotfix went out overnight to fix an issue where some ships cannot be claimed through ‘Claim Insured Loadouts’. This affected the Shiv and the Cutlass series.
Nicou-CIG on Spectrum
We’re just about to deploy a hotfix today to clear players affected by a shard lock / 60k error. Hold tight!
Star Citizen Alpha 4.8.1 is now on the LIVE environment! 4.8.1 LIVE Release Notes. | 4.8 Hotfix Central
Star Citizen Alpha 4.8.1 LIVE
New Mission: Defend Location - Ship Battles V3
Ship Battles V3 introduces the Defend Location archetype, a style of ship combat mission that has been a design goal since the original Ship Battles release. The premise is straightforward: a location is under attack and it is your job to stop it. Enemy bombers make coordinated strafing runs on fuel storage and other critical infrastructure, and your task is to intercept them before they can complete those runs. Let too many get through and the mission fails.
Alongside the core Defend mission, V3 also introduces a combined archetype that layers an escort objective on top of the defense. While you are shooting down bombers, a friendly ship is either launching from the station or inbound for landing, and hostile fighters are focusing on it. Both objectives are active at the same time. Completing both is required to succeed, and failing either ends the mission. This combined variant is the more demanding of the two and is designed to stress different ship classes, with interceptors and heavier fighters filling different parts of the engagement.
V3 also updates the existing Escort Ship archetype from V2 with Ace Pilot spawns and more varied escort ship flight paths, increasing the difficulty ceiling and reducing the predictability of those missions for players who have already run them extensively. Defend Location missions are available across asteroid mining bases in Stanton, Pyro, and Nyx at a wide range of difficulty tiers.
Mission Details
- Available at asteroid mining bases across Stanton and Pyro via Contract Manager
- 385 total mission locations across both systems, spanning 149 individual bases
- Difficulty ranges from Very Easy through to Super tier (6 difficulty levels)
- Missions will have reputation gates; Foxwell contracts additionally require completion of the Foxwell intro mission before becoming available
- Abandoned and personal cooldown time of 15 minutes per mission
Rewards
- Completing Defend Location contracts earns aUEC, Faction Reputation, and Scrip with the issuing organisation
- Foxwell contracts pay Mercenary Scrip; Head Hunters contracts pay Council Scrip
- Blueprint rewards are available at higher tier completions
- No cost to accept any Defend Location contract
Alpha 4.8.1 Maintenance Update #2 (From Zyloh-CIG on Spectrum)
Hi everyone!
We’ve scheduled the previously mentioned Alpha 4.8.1 maintenance for tomorrow, June 5, beginning at 12:00 PM.
During this time, the Star Citizen Live Service will be offline for approximately 6 hours while we apply updates to both the game servers and client, including a variety of fixes and improvements.
Keep an eye on the RSI Status Page for updates throughout the maintenance window and for confirmation once services are back online.
As always, thanks for your patience and support!
We’ve completed further technical work to address the character repair causing a number of accounts to “brick” and have included that in today’s hotfix.
- Potential Fix: Issue where the active route would reset when switching between SCM and NAV modes on ships equipped with the Command Module
- Potential Fix: Issue where vehicles would stop mid-flight or during Quantum Travel and the Command Module would undock on its own
- Potential Fix: The interaction prompt for the Cargo Module disappears after reclaiming insured vehicles with the Cargo Module equipped
- Potential Fix: Issue where Quantum Travel markers did not behave correctly when a route was set on an Ironclad or Caterpillar spawned with the Command Module attached
- Potential Fix: Issue where the “Route” button’s clickable area did not match its visible UI element on the Starmap
- Potential Fix: Issue where players were unable to dock at spaceports using Docking Collars across multiple systems
- Potential Fix: Issue where the MISC Starfarer’s external fuel tanks could be detached via the fuel console without first unlocking the vehicle item ports.
- Potential Fix: Issue where Meteor weapons could be swapped out for generic Size 5 weapons
- Potential Fix: Issue where the Aegis Tiburon pilot lost their targeting pips when another player entered a remote turret.
- Potential Fix: Issue where targeting pips jittered out of place in the Aegis Tiburon
- Potential Fix: Issue where Mustang Delta rockets used incorrect ammunition and carried too few rounds
- Potential Fix: Issue where Bit Zero’s ship would not spawn in the hangar during the Easy Pickings mission in Pyro
- Potential Fix: Issue where the UtiliFlex Crossbow bolt appeared as a white box instead of the correct visual
- Potential Fix: Thruster textures are missing on some Anvil Hornet variants
- Potential Fix: Issue where a generic transaction error was displayed at the end of a successful AI refueling transaction.
- Potential Fix: Issue where multiple panels in Riker Memorial Spaceport displayed placeholder images
- Potential Fix: Issue where doors in the Specimen Cache Room at Lazarus Complex in Stormageddon remained open after a reset.
- Potential Fix: Ship Hangar Services - Mustang Delta rockets use S9 ammo and way too little of it
- Potential Fix: Issue causing the Syulen buttons to be difficult to press
- Potential Fix: Defend Bunker Friendly NPCs despawn once the timer reaches 00:00
- Potential Fix: Fuel Nozzles bought on refinery shop does not appear on local inventory
Star Citizen Alpha 4.8.1 LIVE - Hotfix 11948494
Feature Updates
Player Trade Notifications Refactor with Economy Authorization Service
Replacing the player aUEC trade flow with an authorization-ticket model that will require both parties to consent to the trade before it completes. The receiving player will receive a notification alert when aUEC is sent, prompting them to accept or deny. The sender will have a pending message. If not accepted in time by the receiver, the transaction will cancel. This system also introduces trade rate limits and amount caps.
Hangar Collision Insurance Update
Players will now receive a free insurance claim when their ship is destroyed due to collision inside a hangar.
Experimental VR Updates: 3d UI Markers & Tractor AR
- Added new 3D Versions for all marker types which can be activated with CVAR “ui_markers.enabled_3d”, i.e. Vehicle Entrance, Object Markers, POI Markers, proper 3D transformation to Jump point markers.
- Tractor and Structural AR: 2D version has been removed. Desktop also uses the new 3D version now.
IMPORTANT Notes:
- The 3D versions look slightly different but they are almost identical to the 2D version:
- New projection helpers have been added to calculate the proper AR RTT local space position and the projected distance which scales with FOV and distance so 3D elements have always the same size
New Cvars:
- ui_markers.enabled_3d - Switches markers between legacy 2D screenspace positioning and the new 3D world-space transform system.
- ui_markers.scale_3d - Uniform size scale applied to all 3D markers.
- ui_markers.max_distance_3d - Clamps the render distance of 3D markers to avoid floating-point precision issues from Building Blocks 32-bit coordinate space.
- ui_markers.offscreen_distance_3d - World-space distance from the camera at which offscreen (edge) markers are placed.
- ui_markers.offscreen_angle_3d - How far from screen centre offscreen markers sit, in degrees. Higher values push them closer to the FOV edge.
- ui_markers.offscreen_pitch_offset_3d - Tilts the reference forward direction for offscreen markers; intended for VR comfort tuning.
- ui_markers.bounds_offset_scale_3d - Flat multiplier on the above/below offset used to position labels relative to the ship’s bounds. Increase to push labels further away from the ship body.
- ui_markers.bounds_offset_angle_3d - Angular offset (degrees) added to the 3D bounds position at range.
- pl_visor_markerAR.hud_ar_projected_size_scale - Scales the entire UI by this factor which uses the projected size
Bugfixes & Technical
Escort Ship missions are currently unavailable while we test fixes for blocking issues. Once the fixes are confirmed as resolved, the missions will re-appear in your Contracts Manager on LIVE.
This update includes multiple client and server stability improvements and crash fixes.
This update also includes half a dozen exploit fixes. Due to the nature of these, they will not be listed.
► 6.12.2026: 4.8.1 Client/Server Potential Hotfix
We are currently testing a new Client and Server hotfix with the goal of testing the server side fixes on select shards and opening up the Hotfix Channel later today for over the weekend for the client side. This includes multiple client and server crash fixes along side these noted below. If the server side of the hotfix validates, we will begin rolling it out further.
// Client Side Fixes
Command Module - QT Points are invisible after crossing a server boundary
While traveling through Jump Tunnels, QT, or general flight the vehicles may switch into SCM GUN mode
// Requires both Client / Server
Multivehicle - PU - Vehicle / mobiGlas / Service - Ship-to-Ship services absent/not functioning across multiple vehicles
PU - Multi-System - Spaceport - Locations / Interactions - Docking / ATC - Unable to Dock using Docking Collars
Tailwind Flight Suit - Flight suit causes actor hands and feet to be invisible
// Server Side Fixes
Ship Battles - Escort - Hangar doors are not opening for the ship that needs to be escorted
Potential fix for inventories becoming empty or inaccessible
Client Hotfix Branch (check in launcher) : 12015818
Server Hotfix Branch (check with r_displayInfo 2 to see if you’re on an hotfixed shard) : 12015818