After the release of Alpha 3.24.2, Cloud Imperium Games has completely revamped the MFD screens of the ships, and they now come with some new features and configurations.
The power triangle is gone and ships now use a new, more detailed power distribution system in Star Citizen. Also, some of the settings of the cockpit that used to be adjustable through the options menu can now be customized through the MFD screen itself.
Power Management
This is the new screen that players will use for distributing the power across all systems and components. Power Management is the replacement for Power Triangle.
From left to right, players can check out the allocated power to each system, including Weapons, Engines, Shields (on SCM mode), Quantum Drive (on NAV mode), Lifeguard, Radar, and Coolers. Depending on the ship, there might be a few extra components like a Tractor Beam.
Some of these components have integrated power bars, which means they can only be turned on or off, and the player cannot run them with less than full power.
However, the major components like Weapons, Engines, Coolers, Shields, and Lifeguard can be modified. Here is a list of what parameters change when you allocate or de-allocate power from each component:
- Weapons: Increasing or decreasing reload time
- Shields: Increasing or decreasing regeneration time
- Engines: Increasing or decreasing regeneration time for Booster
- Lifeguard: Increasing or decreasing the Oxygen level inside the ship (doesn’t operate in Alpha 3.24.2)
- Coolers: Increasing or decreasing cooldown for Quantum Drive and Weapons
Keep in mind that if the player de-allocates all the power from engines, they won’t be able to move the ship anymore.
The number shown on the left side of the power bars indicates the amount of available power against the total amount of power provided.
Configuration
The new configuration menu is crucial to customizing the flight experience and the pilot HUD. We will go over each setting one by one.
General
Display MFD Casts
When piloting a ship, the player will now have a 3D schematic of the ship in the top left corner. In order to hide it from the HUD, turn Display MFD Cast off.
This will clear the HUD, but in ships where the MFD screens are not in plain sight, the 3D holograph of the ship could provide important info about the shields and the damaged parts.
Coupled Mode
When active, the ship will remain in a stationary state as soon as the player leaves the thrust buttons. Once deactivated, the ship will no longer return to its stationary state after applying thrust. All the applied thrust will be saved and remain in effect even after leaving the buttons.
Auto Gravity Compensation
When active, the ship will maintain its altitude from the planet’s surface in the atmosphere. If deactivated, the ship will gradually begin to fall down to the surface unless the player applies upward thrust.
Auto Enable Precision Mode
When active, zooming in with RMB will automatically showcase the outer components of the target as well. If deactivated, the player should assign a new keybind from the Options menu for precision targeting.
G-Safe Enabled
When active, the ship will avoid applying more than necessary G-Force to prevent the pilot from passing out. After deactivation, the ship will apply maximum G-Force, which could result in the pilot passing out if the force is applied continuously for a long duration.
Boost Disables G-Safe
When active, the ship will apply maximum G-Force while applying boost by holding shift. This could result in the pilot passing out if the G-Force is too high.
Spacebrake Enables Boost
When active, the spacebreak will perform stronger as it gets help from the boost in the opposite direction of the movement.
Cruise Mode
When active, the ship will maintain its current speed. Can be activated/deactivated by pressing Left Alt + C.
ESP Enabled
When active, the game will slow down the pilot’s aim as soon as it is inside or around the PIP to make it easier to lock onto the target. It’s simply an aim-assist system.
Proximity Assist
When active, the ship will automatically slow down when quite close to the objects or surface. This is only sensible at the lower speeds. Don’t expect it to prevent the ship from hitting the surface at max speed.
Extended Info
When active, the pilot gets a speed and altitude indicator on the left side of the crosshair.
Gunner
Show Precision Lines
When active, the player sees two vertical lines next to the PIP, which indicates the maximum hit range in aiming.
Use Lag PIPs
When active, the player’s crosshair will be departed from the PIP. So, the player will no longer have to lock the crosshair on the PIP to hit the target. Instead, the PIP will turn into a secondary crosshair, and when it is on the target’s ship, the bullets will hit it.
Fade PIPs
When active, the PIP will disappear when the target is no longer in line of sight.
Use Single PIPs
When active, the ship will use a different PIP for each weapon gun variant. So, the player will have multiple PIPs on the screen.
Larger Aiming UI
Increases the size of the PIP but decreases the hitting accuracy.
Staggered Fire
Staggered Fire is mostly useful for weapons with more than a single barrel. It is on the opposite side of synchronized shots. So, imagine you are in a turret with 4 barrels. If Staggered Fire is not active, all of those barrels will fire simultaneously with a bigger cooldown until the next shot.
However, when Staggered Fire is active, those barrels fire one by one with reduced cooldown for each barrel, this doesn’t change the fire rate, but it could change the rate of missed/hit shots.
So, if you hit in a single shot, non-staggered mode will give you four bullets hit, but if you miss in a single shot, staggered mode will give you only one missed bullet. It is a mode to lessen the amount of missed shots while fighting.
Weapon Config
This screen allows players to assign each weapon to a different group. There are four boxes in front of each gun and ticking them will assign the gun to the chosen group.
Keep in mind that only the first weapon group has a keybind assigned to it by default, which is LMB. In order to assign keybinds for the rest of the weapon groups, head to the Options menu, navigate to Keybinds, and then check for Weapon Presets – Fire Gun Groups 1/2/3/4 in the Vehicle – Weapons tab.
Self Status
This screen shows an overview of the ship and the MFD casts. However, it is also the screen for missiles if you switch to SCM mode and then activate the missile mode. Here, the player can see the amount of missiles ready to launch.
Other MFD Screens
The rest of the MFD screens are quite similar to the previous system. Players can use the target screen to see the current state of the ship they are locked onto. The scan screen is also similar but provides details about scanned ships and objects.
There is also a shield screen that showcases the overall health of each shield panel around the ship. Nothing important can be controlled here.
