Frontier announced some changes coming to Multi-crew in the upcoming 2.3.1 patch. Note this will appear after the 2.3.01 patch which is mentioned in the previous post.
“Hi everyone,
“Thank you so much for all your feedback across the forums and on social media. We always appreciate your continued passion and support.
“We wanted to let you know about some changes that will be coming to Multi-crew.
“Two of the changes will be coming as part of a server-side update coming in the next few working days and one other change will arrive as part of the 2.3.1 update.
“It’s important to note that the 2.3.1 update isn’t the same as the 2.3.01 update. The 2.3.01 update mentioned here highlights a number of bug fixes that the team have identified and will be making its way in the coming weeks. The 2.3.1 update will include a significant multi-crew update to improve the helms crew mate management and will be coming a series of weeks after 2.3.01. We’ll have more details on the exact dates as development continues.
“We’ve got three changes that we’re looking to implement for Multi-Crew.
1 – Pay-out increase (server-side update in the next few working days)
“We are tweaking the pay-out reward scheme for Multi-crew. We will be significantly increasing the pay-out for almost all ranks of crew members. It’s easiest to show this in table form that you can see below. The first table shows what the current pay-out scheme is, and the second shows what we’re going to change it to.”
2 – Rebuy cost reduction (server-side update in the next few working days)
In addition to the changes above, we’re also improving the rebuy reduction for players hosting Multi-crew sessions in their ships. Currently Helm’s rebuy cost is reduced by 25% per crew member on board. We are increasing this pay-out reduction to 30% meaning a fully crewed ship will have its rebuy cost reduced by over half.
We’ve been actively listening to feedback from the community and one thing we’ve seen is a number of requests for greater protection for hosts of Multi-crew sessions and improved safety measures. That’s why we’re going to be introducing two new function controls for the role of Helm. The first change will allow Helm to toggle limited access for the Gunner role. When toggled on the Gunner will only be able to use weapons, not utilities (such as shield cells), and only Helm will be able to deploy and retract the ship’s hardpoints. When toggled off the Gunner will have full access as they do now.
The other change will allow Helm to toggle the availability of the Fighter Con role – this will stop people launching fighters until Helm turns the toggle off.
We’d like to take this moment to thank you for your continued support and patience. The development team are working hard to bring the imminent server side update, the 2.3.01 bug fixes and the 2.3.1 point update to Commanders.
Today Frontier announced the first patch update for the 2.3 – The Commanders release will be in early May. As Ed Lewis said on the official forum
“Thank you so much for all the feedback since last week’s release of 2.3 The Commanders. We appreciate every bug report that comes through, and read as many forum posts as possible!
“We’ve seen your feedback with regards to a number of bugs in the latest update, and the development team have been busy working on a release that focuses on fixing a large number of the common complaints. The release is currently scheduled for early May. These fixes include (but are not limited to) the list you can see below:
– Galaxy map UI tag not pointing to selected target body
– Packhounds having infinite ammunition
– Multicrew bug fixes
– Various Stability improvements across the board
– Missing Galnet articles will be fixed
– XBOX main menu softlock will be fixed
– Large frame rate drop when friends log in to the game
“As mentioned above, there are other fixes and performance-related improvements included in the update. We’ll have the full list of changes for you as soon as it’s available closer to the release of the update in early May. Please do continue to support the game by reporting any bugs on our dedicated bug forum.”
Earlier in the week Commanders discovered a missing mega ship that forms part of the Formadine Rift mystery. Scanning the ship reveals some data logs, which as a welcome change have been very nicely voice-acted. These clips have been beautifully put together in the below video. Today Obsidian Ant will be running a Q&A with Drew Wager regarding the upcoming Premonition in-game event. The recording of it will be released at some point today. You can find out more about that, here.
The 1.9 & 2.4 update was released on the 26th September 2017. It is the final release in the Horizons season of Elite: Dangerous. Unlike previous releases content will be rolled out alongside the ongoing Thargoid narrative, so not all the content is available on initial release.
> Background & Trailers
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Frontier have released two short trailers for the game followed by the official cinematic trailer called ‘Commander Chronicles: Retaliation’.
Earlier trailers.
Trailer for Thargoids attacking stations – 14th December 2017
Frontier commented,
“Previously we’ve held live streams on the run up to our releases, featuring details all about the features in the update. However, due to the nature of this update we wouldn’t want to spoil the narrative or interactions that the community will have so we won’t be broadcasting these reveal streams in the build up to the upcoming beta for 2.4. We’ll still keep things going with small sneak peeks here and there, but largely we really want you to discover 2.4’s secrets for yourself. After release, we’ll be hosting streams that focus on the narrative, explaining what our Commanders are discovering, explaining how you can get involved and hinting at things to come.
“Although you won’t see them in the beta, from day one after 2.4’s final release the Thargoids will make their return. We can’t wait to see your interactions with the most mysterious and terrifying things you’ll have seen in the Elite Dangerous galaxy to date. The dev team have put a lot of love in to 2.4 and we can’t wait to share that hard work with you.”
[…]
“The Return will play out differently to previous releases in Elite Dangerous: Horizons, with content and story beats affecting all Commanders releasing in the months following its initial release.
“As a story-centric update, showing too much ahead of time would spoil the surprise and make for a lesser experience for the community. We want The Return to surprise and shock you as much as possible, but that said, you can expect for further reveals and information about the future of Elite at various community and gaming events throughout the year, such as the upcoming Lavecon.
[…]
“Thargoids will put us on the back foot. Human technology is made to defeat other humans, not Thargoids. A few new things, that might be surprising, fun and very challenging and we hope you relish the challenge. It won’t just be Thargoids with new weapons. It will mark a new way of doing things. There will be narrative feeds and changes as it goes along. It is an exciting change for us to see how it pans out.”
David Braben did a short piece to camera about the Thargoids and their history. You can see this below.
> NEW FEATURES & CONTENT
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Content marked with a +signifies Horizons only.
Note: Only the major changes are listed here and as mentioned above many features of 2.4 are not listed due to the nature of the release.
The Type-10 Defender variant was introduced to the game on the 20th December 2017.
Weapons
At Lavecon 2017 Frontier announced a few new updates coming with 2.4. These can be seen below:
‘A suite of weapons, modules and devices’ that will be used against the Thargoids:
Synthesis
Synthesis can now create:
Heat sinks
Chaff,
Limpets
Top up life support
Repair Limpets
Repair limpets can now be used to fix your for hull/canopy. (to be used on yourself or other ships)
A hull repair limpet in operation
Updated Route Plotting
Various changes to the route plotting system have been made.
Maximum route plotting range is now 20Kly
Route plotting is much faster
Option to make use of neutron star boost when plotting routes
Icon on route to show the last scoopable star before running out of fuel
Changes to Route Plotting
UI Improvements
There have been changes to the inbox which will give a slightly different look and feature some quality of life improvements.
Search & Rescue Agents
Frontier have added new and improved salvage scenarios added to support search and rescue gameplay as well as making salvage commodities legal to pick up from wreck sites (although they will still appear illegal if dropped by ships as that is not salvage).
Search & Rescue Agent contact and also a Science & Research Contact.Search & Rescue Agent missions look to be a part of 2.4 and look like featuring multi-part quests to collect various items from crashed/lost ships.Screenshot showing the completion of a search and rescue mission.
Improvements to salvageable wreckage and occupied cryopods:
Missions
New Chained Missions – Which can be longer than two steps
Follow-on missions can include more data about previous missions in the chain
Added support for missions allocating additional rewards based on station distance from the jump-in point
Added support for missions allocating additional rewards based on station distance from the jump-in point
Changes to the way missions are generated which will mean a greater number and variety available from the missions board. See comments here.
Changes to Crime & Punishment:
Ship Re-buy Penalty – When a player commits the crime of murder (PvP only), an additional cost is added if they swap to a less expensive ship before paying legal costs during the rebuy flow.
Pilot’s Federation Bounty – When a player commits the crime of murder (PvP only), they receive an additional Pilot’s Federation Bounty. This bounty is valid in every jurisdiction except anarchies.
Federation bounties – If you attack a Player (not NPC) you also get a Pilots Federation Bounty, in addition to any normal bounty, which is valued everywhere.
Pay-off re-buy costs and fines with other ships – wherever you have them.
Audio
Music system – This has been replaced and the existing music should behave exactly as before. It is now much more maintainable and enjoyable to use
Radio chatter – The radio chatter system works differently under the hood now, enabling Frontier to do “cool magic chatter” based things in the future. Existing chatter lines should function the same as before (around star ports and planet ports).
Flight controllers – This system also works differently now to be far more flexible and pave the way for future awesomes.
Holo-Me +
Added save slots for different Commander appearances in the Holo-Me system
On the 11th April at 9:24am Frontier announced that the servers were down in preparation for the release of The Commanders. They will remain so until around 6:00pm (BST) this evening. Whilst you are waiting Frontier have organised a couple of events as below – click the links:
“I’m in the midst of planning an in-game event to allow players to decide how the end of the upcoming Elite Dangerous Novel ‘Premonition’ plays out. It will take place on the 29th of April at 6pm UTC. More details to come.”
Elite: Odyssey 