On the 17th December 2020 Frontier released their third Dev Diary, taking a look at combat. Further details will be added to Odyssey: Full Breakdown in due course and to the seperate Dev Diary #3 page.
You can also see more details in an interview with Odyssey game designer Gareth Hughes.
On the 16th December 2020 Frontier released a more detailed Q&A, answering some more pertinant questions. These have been added to the Odyssey: Full Breakdown page, however you can see the main changes below. Today (17th December) at 12pm UTC there is a Christmas stream (amongst other things) which will have a combat based section revealing more of what to expect.
PC Specification: Unchanged from the original release.
2. PLANETS
> Introduction
Frontier have also confirmed that in-game lighting has been improved for every aspect of the game and as you might expect a lot of new code has been added with some systems seeing completely refreshed for Odyssey.
> Planetary Atmospheres & Surfaces
Frontier have confirmed that there will be an upper cap on high gravity worlds where it would not be safe for commanders to deploy into. Gravity will also affect how high a player can jump and thus how effective their jetpack will be. For outposts in Zero-G players will use mag boots to attach the player to the floors.
3. SPACE LEGS
> Avatars & Space Suits
Frontier have said that there will be a, “vast amount of ways Commanders can customise their avatars in game.”
> Equipment, Weapons & HUD
Players will have similar functions as the ship in order to display relevant on-foot information. Frontier have also confirmed that players will have night vision available to use.
Weapons will be customisable both internally and externally, from sights and suppressors which suit the players playstyle, right down to weapon skins.
> Combat
Frontier have confirmed that combat will be optional, leaving players to find other ways of completing ground based missions.
> Vehicles, Ships & Travel
Frontier have confirmed that players who board another players ship (presumably by Frontline Solutions or Apex Travel) will be able to deploy in that Commanders SRV or SLF with physical multicrew.
Today, following a post on Monday the 14th December, Frontier will deploy a patch to fix the ongoing issue with the pulse wave scanner.
“Greetings Commanders,
“Firstly, we’d like to thank you for your continued patience and support with the Pulse Wave Analyser issue. The challenges of working from home while also developing the largest ever expansion for Elite Dangerous have resulted in a far slower turnaround on this than we’d have liked.
“That being said, we’re glad to confirm that a fix for the Pulse Wave Analyser will come in a patch on Wednesday 16 December. We understand how important this issue is to the Elite Dangerous community, and will endeavor to fix similarly important issues as quickly as possible moving forward.
“Thanks once again for your understanding.”
In the early hours (UK time) of the 11th December 2020 Frontier released a short gameplay trailer featuring scenes from the upcoming Odyssey release. This can be seen below.
Odyssey is also now available to pre-order via Steam and the Frontier store, coming in two flavours, the Standard release or the Deluxe Alpha Expansion. The later comes with Alpha access and a copy of the Elite: Dangerous Original Soundtrack.
The Steam page for a brief amount of time showed a release date of the 21st April 2021. This was later removed with Frontier saying that the date is to be confirmed.
For the full lowdown on what’s known about Odyssey so far visit the Odyssey: Full Breakdown page.
Frontier also released four more combat based images
On the 9th December The Burr Pit conducted an interview with Lead Community Manager Arthur Tolmie about the rebirth of Galnet and how this came about from an internal development point of view. For anyone interested in Galnet, Elite lore and its somewhat surprise return to the forefront of the game it’s a really good listen.
On the 8th December 2020 Frontier announced that they would be making the following changes to Combat in the game. These would be as follows, please note the changes will be available from this afternoon.
Greetings Commanders,
Welcome to the third and final set of game balancing changes this side of 2021. In the new year, we’ll turn our attention to other aspects of the game that you’ve raised in your suggestions and feedback. As promised, we’re making some further balancing changes to other elements of combat which can be expected alongside a GalNet article later today:
Combat Bonds
High-end NPC combat bonds will provide many more credits, seeing an increase from around 80,000Cr to 400,000Cr. Similar to the recently updated bounties values, the HUD will not reflect the new figure after a kill, but the transaction tab will. These may (rarely) appear to be issued by the Pilot’s Federation.
Anti-Xeno Combat
Thargoid combat bonds will provide 4x as many credits as before.
The experience gained from Thargoids which contributes to Combat rank has been re-scaled. This means that Thargoid scouts will provide less than before, however each interceptor will offer more than the last, all the way up to Hydras. The exact amount earned will vary according to the number of pilots who contribute to the kill as well as their various combat ranks.
Delivery Missions
The increase in minable commodity prices has had an unexpectedly large effect on delivery missions due to compounding multipliers, allowing large numbers of credits to be earned with minimal risk and effort. To re-focus the earnings on the effort made, the rewards for these have been changed so that the distance travelled and quantity transported has a larger effect on the pay. Payouts remain relatively high and will be monitored for any further necessary adjustments.
Thank you as always for your replies and insights. Your feedback continues to be invaluable and will drive the further changes in the new year. In the meantime, let us know what you think about the adjustments above!
On the 7th November Frontier released a trailer titled, ‘The Journey So Far’ and announced that the Game Awards on the 10th December would feature an exclusive Odyssey gameplay trailer. This is in addition to the upcoming December Dev Diary which is due to take a look at combat.
Elite: Odyssey 