Category: 3.0

Beyond: Update

On the 1st May Community Manager Will Flanagan made a short post responding to a thread about ‘community content’ with the following information,

“Soon, we’re going to be re-opening the submission of player Community Goals, providing players with the chance to further their goals as Player Groups and Minor Factions. Depending on the Community Goal, these can result in Megaships and Starports. We’ll have more information about player Community Goals in the near future!”

“Also, look out for the next round of the Focused Feedback forums, which you can find here. In the near future, we’re going to be discussing content which will hopefully give you somewhere to spend those hard-earned credits.”

3.0 – Beyond: Release Day

Today, Tuesday the 27th February will see the release of the first Chapter of the Beyond series of updates. You can read the full breakdown on 3.0 here.

The patch notes can below, on Reddit, on this website here or on the official website here. There’s an official Frontier Live stream here and various others planned for later in the day. You can see the list here. The official post from Frontier can be seen below and watch the latest Commander Chronicles cinematic short below:

“Greetings Commanders, 

“The galaxy servers are currently down to allow us to update to 3.0 Elite Dangerous: Beyond – Chapter One. 

“The downtime is expected to last for approximately 9 hours, although this could potentially go over. 

“We have posted the full change log below, and a summary of how the features will work in Chapter One, will be available on the forum later today.”

  • Crime
    • Crime & Counter Crime system overhaul, including Advance Tactical Response (ATR)
    • When the player is destroyed they are not necessarily returned to the last port they docked at, based on a prioritised list of rules
    • If players are destroyed when a fine/bounty has been detected they will respawn at a detention centre
    • Players that join a Multi-crew session in someone else’s ship, and commit a crime, have a corresponding fine/bounty added to their own most valuable ship
    • Players can store hot modules (modules applied to a ship at the time a crime is committed)
    • Players can clean ships of any bounties and fines through an Interstellar Factor contact
    • Players can sell hot ships from the shipyard for a markdown
    • Access to port services including ship transferring/storage/retrieval/selling are limited if the player docks in a ‘wanted’ ship (bounties and fines) applicable in that jurisdiction, and the cost is increased where transfer is possible
    • Power bounties are issued instead of normal bounties for criminal acts to do with valid Powerplay interactions
    • Players can see details on fines and bounties in the wanted ships cockpit, the shipyard and the ship transfer screens
    • New crime recognised: “reckless weapons discharge”
    • Bounties and fines incurred by players are applied to the ship that the crime was committed in and never go dormant
    • Kill Warrant Scanner changes and Interstellar Bounties will be coming soon
  • Missions
    • Added new Wing Missions that can be shared across a Wing and completed as a group
    • Mission Depot added where players can accept an applicable mission and deliver the target commodity piece by piece to complete the mission
    • Mission reward choice
    • New USS scenarios added
  • Ships
    • Added new alien attack craft
    • Added the Chieftain. More manoeuvrable than ships of similar size and weight, the Alliance Chieftain from Lakon Spaceways has been designed not only to dish out punishment, but to avoid it. * Horizons only
    • Added second seat to the Keelback to support Multicrew
  • Trade Data & Galaxy Map
    • Galaxy map now indicates its mode when any tab is active
    • Galaxy Map: Filter by station services
    • Galaxy Map: Filters added for Thargoid & Guardian sites
    • More player factions have had a description added in their home system on the galaxy map
    • Filter for the new ‘detention centre’ government type (for new detention centre spawning areas)
    • Galaxy Map: Players can view trade data that they own, by commodity, represented on the galaxy map by colour coded icons
    • Galaxy Map: Players can view trending trade routes, and filter by AI or Human players
    • Galaxy Map: Players can view import and export prices, in a roll out screen, including the ability to select different markets and filter
    • Commodity Market: Players can search trade data they own, to compare it to the current market
    • Prison ships have been added to one of the routes to Colonia
    • Ship yards added to Caravanserai in Gandharvi and Eudaemon Anchorage in Rohini
  • Engineers
    • Material Trader contacts, which allow the player to convert materials. * Horizons only
    • Engineering a module or weapon results in progressively better improvements within a range
    • Players can convert and modify their older modules/weapons engineered before this update
    • Players can modify modules/weapons at selected ports (ports with access to outfitting) outside Engineer ports
    • Players can select which experimental effect they want to apply to their module, at a material cost
    • Players are presented with a screen where they can choose the module/weapon to modify, the Blueprint to apply or pin, see the material cost, and preview the outcome
  • Weapons and modules
    • Added Technology Broker contacts, which allows the player to unlock new weapons and modules in return for specific materials and commodities. * Horizons only
    • Medium Shock Cannon (Fixed, gimbal & turret)
    • Medium Remote Flechette Launcher (Fixed & Turret)
    • Medium Enzyme Missile (Fixed)
    • Size 4 Meta Alloy Hull Reinforcement Package
    • Recon Limpet Controller
  • Galnet Audio
    • For new articles, players can now listen to the news in English, French, German, Russian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
    • News headlines can be accessed via the status menu
    • Galnet can now be accessed via the status menu and articles with audio can be played or queued into a playlist
    • Galnet Audio playback options added to controller bindings
    • Galnet Audio section added to audio options
  • Installation and Mega ship Interactions
    • Data link scanner upgraded to allow scanning mega ships and installations to reveal targets the player can interact with
    • Players can scan certain revealed targets to uncover sub-targets. These can be interacted with in different ways depending on the type
    • Players can damage generators to disable turrets
    • Players can use recon limpets to activate data terminals and comms arrays
    • Players can use hatch breaker limpets to open a cargo bay
  • Surface material system
    • Overhauled the surface material system for the rocky, high metal content and metal rich planets
    • Improved contrast and colour variation across and between bodies
    • The colouration of the surfaces now more clearly telegraphs the chemical makeup and volcanic activity of the worlds
  • Quality of Life
    • Added synthesis for new Technology Broker modules and weapons
    • Added synthesis for AX weapons
    • New cockpit voice assistant – Victor added as an alternative to Verity
    • Increased manoeuvrability benefits when boosting based on the ENG pips
    • Option added so players can choose how flight controllers address them (Commander Name, Ship Name or Ship ID) when approaching a station
    • ’Target Ignore’ feature added for material and commodity collectables and refining
    • Ability to see at a glance the quality and inventory quantity of materials targeted
    • Per material storage caps
    • Increased rewards at Search and Rescue contact
    • New High Value supercruise targets for pirates to raid
  • Misc Features
    • Large number of Commander Journal updates
  • Consoles
    • Portuguese language support added for consoles
    • 11 new Achievements for XB1 worth 200G
  • Bug fixes and Improvements
    • This update includes well over 1000 fixes for various issues that have been discovered and investigated during the development process. Note: The list provided by Frontier to fixes can be seen in the patch notes linked below.

 

 

3.0 – Beta Ends

At 11am on Friday 9th February Frontier announced that the Beta would end at 12pm (GMT).

“Greetings Commanders,

“We’ll be bringing the Elite Dangerous: Beyond – Chapter One beta to a close at 12 PM (GMT) today.

“We’d like to thank every Commander who took the time to play the beta and shared their feedback with us. Your feedback is invaluable in making sure that the Elite Dangerous: Beyond – Chapter One update is the best experience possible for you all, and we can’t wait for all Commanders to be able to experience it when it goes live.

“The release date for Beyond – Chapter One will be announced in near future so keep an eye on our forums, newsletters, and social channels for more info!”

Beyond: Beta – Q&A

Sandro Sammarco answered a long list of questions regarding both the upcoming Beyond series of updates and the general future of the game. You can see some selected ones below.

Note: There has been no release date given as of yet for 3.0.

Q. Extra module storage?
A. This has now been doubled to 120.

Q. Will SLF’s have outfitting capabilities?
A. Nothing to announce, something they may do at some point but will be done when it fits in the schedule.

Q. Limpet Bay?
A. Frontier are looking at a Limpet controller rack that will store a number of controllers in them.

Q. Tracker limpet?
A. In the big list and very much wanted.

Q. Any chance of being able to change the colours of the HUD display?
A. Not at the moment as it’s a significant amount of work.

Q. Engineer tech brokers weapons?
A. Very likely to happen in Beyond at some point.

Q. Will the Discovery Scanner and surface scanner see updates?
A. Yes, later in 3.0 as part of the exploration update Frontier will look at all of these.

Q. Will ATR Ships become persistent? (ie. they will follow players out of a system)
A. Sandro said this would be looked at, but not until they have seen how ATR operates in the initial release.

Q. Are Frontier looking at using mega-ship interactions in other areas such as capital ships, combat zone and planetary outposts etc.?
A. Yes. Looking at a few areas but no further comment at the moment.

Q. Can Combat zones and RES sites be improved?
A. Yes, these sites will be looked at but these are long term plans.

Q. Will bookmarks be colour coded and see other updates?
A. Yes, these and possible other changes could well come when they introduce the codex later in Beyond.

Q. Changes to Powerplay?
A. They would like to integrate missions into powerplay and have some ideas, but no ETA, guarantees.

Q. Any plans to stop players from permanently boosting their ship engines? (specifically as it’s causing issues during battle)
A. Yes, this will be looked at as it should not be at a loss of tactics during battle.

Q. Will there be further iterations of wing missions?
A. Yes, there will be more wing missions coming.

Q. Changes to smuggling?
A. Yes, but nothing to comment on at the moment.

Q. Will it be possible to re-name engineered modules?
A. It’s on the list.

Q. NPC Crew & Wings?
A. It’s something we want to do, but we need a bunch of other stuff such as communicating with NPC’s and more rules to govern them, so not at the moment.

Q. Any plans for changes to the Asp Scout?
A. There are some “come cool plans for the Asp Scout, that I’m not allowed to talk about”.

Q. Will colour changes to planets reflect the content of the planets?
A. No, but the exploration mechanics in the 3.4 update will assist with figuring this out.

3.0 – Beyond: Beta 3

At 2:19pm on the 6th February 2018 Frontier released the patch notes for the third Beta release of 3.0: Beyond.

“Hi everyone,

“The beta galaxy servers are currently down in order for us to update to beta 3. As mentioned in an earlier post, this update will be as close to the 3.0 release build as possible. Once again, thank you for jumping in and testing during this beta period. your feedback has once again been absolutely invaluable. The beta should be live again shortly, this should not affect the main game. See the patch notes for beta 3 below, or here.”

 

Art

  • Fixed nebulae being extremely bright
  • Fixed the joystick move animation for the female pilot model, as it was reversed

Audio

  • Fixed flight controllers saying a third character if a player switches to a call sign with less than 3 characters
  • Fixed the ‘Bounty Incurred’ audio line playing whenever a fine is received
  • Fixed some missing audio from holographic billboards
  • Fixed audio issues with the vessel voice after returning to your ship from an SRV when landing at some sites
  • Fixed cockpit freezing and cracking SFX persisting after returning to the game from the menu

Controls

  • Fixed throttle automatically setting to zero when exiting a hyperspace jump
  • Fixed an issue that limited the amount of input devices on PC to four

Crime

  • Removed bounty/fine cost multiplier at Interstellar Factors based on notoriety
  • No longer able to pay off fines/bounties at Interstellar Factors if you have a notoriety above 0
  • Consolidated lawless security state in to anarchy security state
  • Anarchy states now show anarchy security level
  • Interstellar factors are now available at all markets controlled by factions with Anarchy governments, regardless of star system security level
  • ATR response is now governed by system security level and crimes committed
  • Once ATR has been summoned, subsequent crimes result in a faster response
  • Notoriety now updates periodically during gameplay (reducing by 1 unit per hour of gameplay)
  • Switched on contacts at all Engineer bases to allow fines to be paid, but still only Broo Tarquin, The Sarge, Ram Tah, Colonel Bris Dekker, Lori Jameson, Juri Ishmaak, Tod ‘The Blaster’ McQuinn advance their progression from redeeming vouchers at their bases

Engineers

  • Additional Engineer Blueprint Changes
    • Power Distributor:
      – Priority X blueprints:
      Increase Charge rate on primary capacitor from 36%->44% (was 30% in beta 1)Shield Generator:
      – Reinforced:
      Increase Damage resistance 15%->16.5%
      Increase Optimal Strength 35%->38%

      Shield Booster:
      – Heavy Duty:
      Revert Beta 2’s increase to the health multiplier, 40%->38%

      Armour:
      – Heavy Duty:
      Reduce health multiplier increase from 35% to 32%
      Note: This displays differently in-game, reduces boost of G5 Heavy Duty Reactive (on top of its native 250%) from 122.5% -> 112%

      Hull Reinforcement Packs:
      – Heavy Duty:
      Health Addition +60%->72%
      – Lightweight:
      Mass reduction: -15%->-24%

  • Restored wayward Farseer Engineer base icon to its original position on the Surface Map
  • Fixed some incidents of the Engineer UI becoming unresponsive when using Controllers and Joysticks
  • Prevent the player attempting to purchase Experimental Effects that they cannot afford
  • Fixed some instances of Experimental Effect modifiers being inverted
  • Fixed an issue where negative stats and completed positive stats would blink when applying a Blueprint
  • Fixed an issue where players were not able to convert certain legacy modules despite all of the required conditions being met
  • Fixed an issue in the Engineer Workshop that made Blueprints selectable while browsing them after pinning a Blueprint
  • Fixed sorting for pinned Blueprints in the Engineer workshop and cockpit Engineer menu
  • Fixed an issue with the reputation progress bar skipping ranks
  • Fixed Engineer service appearing in the services list for Starports and Planet Ports in the Galaxy/System Map when an Engineer isn’t present
  • Some Railgun Experimental Effects under the new system now all have a 40% heat reduction applied (applies to Feedback Cascade, Super Penetrator, Plasma slug)
  • Fixed issue where Engineer module progression wouldn’t always reach 100%


Fighters/Crew

  • Fixed an issue where Ship Launched Fighters were not sharing a ‘Wanted’ status with the Mothership

Galaxy Map/System Map

  • Fixed the map configuration view ‘by services’ not persisting on subsequent reopening of the Galaxy Map

Galnet

  • Added new language option to allow commanders to change the language Galnet audio speaks in
  • Fixed new issues with Galnet Audio playback resuming unintentionally
  • Improved mix for Galnet Audio to increase audibility

Installations/POIs/USSs

  • Made some tweaks to Megaships, including:
  • Added materials as possible rewards from hacked cargo bays
  • Increased data material payout at data terminals and Comms arrays
  • Increased turret downtime when generators are disabled
  • When using limpets to interact with Megaships, crimes will no longer trigger if you are in silent running, but will result in an authority response
  • Added heat generation to the hatch breaker and recon limpets to make them more risky to use with silent running
  • Fixed ships not showing as Wanted or having pre-existing bounties in Resource Extraction Sites
  • Fixed an issue whereby ships could be recalled while at unsafe locations

Missions

  • Fixed planetary welcome missions sometimes directing players to difficult, high security outposts
  • Fixed an issue where multiple players could take the same Wing Assassination mission
  • Fixed an issue where players could not claim cargo rewards despite having enough space
  • Fix to prevent notoriety increases from crimes committed against a mission target
  • Added new Massacre Mission Scenarios

Multi-Crew

  • Fixed heat vents not appearing correctly when using the Camera Suite in Multi-Crew
  • Fixed an issue where the Role Switch panel would not update correctly when a crew member switched from the Idle to the Gunner role

NPCs

  • Fixed an issue where System Authority ships could appear in anarchy systems
  • Small balance pass on Thargoid Scouts

Outfitting

  • Fixed incorrect/disappearing turret icon in outfitting

Planets

  • Fixed the missing fog on planet surfaces
  • The dark side of planets is no longer pitch black

Player Journal 

  • When writing character stats to the journal, strings are properly surrounded in quotes in the json output
  • Altitude is always written to status.json if we have lat & long
  • Fixed the ExternalToolsDataStore writing flags=0 into the status.json file on every FSD jump, it was intended to only do this at shutdown
  • Added crew name in events that only had ID, added ID in events that only had Name
  • The name of the “Experimental Effect” (if any) is now included when writing engineered module info to the Journal
  • Module values etc are now omitted when writing the ship loadout to the Journal if the info is not available
  • Whether the player has Horizons access is now indicated in LoadGame, Shipyard and Outfitting files
  • More information is included about the results of a mission in the Journal MissionCompleted event
  • Changed the TimePledged property in the Journal Powerplay event to be elapsed time in seconds, not timestamp of when pledged, also writing duplicate events on each jump is avoided
  • Improved the data written to the journal info when applying an experimental effect to a module in engineering
  • Commodity price lists to Market.json now includes unlocalised and localised item name, also including category name when writing
  • ModuleStore, ModuleRetrieve, MassModuleStore, StoredModules: add Level and Quality to EngineerModifications; add “Hot” flag; add “BuyPrice” in list of stored items
  • ‘Hot’ ships are now indicated in the Journal list of stored ships
  • Fixed missing “PilotRank” property in “ShipTargeted” journal event – when target is Elite
  • Included some extra information in the Journal’s Scan event, to show each body’s parent body info
  • Included Latitude and Longitude in Status.json at a higher altitude, at the point where GUI starts to show the data
  • Fixed localisation of some items (eg commodity in MissionAccepted)

Ships

  • Alliance Chieftain
  • Fixed an issue that could see SRVs becoming stuck under the Chieftain’s wings
  • Straightened up the Ship Nameplate position
  • Fixed an issue where the ship would often not land despite alignment being correct
  • Tweaked flight model to improve lateral and vertical thrust
  • Fixed the armour having too high a mass for the ship’s size

Anaconda

  • Fixed the positioning of the String Lights
  • Corrected some of the side window textures

F63 Condor

  • Fixed some LODs

Lakon Type 7

  • Buffed the type 7 to improve its jump range

Lakon Type 10

  • Fixed an issue where the ship would often not land despite alignment being correct
  • Fixed a Camera Suite position when used in Multi-Crew

Viper MkIV

  • Fixed a Camera Suite camera angle

SRV

  • Fixed an issue where the SRV could get stuck in the ground when moved due to logging out in a dangerous location

Stability Fixes 

  • Fixed a crash that could occur when shooting an SRV with a Railgun
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when shared Wing Missions are added or removed from a player
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when attempting to clean a hot module from the currently installed module when choosing a stored module to transfer
  • Fixed a crash that could occur if you waited for more than 5 minutes in the Docking and Travel training mission before doing a Hyperspace or Supercruise jump
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting game while in Outfitting
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when loading in to a CQC Arena Deathmatch
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when fighting a Thargoid

Star port Services

  • Fixed the position of the ‘Anonymous Access’ text when loading Starport Services


Technology Broker

  • Fixed the Technology Broker displaying repeated icons on the unlock screen

UI

  • Fixed some text overlap that could occur in the Commodities Market for most languages
  • Fixed ‘Anonymous Access’ appearing on the back and/or cancel docking buttons
  • Fixed some missing schematics for Megaships in the Contacts Panel
  • Removed some trailing zeros from the Modifications UI in the Engineer Workshop for clarity
  • Fixed the stats UI showing incorrect numbers on weapons with the Double Shot modification applied
  • Fixed the rank progression being difficult to make out in the Status Panel
  • Widened the friends list in the main menu, to allow more room for long commander names
  • Fixed the ‘Encounters’ field being blank in the Statistics panel
  • Fixed the Anonymous Access icon not displaying correctly in the Navigation Panel
  • Fixed a focus loss issue when using a controller to access the Status Panel
  • Fixed the Trade and Combat rank icons being switched around
  • Ensured that mission inbox messages are not grouped into the Audio Logs category
  • Fixed some overlapping text in the Message Inbox
  • Fixed an issue where the targeting brackets (<>) would render on stations
  • Material grade icons in the Target Panel now show the correct grade
  • Fixed an issue where the Systems Panel would not update to display a new Engineered FSD range, neutron boost range and FSD synthesis range

Weapons & Modules

  • Adjusted the Shock Cannon description to remove references to energy, as it is a Kinetic weapon
  • Fixed E grade Shield Boosters having the wrong stats
  • Rebalanced some module prices
  • Rebalanced some synthesis recipes

Wings

  • Implemented some performance improvements when fighting Thargoids in a Wing

3.0 – Beyond: Beta Update

On the 2nd February at 2.25pm Frontier made an update to the ongoing Beta for 3.0, the first in the Beyond series of releases.

“Greetings Commanders,

“The Chapter One 3.0 beta will finish on February 9. This week will be your last chance to jump in to your Alliance Chieftain before we take the beta servers down for a while, in preparation for the launch of Chapter One. Keep an eye on our social media channels, the newsletter, and our forums for more information on when Elite Dangerous: Beyond – Chapter One arrives for all Elite Dangerous players.

“On February 6, the beta servers will go down shortly to allow us to update to beta 3, which will be as close to the 3.0 release build as possible.”

Last weekend of 3.0 beta – special treats

“Because there’s only one weekend left on the test servers, we have made a few changes for the beta:

– Firstly we’ve made all Engineer recipes so they require only 1 unit of iron to complete.
– We’ve done the same to Technology Broker blueprints – they will require only 1 unit of iron to complete.
– We have given all Commanders who join the beta, 100 units of iron and 100 units of selenium in order to take advantage of the above, and get playing around with some of the Engineering changes and new Technology Broker modules.
– All ships, weapons and modules are now down to 10% of their normal price. Now’s the chance to play around with the ship of your dreams, even if you can’t afford it in the main Elite Dangerous experience!

“We wanted to take a moment to thank every Commander who loaded up the beta during this testing period. The feedback you provided was absolutely invaluable in making Chapter One of Beyond the best Elite Dangerous experience possible.”