Category: exploration

Fleet Carriers: Beta 1 – Feedback Changes

At 12:31pm on the 15th April 2020 Frontier announced the changes following the release of the Beta for Fleet Carriers. They can be found below, or here. The full breakdown on all the content can be found here.

Greetings Commanders!

Thank you for testing the prototype Drake-Class Fleet Carriers brought to you by the Brewer Corporation. Since the beta’s launch, we’ve been carefully reading and discussing your feedback and are ready to share the upcoming changes. We look forward to hearing more of what you think for the remainder of Beta 1 and in Beta 2 coming next month. All changes are subject to further balancing based on future feedback.

Here are the changes coming this week:

  • The upkeep cost for all additional services will be reduced by 80-90%.
  • Core running costs will be reduced by 50%

Fleet Carriers represent a big investment, with a lot of crew and resources involved. After hearing your concerns, we’ve reduced the upkeep to a more sustainable level. The total running costs for a Fleet Carrier with all services active will be reduced by a total of 85.5%.

  • The debt threshold has been updated in line with the upkeep changes. This means with all services installed, a carrier can go 10 weeks (up from 4) without paying upkeep before being issued a final warning.

This is designed to relieve the pressure of carrier management, leaving more time for focus on other activities. While the debt threshold will be lower, Fleet Carrier owners will have more time to maintain the upkeep costs.

  • The total upfront activation costs of some of the more expensive services will be reduced by 35-45%.

Along with the upkeep changes, this reduces the overall outfitting and maintenance costs of Fleet Carriers.

  • The time between jumps will be dramatically decreased by only requiring 15 minutes for jump preparation and 5 minutes to cool-down.

More frequent jumps will increase the utility of Fleet Carriers overall, allowing them to enhance the owner and visitors’ game-play more easily.

The two changes below will come in the second beta. Additional changes can be expected as more feedback comes in:

  • Universal Cartographics will become available as an optional service.

Similar to Bounty Vouchers, a cut of 25% which will be split 50/50 between the Fleet Carrier’s bank and the service, will be taken from any data sold on the Fleet Carrier. This means owners will effectively only be charged a fee of 12.5% on their own Fleet Carrier. This service will otherwise be the same as Universal Cartographics services found on stations.

  • Tritium will be made at least 2x more effective as a fuel.

In combination with a reduced preparation and cool-down time, this should improve long distance Fleet Carrier travel.

We’re excited to hear what you think of these changes and seeing them in action for the remainder of Beta 1. Thank you for all of your valuable feedback which has helped shape these changes and will drive the rest of the changes made throughout the rest of the beta period. As mentioned above, this next beta will take place in May, and will be available to Xbox and PlayStation as well as PC players.

Beyond: Chapter 4 – Is Live!

Last Updated: 12th December at 3:45pm (UTC)

Chapter 4 of Beyond is now available for download. The full patch notes are now available via the link below or on the Frontier website here. You can find some important links and information on the latest news for Chapter 4 listed below.

Beyond: A Season Overview
Beyond: Chapter 4 – Full Preview
Beyond: Chapter 4 – Patch Notes
Beyond: Chapter 4 – Livestream (12pm UTC)
Frontier: A thank you – Notes on the Beta
Lifetime Expansion Pass Holders – Update
Console Players SRV Surface Crash Fix
Back-up your keybindings!
Chapter Four Release Content Creator Schedule

Beyond: Chapter 4 – Beta #3 is Live!

Updated at: 2:38pm with link to known issues.

At 11:00am (UTC) on the 14th November 2018, Frontier released the Beta #3 (Ships) release on to the live server for testing. You can see the details here or read full details of the content here. The patch notes can be seen below or on the official site, here. You can find a list of known issues here.

> Patch Notes


New Ships

Krait Phantom (Falcon DeLacy)

With a spacious cargo hold and a relatively generous quantity of hardpoints, the Krait Phantom is a versatile ship suited to a range of roles. It has enough firepower to hold its own against larger targets, and enough straight-line speed to outpace smaller targets. The ship also offers eight internal compartments, allowing the pilot to tailor the ship to their requirements. And while it lacks the firepower and fighter bay of its sister ship, the Krait Mk II, it is both faster and lighter.

  • 2 large and 2 medium hardpoints
  • 8 Internal optional slots
  • Top speed of 256m/s and a boost speed of 358m/s
  • 23LY laden FSD range

Mamba (Zorgon Peterson)

Based on an unreleased racing prototype, the Mamba is one of the fastest ships in production. It can also deliver a lot of punishment, boasting one huge and two large hardpoints. This emphasis on firepower and speed means the ship can hit hard and fast, vanishing before the target has a chance to react. Comparisons to the Fer-de-Lance, also produced by Zorgon Peterson, will be inevitable, but the Mamba is in fact faster in a straight line, while being slightly less manoeuvrable. 

  • 1 huge, 2 large and 2 small hardpoints
  • 5 internal optional slots
  • Top speed of 316m/s and a boost speed of 387m/s
  • 37LY laden FSD range

Scenarios

New scenarios can now be found:

  • Installations – Raid and Heist
  • Megaship – Heist
  • Damaged Megaship – Rescue and Repair

Quality of Life

  • Added icon to info panel to show players if their ship or SRV lights are on

Bug Fixes and Improvements

Cockpit UI

  • Fixed some typos in the playlist tab
  • Fixed the broken ‘Frameshift Active…’ message on the right hand panel

Codex

  • Fixed missing characters in Russian
  • Ensure the summary of a discovery entry in the session log matches the detail
  • Added some missing icons
  • Fix some unlocalised strings
  • Fix a cause for codex vouchers sometimes being unsellable
  • Fix for multicrew crew members discovering things in the wrong star-system
  • Fix some audio logs not grouping correctly
  • Give INRA audio logs their own category

Comms

  • Fixed instances where direct messages from other players where coming through as ‘Unidentified’
  • Fix some issues for not always being placed into the correct star-system’s chat

Controls

  • Fixed an issue where some players were unable to bind controls correctly
  • Added a new default scheme ‘Keyboard and Mouse with Yaw’

Crashes/Stability

  • Fixed a crash that could occur whilst mining in an asteroid ring
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when viewing Squadron applications
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when opening the galaxy or system map
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when mining with night vision on
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when jumping into a new system
  • Fixed crash that could occur when dropping into a ‘Notable Stellar Phenomena’ location
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when using the FSS mode
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting the game
  • Fixed crashed that could occur when dropping out at a weapons fire detected USS
  • Fixed crash that could occur when changing 3D settings and exiting the graphics menu
  • Fixed a crash that could occur in hyperspace
  • Fixed crash that could occur when opening the Codex
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when in the outfitting screens
  • Fixed a crash that could occur in a Multicrew session

Eagle MkII

  • Fixed smoke from over heating going through the cockpit

Engineers

  • Reduced the grade thresholds of the Colonia engineers
  • Fixed legacy engineering modifications on DSS module are converted for new ones (and references to old ones are removed)

Exploration

  • FSS mouse sensitivity control option now works
  • Fixed some locations that couldn’t be zoomed in on
  • Fixed probes sometimes going through bodies
  • Increased the text field for SAA gravity gauge (fixes some localisation issues)
  • Added surface locations found after probing a body to the system map
  • Planet surface signals are now targetable outside of Analysis mode
  • Added the number of bodies info to the ‘Orbital Plane Established’ alert
  • Fixed the discovery scanner SFX getting stuck looping
  • Fixed issue where players could zoom in and discover a metal rich body whilst tuned to the asteroid section on the filtered spectral analysis
  • Fixed missing info panel data when scanning a K class star for the first time
  • Fixed an issue that could cause the planet map % to decrease whilst probing
  • Changed the ‘scenarios’ section of the FSA to Concentrated signal sources and Transient signal sources
  • Fixed surface signals disappearing after logging off
  • Shortened the “Short Range Composition Scanner” name to “Composition Scanner”
  • Added support for FSS tuning to be bound to in-outs that don’t auto-center
  • Changed HOTAS joystick bindings to avoid FSS tuning and movement being on the same hand
  • Now able to bind enter and exit FSS to the same button
  • Fixed bodies rendering over their rings after beiing fully mapped
  • Fixed asteroid clusters reporting high temperatures in FSS
  • Added ‘First Mapped’ to system map
  • Clarified the info message that appears when trying to enter FSS mode whilst charging the FSD
  • Renamed ‘Radio Tuning Minimum Increase/Decrease’ to ‘Increase/Decrease Tuning’ in control options
  • Updated info message theme when turning off analysis mode
  • Updated info message when a target is too close to zoom in to from ‘Adaptive Zoom Blocked’ to ‘Target too close’
  • Ensure the efficiency target can actually be met
  • Fix a transaction server error when selling a page of exploration data that has zero credits value
  • Fix some issues with planets not being targetable and not always displaying correctly on the system map or in FSS mode

Factions

  • Fix some issues when spawning conflict zones in certain star systems
  • Ensure settlement & codex vouchers correctly affect the faction simulation

Friends Management

  • Fix some friends not always displaying correctly

General

  • Fixed unreachable listening post In the “HIP 16753” system
  • Fixed missing text in the Rhenium material description
  • Fixed incorrect details title for Chemical processors material description
  • Automatically fix ships with more than one FSD Interdictor modules

Installations

  • Added a new space bar, “The Orange Sidewinder” …for real this time

Lighting

  • Fixed lighting issue on the planet in the Elevate CQC location

Localisation

  • Updated French translation of ‘High Metal Content World’
  • Removed the superfluous ‘;’ from the system map when player is wanted

Mining

  • Increased the cool down on the Pulse Wave Analyser, to allow the results to appear before players can trigger it again
  • Resource Extraction Sites should now appear in applicable areas of the game
  • Outfitting text for the Seismic Charge tool now mentions that it is used to break asteroids apart

Missions

  • Delivery and Smuggle missions now warn players about being cargo laden and reduced jump range
  • Reduce chance planetary Scan chooses POI owned by mission giver
  • Added ‘Open Galaxy Map’ option to megaship missions
  • Fixed issue where disabling defence turrets didn’t update or complete megaship disable missions
  • Added missing hand in faction information to delivery missions
  • Fixed race mission wrinkles appearing with very little time to complete them

Night Vision

  • Fixed some objects still being highlighted whilst in vanity camera

Options

  • Fixed typos in audio options menu
  • Fixed typos in controls options menu

Orrery

  • Ensured that all bodies that are discovered and displayed on the system map are also shown in the Orrery view
  • Removed non-functioning planet map button
  • Improve the line width scaling

Outfitting

  • Fixed incorrect value being shown for ‘Limpet Life Time’
  • Fixed incorrect schematic used for 8A thrusters
  • Added 1 more ship and 2 more utility stock slots to all markets

Player Journal 

  • FSSSignalDiscovered – if signal is a USS, add a ThreatLevel value; if signal is a station, add IsStation:true; add SystemAddress
  • Cargo – fix spurious extra events; add a flag to indicate vessel=Ship or Vessel=SRV
  • CodexEntry: add SystemAddress
  • json, Flags: add NightVision flag (bit28/0x10000000)
  • SendText: include a journal entry for text to squadron or system chat
  • ReceiveText: include a ‘Channel’ parameter to show if message was from squadron or system chat
  • SAAScanComplete: remove lists of names of discoverers and mappers

Port Services

  • Ensure ‘Exit’ button in Material Traders takes players back to contacts, not to the Fines and Bounty claims contact
  • Fixed broken ‘Welcome’ animation when opening the services menu
  • Fixed typos in search and rescue contact description

Powerplay

  • Fixed Crime Sweep conflict zones (both powers involved will now be actively fighting)

Rendering

  • Fixed dust mote popping in ring fog

Squadrons

  • The list of systems that appear in the Squadron allegiance page is now sorted by name
  • Fixed the Squadron logo used on the ‘browse more’ option
  • Added Squadron icon to ‘invite’ option
  • Remove placeholder text from Squadron invites
  • Fixed Alliance logo appearing when non Alliance super powers are selected
  • Can now invite players in local space, that are not friends
  • Added a popup notification when handing over a Squadron to a different member
  • Fix some dates not being displayed correctly
  • Fix some transaction server errors when managing squadron members
  • Fix for Powerplay leaderboard contributions not being counted
  • Fix for Powerplay & Political leaderboards not displaying
  • Fix authored messages not appearing in the squadron feed

Stellar Forge

  • Removed a ‘phantom’ third ring around “Paesia 2” which was causing players to drop out of Supercruise when nothing was there
  • Fixed wife dwarf jets cones being visible through bodies

Synthesis

  • Changed ‘bonus active’ text when refueling the SRV through synthesis

System Map

  • Ensure a state is shown for each faction listed, even if it is ‘None’
  • Fixed installations and megaships incorrectly displaying as surface settlements

VR

  • Increase the thickness of orbit lines in the orrery view
  • Ensure players can fully zoom into bodies in the orrery view
  • Fixed the background on intermediate FSS zoom levels warping
  • Fixed planet rings moving with the headset in FSS mode
  • Fixed the SRVs full beam lens flare causing visual issues
  • Fixed graphical errors when switching between FSS and SAA modes
  • Fixed inverted joystick animations
  • Fixed missing scan effect in FSS (that highlights areas of interest)
  • Fix various fog and jet cone issues

Beyond: Chapter 4 – Beta End Date

Updated on 12th November 2018.

Frontier have confirmed in their latest newsletter that the Beta will finish on the 26th November. (Not 16th November as originally stated) As of yet there is no confirmation of when the release will go live.

Live stream #3 – Beyond: Chapter 4

On Thursday 1st November Frontier will reveal the third in their series of streams showcasing the features of Beyond: Chapter 4. In this stream they will be revealing details about the new mining update and Squadrons. You can see the live stream below, or read the updates on the Beyond: Chapter 4 page.

Beyond: Chapter 4 – Beta is Live!

On the 30th October 2018 Frontier released the Beta for Chapter 4 (3.3) of Beyond. This is available to all PC owners of the game (both the base game and Horizons). You can get the full lowdown on the release here, or:

Game Director Laurence Oldham posted this message on the official forum,

Dear Commanders,

It is with a feeling of anticipation and excitement that later today we release Beyond – Chapter Four’s open PC beta, giving you the first opportunity to get your hands on with the biggest Elite Dangerous update of 2018 ahead of its official launch later this year. With that in mind, I wanted to explain how the beta process works for the newest Commanders among you and how we can work together to make this a successful beta phase for Chapter Four.

It’s been a long journey since we first announced our plans for this Chapter at Frontier Expo in October 2017 and we have been hard at work ever since, implementing many ambitious ideas and taking a deep look into aspects like Elite’s Background Simulation, Codex, and Exploration; just a few of the features you’ll be able to test during the first part of our open beta from this afternoon.

However, our journey is not yet complete.

Chapter Four will be the biggest influx of new content for Elite Dangerous in 2018 and it represents the culmination of our combined efforts during many months of development. To ensure the results will be as good as we can possibly make them, we would invite you to join us in this final opportunity to identify and fix any issues together. For us, this open beta is a vital part of the development process and our hope is that you, our dedicated community, will participate, enjoy, and let us know what you experience. Any problems you encounter during your travels, please take the time to report them to us here. Having this one central location for all Commanders to register feedback is very important as it allows us to easily collate and register comments, bugs, and suggestions. We have assigned a dedicated team to track all your reports as they come in and we are committed to improving Chapter Four based on your observations.

As we progress through the weeks, new features and new content will become available for you to try out and report on.

We are currently completing our pre-flight checks and we expect to be ready to launch shortly after 15:00 UTC. All that’s left is to say a huge thank you to everyone taking part, I really hope you enjoy it.

Laurence

The first Beta phase will feature all the features and changes seen in the first two livestreams. You can read all the details known so far about Chapter 4 here. In anticipation of this and with permission from Factabulous on the Official Forum I’ve reproduced the handy Beta FAQ.

> Beta FAQ

  • The Beta appears as a new option to start in the launcher when it is available, normal game will remain available during beta.
  • No, consoles don’t participate in the Beta. Yes other games have Beta access on consoles, ED does not.
  • To reduce the clutter in the launcher you can add the /edh option to your launcher shortcut. You are welcome.
  • No, we don’t know how large the beta is yet. CMDR Thrust from Bradford knows, but he’s too busy walking around an Atmos planet on his space legs with his NPC crew. (long standing forum joke)
  • No, you cannot take anything you find in the Beta out of the Beta
  • Your commander will be based off a copy of the live game taken during the last few weeks
  • Values in the Beta may not reflect the final game – often mission spawn rates are changed, and we can expect broker rates to change. Probably.
  • The beta may restart / become unavailable without notice. It’s a beta. Chillax.
  • No, you will not keep any unlocked tech broker recipes after the beta.
  • Anything you do in the Beta does not affect your main CMDR
  • Make sure you are running the Beta before doing destructive things. Beta often has a watermark so you can check. But double check…
  • If you are not where you want to be then FD may respond to move requests in the Beta, if you ask nicely.
  • Or you can kill your ship and respawn at the starter system if you want to get back to the bubble.
  • You can also reset your CMDR, sometimes Beta resets will set extra money/other things so you can get back to testing – check details in the beta before resetting!
  • No, you cannot take anything you find in the Beta out of the Beta
  • You need to remove the beta files after the beta, but it might be worth keeping the around until the full release as the files are allegedly used instead of downloading
  • No, you cannot take anything you find in the Beta out of the Beta
  • Report bug as beta tickets. Feel free to add your information onto existing tickets, but they are reports – not discussions.
  • Talk about the beta in the beta forums. Console users probably don’t want to hear about cool stuff they can’t access yet.
  • No point in putting in feature requests. Beta means the code is about ready to release, it will get tweaks, but not features (Many will ignore this and get irate)
  • No, you cannot take anything you find in the Beta out of the Beta.

Beyond: ‘Scenarios’ Update

On the 18th October PCGamesN released an article which contained information from Frontier about one of the upcoming scenarios in Beyond: Chapter 4. You can read the article here.

Note, this won’t be discussed in full until the stream on the BGS and Scenario Interactions live stream on the 25th October.

Live stream #1 – Beyond Chapter 4

Tonight at 7pm (GMT) Frontier will do the first of their live-streams for Beyond: Chapter 4. It will focus on exploration, the Codex and visual improvements to the game. You can view the stream by clicking here. Details have been added to this blog.

Update #1: Frontier have announced that the Squadrons and Mining streams have been combined into one stream on the 1st November. Previously they were on subsequent days.

Update #2: Frontier have also added ‘Cockpit UI changes’ to tonight’s live stream.

The Chapter 4 – Live stream dates:

  • Exploration, Codex, Cockpit UI Changes & Visual Improvements – 18 October (19:00 BST)
  • BGS and Scenario Interactions – 25 October (19:00 BST)
  • Mining & Squadrons – 01 November (19:00 GMT)
  • The Ships – 8 November (19:00 GMT)

You can now view the entire stream below:

Beyond: Chapter 4 – Beta Announced

On the 15th October at 2pm Frontier announced the details of the Beta for Beyond: Chapter 4 along with a short promo trailer. The details can be seen below. Other web pages on this site will be updated to reflect this and any further news. You can see the full details on the official site here, or below including the trailer.

“Hello Commanders,

“With much anticipation, we’re pleased to announce that the beta for Chapter Four will be available to all PC Elite Dangerous and Elite Dangerous: Horizons players on Tuesday 30 October!

“In order to focus the public testing on specific aspects of Chapter Four, we will be unlocking different content over a number of different weeks. You can find out the schedule that content will be added to the beta here:

beta4info

“We are expecting beta milestones to go live on the Tuesday of each week. However, we will update you in the News and Announcement forums as each update is made available.

“As always we welcome your feedback on our dedicated beta and bug report forums. These reports, and the data provided, by these beta tests are incredibly valuable and useful in the development of Elite Dangerous. You can find a breakdown of Chapter Four’s features below:

Exploration

“The Analysis Mode with the improved Exploration Discovery Scanner and Detailed Discovery Scanner, is a game-changing, brand new way for all Commanders to explore the Milky Way galaxy. After the initial scan of the system, you will then be able to tune your scanners to find stellar bodies and other phenomena. Unidentified Signal Sources and conflict zones will also appear as dotted lines within this mode, allowing you to easily track down interesting or important things within the system. Not only is this new system a more realistic, satisfying and engaging exploration experience, but now you will be able to make more informed decisions on where to look next, and you will be more rewarded for your time spent exploring. Commanders will now have probes at their disposal to map the planetary surfaces, and planetary rings, in detail, to locate points of interest and leave your mark on the galaxy in a different way.

“All of the above, in addition to the new in-game codex where Commanders will see a new way of recording their findings in both a collaborative and individual way, are just a few things coming with the changes to exploration. We’re barely scratching the surface here with the changes to exploration, so make sure to tune in to the livestream on 18 October, to find out more.

Mining

“Asteroid belts and planetary rings are about to get very busy. New tools and mechanics will provide a fresh, exciting and lucrative mining experience for all Elite Dangerous Commanders. Using new exploration mechanics, miners can investigate rings to locate the best spots to start their mining sessions, and then the best specific asteroids to probe and excavate for rewards. With the right amount of skill and expertise, the new Abrasion blaster, Sub-surface displacement missile, and Seismic charge launcher, will provide some exciting and explosive results.

“Want to go deeper with these features and learn more about mining? Tune in to the livestream on 1 November, to find out more.

Squadrons

“Squadrons is a new in-game way of uniting like-minded Commanders to support factions of their choice, take part in Community Goals together and compete for top spots in seasonal leader boards. New communication tools, including in-game chat channels, will help you blaze trails together, and leave your Squadron’s mark on the galaxy.

“Learn more about Squadrons in our livestream on 30 October.

“…and more!

“There’s a number of other huge changes coming to Elite Dangerous, including visual improvements, background simulation updates, and (yet to be revealed) cockpit interface changes, and other features that we can’t wait to tell you about.

“Prior to the introduction of the content on the beta, we’ll be hosting a number of deep-dive livestreams with developer guests, where we showcase the content and you have the chance to voice your questions and comments.

The Chapter Four content reveal livestreams will be on the following dates:
Exploration, Codex and Visual Improvements – 18 October (19:00 BST)
BGS and Scenario Interactions – 25 October (19:00 BST)
Squadrons – 30 October (19:00 GMT)
Mining – 01 November (19:00 GMT)
The Ships – 8 November (19:00 GMT)

“If you’re not able to catch the streams, don’t worry! We will be posting a recap of the all the content unveiled shortly after each livestream.

“We can’t wait to see what you think!”

Live stream: Exploration

On the 13th September 2018 Frontier announced that there would be a livestream to answer some of the questions following the exploration reveal that came yesterday.

“Good afternoon, Commanders.

“Tonight you’ll be able to join Lead Community Manager Edward Lewis and Senior Designer Adam Bourke-Waite from 7PM BST live on Youtube, covering the recently revealed Exploration changes coming to Beyond – Chapter Four and fielding some of your questions.

“We hope to see you there!

“NOTE – we will not be showing off any video footage or new images of the features on tonight’s stream. Streams showcasing this will be in the coming weeks.”

www.youtube.com/elitedangerous/live