Elite Dangerous Catch-All

They're getting pretty quick about posting these up:

Be sure to at least scan through and check out the in game footage they showed a few times. There are some really excellent shots of ships landing and taking off as an SRV drives through shipyard, as well as the first footage of an SRV being deployed from a ship.

Frontier continues to impress with how they are developing Elite further.

This week's dev update has a lot more details on what we'll be finding on inhabited planets:

Spoiler:

Hi everyone,

In yesterday’s live stream (You can view it here if you missed it). David Braben answered many questions including the dates for the various upcoming betas. The first beta will be for the 1.5 content and will commence some time next week. This will be followed by the Horizons planetary landing beta on the week of the 23rd November.

David’s sneak peek last week showed some of the settlement action so I’ll describe some aspects of this in more detail. Ports and settlements are the upper end of the scale of locations you can discover on planet’s surfaces. They can vary in size themselves from huge, established conglomerations of structures to quite small outposts. Surface starports are generally the largest and they act in a similar way to the starports in orbit. They can have the same facilities and have economies dependent on the type of world and with specific variations depending on the starport itself. New economy types have been added that only apply to surface starports.

As with the orbital starports, missions can be taken from surface starports and they can take you to surface bases. Similarly missions can be issued from orbital starports that require visiting the surface – assuming you have the ability to do so. There are also new mission variants that apply only to surface operations.

Complementing this is a range of resources and commodities that are only available from surface starports or by collection from points of interest as I mentioned last week. We’re also adding a new type of method for locating resources and uses for them which is a prelude for the loot and crafting system coming later in the Horizons season – more on this soon.

The surface starports and settlements are where the population of these airless worlds live and present various opportunities for Commanders. The style and layout of these facilities reflects their purpose. One of my favourite examples of this is the prison colony – this is an imposing and well-guarded structure that you might need to penetrate to facilitate a prison break.

Surface installations are a lot more open than orbital stations. Of course you can collect and deliver goods from surface bases, but it is also possible to hack data links, sections of bases get power from specific generators – taking out those generators takes out the lights in that section, but also the power to the turrets… Skimmers can also be taken out, or taking out the towers that control them can be just as effective way of breaching the defences. Whether it’s a secret research base or a prison colony, there are multiple stages to carrying out your objectives.

As we’ve shown and mentioned already it is advisable to take a flexible approach to these settlements – some of them are protected by capital ship scale weaponry that is lethal against ships, although less so against the SRVs – both because of their slower motion, but also they have a minimum angle of declination – so a Scarab can use the landscape to stay below the guns in most cases. Smaller turrets and skimmers are more of a threat to the SRVs. If you’re operating in a wing then each Commander can work in different roles at the same time, but even on your own you can achieve the same effect more slowly by switching between your ship and SRV accordingly.

Depending on the world’s population there can be none, a few, or many of these surface starports and settlements. As you’d expect they’re more common within the human habited bubble, but they’re not exclusive to that volume. Similar crime and ownership rules apply to settlements and ports as they do to space stations and outposts. Some of these can be lawless, others where the law is enforced – so take care before opening fire! As well as the bounties available at these sites you can encounter settlements in a state of war which can be engaged in a similar fashion to combat zones.

So far we’ve focused on the locations and the more action orientated gameplay, but naturally there’s more to planetary landings than that. I’ve already talked about the points of interest you can discover, but how you find them utilises a new device on the SRV, in addition to the ground scanner you have already seen. This works very differently to the ship scanners and we’ll reveal more about this next week.

Having said all this, we are still at work on the base game too. This week we updated the galaxy sim that fixes an issue with asset ownership not flipping when a conflict is resolved. A cap on influence changes has been added – this scales depending on the population of the system (a higher population allows a bigger swing) and the degree of changes (so a large value of changes allows more change in influence) and limits the maximum amount of change in a system when the background simulation effects are calculated. This will prevent the massive swings that we’ve seen, but a concerted campaign can still bring a faction down quickly if it is not countered. For the player group minor factions that were affected by the massive drops we’ll reset them to their initial ownership state where we can.

3 new CGs up. 1 smuggling and 2 combat

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...

2 combat CGs at once is kind of interesting.

(edit) Oh, it's two sides of the same conflict. Nifty.

Got to see if there is a way to play both sides of this combat CG. Double dip What would suck though is if only the winning side gets a payout.

Wayfarer wrote:

Got to see if there is a way to play both sides of this combat CG. Double dip What would suck though is if only the winning side gets a payout.

Careful -- sometimes (but not always) that is the case. Be sure to check the descriptions closely!

Looks like I'll be blowing up some more ships in the name of the Empire tonight.

And I'll be on my way to do the same. Or blow up Empire ships, I haven't really decided. Though I tend to side against mafia, pirates, and the like...

SERVE THE EMPEROR ABOVE ALL OTHERS.

To be honest, I've only been serving the Vixens lately

Something something bask something?

Seriously though, have you seen their ships? You can't argue with that style.

WipEout wrote:

To be honest, I've only been serving the Vixens lately :D

Yay, thank you!

When I checked yesterday, our Influence in Orcus was still tapped out around 65%. Not sure what has to happen for us to start expanding.

I may start putting Power Play on the backburner for a bit, or just make sure I get the minimum to keep my rank 4 status. Torval player group is pretty PO'd that we got a 5th column preparation that screwed our plans for the week and screwed ALD and AD in the process as well. Since there is no accountability for people playing PP in solo or private, a small group of well funded players can basically screw it up for everyone for a tiny power like Torval. A few folks in the only Torval Player Group are throwing up their hands in frustration, and that may domino.

Veloxi wrote:

SERVE THE EMPEROR ABOVE ALL OTHERS.

IMAGE(http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/twilightzone/images/5/53/To_serve_man.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110522142914)

I switched to Patreus, not really enjoying it. Will probably re-pledge to ALD tomorrow.

Jay Leno is the emperor?

LiquidMantis wrote:

Jay Leno is the emperor?

That's Richard Kiel, and he is the server, not the servee.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Jay Leno is the emperor?

Jay Leno doing a handstand?

Made a cool million for an hour-and-a-half's combat in the community thing! Not bad, especially considering it's a low-intensity CZ that's barely, what... 1Ls away from the port? It seems like pretty easy pickings for the Empire right now (I'm in their top 40% as of this writing), though I notice I start getting a lot more heat on me once I hit around 500,000Cr in bonds. It's like the NPCs know I'm the most dangerous pilot out there (in my Solo instance, that is). Works out anyway, since that's around the point I need to break off and reload anyway.

WipEout wrote:

Made a cool million for an hour-and-a-half's combat in the community thing! Not bad, especially considering it's a low-intensity CZ that's barely, what... 1Ls away from the port? It seems like pretty easy pickings for the Empire right now (I'm in their top 40% as of this writing), though I notice I start getting a lot more heat on me once I hit around 500,000Cr in bonds. It's like the NPCs know I'm the most dangerous pilot out there (in my Solo instance, that is). Works out anyway, since that's around the point I need to break off and reload anyway.

Ive found it's critical to stay at the edge of the giant furball or you end up with shields gone in about a second. Opportunistic targeting is the name of the game

I still have never seen a capital ship in game. Was hoping there might be one in a conflict zone, but yeah...low intensity, so doubtful.

WipEout wrote:

Made a cool million for an hour-and-a-half's combat in the community thing! Not bad, especially considering it's a low-intensity CZ that's barely, what... 1Ls away from the port? It seems like pretty easy pickings for the Empire right now (I'm in their top 40% as of this writing), though I notice I start getting a lot more heat on me once I hit around 500,000Cr in bonds. It's like the NPCs know I'm the most dangerous pilot out there (in my Solo instance, that is). Works out anyway, since that's around the point I need to break off and reload anyway.

Yeah I made about 3 million myself. Top 15% at the time. I miss the bounty hunting CG already though. Never liked Conflict Zones.

My first spawn was fairly easy as the Empire had a huge advantage. After going back for repairs/reload it flip flopped to Empire being overwhelmed though. Nearly lost all my earnings to a ramaconda from behind.

The smuggling CG in Epsilon Indi is going quickly if you want to get involved. As of this morning it was around 20% through its final tier. I did a quick 850 tons with 2 trips from my anaconda and I'm in the top 30%. Unfortunately I had to go to work, so unlikely I'll be able to get much more before it ends.

Its a cheap CG.. smuggle explosives. So upside is you don't have to worry about having a ton of capital, but the downside is that max profit you can get is around 200cr/ton, so the money to be made is on the reward, not the action. Epsilon Indi also doesn't have much to send back either as its an agri economy. My quick checks were showing no more than 300-400cr/ton to any system selling explosives. Not worth it IMO if the extra cargo means you have to make extra jumps.

Last chance to buy Imperial ships with the extra discount and without rank requirements:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/XXC1pNx.png)

Also, the newsletter should arrive any minute now -- here's hoping for a peek at the Cutter before Tuesday.

zeroKFE wrote:

Last chance to buy Imperial ships with the extra discount and without rank requirements:

How much is the discount, anyway?

misplacedbravado wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

Last chance to buy Imperial ships with the extra discount and without rank requirements:

How much is the discount, anyway?

I got the Clipper for 15 mil, Courier to 1.7, iEagle for 700k - 35% if in a Li controlled system (15% + 20% discount)

I can't recall specifically, but it stacks with the Sirius Corp discount, so you can get a Clipper in Li Rong-Yui controlled stations for like 16 million or something? Quite a good deal.

Man, Horizons is lookin' good!

Also, that appears to be a Viper Mk IV.

Oh, that is quite nice, isn't it?

----

And, nothing on the new ships in the newsletter -- they must really be looking forward to the excitement of the big reveal with the beta next week.

zeroKFE wrote:

And, nothing on the news ships in the newsletter -- they must really be looking forward to the excitement of the big reveal with the beta next week. :D

Hmm.. you mean which ships? They announced that in a QA session:

Spoiler:

25 Imperial Short Range Fighter (CQC only)
26 Lakon Keelback
27 Viper MK IV
28 Asp Scout
29 Federal Corvette
30 Imperial Cutter
31 Cobra MK IV (for owners of Season 1 and Season 2)

We've seen them all now except #26, #28, and #30. They gave some details on what #26 is in the stream this week.

Oh, I know which ships, and I watched the stream. But that doesn't really count as "details" to me.

And, other than super old concept art, we still have literally nothing on the Cutter.