Elite Dangerous - BrettC Frontier
Greetings Commander,

We've got loads of exciting new things to share with you, and will be streaming to you live from the Koelnmesse, Cologne over the week, be sure to tune in Thursday through Sunday from 10:00 CET and 14:30 CET.

You'll be getting daily updates on all the exciting news with a bumper edition of the Newsletter on Monday, so there's plenty for you to get excited about.

That's it - it's quite simple! The streams will begin at the times listed above starting on Thursday and ending on Sunday. There will be lots of opportunities for you to ask questions, as we'll be setting up a forum Q&A over on our official forums to post in at the end of each day. We'll then try to answer as many questions as possible in a segment the following day.

We'll be giving away incredible prizes every day including the chance to name your own star system, Thrustmaster joysticks, and other in-game unique items you can't get hold of anywhere else!

The streams will then automatically be uploaded to YouTube to watch afterwards, and a separate Gamescom 2016 playlist will be made containing some of the snippets shown throughout the day.

Can't wait to see as many of you as possible there.

Ed, Bo, Zac, Dale and Brett - on behalf of the entire Elite Dangerous team

https://youtube.com/frontierdevelopments/live
Elite Dangerous - BrettC_Frontier
Greetings Commander,

We've got loads of exciting new things to share with you, and will be streaming to you live from the Koelnmesse, Cologne over the week, be sure to tune in Thursday through Sunday from 10:00 CET and 14:30 CET.

You'll be getting daily updates on all the exciting news with a bumper edition of the Newsletter on Monday, so there's plenty for you to get excited about.

That's it - it's quite simple! The streams will begin at the times listed above starting on Thursday and ending on Sunday. There will be lots of opportunities for you to ask questions, as we'll be setting up a forum Q&A over on our official forums to post in at the end of each day. We'll then try to answer as many questions as possible in a segment the following day.

We'll be giving away incredible prizes every day including the chance to name your own star system, Thrustmaster joysticks, and other in-game unique items you can't get hold of anywhere else!

The streams will then automatically be uploaded to YouTube to watch afterwards, and a separate Gamescom 2016 playlist will be made containing some of the snippets shown throughout the day.

Can't wait to see as many of you as possible there.

Ed, Bo, Zac, Dale and Brett - on behalf of the entire Elite Dangerous team

https://youtube.com/frontierdevelopments/live
Jul 28, 2016
Elite Dangerous - BrettC Frontier
Greetings commanders, we've pushed an update out this morning, here's the changes.


Stability Fixes
- Fixed Skimmer Group issue
- Fix a crash if we try to send a message to or about a player that is no longer in the game
- Fix crash during high res screen capture
- Fix crash in wing manager
- Fix for the pilot object never being destroyed
- Fix a number of unreleased effects that could potentially have caused small memory leaks
- Fix crash when calculating the tidal locking amount for a planet with exactly -180 axial tilt
- Fixes to protect against a fatal network error, and early detection of the disconnection with server
- Fixes a crash in the fairly rare case of a ship being killed or fleeing while waiting for a response to a docking request
- Fixes for cross-platform crashes reported from the Xbox client
- Improvements to memory management to tackle cases of fragmentation
- Fix a potential NaN in the vehicle system
- Added crash protection in outfitting when getting the inventory for a sub slot
- Fix crash when taking damage and when a contributing player doesn't exist anymore, likely due to quitting
- Fix a server crash if a CQC game ends at the same time the lobby is shut down
- Fix a crash if you disconnect while shooting someone while in CQC
- Fix a crash in CQC capture the flag if someone leaves the game at the same time that the flag is dropped
- Fix crash when disconnecting while taking damage in CQC
- Fix a transaction server error when transferring cargo on changing ships


General Tweaks & Fixes
- Added surface scan materials data to system map
- Added Federal supply stations to Merope
- Fix to allow TrackIR users to have the same headlook range as before the 2.1 patch when live
- Mouse cursor stuck on side of screen when in main menu fixed
- Station weapon strength increased to allow for players with engineer upgraded defences
- When dropping out after an interdiction make sure we don't drop out too close to a planet
- Added Saitek x56 control pre-set
- Fix occasional doubling up of first discovery names on the system map
- Fix for first discovery bonuses not being paid out when all members of a wing sell their exploration data
- Factions can no longer retreat if fewer than 3 factions would remain in that star system
- Fixed combat rank increases awarded from killing other Commanders
- If the game owner has changed before we close CharacterComponent (because we switched users for instance), then don't save the PlayerMisc config. Otherwise we'll save the old user's settings in the new user's save data
- Added latest batch of translations
- Various text fixes


Xbox One
- Updated New Logo and Idents
- Improvement to user settings when switching players
- Added a language override option to allow players to choose English over their default console language
- Reduce the frequency that the statistic events are sent to make them less spammy
- Don't allow the player to spam Create Commander requests - block new requests while another is active
- Don't refresh the XBL Inventory when unconstraining to avoid the client and server getting out of sync


CQC
- Matchmaker optimisations
- Removed the localisation from commander name in CQC as it is causing issues in the UI for long names


NPCs
- Removed boost from lowest NPC ranks
- Removed sub-system targetting
- Allow players a better chance of fleeing from NPC ships
- Rebalance for fixed scenario AI set up, specifically for Nav Beacons and RES sites
- Increase the threaten timer across the board for all AI. Pirates have slight higher since they are waiting for cargo to be dropped
- Set all AI ships in lawful space to have an interdiction rank range of 2 or less ranks below their own, and all AI ships in anarchy space to have an interdiction rank range of 3 or less ranks below their own
- Slightly reduced Anarchy interdictions, whilst keeping them more dangerous than lawful systems.


Engineers
- Wide ranging changes to drop rates and USSs: Change the rate and spread of drops from missions, wakes, ship scanning, USS collection, mining, data links and scannable wreckage
- Fixed blueprints being lost when using reputation to override the special modifier
- Make sure POI data points have the firmware rarity improvements mirrored across to them
- Rebalance POI data point drop quantities, including the rate and spread of drops
- Change the weighting on "Wrecks" USS
- Fix for being able to select an unselectable adjust option which appeared to give a free upgrade
- When collecting physical micro resources or retrieving data loot, add 3 to the inventory instead of 1. If your inventory can't fit 3, just add enough to fill the inventory
- Added locations to the descriptions of the commodities
- Material positions are now replicated correctly
- Balanced values for Materials amount and rarity spawned by PoI's to address difficulty of finding resources


Weapons
- Fix infinite ammo reloading on player ships
- Make the diminishing returns cap on external heat attacks more harsh, primarily making it very hard to cause significant hull damage with heat from thermal shock/cascade
- 20% reduction in heat applied by Thermal Cascade
- Fixed lens flare on class 4 burst laser


Missions
- Make permit missions have rank up tick box ticked
- When attempting to add a message to the inbox list in GUI, check if the mission manager knows about the mission. Don't show it if it doesn't
- Add a short wait time before the client re-requests a tutorial mission (60 seconds)
- Fix to allow Navy promotion missions to succeed if offered prematurely
- Fix to use the correct rank name in Navy promotion inbox messages
- Automatically clean up undeletable inbox messages for expired missions
- When attempting to add a message to the inbox list in gui, check if the mission manager knows about the mission. Don't show it if it doesn't
- Fix for Settlement Not Spawn Spawning Mission Required Skimmers


Scenarios/USSs/POIs
- Fixed various issues with capital ship scenarios
- Added new types of USS and new USS classifications
- Rebalance for fixed scenario AI set up, specifically for Nav Beacons and RES sites
- Separate Checkpoints/seeking weapons into a separate WarSupport scenario bucket and when generating war scenarios guarantee that at least one is always from the actual War bucket rather than support, to prevent warring systems being full of checkpoints but no actual combat zones people can participate in


Ships
- Diamondback Scout - cannot land on planet surface fixed


Render
- Make the render feature system more robust against GraphicsConfig.xml being broken


Powerplay
- Fix for "System Resistance" ships not having any weapons in Military Strike zones in powerplay systems
- Prevent depopulating systems, change the background sim to only allow Factions to retreat if there are at least 4 factions in that system
- Additional modifier to require a commodities market during Trade related CG's


Audio
- Fixed bug where planetary music suite didn't play when approaching from supercruise
- Reduced the timing interval on the probe to bring the total transmission down to just over 6 mins
- Small volume boost on flight controllers and radio chatter
Jul 28, 2016
Elite Dangerous - BrettC_Frontier
Greetings commanders, we've pushed an update out this morning, here's the changes.


Stability Fixes
- Fixed Skimmer Group issue
- Fix a crash if we try to send a message to or about a player that is no longer in the game
- Fix crash during high res screen capture
- Fix crash in wing manager
- Fix for the pilot object never being destroyed
- Fix a number of unreleased effects that could potentially have caused small memory leaks
- Fix crash when calculating the tidal locking amount for a planet with exactly -180 axial tilt
- Fixes to protect against a fatal network error, and early detection of the disconnection with server
- Fixes a crash in the fairly rare case of a ship being killed or fleeing while waiting for a response to a docking request
- Fixes for cross-platform crashes reported from the Xbox client
- Improvements to memory management to tackle cases of fragmentation
- Fix a potential NaN in the vehicle system
- Added crash protection in outfitting when getting the inventory for a sub slot
- Fix crash when taking damage and when a contributing player doesn't exist anymore, likely due to quitting
- Fix a server crash if a CQC game ends at the same time the lobby is shut down
- Fix a crash if you disconnect while shooting someone while in CQC
- Fix a crash in CQC capture the flag if someone leaves the game at the same time that the flag is dropped
- Fix crash when disconnecting while taking damage in CQC
- Fix a transaction server error when transferring cargo on changing ships


General Tweaks & Fixes
- Added surface scan materials data to system map
- Added Federal supply stations to Merope
- Fix to allow TrackIR users to have the same headlook range as before the 2.1 patch when live
- Mouse cursor stuck on side of screen when in main menu fixed
- Station weapon strength increased to allow for players with engineer upgraded defences
- When dropping out after an interdiction make sure we don't drop out too close to a planet
- Added Saitek x56 control pre-set
- Fix occasional doubling up of first discovery names on the system map
- Fix for first discovery bonuses not being paid out when all members of a wing sell their exploration data
- Factions can no longer retreat if fewer than 3 factions would remain in that star system
- Fixed combat rank increases awarded from killing other Commanders
- If the game owner has changed before we close CharacterComponent (because we switched users for instance), then don't save the PlayerMisc config. Otherwise we'll save the old user's settings in the new user's save data
- Added latest batch of translations
- Various text fixes


Xbox One
- Updated New Logo and Idents
- Improvement to user settings when switching players
- Added a language override option to allow players to choose English over their default console language
- Reduce the frequency that the statistic events are sent to make them less spammy
- Don't allow the player to spam Create Commander requests - block new requests while another is active
- Don't refresh the XBL Inventory when unconstraining to avoid the client and server getting out of sync


CQC
- Matchmaker optimisations
- Removed the localisation from commander name in CQC as it is causing issues in the UI for long names


NPCs
- Removed boost from lowest NPC ranks
- Removed sub-system targetting
- Allow players a better chance of fleeing from NPC ships
- Rebalance for fixed scenario AI set up, specifically for Nav Beacons and RES sites
- Increase the threaten timer across the board for all AI. Pirates have slight higher since they are waiting for cargo to be dropped
- Set all AI ships in lawful space to have an interdiction rank range of 2 or less ranks below their own, and all AI ships in anarchy space to have an interdiction rank range of 3 or less ranks below their own
- Slightly reduced Anarchy interdictions, whilst keeping them more dangerous than lawful systems.


Engineers
- Wide ranging changes to drop rates and USSs: Change the rate and spread of drops from missions, wakes, ship scanning, USS collection, mining, data links and scannable wreckage
- Fixed blueprints being lost when using reputation to override the special modifier
- Make sure POI data points have the firmware rarity improvements mirrored across to them
- Rebalance POI data point drop quantities, including the rate and spread of drops
- Change the weighting on "Wrecks" USS
- Fix for being able to select an unselectable adjust option which appeared to give a free upgrade
- When collecting physical micro resources or retrieving data loot, add 3 to the inventory instead of 1. If your inventory can't fit 3, just add enough to fill the inventory
- Added locations to the descriptions of the commodities
- Material positions are now replicated correctly
- Balanced values for Materials amount and rarity spawned by PoI's to address difficulty of finding resources


Weapons
- Fix infinite ammo reloading on player ships
- Make the diminishing returns cap on external heat attacks more harsh, primarily making it very hard to cause significant hull damage with heat from thermal shock/cascade
- 20% reduction in heat applied by Thermal Cascade
- Fixed lens flare on class 4 burst laser


Missions
- Make permit missions have rank up tick box ticked
- When attempting to add a message to the inbox list in GUI, check if the mission manager knows about the mission. Don't show it if it doesn't
- Add a short wait time before the client re-requests a tutorial mission (60 seconds)
- Fix to allow Navy promotion missions to succeed if offered prematurely
- Fix to use the correct rank name in Navy promotion inbox messages
- Automatically clean up undeletable inbox messages for expired missions
- When attempting to add a message to the inbox list in gui, check if the mission manager knows about the mission. Don't show it if it doesn't
- Fix for Settlement Not Spawn Spawning Mission Required Skimmers


Scenarios/USSs/POIs
- Fixed various issues with capital ship scenarios
- Added new types of USS and new USS classifications
- Rebalance for fixed scenario AI set up, specifically for Nav Beacons and RES sites
- Separate Checkpoints/seeking weapons into a separate WarSupport scenario bucket and when generating war scenarios guarantee that at least one is always from the actual War bucket rather than support, to prevent warring systems being full of checkpoints but no actual combat zones people can participate in


Ships
- Diamondback Scout - cannot land on planet surface fixed


Render
- Make the render feature system more robust against GraphicsConfig.xml being broken


Powerplay
- Fix for "System Resistance" ships not having any weapons in Military Strike zones in powerplay systems
- Prevent depopulating systems, change the background sim to only allow Factions to retreat if there are at least 4 factions in that system
- Additional modifier to require a commodities market during Trade related CG's


Audio
- Fixed bug where planetary music suite didn't play when approaching from supercruise
- Reduced the timing interval on the probe to bring the total transmission down to just over 6 mins
- Small volume boost on flight controllers and radio chatter
Elite Dangerous - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Brendan Caldwell)

Pilots in Elite Dangerous [official site] have discovered a hidden map in an alien probe after scanning the probe and applying a spectral analysis to the sound it produced. Probes like this have been around for a while but it wasn’t until last week that a player, Cmdr Rizal, “honked” at one (commander slang for using your Discovery Scanner) and documented the “reply”. Worryingly, the probe first sent out an EMP blast, temporarily cutting off the ship’s power. But after that, it spoke.

… [visit site to read more]

Elite Dangerous - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Brendan Caldwell)

We always knew they would come back some day. The race of aliens known as the Thargoids have been slotted to appear in Elite Dangerous [official site] for a while, according to the developer’s plans. And David Braben has said in interviews that he wants them to be just as scary as encounters in the previous games. But we’ve seen little in the way of actual evidence so far. While players have discovered alien life in the form of “space barnacles” and often come across ancient artifacts floating around, nothing that suggested a hostile race from beyond the stars had ever been found. Until now.

… [visit site to read more]

Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

At this year’s Develop conference in Brighton, I grabbed an hour with keynote speaker Luke Crane, Head of Games at Kickstarter, to talk about the state of play of videogames on the crowdfunding platform in 2016. Discussed: what makes a good project now, the odds of making it, ‘Kickstarter fatigue’ and the question of glory days, Kickstarter’s reaction to funded projects that are not then released, the importance of community, how the press can be unhelpful and whether or not famous names are dominating the ecosystem at the expense of smaller developers. … [visit site to read more]

Elite Dangerous - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

Elite Dangerous: Arena [official site], the spin-off standalone of Elite’s combat arena mode, is free to try this weekend. More than that, if you get it now it’s yours forever.

… [visit site to read more]

Elite Dangerous - BrettC Frontier
Greetings Commanders, we have a small update coming for PC as well as the Xbox One players. Specifically to address a number of stability issues including some additional fixes.

Patch notes

Stability Fixes
  • Fixes for crashes when Hyperspace jumping
  • Fix for crash when entering Supercruise from a Conflict Zone
  • (Xbox) Fix for title entering unresponsive state after disconnecting the WAN Network cable
  • (Xbox) Fix for title crash from launch

General Fixes
  • (Xbox) Fix for loss of Horizons access after launching from Engineer Base
  • Fix for Docking Computer and NPC’s drifting off target landing pad
  • Various text updates
Elite Dangerous - BrettC_Frontier
Greetings Commanders, we have a small update coming for PC as well as the Xbox One players. Specifically to address a number of stability issues including some additional fixes.

Patch notes

Stability Fixes
  • Fixes for crashes when Hyperspace jumping
  • Fix for crash when entering Supercruise from a Conflict Zone
  • (Xbox) Fix for title entering unresponsive state after disconnecting the WAN Network cable
  • (Xbox) Fix for title crash from launch

General Fixes
  • (Xbox) Fix for loss of Horizons access after launching from Engineer Base
  • Fix for Docking Computer and NPC’s drifting off target landing pad
  • Various text updates
...