Greetings commanders!

Thank you all for the excellent and valuable feedback you have provided during Phase 1 of the Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Alpha. We have been collecting your comments and sharing them with our development team. We are excited to announce Phase 2 will start TODAY at 14:00 BST/13:00 UTC.

Phase 2 will include the following:

• A new starting system: Nervi
  
• Starting credits 300,000 for new Commanders. This will also be added to existing Alpha Commanders’ balances.
  
• A Cobra ship with multi-crew seat free to every Commander
  
• Expanded playable galaxy to approximately 20LY
  
• Conflict Zones on foot are now playable
  
• New suit available for purchase: Dominator

A number of reported issues from Phase 1 have been resolved or addressed for this build. Please note that these are not ALL of the reported issues or fixes from Phase 1.

Fixes/resolutions:

• New starting system and ship ownership should alleviate long travel times
  
• Issue fixed where players reported getting stuck in front of Vendor
  
• Added extra mission information, such as travel distance and pre-requisites, to further improve the player experience
  
• Fixed a few issues where mission objectives would not clear, or would not be displayed/initiated
  
• Fixed the issue where missions were not displaying the correct threat levels
  
• Adjusted fire area of effect causing players to receive fire damage through walls and ceilings
  
• Pressing escape after booking APEX will no longer leave players ‘stuck’ at the counter
  
• Reboot/restore mission will now provide players with the Power Regulators if required
  
• Suit and weapon upgrades fixed
  
• System map should now open at the correct speed
  
• Fixed graphical issues experienced when entering and leaving ‘local map’ on foot
  
• Players can now pay fines and bounties via starport services and the authority contact
  
• Adjusted crime detection and consequences for all activities.

WE NEED YOUR HELP
In Phase 2, players may experience ‘Orange Sidewinder’ whilst in physical multi-crew, when flying to destinations or dropping into/out of supercruise/glide. This is a major bug that we are aware of, but need your help to fully investigate. Please ensure, when reporting this issue, you provide as much detail as possible. As always, thank you for your support.

Known Issues

• Players will experience a crash when inviting others to ‘Teams’ whilst on foot – hotfix imminent
  
• Whilst on foot, players unable to select a side in a Conflict Zone via their Comms panel – this is not an issue if players use Frontline Solutions, or select a side whilst still in their ship

[/b]

In Conflict Zones, Victory credits shown are incorrect (too low)

When in ‘Teams’ and in a hangar, players may experience ‘invisible’ host ship

Player models may move through counters if sprinting, when they interact with a vendor or terminal

Collection mission objective may only update for one person in the instance

When in the 'Long distance planner', selecting your ship and moving around the galaxy UI will soft-lock the player upon exiting

Unable to meet up: If you are having issues meeting up, return to the front end and try again

Oculus Rift HMD does not display the game

When a crime has been cleared, it is still shown in the authority contact at the social space terminal

‘Complete Missions' button may not work at station terminals

Players may find that selecting to transfer consumables from the ship's inventory does not work

[/list]

As always we will continue to optimise Odyssey throughout its development.

Please be sure to share your new feedback for Phase 2 in our feedback thread and to report any issues on our Issue Tracker.

We look forward to hearing from you!

o7

Greetings Commanders,

Thank you for taking part in the alpha and providing all the feedback you’ve given so far. As we move into Day 3, there’s already a lot of information to collect and organise, which will be invaluable to the development team.

As we began sorting your feedback, it quickly became clear which aspects are the most pertinent at this early stage of the alpha. As such, there are two areas we’d like to address:



The most prominent feedback concerns the travel time when using Apex Interstellar’s shuttle service. There’s no doubt that the time spent during these trips is less engaging than Odyssey’s other features, given the currently limited options for interaction during the journey.

Before we discuss solutions, we’re keen to make some points clear:

• The conditions of the alpha greatly exaggerate the impact of this wait time which won’t feel the same at launch. This is partly due to the large size of the Adityan system and the fact that the starting station is in the “corner” of the system map.
  
  
• Because mission information doesn’t include the distance to the target location yet, your ability to select missions with shorter travel times is reduced.

We’re already considering our options to resolve each of these points. They include moving where players start in the alpha to a more central location which would reduce the distance to almost all of the locations in the system. We also plan to update mission information to include distance from the target locations.

To avoid any confusion, we are not looking to reduce the travel time so that Apex Interstellar shuttles travel faster than player-owned ships. This would result in a fundamental change to Elite that contradicts the lore, physics, and potential longevity of the game. Instead, we hope that the above changes alongside an increased number of loadout and cosmetic customisation options to use during these trips will improve the experience.



We’re aware that many players are excited to try out PvP on-foot, even at the expense of others who are trying to complete their missions. In future updates, we’ll add the detention centre respawn loop which mirrors the existing loop for in-game criminals in the base game. If needed, penalties for killing on-foot players can also be adjusted.

That said, we expect that once on-foot gameplay expands to the whole galaxy, this scenario will be far less common. In the meantime, we’d like to remind players that they can also test the alpha in Solo and Private Groups if they prefer.

As for NPCs, we understand that they sometimes seem far too deadly, especially at the lower Threat levels. We’re are investigating how currently the Threat levels are being incorrectly assessed and reported in mission overviews and expect to make some changes in the future to remedy this.



These are just two of the many topics that have come up in your feedback and we’re grateful for all of them. The team are collecting, organising, and relaying every piece of information from the feedback thread. We chose to cover these particular aspects to assure you we’re listening carefully and acting on your feedback.

There’s lots of time to go and we hope you continue to enjoy the alpha as each phase unlocks more content. We expect there’ll be plenty more feedback and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks as always,

o7

Greetings Commanders,

You should see the following alpha updates within the next hour:

• Rebalanced collection mission rewards based on feedback.
  
• Fixed players sometimes not receiving the power regulator with new missions.

Please keep the feedback coming!

o7

Greetings Commanders,

You may have noticed two small updates since the launch of the Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Alpha. These were to implement two hotfixes with the following changes:

Day 1 Hotfix

• A fix for an issue preventing some transportation missions appearing
  
• A fix for a crash when using the search function in the Galaxy Map
  
• A fix for a crash when going into Supercruise

Day 2 Hotfix

• Improved loading time on system map
  
• Fixed an issue with some transportation missions not generating for settlements
  
• Fixed an issue where some missions would not spawn required items correctly
  
• Fixed a crash when the graphics configuration is modified to use invalid texture settings

Thanks for your feedback so far, we hope you'll continue to enjoy the alpha!

o7

Greetings Commanders,

We're excited for you to take your first steps in Elite Dangerous: Odyssey. Read below to ensure the best possible experience during the Alpha.

To gain access to the Alpha you must pre-order the Deluxe Alpha version of Odyssey.

Alpha Phase 1 Focus: Core Systems and Networking

Start Time: 13:00 UTC/14:00 BST

Features:

• New commander creation; starting from scratch
  
• On-foot in 1 system: Adityan (Rest of galaxy is permit locked)
  
• Travel via Apex Interstellar – new to Elite Dangerous
  
• Variety of local missions available from NPC's and mission boards

New content will be rolled out in further Alpha phases.


Specifications*

Recommended Specs (High Settings at 1080p)

• Intel Core i5-8600K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (above 4 GHz recommended)
  
• 12GB RAM
  
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 5500
  
• 60GB available space

Minimum Specs (Low Settings at 720p)

• Intel Core i5-4590 / AMD FX-4350
  
• 8GB RAM
  
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 / AMD Radeon R9 280X
  
• 60GB available space

Please note, the VR implementations are not currently optimised and not ready for testing at this time.

*These specifications are subject to change as we move toward release.

IMPORTANT: Advice for the Alpha

• Phase 1 does not feature a tutorial, please reference the control page for help.
  
• Planetary Tech, including geometry, will not be final until release. However, players may see colouration changes throughout the Alpha phases.
  
• All players will start with only a flight suit and pistol. It is not recommended that you start combat missions until you have at least purchased the Maverick suit as AI will be very challenging.

If you encounter any issues during your Alpha experience please report them as soon as possible via the Odyssey section on the Issue Tracker where our development team will be actively investigating reports. You can check Known Issues here.

Good luck and o7 Commanders!

Greetings Commanders,

With the Odyssey Alpha almost upon us we wanted to take the opportunity to share with you our minimum and recommended specifications for the Alpha phase of Elite Dangerous: Odyssey.

Please note that as this is an Alpha phase, a large amount of optimisation work for the final release is yet to be completed. As with all pre-released content, please be aware that you may encounter bugs and inconsistent performance as part of your experience. Community feedback is a vital part of the Alpha process and we would encourage everyone to share their experience to help shape Odyssey into the best experience for launch.

If you want to report an issue, or check if an issue has already been reported, please head over to the issue tracker:

https://issues.frontierstore.net/reported-issues/elite-dangerous-odyssey-alpha


These specifications are subject to change as we move toward release.


Recommended Specs (High Settings at 1080p)

• Intel Core i5-8600K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (above 4 GHz recommended)
  
• 12GB RAM
  
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 5500
  
• 60GB available space

Minimum Specs (Low Settings at 720p)

• Intel Core i5-4590 / AMD FX-4350
  
• 8GB RAM
  
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 / AMD Radeon R9 280X
  
• 60GB available space

Please note, the VR implementations are not currently optimised and not ready for testing at this time.

We're aiming for the Alpha to be available for download at 2PM BST/1PM UTC on Monday 29th March.

We can't wait to begin to share what we've been working on with you all!

See you in Odyssey, Commanders!


o7

Greetings Commanders!

We're just days away from the launch of the Odyssey alpha on March 29! The alpha is going to be an incredibly important tool in shaping Odyssey based on your feedback, and to make sure we gather data and test efficiently, we'll be splitting the alpha into phases as pictured below.



PHASE ONE: FIRST STEPS

• New Commander issued for every participant
  
• In a single star system to maximise player interaction
  
• Remlok Maverick scavenger suit available for purchase
  
• Access to Takada and Kinematic weapon sets
  
• Apex Interstellar available for player travel
  
• Variety of activities available including salvage and collect /delivery missions.

PHASE TWO: COMBAT

• Open up 20LY of space for travel
  
• Players can now purchase ships
  
• Manticore Dominator combat suit available for purchase
  
• Faction conflicts will be enabled
  
• Frontline Solutions available
  
• Missions for neighbouring systems available, including trading with settlements and POIs
  

PHASE THREE: EXPLORATION

• Increase playable ‘bubble’ to 50LY
  
• Includes unexplored planets, allowing for First Footfall experience
  
• Supratech Artemis explorer suit available for purchase
  
• Players can analyse organics with the Genetic Sampler tool

PHASE FOUR: COMPATABILITY

• Snapshot of players’ Commanders added to ALPHA
  
• Carriers, ships, fighters and SRVs can be used

We'll be sharing more details on tonight's stream (7PM UTC - 25th March 2021) so make sure to tune in at https://www.twitch.tv/elitedangerous or the Elite Dangerous YouTube channel.

Buckle up, Commanders, we're on the home straight!

o7

Greetings Commanders,

We're pleased to announce that player memorials have been added in-game. As described in this forum post, we've placed a number of listening posts throughout the galaxy, featuring an epitaph and a list of names.

The memorial posts may be found in the following locations:

• Achenar
  
• Alioth
  
• Asellus Primus
  
• Colonia
  
• Dromi
  
• Shinrarta Dezhra
  
• Sol

Names will be added periodically every few months across all locations, allowing visitors to see the full list at any post at any time. If you'd like to request a name to be added to the memorials, you can do so in this forum thread.

We'll continue monitoring and listening to your feedback as always.

o7

Greetings Commanders!


Last week was big for Elite Dangerous: Odyssey news! Not only did we release a brand new look at Odyssey pre-alpha gameplay, we also revealed that the alpha will begin on March 29 on PC (more details on this soon). The gameplay reveal was followed by a live interview with developer Gareth Hughes, answering questions around the mission itself, and giving more interesting insights into Odyssey! You can watch the entire interview over on YouTube, but if you prefer to read, we've got a refined version of Gareth's answers after the mission playthrough video below.



Let's get straight into the questions:

Q: So this is pre-alpha footage we're seeing in this video?
That's right! Things have changed rapidly, we're in that end phase of development where we are really balancing and polishing everything. We're seeing pretty dramatic day-to-day improvement, the quality level is going up and up and up!

Q: This video showed off one particular mission, at one particular site, on one particular planet - and this is scaled galaxy wide?
That's it! We're looking at 27 different settlements, spanning six different themes: agricultural, industrial, extraction, tourism, research, military. There's a really wide variety of settlements, each of the themes has unique building types that can facilitate unique mission types. We also have more generic missions that work across all of the themes. There's lots of variation depending on the planet, the type of faction that currently has ownership of the settlement (via BGS) and more.

Q: Could you talk about what kind of NPCs we might encounter at a settlement?
Generally we split the NPCs into two distinct types in terms of behaviour. There's the guards that you were fighting against, and the civilians. Obviously they are different in terms of loadout and how they act in the settlement but I think the more fundamental thing that drives your interaction with settlement NPCs is the background simulation and your relationship with the faction. If you have a friendly relationship with that faction then you're free to pretty much go anywhere and explore, maybe you'll find some mission givers there that you can interact with. However, if you have a bad relationship with that faction, that settlement may just end up in a shoot on sight situation.

If you go in shooting, that's going to upset even the most friendly NPCs! As soon as you're killing NPCs without reason, you're given a bounty straight away, and you're pretty much fair game! The settlement doesn't have a hive mind in terms of what you're doing. If you're detected doing something that's going to elicit a hostile response from the AI, before the whole settlement is aware of that, the message has to be radioed out - you're given a window of opportunity to interject before they can send that message out.

Q: Sometimes the NPCs will ask you to stop for a scan, can you talk about this?
That's right, they have the same scanning device as you do, and it can pick up on your existing criminality. You might have a cordial relationship with the faction, but if you do something suspicious, they'll scan you with the Profile Analyser, if they detect an in-jurisdiction crime on you, then they will react immediately. You also see in the video, that some buildings have gating. There are a few ways to get through that day, either via overloading the mechanism, or you'll also notice a number '3' above the panel - this is the authorisation level required. The way you get this authorisation is by scanning an NPC that already has it - you're effectively stealing their identity. The NPCs don't like you doing this, and if you get scanned whilst in possession of a cloned authorisation, they will react.

There's lots of ways you can approach a settlement, it's not the case that you have to go in guns blazing. It's also not the case that you can't achieve mission objectives that are nefarious by stealthing your way in and avoiding criminality that's going to get you in trouble straight away.

Q: If you've been scanned once, will NPCs just leave you alone?
NPCs can be interested by suspicious stimuli. So for instance if they saw the cut panel on the floor, they'd know something didn't seem right, and if they see you near the panel - they'll investigate you. If you have just been scanned, another NPC won't just come and scan you again instantly, but if you're moving through and setting off all these stimuli, they're going to respond!

Q: Are there things that a player can do to avoid settlement defences like turrets and Goliaths?
Absolutely, what you did in the mission playthrough was like the ultimate 'pull the plug' - taking the regulator will shut down pretty much everything like turrets, that does mean all the NPCs will react to that though. If you're doing a more stealthy approach, the command building often has multiple consoles that you can access to turn off various security systems. If you're patient, you can scan the AI, understand the patrol routes, apply some mods to your suit to make you more stealthy, or use a silenced weapon, you can get to that building and disable those features to make your life easier if you don't want a firefight. If you're detected in an area that you don't belong, they'll warn and fine you at first, but if you're persistent things will get more aggressive!

We've got some classic missions like assassinations, and new missions like sabotage and heists. Some of those may give a bonus payment if you're not discovered or don't kill anybody. We're trying to give the missions a lot more flavour and storytelling in terms of the context around them.

Q: Can you talk about what happens if you fail a mission, or die?
If you die, you fail the mission you're currently doing. When you die, you get a choice of two things. If you're on foot and don't have a ship (which is possible in Odyssey), you'll respawn at the nearest port or outpost. If you do have a ship, you'll get a choice to respawn at the port, or in your ship. If your ship is on the planet surface, you'll respawn in your ship on orbit, if it's docked at a port already, you'll respawn in your ship at the port. Anything that's in your backpack inventory (different from permanent storage) is lost when you die.

Q: The NPCs in the video weren't so tough compared to others, can you talk about NPC difficulty?
This relates to the classic time to kill question. The answer is it's incredibly variable, as it's all gear driven. If I have the worst gear against AI or players with the best gear, they're going to have a significant advantage over me. They're going to feel spongey to me, and I'll feel easy to kill for them. If we're on a level, then it's a lot of different. In terms of AI, there's also behavioural elements to combat that scale up when you fight higher tier AI, including things like accuracy, dodging etc. If you're doing difficult missions, you're going to get good rewards. Once you scan players or AI, you can tell exactly how powerful they are.

Q: Can you give us some more examples of mission types?
An interesting one is kind of the inverse of what you did in the video! That settlement may be in an offline state, and you may be tasked to go down, get into the reactor building, and put that settlement back online. Some of the buildings might be on fire, so once it's online, you have to go building by building, de-pressurise, put fires out and so on. There may be scavengers or other NPCs there to make your job harder.

Q: Can you talk a bit more about the authorisation levels in settlements?
Yes, this is basically one of the ways we gate off areas from access. There is a consumable device in the game that's quite expensive which overrides something that usually needs a certain authorisation level. NPCs don't like seeing them, of course, but it's another way the player can move through the settlements. It's about choice, if I'm on a relatively low paying mission, do I want to use my expensive device, or do I want to swap into my Utility Suit and use my cutter and other tools?

Q: Can you talk about the different suits in Odyssey?
Yes, as you see in the video, players can take up different roles depending on the suit they use. The tactical suit for example, can carry two different weapons, which is unique to that suit, so you need to consider the best suit for the mission you're about to engage in.

Q: There are different types of weapons in Odyssey, could you tell us why a player might use them?
Way back when we started prototyping combat, it became quite clear to us early on that the ship combat has some really interesting concepts behind it, so we basically stole them! The premise is that kinetic weapons are good against armour, lasers are good against shields, and plasma re decent against both but not quite as good as the other two. When it comes to choosing a loadout, you'll want to choose your weapons to be the most efficient, so you may want lasers to take out shields and kinetic to finish them off. If you're working as a team, you can specialise, one player can be ant-shield, and another can finish them off via kinetic.

Q: For the getaway, we landed to the side of the settlement for a quick escape, there's been a small change in this, hasn't there?
Yes, you can now automatically land on planet surfaces. It's hard to encapsulate all the changes in a few minutes of video. When players get hold of the alpha, that's when they'll really understand what we've done.

Q: Can you talk about suit management?
There are different things that can pull on the suits' power. There's the life support machine, things like the shield (which is power hungry when turned on), and some of the tools can use your suit power. Survival actually starts to become something you need to become considerate of in certain situations. If you're at a settlement, there are areas where you can recharge your suit, but if you're out exploring, there's certainly a risk factor involved. Environmental factors can also have an effect on how hard your suit has to work to keep you alive. If you're in really extreme temperatures, you'll be taking physical damage. You can disembark somewhere on the planet with safe temperatures, but you can quite quickly end up somewhere where the temperature is much hotter, and end up in danger.

Q: Finally, how important is the upcoming alpha?
From my perspective, I'm interested in player feedback on the economy - how much is a bounty worth for example. When players start playing it, they'll quickly establish where we need to tweak things. There's also things like weapon balance that we'll be looking at, and we'll have time to take that on board and react.


Thank you again to Gareth for joining us on his birthday! With the alpha fast approaching on March 29, we'll have even more information on Elite Dangerous: Odyssey in the coming weeks. Until then, fly safe Commanders.


o7

Greetings Commanders,

In anticipation of the exciting new gameplay features Commanders will first experience during the Alpha phase, we have released a new video showing an Odyssey mission playthrough, which features gameplay captured from a raid mission.



The video shows a team of three Commanders plunge into a daring on-foot raid of a military outpost. Their objective: to disable the power centre and ultimately render the opposing faction powerless!

All three Commanders in the incursion team are specially equipped for their assigned role, selected from the wide range of space suits, weapons and equipment available in Elite Dangerous: Odyssey. Their tactical gear grants them an edge in their assigned tasks, whether it is to infiltrate the base avoiding detection, lay down covering fire if the alarm is raised, hacking, or quickly extract their teammates from a tight spot if enemy forces overwhelm them.

And in case you missed it in the video we are also excited to announce that the Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Alpha will be available for PC from 29 March!

Stay tuned for more Elite Dangerous: Odyssey news soon!


o7