This year’s event was great and I think people enjoyed my VR shipyard. A couple of CMDRs even crashed my racing Courier, although Kerrash failed to live up to his name – he only dented the shields!
I had a hilarious game of Artemis with Frontier & the Elite Ambassadors – they made me captain (eek!) but we didn’t die, so that was a result even if I have no idea how our score rated.
The Q&A session with Frontier was a highlight and FD didn’t disappoint, giving out special edition LaveCon skins for the Eagle, Asp scout, FDL and Anaconda! For both PC and XBOX CMDRs.
Information obtained
I asked Michael Brookes some questions, carefully, because he was taking a six-foot-high axe out of his car at the time!
Will Elite support Nvidia’s new Ansel 360 degree pause and screenshot system?
There are no current plans, but maybe in the future.
Is there a (lore) reason the Imperial Eagle – a Gutamaya ship – has a Core Dynamics logo on the cockpit?
It’s a bug.
Michael also said that the new ship launched fighters would change the dynamic, making traders much more dangerous if they had them. Something we suspected would be the case.
The Frontier Q&A revealed more
Jacques station is going to end its wandering to start 2nd human “bubble”.
2.2 will introduce a local “player journal” containing a wealth of data for 3rd party interfaces and apps. Details to follow.
Passenger missions – CMDRs will need to scan objects at location to confirm they visited. These will include Battle locations and Historical sites. Some as far as 65-70,000 Lyr’s out. Frontier hope to expand the lore and story of the game though some of this “historical sites”.
Community Goals at Jacques will be coming, but will run for a month, to allow CMDRs to make the trip.
Q: System security around start systems?
Would like to increase system security.
Q: What did Frontier think was justified criticism of Engineers?
Material collection was too hard initially. Made mistakes with balance. Weapon effects were supposed to be super-rare. But FD changed tack when they became a role meta. Healer. Tank etc. so make the “exchange rep for desired effect” mechanic.
Q: Ship kits for more ships? More ship kits are coming.
Q: 2.2 A.I. Crew? Multi-crew is purely multiplayer. No AI Crew in the pipelines.
Q: Building based on planets? It's coming, but not this season.
Q: Group management tools? Changing over time. Nothing to announce right now.
Q: Why are all the stations the same? "GamesCon"
Q: Cross platform play with Xbox? Not currently possible.
Q: Planet tourism. Tour buses? Probably.
Q: Jump gates / faster way to get to Jacques station? Michael Brookes said “Like modded FSD drives you mean? Never say “never”, but Jump Gates unlikely.”
Q: Beluga liner? "Wait and see"
Q: AI wing men "escorts"? Can't say anything right now..
Q: Ship naming? "desirable feature" did not elaborate.
Q: Vive rendering any fix? One fix has already been issued, but the problem requires re-engineering - no ETA.
Q: Why no Landing lights when gear deployed? "Good idea"
Q: Decals? More soon.
Q: How is placement of objects and events decided? It depends on context, there are no hard rules. There is no FD Community Goal dartboard!
Q: Where is Formadine rift? Can't help you.
Q: Any plans for group ID in game? E.g. Clan tags. Michael Brookes said he would prefer to utilise in game minor faction as an ID. Sandro "would like this" but said there are some technical hurdles to overcome. Not straightforward.
Q: If my faction loses all rep, will it be removed from the game? No faction can be kicked from their home system.
Q: The Galaxy map for VR is hard to use. Any changes in the pipeline? "Being looked at"
Q: Slaves. If they "go off" can they be sold as meat or fertiliser? Sandro asked “don’t we vet these questions?” but the answer was “probably not!”
Q: Where are the race of felines from early elite? They are not in ED, so you can decide what happened to them!
Q: Rise of the alliance? Maybe soon-ish.
Q: Could CMDRs with little time drop autonomous materials collectors, then come back for them – say a week - later? Doable but not planned.
Q: Could we have player created ships? New ships are great, but player created ships are not going to be a thing.
Q: Large ships at outposts / supersize ships too large for stations. Can we have them? Outposts don't support large ships for gameplay reasons. FD could do it. If there was a reason.
Q: When can we summon ships? Nothing to announce now. {GamesCon again maybe?}