Answers from the devs #2

Q: Is 550 charity missions to increase Naval Rank from Vice Admiral to Admiral the correct amount of effort required, or has this been over-done since early 1.3 when people went from Post Commander to Admiral in 6 hours?
 

Carro

Banned
Q: Is 550 charity missions to increase Naval Rank from Vice Admiral to Admiral the correct amount of effort required, or has this been over-done since early 1.3 when people went from Post Commander to Admiral in 6 hours?



This.

Forget PP, forget CQC and all that unwanted guff. Make the existing stuff work.
 
1. Collector drones do not return successfully if your ship is moving - you need to to be totally stationary or it crashes into the hull. Is this a bug or by design?
Must be a bug.

For me this works fine (i have been mining this week). You can move, and collecter drone follows you and collects correctly. But you have to keep your distance to drone - when you are too far, they will "die".

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Q: Will we see the return of dev diaries and jumpers?
what is the appeal for dev diaries? Honestly they were not very informative.
 
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They've mentioned that landing would probably be in done in stages - so landing on small, airless moons to start with. I guess that's doable within the timeframe they've had.
I agree with this. I think the first stage might be planetary flight. Actually see things on the ground, atmospheric flight and combat, maybe add alien life to scans!
 
Q: Since it looks like CQC will use P2P also, how are you going to detect cheaters that just give themselves a slight edge, say 33% more energy for shields?
 
Also I just want to express gratitude to Zac for getting these questions. Lots of new information, especially specifying what's not in Gamescon reveal - that's always good to know. Also really nice to see stations could have action around them!
 
So "walking around" will not be the announcement and Thargoids have also been described as a long way off...doesn't leave much wiggleroom for what this thing "you have been working hard on for a long time" could be then, does it? ;):D

Judging from the previous updates, it will be something that was never part of the DDA and that no player ever wanted to be part of Elite: Dangerous, but is coming anyway because the devs "are really excited about this!".
 
What exactly is the mechanism behind ranking?

There are multiple types of rank. Firstly you have rank within the Pilot’s Federation for combat, trade and exploration. These ranks increase as you successfully complete tasks pertaining to each type of rank. For example Selling exploration data will go towards increasing your exploration rank. Profit from Selling trade goods will increase your Trade Rank.

Combat works slightly differently, this is done on the number of kills, but the points you get for each kill are based on the combat rank of the target relative to your combat rank so if you are harmless and kill an Elite ship you will get a large number of points were as if you are Deadly and kill a ship below Expert you will not get any.

Then you get naval rank, which currently includes the Empire and the Federation. These ranks are awarded for completing missions for the appropriate navy’s high command. However, to gain access to such missions, you’ll need to be on good terms with the superpower involved. For example, you’ll only start seeing missions for the Imperial Navy if your reputation with the Empire is high. You can raise your reputation with a superpower by working with any minor faction that’s aligned with them. Trading, handing in bounties and supporting them in conflict are the kinds of activity that will increase your reputation with a minor faction, and when you complete them, a small amount of reputation trickles up to the superpower they are aligned with.

We are looking to give more attention to military ranks in the future, developing a more defined career structure. This should address issues of allegiance, as well as showing some love for the Alliance.

I think you guys misunderstood the question or missed the word "exactly". I think the person who posed that question was after some hard numbers.
 
Is there a technical reason why we don't have any Anaconda paint skins? Some in the community have talked about issues with the damage model, but I have seen a number of NPC Anacondas in game with stripy red paint and they blew up just fine.

Is there any way to have a greater variety in stations, both type and appearance? Poor & dirty or rich and shiny, with the odd outpost where the large pad is working (without wreck on it).

On navigation, in the Occulus the galaxy map is unusable without taking off the visor to see the keyboard - play it and see what I mean. Is there a chance of a alpha/numeric virtual keypad (or as many players have asked for) a "last five locations" short-list for destinations?
 
Q: Is a proper armour mechanism implementation planned or are you happy with current solution? If it's planned will it be a proper implementation of weak/hard zones (I guess WoT is a good example) or same thickness for the whole ship?

Q: Are you planning to rebalance weapons? There are some weapons that are almost not used by players (frag cannon comes to my mind).

Q: Are you going to adjust power play related NPC interdiction frequency or are you happy with current situation? I know there are easy ways to get out of interdiction but they feel exploitey.

Q: What are your thoughts about this post https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=167069

Q: Will we get the most basic feedback on issues reported in bugtracker? I mean just the status - Bug/Duplicate/It's not a bug it's a feature.

Q: Will you keep working hard to make this game the greatest space sim ever?
 
Pretty sure this isn't me, but...

Q: There are always frame rate drops when I presume things are loading while flying around. I find it REALLY breaks immersion. Is there a fix coming for this?
 
in short - why are we not rewarded in merits linked to missions and actions directly linked to the philosophy of the faction? Why do we have to play two different set of games to be rewarded?

Why do I have to FIRST commit to a completely unrelated RISK tabletop gameplay to take over systems for Archon Delaine and THEN gain a bonus for smuggling and piracy? Is the point of Archon Delaine to own territory or to be a Pirate Warlord.

Honestly, his entire organisation is described as nomads so owning territory sounds completely stupid for him.

-Why not reward me with Merits for each smuggling mission I do in Archon Delaines name?
-Why not reward me with merits per stolen piece of cargo sold?
-Why not reward me with merits for each law enforcement killed?

How do you expect an explorer for Li Hong-Riu find the time to reach rank 5 and THEN explore a lot for a week and turn in his rewards before restarting again?

Or should he explore first and then grind to rank five while worrying that some federal agent or player will blow him up because he belongs to that evil faction of explorers and he looses all exploration data?
 
Thanks for the responses Zac.

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When will we be able to walk on our ships?

We have nothing to announce on this one, now or at Gamescom. Walking around on ships is in our plans, for sure, but it’s a very long way off.

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Q. Thanks for the honesty, its appreciated. So my next question is when will we have planetary landings? Is that also a very long way off?

According to some members of the community, Solo players should have a limited or no effect on Powerplay - or, alternatively, playing in Open should offer Powerplay bonuses. Is this something you are considering?

No. For us Solo, Groups and Open are all valid and equal ways to play the game.

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I have to say this comment is no great surprise to me but its good we have confirmation. It is nevertheless very disappointing because I feel that the developers are seriously out of touch - in an extremely painful way.. Can't state how wrong I think you guys are about this because you have seriously stunted the game by going OTT in catering to the, shall we say, risk adverse. I do wonder how long this game would last if no one played in Open. :/ Ultimately PP comes down to trying to out grind others in solo - can't believe anyone at FD thinks this makes for great gameplay :(
 
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Thanks for the answers Devs.

Personally I'm pleased your not looking at 'walking round ship', plenty of meaty stuff to do before that. I don't mean more PVP stuff though, capiche! ;)

I have patience (he says through gritted teeth)
 
Maybe planet landing? But to me it doesn't make too much sense introducing planet landing without option to go out of you ship and walk around that planet... That's why I was always under impression that planet landing will get AFTER first person mode (aka walking around ships and stations).

I remember at one point (might be in the early videos) BD musing about using baby steps on this. While he indicated that he would prefer walking on ships firsts, he was also pointing that this would be quickly germane without having somewhere else to walk on. Therefore he indicated that things that would come first would be landing on atmosphere-less bodies (i.e asteroids / moons) - with the ancillaries of things like dock-able asteroid/pirate) bases and gameplay around those resources. Now not sure how that would or could be implemented in the current non-persistent space (i.e. things not in the database only exists in instances) - but it is something that could be in the cards.
 
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