News Content Recap: Beyond - Chapter Four Livestream - Background Simulation and Scenarios

[Syrelai]

I am definitely interested in the upcoming changes and what it means for the small group that I command. It feels like the goal of this update so far is to bring more engaging gameplay, as well as more life to the galaxy around you. The voiced parts are a nice touch also.

Having new megaships about seems cool, except they seem to be a detriment to your system, unless you have those to protect it. Hopefully a mission report or "daily bugle" news will show what's happened around the system.

Installations that are unique types, like bars and the like, seem really cool and I really really hope there will be a benefit to having your player group own them, instead of a otherwise useless installation that's good for maybe one mission type. I'd like to see that if our faction owns a bar type installation, that we perhaps get a 1 or 2% increase to the selling price of beer in our system, as we're essentially keeping stock. It's a very small boon, but one that would make me care more for having an owned installation.

I can't wait to see the new mission board... hopefully they'll be categories by state influenced available missions... I'd really dislike being fed 15 available missions of the type I would really rather avoid, being forced to wait 15 minutes for a chance at a mission I might have interest in.

All in all, I'm already impressed.

On a final note, I hope to see some ship balancing.

 

[mossfoot]

Another good option for the scenarios would be optional rewards. Once you complete it you could tell them what you're looking for. Like if she says, "how can I possibly repay you" you might have in the menu below.

Cold hard credits, baby.
I need some materials, do you have any?
How about a swap? Cargo for cargo?

In the latter two cases, those would be things she'd drop for you before leaving.

 

[Ziljan]

Yeah, but 5 minutes? That was the time I saw remaining on the USS. You have to fly there, drop in, find out what they want, fly out, get it from somewhere, and get back in 5 minutes? I could see that existing as a tick-over rate before it disappears and a new one appears, but not for figuring out what they want and coming back.

If they had a third option like the "I'll be right back" I mentioned, that could maybe trigger a timer extension that would allow you to leave and come back in time.

I'd wager that this feature will arrive in a later update if 5 minutes proves to be too short a window. I am a bit of a speed demon, so 5 minutes seems fine to me. Also if in the mining livestream they show that we can have multiple limpet types on a single controller, then outfitting a multirole rescue ship should be very doable. Once you learn the cargo types needed by system state etc, then stocking the right cargo should be easy enough as well.

 

[Faybs]

I'd wager that this feature will arrive in a later update if 5 minutes proves to be too short a window. I am a bit of a speed demon, so 5 minutes seems fine to me. Also if in the mining livestream they show that we can have multiple limpet types on a single controller, then outfitting a multirole rescue ship should be very doable. Once you learn the cargo types needed by system state etc, then stocking the right cargo should be easy enough as well.

Since it's just a timer value that (should be) easy to tweak, it may even get fixed during the beta if enough of us mention it.

 

[UFO Reality]

Greetings Commanders,

Conflict and Movement

• Conflict states trigger in the same way but winning a conflict has changed. This is explained in greater detail below.

Conflict changes

• Wars, Civil Wars and Elections will now freeze the influence of both factions involved.
• The conflict between the two factions will be resolved weekly, following a process of winning victories on a daily basis.
• To claim a victory, players need to complete relevant missions handed out by their faction and take part in the newly revamped Conflict Zones.
• You can find information on how your faction is doing during the war, and the assets it has on the line, in the status panel.

• This information can also be found in the Squadrons Allegiance page.

• At the end of a week, the side that has won the most days wins the war!

What will happen to combat vouchers handed in?

Will the amount of kills/vouchers still contribute to the influence or will it be only doing "relevant" missions that will matter?

What sort of influence points will be given?

Will the "relevant" missions contribute more and make combat/kills be not as important to influence?

Oh Yeah...Well Done FD team, everything sounds awesome..can't wait to see it in the main game!!

 

[Riverside]

Firstly I want to thank all those involved in producing a quality stream, it was well planned & produced, in particular making use of slow mode on the chat throughout & accounting for it on the ship skin competition. It was noticeably slicker than usual.

With regard to the content reveal it all seems well thought out with my only issue being over the daily score count of wars favouring the regular player over the weekend warriors who may otherwise be able to make up the difference by there being more players participating. Hopefully this is just a detail I haven't fully understood.

I say this because it stands in stark contrast to what seems to be a poorly conceived FSS (system discovery) mechanism shown last week. I sincerely hope those in a position to do so at FDev track feedback on this FSS mechanism and are prepared to start over again if this new system cannot accommodate all of the scenarios the current system does.

Season 3 is supposed to be revisiting, fixing and fleshing out existing gameplay, not replacing stuff that worked with something that is objectively worse in some regards and only subjectively better in all others. In that same light, announcing a season of bug fixes & fleshing out gameplay as free is low hanging fruit when it's all stuff that has to be free anyway so I'd really like you to stop that just as you thankfully dropped 'personal narrative'. Season 3 has delivered a bunch of fixes to the core game that arguably should have been done right the first time, a continuing storyline and some new equipment. There hasn't been anything significant this year you could have charged for anyway.

 

[mossfoot]

I'd wager that this feature will arrive in a later update if 5 minutes proves to be too short a window. I am a bit of a speed demon, so 5 minutes seems fine to me. Also if in the mining livestream they show that we can have multiple limpet types on a single controller, then outfitting a multirole rescue ship should be very doable. Once you learn the cargo types needed by system state etc, then stocking the right cargo should be easy enough as well.

Yes, having multiple limpet types is definitely a must to make NPC fuel ratting feasible. I just can't see myself equipping a fuel limpet on the off chance of maybe coming across someone.

 

[TimWellens]

Awesome work Frontier!! Q4 update is getting increasingly interesting and I just LOVE those livestreans o7

 

[lokvette]

Bad guys can be happy reeking destruction! Can destruction be prosperous? Hmmmm!

I would say yes if your intent is to destroy and then rebuild in your own image.

The term happiness just makes it sound like a bunch of happy clappers, why would a faction expand just because its "happy" happy with what? If however the faction is in a stable state or a growing one then the system over there might be worth moving into.

I would think that if faction A moved into factions B C and D's system they might not be too "happy" about it thus sparking a war, wars are not joyfull event.

Thus again the term happiness is very unsuited and for me is a bit lazy in terms of thinking the terminology through.

 

[lokvette]

Money <> Happiness

Don't worry, Be happy... Don't worry, Be happy now!

Money does not buy nor bring you happiness.

It might help to get things to make life a easier, but ive never been one to care for it.

In game however if I was living as one of the many millions in my faction of birth or choice, id rather have an all round prosperous faction than one who thought money was the road to "happiness".

 

[Arindor]

Does this mean that the BGS will be similar to PP (especially with the weekly updates)? I thought the BGS was supposed to be dynamic and not reliant of such an immersion-breaking mechanic.

 

[Micha]

I like the multiple states per faction but I fear it will negatively impact mission selection on the boards.

But how can you have simultaneously *more* mission variety (which most people seem to have been shouting for) along with *less* mission variety? Something has to give.
So while it might be more difficult to find a system which has a preponderance of the missions you like, you should be able to find the missions you like more generally spread around now, no?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Lets be honest. We all understand at this point. If someone has the option not to be stopped. They will mode swap so they cant be stopped while they still complete an objective against you.

Someones playstyle ect has nothing to do with this part of the game.

We really need the people that are interacting with each other to be interacting with each other.

That way the people not involved in this sort of thing. Will generally be left alone. And greifing will die instantly due to meaningful PVP.

But as long as that option stays available. We're not far off from where we are today.

Even with these amazing changes.

Again, I dont want to take anything away from those changes. I do think they are very awesome.

But they dont mean anything until we can see the people on the other side. They did add objective based gameplay after all.

If they mode swap to perform an objective, that leave you free to perform an objective, or do you fly around looking for other players not in your group to destroy.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Does this mean that the BGS will be similar to PP (especially with the weekly updates)? I thought the BGS was supposed to be dynamic and not reliant of such an immersion-breaking mechanic.

AFAIK it will still be a daily tick like before.

 

[WorldsGreatestForumDad]

If they mode swap to perform an objective, that leave you free to perform an objective, or do you fly around looking for other players not in your group to destroy.

I look for people trying to take control of a system where we are the controlling faction. That are doing harm by trying to remove us from a position of control in which we worked for.

Its sooo cool watching them show up on a bounty board. Watching their numbers fly up. But you cant collect the bounty. You just get to watch them compete for first place on your bounty boards. Awesome gameplay.

The point is. Its a person coming and and causing disruptions. We should be able to stop the people from causing those disruptions. They arent NPC's.

These are now player controlled objectives.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

So the discovery scanner becomes a mandatory module, since it's being used to find USS and scenarios play out in USS. Make it a core module FD, or the gankers with not a care in the world for scenarios and USS will have an even easier time, since your own ship will be at a one slot less available disadvantage.

I also noticed the 5:22 timer on the USS shown in the stream. That is way too short. Some systems are huge, and you spend dozens of minutes to get anywhere in supercruise. Unless USS always spawn close to you, you won't be able to reach quite a lot of them within the expiration timer.

 

[Henkka77]

I was expecting a possibility of finally pledging to a minor faction, but i recon that pledging/joining to Squadron does the same job now since Squadrons and PMFs will be integrated?
If someone could confirm this...?

 

[zzehirbazz]

Wouldn't it be more interested if it was more meaningful? eg: A faction's mission/task to go and assault another faction's mega ship?

Wouldn't it be more interesting if it was more involved? eg: You were assigned a Wing of NPCs who you could give basic tactical commands to (attack this/defend that)?

As it stands, it's just another bolted on mini-game mechanic at almost a loose end. eg: Who's really going to participate in these? How often? Why?

And this was underlined in the livestream with, Yes, if another CMDRs was there they could sign up against you... Why would that ever happen unless the game orchestrates this via some joined up meaningful mechanics? eg: One Faction being told to attack a mega-ship, while another is told to defend it? And the game orchestrates this to facilitate meaningful PvP if that's what players are after. And God forbid Powerplay should try this, an obvious candidate to orchestrate PvP for those interested!

And of course conflict zones underline it too. Arrive in the mini-game and choose your side. It's as inconsequential as that. Surely with a war there should be more involvement than that? Surely your choice to fight for a side should mean more than the time until you next press "J" to jump out of the mini-game?

But as it is, we're 4yrs in and seeing baby steps of bolted on mechanics which even games from 20+ years ago trumped.


I wasn't expecting much from tonight, and Distress Calls to fly off and fetch something from somewhere else, to return it back to an NPC who simply won't care at all and will never join up with anything else, sort of sums it up...


I enjoyed the exploration changes. Any my big hopes for some really meaningful improvements are with mining now...

You are forgetting Squadrons. The way they gave out the info they made it clear that Squadrons might be able to join with factions and can be responsible for certain BGS changes for the gameplay's sake. That is the only reason everything looks up in the air for you. Think of your squadron's alligned faction wants to expand as a set objective. They have to fight through various states for example: Famine. Then your squadron will order up everyone to find and search hungry pilot USS's as seen on livestream to fight against famine to expand. It will be a choice that you made to seek for those missions.

 

[zzehirbazz]

I like what ive read about, but not sure about the term "happiness" makes the game sound very my little pony.

Prosperity would have been my word of choice.

This. First word I was thinking of as replacement. Prosperity sounds more...formal and general.

 

[Winterwalker]

I was expecting a possibility of finally pledging to a minor faction, but i recon that pledging/joining to Squadron does the same job now since Squadrons and PMFs will be integrated?
If someone could confirm this...?

It did sound like there might be a loose connection. Squadrons livestream is next week though.