Patch Notes Update 1.4.01 update

[Kenjinxs]

for the framerate problems i didnt so much get luck tryin to find the problem, tho i did get the game work nicely when downgradin from windows 10 to 8.1 with same 15.10 beta drivers, no drastic framerate drops on supercruise, playin 1440p/ultra without vsync i get about 170-100 fps with my system maybe the problem for amd cards performance on the windows 10 got to be somewhere on windows files(directx etc) but enough that, good job frontier for bringin this game .. keep up the good work!!

forgot to ad my comp specs I73770k@stock clocks + 16GB 2133Mhz Ram/Msi gaming 8G 390x/1440p freesync.

 

[Alex Merion-Turner]

Here's a question for the devs, and maybe management: is there a crunch culture at FD?

There's crunch at pretty much any game dev really. But it can differ, and staff can be treated with different amounts or respect when it is crunch time.

Word on the street is that FDev employees stay with the company for longer than average, many leave and come back and stay longer again.

This alone should indicate that one of two things:

a) The culture is respectful and people want to stay.

b) DBOBE is a micro managing nightmare crazy boss who physically restrains staff and wrongfully imprisons them, chaining them to their desks and never allowing them to see their families ever again. Whilst Mr.Brookes strides up and down a grid of cubicals dressed in full plate armour wielding many edge weapons and spanking any miscreants with latex coated closed cell foam all the time screaming at the post boy demanding he find the missing shipment of beard ointment. Sandro on the other hand basks in his own virtual reality suite clad in Hawaiian shirts, where everything is good and right and sunny upon his virtual beach, surrounded by scantily clad servants who feed him and his team a constant supply of margaritas and Piña coladas, and protect them from the nightmare cubical world, milking them every drop of creativity they can whilst they are soothed by soporific synth sounds piped in by Jim and crew.


Let's face it Option A is a hell of a lot more likely, and legal.

 

[glojo]

What really frustrates me is the issue of 'orange' coloured ships attacking you and NOT changing to the colour red which then shows us they are marked as enemy.

I fly an Anaconda and this has been ongoing since the introduction of 1.3. It is only an intermittent issue which is mainly experienced in the High level extraction sites and at first was only experienced when a wing of sidewinders attacked.... ONLY sidewinders but having a wing of them hitting you and not being able to quickly see who is hitting you is still frustrating. I for one am now having the same problem with Imperial Eagles... It is really annoying having to check every single contact in the hope of finding the guilty party as so far I have not found an easy way to see the offending party...

Highest Threat does not work

Nearest Enemy does not work

Can we please be told when this issue will be sorted? I put a ticket in when I first experienced it in 1.3 and have put another one one when Imperial Eagles were introduced and they commenced doing the same thing.

Thanks for a great game and fingers crossed this issue will eventually get sorted

 

[FAT_NEO]

I think you are missing the bigger picture and misunderstanding the whole point of iterative development, let me explain.
The team are working on multiple branches or versions of the game concurrently.
When released the current version is effectively in 'maintenance mode' rather than active development.

Case in point, people have raised a few issues regarding planet rendering e.g. stutter and flickering.
If 1.5 introduces a whole new way of rendering the planets, it makes little sense to pour a lot of time and resource patching the current branch; when a fix is already inbound in the next version.

There is no malicious intent, FD are merely being cost effective with their available resource.
I hope that helps explain the method.

Then shouldn't FD say that? Rather than appearing to ignore the issues outright? Communication is a thing, right?

 

[Kerrash]

I agree this is all about "Lack of resource" However if you assume they take 1.4 as is and develop 1.5. If they do not squish the current bugs 1.5 changes will only add to the bug list. If Horizons is 1.5 with Planets it will end up with 1.4 bugs, 1.5 bugs and 2.0 bugs. Yes minor bugs that do not impact gameplay are low priority. But as they increase in number the quality of the finished product will deteriorate. Also what was the point of us Beta testing 1.4 if bugs we reported may not get fixed until 1.5. or may never get fixed.

EVERY bug that is raised by one of us players makes it into the bug tracker.
When it gets fixed is merely a question of priority, this is common practice with this kind of development methodology.

The most important thing we can do is to keep raising the issues through the correct channels (i.e. https://support.frontier.co.uk )
This allows FD to gather more accurate information on the frequency and proliferation of a given issue and prioritize accordingly.

 

[Luniticisi]

All I'll say is that if I can mine again ..... I'm Happy .

 

[Cyb]

I think you are missing the bigger picture and misunderstanding the whole point of iterative development, let me explain.
The team are working on multiple branches or versions of the game concurrently.
When released the current version is effectively in 'maintenance mode' rather than active development.

Unfortunately I completely understand, however I can only assume that FD have a version control problem where bugs fixed in live sub versions are never merged back into the next major version before it's released, so the same bugs re-appear again and again.

Obviously I haven't patched or tried it, but I'm hoping correcting the colour of "Mission Target" in the cockpit UI isn't such a onerous task in the Cobra engine, maybe it's just not been mentioned in the patch notes.

Anyway, thanks to the guy at FD who got the short straw and had to spend an afternoon last week fixing these items.

 

[Angus]

Seconded - this seems such a small fix to make, for something that should never have got through the QA team, and certainly not into live.

And yes it is a trivial thing, but it adds to the overall 'rushed' impression, along with the 10cr perma-repair.

As the great Fun Boy Three and Bananarama said...

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doHQjoQmr1E

I'm staying with TotP, but going back a decade earlier and declaring that the System Map needs...................

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vv_WbNH3z4

 

[conrad1878]

i stopped all the interdictoins i dumped 10 ton of bio waste and then destroyed them trying to use cargo scoop stink is so bad no ship will come near me

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Thanks for the update. But still totally disappointed in the progress you are making on fixing bugs. You are spending too much time on the next release instead of fixing what we already have.

As much as I love ED and respect all @FD for making this game..... I have to agree... This game is no longer in Beta.... Sure, I can forgive the oculus rift issues - even if it kills me - (after all it is itsself only a dev kit) but the spinning ship AI is not something which should be back burnered imo. Ship AI is a key component of the game, as is stuff like being able to run away from any and all police interdiction.

1.5 will be released the same day as Horizons.

which is, by best guess, up to 2 months away!. Not ideal when it is when they will look at some of the issues. I am stoked for 2.0 as much as the next person, but if need be this should be delayed..... hell, they could let it go into beta at start of december, and then let it go into stress testing beta for the xmas period, that way people still all get to play over the "holidays" and will still get their xmas sales if that is what FD are worried about.

 

[LoneTech]

As pathetic as it seems this one really bugs me too. Surely its a simple fix like a spelling mistake in difficult word. It is just something that bugs you knowing its there. It feels very unprofessional.
LOL.
G.

Yeah, those sorts of fixes aren't exciting and rarely get done. Case in point, the fortification status display has a text template which reads something like:

{systemname}
Fortify progress {undermineprogress} / {fortifythreshold}
Your latest contribution {yourundermine}
{systemname}
Fortify progress {fortifyprogress} / {fortifythreshold}
Your latest contribution {yourfortify}

This text bug only affects all commanders doing Powerplay fortification, ever since powerplay was introduced (1.3, the previous major patch). Obviously it's not important that the game is lying about what the values are in the titular feature of a major patch.

 

[Commander Dek]

Be great to get a comment about the system jumps taking so long. Game is broken for me.

did you try setting up a private group with just you in it, as suggested on the Support website?

 

[Soopyyy]

As much as I love ED and respect all @FD for making this game..... I have to agree... This game is no longer in Beta.... Sure, I can forgive the oculus rift issues - even if it kills me - (after all it is itsself only a dev kit) but the spinning ship AI is not something which should be back burnered imo. Ship AI is a key component of the game, as is stuff like being able to run away from any and all police interdiction.



which is, by best guess, up to 2 months away!. Not ideal when it is when they will look at some of the issues.

Given the frequency of it, it's not a game breaker. Though it is a little funny when it happens.

 

[slipperx]

So many complainers about silly little things like having to wait until you click the vertical thruster button on take off - which to me makes sense anyway and just how it should work. It's like complaining your car won't rev up before you star the engines. I wonder how many of those complainers get through all their work in the day without any slips or mistakes. There are plenty of things wrong with the game and gradually they will get fixed since Frontier are a company with business commitments and constraints. Think like impossible interdictions and getting stuck in space which make the game unplayable do need quick fixes and this update seems to address some of those issues. If it is still not right then it will get tweaked again no doubt. The game is an evolution not a revolution guys - let's give the developers some credit for the dedicated work they do. After all everyone works better with a little praise when its due! Fix that Mission target colour though - my eyes are getting old and I don't have so much time left

 

[Metalstardust]

Unfortunately I completely understand, however I can only assume that FD have a version control problem where bugs fixed in live sub versions are never merged back into the next major version before it's released, so the same bugs re-appear again and again.

Obviously I haven't patched or tried it, but I'm hoping correcting the colour of "Mission Target" in the cockpit UI isn't such a onerous task in the Cobra engine, maybe it's just not been mentioned in the patch notes.

Anyway, thanks to the guy at FD who got the short straw and had to spend an afternoon last week fixing these items.

Agree their change control is not working. 1.4 Live is not what we were testing in Beta the day before.

 

[beelzeblub]

Are we going to get closure on the set of exploration bugs? The last we heard was several days ago when Zac said the f'final' fix was due shortly. Has it finally been fixed?

And Devs? What about the exploration issue? Any definite fix yet?

 

[Marc Alexander]

i stopped all the interdictoins i dumped 10 ton of bio waste and then destroyed them trying to use cargo scoop stink is so bad no ship will come near me

I approve of this logic.

 

[mister ron]

small things maybe, any chance of repairing the starport air-lock orientation lights, i'm making a lot of people scream because i'm lazily scraping them as i enter/exit... this may be mac specific and i realise FD aren't that interested in keeping development going for mac but it's got to be as simple as pushing a button somewhere... or maybe i need to do that?

 

[Spookyy]

So PC patches are locked down as to when FD get permisson to patch on the Xbox?

 

[Iain M Norman]

There's crunch at pretty much any game dev really. But it can differ, and staff can be treated with different amounts or respect when it is crunch time.

Word on the street is that FDev employees stay with the company for longer than average, many leave and come back and stay longer again.

This alone should indicate that one of two things:

a) The culture is respectful and people want to stay.

b) DBOBE is a micro managing nightmare crazy boss who physically restrains staff and wrongfully imprisons them, chaining them to their desks and never allowing them to see their families ever again. Whilst Mr.Brookes strides up and down a grid of cubicals dressed in full plate armour wielding many edge weapons and spanking any miscreants with latex coated closed cell foam all the time screaming at the post boy demanding he find the missing shipment of beard ointment. Sandro on the other hand basks in his own virtual reality suite clad in Hawaiian shirts, where everything is good and right and sunny upon his virtual beach, surrounded by scantily clad servants who feed him and his team a constant supply of margaritas and Piña coladas, and protect them from the nightmare cubical world, milking them every drop of creativity they can whilst they are soothed by soporific synth sounds piped in by Jim and crew.


Let's face it Option A is a hell of a lot more likely, and legal.

Yeah but B sounds more fun!