AMA II: Question Boogaloo - Arthur, Bruce, Stephen and Paul

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Bruce G

Senior Community Manager
Greetings Commanders,

We're back again to answer your questions, please bear the following in mind:

  • One question per post
  • Repeat questions may not receive an answer; check through the thread before posting
  • Please do not start conversations with other players; stick to questions and replies to ourselves

Answers from the last thread we won't be repeating:

  • The Pulse Wave Analyser bug is known and being investigated currently. We don't have any further news on this issue for the time being. Apologies for the delay on this, we'll announce any news as soon as we have it.
  • A fix for the Azure Paint Job issue is currently being tested. If successful, we'll notify affected players of the next steps.
  • With regards to ongoing or historic narrative (Raxxla) we won't be confirming or denying any information!

Have fun!

o7
 

hisstus

H
The following complex question is about physical multicrew. Will players be capable of sharing flight controls of the ships? (Perhaps in a form that only owner can access equipment and shipyard but anyone within the wing or friends list can actually be the helmsman?) Will the ship sharing be available when the owner is offline, so small exploration groups can perform deep space surveys together?
 

orcx

orcx
1.Judging by some published images, it can be assumed that in the Odyssey, players will have the opportunity to upgrade SRV, can you confirm this?
2.Do other (than scarab) types of SRV, appear in the game?
3. Will there be a possibility of mining on the surface of planets in Odyssey?

Thanks.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Lore question - and hopefully one that won't be spoilery for any coming plot: how does citizenship work with the three superpowers nowadays?

(I'm interested especially in how it's coped with the recent tendency for heavily-contested systems to be able to flip between Federal and Independent control once a week, and if they've managed to adapt their rules for that, or for systems where control of the stations is e.g. split between Federal and Imperial factions - is citizenship an individual thing not affected by how your home system changes, or something which is added and removed for some people every few weeks, etc.)
 

norlin

norlin
Is there a way to join the team as a programmer specifically to implement multiple minor QoL suggestions?
I have experience 13 years of programming in general, including recent 4 years of gamedev experience.

p.s. not a UK citizen, but since 2014 I'm working remotely for fulltime
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
Woohoo Question Boogaloo :D Thanks for doing this team, I'd like to ask a question that was a bit late in last week please?

Can I ask when the Issue Tracker will be addressed? There are many bugs within the tracker itself and also there is no way to get reliable feedback on what is going on. This issue I linked last week was raised in January 2020 and it is still just 'confirmed'. I have had bugs that have "expired" just because 10 Cmdrs didn't confirm the bug, but it is still present in the game. Some issues expire after 30 days, others persist for over a year without being confirmed. The confirmation/voting system is heavily weighted to those who can amass enough people to push their own agenda, which we were told it would not be used for when it was introduced, but were later told that's how it's intended to be used.

Also in April of this year 1,016 issues were wiped off the tracker in one day. If you assume a conservative 5 minutes per issue created, then that's around 85 hours of player time spent creating issues, just gone.

Unfortunately this doesn't create an environment where people feel as though they should raise bugs on the issue tracker, a lot of people do see it as a waste of time. This is a big problem now, but when we get to Odyssey it will become a huge problem. I really think we need some good strong feedback on the tracker itself and that changes need to be made by the time Odyssey is released in order to make it a success.
 

Bruce G

Senior Community Manager
orcx said:
1.Judging by some published images, it can be assumed that in the Odyssey, players will have the opportunity to upgrade SRV, can you confirm this?
2.Do other (than scarab) types of SRV, appear in the game?
3. Will there be a possibility of mining on the surface of planets in Odyssey?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Hallo! It's one question per post. We can't confirm anything about SRVs/SRV upgrades yet - please hold for more information about Odyssey as and when it comes. Dev Diary 3 is expected later this month.
 

Ryan P Bodfirst

Ryan P Bodfirst
I have a question / suggestion concerning NPC interdictions.

I think NPC interdictions are a core part of the game as

1. They affect everyone who plays the game (Open, PVE and solo)
2. They are the only element in PVE ED that provide a non opt-in and thus unpredictable risk.

However, and this is my experience - I haven't failed a single NPC interdiction since 1.3 was released (over two years ago) - and I mean that literally - and it's not because I'm especially good at them - they are just very easy and I see very little variation in difficulty.

I think this spoils aspects of the game in several ways:

1. Anarchies / low security systems are no more dangerous than anywhere else as throwing more enemies at me is no more risky - I just evade all the interdictions.
2. Missions that could and should be risky and have a bit of excitement aren't because I know full well I'll evade all the interdictions.
3. It makes the game predictable where I should feel a certain amount of tension in such cases. For me, a certain amount of uncontrollable risk adds excitement and narrative possibilities.

My suggestion is to make the NPC interdiction skill more varied in Anarchy / low security systems so there is actually a risk in such systems. In other words it's possible (but not certain) that I may face a better NPC and I may actually fail the NPC interdiction even though I'm trying to evade it - this will obviously also depend on how good I am at evading.

Finally, for missions to scale the interdiction ability of NPCs with mission rank where appropriate so they actually do feel more risky and make me think about my load out etc.

These would really add some tension and excitement to the game I think.

Is balancing NPC interdictions something you would be willing to look at in this regard?


Thanks,

Commander Bodfirst.
 

Arthur Tolmie

Lead Community Manager
Frontier
hisstus said:
The following complex question is about physical multicrew. Will players be capable of sharing flight controls of the ships? (Perhaps in a form that only owner can access equipment and shipyard but anyone within the wing or friends list can actually be the helmsman?) Will the ship sharing be available when the owner is offline, so small exploration groups can perform deep space surveys together?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the question, its a good one! There is a lot here to unpack let me pass this on to the Dev team and get some answers! -Arf
 

Waselon

Waselon
Hello!

Question:
Are you aware of current state of PvP? (OP Shield Booster stacking, OP Thermal Conduit Plasma, Fer-de-Lance being the only viable competitive combat ship, etc.)

If yes, do you have any plans to re-balance it?
 

Bruce G

Senior Community Manager
norlin said:
Is there a way to join the team as a programmer specifically to implement multiple minor QoL suggestions?
I have experience 13 years of programming in general, including recent 4 years of gamedev experience.

p.s. not a UK citizen, but since 2014 I'm working remotely for fulltime
Click to expand...
Hi Norlin,

You can check out and keep an eye on the Frontier Careers page for openings: https://www.frontier.co.uk/careers

That said, I can't guarantee you'd only be working on specific fixes that you personally want in the game. Changes are usually prioritized according to factors besides personal preference.
 

SCiARA

SCiARA
hello all
there was mention that the next dev diary will be in December but there would also be "something cool" happening too?
any update on that ?
Thanks
 

SystematicChaos

S
Are there any improvements to exploration in Odyssey so that it works for everyone? You were given enough suggestions in the beta, or is Odyssey going to be sullied with a 2.5d mini-game that looks like it was lifted from a 90's SVGA DOS game?
 

PerchyPanther

P
Is the current lack of development of Cross play between platforms either.....

a. A Microsoft / Sony not playing nicely together issue
2. A "too hard to integrate into the existing code" issue
iii) An FDev don't want to do it issue
5. It might possibly, maybe happen at some indeterminate point in the future
vi. {REDACTED}
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
I enjoyed Bruce's turn as the voice of Dr Murphy in the recent Halloween event - can you share if any of the CM team did motion capture for the upcoming Odyssey Emotes and Dances - and if so which were your favourites?
 
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