Answers from the Devs 15/10/15

[Faded Glory]

Edit: This is in todays Dev update...

"We are currently working on a client update for PC/Mac and Xbox One, all being well these will be released next week. As well as various fixes we’re adjusting the NPC interdiction so it isn’t quite as punishing as it is at the moment."

Hi Zac, yes I saw that, and it's appreciated by (I'm pretty sure) quite a few players.

But I think people would still be interested to know what elements come into play and affect the potential outcome of an interdiction. Answers so far from support have indicated that (relative) size of ship and (NPC) rank have an effect, but there are suggestions that size / class of interdictor, and how you use / set your throttle are important too, and I think it would be useful to know whether those things actually are relevant or not.

Thanks.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Does major faction reputation decay make it harder for people who rarely play to climb navy ranks, ie do they lose progress towards the next Promotion mission if they're offline for a few days?

No. Rank progression works off a hidden value that does not decay. All reputation affects is what missions are available. Once you hit the required hidden variable value you will get offered the rank progression mission (speculation: unless you have done bad stuff to lower your reputation below friendly perhaps, and maybe in those cases rank progression periods do not appear. Not sure if there is a bar for that. But since reputation doesn't decay below friendly, its something you would have to work on).

As for the narcotics, sounds like you need to file a bug report.

Panther clipper - meh, we don't need a bigger trade ship anyway. We need the Beluga!

 

[Cosmo]

Do we have more info about the Lakon Keelback?

 

[Synther]

When will the Gold FDL skin be released?

Will Horizons support race wheels (Such as the G29) for the SRVs?

 

[Reykur]

Bigger ships (such as the Panther) won't fit through the slot, so a non-Horizons owner will not gain any benefit from owning.

You're making a pretty broad assumption here. They can easily make larger ships that could fit through the mailslot. Imagine a ship the length of a Conda and width of a Type-9. That'd be significantly larger, and still able to land on a L pad. Until you hear otherwise, you should probably assume that a *space* ship will be usable by anyone that can fly *in space* (i.e., ED-Core owners).

 

[slartybartfast]

"We now support both Oculus Rift (via the 0.5 SDK) and SteamVR/Vive. Because of some changes to the Oculus SDK, we are working closely with Oculus to support a later SDK, but we cannot use 0.7."
Well you don't support both as the rift is unusable at the mo because 1.4 broke it, any idea when we might get some progress on this, as someone who has a gtx 980 and a rift for this and only this game is getting annoyed at looking at the huge expensive paperweight sitting in the corner not doing anything.

 

[Draven Darken]

So will all Season 2 (Horizons)'s content be withheld from Mac players until OSX' GL supports compute shaders, or will only planetary landings and its related new planet rendering, using these shaders, be omitted from the Season 2 releases for Mac?

This. Exactly this. I recently asked in the Mac forum if Frontier would at least consider supporting for the Mac those portions of Season 2 content that are not limited by compute shaders, of which there must be many (new ships, multi-crewed ships, new mission types, etc). But I got no response, and now this announcement sounds suspiciously like "since we have one feature within the Horizons season that Macs can't support, we're not going to let you have ANY of it". And I don't understand why that is the policy, unless Frontier simply wish to use this one feature as a convenient reason to end their involvement with Macs altogether. Please see the thread linked below:

Frontier, please sell Mac players the parts of Season 2 that will work on the Mac!

 

[Tinman]

"We now support both Oculus Rift (via the 0.5 SDK) and SteamVR/Vive. Because of some changes to the Oculus SDK, we are working closely with Oculus to support a later SDK, but we cannot use 0.7."
Well you don't support both as the rift is unusable at the mo because 1.4 broke it, any idea when we might get some progress on this, as someone who has a gtx 980 and a rift for this and only this game is getting annoyed at looking at the huge expensive paperweight sitting in the corner not doing anything.

By paperweight, do you mean the Oculus DevKit that you bought while agreeing to the following statement:

I understand this hardware is intended for developers and it is not a consumer product.

That paperweight?



.

That's why I'm waiting for the consumer version, or the Vive to be released officially.

 

[newman1702]

Real curious on what this Lakon Keelback thing is now. But most of all..

Can we please, please with sugar, cherry and chocolate sprinkles on top, finally get a look at the Imperial Cutter? I'm addicted to Gutamaya stuff

 

[Arubeto]

Panther clipper - meh, we don't need a bigger trade ship anyway. We need the Beluga!

Not a popular opinion, I suppose, but I'd sign that in an instant

Passenger missions - done right - are what I am looking forward to most in the future updates of ED (with the exception of planetary landings and persistent NPCs, perhaps, those are even more important to me )

 

[slartybartfast]

By paperweight, do you mean the Oculus DevKit that you bought while agreeing to the following statement:
That paperweight?

.
That's why I'm waiting for the consumer version, or the Vive to be released officially.

What has the fact that its a dev kit got to do with the price of fish? this game is supposed to support both and at the moment it does not, and by paperwieght i mean the whole lot as i said this machine is only for Elite have no intrest in other games.

 

[Janichsan]

Can we get an update on the Mac version of Horizons?

Unfortunately neither Open GL nor Metal on Mac support Compute Shaders and these are vital for Elite Dangerous: Horizons. We have investigated the issue at length and found that all other options currently simply won’t allow us the performance that a game of this size and detail needs. Once Macs are able to support compute shaders, or other technical options are available, we will certainly be keen on supporting that platform.

Hi Zac,

I guess you can understand that I as Mac user – as probably are many other Mac users – am massively disappointed by this news, and have many questions regarding the future of Elite: Dangerous on the Mac.

Firstly, according to Apple's Metal developer documentation, it does support compute shaders. Why are these unsuitable?

Secondly, have you tried to get external expertise on this topic, e.g. from experienced Mac porting companies like Feral or Aspyr, or Apple themselves?

Thirdly, what future support can we Mac users expect at all? Will the Mac version be further maintained and get support for new features? And more specifically, which of the features mentioned in Newsletter #92 as coming with Horizons are affected by the lack of compute shaders? Do ship-launched fighters require compute shaders? Do multi-crew ships? The Commander Creator? The loot and crafting system?

Fourthly, and extending on the third question, in how far will the lack of planetary landings and/or other Horizons features affect the further plans of future expansions for Elite: Dangerous on the Mac? More precisely, what reason do Mac users holding a lifetime expansion pass have not to request a refund?

Fifthly, if no further expansions for the Mac version can be expected, can lifetime expansion pass holders request a refund, and if so, how exactly?

 

[ZeeWolf]

By paperweight, do you mean the Oculus DevKit that you bought while agreeing to the following statement:



That paperweight?



.

That's why I'm waiting for the consumer version, or the Vive to be released officially.

Yeah this bugs me when I see comments from gamers insisting that "development kits" must get immediate support from companies during a very experimental time for VR. Also Oculus clearly targeted the thing at consumers but sold it as a dev kit to avoid having to properly support and certify the darn things for a while.

I bought a DK1 from the original Oculus Kickstarter and fully understood the purpose of a development kit with intentions of hacking stuff together myself. The fact that developers such as Frontier extended some fairly decent early support into this market was a nice bonus and I gave feedback and made YT videos last year where possible. I didn't rant at them for not properly supporting the work in progress "dev kit" all the time though.

 

[Janichsan]

4. If the F63 Condor is not in the main game, then Cobra MkIV only makes it 30 for those it's available to, to everyone else the number of ships is 29.

28. The Imperial Fighter is also not in the main game.

 

[slartybartfast]

Yeah this bugs me when I see comments from gamers insisting that "development kits" must get immediate support from companies during a very experimental time for VR. Also Oculus clearly targeted the thing at consumers but sold it as a dev kit to avoid having to properly support and certify the darn things for a while.

I bought a DK1 from the original Oculus Kickstarter and fully understood the purpose of a development kit with intentions of hacking stuff together myself. The fact that developers such as Frontier extended some fairly decent early support into this market was a nice bonus and I gave feedback and made YT videos last year where possible. I didn't rant at them for not properly supporting the work in progress "dev kit" all the time though.

Wow and i tried hard not to make this sound like a rant perhaps i should have just gone for it. i wouldn't be as bad if i had not been able to play this game for over a year and now its not usable, if it was the case that it was not usable because the consumer version was out then i would save me pennies and get that but its not and i cant.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Too bad the Panther's not in that list.
In ED, I have never heard about the Keelback before this thread.

on the bright side it means ships will still be coming in for season 2 (of which i am glad, as smoe of those in the list hardly count to be part of the 30 imo (but are nice to have ofcourse)

very nice update.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

I have one suggestion, though: could you release new editions of these great threads on other weekdays than Thursdays and Fridays? Than we could look forward to three different weekdays with nice updates (every second Wednesday: "Answers by the devs", Thursdays: "dev update", Fridays: Newsletter!)

Giving us a dev update and an "answers by the devs" on the same day will only spoil us!

I know you weren't being totally serious but I like this idea. My poor brain can't cope with all this new information over a 2 day period and my heart needs a rest from all the excitement over the planet videos, screenshots etc. Aaghhh what the hell, drown us in info!!

And the fact that they have given away the name of a new ship in this Answers thread is a good sign - it surely means we are going to get some really juicy stuff in the forthcoming dev updates and newsletters!

 

[ZeeWolf]

Wow and i tried hard not to make this sound like a rant perhaps i should have just gone for it. i wouldn't be as bad if i had not been able to play this game for over a year and now its not usable, if it was the case that it was not usable because the consumer version was out then i would save me pennies and get that but its not and i cant.

I just said it bugs me although not necessarily in response to your question which wasn't that much of a rant anyway.

I've seen much more ranty rants like this... "When are you going to fix the Oculus rift support Frontier. When? I paid good money for it and you won't fix it. I'm afraid I must insist. You see, my wife, she has been most vocal on the subject of the Oculus support. "Where's the Oculus support? "When are you going to get the Oculus support?" "Why aren't you getting the Oculus support now?" And so on. So please - fix it Frontier"

That kind of thing.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

No Dolphin or Beluga means that passenger missions are unlikely to be a thing.

 

[slartybartfast]

I just said it bugs me although not necessarily in response to your question which wasn't that much of a rant anyway.

I've seen much more ranty rants like this... "When are you going to fix the Oculus rift support Frontier. When? I paid good money for it and you won't fix it. I'm afraid I must insist. You see, my wife, she has been most vocal on the subject of the Oculus support. "Where's the Oculus support? "When are you going to get the Oculus support?" "Why aren't you getting the Oculus support now?" And so on. So please - fix it Frontier"
That kind of thing.

I must admit ive not seen to many rants like that on this forum (though my inner child is prolly screaming just like that) well apart from the whole offline thingy that got i bit silly.