Answers from the Devs 15/10/15

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sensai25

sensai25
Hi Zac !

Here is my question :

About Capital SHIPs : right now they are rather unused and moreover they are punishing players in combat zones by stealing kills.

Is there any close plan to Extend their use in MAIN GAME and a plan to redesign their impact in combat zone to bring more FUN.

They are a MAJOR element of gameplay and coolness in Elite Game but the way they are now is a little bit frustrating/ disapointing.

Thanks again for your work FD.
Regards.
 
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Sucoon

S
Zac Antonaci said:
Hey guys,


==

Any news on what the final ones to be announced are?


And to come:

25 Imperial Short Range Fighter (CQC only)
26 Lakon Keelback
27 Viper MK IV
28 Asp Scout
29 Federal Corvette
30 Imperial Cutter
31 Cobra MK IV (for owners of Season 1 and Season 2)

==
Click to expand...

whats about the panther clipper?
 

Cmdr Cheese Wedge

Cmdr Cheese Wedge
Great thread.
Just a quick question.
The planet rendering looks amazing and I can't wait to go surface side, but I'm also curious about any extra interesting things to discover on these new planets and roids out there in the black 1000's of LY's from the bubble?
Anything in the pipeline for us intrepid explorers?
 

Javert

Volunteer Moderator
Javert
Sham Gaz said:
Yes, you did. Thanks. Needless to say I cried a little last night after reading about Horizons on the Mac...
Click to expand...

This is disappointing news for Mac users. I do recognize though that this is also a much better and more open communication than last year with the offline mode. I think that FD are learning from past communication problems and trying to be more open when they are facing major technical issues with a particular work stream of the game.

I've seen similar communications of Oculus Rift support as well.

The only request I would add is that when you put out a communication that you are facing technical issues with enabling or supporting a certain feature, can you please indicate what is the level of effort currently going on to resolve this and/or the commitment to it in future. Sometimes these statements can be read to come across like "Mac doesn't support the way we want to develop, so we've put all Mac support on hold until some external event over which we have no control or influence changes the situation, which may never happen by the way". I don't think that's really what you are trying to say, so I think the thing here is to think about how people will read between the lines of what you are posting.

To reiterate though, I think this is already massively better than no communication at all, or announcing something way too late after it was already known for quite some time.

Whilst I'm giving feedback, I'd also like to say I am really enjoying the new open approach to showing "work in process" on the planets for Horizons. I think many players find this very interesting and this is a really good approach as long as it's clearly stated that this is work in process and should not be viewed as what the final product will look like. Perhaps these type of things should be prefaced with a "spoilers" warning as there may be some players who want their first experience of Horizons planet landing to be the real final thing.
 
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sensai25

sensai25
Sucoon said:
a , me and my friends was hoping to get it in 1.5 becaosue it was announced earlier in this year. when will this secound wave appears?
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that there will be content during season 2 for players who buy the season and there will also be some more free content for players who stay with season 1 pack. So new ships is a good addition for 2016 free off season 2 patches.
 
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Zac Antonaci

Head of Communications
Frontier
Javert said:
This is disappointing news for Mac users. I do recognize though that this is also a much better and more open communication than last year with the offline mode. I think that FD are learning from past communication problems and trying to be more open when they are facing major technical issues with a particular work stream of the game.

I've seen similar communications of Oculus Rift support as well.

The only request I would add is that when you put out a communication that you are facing technical issues with enabling or supporting a certain feature, can you please indicate what is the level of effort currently going on to resolve this and/or the commitment to it in future. Sometimes these statements can be read to come across like "Mac doesn't support the way we want to develop, so we've put all Mac support on hold until some external event over which we have no control or influence changes the situation, which may never happen by the way". I don't think that's really what you are trying to say, so I think the thing here is to think about how people will read between the lines of what you are posting.

To reiterate though, I think this is already massively better than no communication at all, or announcing something way too late after it was already known for quite some time.

Whilst I'm giving feedback, I'd also like to say I am really enjoying the new open approach to showing "work in process" on the planets for Horizons. I think many players find this very interesting and this is a really good approach as long as it's clearly stated that this is work in process and should not be viewed as what the final product will look like. Perhaps these type of things should be prefaced with a "spoilers" warning as there may be some players who want their first experience of Horizons planet landing to be the real final thing.
Click to expand...

Some really nice feedback. First of all thanks for the positive comments about the communication. We certainly want to make sure that with any technical issue the players concerned are informed as early as possible. I would also agree with the statement about players perceiving that this is the "end of development" when the truth is the teams are still working with the companies to try and find a solution. It's a difficult balance to try and be clear enough and candid enough to say there is a technical issue here and not misleading people into thinking that something is coming "Soon" whilst also explaining that it is an ongoing process and something we're not abandoning.

These are fair pieces of feedback though and ones that I will certainly take on board. We’re always trying to make sure that the comms are as clear and honest as possible.

Thanks Javert as always. :)

Zac
 

Heater

Heater
FD Thanks for the update.....

My question is.....
Is it done yet ;) if not then get back to work! :D:D.
On a side note, will the patch next week include the fix for the paint jobs being repaired each time?
 
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Smugallo

Smugallo
The Mac thing should never have been a stretch goal in the first place I think.

On another note though I have a Horizons-based question for the devs.

Does this mean that all the planets in-game are getting the stellar forge treatment, not just the small rocky ones?
 

{SAS}Stalker

{SAS}Stalker
Hi Zac,

I have a question regarding the BGS. As you know many of us are having issues and some of that may be a misunderstanding of some of the basic mechanics.

Q.1 I have been running missions for my home faction (faction A) I take the mission, complete the mission and get paid (presumably by faction A). However my reputation screen shows no change with personal rep of Faction A and an increase with Faction B and Faction C from the station I took the mission from.

Now I understand that doing missions wouldn't change influence until server tick over but isn't personal rep gain an indication of upcoming faction influence increase / drop?

Q2. In the above scenario why has my rep with the mission issuing faction not changed and why has it increased with B and C

Q3. Finally In the above scenario have I increased the influence of faction A, B or C
 
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SNaomiScott

SNaomiScott
Some very cool answers in this update. Thanks for keeping up the communications, Zac.

Zac Antonaci said:
And to come:

26 Lakon Keelback
Click to expand...

For those wondering about the Keelback, here's my (semi-) educated guesses regarding this previously unknown ship:

It's from Lakon, the company who brought us the Asp and the Diamonback Range.

Both the Asp (Egyptian Cobra) and the Diamondback (Rattlesnake) snakes are venomous snakes, the Asp being quite small (4-6ft from memory) and the Diamondback being slightly larger (6-7ft). Both are considered quite dangerous (well, they are venomous). In-game, the Asp and both the Diamonbacks are quite combat-capable, though all three can be kitted for multirole purposes.

(As an aside, there is also a Diamonback Watersnake, which is a non-venomous colubrid, but the most commonly recognised Diamondbacks are the Western- and Eastern Rattlers, so it's more than likely these are the ones being referenced by the ship name.)

The name Keelback could refer to one of several snake species, most of which are non-venomous members of the colubrid family, though there's at least one (the Red Necked Keelback - a rear-fanged colubrid) which is venomous. They're all quite small (2-4ft). Based on this, my somewhat spurious assumption would be that the Lakon Keelback is going to be slightly smaller than the Diamondbacks, not very well suited to combat but potentially fast and manoeuvrable. Maybe a light trader?

Of course, I could be wrong, but how often does a girl get to show off her limited knowledge of snakes on a computer gaming forum? :)

Edited to add:

Lakon are also responsible for three out of the four 'dedicated' trade ships in the game. Make of this what you will.
 
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DrSpin

D
Zac Antonaci said:
Hi,

Lot's of questions here and understandably so.

We know that the news is disappointing and as we've said, hand on heart, we would like to continue support for the Mac version. More importantly we very much expect that we will be able to support Mac again in the future and we're still working on that. However, we think it's important to be open and honest about the technical issues we are facing with Horizons so that everyone is informed.

In terms of Metal. As I said earlier in the thread, I'm not a technical guy but from speaking to the devs we know that the issue is more in the finer detail of how the compute shaders work in Metal at this stage. Safe to say that we're looking into it, we're working closely with Apple, and we hope to have some news soon.

As for the refund. If someone is a Mac customer and they want to discuss their lifetime expansion pass then of course will be happy to. Those people should get in touch with our support team by submitting a ticket here: https://support.frontier.co.uk/kb/
Click to expand...

That's a much appreciated clarification. Thanks a lot Zac.
 

Otis B.

Otis B.
Zac Antonaci said:
In terms of Metal. As I said earlier in the thread, I'm not a technical guy but from speaking to the devs we know that the issue is more in the finer detail of how the compute shaders work in Metal at this stage. Safe to say that we're looking into it, we're working closely with Apple, and we hope to have some news soon.
Click to expand...
Have the dev team considered using OpenCL for the compute portion?
http://sa09.idav.ucdavis.edu/docs/SA09_GL_interop.pdf
 
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