Patch Notes Update Beyond 3.0 Beta 2 Incoming

[Lee Archer]

Think I'll just buy and engineer a new fleet for OPEN and mothball grandad for use in PG / SOLO
I can invite friends to nostalgic PvP events and reminisce about the x000 hours of RNG roulette
At least OPEN should be a fair and level playing field with equal opportunity, instead of outcome

Haha hee a new fleet.
Good point, can a game in good faith just strip out and down grade your progress when the time sink was so large.
So
No
It’s not OK to downgrade my 5’s to 4, my 4’s to 3 nope
Not Ok
#Not Ok to Downgrade me

Why did I not see this, I’ve got two accounts and 1500 hours, and so much laser engine colour, Chrome ski, ship kit bobble tattoo fashion sense nonsense, I memorized the Star types, down grade that.
Fruck Zhat

Not Ok
Not OK
How did I not see this

 

[Lee Archer]

The material trader is smooth, however the ratios seem high between 1-2 and 5, 36 is a third of your storage. So trade and truck back your original sources to refill. . . Return to a trader. Hmm, so there is iteration to use the Mats trader. What am I missing.

Storage has to be higher for that ratio Right?
or is the point to keep meanful 1-2 to 5 trading down.
I’m thinking of the outbreak system or similarly scarce inputs.
That stopped my engineering progress. I went back to planet photography.
Hey, where’s the number crunchers! Did I miss something.

Thought the process enabled by mats/data traders would be a no backtracking
Search for mat farming systems, 3-5 systems over 3-400 light year radius. EDDB
Got to a Material trader to balance the materials, fill in missing needed by horse trading.
Carry mats in quantity for the 5 Grades of one blueprint, and secondary modules up to 2-3 with lower level mats, purchase the experimental effects. ON your way,set your sights on some missions , some which may give mats, while keeping an eye out for local mats sources along the way, but really focussing on your roles- trading, combat, exploration activities which are the reason for the Engineering upgrades
Not the other way around.

 

[Six6VI]

Or just full on convert the mission board into a query interface, where you tell it what you want and it generates a list of matching results. Commoditising missions would reflect the way the game is currently played, and would give the illusion of there being a far larger mission list. Special missions like rank up, permit unlock etc could be shown regardless of query results, as CGs are now.

Good, good, now we're thinking...

If I already have this assassination mission in Bunda at 18:45 are there another couple for 19:00 and 19:15?

If I have this passenger to Colonia, can I scan the area (galaxy cos, telepresence / multicrew) for another?

At that point the random element is the reward, which we can now select and the Galaxy feels much bigger.

Why make mission board coding harder trying to serve a selection of everything in the hope we want those?

 

[Darty]

Lead and baron have bugged drop rates. I've mined over a dozen high material content 'tiods in a pristine metal-rich using an A rated prospector limpet and I haven't gotten one lead to spawn. In fact, the only time I got any lead to spawn was in a metalic ring, and even then I only got 2 drops to spawn over the course of hours of mining in a pristine high res with an a rated prospector....

Haven't even discovered baron.

 

[Six6VI]

...snip/
If I have this passenger to Colonia, can I scan the area (galaxy cos, telepresence / multicrew) for another?

At that point the random element is the reward, which we can now select and the Galaxy feels much bigger.
.../snip

If the mission board results are a galaxy (or bubble) wide query table instead, and some missions, like finding a passenger in the Lagoon Sector that can be collected on my way to Colonia...

We now have a way to offer Bounty Hunting missions for notorious player criminals...

 

[hems303]

Thanks to all Dev's. The improvements are flowing. Thanks for listening guy's n gal's
(Engineers are looking much, much more inviting and viable)

o7 o7 o7 o7 \o/

 

[admiral_Marith]

Hey Frontier Development:

I'd like to see bay dividers so when I have to fit a 1c detailed surface scanner in a #4 bay, I don't waste the space. So a bay divider in a size 3 bay yields 2 size 1 for example. In a size 5, two size 2 or one size 1 and one size 3.

I'd also like to see an advanced electronics rack that goes in a size 4 slot or higher that gives you 4-6 slots for advanced modules.

Then offer things like compact advanced limpet controllers, for each type rather than hog a bay for each controller. Offer various version of them. a b c d e f. Make them stupidly expenisve as the quality goes up but they all fit in the slot in the electronics rack. More expensive does more limpets. Or longer ranges or something. Also be able to fit compact discovery scanner, compact surface scanners. Etc.

We went to the moon with less power than my iPhone. This is not too much to ask for 1300 years from now.

I'd like to also be able to rent warehouse space on a station or planet. I'd LOVE to be able to store mats, or rare goods etc. Sure the warehouse could be subject to theft. If I can hire a pilot why cant I hire a watchman?

 

[Lee Archer]

Frontier can give us their hours numbers for a ship upgrade.
Then we can proceed to look for exceptions, caveats.
We gone as far as we can without numbers.
I think the ship mat storage should be near limitless
Micro quantities and such.
IF they weren’t Type 10’s would be used.
Back when there’s some numbers.

 

[Six6VI]

If the mission board results are a galaxy (or bubble) wide query table instead, and some missions, like finding a passenger in the Lagoon Sector that can be collected on my way to Colonia...

We now have a way to offer Bounty Hunting missions for notorious player criminals...

Bit more thinking just kinda happened, oops...

Station Services / Mission Board...

Ok, so I'm at Fomalhaut in a T-9 with 500 empty cargo racks and a range of 19.5LY when full...

And I find a mission taking 33 units of Beer to Tau Ceti offering 3 CIF, can the database generate me another 19 missions that add up to 500 units so I can look though the list and easily find some more offering the same reward, or maybe a selection of CIF, Chemical Manipulators and Exquisite Focus Crystals for a Grade 5 Charge Enhanced Distributor?


Or, Im in a FDL going to the Bounty Hunting CG in Nu Tauri, with zero cargo racks...

It's 115.81 LY away so the rewards should be quite good, I only want cash rewards and it's about 6 jumps but I don't want to stop anywhere else on the way. Can the database find me 20 data delivery missions going to Parmitano Terminal?


Or, I'm in an AspX with 32 racks and a 45.61LY range when full plus a Collector Limpet Controller and I'm going to Achenar to check USS's for Imperial Shielding and then I'm going to pop in and see Tiana Fortune for some mods...

Can the database offer me enough cargo missions to fill my hold plus data transfer missions, for a total of 20 going to Jones Dock which is on my way, or maybe if there isn't enough cargo I could stop here and there on the way to pick up some occupied escape pods, or other legal black boxes or trade data so I don't get a fine while trying to drop them off? And, can the galaxy map also automatically plot the route via the right systems for me? Oh, and I really need the materials to finish leveling this pinned G5 Lightweight Collector Controller blueprint to be prioritised in the result...

You know, this could be quite cool...

[Edit: And... It might stop the board hoppers grinding the same spots over and over...]
[Edit edit: Can I limit the minimum and maximum cash payout, or star to dock distance]
[Final edit: Is the mission database able to auto-populate all parameters from my ship?]

 

[Noctis Aeris]

Is there any reason why the game doesn't yet feature player beacons or 'bookmarks' for planetary surface locations?

Maybe the beacon would be visible on the planet's map within the system view, only visible to the player who set the beacon, similar to how the galaxy map bookmarks work.

Imagine finding a fantastic new canyon or other landmark we'd like to return to. Simply select 'set beacon' from the cockpit panel, and then on return, target the location beacon from the panel or system map, as we would with a planetary base or thargoid uplink for example. It would be a far more enjoyable experience than having to note and then find coordinates every time.

I would really appreciate if a staff member could respond to this query, to let us know if it has already been considered.

 

[Six6VI]

Just a little bit more...

Station Services / Mission Board...

Ok, so I'm at Fomalhaut in a T-9 with 500 empty cargo racks and a range of 19.5LY when full...

And I find a mission taking 33 units of Beer to Tau Ceti offering 3 CIF, can the database generate me another 19 missions that add up to 500 units so I can look though the list and easily find some more offering the same reward, or maybe a selection of CIF, Chemical Manipulators and Exquisite Focus Crystals for a Grade 5 Charge Enhanced Distributor?

All that, and...

Since I now know I'm only going direct to Gilmour Orbiter in Tau Ceti, with 5 billion people and I'd expect that dock to be quite busy, I want to avoid any queues so can I communicate with ATC at Gilmour to get an arrival window so they're expecting me? Oh wait... *Checks Contacts panel*

This T-9 has a wake scanner, and there's a few here so can I push back the arrival window by 10 minutes, while I'm still in the mission board to give me time to fly around here looking for Datamined Wake Exceptions before I jump to hyperspace...

Hmm, mission cargo? Better make that 15 minutes in case I hit a wrinkle on the way.

Gee, waiting in queues for docking permission in high population systems used to be such a drag. I'm really glad an alternative way was found to deal with that issue instead of just totally nerfing the system traffic to nothing so people didn't complain about the delays.

The entire 1:1 scale galaxy would have seemed so empty and lifeless otherwise...

[Edit: Sierra India X-Ray three niner Charlie (cos ATC uses ship ID, all six characters since Beyond 3.0, nudge nudge, wink wink) we've been expecting you. Please proceed directly <ATC audio interrupted when docking computer engages at zero speed>, Ok CMDR, automated docking approved...]

[Or: Sierra India X-Ray three niner Charlie (see above) you have missed your pre-arranged docking window. Please resubmit your request, you'll be added to the current queue and provided with a wait timer so there's no need to sit there trying to guess who's next, if there's a slot free and re-request multiple times...]

 

[Six6VI]

Is there any reason why the game doesn't yet feature player beacons or 'bookmarks' for planetary surface locations?

Maybe the beacon would be visible on the planet's map within the system view, only visible to the player who set the beacon, similar to how the galaxy map bookmarks work.

Imagine finding a fantastic new canyon or other landmark we'd like to return to. Simply select 'set beacon' from the cockpit panel, and then on return, target the location beacon from the panel or system map, as we would with a planetary base or thargoid uplink for example. It would be a far more enjoyable experience than having to note and then find coordinates every time.

I would really appreciate if a staff member could respond to this query, to let us know if it has already been considered.

I'll second this as a good suggestion (again) but can we also have the ability to set / edit surface coords from the bookmark menu in the system map, please

In all fairness I heard a rumour there may be a more "orrery" style system map in the works and I'm happy to wait for that update to include this type of functionality if there's any validity to said rumour. Also, if we're getting gas giants soon (TM) can the 'surface' coords system also include an altitude setting either above the deck or below the atmospheric limit / Orbital Cruise altitude / Drop Zone Glide layer.

If not, please add asap <3

[Edit: Something in a cloud layer isn't attached to surface coords, unless it's in a geostationary orbit and that will show up on the system map anyway (after discovering / scanning it for the first time?). Hmm, so how do we mark a high value, but moving atmospheric anomaly?]

 

[Six6VI]

...snip/ I'm testing these right now. First thing I've notice that all skimmers and defense units are not wanted anymore. /snip...

I've noticed this too, might be an SRV HUD bug as it seems some prior information is just missing?

A. Check the datapoint details on your HUD, and in the turret. You should see "PUBLIC" or "PRIVATE"
B. You won't get in trouble for public, and sometimes you can reach them from outside the red zone.

 

[Six6VI]

Yes I know and only talk about private beacons (that are meanwhile a lot more prominent, like a ratio of 9 private against 1 public. Note my updated post #173

lol, fair enough, you might have been editing while I was replying to the original post

I was on the surface earlier and saw the issue with the skimmer / turret wanted data being mysteriously absent but I didn't stumble across any of those orange and white data point buildings so I don't know if the private / public info is missing too?

I did however find a couple of downed satellites and nav beacons, which now appear to drop Encoded (Data) Materials. Is that new? I don't remember them doing that before, just the major faction specific package data?

[Edit: I DID notice the spawn rate on surface rocks seems to have gone up. AWESOME!]

 

[Darty]

Comparing my experience in the last iteration to this iteration.

(This post is a follow up to one of my posts in the Engineers Feedback sticky.)

After having spent a whole t-9 load of hours in the new beta iteration (although far fewer than I put into the first) I've thought about my experience and how it compares to the main game and previous beta.

As this iteration contain few changes than the first iteration, I decided to focus exclusively on the engineering grind, re-engineering my cutter's 8 shield boosters and 8A prismatic shield generator from scratch to g5 with experimentals. After I had finished* I took her out mining again to get a feel for the new mining materials and the mining material increases. While I did not do as much engineering, all the previous engineering I had so thoroughly drained my material inventory that (essentially) all I had left was what I had collected while mining or fighting off pirates, with some additional materials. In essence I started the g5 grind with the same sort of material resources that I would have on the live server if I had just finished a major engineering project. As a result, I feel like I got a very accurate representation of what my experience with this system will be like once this update goes live.

*Well, almost finished. More on that later.

So, on to what I liked(this will only be in comparison to the previous beta build, not the current live build).

1. Low grade rolls were clean, quick, and affordable.
   
   Honestly I think you might have gone overboard with that change, but it certainly is way better than the previous system. Upgrading a module still felt like a tired progression like you intended, but I didn't have to click 20 times just to get to the bottom of tier 5. For the most part I was able to afford g1-g4 with just the leftover materials I had collected from pirates who tried to kill me while I was mining. What I did not have was easy enough to acquire with the mat trader. I still do feel like the cost is high enough that it has some significance (which it should!), but I found that just by having gone a little bit out of my way to collect materials while mining, undermining, or fighting in a combat zone, I was able to afford the upgrades I needed. 10/10 here, no one has a right to complain about tiered progression after this imo.​
2. I actually found the pin function useful!
   
   There's not much more to say here. I actually used the pin function to save myself some trips to the engineer, and can see myself doing so in the future. Good job on this one.​
3. Mining provides crazy amounts of low to mid tier materials!
   
   This was nice. I noticed you upped the drop rates considerably and added some new material drops. Definitely a step in the right direction.​

Now, for the negative part of my experience, and how I think it could have been improved:

1. I flew around in super cruise looking for HGE's. For hours. When I didn't want to. And I hated it.
   
   This was the worst part of engineering for me in the old system. I'm fine with flying around sc for a bit looking for signal sources, but and the minutes turn int hours I start reevaluating my life and asking myself existential questions about whether or not existence is a blessing or a curse. I was REALLY hopeful that the material trader would give me an option to switch to another, albeit less efficient activity to collect whatever g5's I was looking for after flying around in SC lost it's charm. But with the current exchange rates, lol good luck finding a ship that will drop the 54 g4 mats needed to get the same number of rolls a single HGE will give you. This NEEDS to be addressed if you want to solve one of the biggest issues most people have with engineering.​
2. The material trader's insane rates have not been adjusted, which, when combined with the decrease in low grade rolls needed to g5 a module, has made low grade materials all but useless again.
   
   Related to the point above. 6:1 forgoing up one grade is an insult, 36 to 1 for going up two is murder, and I'll stop with the analogies there as if I went further Godwin's law would be invoked. Suffice to say, the upwards exchange rates are almost unusable, and it gets exponentially worse. This means that g1-g4 materials are essentially pointless to collect compared to g5's. This greatly reduces player agency and, combined with the low demand for these materials and sensible trade rates going down (a) grade(s), means that there is very little benefit to even collecting low grade materials. You desperately need to implement sensible trade rates, if you want to prevent g1-g4 materials from becoming obsolete and prevent players from getting extremely frustrated from being forced into hours of an activity they do not enjoy, like I was in the point above. An ideal system (imo) would have a 2:1 rate going across material categories but in the same grade, and would charge no more than 100 g1 materials for a g5. I've already outlined what rules would create such a system in my previous post, but I'll post them here too for convenience.
   

   Spoiler

   6:1 just doesn't work. I propose that every grade be worth 3 of the grade below it, both trading up and down, and across categories. However, to introduce loss, whenever you trade a lower grade material for a higher one, a 20% increase in the amount of material you pay is added to the transaction, rounding up. Additionally, if you trade across categories, a 100% increase is applied. If you trade up a grade AND across categories, the increase is 120%.
   
   In such a system, what a G5 could be traded for is in the table below, with blue being what you get for the g5, and purple being what you pay for the g5
   

   	Same category	Other categories
   G1	81,97	40.5,179
   G2	27,33	13.5,60
   G3	9,11	4.5,20
   G4	3,4	1.5,7
   G5	n/a	0.5,2

   I chose a 20% increase for a very specific reason. It allows you to trade g1 mats for a g5 mat without having to have more than 100 mats. This system still discourages an overuse of the material trader, AND incentives the player to collect the materials they need instead of any old material. However, if a player has a strong aversion to murdering innocent haulage vessels but LOVES fighting in combat zones, they have an option to get their heat whatevers. Would give us a bit more agency when it comes to how and what we collect, without allowing us to simply ignore the game mechanics. I think it is a fair trade, and I think most of the community would find these numbers acceptable (based on what I have seen other's suggest).
3. A little part of me died inside after having spent over an hour ginding for mats for 9 g5 rolls, only to have several of them give <5% progress increase.
   
   This was when I still had a good 30%-45% left. I like the idea of it taking more rolls to finish g5, and for rolls to get less effective as you get closer to completion, but the current way just hurts. Every roll needs to at least give you a 5% increase before any rng comes into play, ideally more around 10% for the first few rolls until you get to around 75%. I don't have a problem with it taking 9 rolls to max out g5*, but it's not fun if only 5 of those rolls mattered and the other 4 were pretty much duds that I could have never rolled. Getting "god progress" rolls from time to time is nice, but I would much rather NOT have them and instead only have slightly above to slightly below average rolls if it also meant getting rid of the crap rolls. PLEASE consider this.​
   
   *assuming you fix the material trader so it's possible to acquire g5 materials without driving in an srv or circling a star in super cruise for hours upon hours on end.
   
4. Damage type specific shield boosters and Priority x power distributors are still underpowered.
   
   Pretty sure the damage type specific shield boosters were just an oversite. Now that you buffed resistance augmented AGAIN though, you need to buff type specific boosters you give around 35% (pre experimental) resistance to have them be in line with the current resistance augmented booster.
   
   As for the Priority X power distributors, I see that you increased the charge rate, but it's not enough. It needs to be at least equal to the charge rate of a charge enhanced distributor to even be considered for niche builds. Pretty much every build that could benefit from a higher weapon's capacity benefits more from a higher weapon's recharge rate. Even if the weapons recharge rate was the same ans charge enhanced, most builds would still choose charge enhanced over weapons focused simply because increased boost rate is so important, and if you have Bi-Weaves sys charge is also essential to getting the most out of your shields. Even if you gave the x priority PD blueprints 5% more recharge than charge enhanced, a majority of the players would still use charge enhanced. If you also added the option to have an experimental effect that increased the charge rate and capacity of a specific capacitors, THEN I could see there being a diversity of builds as players are able to customize their power distributor to their liking.
   
   Currently though, charge enhanced gives you the most consistent DPS, the best consistent speed, and really good shield recharge (as only an over-sized Bi-Weave using broken regen rate with the recharge experimental can eat through the entire sys capacitor when you have pips on weapons). So anyone who uses any other mod is going to be slower, even if they use engine focused (or atleast will have to devote more pips to engines), able to do less DPS (over time), even if they use weapon's focused, and might under some rare circumstances be able to bring their shields back up a little bit faster if they use system focused. Please consider my suggestion.
   ​
5. The raw material mat trader still hasn't been changed.
   
   Please fix it. Also Lead and Boron can't be traded there.​

I had a few more minor issues that haven't been addressed that I brought up in my last post, but these are the main issues. Overall I would say I actually enjoyed this build less than the last one, but that has everything to do with the fact that I completely ran out of g5's this time and had to do my least favorite activities to find them. In fact, I got so frustrated with the system that after having spent hours looking for antimony in an srv and only finding 9 total, and then spending those 9 on 3 rolls for 3 modules, 2 of which already had 1 g5 roll on them, only to have most of those rolls give me very little progress, I gave up. I had gotten everything else up to complete or almost complete g5, but I just gave up on the heavy duty boosters as it was just too painful. I do like the direction this beta and the last one took however, you just really need to fix the material trader, and then it will be a great system.

 

[Six6VI]

...snip/
In fact, I got so frustrated with the system that after having spent hours looking for antimony in an srv and only finding 9 total, and then spending those 9 on 3 rolls for 3 modules, 2 of which already had 1 g5 roll on them, only to have most of those rolls give me very little progress, I gave up.
/snip...

If it helps, I found 33 Antimony quite quickly (half a tank of SRV fuel) in Metallic Meteorites, and the odd Mesosiderite on planet Strauss, in the Fomalhaut system not so long ago (Now the Beta 1 materials shuffle was fixed in Beta 2) and the rest of the planets in that system usually have pretty impressive yields as well. Have you found any Rhenium yet? The pristine Metallic rings of Delkar 7 didn't seem to drop any at all in Beta 1 and I haven't been back there since because you mentioned Boron was also missing and the drop rate on Lead was very low in an earlier post (I think it was you?).

I was also looking for HGE USS in Nanomam earlier and it seemed the spawn rate had improved considerably?

Regarding the variable upgrade RNG, may I suggest for logistical supply planning that the RNG factor may as well be removed completely since the result will always be the same so, for a brand new engineer (or pinned recipe at any other station) it always takes exactly 3,3,3 and 3 rolls to achieve G1-4 like it used to, and maybe 6 rolls to fully max G5.

For a pre-maxed engineer that is already at G5, may I suggest the perfectly logical and organic "Golden Mean" or "Fibonacci" sequence of 1,1,2,3,5 for G1 through G5 respectively (8 rolls to max G6 if its ever introduced). This would remove another point of frustration - Thinking you have enough mats to complete a job, but then you don't, and have to go find more.

Regardless of whether you harvest or swap them it's still annoying if you expected to finish something before bed time...

[Edit: Work tomorrow, it's 1am now I should be able to finish off this job and still wake up on time... WHAT! I'm out of mats again!? OMG! *Throws mouse at monitor and logs off in disgust* Has a bad sleep and shows up for work really grumpy... "Shut it Spaceloach, who asked you!"]

 

[Six6VI]

Two questions on materials %

A. Can the "Planet Materials" list be word wrapped in some way so there's no need to scroll down in the system map to read the G5 one at the bottom, since that's the one everybody usually wants to see the most and...

B. Can the same information be displayed to indicate the drop rate of materials with "Ring Type"?

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

B. Can the same information be displayed to indicate the drop rate of materials with "Ring Type"?

^^^ This. So much this.

Especially now that two new elements have been added to the material tables for metal rich rings. Mining is a good way to get materials. It would be far better with the right tools - i.e. the percentages.

 

[lovely lovely]

Here's one - may already have been addressed so apologies.
When you apply an engineering mod (say FSD or Thrusters for example) - do you get to see the actual outcome on the screen in 3.0? In 2.4 you apply a mod you then have to navigate out to the outfitting or right panel screen after you've applied it to see what effect it's had on say jump range or speed.
On the engineer screen after the roll it needs to show the outcome before you click try again, apply to discard - you know, you're making a better informed decision rather than guessing what the result is first.

 

[Sirius Agent]

I like new engineers and security system, good job finally. I wish for more tools for non-RES bounty hunters with support from system security, like for example information about crimes against players in all systems except anarchy.