David Braben Powerplay AMA Part 2

Ben Ryder · Jun 3, 2015

Dear Mr David Sir,

As smugglers are traders who take greater risk, will we get our full smuggling history finally added to our trading rank when 1.3 is released? So far smugglers have operated at a loss for the last few months and it would be a shame to make our past efforts count for nothing.

Really excited about 1.3 and have to say well done on all the hard work you and your chaps have put in to the game.

Your Chum,

Ben

Tar Stone · Jun 3, 2015

Will individual stations reflect the war status of a system, or will stations remain unaffected?

In a system at war I would expect trade to be affected, commodities unavailable or in high demand, bulletin missions more in line with the war status.

In a system at war I expect to see security ships everywhere, NPC trade ships guarded by wings of fighters, armed soldiers on the landing pad with dark glasses and sharp knives clamped between their teeth.

Rall · Jun 3, 2015

Mr Braben,

With sightings of the Diamondback Explorer in the wild, rumours of Diamondback ship variants have reached critical mass. Forum goers are taking up pitchforks and are on the verge of revolt.

As street riots would be mildly inconvenient for your staff, can you either confirm or deny that ship variants are being sneakily introduced into 1.3?

Regards,
CMDR Rall.

Vasious · Jun 3, 2015

Good Day David

Greetings from NZ

Two questions
1)How are comets coming along?
They were mentioned in the pre 1.1 data dump of first discoverers and it was said they were a work in progress.

2) Will we see Faction Naval NPC ships get their own livery just as the System Authority vessels of the Factions and Independents have their own distinct liveries?
Perhaps even for simplicity the Naval forces could be assigned one of the existing vivid or upcoming Tactical colour schemes.
Would look great in the conflict zones and such if you could visually identify a ship's faction by their livery

Regards

Cmdr Blain Crighton

Sanderson · Jun 3, 2015

Ben Ryder said:
Dear Mr David Sir,

As smugglers are traders who take greater risk, will we get our full smuggling history finally added to our trading rank when 1.3 is released? So far smugglers have operated at a loss for the last few months and it would be a shame to make our past efforts count for nothing.

Really excited about 1.3 and have to say well done on all the hard work you and your chaps have put in to the game.

Your Chum,

Ben

Old Ben (kenobi?) you are shining beacon of reason and civility and I mean that.

FD is lucky to have you as a member of it's community. Good thing I'm around to add balance to the force

Pixeldemon · Jun 3, 2015

One of Powerplay's features is an "overhauled" mission system.

Does this mean we will see new mission types like escorting npc ships, distress signal rescues, targeted piracy missions to retrieve mission cargo, long range transport missions (multiple jumps), objective-based military missions (like destroying an escorted supply convoy), and so on?

Also, will conflict zones be generated dynamically and made finite instead of endless?

Katkon · Jun 3, 2015

David - absolutely love the game. Have been active since early premium beta and still can't get enough, which is remarkable!

I believe that customization is a huge opportunity for you (financially) and us, the player base (personalization). Several paint jobs have been added since the game's introduction, but some ships are still without. Moreover, the NPC sfly around with some cool paint jobs. Any chance you could simply "cut and paste" some of the NPC paint jobs to the online store? More variety would be fantastic - I'll gladly pay for the privilege! Would really link more options to stand out other than having to rely on my winning personality, of course.

CyberGrim · Jun 3, 2015

With PP looking to add more combat to elite are you looking to overhaul some of the combat elements? Such as shields/SCB/amour upgrades. something like this:

Quote Originally Posted by Darrett View Post
The solution to it seems to be something along the lines of:

1. Internal Modules (Power Plant, Power Distributor, Life Support, perhaps Shield Generator) are all protected by armor. External modules remain as they are.
2. Power Plant destruction no longer destroys the ship. Instead, it forces the ship into a mode where all modules receive damage to keep the power plant online. Modules receive damage over time until they are destroyed, or the ship does an actual reboot/repair sequence.
3. Hitboxes of modules fixed to prevent damage from bizarre angles. Currently I can hit the Power Generator of an Anaconda from almost anywhere, thanks to the magic of Gimbals.
4. Shield recharge rates to be increased based on power distributor and pips in shields. Upgrading shields with Boosters would decrease the time to regenerate as the total value is higher.
5. SCBs limited to one per ship.

Do it this way, and you won't see a reduction in the survivability of large ships as the biggest weakness they have (power plant) is now protected by armor, and it is more difficult to target internal modules. Shields would drop slower when not using SCBs, but faster when SCBs are taken into account. Once shields are down, it is no longer the most efficient to simply destroy the power plant, and will increase survivability of larger ships without shields.

Krassis · Jun 3, 2015

Sir, This game is great. When I first started playing this year, I bought the auto-pilot for my sidewinder. (I still haven't learned how to fly well. heh!) I remember the Blue Danube playing an thought wow I have played this game before. I scratched my head an spent 4 hours doing research. When I looked up what FD meant (hehe) I saw the original station. I bought the game for my commodore 64 back in the mid or late 80's. wow what a memory. I eventually bought a hard drive so I wouldn't have to keep loading from tape (grrrr). The technology and code has come a long way my friend. Can't imagine what it will be like in 30 more yrs.

great job you guys.

Ziljan · Jun 3, 2015

David, first thank you for the amazing game. It's a childhood dream come true, and this adult astrophysicist's waking dream as well.

My question:

Are there any plans to expand upon and deepen space Exploration gameplay before the planetary landing expansion comes out?

Ironwolf · Jun 3, 2015

Hi David,
As a loyal fan of the Elite franchise I find it saddening that ED is becoming a pale shadow of what it could have been.
It seems to be increasingly dumbed down to be played by seven year olds.
I cant help feeling that we could've had it all.
Is this really the game you want to play?

Wolfestar · Jun 3, 2015

Hi David

Firstly a massive thank you to FD for Elite Dangerous. It's everything I was hoping for after playing way too many hours of Elite on the C64 and Elite II on the PC in my youth.

I've only got one question. When will that little screen between our legs be plugged in and what plans do you have for it? Personally, I'd like it to be my ships, slightly senile computer, who is ready to suggest crazy ideas, like a Holly Hop Drive.

Cheers
Commander Wolfestar

applor · Jun 3, 2015

David,
I want to know if Frontier are still planning to implement/enable hyperspace jumps between stars in the same system - and if so can we select which star to arrive at when first jumping into a system.
Thanks

CMDR Soundwave · Jun 3, 2015

Hi David, any news on the remaining of the 30 ships? And.... of course the one promised that would be "free"?

Thanks

Dubber · Jun 3, 2015

Hello David.

Please answer a few of the questions that may make you and your fellow developers uncomfortable in the subject matter, ie game direction.

The game is good but please don't leave the solo players in the dark, I'm sure yourself/the players don't just want a 'good' game, we want a classic and that will be the case if you don't lose sight of what made the original just that.

Kindest Regards

dub

Barringerr · Jun 3, 2015

Hello David,

First of all I've been playing Elite since about November and have mostly been extremely happy with it. Most enjoyable space sim I've played yet, hats off to you and the team.

Recent trends are worrying me though that the game is going to have a strong component favoring (/demanding) many hours of playtime just to maintain the status quo, let alone progress. Is this an unintended side-effect of recent changes, is this really the longer term direction of Elite, or is it just a big misunderstanding on behalf of the community? Can you see how the 1.3 beta has made a lot of people concerned about this? Are we missing the point, and is it not as big of a deal as we think it is? I *really* want you to tell us we're misunderstanding the changes, and it won't be as grindy/demanding of real-life hours as it appears right now. I'll be playing this game for months/years to come if it doesn't demand too many of my hours on a weekly basis to make a reasonable degree of progress, but if it does demand that, I don't see myself sticking around very long (and I feel like many people in the community are on the same page).

JMC002 · Jun 3, 2015

The goal of our group is to eventually create our own Power; what are the criteria?

Hellhawk666 · Jun 3, 2015

Hello David,

Will there be more variety in the "Power missions" that are used to trigger preparation, expansion, fortification and undermining. At the moment it feels very restricted. I do appreciate that each Power has its own approaches and strategy, so some will use combat while other use data delivery, and so on. However within this framework could there be some scope for a greater range of missions? It does feel very repetitive just doing precisely the same type of mission over and over again.

Thank you, and all the FD staff, for delivering this great game to us.

simonyee · Jun 3, 2015

Hi,
I am unable to get to the ASP ship once already. Now I have to discount the ASP at 6m.
My present dilemma is the price for the ship and also the upgrade of the weapon for the ASP will wither my will to continue.
And imposing your 10% does not help things.
Don't think only for the 10% but the cmdr who fight tooth and nail to get to where they are.
Imposing 10% will not lower player quota and degrade this game even more to a sand box situation.
If there is anything no one like is this!

- - - Updated - - -

Hi,
I will take note of this along with the rest of the cmdr.
Can you cope with the influx of steam and indeed starter cmdr since Jan 2015?
Should you not consider upgrading your system and instead of punisher us the player with the 10% thingy?
This is not only unfair to us and there should be a law against such blatant disregard for the Elite Dangerous cmdr.
Why do it this way?
Everything is not about making money but sustainability!

AnD PLEASE DONT STIGMA ME as a griefer.
long ago 1994 this game was wanted to be physical striving game and was cool.
Now is it CR this and CR that!
I rather be in WOT where CR this CR that is about learning new skills not boring, mundane.

Gully Foyle · Jun 3, 2015

dsagent said:
Hello David, will this game ever have a legitimate arena mode if so then when? We have high powered players who are flying around bored who just want to shoot things but at the same time don't want to pirate or ruin someone's day.

High Intensity Combat Zones are fun for that or.....
Why don't you guys all hang out in Anarchy Systems and pew pew pew each other there? Pick one and use it as an arena. Publish on the forum where it is and dare CMDRs to join you. Thanks for not being a KPer like the maladjusted attention es ramming n00bs in Leesti!

07 CMDR!