David Braben Powerplay AMA

[Surly_Badger]

Personally I would put in jump drive decay so that it diminishes jump range. Misjumps and about 50% jump range when it's near zero.

I was thinking about that the other day: wouldn't it be cool if you could overcharge your drive and make jumps 2-3 times longer than you normally could, but you damage the drive each time and you have a nonzero (and increasing with damage) chance of winding up someplace completely different?

 

[chagnampra]

Nowhere near as much as I'd like to... ;-)

Nor me! Though my wife is very understanding.

 

[David Braben]

Hi David,
Will there be an Exploration focused Faction in Powerplay?

There is no exploration oriented Power, but there is a Power with exploration-specific perks...

 

[Remklep]

David,
Do you listen to Dockers?
If so, what's your opinion?

 

[MikeSnos]

David, have you noticed Alliance no longer hold Leesti? Isn't that a big enough development that it should be making the Galnet news?

It's malicious lies!

 

[Xaraman]

Hi,

First of all, thank you to you and your team for an excellent game and for all the hard work and dedication you guys put into ED. Also, thank you for taking the time to do this AMA.

From yesterdays thread:

Hello,

Considering the resurgence in interest on the forum lately in certain exploits/bugs within the game and also taking into account the nature of Elite's P2P multiplayer architecture; could you please reassure the community that steps are been taken to reduce, remove or disable the hacking/cheating/exploiting communities from the game?

No specifics would be required. However, maybe if there have been actions taken against players it would be reassuring to hear some approximate numbers.

Thanks.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Hi David,

Currently most player conflict takes place after Supercruise interdictions.

Will the conflict Powerplay sees also involve more specific objectives, in a similar fashion to the "Convoy Beacon" in the Lugh war?

Also, what are the envisioned roles for the Imperial Courier and Diamondback?

 

[Adept]

In the Dev Diaries, and in interviews you spoke of wanting a more co-op focus, and not wanting players to suffer griefing. Do you consider the game is succeeding in this currently?

 

[MikeSnos]

David,
Do you listen to Dockers?
If so, what's your opinion?

Do you really want an answer to this?

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

Howdy Braben, your previous answer actually raised a newer question for me. Will these Powers in Play have a dedicated color in the galaxy map? Also, should a Faction take over one of the Big three powers, will their colors flip respectively to those who defeated them?

 

[PhazonAran]

Greetings Mr. Braben, thanks for answering the questions of the plebs we are

Could you tell us a little more about the Powers perks ? Will it include variants of equipement, like the old low heat weapons for example ?

 

[CivGalnet]

Hello David!

Will some of the issues with Wings be addressed in 1.3? I love Wings, but it has some minor instancing issues from time to time. A lot of people have been reporting not seeing any other players except for their Wing members in Wings, but as soon as they drop out of the Wing they see lots of players.

 

[David Braben]

Greetings CMDR Braben!

Thanks to all the hard work your team has done!

I have only one question.

Will President Vidar Vondell from the corporate faction in Eta Draconis "Gold Vision Co." be part of the original 20 factions first included?

We flipped the system, they expanded to eradicate pirates from BD+57 1692 and had a galnet article posted with him commenting on the capture of Eta Draconis. Just curious =)

Thanks again, wonderful game.

-LW

For a minor faction to become a Power will be a major achievement, involving many systems.

 

[Tinman]

Michael will be doing a 'crime special' in his next dev update... so I won't steal his thunder!

I think you just did...

 

[nothingtoseehere]

There is no exploration oriented Power, but there is a Power with exploration-specific perks...

What kind of perks will different Powers have? Will they only affect price or will they affect ship capabilities?

 

[cherbert]

I'm gonna ask it even though I know he will ignore it..

Have you seen a Landing on Planets concept from your developers? Is it everything you always dreamed of?

 

[KiddMenace]

What games/types of games do you like to play? Besides ED of course

 

[Steve50]

David,

I'm not really into factions and ranks really but if any faction/power would give us perks or bonuses for mining then I'm in. Are there any like that?

Btw can we have random faces back in the missions descriptions? I find a wall of text not as good, I miss them.

 

[Cosmos]

Killing off an established Power

I was wondering, not that I was planning anything, but what would happen if an influential character in the games lore took a thorough beating?

Might they eventually meet their end?

Cheers

 

[TheDayman]

Hi David,

Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions today. I look forward to the future of Elite, and I think you have built a great foundation of a game, however some of us on the forums believe it's heavily lacking in content. Thinking towards the future, how many more future updates (not including paid DLC) should we expect now that 1.3 is almost here? I ask because I'm curious about what Frontier's expectation on launching paid DLC is - I would love to see some Q2 or Q3 2015.

Edit: Not saying that free updates should stop, I'm more curious as to if 1.5 will be the start of paid DLC or are we a year off still and looking at more of a Elite Dangerous 2.0 scenario. Thought I'd clarify that.