DW2 Fleet Roster is now closed.
Additionally roster amendments are no longer available.
The latecomers roster will be merged with the main roster sometime toward the end of the expedition.
Introduction
"Distant Worlds 2 is an expedition to the far outer rim that will culminate at Beagle Point approximately 16-20 weeks after launch. It will launch from Pallaeni, a frontier system, in Q1 2019. Its mission statement is to take explorers on a journey of discovery, to see what mysteries the galaxy contains, and to construct a starport at Sagittarius A* and an Outpost at Beagle Point (planet 2) via two mining-based community goals (subject to Frontiers approval).
For those new to mass expedition events, the basic premise is as follows; Fleet members will travel the route either alone, with friends, or in wings, and will regroup at designated waypoints along the journey. Those waypoint gatherings begin on a Friday and ended on a Sunday with a fleet launch event.
Over a 'Waypoint Weekend' there will be all sorts of events and projects to take part in. Participation in events and projects is 100% voluntary. What is new to all players on this particular mass expedition is its focus on Discovery - the journey to each waypoint being its own mini expedition, with the goal being for people to see if they can uncover any of the anomalies and mysteries of the galaxy, and submit them for the sake of the whole expedition". - Erimus Kamzel (DW Project Leader).
Modes of Play
For participants on these kinds of events it’s a case of players accepting the consequences of Open mode and adapting to them, or choosing the Private Group or Solo Play options to ensure that those that don’t want PvP to affect their expedition have a place to do so. By doing so you agree to abide by the rules of that group. Please note that PvP activity in any of the official PGs that results in the destruction of a participants ship will be dealt with and the offender(s) will be removed from the PG, the fleet roster, and the discord server.
Additionally, any behaviour that is deemed inappropriate or any 'trolling' against the discord admins & moderators, or event organisers, will likewise see offenders removed from the expedition. Please be respectful, as the people who will be creating this event are not paid employees of FDev, they are just gamers like everyone else, but who are giving up their spare time to create and administrate DW2. A rule of thumb is that DW2 is an event created by players and overseen by players, and you are being invited to take part, but you have no entitlement to take part - the exception being the FDev implemented Community Goal, which are open to anyone whether they are a part of DW2 or not.
Roles within the fleet
Fleet roles on DW2 are linked to specific events and projects that will be incorporated into the overall expedition. For roster purposes, you can choose up to two fleet roles, but this does not prevent you from taking on multiple roles during DW2. You can also edit your chosen roles anytime you like using the edit link you'll be provided with once you submit your fleet registration. For information on DW2 Projects that are associated with the available roles, please see the main Expedition Overview & Project Synopsis thread; Linked Here.
Miner 
| For the first time ever, Prospecting and Mining will have a practical role to play on a deep space expeditionary event, with miners at the forefront of the industrial aspect of Distant Worlds 2. |
Fleet Mechanic 
| Commanders who rig their ships to carry Hull Repair Limpets and are on hand to offer essential hull repairs to all fleet members who require their services. |
Tour Guide 
| These pilots will work in conjunction with the Galactic Travel Agency and utilize Multi-Crew. The service will allow many more players to take part in DW2 as passengers and guests aboard Tour Guide operators ships. For RP purposes we encourage Tour Guides to register Belugas, Orcas, or Dolphin-class cruisers with the DW fleet. |
Astrophotographer 
| This project will be overseen by Qohen Leth for the official Distant Worlds Imgur Album. Astrophotographers will be encouraged to submit their photos to the album, some of these submissions will be highlighted and written about in the DW2 weekly newsletter, there may even be prizes on offer for a 'pic of the week'. |
Geologist 
| The prime focus for fleet Geologists is to seek out and catalogue active geological sites and interesting surface features for the Milky Way Society of Organics and Geology (overseen by CMDR MadRaptor - The Galactic Geologist). |
Scientist 
| This role is speculative and is based on the assumption that Environmental Space Anomalies (hinted at by FD) will be discoverable by Q4 3304, and will thus need charting for the Mapping Project and cataloguing. Scientists will also directly contribute to The Scientific Surveyor Project, whose goal will be to collate a wealth of statistics on star systems, worlds, and asteroid fields (among other things), from which EfilOne will create statistical documents on what the DW2 fleet discovered by journey's end. |
Media 
| This role will encompass Video Makers, Streamers, Mission Chroniclers and Blog-Writers who want to document their own journeys and share them with the community. Like on DW3302, some of the media content created during the expedition may be featured in the newsletters. |
MediCorp 
| (RP) This is a semi-roleplayed role and is based upon the concept created by Wing Atlantis. The basic premise is for MediCorp pilots to collect stranded escape pods that are located during the expedition and store them aboard their ships until journeys end, whereupon they will be delivered to a stations search & rescue department. |
Fleet Logistics 
| (RP) This is a roleplayed role and is based upon the concept created by Olivia Vespera. There are two aspects to this role. Supply and Trade. Supply will carry food equivalent to the amount required to support a fleet of this size for a 6 month journey into the black. Traders will carry various rare commodities for use in celebrations, or to trade with AI settlements we may encounter. |
Reaching Beagle Point:
Beagle Point is where the 'Outbound' journey will end and 'The Voyage Home' stage begins. To reach this star system you will need a ship that can jump a minimum of 33.4 LYs. Commanders thinking of taking short-range ships, please make sure your ship has a range of at least 16.8 LYs as a Jumponium level 3 fuel boost will then make Beagle Point attainable.
The Rock Rats
The original Distant Worlds Expedition was the birthplace of the Rock Rats, creating the jumponium highway at a time when ships could not easily cross The Abyss. We are proud to have them joining us once again, acting as the glue, in fact the silver thread running through the whole expedition.
Their role has evolved since DW1 and now they stand for a social, dynamic, helpful and coordinating group of veteran explorers. In their own words: “Our role in Distant Worlds 2 is to assist foremost the departments of exploration, mining, geology and science. But also in general to bring the expedition’s expertise together, see opportunities and connect. We fly or drive by your side and hopefully inspiring things will come of it”. It is an esteemed honour to have them joining us, and the majority of what’s going to be awesome about the expedition will be thanks to them!
Expeditions, what are they and how do they work?
- for those new to Elite Dangerous and/or Deep Space Events
The basic premise behind an expeditionary event is to provide a set of waypoint locations along a pre-defined route, present an itinerary and schedule, and provide a framework for events and activities for participants to get involved in at those waypoint meetups.
Waypoints are the gathering points, usually set several thousand light years apart, and often at iconic or interesting locations along the route. It is at these waypoints where the bulk of the participants taking part meet up (usually once per week), as travelling an expeditionary route is on the main a solo or wing pursuit (due to the differing timezones involved or the amount of gametime participants have to commit).
Key Aspects
There are several key aspects to make an expedition work in a structured and cohesive manner.
Pacing is a key aspect in so far it has to be set at something that the majority of participants are comfortable with, as well as allowing enough time for them to actually explore or take part in any events or projects associated with that expedition. With current gameplay mechanics, around 4,500 LYs to 6,500 LYs between weekly waypoint meetups seems to be the norm.
Trust is the fundamental aspect on which all expeditions work. Without trust among its participants, the social aspects that binds the expedition together and makes the weekly waypoint meetups, events, and projects work, unfortunately breaks down - and it doesn't take much for this to happen. Trust is therefore paramount.
PG vs Open Play
Unfortunately there are many pitfalls when trying to be inclusive to everything and everyone on an expedition, as some gameplay styles for events like this simply do not mix with the current game mechanics. The main one of these is that the game modes on offer are polar opposites in so far as one mode (Open Play) is a no rules 'wild west' environment, wholly suited to locations where players can easily get back on their feet after a setback during a PvP encounter, whereas the Private Group mode, which is advocating a purely PvE environment, has rules to adhere to precisely to prevent the kind of gameplay seen in Open which can quickly undermine the fundamental aspects of long distance & long duration events. There is no middle-ground in Elite Dangerous at the moment, and as a consequence this polarizes the community.
Deep space expeditions are a unique event in the world of Elite. They're unique in a sense that players taking part in them risk far more than any other play style in Elite, precisely because of the practicalities involved. An expedition commits a player to spending months of their gameplay far from any re-spawn points, and takes them to locations that often take weeks or months to reach, and occasionally physically difficult to reach too due to the jump distances involved (eg. DW2 will include several such locations along its route!), and as such the emphasis is invariably put on jump range and exploration-based loadouts as to make participation viable for many commanders who have limited gametime to keep pace or who want to visit some of the extremely hard to reach locations on and expedition that only a purely stripped down exploration build is capable of reaching. Defensive set-ups should never be relegated to an afterthought though, and players need to take responsibility on how they're prepping for these kinds of long distance events, far from home, as you never know whats out there!
Deep space events are not like running the BGS or bubble-based missions, where death via PvP or NPC encounters can be overcome in minutes, and where the player can get back to doing what they were doing with little upheaval or fuss. Instead death during an encounter on an expedition far out in the depths of space not only means that player losing all the data they amassed along the way, but they're also reset back to a station that can be 10's of thousands of LYs away. Therefore it should come as no surprise that out of the 40 major expeditions in Elite Dangerous that have taken part to date, every single one of them have been primarily aimed at PG gameplay, as this is the only viable way to make them work as intended.
Why not create defensive roles?
The bottom line is that it is impossible to vette hundreds of players for such roles. Defenders and 'security' role gameplay is futile because you never truly know the motives of the players or groups who take those roles – it only takes a handful to betray their role and use it against those they're tasked to protect - and that alone instantly undermines the whole concept and destroys the trust. Additionally, as it stands, the game itself conspires against this kind of gameplay as it becomes incredibly time consuming and logistically frustrating trying to make it work effectively across many different instances. The role works on paper, but when its applied to any event that has trust as its key foundational aspect, it simply does not work at all because it can be so easily manipulated and undermined.
It is an unfortunate fact that until Elite Dangerous has more adequate tools to utilize that will protect the integrity and cohesion of player created events, expeditions like DW2 will always be primarily aimed at those playing in PGs, since PGs are the only means in which organizers can impose strict PvE rules to adhere to, and although not 100% safe, PGs at least give that trust between its participants a chance to flourish. Therefore we encourage participants signing up to DW2 to consider one of the PGs, or starting one of their own, to be their prime mode of play during the journey we're about to embark on.
Fly safe commanders o7.
Waypoints are the gathering points, usually set several thousand light years apart, and often at iconic or interesting locations along the route. It is at these waypoints where the bulk of the participants taking part meet up (usually once per week), as travelling an expeditionary route is on the main a solo or wing pursuit (due to the differing timezones involved or the amount of gametime participants have to commit).
Key Aspects
There are several key aspects to make an expedition work in a structured and cohesive manner.
- Objectives
- Pacing
- Trust
Pacing is a key aspect in so far it has to be set at something that the majority of participants are comfortable with, as well as allowing enough time for them to actually explore or take part in any events or projects associated with that expedition. With current gameplay mechanics, around 4,500 LYs to 6,500 LYs between weekly waypoint meetups seems to be the norm.
Trust is the fundamental aspect on which all expeditions work. Without trust among its participants, the social aspects that binds the expedition together and makes the weekly waypoint meetups, events, and projects work, unfortunately breaks down - and it doesn't take much for this to happen. Trust is therefore paramount.
PG vs Open Play
Unfortunately there are many pitfalls when trying to be inclusive to everything and everyone on an expedition, as some gameplay styles for events like this simply do not mix with the current game mechanics. The main one of these is that the game modes on offer are polar opposites in so far as one mode (Open Play) is a no rules 'wild west' environment, wholly suited to locations where players can easily get back on their feet after a setback during a PvP encounter, whereas the Private Group mode, which is advocating a purely PvE environment, has rules to adhere to precisely to prevent the kind of gameplay seen in Open which can quickly undermine the fundamental aspects of long distance & long duration events. There is no middle-ground in Elite Dangerous at the moment, and as a consequence this polarizes the community.
Deep space expeditions are a unique event in the world of Elite. They're unique in a sense that players taking part in them risk far more than any other play style in Elite, precisely because of the practicalities involved. An expedition commits a player to spending months of their gameplay far from any re-spawn points, and takes them to locations that often take weeks or months to reach, and occasionally physically difficult to reach too due to the jump distances involved (eg. DW2 will include several such locations along its route!), and as such the emphasis is invariably put on jump range and exploration-based loadouts as to make participation viable for many commanders who have limited gametime to keep pace or who want to visit some of the extremely hard to reach locations on and expedition that only a purely stripped down exploration build is capable of reaching. Defensive set-ups should never be relegated to an afterthought though, and players need to take responsibility on how they're prepping for these kinds of long distance events, far from home, as you never know whats out there!
Deep space events are not like running the BGS or bubble-based missions, where death via PvP or NPC encounters can be overcome in minutes, and where the player can get back to doing what they were doing with little upheaval or fuss. Instead death during an encounter on an expedition far out in the depths of space not only means that player losing all the data they amassed along the way, but they're also reset back to a station that can be 10's of thousands of LYs away. Therefore it should come as no surprise that out of the 40 major expeditions in Elite Dangerous that have taken part to date, every single one of them have been primarily aimed at PG gameplay, as this is the only viable way to make them work as intended.
Why not create defensive roles?
The bottom line is that it is impossible to vette hundreds of players for such roles. Defenders and 'security' role gameplay is futile because you never truly know the motives of the players or groups who take those roles – it only takes a handful to betray their role and use it against those they're tasked to protect - and that alone instantly undermines the whole concept and destroys the trust. Additionally, as it stands, the game itself conspires against this kind of gameplay as it becomes incredibly time consuming and logistically frustrating trying to make it work effectively across many different instances. The role works on paper, but when its applied to any event that has trust as its key foundational aspect, it simply does not work at all because it can be so easily manipulated and undermined.
It is an unfortunate fact that until Elite Dangerous has more adequate tools to utilize that will protect the integrity and cohesion of player created events, expeditions like DW2 will always be primarily aimed at those playing in PGs, since PGs are the only means in which organizers can impose strict PvE rules to adhere to, and although not 100% safe, PGs at least give that trust between its participants a chance to flourish. Therefore we encourage participants signing up to DW2 to consider one of the PGs, or starting one of their own, to be their prime mode of play during the journey we're about to embark on.
Fly safe commanders o7.
DW2 on the Console
The Consoles Team aim to ensure suitable console representation for the duration of DW2. The original Distant Worlds Expedition departed too early for many XBOX commanders and PS4 involvement was only a pipe-dream, so this is the first opportunity for the majority of these commanders to take part in a truly Galactic Exploration Event.
We shall guide console commanders to the appropriate roles, and deal with console-specific issues as they arise. We shall lend support to each role's leaders as requested, whilst facilitating console involvement within those roles. We shall be the representatives of the organisers, and be expected to perform a myriad of support duties specific to console involvement.
The Consoles Team will be lead by: JT442, DistantworldsXB on Xbox, Private Group leader for Xbox named: DistantworldsXB
PS4 lead: Allcrowsareblack, Allcrowsareblack on PS4m Private Group leader for PS4 named: Allcrowsareblack
Xbox lead: Xta80, Xta80 on Xbox
Please add the private group leaders as friends and await confirmation. They will check your name is on the roster before adding you. This may take a while, so please send them a message only if you haven't been accepted for over a week.
Link: Xbox thread
Link: Playstation 4 thread
