Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Q&A - Settlements

Paul_Crowther

Community Manager
Frontier
PC Gamer Combat Screen 1.png

Greetings Commanders!

Prior to the winter holiday break we asked you to share your questions on Odyssey with us so we could bring them to our developers and get the answers to you. Well you delivered, whoo boy did you deliver! We've had so many questions answered that we've had to break them down into categories to share with you and we'll be doing so over the next few weeks!

To kick things off we got together with Developer Gareth Hughes and we've all the answers to your Settlement questions here:


Q: If I go to an outpost and wipe everyone out, do they all respawn eventually, or is that town now a ghost town?
Outposts will send for reinforcements that will become progressively tougher, however these are not infinite. It would be possibly to kill everyone and then loot the outpost, however the consequences there after would be severe…

Q. You have said in one of the Dev Diaries that the people you encounter in stations and outposts are related to the faction in control. How will we get missions from other factions in the station?
There will also be mission boards on terminals available in ports and outposts that can support on-foot missions from all factions in the system. Mission Givers in ports and outposts can also be from a variety of factions.

Q. Do NPCs spawn only at these new Settlement Outposts or do they appear anywhere on a planet like those parked NPC ships that pop up in random places?
NPC’s will not spawn randomly in the ‘wilderness’, however they may stumble across you at a place of interest.

Q. What permanent states can the new Settlement outposts have, like conquered or destroyed etc.
The states are as follows: Active, abandoned, war, damaged, Online, Online Damaged, Offline, Offline Damaged and Conflict Zone

Q: If I eliminate everyone in a Settlement, do they respawn or will it remain empty?
Settlements won't stay empty forever. They will repopulate over time.

Q: Will there be Engineers for your weapons and suits?
Yes, the original cast of engineers will remain, and they will be joined by a new group – all of whom you will be able to meet in person for the first time.

Q. Are there destructible items in bases e.g. exploding barrels that can be used for tactical purposes?
Yes, you’ll be able to take advantage of certain environmental elements for a tactical advantage. If you want to stand next to big red barrels feel free to…

Q. Can we hack weapon emplacements to turn them on defenders, or switch off station power to disable weapon emplacements?
Yes, you will be able to bring down settlement defences, allowing others to enter the combat zones in vehicles. Powering down a settlement will also allow you to access restricted areas.

Q: Within Odyssey, thinking of the open air combat zones, what's to stop me from using an Orca, equipped with mines, to carpet bomb a settlement?
Settlement defences are quite potent, without shutting them off first you may find yourself suddenly without that ORCA...

Q: What's going to be able to stop an SLF with Shard cannons?
Outside of the settlement defences which we have already stated are not to be taken lightly – some hand held weapons can be very effective.


Keep an eye on our channels for the next set of answers next week!

o7
 

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
rootsrat
Thanks for this! Very informative :)

Paul_Crowther said:
Q: Will there be Engineers for your weapons and suits?
Yes, the original cast of engineers will remain, and they will be joined by a new group – all of whom you will be able to meet in person for the first time.
Click to expand...

Does that include the current engineers? I'd love to have a word with Palin about certain mysterious Thargoid interceptor... ;)
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
The states are as follows: Active, abandoned, war, damaged, Online, Online Damaged, Offline, Offline Damaged and Conflict Zone

What's the difference between 'war' and 'conflict zone'? Whether or not the settlement is a participant?
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
rootsrat said:
Does that include the current engineers? I'd love to have a word with Palin about certain mysterious Thargoid interceptor... ;)
Click to expand...
I was wondering this too. Previous statements had led some to believe we'd be able to meet some (all?) of the existing engineers as actual on-foot avatars. Now it's sounding more like we'll only be able to meet the new ones. Will we actually be able to go on foot inside any of the existing engineer bases and/or planetary ports or will those existing assets remain as purely hollow shells? (I'd expect the latter)
 

Haradrim

H
It would be cool if you added a super rare NPC interaction up to a certain distance from the bubble. But rarer than the interaction with NPC ships on random anarchy planets
 

Wimmer

Wimmer
Q: If you can wipe everyone out in the settlement, can we also wipe everyone from the Engineer base? I mean wipe even Farseer or Palin? :)
 

ATrifleMiffed

A
Paul_Crowther said:
Q. You have said in one of the Dev Diaries that the people you encounter in stations and outposts are related to the faction in control. How will we get missions from other factions in the station?
There will also be mission boards on terminals available in ports and outposts that can support on-foot missions from all factions in the system. Mission Givers in ports and outposts can also be from a variety of factions.
Click to expand...

The big PCGamer article on Odyssey mentioned that these "in person" NPC mission givers' missions are different from normal, mission board, missions, with the ability to "haggle" for rewards and, if I understood correctly, different objectives. Can we get a bit more detail on these? Will they only feature on-foot objectives, or can we also expect these NPC mission givers to give ship missions (transport, ship assassination, salvage, etc.) as well?
 
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