Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Questions and Answers

[Tinkuwu]

Alright, so now I need to know. Are melee weapons a thing?

I ask because I made a character in an Elite: Dangerous DnD campaign and his name was Girf Grille, and his weapon of choice? A battleaxe. It was my dream to jump out of my ship, land on an enemy ship and just beat them down with the battle axe. The character died before he was able to do any of that, but he did get a battleaxe in the campaign before he died.

So, if melee weapons are a thing, I'd love to try and pull this off in-game.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

Will powerplay see any changes in Odyssey?
Powerplay will be discussed at a later date

Wait what does it mean, that you are gonna change/fix/upgrade Powerplay far after Odyssey's release or that you'll talk in the next weeks about the changes we will find in Odyssey?

 

[Rat Catcher]

I am aware of the history, but it simply will not work with Odyssey. If they have severe lag and instancing anomalies with FPS in Odyssey then it will sink like a stone! CQC style. Elite is a disaster for networking. It is the most frustrating game I have ever played with regards to it where CG's and PvP are concerned.

Obviously Frontier believe it will work with Odyssey, else they would be introducing Pay2Play on launch and causing the forum to meltdown with such news. (and doubtless losing an unguessable number of existing players who have no desire to pay for something that was previously free!)
Whether it does perform any better than today is something we will all find out on release, but as it is p2p it will still depend on the instance one is in, I'd guess.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Some welcome answers there, especially the bit about being able to deploy in another person's SRV. The hit boxes for ship kits was a surprise as well.

However, i'm rather surprised about

Will a Horizons user on a SRV be able to meet an Odyssey user on foot on a planet with no atmosphere?
We are looking at this at the moment - more to follow soon.

I had assumed this would be a no-brainer to have... but i can only guess there needs to be code to handle it for some reason.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Currently there is no way to get the Guardian Blueprints without fighting the Guardian Sentinels, or asking someone to come along and kill them for you. You also need to have weapons in order to activate the Guardian Beacon. It would be really nice to see non combat interactions have a bit more depth in Odyssey.

The guardian blueprints are a purely optional. But I agree it would be nice to get some non-combat interactions for some stuff.

 

[CMDR Deano The Imperial]

Higher-G world... Cmdr fires grenade.... PLOP!.. lands a few feet away... Can he run? (or is the Jetpack fast enough?)

Or....
An enemy ship with point defence just makes mincemeat out of them before they can even move. No jet pack can outrun a point defence shell.

 

[moonsword]

will head tracking tools like Track IR5 be supported like in the cockpit mode for free head movement?

 

[Terminal_Briton]

Will there be changes made to make HUD customasations possible within the game? Since the new FPS HUD might have problems with any changed elements.

 

[Ozric]

The guardian blueprints are a purely optional. But I agree it would be nice to get some non-combat interactions for some stuff.

If they restricted non combat interactions to being walking around on a planet, social hubs, and package delivery missions, then the rest of the content with Odyssey would be purely optional

 

[Gendo Ashina]

Has there been any info regarding the entry sequence when landing on atmospherics. Will there be visuals for our ship heating up from atmospheric friction?

 

[turbo_toni]

How many keyboard keys am I going to need to memorise to play whilst wearing a hmd?

 

[Tinkuwu]

How many keyboard keys am I going to need to memorise to play whilst wearing a hmd?

Well, you're likely going to need to remember FPS controls, so WASD, space, and mouse movements are all standard, I'm pretty sure. (If not, frontier, might wanna fix it ASAP) But for other things, I'd recommend rebinding them yourself so you can easily access them. They mentioned something about being able to choose shield power, and I'm wondering if that's going to be a pip system like in the ships we have now, or if there's going to be a menu like the navigation panel, for the suit.

 

[Rat Catcher]

How many keyboard keys am I going to need to memorise to play whilst wearing a hmd?

At least 8 I'd think... as we will be able to crouch and jump... (10 if you count walk/run)

 

[CMDR_LS]

Will we be able to interact with physicalized objects (rigid bodies) in EDO?

For example, when you go on foot to collect engineering mats? can we pick them up and carrying them to our ship/srv?
missions - box delivery missions? can we physically pick those up or will it be just an ugly boring strings like it is now.

What I don't want this to be is just a pure FPS combat DLC because we have tons of that already in other games.

 

[Maolagin]

I asked this at the end of the last AMA, but what do you mean by Physical Multicrew and how is it different from current multicrew? As you have said we cannot walk in ship interiors, I'm not sure how you will differentiate.

With this new information about SRVs (and that is new, previously multicrew and SRVs didn't play nice together) I think we can infer a fundamental architectural change.

With the current multicrew system, the guest player is part of the instance linked to the host player ship. That's presumably part of why fighters are limited in how far from the mothership they are allowed to go. With that limitation, you can't let a multicrew player take off in your SRV, because SRVs don't have such a limit and can wander off indefinitely. And you can't take off in your own SRV because then the guest player would be stuck in your ship without an instance of their own once it despawns (i.e. leaves for orbit once your SRV is a few km away).

With the new multicrew, it sounds strongly like each player will carry their own instance around with them. So you'll share an instance when you're in the same ship or in close proximity of course, but it will now be possible for the two players to go their own separate ways without the guest player returning to their ship. The Odyssey code allows the second player's instance to seamlessly spit off once they separate, whether in different ships, or on foot or SRV.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Wait what does it mean, that you are gonna change/fix/upgrade Powerplay far after Odyssey's release or that you'll talk in the next weeks about the changes we will find in Odyssey?

Arthur implied from an earlier response Powerplay has not seen attention in Odyssey, but Powerplay 'at a later date' will see balance tweaks like bounties have done recently.

So in short, at some point Powerplay will see simple credit / bonus tweaks but will not see wholesale change for a long while as FDs attention will be on Odyssey.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

Arthur implied from an earlier response Powerplay has not seen attention in Odyssey, but Powerplay 'at a later date' will see balance tweaks like bounties have done recently.

So in short, at some point Powerplay will see simple credit / bonus tweaks but will not see wholesale change for a long while as FDs attention will be on Odyssey.

Two and a half years after the infamous Sammarco Proposal. Well, I should be used to this, but it still kinda let you down.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I suspect that phrasing was carefully chosen by marketing to turn "no" into something that drives and retains sales based on blind hope, without putting them legally on the hook for not providing it.

Having followed the game, and FDevs comments for a long while, that one is most certainly as it reads. Compare it to their comment on basebuilding and it "not being on the road map".

 

[Barking_Mad]

Will devices with more than 32 buttons be supported in Odyssey? I'd really like my new Virpil Throttle to work 'fully' with Elite Dangerous.

Can we expect Space Stations to have less 'menu's' and instead transition to a FPS experiance with physical shops/locations?

They've confirmed several shops.

 

[Barking_Mad]

View attachment 200075

I was really fed up with FDs Powerplay can kicking, but this made me laugh because I have a damaged sense of humour.

I dont PP but I hope they improve it if only for you old bean!

I do think they'll take another look at it after Odyssey, I initially thought they'd maybe improve it in the initial release but it would appear that was a step too far....