Greetings Commanders.
Can you actually believe it’s the 9th of December and this is the 9th Update for Elite Dangerous: Odyssey? Does anyone else have any connections to the number 9? Not like I’m trying to distract you or anything.
So!
Let’s get ready to usher in Update 9…
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey servers will be offline from approximately 09:00 UTC
Servers are expected to come back online, with the update available at around 12:00 UTC (long one, ah? Lot of meat in this...).
Time to glide our way through some factual information and the annotations of a woman existing solely off of double espressos, Barry’s Tea (sponsor me) and only ever good intentions.
Updates of Note
Introducing…The Scorpion.
The Scorpion, a new SRV designed specifically for supporting infantry on ground-based combat has rolled into action.
- The Scorpion is fitted with 2 seats for a driver and a gunner, allowing two Commanders to operate as a team in this formidable fighting machine.
- All Scorpions come fitted with two weapons:
- Surge Repeater - A rapid-fire weapon that increases its fire rate and accuracy the longer it's fired for.
- Aculeus Launcher (I’m not saying that on stream) - A combination dumbfire and lock-on missile launcher.
- The Scorpion is only stocked at military economies.
Multi Limpet Controller Modules
Multi-Limpet Controllers are now available from Outfitting.
Multi-Limpet Controllers can program a limpet to perform one of a given set of tasks and will be available in multiple types which will dictate what functions it is able to program.
- Mining Multi Limpet Controller module (Available in Size 3)
- Operations Multi Limpet Controller module (Available in Size 3)
- Rescue Multi Limpet Controller module (Available in Size 3)
- Xeno Multi Limpet Controller module (Available in Size 3)
- Universal Multi Limpet Controller module (Available in Size 7)
- Make your tea for you module?
Mission Providers at Settlements.
Some NPCs at settlements might now occasionally have missions they can offer to passing Commanders!
If these mission providers become critically injured while a mission is active and the mission owning Commander is present at the location where the mission was provided, the mission will be considered failed.
- Mission providers will fight back if provoked.
- Mission providers will reappear at the settlement once the mission is marked as complete.
Planets.
Major improvements have been made to light tinting from atmospheres. You will have seen some lovely examples of this in our latest update from Arthur
here.
Module Management.
(Thought this worth popping up at the top here).
A fix has been implemented for pre-engineered modules from community goals not being marked informatively, as such.
- Pre-engineered module rewards will now have their description display the fact that they are pre-engineered, as well as have it display in the outfitting screen.
- Also trying to apply modifications to pre-engineered modules which specifically cannot be modified further (very niche circumstances) will now be disallowed with a message stating why.
Optimisation.
"Update 9 will see us go further, with optimisation already well underway for motion graph animation, mid-far distance planet rendering, lighting, scatter rocks, object physics, AI and character models – all of these, and many more, contributing to a better Odyssey experience for our players."
(Forgive me on this one for not deep diving into each point a little further for you. They’re quite tricky to word effectively and a whole day of trying to best explain would be needed from me at this point. You might like to read them for interest sake anyway, so here they are)
- Optimisations to textmesh system
- Optimisations to tubelights
- Optimisations to scatter rocks and scatter rock physics
- Minor optimisation to vehicle debris rendering
- Optimisations to the UI rendering
- Depth prepass optimisations have been implemented
- Optimisations to Environment Map rendering
- Optimisations to the avatar rendering system
- Optimisation to planets, particularly at mid-distance view
- Optimisations to energy management
- Optimisations to humanoid interactions
- Optimisations to compass and sensor data aggregation
- Performance improvements for NavMesh tile building
Stability
We’re actively continuing to help with tracking down as many continuing stability issues as possible, with your continued support in providing logs and reports where possible.
- A crash to desktop has been prevented which would occur when viewing a mission invitation inbox message, such as those offered by Professor Palin, that was generated on a different version of Elite Dangerous (For example if it was generated in Horizons then you’d get the crash in Odyssey and vice versa).
- A crash that could occur if a bit of dialogue is queued (in order to not play over another line) and then cancelled before it had a chance to play. (eg. in a conflict zone, the coordinator might be talking, so a suit voice gets queued, and then the player is killed before it plays.) has been addressed.
- A fix has been implemented for a crash that could occur when talking with a mission giving NPC again after completing a mission for them.
- Improvements made to the general stability of the tutorial scenario.
General Improvements and Fixes
AI
- AI in dropships will take explosive damage if the dropship is destroyed before deployment.
- The player that destroyed the ship will be given credit for the damage caused to the AI.
- A fix has been implemented for Supercruise assist not disengaging correctly when approaching stations inside ring systems.
- AI will no longer become suspicious of you if you run out of suit energy near them (I kind of love the idea of this…”why you tired?”. I mean at least they care! I guess they don’t need to get mad about it though…).
Audio
SRV related improvements
- Improved responsiveness and mix of the Scarab tire surface noises, including skids.
- Improved the Scarab mix at different distances and perspectives.
- Scarab will now sound clearer further out, for example.
- Fix implemented to address the odd echo quality on Scarab sounds at distance, which basically, I’m straight up told, sounded 'weird'.
- Improvements made to audio Level of Definition optimisations on the Scarab that were incorrectly set up.
- Fixed annoying high pitched tone in the SRV tire on rock sounds.
- Fix implemented for audio not being affected sufficiently when obstructed by objects.
- Fix implemented for SRV turret movement sounds not always being audible.
- Rebalanced the Scarab Wavescanner sounds.
- Some were quite loud (eg. the crystal one). They should be more consistent compared to each other now.
Rebalanced SRV audio perspectives:
- SRV Cockpit should have less sharp “crunch” of the surface/tires compared to before (as you are in a canopy).
- Turret/Gunner should have clearer surface crunch and less bassy engines (made me think of Shirley Bassey for some reason).
- The Camera Suite, when activated, will have less 'fizzy surface noise' come through at distance compared to before, but more surface detail does come in if you get the camera close to the wheels.
- Optimisations have been made to the Scarab wheel audio emitters.
- Reduced volume of overly loud planetary exploration music (I can't get enough of it, personally).
- Fixes for Emote body movement sounds sometimes being silent have been implemented.
- Fix added for settlement terminal boot-up-ident sounds being too loud.
- Fixed the firegroup toggle sound sometimes being silent if you rapidly change it.
- Fix implemented for TK Aphelion gunshots dropping out when manually triggering individual shots rapidly.
- Fix implemented for missing Engineer voice lines in the non-English languages when discussing the quiet footsteps modification (they’re talking about quiet footsteps, c’mon! Maybe they don’t wanna broadcast it, right?).
- Added small delay to various Engineer voice lines to stop missing words happening at the start of a phrase, when transitioning between menus.
- Fix implemented for drive assist off and on COVAS lines occurring on disembarking and boarding your SRV when drive assist is on.
- A 30 second cooldown has been added to the drive assist on and off COVAS lines to reduce the “spammy quality” for players who switch drive assist on and off frequently.
Camera Suite
- An issue has been fixed whereby certain parts of the ship UI became visible when using the Camera Suite, particularly in the Type 10.
- You were able to see the comms panel, team status and info panel from your external cam view, for example.
- Custom ship paintjobs were not showing up in the 3rd person camera when in virtual multicrew. This has now been resolved.
Conflict Zones
- A fix has been implemented for the Commander’s current reputation with a faction being highlighted in a Combat Zone showing red, despite being friendly or neutral.
- An update has been made to Combat Zone control points to allow them to be visible in Ships and SRVs.
- Improved player messaging has been implemented for when you can't recall your ship from an SRV, due to being in a Conflict Zone.
- An issue has been resolved whereby the Combat Zone objectives UI persisted on the SRV info panel following the end of a CZ.
- A fix has been implemented for a Combat Zone sometimes no longer progressing if a Ship Launched Fighter is destroyed.
Commodity Trading
- Black markets now offer the full market value for Illegal goods (swindlers...)
Characters
- Fix implemented for broken lip sync on Dylan, at the end of the tutorial (big fan of Dylan).
Fleet Carriers
- When accessing information about a Fleet Carrier via the system map, certain vital information was missing - e.g: Access Type and Owner. This has now been addressed.
Interactions
- Fix implemented for destroyed limpets not having collision.
- Fix implemented for missing turret schematics.
- Fixed implemented for the Thargoid shutdown field not affecting ships.
- Thargoid Interceptors EMP blast did not disable Commander ships in Combat/AX Zones.
- An issue has been fixed which prevented the galaxy map button on the Vista Genomics vendor from functioning.
Lighting & VFX
- VFX for the engineered Multicannon weapon have been re-balanced.
- VFX for the seeker missiles have been rebalanced.
- Fix implemented for water geyser VFX being visible through rock.
- Fix implemented for missing ripple effect on shields.
Megaships
- Megaship Cargo and Escape Pod canisters would often become stuck inside Megaships, rendering them irretrievable.
- Issues around this included:
- “After hatchbreaking a cargo bay or escape hatch, some or all of the cargo/escape pods stay inside the ship rather than venting into space where they can be scooped or picked up by limpets. Cargo bays don't seem to vent any canisters at all, they just stay stacked inside. Escape hatch vents some pods but others seem trapped under the skin of the megaship and can't be reached.”
- “Use a hatchbreaker limpet on any cargo bay. Cargo canisters will appear on the contacts list but there's no way to collect them”
- This issue…has now been (man, I hope so. It seems really good…it does!!) fixed.
Mining
- An issue has been fixed whereby raw materials and even some refinable fragments became “stuck” inside the mineable rock instead of being released, even though they show up in contacts they cannot be collected.
Missions
- Fix implemented for some Delivery Missions failing to progress upon interacting with the mission contact.
- Fix implemented for Recovery and Scavenge Missions sometimes being unable to fail if the mission is abandoned or the mission owning commander is critically injured.
- Fix implemented for Combat Aftermath USS:
- When Commanders are given the option of taking the "Scan" objective, they could scan the onboard data link before accepting the objective which would cause the USS to break and would prevent progression. This has now been fixed.
- Fix implemented for unlocalised objective text in Delivery and Collect Missions.
- Fix implemented for unlocalised "Talk" prompt attached to mission contacts.
- Additional mission rationales to Smuggling missions have been added.
Outfitting
Ship/SRV/Fighter Outfitting
- Updates made to the visual effect of the Thermal Conduit experimental effect.
- The colour will now reflect how much of an impact on the module's damage the ship's heat level is applying.
- Damage will also be correct.
Commander Outfitting
- Fix implemented for an issue experienced with backpack capacity miscalculations, for suits fitted with the Extra Backpack Space modification.
Rendering
- A fix has been implemented to ensure the correct directional shadow profile is selected for interior environments.
- The shadow will be cast accurate to the light source.
- Fix implemented for in-game ship HUD occasionally appearing on player avatar beards (I laughed. Why beards?!)
- Fix implemented for vehicle debris culling when still in view.
- Fix implemented for artefacts (visual…blips…pixilation…that kind of thing) that could appear on vehicle schematics.
- Fix implemented for shield VFX rendering when there is no shield active.
- Rebalance made to the "Bloom" setting on low and medium graphics settings.
- Fix implemented for avatar skin not utilizing ambient occlusion correctly.
- “In 3D computer graphics, modeling, and animation, ambient occlusion is a shading and rendering technique used to calculate how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting”
- Basically your Commander’s skin is gunna be LIT!
- Fix implemented for incorrect proportion of dark nebulae rendering in the galaxy.
- Fix implemented for cracked glass effects and condensation effects not displaying on the Python.
- City lights effects on non-landable planets have been re-balanced – they’re visible again now!
- Trivia: Which country performed the song ‘City Lights’ in the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest?
- Fix implemented for some weapon scopes not displaying paintjob textures correctly.
- Improvements and fixes have been made to impact decals (again, any kind of visual effect on a surface that’s caused by impact, like from a weapon).
- Fix implemented for ship schematic displaying in the FSS Scanner view.
- Fix implemented for planetary rings not displaying as exoected in the FSS Scanner view.
- Fix implemented for the exclusion zone of White Dwarfs not being drawn.
- Nasty AS! Especially with how big White Dwarves wear their skirts!
Server
- A server error has been fixed which some players were experiencing when editing a bookmark of a Fleet Carrier that has since been decommissioned.
- Selling cargo will no longer result in a Yellow Adder server error.
Settlements (Odyssey)
- Fix implemented for Restricted Area inconsistencies.
- Commanders were experiencing the following kind of situation:
- “Warned for trespassing when on the 1st floor but only when walking over the power room below.”
- “The power building has a level 2 security access but does not warn you for trespassing unless you enter the power room that has a level 3 restricted security access or go upstairs and walk over the power room.”
- Fix implemented for floating objects found in a variety of settlement types.
- Fix implemented to an offset hitcheck on a particular radar dish - which made its debut in these update notes BUT sadly I can’t tell you which one it is in the entire galaxy, but shout out anyway, Mr Dish!
- Fix implemented to a gap in the roof of an Agricultural building – shoutout to THAT gap!
- Fix implemented for z-fighting/mad flickering of wall or floor textures seen in some station social spaces
- Around 150(!!!) fixes and improvements have been made to the look and feel of props and buildings at settlement locations.
Settlements (Horizons)
- Fix implemented to hologram that would display incorrectly in ship HUD for some planet ports when targeted.
Ships/SRV
- Cockpit dirt & scratches have been re-balanced to look more in line with real aesthetic.
- Fix implemented for emissive scaling on Crypsis paintjobs - these should match Horizons versions of this paint type more closely now.
- Fix implemented for missing hitcheck (solid…ness) on the Corvette landing gear.
- Improvements made to the hitchek (solidness) of the Beluga Liner and Orca to prevent players from being able to get stuck when underneath them.
- Fix implemented for the Krait MKII having misaligned canopy ice effects.
- Fix implemented for the Type 10, which could hover above the ground until the SRV was deployed.
- Fixed ships jerking to the side when released from the pad while undocking with flight assist off in a rotating station:
- As Commanders would potentially undock from one of the large spinning stations in FA off, the station would shift away from underneath them causing quite the disturbance and occasionally resulting in them crashing into things.
- Malfunctioning cargo hatches no longer prevent hyperspace jumps.
- Issue of this type included:
- “Can’t use FSD after deploying SLF and enemy hatch breaking your cargo hatch”.
- Ship engine smoke trails no longer appear ahead of the ship after exiting Supercruise.
- Condensation and ice effects have been fixed to be more pleasing (I chose that word and I’m sticking to it…'ACCURATE' would be a better one but...) for the Python.
Tutorial
- Ship-focused tutorials no longer allow on-foot actions such as disembarking.
UI
- Conflict Zone capture point icons are now be visible when in SRVs and Ships.
- SRV Radar signatures will now no longer float in the air when at, for example, Barnacle Site.
- An icon has been added to the Conflict Zone browser to show if players are wanted in the target system.
- An issue has been fixed whereby the transfer popup would softlock/freeze up in some kind of way when attempting to make an item transfer from storage to backpack whilst in Ship.
- Fix implemented for orbit lines being visible during loadout management UI when in Supercruise.
- Several issues have been fixed with scrolling of comms panel social tab.
- Notably, this one would
- “On the Social tab of the on foot Comms Panel, the page does not scroll down accordingly when the arrow/WASD keys or mouse scroll wheel are used to select UI elements on the page - you can select and move down the menu via these keys just fine, but upon reaching the displayed bottom of the page the UI selection will then continue off-screen as the page does not automatically scroll down to keep these elements in view. As such, the only way to currently scroll down the page is to manually drag the scroll bar on the right which will then keep selected UI elements in view.”
- Fixes have been made to incorrect text being shown in vehicle rolepanel displays.
- Bookmarks can now be successfully made via the system map.
Codex
- Fix implemented for the "distance travelled on foot" stat sometimes recording twice the actual distance travelled (a 'feel less good about yourself', fix).
Controls:
- Key binds preset will no longer reset when you open Horizons after Odyssey.
VR:
- Fixed Holo-Me character disappearing in VR when in close-up views.
Weapons:
- Fix implemented for railguns not firing in slots on the Beluga, Type 9, Krait, Type 10 & Fer De Lance.
Stations:
- Fix implemented for Stations (and Fleet Carriers in several instances) not spawning immediately when dropping out of Supercruise manually (no more pop-smash-bang!, hooray!).
Phwoiiiiiiiiii (is the sound I made as I ended that one, so I'm putting that in here too...)
There's lots to digest and get your hands on here, Commanders. We've hopefully made a nice dent in tackling some of your more pressing issues present in Odyssey to help towards making good your experiences across the Galaxy following Update 9, but it's also time to get to grips with a new 'Toy' - The Scorpion - and those handy Limpets!
There's naturally a continued list of issues remaining which many of you look forward to having some attention.
If they're not listed as fixes here, we just need more time to focus down on them.
I'm just going to pull a few out of the air but do go easy on me with the
"but you didn't mention this bug, is it going to be fixed?" pings.
I can entirely sympathise with you on how you'd like to see me list and confirm way more of these here for you, but unfortunately my brain can't keep up with responding to them all, but I am paying desperate attention on this side of the screen for you - promise.
Update 9:
- The Scorpion turret seems to be inheriting textures/decals from the ground that dance/parallax across it. Texture movement is at its worst when the SRV itself is in motion - This is a known issue we will address as soon as we can.
Legacy Odyssey and Horizons:
- I know this is a really nasty one but we need to really knuckle in to some deeper work with it: NPCs sometimes being inactive during Combat Zones.
- Starting Frameshift makes the game freeze/lock.
- Disconnect/suspended in Supercruise.
- Empty Faclities lists for Stations in the system map.
- Issues around "Raid Missions" not counting kills (needs further investigation internally before I can go into it further).
- Mission errors when taking multiples of the same type to their destination (investigation further needed).
- Rarity of Settlement Defence Plans.
- Inconsistencies with the way cosmetics look in Horizons compared to their appearance in Odyssey.
And of course I'll direct you over to the Top Issues post as it stands at latest to remind you that those things all count still too
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-issue-report-16-11-2021.593721/.
As always, Commanders, we appreciate you and your incredible passion for the game and improvements toward its development further.
Really hope Update 9 brings some fun and excitement ahead of the Holidays.
I know I'm buzzing to see how you're all going to be poking at it once it's taken hold of the Galaxy as we know it, so as usual I'll be on hand in here to see in the release and be ready for immediate impact.
Not 'impact', sorry, FEEDBACK.
Let's get a going! o7
If you bring two of them, can you deploy both... we will see...
