ANNOUNCEMENT January Update - Beta Announcement

IAM GROOT

IAM GROOT
Old Duck said:
Nice try to get rid of the (very nice) blocking feature, but where's your proof that this is the cause of all evil?
Click to expand...
Actual proof you can see I’d have to reproduce but......
Example.
I was in open, tracking a combat wing of ALD players in PP, after finding the players at a station, I followed them into super cruise (I was instanced the whole time), before actually jumping I joined a combat wing of Feds, I instantly hit a blue tunnel and when I entered the SC instance surprise surprise only the Fed ships in my wing were there, no imperials! Reason why, at least one of the imperials were blocking at least one of the Fed players in the wing I joined because they were losing the fights.
Blocking should be communication only in Open, if you don’t want random player interaction stick to mobius or another PG. this is a widely known issue in open play that FDEV are well aware of!
 

Kzak

Kzak
Old Duck said:
I think this is WAY better than the current system. In my opinion, the FSS should only give us " if the planet is ‘Unlikely’, ‘Likely’, or ‘Very Likely’ to have a geological/biological sites" anyway, being a long-distance scan, requiring us to use probes to give us a more definitive report on the planet. As it currently stands, the FSS feels a bit OP and the DSS feels a bit pointless. This change not only speeds up the FSS, but it also balances these two tools.

BIG THUMBS UP!!! :D
Click to expand...
Alternatively, start the FSS and scan one planet to start the generation-process. This process will take time regardless of whether you stay watching that one planet or move on to scan the others, so you can also return to it later, e.g. after all stellar objects in the system have been found, to check the finished scans.
 

MDHansen

M
Stephen Benedetti said:
Hello @sollisb

What we wanted to achieve when announcing the January Update beta, was to provide the community with some insight on the status of some of the top voted Issue Tracker reports. As these have received many votes from the community, we did not want to announce a public beta without at least highlighting them.

As such, this is not an exhaustive list of everything that will be addressed in the beta, and we realise that there are commanders out there who want to know what is happening with the bugs that they have individually reported. The full Patch Notes will be provided next week, with further details on what we aim to fix, so check back then, and we hope you'll take part in the beta!
Click to expand...
And there is the cherry in this whole debacle. Your issue tracker is, I am sorry to say, rubish. I also blame people in general being **** lazy and don't do a simple one word search before posting.
COMBINE issues you find are the same so we can vote on them. Have a dedicated group of people sit down with a large mug of <insert favourite beverage here> and go through the entire darn tracker and start merging like you've never merged before.

Glad to see beta back, and glad to see this game getting some love, it needs it so bad.


MDH
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
Stephen Benedetti said:
FSS: Long delay when scanning planets with geological sites
  • As it currently stands, in order for the geological/biological sites to be placed on the surface, the entire stellar body must be fully generated (we then know the topography and can place sites where they will be accessible). This can take tens of seconds.
  • As part of the January Update, we aim to address this with an alternative process. We have run tests on thousands of in-game planetary bodies and by using this data, we're able to extrapolate the likelihood of geological/biologic sites being present on similar stellar bodies. We then use this data and indicate if the planet is ‘Unlikely’, ‘Likely’, or ‘Very Likely’ to have a geological/biological sites.
  • It is not 100% guaranteed that there will be a geological/biological site on the planetary body, but does give commanders a much faster indication of probability. This will enable commanders to quickly ascertain if the planet's worth a visit.
  • As this is an alternative way to display information, we would love to hear your feedback on it to determine whether or not it is better than the current process.
  • Please note: this will not affect Thargoid or Guardian sites, which will show up instantaneously.
Click to expand...
Can i just add my support to this, not only will it (hopefully) fix an issue but it is actually really good from a game play perspective..

TBH it should only be possible imo to get exact info on geological sites following a detailed surface scan anyway, so the having a traffic light system to prioritise likelyhood of interesting stuff, for a logical perspective makes perfect sense to me. Long range scan after all is surely only ever going to be low resolution.

sounds like the mythical win win to me, better performance and also richer exploration.
 

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
rootsrat
Mad Mike said:
Can i just add my support to this, not only will it (hopefully) fix an issue but it is actually really good from a game play perspective..

TBH it should only be possible imo to get exact info on geological sites following a detailed surface scan anyway, so the having a traffic light system to prioritise likelyhood of interesting stuff, for a logical perspective makes perfect sense to me. Long range scan after all is surely only ever going to be low resolution.

sounds like the mythical win win to me, better performance and also richer exploration.
Click to expand...

I was going to post pretty much exactly same thing, so +1 !
 

KAZAK0V

KAZAK0V
Stephen Benedetti said:
FSS: Long delay when scanning planets with geological sites
  • As it currently stands, in order for the geological/biological sites to be placed on the surface, the entire stellar body must be fully generated (we then know the topography and can place sites where they will be accessible). This can take tens of seconds.
  • As part of the January Update, we aim to address this with an alternative process. We have run tests on thousands of in-game planetary bodies and by using this data, we're able to extrapolate the likelihood of geological/biologic sites being present on similar stellar bodies. We then use this data and indicate if the planet is ‘Unlikely’, ‘Likely’, or ‘Very Likely’ to have a geological/biological sites.
  • It is not 100% guaranteed that there will be a geological/biological site on the planetary body, but does give commanders a much faster indication of probability. This will enable commanders to quickly ascertain if the planet's worth a visit.
  • As this is an alternative way to display information, we would love to hear your feedback on it to determine whether or not it is better than the current process.
  • Please note: this will not affect Thargoid or Guardian sites, which will show up instantaneously.
Click to expand...
Are this new method will be inserted INSTEAD of old system, or sites will be shown in FSS after some time?
 

zimms

zimms
KAZAK0V said:
Are this new method will be inserted INSTEAD of old system, or sites will be shown in FSS after some time?
Click to expand...

Sounds like it will be instead, but it's not set in stone yet.

I guess there is a possibility to use the heuristic at first and let the calculation run in the background, or only give definitive information after a DSS as some posters have suggested. But I don't know if that's within the scope of the beta, after all these changes are more in realm of reworks than bug fixes.
 

racketear

R
Thanks for the update information. I am glad to hear the work that is being done and the way in which you are communicating this to us now.

It all helps! Can you confirm the 2020 release is legs yet? :ROFLMAO:

Oh go onnnnnnnnn! :D
 

Thatchinho

Thatchinho
Great news, @Stephen Benedetti ! In particular on the changed process to fix the FSS scan time issue. Great that you’re putting in place a solution, and looking forward to trying it in action!

Immediate feedback on it - please can the results of the FSS scans be added to the body info on the system map.

Some more general feedback to come. 🙂
 

Brrokk

Brrokk
IAM GROOT said:
Actual proof you can see I’d have to reproduce but......
Example.
I was in open, tracking a combat wing of ALD players in PP, after finding the players at a station, I followed them into super cruise (I was instanced the whole time), before actually jumping I joined a combat wing of Feds, I instantly hit a blue tunnel and when I entered the SC instance surprise surprise only the Fed ships in my wing were there, no imperials! Reason why, at least one of the imperials were blocking at least one of the Fed players in the wing I joined because they were losing the fights.
Blocking should be communication only in Open, if you don’t want random player interaction stick to mobius or another PG. this is a widely known issue in open play that FDEV are well aware of!
Click to expand...
That's working as intended.
 

Hankuspankus

H
Stephen Benedetti said:


Greetings Commanders,

As mentioned in October, our upcoming updates will be almost exclusively focused on addressing recent and longstanding issues and bugs. The next update will be our first step as part of that - and it will be coming towards the end of January.

For this update, our first and foremost priority is to ensure that everyone is able to have a seamless experience when playing Elite Dangerous, so our focus will be on aiming to resolve game breaking bugs and stability issues that cause disconnects, softlocks and crashes. By working internally with Customer Support, QA and Development teams, alongside the feedback you shared with us here and via the Issue Tracker, we've identified and are addressing a number of issues in the January Update, which we've detailed below.

As with previous betas, we found your feedback and assistance incredibly useful in helping us identify and resolve bugs and issues. The next updates will be coming with their own public beta, the first of which will run on PC from 27 November to 2 December for the January Update. We are also investigating the ability to extend future betas to console players as well, and will announce any developments about this when we have more information.

Due to this update focusing on a number of bug fixes, rather than new content and features, the beta will appear and play very much like the existing live game. However, getting involved and testing provides a huge benefit for all Elite Dangerous players, so we are very grateful for any time that you are able to spend in the beta. Every system, ship, loadout, module, mission, activity, rank or other part of the game played provides opportunities to test and identify issues. With your support, we hope to be able to identify and fix as many as possible before the update goes live, offering a smoother and better experience for all. Thank you to all who are able to get involved.


What we're addressing in the January Update (and the beta)
We wanted to highlight some of the top voted issues from the Issue Tracker, and what we plan on doing with them moving forward.

Alongside our own internal tests, we'll need the help of you, our community beta participants, to help us identify if the fixes we're introducing work as intended in a live, multiplayer environment.

Repairing Thargoid-attacked stations: not all delivery numbers counted
  • We will implement a fix that will correctly account for all deliveries for starports that have been attacked by Thargoids.
High resolution screenshots create tiling artifacts in bright objects
  • We will implement a fix that should prevent tiling artifacts in bright objects when taking a high-resolution screenshot.
Galaxy Map won't select systems I search for
  • We will implement a fix that should allow you to select a searched system on the Galaxy Map.
Keyboard stops working within game
  • We will implement a fix for this issue to ensure keyboards work in-game as intended.
SLF female npc crew member has no audio and no text in the comms
  • We will implement a fix for this issue.

We wanted to bring your attention to the following issues, as these will need additional information and testing in the beta to ensure the fixes are working as intended:

FSS: Long delay when scanning planets with geological sites
  • As it currently stands, in order for the geological/biological sites to be placed on the surface, the entire stellar body must be fully generated (we then know the topography and can place sites where they will be accessible). This can take tens of seconds.
  • As part of the January Update, we aim to address this with an alternative process. We have run tests on thousands of in-game planetary bodies and by using this data, we're able to extrapolate the likelihood of geological/biologic sites being present on similar stellar bodies. We then use this data and indicate if the planet is ‘Unlikely’, ‘Likely’, or ‘Very Likely’ to have a geological/biological sites.
  • It is not 100% guaranteed that there will be a geological/biological site on the planetary body, but does give commanders a much faster indication of probability. This will enable commanders to quickly ascertain if the planet's worth a visit.
  • As this is an alternative way to display information, we would love to hear your feedback on it to determine whether or not it is better than the current process.
  • Please note: this will not affect Thargoid or Guardian sites, which will show up instantaneously.
Conflict Zones have no contents
  • We have identified that the LUA script responsible for populating Conflict Zones can stop running at times, which causes this kind of issue. We will implement a fix, but we'll need your feedback on whether or not the issue persists.
The Invincible Heart
  • The team have been investigating this issue for some time, however, it has proven difficult to reliably reproduce in-house. As part of the beta, we'll be adding additional logging information and will need our community beta testers to try to reproduce the issue so we can collect more data to help us resolve it.
Instance splitting when fighting Thargoid Interceptor
  • We'll be introducing a fix for this, but as it is a network-related issue, we'll need this to be extensively tested in the beta.
Thargoid Interceptor - Heart cycle reset
  • We will implement a fix to ensure that the Thargoid Interceptor's combat state does not reset. As with the issue above, we'll also require commanders to identify if this is still occurring in the beta.
Exiting the Game just hangs, need to force terminate
  • We will need additional feedback in checking if this issue is still occurring in the beta.
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of all of the fixes coming in the January Update and more will be detailed in the beta patch notes, released next week.


We'll be investigating the following issues for future updates and will detail any fixes for these when available:
We also wanted to give you an update on the following issue: VR: Double Vision and Incorrect Rendering on HMDs with Non-Parallel Displays (ex. Pimax). At the current time, there are no plans to provide support for new HMDs outside the officially supported systems and platforms. The officially supported platforms are Valve Index, HTC Vive and Oculus.


BETA - how to get involved!
A new beta section forum will be set up with details on how to take part and how to submit bug reports, but here are the main details on how you can help us in the upcoming beta:
  • The beta begins on the 27 November and will run until the 2 December.
  • The beta will be only be accessible on PC. We are looking into expanding this for console players in the future.
  • To take part in the beta, all you’ll need to do is load up the launcher and select (and update) the following product: Elite Dangerous: January Update (Beta) from the 27 November. Once that has been completed, you’ll then have access to the January Update beta. If this doesn't appear, please restart your launcher.
  • We'll be updating the Issue Tracker with a January Update (Update 3.6) Beta section, and we encourage all those who are taking part in this beta to report any encountered bugs or issues through it. In addition, we will also be adding links from inside the game that will take you directly to the Issue Tracker site.

We just want to thank you once again for all the passion and involvement you show for Elite Dangerous. With your participation, we know that we can help to make our game more sustainable and beneficial for the future of this amazing galaxy!
Click to expand...
 

T'kael

T'kael
Awesome news. Unfortunately, the beta overlaps almost exactly with the period where I'll be traveling for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday so I probably will not be able to participate. Hopefully other U.S. Commanders who are not traveling for the holiday will be able to make up for those of us who are traveling. o7
 

Hankuspankus

H
Stephen Benedetti said:


Greetings Commanders,

As mentioned in October, our upcoming updates will be almost exclusively focused on addressing recent and longstanding issues and bugs. The next update will be our first step as part of that - and it will be coming towards the end of January.

For this update, our first and foremost priority is to ensure that everyone is able to have a seamless experience when playing Elite Dangerous, so our focus will be on aiming to resolve game breaking bugs and stability issues that cause disconnects, softlocks and crashes. By working internally with Customer Support, QA and Development teams, alongside the feedback you shared with us here and via the Issue Tracker, we've identified and are addressing a number of issues in the January Update, which we've detailed below.

As with previous betas, we found your feedback and assistance incredibly useful in helping us identify and resolve bugs and issues. The next updates will be coming with their own public beta, the first of which will run on PC from 27 November to 2 December for the January Update. We are also investigating the ability to extend future betas to console players as well, and will announce any developments about this when we have more information.

Due to this update focusing on a number of bug fixes, rather than new content and features, the beta will appear and play very much like the existing live game. However, getting involved and testing provides a huge benefit for all Elite Dangerous players, so we are very grateful for any time that you are able to spend in the beta. Every system, ship, loadout, module, mission, activity, rank or other part of the game played provides opportunities to test and identify issues. With your support, we hope to be able to identify and fix as many as possible before the update goes live, offering a smoother and better experience for all. Thank you to all who are able to get involved.


What we're addressing in the January Update (and the beta)
We wanted to highlight some of the top voted issues from the Issue Tracker, and what we plan on doing with them moving forward.

Alongside our own internal tests, we'll need the help of you, our community beta participants, to help us identify if the fixes we're introducing work as intended in a live, multiplayer environment.

Repairing Thargoid-attacked stations: not all delivery numbers counted
  • We will implement a fix that will correctly account for all deliveries for starports that have been attacked by Thargoids.
High resolution screenshots create tiling artifacts in bright objects
  • We will implement a fix that should prevent tiling artifacts in bright objects when taking a high-resolution screenshot.
Galaxy Map won't select systems I search for
  • We will implement a fix that should allow you to select a searched system on the Galaxy Map.
Keyboard stops working within game
  • We will implement a fix for this issue to ensure keyboards work in-game as intended.
SLF female npc crew member has no audio and no text in the comms
  • We will implement a fix for this issue.

We wanted to bring your attention to the following issues, as these will need additional information and testing in the beta to ensure the fixes are working as intended:

FSS: Long delay when scanning planets with geological sites
  • As it currently stands, in order for the geological/biological sites to be placed on the surface, the entire stellar body must be fully generated (we then know the topography and can place sites where they will be accessible). This can take tens of seconds.
  • As part of the January Update, we aim to address this with an alternative process. We have run tests on thousands of in-game planetary bodies and by using this data, we're able to extrapolate the likelihood of geological/biologic sites being present on similar stellar bodies. We then use this data and indicate if the planet is ‘Unlikely’, ‘Likely’, or ‘Very Likely’ to have a geological/biological sites.
  • It is not 100% guaranteed that there will be a geological/biological site on the planetary body, but does give commanders a much faster indication of probability. This will enable commanders to quickly ascertain if the planet's worth a visit.
  • As this is an alternative way to display information, we would love to hear your feedback on it to determine whether or not it is better than the current process.
  • Please note: this will not affect Thargoid or Guardian sites, which will show up instantaneously.
Conflict Zones have no contents
  • We have identified that the LUA script responsible for populating Conflict Zones can stop running at times, which causes this kind of issue. We will implement a fix, but we'll need your feedback on whether or not the issue persists.
The Invincible Heart
  • The team have been investigating this issue for some time, however, it has proven difficult to reliably reproduce in-house. As part of the beta, we'll be adding additional logging information and will need our community beta testers to try to reproduce the issue so we can collect more data to help us resolve it.
Instance splitting when fighting Thargoid Interceptor
  • We'll be introducing a fix for this, but as it is a network-related issue, we'll need this to be extensively tested in the beta.
Thargoid Interceptor - Heart cycle reset
  • We will implement a fix to ensure that the Thargoid Interceptor's combat state does not reset. As with the issue above, we'll also require commanders to identify if this is still occurring in the beta.
Exiting the Game just hangs, need to force terminate
  • We will need additional feedback in checking if this issue is still occurring in the beta.
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of all of the fixes coming in the January Update and more will be detailed in the beta patch notes, released next week.


We'll be investigating the following issues for future updates and will detail any fixes for these when available:
We also wanted to give you an update on the following issue: VR: Double Vision and Incorrect Rendering on HMDs with Non-Parallel Displays (ex. Pimax). At the current time, there are no plans to provide support for new HMDs outside the officially supported systems and platforms. The officially supported platforms are Valve Index, HTC Vive and Oculus.


BETA - how to get involved!
A new beta section forum will be set up with details on how to take part and how to submit bug reports, but here are the main details on how you can help us in the upcoming beta:
  • The beta begins on the 27 November and will run until the 2 December.
  • The beta will be only be accessible on PC. We are looking into expanding this for console players in the future.
  • To take part in the beta, all you’ll need to do is load up the launcher and select (and update) the following product: Elite Dangerous: January Update (Beta) from the 27 November. Once that has been completed, you’ll then have access to the January Update beta. If this doesn't appear, please restart your launcher.
  • We'll be updating the Issue Tracker with a January Update (Update 3.6) Beta section, and we encourage all those who are taking part in this beta to report any encountered bugs or issues through it. In addition, we will also be adding links from inside the game that will take you directly to the Issue Tracker site.

We just want to thank you once again for all the passion and involvement you show for Elite Dangerous. With your participation, we know that we can help to make our game more sustainable and beneficial for the future of this amazing galaxy!
Click to expand...
 

Snowymonk

Snowymonk
Stephen Benedetti said:
Hey,
We are investigating possibility of extending future betas to console players as well, but we have nothing to announce right now.
Click to expand...

As has been pointed out. If I had read the whole announcement rather than just getting to the PC Beta bit and then skipping to the content of the release I would have saved myself the embarassment of having to post this response.

I appreciate that console beta is harder to organise than PC beta but I would like to support improving the game
 

JamesonIX

J
I have a few questions about participating on the beta, but I'm not sure if you have these details at this point, or we will get them later when the beta forum is established.

My questions are:
  • During beta testing, will participants play in a Milky Way that's completely separated from the production galaxy?
  • In what state (parked station, credits, ships, materials, etc) will our account be for the beta test? Will we play with our account at the state it was in a certain point in time? Or we'll be able to select an account state to test specific bugs?
  • Finally, will all the progress made during beta be lost?
 
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