LaveCon 2018 QA quick recap

* Mining
+ Will have three stages - regular one (which we have now), a bit deeper mining, and splitting up asteroids. New, interesting stuff can be found and experienced (blowing up asteroids might end up being a bit risky);

* Exploration
+ Drones - enough said. Launching will take physics in mind and will enable exploration with multi crew;
+ Drones will give full map, which will show all interesting POIs so players doesn't have to 'peek' interesting stuff;
+ And that's not all, more hinted to come;

* Graphics
+ Update on lighting - new adaptive lighting system shots; Also with color grading; (Looks amazing btw)
+ OMG ice shader :D

Both mining and exploration will allow other crew members to engage with it.
 
Last edited:
Recap from reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange...ier_qa_panel_with_multiple_devs_lavecon_2018/

Mining

-New asteroid looks (eyeballing opportunities?)

-Giant, high risk, asteroid. Placing charges on weak points to shatter the big gold rush asteroids. Prospector limpet will give you the info to do this.

-Can do as multicrew.

Exploration:

-Sensor probes. Fire them around a planet (or rings) will follow a partially-guided orbit (parabolic arc). When close enough to surface will obtain data from large local area. They want you to 'paint' locations. (You can do 'trick shots' using gravity draw. IE you could hit the opposite side of a planet with skill). There will be 'mechanical rewards' [?] for

-Do-able in multicrew.

-Multicrew exploration rewards.

-Eliminating need to eyeball planets.

-When you have full surface data for a planet, you'll get locations of interesting POI. (May be a breadcrumb trail. WIP).

-Aim is to give you info about whether to proceed, rather than go fairly randomly to see if 'something' is there.

-Seeding the galaxy with 'discoveries'.

-Geological & biological phenomnon (space lightning shown!?)

-Going to split galaxy into regions for codex etc

Art

-Multi suns making curating look tricky

-Look at adaptive lighting

-colour grade can adapt scenes depending on sun light and local events etc
 
Wow, some actual new information!! I must admit, I'm shocked!!!!

Now, my initial (admittedly very premature) thoughts on what's been posted here so far:

EDIT: Now that I've watched the full stream, my impressions are much better:


  • Mining changes sound very interesting and fun. Glad to hear we are getting larger "gold rush" asteroids, I was hoping for that! ;)
  • New lighting changes, we knew this was coming, but WOW what an improvement! :cool:
  • Multi point lighting however is NOT included in Q4, I thought this was coming. Sad about that. :(
  • Ice planets look amazing!!! :D
  • No comets for Q4, boooooo!!! :(
  • No Earth Moon landings for Q4. :(
  • Drones for exploration, sounds like they've done this pretty well. The DSS fires them, so no new module needed which is great. However, still unclear if the probes are limpets which thus require cargo space. I'm concerned about the medium & small exploration ships becoming unable to do the job due to lack of internals. That said though, the mechanic of the probes sounds very interesting. [big grin]
  • Seeding the galaxy with discoveries, woohoo! [yesnod]
  • Lightning bolts inside nebulas look great, hopefully they can strike the ship too!!! :cool:
  • Sandro said there is a high chance of certain ships getting exploration and mining specialized internal slots, like how there are passenger and military now!!!! :D
  • Surface bookmarks are planned, but probably won't make it for Q4. But they plan to do something on this front!!! :eek:
  • Codex splitting galaxy into regions, interesting. Still want to know what the Codex is... :S

Overall it sounds pretty promising. The video is well worth watching, its one of the more informative Q&A sessions I've ever seen Frontier do.
 
Last edited:
Very Impressive, I have watched the twitch replay twice now!

Really looking forward to Q4!

Plus nice look at the Challenger too!
 
Apperars we will need loads of new modules for it, hope they gonna reduce the number of slots limpits are hogging or vessels with less internals will struggle.

Edit, other than that concern liking the sounds of some of the new stuffs.
 
Last edited:
  • Mining changes sound very interesting. Glad to hear we are getting larger "gold rush" asteroids, I was hoping for that!
  • New lighting changes, we knew this was coming, but impossible to gauge without vids or pics
  • Drones for exploration, sigh. This is not the way I wanted them to go. Will we need cargo space now? If so, an awful lot of ships which are currently viable to explore in won't be after Q4 due to lack of internal space. Also, needing to "paint" a planet with multiple drones sounds very time consuming, will other aspects of exploration be made quicker to compensate? Still, hopefully its well thought out and not a mess of a mechanic. At least its more than just a honk.
  • Seeding the galaxy with discoveries, woohoo!
  • Codex splitting galaxy into regions, interesting. Still want to know what the Codex is...

Overall it sounds pretty promising. Exploration drones give me pause, but as long as the gameplay of them is interesting and engaging it should be an improvement. I wanted the sensor modules to get improved rather than add new modules and such, but if the end result works well then great.

I'd love more information though, were there any videos of any of this in action?

Maybe you should watch the twitch stream?

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/271209822
 
As long as the features aren't depending on multicrew then I'm interested.
Being able to perform the new features in multicrew is fine but they should also be available in full for solo players imho.

We'll just have to wait and see what Q4 brings.
I'm reluctant however.
 
Top Bottom