News Let's talk about Gnosis and the Cone Sector

Will Flanagan

Product Manager
Frontier
Greetings Commanders,

As you and others may have noticed in the early hours of the morning, a GalNet article on our community site revealed the future fate of the Gnosis’ jump toward the Cone Sector . However, the intended jump was to take place at the normal time of the server tick, however this was not the case and has caused a disparity between the news Commanders were able to read and the actions that took place in game.

We are aware that this has caused a number of Commanders to express their discontent that the news that was announced and the fate of the Gnosis’ epic charter.

After seeing this morning’s feedback, we want to take the opportunity to explain a little more about the event as a whole, and how these actions are playing out right now in the game world, the galaxy.

Before the launch…

Canonn high command reached out to us to plan the next jumps for the Gnosis. The destination? The Cone Sector... Cone Sector FN-J B9-0, to be precise.

Without revealing too much about this area of space, the Cone Sector both in content and in game lore was always meant to be locked off; and the fact that certain systems within the sector weren’t permit-locked was an oversight from a time before it was possible for Megaships to make such jumps, like the Gnosis.

Based on feedback we've received in the past, and in an aim to involve player agency in Elite Dangerous’ narrative, rather than simply making a universal change, or flicking a switch to ‘permit lock’ the systems in question (known in some corners of the community as “God modding”), we decided to incorporate the actions of a great Elite Dangerous player group, and a huge number of Commanders, into the wider lore of the game. Supporting the event as best we could with our own channels while reacting to an emergent piece of content from the community.

Working with Canonns’ event in mind, we decided to weave the event into the large game narrative, and the arrival of a threatening new Thargoid variant – the terrifying Hydra that some commanders woefully encountered recently.

So, what’s happened so far?

The Canonn called for Commanders to join them on the expedition to the Cone Sector to make history in the name of both exploration and science!

Meanwhile, across other areas of the galaxy, some Commanders reported sightings of what they believed to be a new Thargoid variant, later confirmed and classified by AEGIS and the Pilot’s Federation as the Hydra.

With this growing uncertainty, the Pilots’ Federation reported that the jump to the Cone Sector was not safe, not advised and urged Commanders to steer clear of any journeys there, permit-locking the systems.
Despite these warnings, Canonn would still make the jump into the unknown. And, with them, approximately 11,000 Commanders, from all walks of life, allegiances and states, pledged to this legendary expedition. Whether driven by a pursuit of knowledge, fearlessness or even perhaps… madness, they pledged their ship and soul to the future of the Gnosis.

This morning

As the GalNet article explained, moments into its ground-breaking jump toward the Cone Sector FN-J B9-0 system, the Gnosis has been left stranded following a massive Thargoid attack in the Outotz ST-I d9-6 system.

Now, we are aware that the premature release of the GalNet article (‘Gnosis Stranded’) caused speculation and concern from the community. It spoke of events that had not yet had any consequence or implication in-game, and as this occurred in the early hours of the morning, had no explanation from the team. We have investigated why that article went live at the wrong time and corrected the community site’s GalNet news feed so that it won’t break embargo in the future.

We are also aware that there are a few issues causing problems for Commanders at the current location of the Gnosis. The team are actively investigating and correcting those issues. Some of those issues are already fixed, while others are being addressed and a fix is in progress currently. Please visit the following thread for the current status update on these issues.

We would like to thank all of the Commanders who have provided their feedback – and pledged to aid the Gnosis in its defence against the alien threat and the terrifying new Thargoid variant. We would also like to take this opportunity to apologise for the confusion and bugs within this event but we are hugely grateful to the many thousands of Commanders who came together to make the event possible and become a part of history.

For those Commanders who have found themselves detained further away, please contact our support team who will be happy to move you back to the Gnosis, should you wish to be…
 
The prompt bug fixing is helpful, and hopefully the website changes prevent future news leaks.

Had the above issues not occurred this event would likely have been an instant success & very much enjoyed by CMDRs. However, such is life & mistakes happen.

The potential for exciting and interesting events, authored or emergent, still exists - hopefully management can ensure the next one goes swimmingly.

Will the Gnosis' journey to the Cone Sector continue?
 
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So, does this mean the Cone Sector journey won't be happening? From the tone of the post it sounds like this was the alternative to that, and that it is already over.
 

Deleted member 110222

D
An honourable response. Good to see you acknowledging the bugs and unintended occurances.
 
Pretty much what I thought had happened and a similar outcome. What were community expected to think though? Chapter 3 just released that's "mostly story" and all the personal narrative chatter we get, coupled with Froniter's ambiguous hints and galnet articles. Poor comms and PR as always (I don't blame the comms team on a personal level, im sure you guys have your hands tied).

Thanks for filling us in. Just next time consider doing so before you play your part, in wasting 11,000 peoples time and causing a PR disaster for your game.

You need to be more clear about these permit locks aswell. Can a we do anything to unlock any of them, or is it only on Fdevs terms? Whichever answer is cool, just an answer would be nice.
 
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Zac Antonaci

Head of Communications
Frontier
So, does this mean the Cone Sector journey won't be happening? From the tone of the post it sounds like this was the alternative to that, and that it is already over.

Hey Rainbro,

Just to clarify from the post above.

The area of space (Cone sector) that the Gnosis was aiming to jump to was never a location that was able to jump to. This is because the location is specifically meant to be used for future narrative. That's the reason why the initiative from the community was weaved into the actual lore of the game.

Thanks,

Zac
 
Personally, I think it's a huge mistake.
Sorry, but once once too often for me. You disappointed me. A lot of disappointment: the Gnosis Galnet news diffused before the event, the Gnosis bug, the systems locked in 3.2, the zac announcement last week.
 
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Don't shoot the messenger.

Thanks a lot Will for the insight.

The disclosure issue for sure was kind of unfortunate - to say the least - but where yesterday I had no intention to go out visiting the Gnosis and joining its flight schedule now I will be trying to join the party this evening, even if it's a little bit late.

o7
 
Very reactive stuff, so thank you.

I think the general complaint is that if you can do this now, why can't you do it ahead of time? 11,000 commanders shows how big a deal this was (and is) and yet I'd say 70% of the commentary is complaint-based.

But the unknown is why I continue to play. This seemed a somewhat obvious outcome with a nice (but broken) twist. It's proof there are better things ahead IF you can keep the player base from disappearing first.
 

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
Thanks Will and FDEV.

It's really good to see this level of communication from you. The fact that you are actively working on the issues is also great.

The premature article was an amateur mistake and for me personally has killed the whole event's narrative, the suspense, the waiting. To the point that after spenind all evening and most of the night on outfitting and travelling to Gnosis, I have undocked at 2:30 AM.

With the subsequent bugs and gameplay nonsense around Gnosis I dubbed this as the biggest failure in Elite this year (for me personally). I still stand by this opinion, but now that the scenario is fixed I am thinking of going back there to help with the fight.

You've ruined this story arc for me so far, but I hope the remainder of it will be good and engaging.

I'm still upset and disappointed though.
 
Perhaps the God-Mode of universally permit locking all the systems when it was identified that Canonn had found a gap in the logic would have been a more prudent approach.

Excellent news that a game that is apparently dead had more than 11,000 Commanders taking part in it. The game does in fact look very healthy.
 
Well done FD! A well placed kick right in the gonads straight after an "exciting" community announcement regarding the future updates... Reminds me of the Salome event all over again only this time it involved way more dissatisfied CMDRs.

Trying to stay positive here...
 
This was an excellent response to a bad situation. On a personal note, I think that besides the fines at Gnosis and the leaked article (that was really bad), this was a very likely and realistic outcome for such a situation. It was tactically sound on the Goids part and could show their advanced knowledge of warfare, the size, as well as the capabilities of their forces. This really should have been an expected position to be in at some point. Now I've got to admit, the 12Ly jump before getting wrecked was a little hardcore and crushing to the moral of her crew, but she is alive and can be defended and move forward with the mission. I have every faith in the outcome of her fate as well as that of the crew. The amount of AX combat experience and scientific understanding that is going to come out of this for those on board is going to be very high.

Good luck out there.
Thank you FDev.
o7


CMDR GURU-951
 
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