Hi All ,
I've be playing in the Beta and these are my thoughts ...
.
Missions :- these are so much nicer.
The Missions list is much better, you can tell which Faction it's for, there is more information including what outfitting you might need to succeed, you get a face to the name and it's all very slick. Once on mission you might get random bonus offers to complete the mission early (if possible), it's all very nicely done
Probably the best enhancement in the game.
.
NPC:- Generally more aggressive and much better skilled/equipped (Have read they've been 'nerfed' again .. hope it's not by too much :/)
A friend who has not played for a while came back and mentioned that he'd been 'pwned' by NPC in a RES . his grade is Elite, so the improvements surprised him.
.
Station Control Voices:-
There is a lot more variety of voices, saying new things and you even get a 'call-sign' based on your ship manufacture and your Cmdr name. just a nice feature
.
Engineers upgrades:-
They have their own planetary bases with some beautiful new building types. Docking bays are arranged apparently randomly and at differing heights. Different colour (blue) is used for the 'holographic' landing guides. Once inside you can upgrade your ship (if you have required reputation with the engineer that is) with a multitude of weapon upgrades. But each come with a reduction in the performance elsewhere. Generally you can expect a max performance improvement of around 20% for each upgraded module.
As you have to have Horizons to get this, it's a bit of a 'Play-to-win' feature.
.
Looting:-
When you 'kill' a ship, you can (legally) scoop up bits of the wreckage. Like with the planetary rover's mineral mining, you seem to be able to carry and infinite amount of these and they can be used for many things (I've not tried any of the 'crafting' supposedly possible)
.
Graphics:-
On the whole these seem more solid and real. Sometimes (on my machine) can take a moment to render at first, but they look great.
Ships can be seen as more that a dot at a bit greater range.
.
Outfitting:-
Wow is this a poor effort!
It's just a long winded and frustrating as the original version.
Yes you can pick modules by type, but the new interface is so complex and long-winded you're clicking yourself silly. I'm sure I've had less button clicks playing an eighties platform game. Rather than make it easier to make your upgrades, they just changed it. A simple collapsible list would have done.
.
Galaxy Map:-
You can set flags against certain systems you want to remember/mark. This is great, no more leaving a sidewinder at each port (she didn't like me calling her that [big grin] ).
.
Cockpit:-
There are extra marks against navigation lists to show stations which relate to a mission .. very useful, these relate to the same shown on the Galaxy map.
.
Summary:-
I think there have been many improvements , shame about the outfitting.
Oh well by now , they may have started letting people download the update
I've be playing in the Beta and these are my thoughts ...
.
Missions :- these are so much nicer.
The Missions list is much better, you can tell which Faction it's for, there is more information including what outfitting you might need to succeed, you get a face to the name and it's all very slick. Once on mission you might get random bonus offers to complete the mission early (if possible), it's all very nicely done
Probably the best enhancement in the game.
.
NPC:- Generally more aggressive and much better skilled/equipped (Have read they've been 'nerfed' again .. hope it's not by too much :/)
A friend who has not played for a while came back and mentioned that he'd been 'pwned' by NPC in a RES . his grade is Elite, so the improvements surprised him.
.
Station Control Voices:-
There is a lot more variety of voices, saying new things and you even get a 'call-sign' based on your ship manufacture and your Cmdr name. just a nice feature
.
Engineers upgrades:-
They have their own planetary bases with some beautiful new building types. Docking bays are arranged apparently randomly and at differing heights. Different colour (blue) is used for the 'holographic' landing guides. Once inside you can upgrade your ship (if you have required reputation with the engineer that is) with a multitude of weapon upgrades. But each come with a reduction in the performance elsewhere. Generally you can expect a max performance improvement of around 20% for each upgraded module.
As you have to have Horizons to get this, it's a bit of a 'Play-to-win' feature.
.
Looting:-
When you 'kill' a ship, you can (legally) scoop up bits of the wreckage. Like with the planetary rover's mineral mining, you seem to be able to carry and infinite amount of these and they can be used for many things (I've not tried any of the 'crafting' supposedly possible)
.
Graphics:-
On the whole these seem more solid and real. Sometimes (on my machine) can take a moment to render at first, but they look great.
Ships can be seen as more that a dot at a bit greater range.
.
Outfitting:-
Wow is this a poor effort!
It's just a long winded and frustrating as the original version.
Yes you can pick modules by type, but the new interface is so complex and long-winded you're clicking yourself silly. I'm sure I've had less button clicks playing an eighties platform game. Rather than make it easier to make your upgrades, they just changed it. A simple collapsible list would have done.
.
Galaxy Map:-
You can set flags against certain systems you want to remember/mark. This is great, no more leaving a sidewinder at each port (she didn't like me calling her that [big grin] ).
.
Cockpit:-
There are extra marks against navigation lists to show stations which relate to a mission .. very useful, these relate to the same shown on the Galaxy map.
.
Summary:-
I think there have been many improvements , shame about the outfitting.
Oh well by now , they may have started letting people download the update
