PC Gamer have an article (http://www.pcgamer.com/elite-dangerous-12-preview-flying-together-with-wings/) on the "Wings" update coming to Elite in a couple of weeks.
Some interesting nuggets of information there. A lot of the stuff we've been hoping to see. Elite 1.2 will be released as Beta in the first week of March and then made generally available a week later.
QuotePlayers will be able to share lots of feedback across the wingâ€"who is targeting who, hull and shield statuses, etc.â€"and more easily follow each other in and out of Super Cruise
QuoteThe status of your wingmen will be displayed on your ship UI, and wing members will be colour-coded on the scanner and comms window, making it easy to keep track of your squadron
Quoteplayers will start to see larger, more dangerous signal sources, where single ships would be at serious risk
Quotethey’ll find the rewardsâ€"in terms of bounties and cargoâ€"will be suitably elevated in line with the challenge.
QuoteWhile the coordinated firepower of a wing will be much increased, the four-pilot limit has been designed to prevent a squadron from owning a system. "It allows multiple wings to be present at any given location and it prevents a single wing from being able to completely dominate through sheer numbers," says Sammarco of the pilot cap.
QuoteWhen jumping, pilots can choose to lock-on to any member of their wing, and so automatically follow them in and out of Super Cruise. In addition, the rules around manually entering and exiting a jump are slightly relaxed for wing membersâ€"allowing them to more easily arrive in the same corner of space.
QuoteWe could add things like cargo depots which allow multiple wingmen to load and deliver cargo for the same mission, and offer new ways for ships in a wing to interact with one another, like having limpets to transfer fuel between the wing or allowing players to take formation around stellar bodies and perform advanced linked scans.
So red wing, blue wing, gold wing, etc. on the way!
red 5 checkin..ah crap
i hereby declare that in the red wing there will be no number 2 (who wants to be called number 2 anyhow)
red five checking in
Quote from: sulky_uk;395318red 5 checkin..ah crap
i hereby declare that in the red wing there will be no number 2 (who wants to be called number 2 anyhow)
red five checking in
Your no Jedi!!
Quote from: BrotherTobious;395324Your no Jedi!!
That's not the film reference you're looking for, move along!
[video=youtube;kxH6YErAIgA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxH6YErAIgA[/video]
lol.
"Simply Red standing by"
:roflmao:
See full post here (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116449).
Group jump is limited to lowest capable ship, so get upgrading those FSD's now please!!!
Group size was limited to avoid domination, but also HUD spam!
Quote from: Michael BrookesOne aspect was the why we selected four pilots as being the wing size ... the real issue of making sure the feedback for wings integrated well with the HUD.
Group FSD jumps and exit from supercruise at the same time/place will now be possible.
Quote from: Michael BrookesOne of the new additions with Wings is the ability to lock-on to your wing mates. The lock-on is a new feature specifically for wings. It lets you lock the details of a wingman’s ship into your nav-computer and “soft-slave†your frame shift drive to theirs. Even though we’ve relaxed the limits for using wakes of wingmen (you can be travelling faster and farther away and still drop in/out of super cruise), a wing lock-on automates FSD use â€" all you need to do is fly close enough. You still need to make sure you’re eligible to make the jump, but it should dramatically help in time critical situations, such as when your wingman is being interdicted.
USS's will be a little less unknown.
Quote from: Michael BrookesChanges to USSs are being made so you can scan them in advance to gain an impression of the scale of the signal â€" beware the larger scale USSs as they might be too dangerous, especially if you’re alone!
AI Ships will hunt in packs too.
Quote from: Michael BrookesNPCs get the ability to fly in groups of their own
Lameduck and other explorers will soon be able to send a photo with themselves in it! Postcards From the Edge (of the Galaxy)
Quote from: Michael BrookesHi everyone,
The beta release for update 1.2 is rapidly approaching and I have some more details to share in this week’s update.
First let’s look at some more details on the Wings functionality â€" Wing Beacons. Player wings exist to enable cooperative game play. One of the neat features wings use to support this notion is the wing beacon. This nifty little device allows you to send a signal from normal space into the system’s super cruise environment.
Your wing will be able to see the signal - regardless of distance - as long as they are in super cruise in the system; they can use it just like a wake and drop down to your location.
The wing beacon also leaves the door open for future updates to trigger game events from it, such as distress calls to nearby Commanders and AI ships for example. But right now it makes all the difference when you drop into your wing’s system; with a simple flick of a switch, your team members will be able to instantly lead you to their position.
Wings also brings an overhaul for comms. The most obvious change is the ability to transmit open broadcasts. Such text messages will now be received by all ships nearby. Of course, you can toggle your ship’s ability to receive such broadcasts at will.
We’ve also popped in some text line syntax, allowing you to /T talk directly to the ship you’ve targeted, /R respond to the ship that last talked directly to you, as a well as /W talk to your wing. When you join a wing, you will by default send communications to them, but you can quickly toggle this option when you type your message.
Another change related to comms is that commanders docked in starports will now remain on your contact list so you can chat with them while docked.
Another aspect we’ve looked into is the operating costs on ships, so in 1.2 we’ve performed a balance pass on repair costs. This change should really help Commanders make profit from combat roles: as long as they don’t die, their repair costs should not eat away all of the profit they might be making from bounties and the like.
Balancing the various economies and risks in the game is an ongoing affair, so this probably won’t be the last change we make, but we believe lowering repair costs is on the safer side, so it’s a good candidate to test out and bed in first.
We’ve also added a cool new feature for people with damaged modules. We’re activating diagnostics repair-reboot functionality on all ships. Whilst still not a match for an automatic field-maintenance module, this function allows a ship to reboot and jury-rig completely broken modules, getting them back up and running at a couple of percent health. Of course, there’s a cost: for every percent of health repaired, another, healthier module will be stripped of double this amount as components are cannibalised.
For people wanting to take screenshots or look at their own ships we’re also unlocking a debug camera. This allows you take limited control of the camera outside of your ship. This isn’t a gameplay camera and is purely a debug function to allow players to see their ship.
Looking beyond the 1.2 release we have the Mac beta, still scheduled for the end of March. Beyond that we have the 1.3 update and we’ll share more information on that update ‘soon’.
Thanks
Michael
According to the new update #64 you will external can so you can see your ship.
I think that might please OB
Sent from my Nexus 5
Quote from: BrotherTobious;395785... I think that might please OB
'bout bleedin' time.