News and New ships

[Ranualf]

Live from Lave radio. Hot news - Dropship markII & gunship.
Just heard on the live lave radio news (devs present) that there is 3 new ships coming in the next few weeks in 1.4, and one is the Federal dropship mk2. More combat orientated with 2 large and 2 medium hardpoints.
And a Federal Gunship too.

Pc will get CQC only days after x box, not weeks.

All good news.

More shoe boxes of doom!

[albert]

So here is BD's announcement from Gamescon:

https://community.elitedangerous.com/node/247

Rather more exciting than recent updates and it may finally show that FD are listening to us.

[Ranualf]

Still not as funny as (big lols to Arithon)
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=171994&highlight=spotted+the+wilderness

Although we were pretty close.. just no jungle.. for now..

Looks to be interesting, once their web site come back online, seems a LOT of people have rushed out to get it...so its stalled- i know as it wont load my checkout page!

Fly safe and eventually pay for elite upgrade

[Ranualf]

I have just watched the 1st live stream- quite interesting!

Seasons-David clarified, and stated this is the 1st year, thus 1st season
Next year is the start of season 2..and Planetary Landings.
As for the "Americanisation" of holliday- basically between thanksgiving(November 26th) and Xmass(December 25th) that there will(hopefully) be a new content release. More to be said about it.

Upgrade Costs
Life time pass- basically the premium beta access pass is now back in the shop for a limited time.
Cost: £130 for new players or £120 for existing players.
There is also £10 off the season two access for current players, who do not want the lifetime pass.
New players buying into the game get the initial game and season 2 for £40 (to be confirmed)

They stated that they are releasing "stuff throughout the season"- nothing specific, as they do not want to give it all away, but this content will be free (so long as you have bought season two access)

Ships- there are going to be new ships- the Cobra MKiv, will have an additional weapons point and better weapon placement. But we will have to sacrifice some internal space.. exactly how much, we do not know.
Additional information- if you have bought the game (inc backers) within the 1st year you get access to the Cobra MKiv (we still need to spend CR to get it) so it is not a "freebee". But after the 1st year, players who join the game can post order season one, to gain access to the ship.
Cobra skins- will current skins fit the MK4- answer. hmm we don't know- yet.

CQC- i watched the Badnewsbarron stream, it actually looks pretty fun.
The ships are locked behind rank, so the more you play, the better the ship you can have access to.
From what i saw it was:
Condor 64 - pulse lasers, then burst at rank 4.. i think
Eagle- he had not unlocked it
Eagle with pulse cannons.. these looked very cool, and chewed the Barrons ship up nicely..
Sidewinder- with shield cell booster
Top was a sidewinder with something, but apparently is a tank ship!

The new CQC space stations will be entering the "normal game".. so eyes peeled for them, and yes they look cool!

Planetary landings

You will be able to land on "selected planets"..currently non atmosphere rock - with more planned
They have reasons behind this- but didn't tell... but some systems are locked behind permits also.

The SRV (Surface Recon Vehicle) or "scarab"
You will need to buy this, and the module it fits into from the spaceport. There are different size ones, which will take up more space.. so less cargo.
Different size ships will allow access to different sized scarabs, for "specific missions"- our best guess it that there will be several variants of the scarab, such as scout, combat, mining & transportation..more to be unveiled.

The SRV will have thrusters on its wheels to assist it- as there will be varying types of gravity on different planets.
So we can do "bunny hops" on high grav worlds, but in low grav we can have more "down force" to allow us to drive, or have huge jumps
Open forum speculation is for "SRV racing"- from the FuelRats.. as we already have space dock racing (insane it is).

Ships landing
The landing of a ship will be a "new flying experience" and David said the slower the ship, the harder it will be to land, When pushed further about this, they said they could not comment more- but...When approaching a planet, we would have planet space..and seamless entry- no SC cut scenes (Dig) He also went on to say that the smaller ships would be much easier to land...and that the large ships can land, but they will have to land a lot slower...

Other than simply destroying them, players would be required to "kill the base used to control them"- addition pirate action? Pirate bases mission to Scan planets and moons from space is used to detect signals, crashed ships, mineral deposits, outposts and fortresses
He then went onto discuss "remote controlled drones"-Hover units with the npc's controlling these.
Which seem to indicate that the Bulletin Board will be overhauled (as stated), and they mentioned this in passing.

This opened us a small discussion about wings, with some players in their SRV and others flying "escort duty" missions in their ships and in turn went onto discussing the zones of access- as in where are these planets to land on- "potentially anywhere..." now that is an open reply is ever i heard one, but they stated they is would not just be in the "bubble of humanity", and others systems would have these landing sites.

They skimmed over the "crafting", but said it would be directly linked to the game play. Potentially for new types of missions and scarab items or landing site upgrades.
Open speculation on this is that was will have to do "bring x item" missions in order to build a planet based landing dock, and upgrade it for landing / rearm et al.
There was also a small snipped about player factions having "lunar bases".. which means pirates have them also... smiles, nods and not much else..

Can we land anywhere?
Some advanced planets would have a "land dock", which will act exactly as they do in space.
Where as on other planet types you could fly around the planet, and select your landing destination... just what this implies is unknown.. which again they said about the survivability of the ship

Ship survival- when you off in your SRV
There was a debate upon this- both for and against, but we will have to wait and see what happens...as they have not nailed this down yet - they have reasons!
But he said if there was a land dock, then it would act exactly like a space dock- immune to damage, and able to trade / rearm, etc...If not, and you just landed anywhere... it was left open with evil smiles and nods..

Overall it was a pretty short cast, but there are several more days to go, and there will be more info added.

The Xbone will receive CQC Soonâ,,¢(in beta testing) with PC players receiving it a few days later.

[BrotherTobious]

Ohh new cobra woo hoo

[Ranualf]

Just for you toby

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3295[/ATTACH]

[BrotherTobious]

Wow thanks mate love me a cobra

Sent from my Nexus 5