Lave Radio Episode 249: Coalescing the Coalition

Head of Health and SafetyBen Moss-WoodwardCMDR Eid LeWeise
(in)Human Resources DirectorShanCMDR Shan
Deputy Trade AttachéSouvCmdr Souvarine
Tech MonkeyCmdr Ventura
KSP Bureaucrat Third ClassCmdr Walt Kerman

Download the episode directly from here.

Development News

  • Will did a new commander stream but that’s about it

In Game Events

  • None but new paint jobs for the keelback.

Main Discussion

  • Questions for the Coalition:
    • Why didn’t Communism Interstellar join?
    • What’s the status of the Border Coalition?
    • What’s the purpose of the Coalition?
    • Is the Coalition a ‘threat’ to the Alliance? I.E. the Alliance is supposedly the Alliance of Independent Systems, so is the Coalition ‘stealing’ those systems from them?
  • Game improvements from Cmdr Nash
    • I’ve got a few suggestions on things frontier could do to improve the game with  minimal work before the next big content drop in 2093 or whatever it is.

      I’m assuming their software design is something reasonable (despite evidence to the contrary) and we want to get most bang for the buck.

      Generally Frontier’s big problems are their lack of (useful) communication and a tendency to do something half-arsed then let it sit without an update for too long (the engineering/mining/exploration updates were all great, but they took way too long).    
    • Idea 1: CQC Materials
      • Add material drops.  Give each player who finishes a game a random material drop.  Give anyone who scored a kill another. Give the winners (top half  players or top team) a drop. Totally random material. Suddenly even seasoned players have a reason to play.

        Also increase the credit payouts by 10 times (or more).  With a single courier mission paying a few thousand, and mining paying up to a billion, a few thousand for CQC ain’t going to break anything. (still only useful for new players, but they probably don’t care about engineering yet) Code wise this should be trivial.
      • Other improvements:
        • Add Guardian fighters to the mix (should also be easy)
        • Add NPCs (maybe easy, maybe hard)
        • Make the arena’s smaller (more contact = faster games) (not sure)
        • Buff all CQC weapons to make TTK (time to kill) smaller (should be easy)
        • In game queueing (probably the hardest)
    • Idea 2: SLF Engineer(s)
      • Add a new engineer or 2 who only does fighters.  Fighter’s are a single module so can only be engineered with a single modification.
      • 4 mods:
        • Increase damage by 20% per level
        • Increase shields by 20% per level
        • Increase speed/maneuverability by 20% per level
        • Increase all three by 10% per level.
        • (multiply those numbers as appropriate).
      • Shouldn’t be too hard to add.  Makes fighters more useful in a post-engineering world.
      • If they are too powerful, it just moves the game meta to have more fighters, and fighters are fun to fly, so it’s all good.  Fighters vs Fer-der-lances FTW.
      • Potential to add experimental effects later if they wish.
    • Idea 3: A Small SLF Carrier Ship
      • So a little more work, but a small ship (size of a sidewinder) that is essentially just a strapped on FSD for a fighter.
      • Need some special module slots and the like, but the only new real asset would be the ship itself.  May have limited re-builds of the fighter. Super cool if combined with Idea 2 as well.
    • Others – Some other things they could do to look after their community:
      • Cross-platform save support (see Fortnite and other games)
      • PSVR support (who am I kidding, they can’t even update the FAQ https://support.frontier.co.uk/kb/faq.php?id=365 )(Yeah, you asked Wil about it for me in Feb 2018 😉  
      • Publish something about what they are working on!  I know, insane right

Community Corner

Shoutouts

  • Paige raising money for Special Effect
    • I’m 25 now, and nearly 16 stone. With my disabilities, this is dangerous, and I’m finally ready to see myself for who I truly am. This time, I lose the weight, and see it, because I’m ready to love myself.

      I need to lose a minimum of 6 stone. For every pound I lose, I will be donating £1 to SpecialEffect to help keep disabled gamers in the game. If you would like to 1) support disabled gamers, 2) help motivate me to get healthy, please do feel free to make a donation of your own.

      https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/paige-harvey-weight-loss
  • Fozza has managed to dig up some new iTunes reviews!!! <3 you guys
    • Jaybird
    • Cmdr Macwa de Linn
    • Cmdr Valaryc
    • Cmdr Harass B Dragon
    • Ki
    • Jrohrer1010
    • Cmdr Tomacco
  • Lavecon 2019 is 5th – 7th July at the Sedgebrook Hall Hotel, and is sponsored by Spidermind Games!
    • On Friday Karen is planning to take all the silver/gold camping and Ambassadors reception tickets off the website to allow the hotel to plan food numbers. So, if you want one of these, do get it soon!
    • Bronze tickets will be on sale up to and on the day itself.
    • Cmdr Beetlejude is going to be doing a Blind Auction of her Signed by Frontier Artwork at Lavecon

Lavecon 2019 Timetable

Please note, all times are subject to change up to and including on the day! The ‘Official’ Schedule can be found here: https://www.hwsevents.co.uk/laveconoverview

Saturday General Information

09:30Doors Open!
12:00 – 14:00Lunch served
19:30 – 21:00Dinner served

Sunday General Information

08:00 – 10:00Breakfast served
09:30Doors open
12:00 – 14:00Lunch served
18:00 6pm Event Close

Saturday Main Room

Ongoing Activities Competition: Raffle Cosplay
10:00Welcome from Lave Radio Team,
Highlights for the Day/Weekend
Completion Launch: Abraka Drabble
11:00 Presentation: Spidermind Games
12:30Panel: Streamers panel
14:00Panel: Frontier Developments Q&A
3.30pm (or end of Q&A) Photo of Everyone outside!
16:30Lave Radio: Veterans
18:00Sagittarius Eye: New Project
20:00The Big Quiz.
22:00 Hutton Truckers
23:00 Dockers / Late night podcast

Sunday Main Room

Ongoing Activities Traders Competition: Raffle Cosplay Competition
10:30Welcome back – Today’s Highlights (11am Competition: Abraka Drabble – deadline for entries)
11:00Presentation: Phoenix Point
13:00 1pm Abraka Drabble readings
14:30 2.30pm Podcast: Lave Radio Live
16:30 4.30pm Prizes, Awards and Raffle Closing speeches Hard drive handover.

Saturday Panels

12:30Talk: Future Civilisations
16:30Workshop: The Dev-prentice

Sunday Panels

09:30Workshop: Creative Writing
11:00Planning an Elite: Dangerous expedition

Saturday Lounge, Artemis, Games Room & VR Room

Ongoing Activities Planetary landings: Lego Asmodeus Games ED: Battle Cards
11:0011am ED:RPG
12:00 – 18:00Artemis
13:00 – 18:00 VR Games
20:30RPG: Call of Cthulhu
21:00 9pm ED:RPG

Sunday Lounge, Artemis, Games Room & VR Room

Ongoing Activities Boardgame lounge
11:00 11am ED:RPG
11:00 – 15:00 Artemis

Saturday Lan Room

10:00 10am LAN Room Opens
10:15 Star Sovereign Tutorial
10:30Totally Accurate Battle Simulator: Demo
11:15Star Sovereign Tutorial
11:30 Totally Accurate Battle Simulator: Demo
13:00 1pm Star Sovereign – LAVECON 2019 Game Begins
14:00 2pm Totally Accurate Battle Simulator: Competition 1
16:00 4pm Totally Accurate Battle Simulator: Competition 2
18:00 6pm Fantasy Strike Competition
20:00Battletrax: Network Multiplayer
22:00Local Multiplayer games.
00:00Star Sovereign – LAVECON 2019 Game Ends

Sunday Lan Room

10:00 10 am LAN Room Opens
10:15Totally Accurate Battle Simulator: Competition 3
14:00Totally Accurate Battle Simulator: Competition 4
17:00Games end

Lave Radio Episode 200 Part 2

Lavecon 2018!!!

Aired 29 May 2018
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.


Crew Members
Station Commander : Allen Stroud
Director of Pest Control : Ashley Devine – DrToxic
Head of health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward – Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Chief Bar Steward : Grant Woolcott – Cmdr Psykokow
(In)Human Resources Director : Shan – Cmdr Shanaeri
The Mind of the Spiders : Jon Lunn
The Spider’s Story : Oliver Hulme
Anchor so you don’t have to : Peter Wotherspoon

 

 

Show Notes

    • Story Time with Allen – the real story of Lave Radio Episode 1
    • Thoughts on Lavecon 2018
      • Frontier’s Panel
         
      • Type 10!
      • Chieftain
      • What happens when you have a nap at Lavecon
      • Spidermind Games
    • Open Microphone to the floor
    • Group Photo by CMDR-Arithon

Lave Radio Episode 199


Windows 10 Pushes the Crew Down a Mountain.

Aired 15 May 2018
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.


Crew Members
Director of Pest Control : Ashley Devine – DrToxic
Head of health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward – Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Chief Archivist : Colin Ford – Cmdr phoenix_dfire
(In)Human Resources Director : Shan – Cmdr Shanaeri
Lavian Space Program Director : Andy Barnes – Cmdr Kurgol
Hick with a Big Stick : Karen Fishwick

Show Notes

  • Development News
  • In Game Events
    • This weeks Eagle Eye Systems to defend are LTT 8648 and Lalande 4141 after another week of successful defence by the Anti Xeno Initiative. The AEGIS Ships in Aegis Mega-ships were dispatched to Coquim and LHS 1453 (neither of which were Eagle Eye targets) and wrecked Mega-ships were found in several systems nearby. Cannon’s Lab 69 AIX speculates that both Achenar and Sol are the intended destinations of current Thargoid Activity. (Possible biological attack to disable the governments? Payback for INRA?)
    • IDA is continuing to haul repair supplies to Titan’s Daughter.
    • As part of the Bucky Ball Base Jumping (where we are based tonight) at 19:00 game-time tomorrow (Wednesday) night quite a few people will be running the mountain (including folks from Fighter Club I believe). We have an idea to attempt a Gloucester Cheese run (not quite sure what, or who, the cheese will be yet). So even moar maddness bouncing down the hill!
  • Newsletter 227
  • Main Discussion
    • Karen on to talk about Lavecon
  • Community Corner
  • Questions
    • Commander Caractacus_Potts via email (info@laveradio.com)TLDR Is Horizon’s not pay to win too Shan? Guardian and Engineering require Horizons, which is paid for DLC.I sure do love your show, keep up the great work.  You have such a great mix of people, with fascinating guests, and I enjoy every episode.  Ok, enough fluff, on to the meat of things.I have really been surprised that in your discussions of open only Powerplay that a comparison to Horizons has never come up.
      Statements were made that open only would introduce a pay to win element to the game, as those on consoles would have to pay to participate in Powerplay.  If a console person wanted the weapons and such that are available only thru pledging to a power, it would cost.

      But does not the same hold true with Guardian technology?  To get any of that, you have to land on a planet, and that requires Horizons, which costs money. When Frontier released Horizons, did they break the pledges that Shan had researched, or at the later date when the Guardian tech dropped in the game?  Or did they sidestep it by doing it in two phases? I don’t recall hearing of a similar upset about that. Since it sounds like Guardian tech is almost a prerequisite for serious Thargoid hunting, and if open only Powerplay is pay to win, then needing Horizons to get Guardian tech certainly makes all the Beyond chapters pay to win as well.

      But I don’t consider any of that “pay to win”.  There is no win or lose in this game, just participation and progression.  If you want to engage in certain aspects of the game, these are the modes of play and costs associated.  No big deal. If I want to do any missions that require landing on a planet, I need Horizons. I want to do that, so I pay.  Seems reasonable to me, and I don’t see any fundamental principles broken.

      Personally, open only is what will settle my decision to engage in Powerplay.  I don’t PvP, but all 200 hours or so of my time has been in the open. It is the fact that I am in the galaxy with other commanders that makes Elite so appealing.  Listening to your Battle for Lave podcasts really opened my eyes to the intricacies of it, which I find fascinating, but it is the ability to team up with other commanders to accomplish shared goals that really hooks me.  But not if I am playing against people that I can’t counter. I understand that instancing and other technical issues won’t make this a perfect system, there will likely always be some sort of exploit, but in my eyes, the idea of engaging with other commanders is fundamental principle of Powerplay, and that necessitates open only.  If Frontier chooses to keep solo as an option, then I won’t participate. It is not a big deal, I have plenty of other things to do in this galaxy. But it seems to me that with solo players and bots making the efforts of commanders playing in open seem so futile, that the number of commanders willing to fight that hard for nothing will dwindle, and the bots will end up running the galaxy.  I, for one, welcome our new Borg overlords!!!

      All the best, Commanders.
      Commander Caractacus_Potts
      O7

    • CXXXS on Reddit
      Sorry if it’s been asked before, but is there any chance your podcast may one day be available on Spotify? I’ve recently made a switch to it as my primary podcast app. Just curious.

      • Ben has filled out a form to hopefully get LR into Spotify and Google Play (possibly only in the US)
    • From Eric E Devo on Twitter :- I love this cast, and this community. Perhaps you can recruit an optimist or two for the upcoming content reviews – it seems like the podcast has become about 20 minutes of good content with an hour of whinging tacked on. There must be some optimism among you, surely
  • Shoutouts

Lave Radio Episode 192


Oh Balls!

Aired 27 March 2018
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.


Crew Members
Director of Pest Control : Ashley Devine – DrToxic
Head of health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward – Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Chief Archivist : Colin Ford – Cmdr phoenix_dfire
Chief Bar Steward : Grant Woolcott – Cmdr Psykokow
(In)Human Resources Director : Shan – Cmdr Shanaeri
Knight Extruder Operator : Andy Barnes – Cmdr Kurgol
Man with a Mission : Adam Bourke-Waite (Frontier)
Shunt Ed : Will Flanagan (Frontier)

Show Notes

Lave Radio Episode 191


Goldblum by Proxy

Aired 20 March 2018
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.


Crew Members
Head of health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward – Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Chief Archivist : Colin Ford – Cmdr phoenix_dfire
Chief Bar Steward : Grant Woolcott – Cmdr Psykokow
(In)Human Resources Director : Shan – Cmdr Shanaeri
Knight Extruder Operator : Andy Barnes – Cmdr Kurgol
Alliance Office of Statistics : Cmdr Tom D
Alliance Office of Statistics’ Lead Bot Investigator : JTrinity – Jess
Patreus Planning Proletariat : Misaniovent

Show Notes

Lave Radio Episode 190


Nerf Wars : The RPG

Aired 13 March 2018
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.


Crew Members
Director of Pest Control : Ashley Devine – DrToxic
Head of health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward – Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Chief Archivist : Colin Ford – Cmdr phoenix_dfire
Chief Bar Steward : Grant Woolcott – Cmdr Psykokow
(In)Human Resources Director : Shan – Cmdr Shanaeri
Knight Extruder Operator : Andy Barnes – Cmdr Kurgol
The Mind of the Spiders : Jon Lunn
The Spider’s Story : Oliver Hulme

Show Notes

Lave Radio Episode 179


Wombling Free

Aired 12 Dec 2017
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.


Crew Members
Director of Pest Control : Ashley Devine – DrToxic
Head of health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward – Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Head of Entertainment : Chris Jarvis – Cmdr Thane
Chief Archivist : Colin Ford – Cmdr phoenix_dfire
Chief Bar Steward : Grant Woolcott – Cmdr Psykokow
(In)Human Resources Director : Shan – Cmdr Shanaeri

Show Notes

  • Development News
    • Update 2.4.08
    • Class 3 AX weapons(Multi-cannons and missiles) in game -pew pew
    • Frontier’s Special Effect Live Stream
  • Newsletter 203
  • In Game Events
  • Shoutouts
    • Hailing the crew of the orange sidewinder!I’m doing the London Marathon in 2018 for my charity running club (Coco) so I need to raise £2000. I’ve got various ideas to get there but I also thought I could do a separate joint set of fundraising with SpecialEffect after hearing all about them on LaveRadio.
      I tweeted the following which (by my very limited social media standards!) got loads of retweets and likes:
      @EliteDangerous I’ve won a place in the @LondonMarathon with @TeamCOCO_run , I’m raising money for them and @SpecialEffect at https://t.co/aUD50F4G1N Please can you help me raise £2000?The Virgin Money page splits 50/50 between special effect and Coco. Coco basically help teach or train children in africa so they can improve their situation. The running club is an online one and exists purely to raise money for the main charity. An example of their work: http://mailchi.mp/coco/become-a-coco-champion-this-christmas-1263801

      I’ve been a fan of the show since about episode 6 (I went back and listened to episodes 1-5!) and usually listen while running. So there is a sort of link there. I started playing Elite in about ’87 on a BBC B and have played many versions from then on. So yes, I’m now over 40 (just!) and a fully qualified forum dad!

      So, I was hoping I could get a shout out on the show? I’m up for doing something more involved if you’d like me to. Surely some other Elite players must be running it too? maybe you can help us get in touch with each other? Or if anyone has any fundraising ideas they’d like to share (I’m already thinking of a gin tasting party). Or maybe we can persuade Grant to take up running to fill his time now his bathroom traumas seem to be easing… (ok, maybe not that last one!)

      Cheers
      Dave / CMDR Hoopy / @hooperdave

    • Elite Yuletube is coming from a group of wonderful Commanders. With three months in the making they are releasing a video everyday starting from December 13th, each following an overall story arch.
    • Lavecon 2018 is 8th – 10th June
    • CQC Discord – For the Discerning Commander who likes a bit of CQC action

Lave Radio Episode 176


Patch 2.4 : the cadence of a Cutter with spoilers!

Aired 14 Nov 2017
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.


Crew Members
Director of Pest Control : Ashley Devine – DrToxic
Head of health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward – Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Chief Archivist : Colin Ford – Cmdr phoenix_dfire
(In)Human Resources Director : Shan – Cmdr Shanaeri

Show Notes

Lave Radio Episode 170

Honey I’m home!

Aired 26 Sep 2017
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.


Crew Members

Head of health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward – Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Chief Archivist : Colin Ford – Cmdr phoenix_dfire
Chief Bar Steward : Grant Woolcott – Cmdr Psykokow
Snake Charmer : Ashley Devine – DrToxic
NPC Taskmaster : Shan – Cmdr Shanaeri

Show Notes