| Head of Health and Safety | Ben Moss-Woodward | Eid LeWeise |
| Chief Archivist | Colin Ford | Phoenix_Dfire |
| Tech Gibbon | Chris Mk IV | Newell Turner |
| Tech Primate in Training | Chris Mk V | LittleBigYin |
Download the episode directly from here.
Development News – what have the devs said this week?
- 18.04 almost ended the Thargoid war with the remaining titans losing their control systems. This was fixed the next day before the Thursday tick!
- There’s review bombing going on Steam with people unhappy with either what they think is Pay to Win or the ARX price rises.
Community news – what is the community up to??
- Elite Dangerous: Thargoid Titan – The Highwake
- CMDR Mechan tests the Python MK2 vs Thargoid Titan – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0whN-jHSHyY
- Ricardo’s Gaming has been busy with 4 videos about 18.04 – https://www.youtube.com/@RicardosGaming/videos
- With all the talk of the northern lights (which I missed) Cmdr Ascobious’s Bannana Nebula Expedition has Done a Colour Out Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi0qWL4tYjk
- With the Engineering rush on for the new SCO Drive; Hawkes Gaming has done a tutorial video to help gather materials as quickly as possible :- https://youtu.be/VItBzHOsJSo?si=YtgsbjbdGBbjv252
- Want to see Cmdr BeatleJude paint a Krait MK 2? https://youtu.be/uA69hmFI__w?si=bVfWBMVcS3yYhK75
- Mile 13 Gaming shows how easy it is to use a quest 2 with Elite: Dangerous (Probably the cheepest VR Solution at the moment) NOW is the time to play Elite Dangerous in VR! Meta Quest 2 at the lowest price ever!
- Top Shift 142 – Where I do a review of the Python Mk 2 https://youtu.be/qkMDqO15SZw?si=Hfvkk-Ny0jJE51ds
- Operation Warbucks 4.0: A charity stream relay event is starting on the 17th May at 11:00 UTC on Orange Phoenix. This year the event is raising money for Special Effect. Donation link: https://tiltify.com/+operation-warbucks-the-elite-effect/operation-warbucks-the-elite-effect
- The next Buckyball race is in the works and CMDR Indigo has let us know that it’s called the Loose Screws Ring Tossers Rally. One takeoff, one landing, all in the same system. Just fly through the rings of every winged body and return to the start. SCO welcome in Unlimited, Next Gen ships (Pm2) are not. It’s coming “soon”.
- Elite Dangeruse have started work on project icarus which is an attempt to prove that ship interiors could have value to the game and de risk the change to Frontier https://t.co/RB7c64FwD3 ( I was trying it and when I moved my waggle stick I could see the flight stick in the window moving) I’m pretty sure they are going to tie it into their adventures
If you have a community event taking place soon and would like for us to shout about it across the airwaves tweet the crew @laveradio or email info@laveradio.com
In-Game Events – what’s happened this week?
- 9th May 3310 – https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/galnet/achilles-aerospace-releases-full-selection-supercruise-overcharge-modules
- Thargoid War Update :- After the wobble last week, the current numbers are
- Alerts 33 with 7 defended
- Invasions 15 with 5 defended
- Controlled systems 624 with 3 cleared. This is the first time in 3 months that the total number of Controlled systems have fallen (down 10).
- 17 system are in recovery
- Word of warning, these figures seem lower due to the clitch last week, they’ll be up again after Thargsday.
- Hadad is now down to 22 control systems, so we’re still looking at a couple of weeks before the Titan becomes vulnerable to Attack of the Pythons! (lets be honest, that’s what it will be).
Store Alert
- The Python MK2 Strike Pack – https://www.elitedangerous.com/store/product/python-mk-ii-strike-ship-kit
Main discussion
- Powerplay 2.0
- System states are ;-
- Neutral
- Exploited
- Fortified (when you are in the state you can expand out)
- Stronghold.
- The magical carriers appear when you are in a stronghold state. This order assumes no power in the system
- The range you can expand to is much larger in Stronghold than in Fortified. No concrete values given
- Without supporting systems you can easily lose exploited systems if you lose the fortified system they are chained off from.
- Powers are scored by the number of systems they own and how valuable those systems are so if two powers had 100 systems but power A systems were all rubbish outposts with very little trade and low population and power B had lots of trade hubs, then Power B would have the higher score.
- Seems like a system’s score is primarily based on population.
- If there’s a power in the system you want you need to undermine it till it’s uncontrolled.
- Contested expansion just seems like a race to the end of the bar, we don’t know what happens in a contested system, but if its anything like the existing system, expect conflict zones and appropriate scenarios in the USS’s
- Can get certain items from stronghold carriers which are used for power play activities ( I assume the posters) They will have well-stocked markets.
- There is sensitive equipment you can damage on the carriers, can attack the carriers. Lots of the power’s ships around the carrier so they’re a good place to raid these ships if you’re targeting the power..
- Many different types of support craft around it some for defence some for other uses. Carrier weapons are balanced to allow fights to happen
- Looks like power play rewards are being reworked, what we saw were placeholders.
- You never lose any rank within your power (like you used to), if you get a Maximum rank, you get extra ‘care’ packages from your power.
- Top end list within a power to know who’s the most loyal!
- Will be available as is in open, private and solo modes. However, this will be monitored and changed if they deem players playing in a certain mode is unbalancing powerplay.
- System states are ;-
- PP Player reaction.
- Positive – Removal of Command Capital – IMHO excellent idea, removes 5th C from the start.
- Positive – The way you can knock out systems is great. Someone getting too, strong? Knock out a stronghold system and watch the chain reaction across all the systems. It should mean there’s more ebb and flow on the powerplay map.
- Positive – No Rank Loss. This was one of the sticking points with the PP1, Rank loss was in there to encourage people to play to keep their rank but it was too discouraging if you lost rank due to holiday or circumstances beyond your control.
- Positive – No Voting for the systems to try and recruit or flip, just play and the mechanics will take care of it.
- Neutral – No detail on activities you have to do to advance your power.. The main issue with PP1 was its reputation of being a boring leaflet deliverer. There wasn’t a mechanism in place to stop or slow down the cargo ships. (either by NPC Ships or in PvP).
- Neutral/Negative – They didn’t go into detail about how you can defend your systems from being undermined. In PP1, defending players felt helpless when a lot of enemy players could undermine a system in solo and there’s no way to stop them. (Especially when the Bots were discovered). As long as there is a counter for this that works across all three modes, then it won’t be an issue.
- Colin’s Opinion – PP1 failed to engage people for three reasons.
- It didn’t reward people’s time properly (see Rank Loss).
- Uninspired game play of boring trade runs and a lack of interdictions.
- It was felt there wasn’t a point to playing if people could undo all your hard work without you having a chance to stop them or they could 5th Column your power.
- Still on Course for summer? Ie. July, or more, likely August the 7th to link up with the free Python.
Any other business
- Homeworld 3 has been released!
- For those who are following the Planescape Audio Drama, two now episodes have been released. For more details see https://www.patreon.com/revocergm
- Clare is also taking part in a charity stream of the gameshow would I lie to you this weekend for British Red Cross https://twitter.com/inanda/status/1788908493728051234?s=21
Questions
- QOTW – If you could suggest another prebuilt to be added to the mix what would you suggest? Or a suggestion of a tweak to the other ones.
- Cylus Resi
Maybe a good Mamba racer, or perhaps something for those aspiring Bucky Ball Commanders. - Rocky Star
The dbx was good (with debatable swap to fuel scoop and srv bay), the Chieftain was a decent entry to titan bombing, but the T6 miner needed a bigger collector limpet and had zero use for a power hungry pwa.
As for extra, I’d like to see something like a Krait Mk2 for bgs mission running, with an srv, some weapons and cargo space and a hatch breaker for those election missions, which is also an intro to piracy - Nyceygy
Some in-game lore/instructions would be nice. That and a (probably krait) “starter ship” that has all the basic modules (fsd, shield, ect) and can be retrofitted for most tasks. - HappyMoonMonkey
The entire new CMDR experience could do with overhauling. Odyssey starts in one place, Horizons a choice of two. None of them in the starter zone. It should all be consistently in the starter zone with a couple of prompted missions to get new players acclimatised.
A prebuilt cobra would be a nice touch but a good hauler, a t7 perhaps would be an interesting addition. - CMDR Schnails
I don’t think I’d tweak the pre-builts that are already available. I think FDev have come up with perfectly not great, but starter ships for the stated profession. ie. Good enough, to give you all the right ideas on what you might want to do to make them better.
As for other professions; Pirate Hunter (a semi good Vulture maybe?), ExoBiologist (Viper Mk IV or Cobra Mk III with a tuned up jump range and an SRV), Tourist Trip boat (Has to be a Dolphin, but with all the wrong cabins to do it well and without an A rated FSD). - DJ_Wylie
Personally I’d like to see them go a bit further with the pre-builts. Better outfitting and more engineering. Would be ok if that cost more Arx than the current ones. It still wouldn’t be anything we couldn’t achieve in game ourselves. But it would appeal to a wider audience. Possibly some more experienced players such as myself would pick them up. I think the jumpstart prebuilds as they are now are only going to be of interest to a very limited set of players and probably won’t make that much money for fdev. Something that is actually going to save me some time. A-rated with a decent level of engineering. Maybe not fully G5’d, but something substantial. I think the Python MK2 prebuild has proved there is a market for selling ships to the established player base. So many people have bought it. Unfortunately I just don’t see that happening with the jumpstart ships. - Colin’s own idea
- Ben’s own idea
I think that a Starter Cargo Ship would be an ideal candidate and this would strike me as an excellent little hauler. With 22T of Cargo and 38+ LY Range she’d be a great little longer range ship for either rares, or to help build up to get say a Type 7. https://tinyurl.com/445b9nzf - Chris IV’s idea
- Chris V’s idea
- Cylus Resi
Shoutouts
- Our sister station, Hutton Orbital Radio, Broadcasts on Thursdays from 20:30. You can tune in at twitch.tv/huttonorbitaltruckers or, for just the audio, at radio.forthemug.com/.
- For the discerning Commander who likes a bit of CQC action, check out the CQC Discord at “discord.me/elitedangerouscqc”.
- We’re also giving a shout outs to the following Elite Dangerous podcasts which have appeared over the last year or are standard regular contributors;-
- The Guard Frequency (who do other space games )
- Loose Screws – who now do the worst Scottish Accents since Mel Gibson….
- Following this we have the latest Galnet News Digest as provided by Cmdr Wotherspoon and Cmdr BeetleJude.
- Thanks to those who have chipped in on Twitch chat and in-game commanders
- Special Thanks to Cmdr ToCoSo, Jn Tracks and Allen Stroud who created the music used on the Show.