Download the episode directly from here.

Greetings, Commanders, and welcome to Episode #257 of Lave Radio. The show about the universe of Elite, and the fantastic community that surrounds it.

If you can’t get in-game you can also join the Twitch chat channel, which you can access through “laveradio.com/live” and clicking on ‘live chat’; and on “twitch.tv/laveradio”.

Tonight’s activity in-game

1. Is Kurgol flying to Maia to see the new Thargoid?

Development News – what have the devs said this week?

• September update 18th Sept
• Fleet Carriers

In-Game Events – what’s happened this week?

• New Thargoid type found above Palin’s old base.

Newsletter

1. Viper paint jobs.

Main discussion

1. Fleet Carrier discussion. 
   • Single-player surprise? Like the player freighter in NMS.
   • 500 ly but Refuelled by what? New kind of fuel? Possible skimming from gas giants? Powered by Arx? (Hope not).
   • You can schedule jumps, how often will you be able to? 
   • Who would you allow to dock? (private, friends, squadron?)
   • One carrier per instance and they cannot be destroyed. Can you drive it off’ like other capital ships?
   • What will you use for your personal fleet carrier for?
   • How much should they cost?
   • Rumour has it, they will need to be maintained, and not just fueled.. Thoughts?
   • Refuel, rearm and repair but to get different functions, you have to add the right support ship?
     1. Trade – does this mean you can store commodities there?
     2. Bounty hunting
     3. Exploration
     4. Search and rescue
     5. Piracy? Base for griefers?
     6. Miner
     7. Mercenary
     8. Smuggler
     9. No anti-Xeno though.
   • 4 large pads, 4 medium pads, 4 small pads. Once all the pads have been used, no-one else can dock
   • How big are those support ships? And are support ship and modules the same thing?

Community Corner

• Best video of the carrier announcement has to be the ‘ghost giraffe’ s drunk Review. 

Questions

Someone posted on the ED forum that you guys could use some ideas re:The Grind.

My ED copilots and I have one glaring Grind issue, and that is Raw mats.  The issue is, we are purely combat pilots, and there is only one way to gather Raw mats for engineering, SRV surface prospecting.  None of us want to drive SRVs in circles picking stuff up, yet we have to do so for many hours. It’s really irritating. Miners and Explorers can gain Manufactured/Encoded/Raw mats from their normal tasks and missions. Combat pilots must step away from their normal tasks/missions to get Raw mats. 

The fix is simple.  Add Raw mats as mission reward options, and make NPC Mining/Trading ships drop some Raw mats just like ships drop Manufacture mats. 

The credit grind is gone, now it is just the mat grind.

What Do you think of Fleet Carriers? Have you got idea about the Role you want to do?

Shoutouts

1. Our sister station, Hutton Orbital Radio, Broadcasts on Thursdays from 20:30. You can tune in at tv.forthemug.com/ or, for just the audio, at radio.forthemug.com/.
2. For the discerning Commander who likes a bit of CQC action, check out the CQC Discord at “discord.me/elitedangerouscqc”.
3. Thanks to those who have chipped in on Twitch chat and in-game commanders

Download the episode directly from here.

Guests:

• Alec Turner
• Sanderling – Elite Races.

Greetings, Commanders, and welcome to Episode 255 of Lave Radio. The show about the universe of Elite, and the fantastic community that surrounds it.

Development News – what have the devs said this week?

1. GalNet changes
   • This from Ian Doncaster… https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/galnet-changes.519008/post-7935417
   • If this means that the amount of Galnet content won’t change, but the percentage that’s related to in-game content will increase, I think that’s very positive – especially if that means that there’s more non-routine in-game content going on than previously.
     
     If this means that the amount of Galnet content related to in-game content won’t change, but the total amount of Galnet content will decrease, then that feels like taking several steps back, to how things were two or three years ago when Galnet could go for weeks between non-automated news items.
     
     I think also, while people weren’t satisfied with the “off-camera” narratives, this was because they took place 100% off-camera, and often, more recently, in undefined locations so that people couldn’t go looking for in-game signs of them. They felt like they weren’t really happening in Elite Dangerous.
     
     There’s still, I think, room for quite a bit of off-camera narrative, provided that it relates to some in-game content as well. For example, the Enclave Interstellar Initiative could have had some “background” material in Galnet over the previous few months:
     – 6 months before II starts: news article about how meta-alloys are being widely used in research
     – 4 months before II starts: news article where some corporation expresses concerns about the meta-alloy supply security
     – 1 month before II starts: story about scientists noting Pleiades barnacles are showing signs of damage
     …and then go into the II with that as lead-up, rather than it suddenly starting with “meta-alloy prices double! exploration CG! no previous hints that there was any sort of issue!”
     – and then of course potential for a few stories following up after the II months later highlighting the long-term effects it’s had
     
     If most of the stories eventually connected around to in-game events, they wouldn’t need to all have in-game interactions directly associated with them for players to feel that they were relevant. (e.g. Drew Wagar’s “Premonition” storyline was generally well-received and the finale had lots of players participating on both sides, despite most of the lead up happening “off-camera” and often even “off-Galnet”) An in-game event which connected three stories from months or even years ago that people had assumed were just background flavour could be really exciting. (And it’d look like you’d planned it that way even if you’d just picked up those loose stories months later, too)
   • Also this from Alec Turner
     1. @Stephen Benedetti can I ask then, on average do you expect there to be roughly the same number of Galnet stories per week but instead of Frontier inventing stories (e.g. the winking cat stuff or the dude who stole a DBX) they’ll now be covering things that actually happened (e.g. expeditions, races, AX combat/repair achievements, etc)? (which sounds great) … or, do you mean that you’ll be cutting those side stories and then, once a month or so, adding a story about the outcome of something wide reaching (but still largely Frontier created) such as an Interstellar Initiative or game update? (which sounds disappointing on the surface at least).
        
        The thing is, what Galnet needs to do is bring a sense of life to the galaxy. If FD have to invent that life (as at present) then so be it, if they can cover the life that players are creating on a daily basis then even better, but if (as it slightly sounds), it’s going to become even more lifeless … that would be a HUGE pity!
2. Featured Commanders : Cmdr ToCoSo (Tom Cook)
3. Conclusion of the Enclave Interstellar Initiative
4. This thursday, FDev will have Dav doing a similar, or even the same, presentation about the Back-ground simulation we had at lavecon this week on the Thursday Presentation.

Newsletter (every second show) [link]

1. New ASP paint Jobs

Main discussion

1. Alec Turner – What do people actually want from Frontier re: support for “racetracks”? – and other Sept Update features

Community Corner

Shoutouts

1. Our sister station, Hutton Orbital Radio, Broadcasts on Thursdays from 20:30. You can tune in at tv.forthemug.com/ or, for just the audio, at radio.forthemug.com/.
2. For the discerning Commander who likes a bit of CQC action, check out the CQC Discord at “discord.me/elitedangerouscqc”.
3. Thanks to those who have chipped in on Twitch chat and in-game commanders