Lave Radio Episode 367 “Keeping it up” – 23/11/2021

Position	Crew Member	CMDR Name
Active Crew
Head of Health and Safety	Ben Moss-Woodward	Eid LeWeise
Staff Liaison Officer	Clare Good	Psykit
Chief Archivist	Colin Ford	Phoenix_Dfire
(in)Human Resources Director	Shan	Shan
Tech Sloth	Jan Chlupacek	Poutnik Santiago

Download the episode directly from here.

Development News – what have the devs said this week?

1. Wednesday 17th –  Community Goal FSD Reward and Modification/Application of Experimentals
   1. Wednesday 17th – FSD Reward Issues [reModifications & Experimentals] Follow Up
   2. Thursday 18th – FSD Reward Module for Phase 2 Colonia Bridge Community Goal | Experimental Effects Revised
2. Thursday 18th CQC Stream;-
   1. Black Friday Sale confirmed.
   2. Midnight Black skins will be available.
   3. Bruce dropped a hint about CQC news at the end of the month.
3. Frontier Share price suffers 40% loss in a single day. Now down to Jun 2018 levels. 
4. Tuesday – Community Highlights
   1. Arf asks everyone to be nice to the Devs on the forum
   2. Finally managed to get the Meet the Devs reward down in Oxford
      1. Absolutely sweet 3D printed SRV
      2. Community Meet up
         1. December 10th
      3. Black Friday but no details

Newsletter (every second show) [link]

1. Store Alert!
   1. Cobra MK III Shatter paint jobs

Main discussion

1. What kind of Missions could Frontier give us for (Continued)
   1. Engineers
   2. New SRV

Community Corner

1. Operation IDA – 
   1. Happy Haulidays Ida!
   2. It’s that time of year again, this year starting December 3rd and running through January 1st we will be hosting our 4th annual “Hauliday Haul”. Please join us as we work to repair damaged stations, host fun and silly events, give away prizes, and raise money for Doctors Without Borders!
   3. A full calendar of events and times will be available on our website and we plan to utilize the new Discord Events feature this year to easily communicate scheduling, gauge interest, and host each event in voice channels. Upcoming events can be viewed directly above the server channel list. Keep an eye there and on our website at https://www.op-ida.com/haulidays as we schedule the individual events of the Hauliday Haul. Also please be sure to click “Interested” if you are considering attending. 
   4. As with the previous 3 years we will once again be raising money for charity, this year you all voted on who we should raise for and the winner was: Doctors Without Borders. We are aiming for a goal of $2500 this year! The GoFundMe page is now live and accessible via the Hauliday Haul page on our website https://www.op-ida.com/haulidays or directly at https://www.op-ida.com/donate
   5. Good hauling and we hope you enjoy the events to come!
   6. Their current repair target is Artemis Lodge (#5) – Celaeno
2. Anti-xeno-Initative – According to their new website – Thargoid Watch – The Top three systems they’re targeting are ;-
   1. Pleiades Sector PD-S b4-0
   2. Musca Dark Region PJ-P b6-1 in the Coalsack Nebula
   3. Evangelis in the Witch Head Nebula
3. Ghost Girrafe has done a fantastic Video – Four crew in one ship (A T-10 of all things). You can see what silliness they can come up with at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA0AYIlN8so

Questions

1. From You Tube
2. snowstalker36
   1. Psykit, if they ripped out all the Engineering… Why would you quit? Keep in mind they’d have to nerf the big baddies back down. Remember, they’ve been buffed to their current levels to make them a challenge to those engineered ships.
      
      I’m glad FDev are looking at the grind again, it’s still stupid. The worst part is that not all play styles gather mats as they go, or don’t get all that they need. As primarily an explorer I don’t have much trouble getting Raw when I take a break from the Jump and Scan routine and drive around my SRV to get mats. I usually do some combat for a week or so when I come back home before heading out again, so I tend to have enough (if no cushion) of Manufactured. But I always have to go scan grind Encoded. Combat focused players are always short of Raw. I do like the idea of doing missions for the Engineers as an alternative. The process of unlocking them is fun, an extension of that would be good.
      
      But most of all I agree that the real problem is that Engineering options are OP and unbalanced on the whole. If they were better balanced, if they weren’t so mandatory, the grind to get the mats wouldn’t be as urgent and cause people to stress about it.
      
      I definitely agree that combat has a lot more character and nuance without Engineering, with preferences for speed, maneuverability, damage soak, or firepower determining what ship you took and how you outfitted it. This is especially true in the Small and Medium ship categories. In small ships the Cobra III is clearly the best all around and was the most popular, but for someone who wants enough speed to decide if they fight or not (like me) the Viper III was still a good option, people who want to be sure they’ll outmaneuver any attacker will take the Eagle, and others who just want to endure while teamates work over the target can use the Viper IV.  Then there’s the crazies riding the red line in the Vulture… For Medium ships there are clear options for most of those styles, FDL all around, Mamba for speed, Krait for maneuver, and Python to tank it out.
      
      The gap between low/small and high/large ships is also much less. My Viper III is my favorite ship, I have probably spent as much time in it as the rest of my stable put together. I loved it so much I even got all the way to Pathfinder in it before thinking maybe I should buy an actual exploration ship. I especially loved the challenge of hunting Anacondas in it, trying to keep in their blind spot to slowly chip away and take them down, the tricks of boosting around to the other side if they rolled, popping chaff, or pumping the shields to survive until I got back in the blind spot were tense. Eventually, after a lot of work, and probably most of my ammo and countermeasures, I could kill it. And if I slipped up too often, I’d have to give up, leave and repair. At least in the Viper III I had that option.
      
      As that guys said, that rock/paper/scissors feel, the nuance of ship types, strategies, and tactics doesn’t exist anymore. Even if I engineered out my Viper it just wouldn’t have the damage output to kill an equally engineered ‘Conda. Those bigger hull, shield, and firepower numbers just get too big with the multiplier of Engineering. So everyone’s using the same ships the same way now, assuming they’re on a level playing field. (Thank god for CQC, where I can still get a reasonably balanced combat snack.)
      
      If it were possible, I’d toss all of the engineering and powerplay in the trash and start over. But they’ve been around for too long, other aspects of the game tied into them, for that to happen now. I’ll settle for a massive rebalance that at least brings back the nuance in some form with an escalator to help new players get up to the top level of gear.

Shoutouts

1. Dockers is doing a Charity Christmas Special
   1. I know it’s only September and good taste dictates that Christmas should never be mentioned until long after Halloween, but in the world of entertainment Christmas has to be prepared well in advance. When you think about preparing for Christmas, you’re probably thinking about the dinner. Will it be turkey? Beef? How about an enormous cock?
      
      Yes, the Dockers are coming back this year with a Christmas special and they have set up a kickstarter on justgiving. Yes that’s right, a kickstarter on Just Giving. I don’t think they quite understand that all the money will be going to charity.
      
      If you haven’t heard of it before Dockers is a mockumentary podcast about the ordinary folk of the Galaxy from the lowly toilet attendants to famous wildlife documentary makers. It’s been going for a few years and usually does a live show at Lavecon, late at night, well after the watershed because it’s very, very naughty
      
      If they meet their target they will put on the Christmas show, (though to be honest they will put it on regardless.) They have some rewards in their charity kickstarter. If you ever fancied being the subject of a documentary  there are a few options to get your name in the show. Some of them are pretty unsavory.

Tier	Amount	Reward
1	£5.00	Listen to the Christmas special in the comfort of your own home for no additional cost!
2	£10.00	Listen to the Christmas special in the comfort of your own home for a small additional cost!
3	£20.00	Have your name read out by the Narrator at the end of the show with the credits.
4	£30.00	Listen to the Christmas special in the comfort of your own home for a substantial additional cost!
5	£40.00	A lifetime supply of Gnosis Avian Cheese**While stocks last (10 available). Only one block per lifetime, believe me that is enough. No refunds. First come first serve. After ten blocks are allocated reward will be downgraded to tier 3
6	£50.00	A sketch featuring you written and performed by members of the cast of dockers.* To be clear when we say members we don’t mean penises. The segment will be up to 5 minutes long.
7	£200.00	A character of our choice will perform a sex act on you during the show**This will be a dramatisation not an actual act you sicko
8	£500.00	A character of our choice will perform an enjoyable sex act on you during the show**This will be a dramatisation not an actual act you sicko. Enjoyment is not guaranteed.
9	£1000.00	We will have your ears surgically removed so that you never have to listen to the show again.*Need I tell you that this is satire and not a cure for body dysmorphia?
10	£10,000.00	The episode will be set in the Star Citizen Universe
11	£11,000,000	Are you a pharma-bro? We will record a 40 minute episode exclusively for you. Nobody else will be able to listen to it unless you let them.

https://www.justgiving.com/team/BeyondDockers

2. 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/.
3. For the discerning Commander who likes a bit of CQC action, check out the CQC Discord at “discord.me/elitedangerouscqc”.
4. 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;-
   1. Algorab AM: An Elite Dangerous Podcast
   2. Black Sky Legion (who also do other space sims as well as ‘RL’ science and tech bits)
   3. Cannon Podcast
   4. For Spanish Speakers there is the Elite Cast 
   5. Fatherhood Podcast
   6. Flight Assist
   7. The Guard Frequency (who do other space sims)
   8. Loose Screws
   9. Squeaking Fuel
   10. System Chat
5. For those who want a literary discussion about Sci-fi and fantasy books. Please subscribe to the Dataslate podcast created by station commander Allen Stroud. 
6. Following this we have the latest Galnet News Digest as provided by Cmdr Wotherspoon and Cmdr BeatleJude.
7. Thanks to those who have chipped in on Twitch chat and in-game commanders
8. Special Thanks to Cmdr ToCoSo who created the music for the Introduction of the Show