Beta 2 see you

Aired 20 September 2016
Audio versions

Download the episode directly from here.

Crew Members
Head of Health and safety : Ben Moss-Woodward : Cmdr Eid LeWeise
Head of Entertainment : Chris Jarvis : Cmdr Thane
Head of Station Archives : Colin Ford : Cmdr PheonixDFire
Test Pilot : Andre Marshall : Cmdr M.A.R.S.H.A.L.L. (Paladin Consortium)

Show Notes

• Development News
  • ED to drop support for Win 32 and DX10 (earliest date April 2017 – ‘At least 6 months’)
  • Frontier Development Financial Results
    • £1.2 Million in operating profit  (25% down on last year)
    • Total revenue about the same (£40m) but more is coming in from the self publishing side of it.
    • £4 million more in Assets.
    • £8.6 million in the bank (down about 20% from the year before).
    • Profit and Cash revenue probably down due to the development of Planet Coaster
    • Overall: very good for an independent games developer.
  • Frontier’s Vote on Instant ship transfer
    • Results
    • 39,902 people voted, of which 38,045 have validated Elite Dangerous accounts.
    • Seventy percent of the vote was in favour of having delivery times.
    • Sandy:
      We’re still pushing ahead to try and get ship transfer in for 2.2, we just don’t want to guarantee it, just in case 
• Newsletter 141
• Newsletter 142
• Main Discussion 
  • Beta 2.2 (released on Tuesday 20th)
• Community Corner
• Questions
  • Marko Yelich (Facebook)
    Just listened to Ep122 and Chris asked for feedback on the plot reveals in ED. I concur, that how they are being done are largely for the benefit for the 1% of players while the rest of us just hear about it afterwards and at best get to visit the wreckages after the fact. And the notion that Frontier have to so heavy-handely almost lead us by the nose to these sites is poor game design.
    
    Frontier could really do way better with allowing us to discover such things on our own accord, if we were given adequate discovery tools. The “Detailed Surface Scanner” is hardly that, if it can’t report that there are alien structures or signals on a planet! Surely Frontier have watched Star Trek and can recall Lt. Ohura telling Cpt. Kirk she is picking up a “strange signal” from below? Or Spock giving detailed account of what planetary civilisations he just scanned.
    
    Right now, I am in the black. I honk when I get into a new system, Scan the star (to get my name tagged on it), I go to the System Map and check for planets that kind of look “Earthy” to fly to and do a detailed scan. Why: because I get more money and get my name on them.
    
    Really? Money (ranking) is my primary driver? Shouldn’t it be discovering new civilisations or artefacts? But in reality, how would I do this? Well with current tools i would need to low fly the entire surface of every airless planet in the hope a blue circle comes up on my radar, land, drive around in my buggy and maybe discover something more than some abandoned tea canisters. Just ridiculous!
    
    Frontier needs to quickly improve the feedback one gets from both the discovery scanner and from the detailed surface scanner. The former should highlight any planets that have “items of interest” on them.
    
    The latter giving coordinates of any artificial/biological matter on the surface so we can fly directly to it. Because without those coordinates… I tell you even with them, the first time I went to a barnacle site it was TOUGH to spot the things from the air!!
    
    Anyway, enough ranting from me… Love your show and apart from the pretty poor sound quality of 122, well produced too. And please keep the GalNet News being read at the end of them.
• Shoutouts 
  • Hober’s Cycle for Special Effect https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/SHSETG