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 197


Too Fleetle too late

Aired 8 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
Knight Extruder Operator : Andy Barnes – Cmdr Kurgol

Show Notes