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The Elite: Dangerous update, beta 2.2.03 is now available for you to test, if you have a beta access!
Let’s check what this update is made of. Don’t forget to send your feedback on the beta 2.2.03 forums.
General Enhancements
- Allow a mini USS bubble around Colonia;
- Reboot-repair now Bump-starts shields when it completes, reducing downtime waiting for them to return. Could also be used in other cases when the player is willing to accept the risk of being idle and defenceless for the duration to focus power on their shields. Shield restore from Reboot/Repair now requires you to be near stationary or it will fail (to prevent in-combat overuse), 50m/s threshold;
- If saving or autosaving while in supercruise, move the player well clear of star Jet Cones. You shouldn’t ever reload back in after a hyperspace failure stuck in the cones anymore. Note that if you save/log out while in normal space, you will still be in the cone on your return, this safety check can’t be used to escape once you’ve already made a mistake, it’s just covering for failures that aren’t the player’s fault;
- Added passenger seating allocation to allow passengers to be assigned outside of mission board;
- Tweaks to make NPCs less effective against silent running;
- NPCs should’t always be so accurate with rail guns;
- Balance pass for AI interdiction ability, to make it slightly easier;
- Improved gold and chrome paintjobs shaders;
Missions
- Added a new mission type for investigating the ancient ruins;
- Make supply to demand overrides take max distance into account (Stops Colonia making missions which intend to only go 500ly into missions to pop back to the bubble with a ~24 time limit);
- Reduce number of missions sent to clients as we’re only sending relevant missions now;
- Increased maximum mission duration to 28 days;
- Fix elite rank point calculations from missions so that they are a % of any mission profit earned;
Weapons
- Link Gimbal weapon tracking to the sensitivity of ship sensors. Does not affect CQC/Fighters/Non-main-ships;
- Rather than permanently disabling guidance on torpedoes, ECMs now scrambles them for a short time (randomly between 2 and 8 seconds), after which they will re-acquire a lock and turn back in to engage;
- Emissive Munitions duration reduced to 30% of what it was, and capped much shorter for missiles. Their scale is also reduced vastly, it will still guarantee visibility but no longer maxes out gimbal tracking at all ranges;
- Feedback Cascade no longer provides a fixed 90% reduction to healing, instead each hit reduces the healing rate by an amount proportional to damage capped at -90% as before. Exact number of hits to reach the cap varies based on size of weapon and shield cell, but will typically be 2-3 (requiring either high skill or multiple railguns) and up to 5 for smaller weapons against size 8 cell banks;
- Fixed multicannon Clips increased to 100 (from 90);
- Fixed/gimbal multicannon reload times adjusted for consistency (generally buffed), fixed are now 4s, gimballed 5s (from an inconsistent 4s/5s mix);
- Fixed cannon clip size increased to 6 (from 5);
- Fixed cannon reload time reduced to 3 (from 4);
- Fixed cannon ammo reserve size increased to 120 (from 100);
- All fixed pulse/burst/beam weapons have 10% reduced WEP drain;
- Gimbal/Turret cannon damage increased by 15%;
- WEP draw of burst lasers reduced by 15% (on top of fixed weapons as mentioned earlier: 25%);
- Fixed cannon damage increased by 25%;
- Plasma Accelerator reload times reuced to 6s (from 8);
- Plasma Accelerator damage increased by 10%;
- Plasma Accelerators now deal Absolute damage;
- Reactor power draw for beams reduced 10%;
- Frag Cannons Armour piercing reduced to 15/25/35 for Small/Med/Large (from 20/35/52);
- Frag Cannons reload time reduced to 2.5s (from 5s);
- Frag Cannons ammo reserve doubled (to 180 from 90);
- When scaling Weapon Range up in an engineered recipe , we now display that the projectile speed has increased;
- When scaling Weapon Range down in an engineered recipe, we no longer scale down the Damage Falloff start, nor the projectile speed;
- Clip size modifications now always round the clip up to avoid overly punishing small-clip weapons, and the modifier is not shown if it will have no effect;
- Increase damage buff for Short Range to 45% (+5%) so that it is competitive with Overcharged and Rapid fire for raw damage,but with different tradeoffs;
Engineers
- Auto loader improved and ammo penalty removed;
- Concordant sequence regeneration amount doubled and lasts twice as long;
- Dispersal field damage penalty removed;
- Overload Munitions ammo capacity penalty removed;
- Smart rounds flight time penalty removed;
- Overcharged and Efficient Blueprints now available for Beam weapons;
- More improvements to restocking weapons with engineer modifications;
- Ensure the latest version of recipe ingredients are used when crafting, regardless of how long ago a recipe was pinned;
- Automatically update modified modules to the latest version of the recipe;
Powerplay
- Powerplay consolidation feature added;
- Powerplay assassins removed;
- Powerplay pirates no longer spawn in exploited systems;
- Powerplay pirates must align with an opposing superpower to that of the controlling power;
- When a crime worthy of an authority response is committed between two ships (NPC or player) who are each pledged to a power, effectively reduce the security level of the system for the purposes of considering strength of response and delay;
- Power security and pirate ships must now scan for powerplay vouchers, to check for powerplay cargo, and concerning which powers will get involved based on the player’s power
- Power Security NPCs attack ships of opposing powers (different major faction) if they are locally wanted, they have powerplay vouchers issued by the controlling power of the system, or are carrying any powerplay commodity relevant to the controlling power of the system. They can not be appeased with cargo drops
- PowersPirate NPCs attack ships of the same power as the controlling power of the system if they are wanted, carrying any powerplay vouchers, or carrying any powerplay cargo (any power). They can be appeased by cargo drops as long as the attack was due to cargo, not bounty or vouchers
- Ships not meeting these criteria will be left alone, even if pledged to a power
- New chatter lines added to support changed behavious;
- Ensure PowersSecurity ships are given an FSD interdictor by the auto-loadout system;
- Updating the balance on AI ambient power play ships, as well as tweaking some of Famine and Outbreak AI ships;
- When Opposing Control or Undermining a hostile power, vouchers will only be issued when destroying NPC ships from the defending power;
- Cargo used for Opposing Control or Undermining a friendly power will now only count for 1 merit when delivered;
- Voting for logistics consolidation becomes available at Rank 2 after supporting a power for 4 weeks. The number of votes increases to 5 after supporting a power for 16 weeks;
- Replaced the 18 second threaten timer on PowersSecurity ships with a 2 second one (they appeared to be broken right after scanning, which was undesirable behaviour). Also adjusted standard Bounty Hunter AI to be the same.
