Anton Sugar
Member
Elite Dangerous: Horizons 2.1 patch: "The Engineers"
Current Elite Dangerous OT
Release Date
Horizons is Season (or Year) 2 of Elite Dangerous! The first update, 2.0, added Planetary Landings on non-atmospheric planets. The next update, 2.1 (or 1.6, if you don't own Horizons), is titled "The Engineers". Engineers are specific NPCs who can craft custom equipment for your ship in exchange for materials. While they are the primary focus of the update, a lot more gameplay-altering changes have been added or tweaked, as well!
The Engineers
You must first be invited to meet the Engineer. This can be triggered by meeting certain requirements, though some invitations appear to be random (or at least the triggers haven't been discovered yet):
Engineer Bases are all unique to each engineer--see the approach to Elvira Martuuk, for example.
All Engineer bases are located planetside. Yes, this means that, unless crafted modules are one day offered as rewards, you must own Horizons to use crafted modules. If the beta is any indication, you are *highly* encouraged to get Horizons or you may find yourself having trouble in combat, even in PvE. Crafted modules significantly alter the combat meta-game, in general making combat a lot faster, with a wider variety of builds and MUCH stronger weapons, shields, etc.
"Road to Beta" videos: Engineer's Base Approach
Crafting
Once you have an audience with an engineer, you have access to the crafting page:
Crafting is done with materials, which can be found on planetary surfaces, rewarded from missions, wrecked vessels, and more. Some recipes also require commodities that can be found or purchased from the Commodities Market:
Remember that each Engineer can craft a different set of modules and different bonuses! From the screen above, notice that some upgrades are locked. These are locked based on your reputation, or relationship, with the Engineer.
Early in the beta, the only way to unlock the next rank/rep level for an Engineer was to craft a shit ton of modules for them. This was akin to having to craft 100 leather gloves to unlock the next tier in some RPGs, even though those leather gloves may be absolutely worthless to you. Worse, you can't really "break down" crafted modules in ED, nor can you sell them, so it was literally wasted time and effort. Luckily, Frontier listened to the complaints and feedback and has made it so a wider range of activities (missions for the Engineers, for example, or even exchanging exploration data with them) can improve rep.
RNG and Crafting
"Road to Beta" video: The Dweller Base Approach and Crafting WIP
In addition, the Special Effects have been tweaked. In the beta, the Special Effect you were assigned was completely random. Some of the new crafted modules and effects are great, but very situational--for example, there is weapon that only has a (positive) effect on wingmates. There is another beam laser that can be made regenerative so you can replenish an ally's shields.
Without an element of choice, it made crafting frustrating, especially since you cannot store modules or easily share them across ships. Frontier responded by making it possible to specially request a certain type of Special Effect, though it comes at a rep cost (the in-game reason is it's something they don't like doing, so it sours the relationship to an extent).
"Road to Beta" videos: crafted modules (note: these effects have been tweaked from beta to final)
The Impact of Crafting
So far, it seems that the impact of crafting will be pretty significant. Advanced modules have already allowed for more powerful, better shielded, more deadly, or much faster ships.
Ship speed, in general, seems like it could get a big boost here. One of the fastest ships in the game, the Imperial Eagle, has a boost speed of 400 m/s currently. Some players got this to be double, over 800m/s, with their normal cruising speed being 600m/s (yes, 200 more m/s than the pre-patch *boost* speed).
It has made for some amazing canyon run videos! To put a number on what this means, check this Sidewinder station run time comparison.
The diversity of Special Effects potentially allows ships to take on more specified roles, as well. With some healing/Wing-centered effects, you could equip a ship to act as a support/medic in combat. You could even take on other traditional archetypes--tanks, glass cannon, etc.
It also means that small ships are potentially much more useful. Prior to this update, small ships weren't nearly as useful in the endgame, as they were so fragile they could easily be destroyed by larger ships. This is still the case, but the speed gap has potentially widened significantly. If small ships have had their speeds increased, via crafting, by 1.5-2x, it makes them much more useful in harassing roles and probably bodes well for the ship-launched fighters update later this year.
Persistent NPCs and Enhanced Missions
Enhanced Missions
New and Enhanced Hardpoints
Enhanced Performance and Visuals
GalNet and Map Improvements
Other Stuff
What's Next?
The following info is taken from this reddit post:
The Guardians 2.2
Scheduled for Summer 2016.
The Commanders 2.3
Scheduled for Fall 2016.
"???" 2.4
References
Vast majority of this info and pics came from the reddit v2.1/1.6 Beta Megathread and Horizons and its included Expansions: the known gameplay/content/feature updates coming in 2016 posts. I *highly* recommend you read them if you want more info.
Current Elite Dangerous OT
Release Date
- PC: 5/26/2016
- X1: 6/2/2016 (Note: this is actually the Season 2, including Horizons + Engineers, update, as Season 2 did not launch on X1 when it did for PC)
- Own Elite Dangerous and Horizons? The update is free, as Horizons includes 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4
- Own Elite Dangerous but not Horizons? Pay £19.99/$29.99/24.99 for Horizons
- Don't own any Elite games? Buy the Commander Deluxe Edition (includes ED and Horizons/Season 2) £39.99/$59.99/49.99
Horizons is Season (or Year) 2 of Elite Dangerous! The first update, 2.0, added Planetary Landings on non-atmospheric planets. The next update, 2.1 (or 1.6, if you don't own Horizons), is titled "The Engineers". Engineers are specific NPCs who can craft custom equipment for your ship in exchange for materials. While they are the primary focus of the update, a lot more gameplay-altering changes have been added or tweaked, as well!
The Engineers
You must first be invited to meet the Engineer. This can be triggered by meeting certain requirements, though some invitations appear to be random (or at least the triggers haven't been discovered yet):
Engineer Bases are all unique to each engineer--see the approach to Elvira Martuuk, for example.
All Engineer bases are located planetside. Yes, this means that, unless crafted modules are one day offered as rewards, you must own Horizons to use crafted modules. If the beta is any indication, you are *highly* encouraged to get Horizons or you may find yourself having trouble in combat, even in PvE. Crafted modules significantly alter the combat meta-game, in general making combat a lot faster, with a wider variety of builds and MUCH stronger weapons, shields, etc.
"Road to Beta" videos: Engineer's Base Approach
Crafting
Once you have an audience with an engineer, you have access to the crafting page:
Crafting is done with materials, which can be found on planetary surfaces, rewarded from missions, wrecked vessels, and more. Some recipes also require commodities that can be found or purchased from the Commodities Market:
Remember that each Engineer can craft a different set of modules and different bonuses! From the screen above, notice that some upgrades are locked. These are locked based on your reputation, or relationship, with the Engineer.
Early in the beta, the only way to unlock the next rank/rep level for an Engineer was to craft a shit ton of modules for them. This was akin to having to craft 100 leather gloves to unlock the next tier in some RPGs, even though those leather gloves may be absolutely worthless to you. Worse, you can't really "break down" crafted modules in ED, nor can you sell them, so it was literally wasted time and effort. Luckily, Frontier listened to the complaints and feedback and has made it so a wider range of activities (missions for the Engineers, for example, or even exchanging exploration data with them) can improve rep.
RNG and Crafting
As you improve your rep, you gain access to craft better and better components. When you craft, three effects are rolled:
- Primary Effects: primary stats for the module; usually ~5 different stats that are rolled
- Secondary Effects: based on the recipe, these can have a positive or negative effect on your stats, overall. For example, I've seen these roll to greatly impact a few of the initial primary effects, though not all of them; these are tweaks to the primary roll, essentially
- Special Effects: this is where a lot of the cooler effects come in; while crafting in general will give you modules that are better than stock or what you can buy from a vendor, special effects have the chance to turn it into something truly unique
"Road to Beta" video: The Dweller Base Approach and Crafting WIP
In addition, the Special Effects have been tweaked. In the beta, the Special Effect you were assigned was completely random. Some of the new crafted modules and effects are great, but very situational--for example, there is weapon that only has a (positive) effect on wingmates. There is another beam laser that can be made regenerative so you can replenish an ally's shields.
Without an element of choice, it made crafting frustrating, especially since you cannot store modules or easily share them across ships. Frontier responded by making it possible to specially request a certain type of Special Effect, though it comes at a rep cost (the in-game reason is it's something they don't like doing, so it sours the relationship to an extent).
"Road to Beta" videos: crafted modules (note: these effects have been tweaked from beta to final)
- Phasing Sequence Beam Laser: A small amount of damage bleeds through the shield onto the hull.
- Mass Lock Torpedo: Torpedo applies the effect of a very large ship nearby, slowing down jumps to supercruise.
- Shift Lock Canister: This mine will restart your FSD, preventing a hyperspace jump.
- Feedback Cascade: Cancel the charging of an opponent's shield cell bank, completely shattering their shield
- Emissive Munitions: Reveal the location of your opponent on your scanner and targeting device, no matter what tactics or modules they're using to hide from you
- Incendiary Cannons: Convert part of the kinetic damage to thermal damage, tearing through shields and causing serious harm
- Force Shell: Kinetic shell that physically displaces/pushes the target; great for countering rammers, as well as pushing enemies off-target and to cause them to crash into nearby objects
- Regenerative Sequence: Regenerate the shield of an ally
- Thermal Shock: Increase the heat generation of the target
The Impact of Crafting
So far, it seems that the impact of crafting will be pretty significant. Advanced modules have already allowed for more powerful, better shielded, more deadly, or much faster ships.
Ship speed, in general, seems like it could get a big boost here. One of the fastest ships in the game, the Imperial Eagle, has a boost speed of 400 m/s currently. Some players got this to be double, over 800m/s, with their normal cruising speed being 600m/s (yes, 200 more m/s than the pre-patch *boost* speed).
It has made for some amazing canyon run videos! To put a number on what this means, check this Sidewinder station run time comparison.
The diversity of Special Effects potentially allows ships to take on more specified roles, as well. With some healing/Wing-centered effects, you could equip a ship to act as a support/medic in combat. You could even take on other traditional archetypes--tanks, glass cannon, etc.
It also means that small ships are potentially much more useful. Prior to this update, small ships weren't nearly as useful in the endgame, as they were so fragile they could easily be destroyed by larger ships. This is still the case, but the speed gap has potentially widened significantly. If small ships have had their speeds increased, via crafting, by 1.5-2x, it makes them much more useful in harassing roles and probably bodes well for the ship-launched fighters update later this year.
Persistent NPCs and Enhanced Missions
- NPC Profiles: All NPCS have profile images, names, and (to an extent) personas. Check out the contact for the Neo-Galactic Adventure Force group (our in-game group):
This images are currently just snapshots, but they plan to add animation to the characters as well as improve their overall quality - There are over 9k unique persistent NPC contacts, each with their own face, alignment and requirements regarding faction/reputation/rank
- Rep with the faction to which the NPC belongs impacts how they regard you
Enhanced Missions
- NOT the big overhaul (yet), but does add more clarity to missions, what is needed to complete them, and what the faction needs help with
- USS scanning: No more having to drop into a USS to see what it contains!
- Nav beacon scanning: Scan nav beacons to retrieve information on signal sources, as well as missions in the system
- Larger pool of rewards: Credits, commodities, materials and salvage items can be awarded, plus they scale based on mission difficulty/rank
- Grouping: Missions are now grouped by minor faction:
- Missions also feel more organic, now that they're issued by an actual NPC. Context and warnings are added to mission descriptions:
New and Enhanced Hardpoints
- Big weapons: Your high-end ship finally has some new Large/Huge hardpoint options!
"Road to Beta" video: Huge Beam Laser
"Road to Beta" video: Huge Multi Cannon - Missile buff: Missiles have seen a significant buff! Not only are they faster and more powerful, but they have an AoE effect on your system modules. Multiple modules can be hit by a missile impact! They are much more viable, overall:
"Road to Beta" video: Missile Damage
Enhanced Performance and Visuals
- Performance increase: Sentiments like the following seem all-too common--FD did some major optimizing:
- Better planetary detail: Surface textures have seen a SIGNIFICANT improvement:
- Better fog and ring details: Fog in rings is stronger now, adding more atmosphere to these areas. Asteroids cast shadows now, leading to a much better visual experience, overall
- Misc details: SRV tire tracks, more reflective water surfaces for planets, more detail in sun, better planetary lighting, lens flares...lots!
GalNet and Map Improvements
- Custom bookmarks: Set bookmarks at locations for reference later
"Road to Beta" video: Map Bookmarks
- Community Goals marked on map: No more having to search just by system name--you can find these on the Galaxy Map!
- Sign up for CGs from other systems: No more having to be in-system to sign up for a CG:
- System state filtering: You can filter systems based on their state (War, etc.)
"Road to Beta" video: Map State Filtering
Other Stuff
- More varied skill levels in enemies, with new reactions/profiles
- Planetary surface-level ships have increased in number can follow and dogfight with you near with surface (including canyons)
- Ice RES: You can now mine in ice rings! Not only are these gorgeous compared to the metal rings, but some of the commodities you can find (low temp diamonds for example) are very lucrative
"Road to Beta" video: Ice Mining - More customization is coming: Bumpers! Spoilers! Dashboards! Customization is coming:
- Traffic Control: Stations now have traffic controllers, adding a little atmosphere to the game! They help direct you to the station and your landing pad, addressing you by your callsign (the first three letters of your commander name; I am CMDR Anton Sugar, so my call sign is "Alpha-November-Tango"
- New loadout screen: MUCH easier to use and navigate through:
"Road to Beta" video: Outfitting
What's Next?
The following info is taken from this reddit post:
The Guardians 2.2
Scheduled for Summer 2016.
"Take what comes and strike back with double. Bring a second ship to every combat encounter with Ship-Launched Fighters and defend your passengers against the deadliest threats in the galaxy."
- Larger ships in the game (for example the T-9) will be able to launch and/or dock smaller vessels from their bays. Launched vessels can be either NPC or CMDR piloted. These smaller ships will be used to fight off enemy craft, act as scouting vessels on planets.
- If playing on your own and choose to leave your main vessel in a smaller fighter craft, your main ship will fly on autopilot and defend itself.
The Commanders 2.3
Scheduled for Fall 2016.
"Team up and stand together. Forge your own identity with the new Commander Creator, then share your bridge with Multi-Crew and fly with friends."
- Players working together to control the different functions of a ship. One player could fly the ship whilst others would handle the sub-systems and weapons. Or a multicrew ship landing on a planet's surface could have one player stay with the main vessel, another patrol in a ship-launched fighter, and another explore in their SRV.
- The crew limit of 4 may be increased in a future Season: "We don't know how high we would go."
- Current instancing issues likely make more than 4 unfeasible for the immediate future.
- Multicrew uses the Wing system, and has 4 roles: Helm (piloting), Fire control (turrets/weapons), Countermeasures (shields, tactical), Engineering (sensors, navigation, repairs). Roles are balanced so that a fully-crewed ship is on par with 4 CMDRs in a wing.
- CMDRs can hotswap between roles, including in Solo. Uses an SRV-style UI interface.
- No NPC Crew initially.
- Enormous range of faces and features available using the Commander Creation "slider tool". This option will be selected via the game's interface. In combination with
- Multicrew players will at last be able to see each other, in game. Although dev-demo shows baldness, hair is confirmed.
- Faces will be visible as the visors will be retracted with pressurised cockpit. Canopy breach will cause Visors to appear.
"???" 2.4
References
Vast majority of this info and pics came from the reddit v2.1/1.6 Beta Megathread and Horizons and its included Expansions: the known gameplay/content/feature updates coming in 2016 posts. I *highly* recommend you read them if you want more info.
