This Tuesday and Thursday fans of Elite Dangerous were treated to live streams of one of the most anticipated updates to the game: Multi-crew/Commanders Update (Patch 2.3.)
This update for this season is number one “can’t wait” update. Last season for me was the “Ships” update giving me my favorite ship in the game…so far…the Federal Corvette, and now this season I finally get to make my ship even more awesome. Then again this is the second to last update and the last update coming has not at all been explained or hinted as to what it is so for all I know the update after this one I’ll be dropping my jaw and eating my words on here but until I have some information on what that is, (I’m assuming that it has something to do with the aliens and alien ruins that have been showing themselves a lot lately) so I’m going to say “giggity” to the commanders update.
Holo-Me
The quick notes of what we saw on the streams other than the obvious stuff:
-Dolphin has been found. (Smallest passenger ship being added)
-Ship naming. (Others can see your ships name)
-Mega-ships being added. (Think of stations with engines, some can be landed on. Non-player controlled.)
-You CANNOT get a full crew AND go into a wing. (You must choose between flying your own ship in a wing or joining a crew)
-Wing update: All wing members are now going to get the same money instead of splitting it between members. (EX: 100K target destroyed: Everyone gets 100K)
-Power distributor gets one new pip of power per crew member. (EX: 4 pips to weapons by the captain, crew can put one into engines and one into systems or both into engines)
-Chat panel now shows avatars. (NPC’s get generic black helmet and suit, CMDRS get there avatars for others to see.)
-Can invite crew members based on what you want to do. (EX: Invite friend to hunt for pirates, friend gets invite that says “bounty hunting” declines because he wants to be a pirate. If you accept to bounty hunt but do something illegal/pirate-y, you get auto kicked from the crew.)
-Mining lasers are getting a turreted mode (I know that’s not “oh my god best thing ever” but if you’re in a crew you don’t want to be yelling at the captain to line up so you can mine.)
-Can launch two fighters now. (One can be AI crew, the other a real crew member, or both fighters can be taken over by real crew members.)
-360 targeting/locking for lock-on weapons. (Missiles, scanners, etc. All can fire regardless of your ships direction.)
-Gunner crew member has control over only lock on weapons, turrets and defenses. (Turreted lasers, missiles, shield cells, chaff, etc.)
-Captain always controls the ship and controls forward facing gimbaled and fixed weapons. (Would’ve liked to be able to hand over control to someone who wanted to test out a ship I have that they don’t.)
-All crew members have access to the third person cameras being added. (Nicknamed the vanity cameras)
-Third person cameras still allow you to control your ship/SRV and fight but no information is present. (EX: No status on your ships shields, health, power, etc.)
Multi crew in action
-Crew members do NOT gain rank or reputation but the captain does.*** (So if you were expecting friends to rank you up while you just sat back and watched, sorry bud.)
-Still no sign of the Panther Clipper/Panther XL (I’ve been waiting for this super freighter since I first learned about it in the original games, much sadness becomes me as there response about it is “no comment.” Which means it is being worked on as “no comment” is always a sign it’s in the works but no timeline of when it’ll show up, just like ship names was before.)
In relation to my previous thoughts on the update about the “insta-travel” (Post here) to a ship in order to take a crew spot without having to meet up or dock or anything like that, I still don’t fully like. But upon hearing about there reasons behind it being that it’s about having fun with friends with as few amount of walls to go through makes sense. And I guess after thinking it through I’m not so annoyed with it but of course since the current season doesn’t have us walking around ships and stations and the like, it makes sense that there isn’t going to be a restriction about crewing up. I’m assuming when the day comes that we have the “FPS” as part of the game then they’ll add restrictions such as you have to meet up somewhere and actually walk to your crew station, among other things.
But I guess as of now it’s no big deal but just in the sense of lore and such, I don’t know how they’ll explain being able to only control a fighter to a maximum of 35 kilometers but you can control another ship by hologram from across the galaxy. Again it might be just something we ignore lore wise until later down the line, or maybe they have some explanation we haven’t seen yet. We’ll find out I guess.
Ship naming is one of those things I’m very happy to see coming simply because from day one of the game we’ve all wanted that. The original idea of having your ship have a “reputation” to the “locals” (the locals would run at the sight of a well known pirate ship or your ship would get more lucrative missions) is still very enticing and I’m sure they’ll add that someday but as of now just a simple name for others to see is very nice and all us nerds out there can ogle at the references of our names (I already have a couple) or simply go “I get that reference.”
Wings getting the update of equal profits is very nice for those who don’t have the second season, can really help them out in getting monies. And as I figured when The Guardians landed they would add the ability to launch both fighters in some way. Hopefully somewhere down the line they’ll add the ability to launch both fighters with AI and not just crew members.
The gunner game play looks extremely fun…to me at least…and I look forward to trying it out but I do wish we could all switch roles instead of the owner of the ship always controlling the ship. I completely understand why they’re doing that because they have total control, if they don’t like you for whatever reason they can kick you but why not maintain total control and be able to kick but switch to the gunners seat while your friend who may be a better pilot than you flies.
But who knows, down the line they could change there mind again as they do with this. They try, learn and change which is something I’ve always liked about the the devs of this game. They always listen to the community, even when it’s not an immediate response/change they do get to it eventually and change things. So who know down the lines they might change all this even before the FPS stuff is added. I wholeheartedly look forward to all this addition.
***Edit: You gain personal rank (Combat, Trade, Exploration) while as a crew.
