Elite Dangerous 2.1 Beta 4 Patch Notes

Hi commanders,

we've applied an update to Elite Dangerous 2.1 beta today. Below are the changes for beta 4 on the PTS.

We expect for the PTS to be down for up to two hours.

As always, thanks for your bug reports! If you've found an issue or bug with this update, please post it to https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=178 - thanks!

Stability Fixes

• Fix audio crash for when in SRV when in srv and not loading the network component
• Protect against working on a string that doesn't exist or is empty
• Safe-guard against the render system returning a null texture, if one couldn't be allocated
• Added a failure state that will abort a portrait request after a large period of time waiting for a texture to be provided, so the system won't be stalled indefinitely
• Crash fix for when a projectile weapon turret on automatic hit an object that doesn't know what hit it
• Crash fix when firing a projectile from a weapon equipped to a thing without a targeting system
• Fixed a crash caused by trying to lock on to a target that is dying
• Fixed server error when issuing mission rewards to player's without sufficient storage space
• Fix crash when the location is shutting down and a drone exists without any asteroids
• Crash fix when trying to check ammo prices for restocking a vehicle but the bay is not in an expected state
• Increased rarity values for ice mining commodities so that ice mining
• Fix a server crash generating an unknown body
• Prevent a crash when (somehow) trying to preview a recipe on an incompatible module
• Fix crash if control input is spammed while applying an upgrade
• Fix the cargo spawning so that it replicates the data needed to spawn its cargo, if it gets authority transferred before spawning cargo
• Fix a crash from an ill timed shutdown of UI during the supercruise transition
• Fix memory leak in ambient AI spawning
• Outfitting: fix for crash when viewing vehicle bay inventory

General Tweaks & Fixes

• Fix issue with renaming a generated system changes the system composition
• More changes to address space bound players being matchmade with those on the surface
• Defaulted the main audio output device to XAudio2 as WASAPI seems to cause issues with audio driver exclusiveness (stops the game silencing other apps when it shouldn't)
• Unhide control binding option for rotational correction
• Scanning sound gets stuck if you target something else mid-scan fixed
• Scanning nav beacons will now also trigger the scanning sound
• Fix silent shield break/reform sfx and ship voice lines „Target shields Online/Offline“ on none npc ships
• Powerplay background icon smaller than expected fixed
• Fixed issue where UI focus could get lost when navigating the power contact screen without a mouse
• Comms chat history no longer disappears
• Bound UI Back to right mouse button by default
• Adding retreat and investment in galaxy map state filters (and removing anarchy as it it is unused)
• Fixed slight discrepancy between mouse/gamepad input when using the steppers on the munitions screen
• Switch Contacts and Universal Cartographics so that webserver can enable/disable them on a per-station basis
• Galaxy Map: Fixing xml defining jump range in navigation panel
• Galaxy map remembers previous route calculation setting (low fuel / fastest) properly again. Boost mode is not written in the backup value though, so it will reset to economical
• Fixed Silent resources collected GUI
• Fix for Nav beacon morse transmissions being audible in galaxy map
• Various text fixes

Missions

• Updated the Faction (Inf,Rep,State) Rewards and Penalties for completing/failing missions
• After getting the Nav Beacon wrinkle during an Assassination mission and meeting the contact, the contact gave me a Target Body of „Currently Unknown. Scan Required“ fixed
• Some optimisations for mission generation
• There is now always at least 2 targets in a massacreskimmer mission
• Fix lack of failed mission icon
• Removed placeholder text from Altruism missions
• Modified text in 'target killed' inbox messages on assassinations so they refer to the target rather than the target's faction
• Collect mission details do not update in Transaction Tab after getting New Destination Wrinkle fixed
• Make military rank progress a bit easier
• Changed the point reputation is removed when the mission is failed - there is now an instant progress that links to the rep change, and to the Failure panel state
• Fix double mission icon in massacre skimmer
• For piracy flag targets, if the target is not a mission target, check if it has a leader and whether that leader is a mission target
• Removed some spurious debug output that was causing a slight stall when opening the mission details popup
• Trimmed the mission complete animation - now much snappier
• Fix an issue where scannable shipwrecks would ignore the fact that they were in a settlement. This meant they didn't link correctly to the tip off for their location
• Add a faction government test so the pesky democracies don't make my greedy corporation shout „For Democracy!“
• Fix the method that determines whether we can see planetary missions
• Added in a massacre rank scalar - targets are now scaled by the rank and the rep, to match other massacre templates. You now get 12-24 targets to kill on elite
• Made it so that a ship spawned for a mission USS will have the correct amount of mission cargo and the cargo will not be marked as stolen if the mission says it should be abandoned
• Added some missing text

Engineers

• To help players find crafting resources, UI's displaying Engineer recipes now have a 'tooltip' for each ingredient
• Fixed the 'removed effect' box sometimes not appearing on crafting UI
• Added loc strings for 'Where are my pinned recipes' helper popup
• Added popup explaining where pinned recipes can be found
• Fixed flickering UI when showing engineer popup with a face/text combo
• Added text field to the level progress to describe the unlock condition e.g. „Buy Modifications“
• Added an appropriate spinny 'wait' UI state while the modification is being rolled
• Fixed crafting UI not rendering text in Russian
• Add a resistance to heat-adding weaponry (Thermal Shock and Retributors primarily) so that the hotter the target already is the less effective they become, one or two weapons are still effective, without 6-8 being totally out of the park. It should still be fairly easy (though harder) to push ships into module damage, as they start reaching hull damage diminishing returns will kick in severely. becoming immune to these effects at 300% heat or higher, preventing the 8000%+ cases we've seen
• Added some schematics for Engineer bases
• Added Engineer ident audio
• Help information on the Potential Outcome menu does not disappear if you exit completely out of the screen by pressing 'B' fixed
• Recipes should now be referred to as blueprints
• Don't show progress bar when at maximum level - now applies in commander log as well as workshop UI

Weapons

• Assorted buffs/fixes/rebalancing to missiles:
• Speed of Seeker missiles increased from 450 to 625.
• Speed of drunk (packhound) missiles increased from 400 to 600.
• Speed of Dumbfire missiles increase from 600 to 750.
• Blast radius of small seekers and dumbfires increased to be in line with mediums (50% boost).
• Hardness piercing of small seekers & dumbfires plus drunk missiles brought up to intended levels and consistent with medium (100% boost).
• Base damage and hull/module split of all missiles increased as intended, approximately a 40% increase to hull damage and 120% increase to module damage.
• Missiles now take an extra two point defence shots to bring down, but are still easily shot!
• Some impact effects rebalanced in light of new material change
• More optimisations (Cannon in particular)
• Slightly increased damage and fire rate of turreted weapons so that they're more in line with the damage progression from fixed to gimballed
• Fixed the missing confusion stat from the new gimballed weapons we recently added
• Buffed cannons effectiveness without changing their DPS.
• Remove damage fall off completely. They'll now do their full damage up to their maximum range
• Slightly increase projectile speed so they're easier to use at range
• Increase armour piercing so they get to apply they're full damage to even larger ships than before
• Slightly increase their chance to breach the armour and increase the module/hull damage split when they do

Outfitting

• Updated Outfitting resources to point at the correct UI icons per module
• Fix shield optimal strength always being reported as 100 rather than the correct value
• Changed the Outfitting to use 3 rows instead of 4 and updated item styling to accommodate those changes
• Changed Mining Launcher Category Icon to make the text on top of it more readable
• No Indication is given that a installed module on a ship is „modified“ in outfitting fixed

NPCs

• Adjusted the shield-down flee behaviour to be less frustrating
• Don't put CG commodities in NPC cargo holds
• Stop hitmen being sent after the player for no reason
• Ignore drones when pirates work out the value of cargo a player has; if players only have drones, pirates will let them go on their way
• Rebalance the tutorials to be reasonable with the new AI

Avatars

• Improve the time it takes to generate avatar portraits
• Female Theocracy jacket now has military shoulderpads fixed
• Fixed accessories on female Independent and government constraints
• Blue avatar lighting fix

POIs/USSs

• Don't spawn materials when it should be seeds
• Load the correct physics soundbanks on datalinks/points
• Added in a greater variety of commodities to the POIs so the players see something other than tea
• Fix where the POI search can get stuck between the terrain bounding boxes and unable to progress beyond the initial placement

Ships

• Display three colour decals correctly (not as two colours)
• Paintjobs assigned correct colours for Crimson Eagle
• Various art fixes for Imperial Eagle
• Fixed minor LOD issue on the Anaconda
• Fixed landing gear audio issues
• Fix for voice lines overlapping
• Fix for bobblehead sound issues
• Fix for ships sometimes being silent
• Rebalanced cockpit lighting after materials were recently upgraded
• Huge optimisations of cockpit lighting in some ships. Lots of fps claimed back without impacting visuals whatsoever
• Warning lighting improved
• Fixed the freefall shepherd tone sound
• Fixed broken paintjobs on the Imperial Cutter

SRV

• Fixed some issues with the turret HUD

Ports/Stations/Bases

• Updated Hangar cameras to fit the new Engineer hangars
• Fix for settlement/port voice volumes
• Fixed and edited geometry to hide clipping meshes/bounding volumes on hangar interiors
• The Dweller - Gap under the large biome fixed
• Added Lights to Breakers Yard
• Rocks seen at the back of Felicity Farseers Engineers base in large landing pad hangar fixed
• Fix various pad issues at Pater's Memorial
• Fix engineer rock formations not having the correct colour in supercruise
• Fixed hitcheck on small engineer landing pad
• Reduced volume on one of the loud settlement alarms
  • Mix fix for Independent 01 Station Voice

Orbital Cruise

• Audio: Fix a broken altitude ratio rtpc that was causing some weirdness in the glide sequence
• Optimisations to OrbitalHUD UI

Render

• Asteroid billboard optimisations to bring performance back in line with the old forward rendered billboards
• Star rendering optimisation