2.3 Beta, Update 2

Greetings commanders!

We've released an update today for the 2.3 Beta. Below are the patch notes.

UPDATE: Please note that this update will not be enabling multicrew, as our QA team has identified a few issues on the build with it. Our apologies on this.

Stability Fixes

• Server crash fix for unsupported feature
• AI no longer try to use non-existant nameplates
• Prevent a crash if a mission loses some of its data
• Initialise the anonymous avatar data way earlier than previously, to avoid issues where avatars are requested before the owner is Activated
• Fix for crash when trying to save the ship's generated ID
• Fixed a soft lock on entering CQC, in which the non-authority on a destructible environment object never receives the replication that sets its kinematic item
• When saving a ship that is alive, don't allow it to have zero health as this causes hiccups on loading, instead round up to 1/1000000 of it's full health
• Speculative fix to prevent a crash on Mac builds, due to being unable to load some Horizons-only resources
• Allow VFX Hosting to abandon creating particle effects if the containing location is trying to shutdown
• Fix avatar assert when loading into a second CQC deathmatch
• Fix an assert when flying in multiplayer in supercruise
• Fix a crash in the free camera if a remote client deployed an SRV
• Fix crashes in high resolution screen captures when using supersampling settings <1.0 and/or borderless modes with resolutions lower than the desktop resolution
• Fixed a softlock that happened after dismissing an error dialog in CQC
• Various System Map stability improvements (with force close of the map on exceptional circumstances, instead of crashing)
• DX11: Remove deferred context usage in runtime compression

General Fixes/Tweaks

• Fixed a problem introduced during 2.2, where you were no longer able to hold UP/DOWN to scroll information continuously within a common UI
• Correctly handle '<' in text chat
• Fixed the 'bind dialog' on the controls screen - it's 'back' 'confirm' and 'always confirm' buttons were being displayed when they shouldn't
• Fixed long names getting truncated on the target panel when they could be expanded into the space reserved to show ship name
• Rank requirement should no longer show up when not needed. Truncated text in shipyard list should now wrap
• When player drops out of supercruise at a wing beacon within a ring, adjust start position for safety
• Headlook should activate panels by default when looked at
• Ships are not duplicated in system map each time you open it anymore
• Completed a pass over the comms panel popup options, adding icons
• Audio: Fix broken hyperspace jumps
• Audio: Added in new audio options for ship voice lines from 2.2 and 2.3. These include muting NPC orders, Passengers, Fighters, Multicrew, Neutron star jet cones and unknown objects voice lines
• Audio: Changed conversion setting on galnet focus sfx to stop seek table errors
• Audio: Tamed the neutron star pulse ambience a wee bit
• Audio: Volume sliders only play sound when decreasing the volume fixed
• Audio: No music plays when docking with the Docking Computer fixed
• Various text fixes
• Particle effects lodding and optimisations
• VFX lighting optimisations
• OSX: Fix some odd character substitutions
• Xbox One: Accept a CQC invite with only the launch chunk installed

Missions

• Potential fix for mission inbox messages not appearing properly
• Changes to chain missions: Piracy Heat, Piracy Contract, Clearing the Path and Safe Travelling - these should now spawn easier
• Fixed Piracy Deal not giving you the correct target type to kill in the second mission
• Rampant Leadership should now be giving the correct template
• Updated the military career progression numbers to speed up progression a bit
• Increase super power reputation gains by 25% when gaining faction reputation
• Remove bookmarks and relevant inbox message from welcome mission template

Passengers

• Automatically return passengers to their homes if their mission is no longer active and they're still in ship cabins

Ship Naming

• Make sure ship names are displayed properly for locally stored ships and remote ships in the shipyard UI (accessible from station services)
• We now let the server know when we generate a ship-id for a ship that we won't be able to generate consistently
• Fix nameplate colours on OSX/OGL
• Set restricted range of characters for input fields used when creating a commander and naming a ship (outfitting and New Commander Screen UI)
• Fixed inconsistencies in the way we display the ship name in several pieces of UI when there's no custom name defined
• Ship naming in Livery now accepts a fixed width rather than a character limit
• Ship name in internal panel (functions tab) is now properly updated when changed from livery

Camera Suite

• No default controls for Undo or Redo when using „Classic Context“ or „Default Context“ default bindings
• Use the hanger bounding box to try and workout of a vanity camera is clipping with the hangar
• Stopped the dof toggle been pressed should a user not have dof enabled
• Should a player be in vanity camera when doing an hyperspace jump force them back into the cockpit view
• Disable motion lines when in world fixed camera
• Fixed UI not scaling correctly when fov is changed
• Do not show the breathing mask when we are in a 3rd person view (vanity / gunner camera)
• All bindings now display for elevation. Added UI support to hide DOF while inside the vanity cam
• If the vanity camera is active, make sure background stars and directional lighting are not disabled
• Audio: Stopped ascending whine of ship charging FSD being audible on player in external vanity cam
• Audio: Fixed fuel scoop bug where the fuel scoop sound re triggers entering and exiting vanity cam

Commander Creator/Avatars

• Avatars: fixed short beards so that they change colour properly; updated avatar presets to incorporate this change
• Fixed pock marks decal so it doesn't erase detail off the base normal map
• Allow for editable features to become aware of their availability to the player, so that randomise can select from only those options that are available for the player to equip
• Avatars: Skin tone specular values balanced to new lighting
• Re-add pilot to chair in holome during VR, but ensure that the head isn't visible
• Updating male and female suit icons for Holo-Me
• Removed Goth-y eye shadow from Male Preset 03 - he's one of our „Default 5“ so should look more conventional
• Male and female „Short“ hairstyles were suffering from ghostly semi-transparent areas - now fixed
• Organised scars prior to splitting off cleft chins into their own category
• Fix for avatar head not being rendering correctly in cockpit after exiting Holo-me
• Added labels for decal colours
• Fixes for joint popping on male outfit animations
• Updated eye icons
• Hide Holo-me controls on non-Horizons platforms
• Avatar texture baking recipes now include a flag to specify if baked output compression is allowed. Disabled baking output compression for avatars in the editor
• Panel names are now data driven. Fixed bug where suit category name would not appear in the category panel
• Made characters' nostrils properly dark
• Add parent title to panel data name in holo-me. This should also fix the null text string in the suits section
• Added game resources for female cornrows hairstyle
• Avatar helmet now correctly deploys when emergency life support is enabled
• Don't override a player's decision to apply a helmet in the editor
• Removed the dev presets from the editor
• Improved poly construction for the full beard
• Improved transition to Holo-me to black out completely before making the camera transition. This should improve VR experience in particular to be less jarring
• Put avatars in all cockpits when it's contextually relevant (try and avoid cameras inside heads)
• Ensure that releasing the skinning bone buffer when we suddenly have no bones to process also unlocks the buffer and clears the lock. Also added some extra paranoid checks when releasing the bone buffer lock
• Audio: Fixed audio to better follow slight timing and visual changes in Holo-Me

Community Goals

• Allow Combat Bond Community Goals to be linked together, allowing one to fail if the other succeeds before the time runs out. A CG that ends early still honours any reward tiers reached

Weapons/Shields

• Change the exponent of the curve used for shield resistance from power distributor pips to make it less harsh. 0 and 4 pips are unchanged, middle values now have a higher damage resistance. Specifically changed from 2→0.85, which means that 2 pip has an increased damage resistance from 15%→33% (0 pip stays at 0%, 4 pip stays at 60%). This change means that the TTL (Time To Live) increase of each additional half-pip is approximately the same, rather than almost nothing to start and spiking up towards the end, hopefully allowing players to use setups other than 4-SYS with less penalty. Does not affect CQC ships
• Fix a muddling of grades on module reinforcements that made them a bit of a newbie trap if you didn't dig deeper - the Es were better than the Ds as they were probably ranked on the wrong primary stat. Increase the health of D class module reinforcements to be the same as what Es currently are (about +140%), and give Es a 10% buff to offset their higher mass
• Incremental Railgun buffs: increase hardness piercing to match plasma accelerators so they do a better job of punching up against large ships. Reduce firing heat by approximately 15% (and round off to comfortable numbers)
• Audio: Weapon impacts now respect whether or not the player is in internal / external cams
• Audio: Fix missing weapon sounds
• Audio: Fix missing events for ECM
• Audio: Fix silent lod1 chaff launcher
• Audio: Fixed silent shield cell audio
• Audio: Tweak to the attenuation range of railguns chargeup

Engineers

• Added reference module data for Sensors, Surface Scanners and Stellar Body Scanners
• Audio: Fixes for various engineer bases bugs

NPCs

• Audio: Renamed external point of no return event to make it audible on npc ships

Ships

• Fixed Imperial Cutter vanity camera orientations
• Fixed Federal Corvette vanity camera orientations
• Audio: Fix for „Frameshift charge detected“ voice line that triggers when the ship the player is targeting begins jumping
• Audio: Fixed broken ship dust
• Audio: Fixed broken cargo bay ambience
• Audio: Fixed broken FSD „point of no return sound on non-player ships
• Re-enabled audio ECM code which was turned off by accident
• Audio: Fix for „Rotational Correction Enabled“ triggering each time you switch back to the helm from a fighter/SRV
• Audio: Fixed missing Orca external sounds
• Audio: Fixes for ships hardpoint doors event errors and landing gear errors
• Audio: Made Orca boosting sound slightly less aggressive and added a fade when the ship is stationary to prevent loud flyby boost sound when switching cams

SRV

• Fixed a dependency for the SRV turret guns being nulltex whilst the player is in Vanity Camera mode
• Audio: Fixed swapping turret view audio hanging
• Audio: Fixed GUI panel sound getting stuck on when entering turret
• Audio: Fixed broken wavescanner elements
• Audio: Proper fix for „Scan Detected“ voice line looping when sat in your srv next to your mothership and an unknown artefact
• Audio: Added missing emitter group to scarab which was causing asserts and missing audio
• Audio: Fix for fighter launch SFX always coming from player ship
• Audio: Set up improved voice management and attenuations for various explosion related things
• Audio: Code fix for hardpoint scanning sounds being re triggered when switching between turret and normal view

Stations/Ports

• Added LODs for girders near entrance for asteroid bases
• Fixed a small hole near the entrance on Asteroid base exterior
• Audio: Fix missing station and outpost ambiences
• Audio: Fixed flight controller clicks
• Audio: Industrial station elements duck when inside outfitting fixed
• Audio: Some tweaks to outpost elements to compression artefacts
• Audio: Added a new audio emitter for the defense turrets at planetary bases, and changing their firing behavior so that firing sounds match the visuals
• Audio: Corrected event names on advert drones so that we can hear them again
• Audio: Fixed defence turrets being out of sync with the firing
• Audio: Fix for very loud and clipped sound inside station docks

Installations/POIs/USSs

• Ancient sites should not longer change layout (but all layouts will permanently change)
• Correct the fallback logic for UA2's not in Merope
• Fixed offset geometry on the dredger maw
• Audio: Fix some missing SFX from capital ships
• Audio: Fix for NavBeacon missing impact sounds
• Fixed missing hitcheck on the Thomas Class Bulk Cargo Ship
• Fixed missing hitcheck on the Henry Class Bulk Cargo Ship
• Fixed some LOD popping on the cargo megaships
• Fixes to stretched and zero map area UV's on some megaships
• Audio: Fixed errors on installations/CQC
• Audio: Audio logs positioned and duck music/ambiences correctly
• Audio: Set capital ships to correct compression settings
• Audio: Fixed some missing installation ambiences
• Audio: Fix for missing sounds in Installation_SensorArray_002
• Audio: Fixes for abandoned settlements missing events
• AUdio: Setting up generic holoscreen events for missing holoscreen sounds

Render

• Fix asteroid fog sometimes disappearing in DX11
• Speculative fix for galactic background cubemaps ending up with messed up half-faces
• Make effects switch to emitting when the emissionTimer is greater than or equal to the delay. This fixes continuous effects not emitting
• Improve performance and reduce stalls when destroying surface rocks
• Use the correct vertex layout for milky way dust instances in the galaxy map and skybox captures
• Don't add milky way dust instances if we're not in an envmap view and we haven't finished updating the dust states
• Improve the speed for morphing
• Set the correct DOF values for consoles
• OSX: DOF should appear off apart from on High and Ultra presets, which mirrors the x64 set up
• Make GPU skinning precompute the result from the various morph frames
• Make compression requests check the hardware capabilities first to determine if we can actually do anything

Controls

• Unhide bindable controls categories on console - the only category still hidden is the mouse bindings
• Added in the Dualshock 4 to the control bindings, includes a normal and „with yaw“ flavour

Network

• Fix various transaction server disconnections when resurrecting, buying exploration data, refining mining chunks, unloading passengers and outfitting ships
• If we disconnect from the internet entirely (on PS4 and XB1 where we have an existing method of detecting that) then display a slightly more useful message on the main menus
• When the game first connects to a server, if the game has a dual-stack connection, test the MTU over both IPv6 and IPv4
• Improved error handling (RE: When the game first connects to a server, if the game has a dual-stack connection, test the MTU over both IPv6 and IPv4)
• Show the path where log files are saved on the network settings screen

StellarForge

• Changed Core Sys Sector XU-P a5-0 system to the recently announced Trappist-1 discoveries
• Exoplanet in Kepler-20 renamed to Rob's Place
• Moved Castellan station further away from its parent body

Player Journal

• when docked at a planetary surface station, the „StationType“ should show „SurfaceStation“ not a blank string
• The Docked event will now also include the distance from the star