The servers are set to go down about 10 minutes from now and be back up approx. 2 hours after that. So spend some time reading this massive changelog. http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52288&p=914636#post914636 Here are some of the highlights: 2 New ships (Imperial Clipper and Federal Dropship) Player Interdictions Asteroid Mining Fuel Scooping Ability to own Multiple Ships!!!!! Playable area expanded to 2400+ Systems With all the new things added in Beta 3 I feel we should continue any discussion here so that things will not get confused with stuff from Beta 2. Edit: A few other changes that I noticed reading through there are a huge amount so I recommend reading it yourself. Scatter fire multi-cannons can now hit a Sidewinder at 400 meters Kinetic weapons are less effective against shields Dropped Collision damage to reduced the number of insta-deaths Warzone rewards are now 1000 CR instead of the worthless 350
Ahh Beachy you beat me too it, I was gonna give some highlights too since it's such a massive log gonna have a full read through now and highlight anything else I notice thats interesting. Really excited for Beta 3, it has some great features and from what I've seen already some great improvements to current UI's etc. For instance the ship purchase UI has been drastically expanded and improved upon, which may also mean we'll get more information when buying module etc. Also I've heard rumours of a way to avoid interdictions, but I've been unable to play yet so couldn't tell you for sure. Now to read...
My additional highlights: A proper route planner? Very useful! Good, I frequently drop out at high speed lol. Saves time A good change, "surge detected" was pretty pointless up until now. We won't have to click through each slot only to find most of them empty any more. Boo, I want to accidentally defrost frozen space whales..... It didn't work so.....yeah Interesting, never tried to use it myself, anyone else? Perhaps they will re-add it later on when it has a proper purpose. lol "Where are we?" "No idea, we've lived here for years, still no idea where we are" XD Traders, do you feel safer? Any mine users have an opinion on this? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I would love this as at least an option. They and other toys could be highly useful, especially for detecting slight changes in gravity which might give away the presence of ships running silent.
Ok I have only got to play for about an hour so far but here are some things I have found. The station UI is getting much better, can now look at your ship panels without leaving the station UI. Still has some things to improve on but getting there. Once you find a place to do it mining is very simple but seems like it will take a lot of time to earn money doing this. Having a group of miners working together may help. Shipyard UI is much better with descriptions of the ships and what it will look like. Outfitting now shows what slots have items. Also when you go to the Livery tab there are slots for decals, at least on the cobra. I wasn't able to purchase any at the station I was in but I will be looking for them. One bad thing I have found so far is that I can no longer use my mouse any of the station services panels. For a few other things the galaxy map does seem to work better, purchasing cartographic data now has a point since you cannot see anything in a system map unless you have personally scanned it, faction ratings now show on your ship UI for all factions in your current system. Lastly is something that I have read and very important: DO NOT BUY POINT DEFENSE TURRETS ^^That is what happens^^
All sounds encouraging I'm not surprised there are a few issues still, it took them days after Beta 2 to get all the issues resolved. For mining it seems like even a two man team would be better, one mining and one collecting, that or a low yield tractor beam is in order :P Something in my head tells me I read something about that mouse issue in the patch notes, but not sure, I tend to use my keyboard anyway so won't bother me too much.
Ok just had my first hour or so on Beta 3, so far I'm loving it. Have to head to bed now so won't say much, but I've already experienced the new "anti Interdiction" mechanic which is great, and got myself kitted out the a Hauler and a mining laser (and refinery). Mining is pretty cool, it's slightly annoying you have to scoop up the rocks that break off but not too bad, gives you a lot of practise at scooping, the faster you can do it the faster the mining goes
