The biggest change with the widest impact: Increased player cap at approximately 100 players. This little blast from an almost forgotten past changes a lot. Almost everything in the PU is optimized for low player counts. The mission availability, the spawn rates, the difficulty and even the size of mission locations. The cargo system with both its low inventories and laughable profits. The size of profitable mining locations. All of that has been optimized over the last few years for a very small player count. The increased player numbers basically guarantee a dry spell if you are trying to do the missions provided by the game. Trade routes will be even less profitable than ever before and I do expect some very interesting competition for the mining locations especially on Lyria. In the PTU I already noticed that players with CS rarely travel alone anymore as player bounty hunters are in abundance and even small fights tend to quickly escalate into veritable battles as more and more players join the fight. Ultimately it shows you how small Stanton really is or rather how few spots are frequently visited.
The much anticipated wipe will only increase the click battle for the few well paid missions and the fight for resources will be fierce. Pirates and thieves are no longer limited to very few numbers to ensure availability of victims though I suppose well have a week before the pirate orgs have grinded enough money to have all the tools of their trade available. On the other hand, we should be on our toes from day one.
The events, especially Siege of Orison and Jumptown but probably also 9tails lockdown will run a lot in the first two weeks of the patch cycle as announced by CIG. Siege will probably be griefers paradise and even if not, during the last playtests there were still a lot of gamebraking bugs. From a monetary standpoint that event is not worth the invested time and the risk. If everything runs well and you are in an organized crew it can be quite enjoyable for a few rounds... If you want to make good money you use the time the event runs to do stuff that pays well.
And JT will be very interesting with the increased player count. I have no clue if anything less than 25 players will be enough to hold onto the location now. At least I dont think well see any large scale cooperation between random players happening anymore as the payout would be ridiculously low. Unfortunately there was no playtest with the increased player count so its just guesswork at this moment.
"Means, the scrubs are now fleet uniform... " .... er ... no!
Cooking B(e)acon(s)
Disclaimer: This version is written while 3.17.2 is still in PTU. As of the last build before release all this holds true, so itll probably hold for the live release.
The money is in combat beacons. As of the evening of the 28th in the last build before live release it cost me 41 minutes to gain 1 million aUEC by chaining combat beacons. Combat beacons are always in deepspace and they come in 4 levels with different sublevels:
Low Threat pays between 2k and 40k with 1 to 3 enemies (Aurora, Mustang or Titan)
Medium Threat pays 25k to 100k with 1 to 4 enemies (same +Gladius, M50, Mantis, Vanguard, Cutlass Black, Valkyre, Caterpillar)
High Threat pays 85k to 220k with 3 to 6 enemies (same +Constellation, Hammerhead)
Critcal Threat pays 200k to 500k with up to 10 enemies, usually small fleets centered around an Idris-M with multiple HH and other escorts
The mission is usually the protection of a single ally who may or may not have additional escorts. Survival of the escorts is unimportant for the mission goal, survival of the ally is essential. That means, especially with high threat and critical threat beacons: no playing around. Come prepared, get as many enemies as possible to aggro on you and go straight for the kill.
There is a variation that happens occasionally where instead of a protection mission, you jump into a trap. In that case its easy. Just kill them all. Payout is still the same.
There are several glitches that seem to be tied to those missions: Enemies might not turn red. As almost all beacons are out of comm array range and you know which ships the enemy uses for a given beacon difficulty, just kill any you suspect. The protectee is usually marked by the mission marker or if not the quantum beacon.
Enemies might be untargetable. Several workarounds: turn your ship off and on. Get out and back into your pilots seat. Or blow past the beacon until your mission giver complains, then jump back. Any of these options should make the enemies targetable.
Mission beacons might not work at all, either you take a beacon and get the message "beacon no longer available" or there is no reaction at all once you click on the mission. No workaround there, wait for another one.
There also might be the occasional dry spell when no missions turn up. This might be a minute or two that you can use to restock or if it persists, its time for a new server.
As all players share the same mission pool it might happen that other players win the mobiglass war. If that happens its also time for a server change.
To milk combat beacons effectively we probably need between 2 and 5 players (no more, 3 was optimal, 4 good, 5 only if you have to carry someone) per planetary system with 2 or 3 small and one heavy fighter that hop from beacon to beacon only to congregate on the highly paid moderate threat and the high threat beacons.
As beacons are always in space and the AI is as stupid as ever, any light fighter will do, including starter ships. As with PVE bounties, going with all laser cannons is a good possibility and for the higher difficulty beacons actually a necessity. The heavy fighter for medium and high threat bounties should be either a full crew hurricane with a cannon/repeater layout or an all cannon (1S5+4S2) vanguard. A constellation or gods forbid a freelancer is also a possible choice. Test what works best and run with it. I for one cant wait to bring my buccaneer...
For more efficiency and to dissuade competition we might need a group of 15 to 20 players to get all available beacons in all 4 planetary systems.
I would also advise against taking critical threat beacons for the following reasons:
While the payout for the critical threat beacons might seem high at almost half a million aUEC, for the required work it actually quite low. You need the firepower to take down an Idris within two minutes, otherwise you risk losing your protectee, and you also have to contest with several hammerheads and other escorts at the same time. Going in with two Retaliators or a tally and a very potent escort is the best way to go about it and quite manpower intensive. Torpedo and missile shots have to be well coordinated to circumvent decoy drops and even missing a single shot might render the whole attempt a failure. Its very enjoyable, good training for fleet coordination but in no way a good use of time when you need money fast. The payout would have to be significantly higher, maybe more than 2 million, to be viable compared with the lower level beacons. If the spawn rate of those missions is high enough in the live release, capturing and using one Idris only on those missions might be an idea to test. As is having a force of heavy hitters, like two Retaliators and a heavy escort (redeemer) on standby to hop between the planets as those beacons pop up.
Siege of Orison event guide
Disclaimer: All this are conclusions from my experience in the PTU. I participated in most playtests both for 3.17.1 and 3.17.2
The event is by design highly exploitable and vulnerable to bugs. It can be hold in a state of deadlock even by a single determined player rendering the experience moot for all participants. Also during different playtests different bugs also put the event into an unfinishable state. Server stability being the most obvious as the event can run up to and even more than two hours depending on how uncoordinated the players go at it. Clipping and spawning bug, AI meltdowns, bad triggers... the sources of errors are endless as this is a quite complex multistage event. Hopefully the version released into the PU avoids most of those but the basic event design, especially the map is locked in and it is the map with its various chokepoints that makes the event very exploitable.
To start the event you have to accept a "priority" mission just like all previous events. This mission can be accepted by any player without a CS and cant be shared. Your mission is to go to the event location on Crusader, Cloud City/Orison and liberate four of the platforms that were taken over by the freedom fighters of the 9tails. The first platform can be reached via a shuttle that starts on top of the Crusader Showroom tower on the Cloudview Platform.
On all Platforms there are multiple spawn closets that periodically spawn new enemies until a device called "IFFI" has been turned off. This device is located in a code locked container of which there are several on every platform. The code to unlock those containers is held by a Boss/Lieutenant and has to be found on the body after he has been killed. The Lieutenant spawns in a random location, usually on a different level than the point you arrive at at any given platform. He also has unique armor. Loot it only AFTER the code is found. After the code is found you can use it to unlock the containers and find the IFFI device. This was not a necessary step in earlier iterations of the event and it is not per se necessary to do so to advance to the last platform, but it makes it easier. The first three platforms are connected via shuttles but once the IFFI is turned off you can also use several spacecraft provided in the event location to travel between platforms.
The final platform, "Admin Centre", is not directly connected to the previous platform and can only be accessed via spacecraft. Those Spacecraft are a finite resource in the event area and if every spacecraft is destroyed before the mission is finished it fails. The spacecraft provided are 6 Ares Frames(3 of each variant), 4 Starlifter(2 A2 and 2 C2) 8 Mercury Starrunner and 12 Pisces. Both the Pisces and the A2 can be used to rush the final platform without fully completing all previous objectives. This approach usually leaves the rest of the players stuck on the first three platforms as both A2 working in concert are essential to silencing the defenses on the final platform. The Ares frame can be safely ignored as it received additional maneuverability nerfs and is in stock config. The only job it has any use for is as air superiority fighter against several 9tails ships that appear once the Admin Center is approached by players. This job is better covered by two fully crewed MSR and support from the A2. Both the A2 and the C2 are filled with vehicles that allow for hot drops onto the final platform. This is not a necessary part and requires some training but it is certainly fun and looks cool. The C2, MSR and Pisces can safely ferry people between the platforms once the defenses are down/beaten into submission.
Once the final Lieutenant on the Admin Centre has been taken care off, the final boss for the event spawns on a cargo barge which is docked at the Admin Centre. With his death the mission ends and player have a short amount of time to vacate the mission area under threat of imprisonment if they linger.
The exact payout for the mission differs and so far I have not been able to make sense of how it works.
Necessary Steps to easily succeed: Come prepared. Bring medguns, refills can be found. Bring Armor and weapons, additional ammunition can be found, especially P4, C54 and FS 9 ammo. Have designated crews for two A2 with 4 people each. They have to rush to those ships and keep them save to prevent "accidents". They have to silence the air defence on the final platform and support the fight in the air around it. They are also responsible for shuttling additional players to the final platform once its defences are beaten down. While they are waiting for the IFFIs to be shut down they can provide sniper cover. If you have additional people to spare organize more crews for different ships. Organize teams that roam the platforms via different routes to find the Lieutenants and the IFFIs and cover each other. Again, groups of four work well. Make sure to keep those groups coordinated.
Opportunities to break the event are as follows: One player or a small group can camp chokepoints with the most obvious being the area at the first platform where the shuttle from Cloudview Centre arrives. Several elevators and shuttle platforms offer additional chokepoints if the first one gets overrun or the PVP enthusiasts are to slow to set up shop there. Several buildings also give snipers good positions to kill players... The Spacecraft are an obvious problem. Simply turning them on while the IFFI is not yet deactivated gets them destroyed within a short timespan and their destruction is a failure condition. Even just destroying the Starlifters might suffice to deadlock the mission. The bodys of the lieutnants can be tractored away and dropped or their armors being stolen, barring people from getting the code to open the containers and deactivating the IFFI devices. It is potentially possible to brute force the code by crowdsourcing, something I did see happen, but you are always working against time to finish the event before the server gives in. I am pretty sure some enthusiastic PVPers will find more ways to spicen up the event once it hits live.
Significant changes: All stations now have hangers to spawn your ship. Means, the scrubs are now fleet uniform... There are still a few pads outside and you can land there without requesting permission. And restock, if and when that works. Restocking is still very inconsistent.
Most ships, actually all that i tested in combat have significant shield holes. That is also mentioned as a known issue, meaning there wont be a fix. Be aware of that. Shield holes are always in the front and some of the larger ships also have additional shield holes on the side.
Friendlies on bunker missions and on some events MIGHT have an IFF marker (a blue chevron above their head). Until the last build it could still happen that the marker is missing. So you still need to be careful who you shoot at.
100 player servers, obviously. Though CIG already stated that during the Siege event theyll cap it at 75 and they might go as high as 120 when no event is running.
There are several new missions on derelict Reclaimers in space at Arccorp, Crusader and Microtech. Microtech also has a Reclaimer derelict on the ground that is the location for several missions. There are also several ruins on Microtech that are sites for cargo and investigation missions. Be advised that during the PTU phase it was quite hard to get ahold of any of these missions as everyone wanted to see the new sites. This will probably be a little easier a few weeks into the patch.