 This is Witchspace news for Friday the 20th of May 2022, I'm CMDR Buur. In a special edition of Elite Dangerous News this week, Frontier announced the first details of Update 12 on a dedicated live stream. We've details on some new quality of life improvements around carriers, black markets and more and there's an in depth developer interview that details not only some of the design processes behind Elite but also a new mission variant coming in Update 12. To make sure you don't miss any of our videos hit like and subscribe and remember to click the little bell icon and select all notifications and if you'd like to help directly support this channel you can also join our Patreon via the link in the video description. Last night community managers Zack and Bruce hosted the latest episode of Frameshift Live, Frontier's now fortnightly live stream for Elite Dangerous. The promise with the new generation of Frameshift Live was that whilst there would be fewer shows in a month they would be more meaningful and more information dense and last night's show did not disappoint. Update 12 for Elite Dangerous Odyssey is due this month and as we'd anticipated the team used the show as an opportunity to talk about the update and what's included. The team kicked off by saying that the patch is scheduled to arrive at the end of May but stopped short of stating a specific date. As you'd expect a large part of the patch will focus on bug fixes and optimizations and whilst the team didn't detail any specific fixes Bruce did mention that something in the region of 1-200 bug fixes are included in the patch notes. Zack and Bruce then moved on to talk about the upcoming quality of life improvements that are arriving in Update 12, firstly focusing on the on foot fleet carrier experience. So what are we getting? Well, fleet carrier owners and passengers alike will be overjoyed to learn that the on foot Insight menu wheel will now be accessible when seated giving players access to galaxy and system maps, transactions, tabs, chat menus, inventory, codecs and more. That extra functionality will make actually using a chair in a station, starport or fleet carrier much more of a viable proposition so that was good to hear. In a similar vein with Update 12 players will be able to interact with the bar tenders in stations, starports and carriers whilst seated giving access to the material, trading and selling interfaces whilst sat at the bar. It's a small thing but for the more roleplay oriented players at the very least a no doubt very welcome addition. And whilst we're talking about things related to seated interface usage remember that cool little flat screen tablet interface that swings into position when you take your place at a carrier's command chair that does absolutely nothing? With the arrival of Update 12 you'll be able to access the fleet carrier management screen from that tablet meaning that amongst other things you'll now be able to schedule a fleet carrier jump from your command chair on the bridge. No doubt whispering engage to yourself after you've done it. The CMs then moved away from all things seated interface to speak about two other important changes arriving with the update. It seems that prices being offered for stolen goods or items with more dubious origins at black markets are to get a much needed boost bringing them more towards a parity with regular legally traded goods. No specifics were given on how much the increases are likely to be but it's long been more challenging than it should to make some decent coin operating solely as a pirate or smuggler so here's hoping that these changes make these more morally vacuous occupations much more of a viable option. And should your life of crime and misdemeanors result in your incarceration at one of the galaxy's many fine enforced vacation hostories then you'll be pleased to know that along with fine dining and well maintained comfortable and hygienic living quarters those establishments will now be fitted with shipyard facilities. Having paid your debt to society and learnt the error of your ways you'll soon be able to summon your favourite ride rather than endure the humiliating apex of shame taxi ride back to the very scene of your dubious life choices. The live stream then moved on to what for many was the main event a pre-recorded interview between community manager Bruce Garrido and senior designer on Elite Dangerous Tom Cuell and a look at the new mission variant arriving with update 12. Tom has appeared on an Elite Dangerous live stream before you may remember his talk about the design process behind the Scorpion SRV with which he was intimately involved more on that in a moment. In this interview Tom begins by describing the process behind the creation of the Odyssey settlement tutorial mission which he was also involved in touching on the challenges of building a scripted experience in an open world environment that essentially has no constraints on where the player decides to go. Tom then touches on the design process and ethos behind many of the other features that make it into the game and some that don't. The scorpion it seems has a foot or should that be a wheel in both camps. As a roughed out design the now familiar more tanky variant of Elite's surface reconnaissance vehicle apparently resided on a virtual shelf at the Cambridge developer waiting for a gameplay problem to arrive to which it was the solution. The arrival of on foot combat and the mix of robust heavily armed starships and somewhat squishier less heavily armed humans was, as it turned out, the imputous solution that the scorpion needed to be brought out from under the tarpaulin that it had been residing under apparently for some years. A starship laying down fire at a settlement will think twice about the tactic if a scorpion is there returning fire every time they're in range. And the solution waiting for a problem ethos that Tom touches on when discussing the scorpion segwayed nicely into the talk about the new mission variant. The new mission it seems is a variant of the raid protect missions that we made a video about earlier this week, you'll find that video linked on screen now if you've not seen it. It seems that the wave based Defender McGuffin against hordes of assailants mission is designed somewhat at least as a gateway drug to introduce players to the wider aspects of on foot combat seen in settlement raids and conflict zones in Elite Dangerous Odyssey. This new variant on the mission will task players with again defending a cargo sled full of valuable materials against dropships of heavily armed and very determined assailants. The twist this time is that the cargo belongs to criminal organisations and the assailants are in fact not just the security forces but Elite Dangerous Odyssey's best of the best security forces Omnipole themselves. In a further twist on the original formula as the mission waves progress the rosers attempting to sabotage the cargo and as an added bonus cure you of your existence will get tougher and tougher. But Tom was also at pains to express that rather than just being a tougher version of the existing mission the new variant will be more nuanced, introducing a degree of more ebb and flow to the battle where players are constantly challenged but not overrun. Indeed it's even possible that the controlling faction of the installation that you're fighting for could deploy reinforcements to the fight mid battle to assist you in your valiant efforts to force back the tide of advancing popo. The missions are likely to last for around 4 or 5 waves in total that ramp up in intensity towards the end. The threat level of the settlement itself will help determine how many van loads of plod are delivered to deprive the crime lords of their booty and indeed you. And you're most likely to find these new missions at agricultural and laboratorial settlements owned by criminal factions after update 12 drops. While we're talking about van loads of plod being delivered to a savage settlement based bunfight one of the highlights of the whole stream was without a doubt the appearance of one of Omnipole's new vulture based dropships created for the missions. A clip during the stream showed the customised dropships the dev team have created featuring Omnipole paint jobs, red and blue flashing lights and huge moving search lights that will seek out enemy combatants as the dropship approaches and actually focus on them. The whole clip was very reminiscent of a scene somewhere between Blade Runner and a trashy late night fly on the wall body cam based police documentary which I suspect is exactly what they were going for either way it was very effective. Elsewhere in the interview Tom touched on his time working on Star Citizen for cloud imperium games and noted that the designer of the classic viper ship we see in Elite Dangerous Joe Neville also worked with him during his two years working on Star Citizen. I'm excited to try out these new missions it sounds like they'll offer a significant challenge even to a group so I'm very keen to see how this pans out and we'll report back here when we've had a chance to digest them after update 12 drops. The presentation of the Frontier Elite Dangerous live streams has definitely gone up a notch with flashy transitions and different camera angles and backdrops for the streams different segments. It's clear these streams are of increasing importance for Fdev and it's good to see them getting a lick of paint. It appears there's more live stream content as well on the way the team have plans to let the community know about developer interviews and featured segments on the shows at least a few weeks in advance at some point in the near future and more content like last night's fascinating developer interview would be most welcome. Just a real quick couple of points of extra news away from the live stream this week the community goal this week is space based combat centric and is rewarding free pirate themed paint jobs so be sure to check that out if you're in the market and Frontier made special mention of their specific community goal feedback post on their forums where they harvest useful feedback from the community goals in an effort to tune them more towards community preferences so if you have thoughts on CGs what you like, what you don't like be sure to check that out you'll find a link in the video description below as well as a link to the VOD for last night's Frameshift live. Are you going to be challenging the thin blue line when update 12 arrives? Or did you think of the quality of life changes announced? Does a life of piracy and smuggling await with the increase in black market prices? Let us know in the comments below. That's it for now, thanks very much for watching, we'll be back later this week with more videos until then 07 Commanders follow the Greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack, we very much look forward to seeing you next time.