 This is Witch Based News for Friday the 9th of April 2021 I'm CMDR Buur In this weeks news Phase 2 of the Odyssey Alpha arrives Bits of Phase 3 of the Odyssey Alpha arrive In the main game the Adamastor breadcrumb trail starts up again There's a trailer for a new Elite Dangerous Comedy series And turning the wheel completes its first major milestone If you enjoy this video hit like and subscribe And remember to click the little bell icon and select all notifications As that stuff really helps the channel And if you'd like to further support our work you'll also find us on Patreon Links to everything you need are in the description below Phase 2 of the Odyssey Alpha test arrived this week And as well as a raft of fixes and tweaks to what we'd been experiencing for the last week It also added features new to the test As well as being the owner of a shiny new Cobra Mark III And having 300,000 credits in the bank Commanders in the Alpha can now buy ships and SRVs And travel within a 20 light year bubble And buy the Dominator Combat Suit Aside from no longer being restricted to the Adachian system And forced to use Apex shuttles to move around however The real headliner is the addition of surface combat zones And the frontline solution system The drop was preceded by a short video from Frontier Detailing how the combat zones function and how to access them And they are exactly what they sound like The planetary surface equivalent of the usual space based combat zones That we've become used to They function however completely differently In tone they feel somewhat like the more mainstream First person shooter experiences like Battlefield or Call of Duty But with the addition of shields, spaceships and SRVs But that description really does what Frontier have achieved here A serious disservice Rather than being restricted to an invisible walled arena Like other team and objective based FPS experiences The Elite Dangerous Odyssey combat zones exist As part of the main game world You can wander into and out of them when going about your business You can essentially arrive at an installation And it just happens to be under attack by two opposing forces To take the Battlefield, Battlefront or Call of Duty style experience And put it in the middle of a fully simulated planetary system Let alone a galaxy And then attach socio-political trade And all manner of other BGS detail changing ramifications To your faction's performance in that battle Is nothing short of extraordinary Rather than the standard conversations in an FPS pregame Where players might be exchanging quips about the coming battle Saying oh I like this map, it's a night one The combat zones of Elite Dangerous Odyssey Are just centered around the installations within a system Which could be anyone of dozens of different types They'll be subject to the localised conditions of the Stellar Forge On a planetary scale at least So that gravity and atmospheric conditions will be different From planet to planet And they'll be in daylight or night time Or indeed dawn or dusk or everything in between If that's what the local stars are doing at that particular moment Indeed you could even be subjected to a stunning planetary rise By a local ringed gas giant Just like everywhere else in Elite If that is what is happening in the star system That you're in at that particular moment In a few short hours since the combat zones arrived We've already seen footage of a lone soldier on foot Taking down a Cobra Mark 3 That wouldn't leave them well alone And we've likewise seen an unopposed SRV Roll into a combat zone and lay waste to the surrounding soldiery With the turret gun It's often said here in the pit that Inside Elite Dangerous Frontier Does what we like to call subtle cinematic Very well It's not usually scripted out Or held in an isolated cutscene That you're forced to watch But it happens around you as a result of the game Not because of you being present in the game The burning stations entering a Thargoid structure Watching traffic at a busy star port Or just a beautiful sunrise over a distant world Arriving at the combat zones Or indeed just watching without participating Is a new experience to be added to that list Reminiscent of movies like Aliens or Starship Troopers The Odyssey combat zones are constantly attended By wave after wave of vulture dropships Literally dropping commanders and NPC soldier respawns Into the battle If you've no interest in participating in the combat zones And I can understand that That kind of gameplay is not for everyone I implore you at the very least to visit one yourself Don't sign up for it Just fly yourself to it Perch nearby, they won't bother you And just watch the ensuing chaos It's incredible And this is only the alpha test As part of the Phase 2 launch yesterday frontier Accidentally let the Artemis suit And the plasma weapons into the game as well The unintentional release was quickly removed But not before a few early arrivals noticed And managed to try them out As a result we got our first tentative look At the functioning handheld biological sampler That comes as part of the Artemis exploration suit We've linked to a video below That shows the device in action But in summary Like the other tools in the game It has two modes One appears to produce a sort of ground based version Of something between a ship born discovery scanner And the core mining pulse And the other Used for actually sampling Initiates a kind of mini game Of a similar style to the subsurface mining experience Where you're matching rotating bars up To create as complete a genome sequence as you can It actually looks really cool And I was personally pleased to see That there would be some skill involved In getting the best sample that you possibly can From an extraction The plasma weapons for the brief appearance That they had certainly made an impact They're considerably more powerful Than the weapons that we have access to right now But have a much slower projectile speed And therefore require more skill to use I've linked to a video from Will and Kate In the description that shows them in use If you're curious as to what you can expect In the full game We should be getting access to the Artemis suits And the bio scanner in the next phase of the Alpha Probably sometime in the next couple of weeks And one final point The video that was released before Phase 2 went live States on the text at the very end That no one ever reads That the Alpha runs until the 30th of April What happens after that? We don't yet know Alpha tests usually precede beta tests obviously But Frontier are tight-lipped on that subject right now With all the noise and hubbub around the Alpha test You might be mistaken for thinking that Nothing is happening in the main game right now The Neomalanists were defeated in last week's community goal Which wasn't a huge surprise But also, intriguingly A news piece on Galnet appeared That stated that a previously inert Komsbeacon found on board the Ghost Megaship The Adamasta in the Chukchan system Had suddenly sprung to life Upon receiving an interstellar signal of unknown origin If you visit the Adamasta You'll be contacted by a mysterious stranger as well A breadcrumb trial is still As of this recording being followed Deciphered and decoded And it promises at least to rewrite history If you're familiar with the Adamasta and its origins You'll know that it has already done that to a degree Detailing as it does Mankind's first encounter with the Thargoids There's clearly more to that story And we do know that the Adamasta had a sister ship called The Hesperus What happened to that ship And what part it plays in the story of the Adamasta And its ill-fated crew We have yet to discover To follow the breadcrumbs yourself Start at the Adamasta Megaship in the Chukchan system Forum luminary Alec Turner sent word this week That the trailer and pilot episode for a new Elite Dangerous-themed comedy series that he's involved in Called Rebuy Unlimited went live this week Taking cues and influence from the furiously successful Halo Machinima series Red vs Blue The show features some great camera work and scripting And is prepping its full launch to utilize the power of Odyssey Where it will be able to feature a cast of characters As well as the ships and SRVs that we're familiar with Check it out in the description below And finally this week The Turning the Wheel initiative hit its first major milestone When it tried to expand the Dark Wheel faction into Sol After spreading the wings of the enigmatic truth-seeking Non-player faction from Shinrata Desra In a bid to uncover what and where The mysterious Raxler is If you're unfamiliar with most of the words in that paragraph Fear not, I've linked to a playlist of our videos on the subject That will get you up to speed on the Dark Wheel, Raxler and Turning the Wheel Suffice to say, the player-driven Turning the Wheel initiative Is using the background simulation to spread the influence And reach of the Dark Wheel in-game non-player faction Towards specific targets in the galaxy In an effort to see if something, anything happens To aid in the search for whatever Raxler is The location and nature of Raxler being a mystery in the elite games Since as far back as 1984 The first test for the team was to drive the faction towards Sol And see if it was able to expand into it They got the faction to Sol's doorstep after months of dedication and work But sadly no dice With the weekly tick the faction didn't yet at least appear in Sol Regardless of the result, that's that test completed And they now know that that didn't work Which is more than they knew at the start The next goal, and for my money the more intriguing one Is LFT 509, a permit locked system near to Shinrata How you obtain the permit for the system is unknown at the moment It's hoped that the proximity of the Dark Wheel faction At the very least cause the permit to become available And allow the faction to spread into the system So the search for Raxler continues To get involved yourself and help with turning the wheel See the links in the video description So are you planning on searching for mysteries in the elite main game Or helping to turn the wheel maybe Or are you just too utterly absorbed in ground based combat zones To notice anything else exists Let us know in the description below That's it for now, thanks very much for watching We'll be back later this week with more videos Until then, O7 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