 This is Witchface news for Friday the 27th of October 2023 I'm CMDR Buur In a bumper edition of Elite Dangerous News this week We have new guides from the AXI and Canon Research Alec Turner attempts his maddest challenge yet There are changes happening at the new Spire sites Frontiers week long in game Halloween event continues And we see our first ever Odyssey specific community goal reward and more If you enjoy our videos please do hit the like button And if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and ding the bell So you don't miss any of our Elite Dangerous content And if you'd like to help directly support the burp it You can also join our Patreon Links to that and everything else are below The ever-vigilant Canon Research Group Published two new pages to its website this week Both covering off recent additions to the game The first goes into huge detail regarding everything you can find, see and collect At the new Thargoid Spire sites And also how to go about collecting some of the more less obvious items You may remember we reported recently that Professor Palin is currently quite keen To get his mitts on some of this stuff and has asked for it to be delivered to him And another contact in his home system of ARC The second Canon page this week concerns itself with the Halloween live event That started on the Frontier livestream I'm going to talk more about that in a moment so I won't go into too much detail here Suffice to say it's a very thorough record of what's happening right now Where to find it and why You'll find links to all this in the description below this video One of the more unique properties of Elite Dangerous that is frankly often overlooked Is how the same game and indeed the same environment in the game Manages to produce a completely different game experience Dependent on the commander engaging with it Enter then friend of the channel and serial SRV aficionado Commander Alec Turner Community regulars will know that Alec spends most of his in-game time In the game's venerable and somewhat diminutive scarab SRV And as a result has a somewhat more unique perspective than most On the Elite Dangerous experience Whenever anything new is added to the game Alec's first thought tends to be Can I drive it? And the spire sights have proven to be no different When the spires were first discovered by commanders it rapidly became apparent That the open petals at the tops of the towers Could be landed on and an SRV disembarked Without being in significant peril As long as the carrying mothership was quickly dismissed Only a mind like Alec Turner's however Would then decide to see what could be gained By driving off of a perfectly serviceable and very safe platform That is let's not forget three kilometers off the ground It turns out what is gained is what he's now calling The absolutely insane Thargoid spire platform challenge In very simple terms it involves a complete aerial circumnavigation Of the highest of the Thargoid tower spires Jumping from platform to platform to platform Around three kilometers off the ground While Thargoids oblivious to your endeavors Go about their business below you Not content with the perilous nature of the circumnavigation However the challenge then requires that brace yourself You then leap in the SRV from one tower to the next Falling through the aforementioned Thargoid mayhem as you go I've linked to Alec's demonstration tutorial video in the description below It's honestly a hell of a thing to behold Nauseating levitiginous in places And possibly the most Alec Turner thing I've yet seen Alec Turner ever do Let us know how you get on if you decide to give it a bash I've recommended numerous times on this show That folks subscribe to Commander Mechon of the AXI on YouTube And this week the good commander has again proven how sound that advice is With no less than three high quality tutorial videos All three videos concern themselves with different aspects of the Thargoid spire sites And are equally useful but in three very different ways Firstly there's an excellent video tutorial covering exactly how to gather the on foot spire A refinery compound material that can be found at the aerial platforms Toward the top of the spires This is one of the materials that is currently being gathered by Professor Palin But it's not outside the realms of possibility That this material could have other uses further down the line That we're not yet aware of It's very easy to accomplish, it's reasonably safe Surprising, giving the nature of the environment it's in And it also has the benefit of being huge fun So be sure to check it out Particularly if you've been previously perhaps a degree nervous about attempting something That can at first seem rather daunting The second video is the latest in Mechon's excellent Know Thy Enemy series In the video Mechon describes in very precise detail the workings and tactics Of the new Banshee Thargoid drone that has appeared at both spire sites And some human owned Odyssey settlements inside Thargoid territory Importantly however the good commander describes with help from diagrams How you can fairly easily kill the itchy little beggars in valuable stuff The final video from Mechon this week and my personal favorite Is how to make upwards of 2 billion credits an hour From clapping Orthrus class Thargoid reconnaissance vessels at a spire site I just reiterate for the uninitiated that the Orthrus has a pooling eyesight And broadly speaking doesn't actively defend itself when attacked If you're looking to make money in the game or perhaps eyeballing a shiny new fleet carrier This is 100% the best and most fun way right now to achieve that very thing And I'm happy to confirm that in a wing I found it to be a hilariously fun Turkey shoot money hose Highly recommended You'll find all Mechon's videos I've talked about this week linked in the description below Progress in the Thargoid war has of late been going very well With systems being taken back from the greeny meany legions of laser lettuce At a fairly steady rate week on week Just a few weeks back we were reporting that the Thargoid had control of in excess of 500 systems As things stand I'm very happy to report that number has reduced to just 373 systems As I speak these words As the front line continues to be pushed back the in-game Thargoid war map will continue to display systems that are considered counter strike systems shown with a purple arrow above them These are very much literally the front line of the Thargoid war and harbour active combat zones Adjacent to those you'll find recently liberated systems in a state of recovery Shown in purple on the map that are free of any Thargoid presence Where there are stations needing construction materials and damaged surface settlements that need Rebooting and you'll also find systems shown in yellow in a state of Thargoid alert It's in these systems that you'll find evacuation missions emergency supply deliveries And some limited Thargoid activity Be sure to check on the right hand side of the galaxy map in the Thargoid war information tab to drill down into a particular system to learn more about what actions you can take there And how contributions so far have affected that systems weekly cycle Our recent successes in pushing the marauding marigolds back have afforded the community the opportunity to see just what happens to a spire surface site when the space around it Is liberated and the Thargoid completely driven out and I have to thank commanders Meccan and Lilac like for getting this information to us In short the sites are completely devoid of threats There are no Thargoid in the liberated systems or at the four newly abandoned spire sites The sites themselves are also inactive so none of the usual lighting, nerve clusters or Scannable biosignatures are active interestingly the Thargoid logos from the landing pad structures have also gone there are some very limited materials that can still be gathered from the surface mega barnacles but they really are very limited and there's also some bioscanning still to be had on the ground as well in summary if you're still a little nervous to visit the active sites or are still ill equipped then fear not there is nothing at the abandoned sites to hamper your exploration and you can fully take in the enormity of them at your leisure to find these sites or indeed any other spire sites active or otherwise then you'll find a link to the excellent spire site tracking spreadsheet originally created by commander lilac light in the description below the first tab of that sheet also lists any sites that are tidally locked to their local star and in permanent daylight as well as sites that have particularly low gravity conditions just a quick note here to say that the frontier cosmetic store has a limited Halloween themed sale on currently that ends at 2359 on the 30th of October that includes 30% off the trickster and ectoplasm gear sets and Halloween bobbleheads and 20% off of luminous paint jobs you'll also find Halloween themed decals on sale in the store right now the game itself and the odyssey expansion are currently on sale on steam again right now until the 2nd of November at 1700 Greenwich meantime that's discounts of 75% and 65% respectively there's also a limited sale live today until the 1st of November on the elite dangerous merch store that covers some elite themed wool art t-shirts hoodies and mouse mats etc you'll find a link to the sale items for that specifically in the description below it was the frontier frame shift live stream this week and being the spooky season it served the double purpose of not only being a Halloween special but also kicking off the start of this year's in-game Halloween event the live stream hosted by Arthur and Sally featured the usual news and community highlights as well as a catch up with developer max to talk about update 17 and the arrival of the spire sights and the banshee class of thargoid drone the team also revealed that an interim stability patch to the game is planned for around the end of November as the stream progressed it became apparent that it was being occasionally interrupted firstly with distorted sound effects and then by some disturbing images showing the hosts behaving increasingly oddly as the stream reached its conclusion Sally in particular started complaining of feeling ill and then as the hosts were winding up the show and recapping everything they talked about an audio distortion could be heard getting louder and louder until there was a minor jump scare the hosts disappeared and in their stead an in-game character appeared wearing a hood and skull masked outfit that had never been seen before the character pointed at the camera lens before walking off screen and the stream then suddenly cut so far so very very spooky Sally had said on the official forums that Wednesday would be the day that the event went live in the game and sure enough as we mentioned earlier in the show that event has indeed started I won't spoil too much of what to expect suffice to say that if you check your in-game inbox and also take a look at gal net news you'll be directed toward a specific system to get started the opening installment of the event will see you scanning some beacons to retrieve some logs and completing that task will unlock Halloween themed noctual malediction red paint jobs for the anaconda aspects cobra mark 3 and python I was careful to say opening installment of the event Sally said on the forums that it was a week long event and there hasn't been a suitable conclusion to the horrific goings on portrayed I was about to say we're guessing there's likely more to come and as we were going to press a connected community goal has in fact now appeared as we were putting the show together today frontier released the Wraith gear set that was the previously unseen suit that appeared at the end of the Halloween live stream it's available in five different color variations that come in at 6400 arcs each it is as you'd expect fully componentized and can therefore be mixed and matched with components from other gear sets that you may own one of the absolute top tier rewards available to just the top 10 participants in the special event community goal is a version of this Wraith gear set that won't be available to buy until early November it's worth noting that whilst the content for this community goal is all currently at least space-based this is the first time we've seen odyssey specific rewards in a community goal as things stand the goal runs until Wednesday next week will you be visiting an abandoned spy site are you planning on going toe to underbelly with a banshee using mechons guide or will you be following the Halloween event trail and community goal 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 oh seven 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