 This is Witchspace news, for Friday the 24th of March 2023, I'm CMDR Buur. In a packed Elite Dangerous news this week, Update 15, heralded as one of the biggest moments in the game to date, is coming, but with a delay. We get an update on the major feature overhaul, the player minor faction system is closed to new applications, and Fdev confirmed the console profile copy portal is coming back, and much more. Last night it was the turn of Frontiers every other week live stream outing Frameshift Live to get another airing, and this week the stream was jam packed with announcements and developer guests. We'll talk about the announcements in a minute, but first, devs on the stream talking about their work on Elite Dangerous never disappoints, and last night was no exception. Audio was the focus of the developer stream last night and right before the guests were introduced, a small teaser trailer for the forthcoming update was played that didn't show anything we haven't seen already, but acted as something of an introduction perhaps to what we might be hearing as part of Update 15. It's linked below, have a listen yourself and see what you think. Welcomed onto the stream then by senior community manager hosts Sally and Bruce were two key figures from the company's audio team. Manager of Audio Jim and senior audio designer and the lead audio designer on Elite Dangerous specifically Robin. Jim has worked at Frontier for 10 years having worked in audio production itself for 32 years across television and adverts as well as video games. When Jim started at Frontier the audio team was just 5 people and in the years since then the company has expanded so has the number of titles and to accommodate that growth so has the team. Now Jim presides over a team covering all of Frontier's current, in development or unannounced titles that numbers around 60 people. Jim goes on to speak about the differences in TV audio production and that of video games the most obvious being the non-linearity of the audio requirements particularly when dealing with a video game like Elite Dangerous. In TV and film the audio teams will obviously always know exactly what is happening on screen and when precisely the audio and music needs to change. With a video game and in particularly something like Elite Dangerous where the player can go wherever and do whatever they choose the music and sound effects have to change dynamically and seamlessly to accommodate and keep up with the player on the fly. In doing so the audio cues that the team uses are drawn from live data and triggers taken from the game and it was fascinating to hear how this process works and is implemented by the team at Frontier. Lead audio designer on Elite Dangerous Robin spoke about the work that he and the team had been doing for the upcoming update 15 more on that in a moment that required new sound effects for the game and also new musical cues. Robin also spoke about the audio design process and the game design process and what he described as their leapfrogging of each other where one would design something that would influence where the other went in a very iterative creative process. Whilst the team obviously can't yet speak about the specific content of Elite's next update he did make particular note that overall the music that they had created for the upcoming update needed to convey scale, tension and dread. Listening to Elite's designers, developers and technicians is always fascinating time well spent and I'd urge you to take a listen to the rest of what Jim and Robin had to say throughout their very engaging interview. You'll find a link to the YouTube archive of this week's Super Cruise News linked below. Right before the Frontier livestream kicked off yesterday a raft of significant and surprise announcements emerged from the Cambridge developers in the form of a post to the official forums and the Elite Dangerous News web portal and as you'd perhaps expect the announcements were also covered off by Sally and Bruce on the live stream. There's a fair bit to unpack today so here we go. Firstly then update 15 originally scheduled for the end of April has been delayed slightly and bumped into May. The team haven't said yet when in May we can expect it to arrive but they did say that the update was being pushed back to allow the developers to ensure update 15 meets expectations. As part of this announcement the team describes update 15 as building upon the narrative and unlocking the next major stage of the Thargoid War and also saying that it will be among the biggest moments in the game to date. For FDF to say this we can only presume something big is about to arrive in update 15. They don't throw this kind of language around lightly. As for what that could specifically lead us to, the top bets in the community are still reaching whatever is at the centre of the maelstrom and Thargoid's on foot. We won't have to wait much longer to find out now. Next we got some news on the major feature overhaul that was first spoken of in the roadmap published in May last year. Initially planned for early 2023 it's unfortunately now been delayed. Frontier saying that the feature is quote still being investigated unquote and that quote a number of changes not least the Thargoid War itself have required our attention as a priority unquote. This particular part of the announcement ends by saying that Frontier will share details of the investigation and their plans towards the end of this year. It's important to reiterate here that they've said they'll share details of the major feature rework towards the end of the year not that it will be arriving then meaning the thing whatever it is could well arrive now in 2024. Without knowing what the feature is that is still clearly disappointing but at least we now have an update on the situation and it sounds as though update 15 at the very least is planning to give commanders plenty to focus on in the meantime. Next a slightly odd and surprising one. Applications for player made factions in the game are closing not pausing but closing. Player minor factions have been a thing in Elite for many years now if you're unaware of their existence then in essence up until this point any group of players of 10 or more could apply for a faction to be placed into the game in their name. There was an online form to fill out and a few hoops to jump through but essentially once the process completed and was approved by Frontier your faction would appear in the game and would then be free to expand its influence and territory using the background simulation system. For many player groups this ebb and flow of territory and power is a huge part of the game and I include the burpits own in-game player group in that. As of this announcement any existing applications will be processed but no new applications will be accepted. The precise wording of this announcement is intriguing it begins quote player made factions have played a key role in expressing your will over the shape of the bubble. This goal is at the heart of our plans for Elite and reflected in the Thargoid war end quote. It then continues quote our focus is now turning to investigate how upcoming systems will allow every player and player group to have a meaningful impact on the galaxy's landscape unquote. Drilling into that what it appears Frontier is saying is that allowing players to shape the landscape around them is a key tenet of Elite Dangerous Philosophy and previously that philosophy had been expressed specifically through the PMF system. That system in its current form at least is now going away but importantly the key tenet and philosophy still remains and it's through a new yet to be revealed system that that key tenet will now be expressed. Of course what that as yet unrevealed system is is anyone's guess. The announcement makes note that one further upcoming change will be that the live game which is often referred to as Elite Dangerous 4.0 or Elite using the Odyssey era engine as opposed to the horizons era engine will now be the default download for new commanders in the launcher. The change will cause an update to appear for any players using steam and anyone defaulting currently to the legacy or horizon version of Elite will need to download the entire client again. Those commanders defaulting to the live game outside of steam will see no change whatsoever and anyone new to the game will be presented with and download the live game by default. And whilst we're on the subject of the live and legacy games we were very pleased to hear that the console profile transfer portal will once again be opening up in April. When the service paused at the end of last year Frontier stated that whilst the plan was for it to return this year it would be with a reduced capability. The big news from the announcement yesterday is that not only is it coming back but it is doing so with a complete docket of features and not in fact in a reduced form. If you're a console player looking to copy your profile over to the live game play on PC and explore the Thargoid war and potentially everything Odyssey brings to the table then that opportunity will be returning and as things stand the service will be open indefinitely not as a time limited window as it was previously. When you copy your profile over to the live game your console profile remains active and usable exactly the same as it was previously and Frontier are again throwing in a free copy of the base Elite Dangerous game for your live profile to use. You also don't necessarily need a PC to use the free profile transfer that Frontier are offering. As we highlighted in our video last year if you're a console player using a service such as GeForce Now could work for you. In fact at least one of our commanders in the burp it regularly plays with us in Elite Dangerous Odyssey on his Xbox. If you think it could work for you you'll find that video linked on screen now and in the description below this video. Will you be copying over a console profile to the live game in April? What do you think is arriving with update 15 and just what do you think will replace player minor factions? 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.