 This is Witchspace News for Friday the 13th of May 2022, I'm CMDR Buur. In Elite Dangerous News this week, as Salvation fires his super weapon at the Thargoids, is it all it's cracked up to be? There's important upgraded functionality for two of Elite's third party apps, with news on some impending planetary collisions and more. 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. Everyone's favourite bargain basement Lidl's own brand Messiah, Salvation, was as anticipated in action again this week. Determined to prove that the best cure for a persistent problem with a wasp's nest in your loft space is to jam a stick in there and then wiggle it about furiously he fired the secretive super weapon again this week in an effort to clear three systems in the bubble of Caustic Coleslaw. At first sight the Galnet article about the firing of Salvation's Salad Slaying super gun might read exactly the same as all that has come before it but it does contain some subtle details that are easily overlooked. On the nature of the devices that are essentially powered by Guardian material bin diving the article states that the devices generate an electromagnetic pulse that disrupts the biomechanical technology of the Thargoids so it's essentially a big system wide EMP that seems tuned to mess with the aliens version of technology specifically leaving humans and human tech untouched so far at least. That's certainly more than we knew before. The other interesting wrinkle comes when the article describes the resultant effect of Salvation's triumphant galactic stick wiggling. When the weapon was first used in the corn star system the effect was undoubtedly devastating bodies in the system were suddenly littered with Thargoid debris and crashed vessels and reports state that the Thargoids that did survive the unexpected attack withdrew into which space. When the super weapons were used again in Operation Trihammer in the Pleiades region just 27% of the hostiles were destroyed in the Delphi system with 98% of the surviving hostiles withdrawing into which space. In this latest use of the weapon thus far at least we've seen and heard no reports of Thargoid wreckage and Galnet is reporting that the hostile vessels simply withdrew into which space. When the Thargoids first appeared independent pilots learned how to kill the Cyclops interceptors a new variant the Basilisk then appeared tougher, meaner and more deadly. We learn how to kill those and they were then superseded again by the Medusa and again by the Hydra. Given Salad Nation's latest results in the bubble i.e no kills but rather a simple withdrawal of the Thargoid menace you could argue that the Thargoids learn from their attackers and adapt their technology to defend against the new threat. What's more historical evidence would seem to further suggest that having survived and learned from the attack they then return with something tougher and meaner to counter it. Are we on the cusp of some sort of new murder marigold emergence? Salvation's frantic stick wiggling experiments are driving the narrative thread in the game towards something. It seems extremely unlikely to me that this will end with everyone saying sorry and instead sitting down together with a nice cup of tea. A new tool was added to the Spanch Elite Dangerous Routing website this week that serves as a sort of road to riches for exo biologists. The expressway to exo mastery router asks that you enter a start and a destination system a radius for its search the jump range of your ship and a few other simple criteria before it then calculates a route that gets you to your destination via stopovers to investigate and scoop up valuable exo biological data to help you on your way towards elite in exobiology. And while we're talking updates to valuable tools for elite the Odyssey Materials Helper app which is our recommended essential aid to Odyssey Engineering this week added the same functionality that it offers for Odyssey Engineering to those looking to engineer their ships. Choose a module weapon or utility engineer or tech broker unlock and the helper will now guide you through what you need and in what quantities as if it wasn't valuable enough already. As an example of what it can do away from straight engineering it was hinted again on Galnet this week that an upcoming community goal will likely require the use of corrosive resistant cargo racks. If you haven't yet unlocked the racks yourself and you didn't acquire any in last week's Thargoid centric community goal then the material helper will list what you need and how many you have in your inventory already. And one final point this week while we're talking about the CG from last week it was noted on Galnet this week at the resolution of the goal that the higher prices being paid for meta alloys by the James Sneddon Starport in the Morton Mart system will continue so whilst the community goal may have finished the cash bonanza for harvested meta alloys very much hasn't a fact that will no doubt utterly overjoy the alien meta munching laser lilies and further endear them to our curious ways. Commander LCU No Fool Like One of Canon Research noted on twitter this week that he's been hunting for planetary collisions in Elite Dangerous and has now found over 5000 likely candidate worlds. Of particular note in his research is a possible planetary collision that involves a landable atmospheric world in 2023. Planetary collisions in Elite are something we've witnessed here on a few occasions and whilst they are actually quite rare Elite has millions of worlds in its database with new ones being discovered every day so the odds of one showing up especially after a deliberate search by a dedicated individual or team of individuals obviously increases. They are actually quite a thing to behold especially if you can land at the point of impact and witness the event from ground zero in fact we've made a video about that very thing that you'll see linked on screen now. Before you get too excited however don't go expecting any planetary level fireworks to accompany the collision. The planets in Elite were never designed to actually hit each other and so whilst spectacular to witness the two stellar bodies do very much continue on their way after their brief liaisons. That said they are still definitely worth pursuing if the opportunity presents itself. I've linked below to the canon calendar that tracks these events and gives locations for them. There's at least one that is relatively close to the bubble that occurs every eight days or thereabouts so you won't be waiting long to witness one. My huge thanks to Commander LCU No Fall Like one for his assistance with the news this week. Frontier posted their now weekly Discovery scanner update to the forums on Monday this week. The post by Community Manager Zach highlights weekly regulars like Commander creations and any significant community happenings for the week and also underlines what has happened in the previous week and talks about the week ahead and what to expect. This week's post talks in particular about the news from last week's Frontier livestream where they mapped out the next three updates for the game, sketching rough launch windows and giving an indication at least of what to expect in those updates. It's worth noting that the Frameshift live live streams are now on a fortnightly cycle and the next one is scheduled for Thursday next week. The next update for the game, update 12 is scheduled for deployment before the end of May and next Thursday is the last scheduled Frameshift live of the month of May so we think it highly likely that Frontier will be talking about update 12 and what to expect in it on next week's show. A show which is by the way the one year anniversary of the launch of Odyssey. Yes really it's been a year and indeed what a year it's been. As we've previously reported, update 12 as well as delivering a new mission type to the game is planning a further raft of optimisations and fixes. What we missed however in the original forum post was the small mention of quality of life improvements as well. Quality of life updates are always a welcome addition and we're wondering what will likely be included in that vein for this update. Well that little display at the side of the commander's chair on the bridge of the fleet carrier become usable maybe. If you have any particular quality of life updates you'd like to see let us know in the comments below. With regard to the rest of 2022 past update 12 Zach's post underlines again that update 13 and 14 are scheduled for August and November respectively and these updates will be focused on new narrative threads in the game and these threads will be more than a continuation of the story on Galnet. Frontier aren't saying any more at the moment about what's contained in these updates but have promised more details nearer the time and they're recommending that players keep an eye on goings on as the Azimuth Saga in particular reaches its conclusion. The Azimuth thread has been running for over 18 months now and if you're not up to speed on everything that's happened since the ghost ship Adamasta arrived in the Chukchan system then fear not. You can't get left behind amongst the useful links that we maintain in the description of every video we post on this channel including this one is Frontier's official summation on the forums of the Azimuth Saga story so far. Zach's post about the content in the game finishes by reiterating again that any fears that the game has no more content arriving into 2023 are unfounded and that a new narrative for 2023 has a part to play in that content. Interesting times ahead. Will you be following the path to exobiology supremacy grabbing yourself some new corrosion resistant cargo racks or are you perhaps planning on chasing down a planetary collision? 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.