More space awaits.
Are you ready for another rather massive list of updates and changes to Elite: Dangerous? Too bad, because that’s what this is going to be. Beta 3.9 is scheduled for launch today, and according to a post on the Frontier forums should be going live in “about an hour.”
That was written at 10.20pm UK time, so expect it around 11.30pm (or 3.30pm US Pacific.)
Update: It is indeed out now.
There’s no new launcher associated with this build of Elite: Dangerous, so if you’ve updated the launcher fairly recently you should just have to log in and let 3.9 automatically download.
Here are the major changes and stability fixes coming in Beta 3.9. The forum post runs on to another couple of entries with ‘Tweaks,’ so you can go here to read all of those if you wish. Remember that the Gamma 1.0 build is scheduled for 22 November, and will be accompanied by a progress wipe.
NEW CONTENT/FEATURES
– Permits needed to access systems within excluded regions or specific systems requireing permits (like Sol)
– Missions can give permits as rewards
– Mission branching added
– Major faction missions added
– Added many new mission templates
– System states generate USSs and missions
– Multiple user voice comms support added
– Rare goods added
– Fixed event scenarios added
– Added imperial starport variants
– Add custom Earth and Mars to Sol
– Trade Route data for the current system is provided for free upon connecting to the Station Services
– Charge player for non-local trade route data, and ensure the galaxy map updates when it changes
– Dormant fines/bounty support added
– Major faction (Imperial and Federation) missions added
– Permits for systems and regions added
– Added support for the free-track protocol in addition to TrackIR. This will allow FaceTrackNoIR to work with the game without any additional setup
– Support for starports in supercruise added
– Can drop cannisters that aren’t marked as stolen
– More variety for USSs added
STABILITY FIXES
– Safeguard against a null dereference when changing location
– Fix for crash when unable to lock vertex buffer
– Fix for Nearby Player Faction Choice using Location Information before it’s initialised
– Fixed memory leak destroying landing gear on shutdown
– Fix for occasional softlock when quitting the game. This looks to be caused by a trio of components waiting for one another shutdown
– Fix crash when rendering stars
– Fix crash in AI advance
– Fix crash from race condition in phase transitions
– Fix softlock caused by starting a Save and being Deactivated before it finishes
– Fix crash when navigating comms menu
– Fix shutdown soft-lock when we haven’t logged in
– Fix a crash on arriving at a system before that system’s bodies are created, the player ship would try to do rather unsafe things with no body set
– Deal with jump route requests with max jump distance of zero without asserting
– If one component of a binary star needs to be destroyed while its partner component doesn’t handle that case correctly rather that just asserting
– Don’t unlock the vertex buffer if it didn’t successfully create/Lock when creating distant star billboards
– Fix for rare hard lock during location change (exit)
– Delay creation of PlayerControlDuty until object has gone live
– Added extra check when locking vertex buffer in meteoroids
– Fix memory leak in star system generator
– Fix for countdown exit dialog when in danger softlocking
– Fix crash in AI power distribution
– Fixed the SetStartingLocation activity to wait for the star system to be ready before starting
– Fixes for a few potential normalisation asserts in trails
– Fixed effects crash when fuel scooping in anaconda
– Made sure that the initial star and binary bpdies are given the same body address when generating the system with stars only and the entire system. Fixes a possible softlock in the system map
– When an interdiction breaks because the other party left/disconnected, make sure the Interdictor returns to idle rather than getting stuck
– Disconnects in hyperspace will actually disconnect, rather than softlocking
– Fix softlock by making sure ring cells are destroyed when the ring is not visible
– Crash fix server to support mission data that has no data in a suffix when it was expected
– Fix for some rare scaleform crashes
– Accept/decline mission screen stuck and unselectable after exiting bulletin screen without selecting either fixed
– Fix assert when dropping out of supercruise in an asteroid cluster
– Only ask for a system’s controlling minor faction’s state if such a faction actually exists
– Bail out of application startup if there are no suitable display modes available
