Greetings Commanders,
Today we have released update 2.4, The Return. We expect the servers to be down for approximately 9 hours. As usual with these updates, this amount of time could be longer than expected... we'll keep you up to date with the server status throughout the day. See our social media channels for regular updates. We're sorry for any inconvenience caused by the downtime - thanks for your patience!
The update to your client will be around 7 GB.
Additionally, we've pushed out a mandatory update to the patch/updater client. You'll need to get this updated patcher before you will be able to download the update.
And finally, here's the changelog.
New Content & Features (Horizons)
- Added mysterious and exciting things...
- Holo-Me Save Slots - We have added save slots for different Commander appearances in the Holo-Me system
- Holo-Me: Added 12 new hairstyles
- Holo-Me: Added slots for Eyewear and Outfits
- Synthesis can now create heat sinks, chaff, limpets and top up life support
- Additional planetary bases added to the Colonia region for migration winners
- Added mysterious locations we're not going to tell you about...
New Content & Features (Non-Horizons)
- Added more mysterious and exciting things...
- Ship Rebuy Penalty – When a player commits the crime of murder (PvP only), an additional cost is added if they swap to a less expensive ship before paying legal costs during the rebuy flow
- Exemption for valid Powerplay PvP
- Pilot’s Federation Bounty – When a player commits the crime of murder (PvP only), they receive an additional Pilot's Federation Bounty. This bounty is valid in every jurisdiction except anarchies
- Exemption for valid Powerplay PvP
- Inbox Revamp - Various quality of life improvements and a new look
- New Chained Missions - Which can be longer than two steps
- Hull/Canopy Repair Limpet controllers are now available
- Preview game extras in outfitting - You will now be able to preview paint jobs and other game extras available for purchase
- Stored ships can now be sold from the rebuy screen to cover the rebuy cost
- Updated route plotting system:
- maximum route plotting range is now 20Kly
- route plotting is much faster
- there is now an option to make use of neutron star boost when plotting routes
- an icon is displayed on the route to show the last scoopable star before running out of fuel
- Additional NPC stations added to support infrastructure and trade routes in Colonia region
- Star systems renamed based on Colonia migration winners
- Additional space stations added to Pleiades region to support civilian expansion narrative
- Added search and rescue contacts to stations across the galaxy
- New and improved salvage scenarios added to support search and rescue gameplay
- Made salvage commodities legal to pick up from wreck sites (will still appear illegal if dropped by ships as that is not salvage)
- Added more mysterious locations we're not going to tell you about...
Fixes and Improvements
Audio Fixes and Improvements
- Fixed some missing landing pad audio
- Fixed other player's ships being nearly silent when close to planet's surface
- Fixed ship engines sounding strange when loading into another player's ship in Supercruise in Multi-crew
- Fixed System and Planetary Map surface ambiance audio not working
- Ensured that exploration music does not play when near a Planetary Port
- Fixed an issue where the "Shields offline" audio played after every jump when shields were turned off
- Fixed the vessel voice temperature warnings not working in Supercruise
- Mysterious audio for mysterious things.....
Controls
- Fixed a responsiveness issue that could occur when using the D-Pad of a controller on the galaxy map
- Fixed an issue where the driving mode switches were not bound in the Classic Context controls preset
- Added default bindings for the vanity camera switch views for keyboard and mouse control scheme
Companion API
- /market now uses the correct commodity names and will include prices for legal commodities in the current ship's cargobay that are neither produced nor consumed at the current station
- Calling /market with rare commodities in the cargobay will now produce the correct sale price for them in game
- /profile now uses the correct galaxy state for controlling Factions and Superpowers, and uses the correct names for some modules, recipes and customisations
- /profile now includes Fighters, SRVs, Name and ID of ships
- /profile now includes most modifications of the current ship's modules, with a few exceptions:
- Ship armour, hull reinforcements, shield generators and shield boosters return their absolute values for the resistance modifiers, not just the engineer modifiers
- Modifications to weapon burst size do not automatically affect clip size
- Burst size and burst rate overrides do not report their consequences for attributes like damage per second
- Special modifiers are listed, but are not broken down into their effects
Controls
- Added default bindings for useful Multi-crew functions for the Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS range
CQC
- Fixed the 'Waiting for Players' and 'Starting Game' text that was obscured on the Elevate map
- Fixed a UI issue whereby many weapons were incorrectly displaying the 'gimballed' icon on the HUD
Engineers
- Engineers should no longer distort influence % displayed for the other factions in that starsystem
Factions
- Encourage factions to not expand into starsystems that require permits
- Factions that fail to expand from a starsystem after an Investment state has boosted their expansion range will no longer try to expand from that starsystem in the future
- Factions that retreat from a starsystem will subsequently treat that starsystem as a low priority when choosing an expansion target
Fighters/Crew
- Restored the missing descriptions for the GU-97 and Taipan Fighter when viewing their details via the Roles panel
Galaxy Map/System Map
- Updated some textures in the System Map to reduce memory usage (without reducing the quality)
- Fixed an issue whereby you would not get a failed message when plotting an economical route
- Fixed an issue with how the Gemini Constellation was being drawn on the Galaxy Map
- Corrected an issue whereby the completed mission indicators were not updating correctly on the System Map
- Fixed an issue where ships that have been transferred were not displayed at the correct location on the Galaxy Map after logging out
- Corrected the colour of the Metals trade routes shown on the map to match the colour shown in the legend bar
- Fixed an issue whereby the System Map popup auto minimised when using a control pad
- Tweaked the route progress bar to show when updating route options
- Fixed an issue that caused route plotting to plot a route twice if you have neutron star boost turned upon starting a new game session
- Fixed an issue whereby long range route plotting failed to update route target after 1000 ly jumped
General Fixes & Tweaks
- Brazilian Portuguese language translation is now available (A special thanks to our volunteer localisation testers has also been added to the credits)
- Fixed datestamps on inbox messages
- Various text fixes
- Various localisation fixes
- Added some mysterious things which get unveiled over time...
Holo-Me Creator
- The Escape key will no longer exit the Holo-Me system
- Fixed a rendering issue that could occur when a Commander's hair overlaid certain environmental fog effects
- Fixed the 'Grime' facepaint not being very visible when applied in the white colour option
- Corrected the order for some of the female skin tones for the smooth complexion head type
- Fixed an issue whereby the 'Full 02' mouth shape was also incorrectly adjusting the jaw size
- Fixed issue whereby players could apply rank decals to their flight suits for ranks they have not yet obtained
- Fixed an issue where the Holo-Me screen was not focusing on the face when editing the "Complexion" tab
- Fixed the save prompt appearing when no changes had been made to your Commander
- Fixed an issue whereby the 'Loading Commanders' notification would display indefinitely after changing you Commander's gender
- When changing the Commander's gender after previewing or equipping a suit, the suit will now transition properly rather than resetting
Missions
- Add distance from starsystem entry to mission destinations
- Ship kills, and actions to complete planetary hack and disable missions will now only contribute to a single mission, this will be the earliest mission accepted
- Refactored mission selection to promote a wider selection of missions on a single board.
- Refactored mission selection to promote a better spread of missions across factions
- Refactored mission selection to heavily promote selection of conflict missions for both sides involved
- Refactored mission selection to more reliably generate permit, engineer, and rank missions at eligible stations.
- Slightly rebalanced micro resource reward selection probabilities
- Added an inbox message when passengers alight from the ship
- Follow-on missions can include more data about previous missions in the chain
- Added support for missions allocating additional rewards based on station distance from the jump-in point
- Optimisations to how system data caching for secondary sites is stored and requested
- Significantly improve mission board loading, especially for those on high-latency networks
- Fixed message text when trying to accept missions past the mission limit (No longer says "... of this type" when it means total missions)
- Fixed passengers on tourism missions not realising the player hadn't gone to the right beacon when on multiple-site trips
- Fixed localisation text for certain parts of Ram Tah's ruins mission in languages other than english
- Fixed an issue whereby missions could still be locked even if you met the minimum reputation requirements
- Fixed some over-inflated mission rewards
- Increased the chance of in-space chain missions spawning
- For ship kill missions, the mission giver is considered when deciding if a kill should count. This allows for some mission stacking, but only when missions are from different factions
- Fixed issue whereby courier missions were only spawning at Elite rank
- Fixed an issue where legal massacre missions were not displaying the mission title in the inbox message after completion
- Increased the time limit for long distance missions
- Chain mission inbox messages now better indicate the name and known station of the mission giver
- Fixed an issue where the same assassination target could appear in a later chain mission or other mission board missions
- Fixed an issue whereby location information was not displaying correctly for assassination Chain missions that occurred after an altruism mission
- Fixed some string text that appeared in a chain mission's historical data
- Fixed an issue whereby Chain missions could persist after deleting your save
- Reduced the amount of Long Distance missions that will generate
- Multiple Planetary Scan missions will no longer complete after a single scan
- We now include the faction and station name in chain mission inbox messages
Multi-Crew
- Fixed an issue where if a crew member joined a helm docked in the hangar, the crew would appear docked on the surface while the helm stayed in the hangar
- Fixed the Multi-crew power distribution pips being reset during Hyperspace and Supercruise transitions
- Fixed holograms on a Fighter's HUD disappearing during Multi-crew
- Fixed missile lock audio not working correctly in Multi-crew
- Fixed an issue where the gunner role has less range when using scanners than the helm role has
- Fixed an issue where the menu could become locked when quickly attempting to access the Mult-Crew Options (top left panel) during MultiCrew as non-helm role
- Added a default binding for the multicrew mode switch when using the mouse and keyboard control scheme, the key is Tab
- Fixed an issue where the holograms on a Fighter's HUD disappear during a Multi-Crew session
- Made some tweaks so Mutli-crew gunners in the third-person view can no longer automatically target their own launched projectiles
- Implemented a fix for crew members not always collecting exploration data when scanning a nav beacon
Network
- Re-enabled UPnP by default in the AppConfig
- Improvements made to prevent network disconnections in poor network traffic conditions
NPCs
- Fixed an issue whereby forgetful Military NPCs could sometimes have left their weapons at home
- Shooting a capital ship in a scenario where they are the bad guys no longer lands you with a bounty on your head
- Trigger-happy NPCs will now only shoot missiles once the target's shields have dropped
- Fixed the falling skimmer issue that could occur on planet surfaces
- Fix for capital ship movement issues
Outfitting
- Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented players from selecting stored modules in Outfitting
- Fixed an issue where livery items would not appear the first time they are clicked upon
- Various outfitting items have had their descriptions fixed
- Fixed an issue where Bobbleheads were not appearing in the Livery section
- Fixed an issue where clicking "remove" on a decal slot when no decal was fitted caused the menu to stop responding
- Vehicle/Fighter sub slots are no longer displayed when transferring an optional internal module from stored modules
- Fixed an issue whereby ship kits would not preview correctly after quickly switching module slots
- Fixed an issue whereby when purchasing one or more class 6 planetary vehicle hangers, the class was not correctly detailed for the vehicle slots contained within it
- Fixed an issue where some ship nameplates were incorrectly displaying the ship ID
Player Journal
- Added "Luminosity" property to "Scan" event for a Star
- Added "MissionRedirected" event
- Added "SearchAndRescue" event
- Added "SellShipOnRebuy" event
- Include Latitude and Longitude info in Screenshot event if appropriate
- Include transfer time to FetchRemoteModule
- Include info about online friends at startup
- The 'Scan" event is generated for all bodies in a system, when scanning a navigation Beacon
- Added "RepairDrone" event
- Added "Music" event
- Population statistic now included in the system info on 'FSDJump'
- included info about StationServices available when docking at a station
- Info about all bodies in the system added when scanning a Nav Beacon. If you have a Detailed Surface Scanner installed, this will include detailed info (such as materials available on landable bodies)
- Included 'TransferTime' property in 'ShipyardTransfer' event
- Added mission name to player journal for mission redirect message journal entries
- Fixed an issue whereby Nav Beacons needed to be scanned twice for correct journal entries
PlayStation 4
- Added a toggle to switch between tilt and rotate for headlook with motion controls
- Fixed an issue where the amount of time played would become stuck at 0
- Fixed numerous crashes
- Fix for an issue where the “Refined Taste” Trophy was not triggering correctly
- Adjusted link on Passengers Training Video to direct you to the correct video
- Fixed an issue where you would be prevented from selecting control presets when booting the game with the T-Flight HOTAS 4 connected
- Fix for becoming stuck on the Engineers screen after viewing pinned blueprints
- Pressing Triangle on the Galaxy Map will now jump to your current location
- Swapped the left and right stick icons around so they’re no longer confused about their directions
- Added a default binding for deploying your Cargo Scoop with the T-Flight HOTAS 4.
- Added a default binding for targeting while in the SRV with the T-Flight HOTAS 4
- Fixed an issue with the heat sinks on the Imperial Cutter disappearing when viewed from close by
- Fix for numerous audio issues including distortion during dog-fights
Render
- Fixed a macOS specific issue with asteroid decals having bright textures when mining
- Fixed a macOS specific issue that saw station lights rendering through your ship's geometry
- Made some tweaks to prevent certain landing pads from being visible when using the vanity camera when docked in a hangar on a planet
- Fixed an issue that could lead to other Commanders floating around the screen when inspecting a fighter or SRV
- Fixed an issue with planet surface textures jittering
- Improvements made to station LOD (level of detail) when in a Wing
- macOS: Fixed an issue with gas giants not rendering correctly
- Fixed an issue whereby ship shadows were missing when first arriving at a planet's surface
- Fixed hologram scaling issue when targeting a torpedo
Server
- Fix a cause of stored ships shown on the galaxy map, but were inaccessible from the shipyard
- Fix a transaction server error when transferring stolen cargo between SRVs and Ships
- Fix displaying the wrong language labels for Community Goal reward tiers
- Fix displaying the wrong language in multi-crew session reports
- Fix some incorrect faction superpower allegiance and government types used for the galaxy map, system map, commodities and outfitting services
- Stop displaying 'main menu' as a last location in top bounty local news reports
- Fix a transaction server error when passengers leave ship cabins
- Fix a transaction server error in outfitting
- Various reliability and performance improvements
- Fixed the selling of stolen salvage commodities at blackmarkets
- Stopped mission cargo from being sellable at the market it was given at
- Fixed some friends incorrectly appearing offline
- Fixed certain synthesis boosts lasting too long
Ships
General Ship Fixes and Improvements
- Fixed an issue where players could not switch ships if they had drones in their ship's hold
- Adjustments made to the Corrosive 1 Paint Job so it works better with non-Raider Ship Kits
- Fix for Shield Cell Banks having no audio or visual effects when deployed
- Fixed an issue with accented characters in ship names not displaying correctly
Anaconda
- Fixed error that could occur when attempting to change the Anaconda's livery when an Engineer's modified shield generator is equipped
- Fixed a LOD issue with Anaconda Paintjobs
- Tidied up some textures
Asp Explorer
- Fixed a naming inconsistency with the Corroded Livery
Diamondback
- Fixed some LOD issues
Diamondback Explorer
- Fixed some lighting issues
Dolphin
- Fixed some texture issues with the Excursion Paint Job
- Flipped some text on the cockpit fire extinguisher
- The Dolphin now casts a shadow correctly when in the hanger
- Fixed a texture error that occured when the Dolphin's shields were hit when viewed from another ship
Eagle
- Fixed some texture issues
F63 Condor
- Adjusted lighting in the livery screen
Federal Corvette
- Made adjustments so that the bumper Ship Kit works better with Paintjobs
- Fixed some clipping that could occur with a Class 1 Cannon in the small size 1 hardpoint
- The 3rd chair in the Federal Corvette is no longer manufactured by DeLacy and has been replaced with the appropriate Core Dynamics model
Federal Dropship
- Patched a hole in the geometry
- Adjusted the nameplate camera for the Federal Dropship when using VR
Imperial Courier
- Made adjustments to the decals to prevent clipping
- Adjusted decal 1's camera angle to prevent clipping when using VR
Imperial Eagle
- Removed some stray geometry that was in the cargobay area
- Fixed some stretched textures that could be seen when your canopy ices up
- Minor texture and geometry fixes
Keelback
- Rescaled the front decal so it does not cover recessed geometry
Lakon Type 6
- Added new hanger cameras for the Lakon Type 6 for the rear Ship Kits and the wings
Lakon Type 7
- Fixed a LOD shadowing issue on the top of the Lakon Type 7
- Fixed some missing cockpit textures when viewed using the Vanity Camera
Lakon Type 9
- Added lights to the wings of the Lakon Type 9 so that nameplates can be seen
Python
- Corrected several vanity camera orientations
Sidewinder
- Fixed the smoothing groups on the sidewinder cockpit glass to improve LOD visuals when panning at close range
Viper MkIII
- Fixed some clipping that could occur when equipping a spoiler Ship Kit
- Fixed a text decal on the rear of the Viper which was cutting through the hull geometry
Viper MkIV
- Changed the hanger cameras with rear facing cameras for the spoiler and tail Ship Kits
Vulture
- Patched up a small hole in the Vulture cockpit
- Fixed an issue with the Vulture's co-pilot console
SRV
- Fixed a text overlay issue with the Surface and System map buttons in the Navigation Panel when driving an SRV
- Fixed an issue that caused the mouse direction cursor to not appear when driving an SRV
Stability Fixes
- Fixed a crash that could occur when a nearby NPC ship was docking in a station
- Fixed a crash that could occur when saving and exiting back to the main menu
- Fixed a crash that could occur when reviewing Multicannon hardpoints in Outfitting
- Fixed a memory crash that could occur in various situations while playing
- Fixed a crash that could occur when entering an Unidentified Signal Source
- Fixed a crash that could occur when dropping in to a Civilian Installation
- Added a cool mystery thing...
- Fixed a crash that could occur when entering Supercruise
- Fixed a crash that could occur when attempting to delete an inbox message
- Fixed a crash that could occur when loading in to an SRV
- Fixed a crash that could occur when visiting Jaques Station in Colonia
- Fixed a crash that could occur when entering the Planetary Map view
- Fixed a crash that could occur when scanning another Commander's ship while in your SRV
- Fixed a crash that could occur when firing weapons that apply the camera shake effect at targets that cannot be shaken
- Fixed an issue where swapping to an newly docked fighter would disconnect you from the server
- Fixed a crash that could occur when destroying a Goliath Skimmer
- Fixed a crash that could occur when following a wake scan
- Fixed a disconnect issue that could occur when deploying a Fighter when in Multi-crew
- Fixed a disconnection that could occur when loading into the game for the first time
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when using the mouse to move the camera when in the cockpit
- Implemented measures to help prevent crashes that could occur when quickly deleting inbox messages
- Fixed a crash that could occur when joining or leaving a Multi-crew session
- Fixed a crash that could occur when using the System Map
- Fixed a crash that could occur when using Synthesis
- Added another cool mystery thing.....
Station Services
- It is no longer possible to sell stolen items that you received as part of a mission on that station's black market
Stations and Outposts
- Outpost weapons platform has been completely updated with new art
- All Outposts have had an art pass to fix minor issues and improve visuals
- Outpost schematic rendering is now fixed to show all the extra modules, not just the core outpost
- Modular Stations have had an art pass to fix minor issues and improve visuals in some areas
- Various station schematic models have been updated to improve quality and fix orientation issues
- Physics mesh optimisation in the newer station interiors to improve framerate
- Various updates to station interiors to fix minor art issues and improve LODs
StellarForge
- Renamed Eol Procul Centauri 1 to Hutton Moon
UI
- Fixed an issue where the fuel scooping UI element would overlap with the jump charging element
- Fixed an issue that could cause your inbox to become garbled when deleting messages
- Fixed an issue where gunsights were not rendering correctly
- Fixed some icons that were missing in the Multi-crew role switch panel
- Fixed an issue where the Multi-crew session report could overlay incorrectly and not be closed when opened in the Gunner Cam mode
- The Insurance screen will now show the last ship you were flying by default
- Livery items you own will now be indicated with a tick
- Removed an invisible button to nowhere from the Station Services menu
- Corrected the Commander portraits appearing at a lower resolution in the Station menu
- We have made some cosmetic improvements to the layout of the Insurance screen
- Fixed an issue where a Wingman's target marker could disappear when they target a subsystem
- Fixed an issue whereby the 'Buy Game Extras' button would not work correctly when using a mouse
- Made some changes to better accommodate text and prevent it from being cut off when playing the game in Russian
- Fixed an issue where faction text was overlapping Engineer details while docked at an Engineer base
- Scanning indicator now appears correctly in the Contacts panel when scanning a Commander
- Powerplay inbox messages will now show the name of the power that you are aligned with as the sender
- Fixed an i$$ue where Commander name$ that contained '$' were not di$playing correctly
- Fixed an issue whereby other players were not displayed as hollow squares on the scanner
- Players that have you on their sensors are now informed when you enable or disable "Report Crimes Against Me". Additionally, enabling crime reports now has a 15 second delay before actually becoming active (there is currently no delay when disabling crime reports)
- Made some changed to ensure the Navigation Panel UI stays in sync with the backend code
- Fixed some ship names that were incorrect on the 'Sell Ships on Rebuy' screen
- Fixed an issue that caused various elements of the UI displaying the currently selected destination to be out of sync, and allow surface destinations to be selected from the SRV
- Fixed a small dot that appeared next to the throttle pin on several ships
- Re-aligned the cargo scoop UI
- Fixed an issue whereby selecting to transfer a module from the list of stored modules displayed an incorrect list of viable slots
- Fixed an issue where the title of an inbox message would not fade out when the message had been read
- Improvements made to the Outfitting Livery UI, so it no longer resets to the top of the list when moving between slots
- Fixed some cut-off text on the 'Your Stored Ships' button within the Insurance Screen
- Fixed some cut-off text on the Taipan Fighter's role information screen
- Fixed an issue whereby the voice comms request icon temporarily appeared on the incorrect user in a player's friends list
- Fixed some text that was cut-off in the Holo-Me UI when playing the game in some languages
- Made some adjustments to prevent issues that could occur after Alt-Tabbing when in the Holo-Me UI
- Fixed some overlapping that could occur in the inbox message titles
- Fixed an issue where the no indication that a jet cone boost is due when using this option to plot a route appeared on the HUD
VR
- We have made some adjustments to mouse behaviour when viewing the Holo-Me menu in VR so that it matches other UI screens
- We have disabled the bloom effect when using the VR graphical presets by default, as it could be a bit hard on the eyes
- Fixed a tiling issue that occurred when taking high resolution screenshots when using VR
- Adjusted a variety of outfitting cameras across a range of ships to work better when using VR
- Fixed an issue whereby the HUD target reticle was displayed inside your cockpit in one eye when using VR
Weapons
- We have made some improvements to the animations on railguns
- If you're still reading this we're definitely not telling you about the mysterious things, you'll have to wait and find out......
Xbox One
- Added 25 new Achievements
- T.Flight Hotas One support
- Fix for an issue where Ship IDs would only show 5 characters despite 6 being entered