Elite Dangerous Update 15 Release Notes

9 May 2023

Greetings Commanders.

Update 15 is upon us and we're excited to share the full update notes for you here today.

The Elite Dangerous 'Live' servers are now offline until approximately 15:00 BST, when they shall return with the update available to you. We'll keep you updated on progress across our social media and the Elite Dangerous Official Forum.

Buckle up, Commanders! Flight checks are go.

Features of Note

A new mission to restore power to settlements and retrieve data from within Thargoid-controlled territory has been added.
- This new mission can be found at mission boards in systems in the Alert or Invasion states.
The Thargoid Pulse Neutraliser module has been added to Outfitting and Tech Broker at all rescue ships.
- Commanders who are entitled to one of these modules for their efforts and prior investigations can find theirs stored at the Orunmilla megaship.
The Revenant seeks you...
- Take caution when investigating Thargoid controlled territory at abandoned settlements...
What more lies in wait...?

UI updates.

In the 'UI' section below, there have been a number of notable changes made by the team. These have been labelled as clearly as possible for you.

Community Issues of Note Addressed

Reactivation mission bases will no longer be already powered up on arrival.
- Ticket reference: ID 57596
Teammate navlock issue addressed.
- This is HUGE...we'll be on standby for your feedback with this one.
- Summary: Our friends, the Fuel Rats reported some time ago that teammate navlock would be engaged but not work as intended. For more information: ID 47611
- Thank you for your patience as the team continued to look into this o7
Ship kits no longer result in caustic damage being multiplied.
- Ticket reference: ID 58185
Carrier jumps can no longer be accidentally scheduled by dragging or rotating the map with mouse.
- Ticket reference: ID 52638
Distance now correctly displays when remotely jumping your Fleet Carrier.
- Ticket reference: ID 51651
Landed Apex taxi will no longer randomly decide to disembark when keys are pressed in menus (These guys get a lot of calls):
- Ticket reference: ID 54547
Improvements have been made to the Midnight Black paint job, which was appearing outlined.
- Ticket reference: ID 55674
Scarab SRV radar schematic sizing has been improved.
- Ticket reference: ID 45792
Scarab SRV is no longer missing projectiles.
- Ticket reference: ID 55671
Scarab SRV interaction with Guardian Relic pillars now functions as intended.
- Ticket reference: ID 55678
Ancient active Guardian Obelisks will no longer display a randomly moving pattern which caused difficulties with decrypting the correct items for Ram“red herring”Tah's mission .
- Ticket reference: ID 52006
Journal: ScanOrganic event now contains Variant colour.
- Ticket reference: ID 51033
Odyssey system map now displays active faction states as expected.
- Ticket reference: ID 41848
Typos and text cut-off addressed in the "SYSTEM FULLY SCANNED" HUD messaging.
- Ticket reference: ID 1251
Commanders legs no longer...detach from their bodies after throwing a grenade mid jump (blink.gif).
- Ticket reference: ID 52520
VR shipyard camera positioning has been corrected.
- Ticket reference: ID 30361
VR Codex and Squadron screens brightness has been adjusted.
- Ticket reference: ID 50437
Fixed reported instances where Thargoids can become invisible.
- Ticket reference: ID 55935
The issue with exceeding yield when detonating asteroids has been addressed:
- Ticket references: ID 45626, ID 23094
Apex shuttle pilots are no longer too nervous to land at hostile settlements (Honestly a realistic situation to be in if I was your driver. Pilot).
- Ticket reference: ID 51856
Settlement raid and massacre missions require more targets than are present.
- Ticket reference: ID 48424
- We'll keep monitoring for instances of this, post Update 15.

General Issues of Note Addressed

AI

Thargoid ships no longer stray too far away in AX CZs.
Thargoid Scouts now pay comparatively more attention to ships than ground targets.
Apex shuttle can now navigate effectively around binary moons - Don’t forget to rate your Apex Pilot 5*.
Ambient traffic will be present if Commanders are on foot in space stations.
Ship-launched fighters will now restock their ammo when returning to mothership.

Gameplay

Instances of overlapping icons on the System Map have been addressed.
On foot mission boards no longer erroneously display in space missions.
Accepting an expired mission will no longer soft lock the missions board.
The control options menu is now refreshed when a new device is detected.
Fix implemented for missing mission icons on galaxy and Apex map of wing mates.
Fixed a crash when attempting to display an avatar portrait for a pilot who just, unfortunately, died.
Fix implemented for Starport terminals becoming sometimes unusable.
Fix implemented to assure certain galaxy map searches no longer cause the camera to reposition past the specified system.
Shooting Guardian Relics as they rise will no longer causes them to become irretrievable.
Disabling 'Team Boarding' will no longer block players from entering their own ship.
When joining a multicrew telepresence session the multicrew history is now correctly reported rather than sometimes erroneously indicating that players had been killed.
Mining missiles now attach correctly to the surface of asteroid deposits and fissures.
A fix has been implemented for Commanders sometimes snapping through objects they were stood on, after relogging.
On foot Commanders will now receive inbox message arrival notifications.
Ship and Commander legal states now reset correctly upon resurrection.
Player Journal:
- Dropping out of supercruise at a destination will now generate a Supercruise Destination Drop journal entry.
- Attempted Thargoid interdictions will now generate an Interdicted or Escape Interdiction journal entry.
- Player journals will now distinguish between hyperspace jumps done in the player's ship and those done in taxis.
- On foot or ship docked carrier jumps are now distinguished in player journal.
Disabled disembarking during SRV tutorial.

Render

Visual improvements made to fog rendering.
Fix implemented for directional light shadows occasionally causing flashing in social spaces.
Fixed mining hotspots that would sometimes flicker in Analysis mode at planetary rigs.
Fixed an issue with dithering effects at low resolutions.
Fixed an issue whereby entering or exiting supercruise would cause fog (and colour grading) to briefly disappear.

Audio

Fixed an issue where the Thargoid Interceptor weapon fire audio would randomly change in volume due to being obstructed by its own hull geometry.
Rebalanced Thargoid Caustic Generator audio.
Fixed various instances where planet material surfaces had no SRV collision sounds.
Fixed an issue where the Conflict Zone Announcer VO was not controlled by the Voice Volume Slider in the Audio options.
Fixed an issue where the GUI Pip audio was not audible when changed in the gunner seat.
Fixed an Issue where Music Thargoid Interceptor Combat music would not loop seamlessly.
Optimized performance of Thargoid Scout Engine Audio.
Reduced the Volume of CQC Announcer VO.
Re-Balanced Anti Guardian Zone Effect on COVAS to be more random.
Rebalanced Audio Of Thargoid Orthrus Vocalisation Volume.
Fixed an Issue where the music system would rapidly change when player ship was attacked whilst on foot.

Art

Improved visuals for paintjobs on the Anaconda.
Fixed lights and emissive materials being left on when a SpaceDock is in an offline state.
Improvements made to the Asp ship body to fix some issues with wear and tear not fading smoothly over time.
Fixed a camera that was placed too high in the hanger for the Krait.
Visual improvements made to the skull bobblehead.
Fixed a visual issue with faction colours on stations sometimes swapping to green.
Fixed the floodlights seen on Engineer landing pads from having a blank texture, these now switch on/off correctly.
Fixed overly bright station docking portal seen in damaged and under repair stations.
Improved visuals on standard landing pads.
Made improvements to planet-side hologram billboard models.
Fixed colour changing issues on the Polarity paint job when used with certain shipkits.
Fixed visual issues on the Krait Industrial shipkit tail piece.
General improvements made for Eagle paint jobs.
Improved visuals for the Fusion paintjob for the Anaconda.
Fixed caustic generators from spawning loot before the mine is visually destroyed with VFX.
Fixed overall visuals for the Imperial Cutter.
Added in the missing UI schematic for the Guardian Skimmers.
Fixed an series of invisible walls at The Beach engineer base.
Improved the Crypsis paintjob on the Crusader.
Improved Razor paintjob for the Anaconda.
Made general visual improvements to the Industrial shipkit.
Made visual improvements to the Audio tablet, found in social areas.

Server

Fixed an 'Invitee is already in crew' message appearing in Horizons mode when a player who owns Odyssey sends a multi-crew invite to a player without Odyssey.
Fixed an issue causing fines and bounties to remain visible after being paid off during redeployment to a prison megaship.
Fixed a Black Adder error when adding bookmarks of certain types of star.
Fixed a 'load failed' error when on board a ship that has corrupted engineering modifications.
Fixed Pilot's Federation combat bonds not being awarded to groups of more than 50 players.
Fixed fighter bay rebuild counters not updating when relocating motherships to a prison megaship.
Fixed a jump failure when Thargoids attempt to pull players in teams out of hyperspace.
Fixed the Elite rank shipyard and outfitting discount no longer applying for players who have reached Elite I rank or above in combat, trade and exploration.
Fixed instances where certain commodities required to repair damaged ports prevented the repair progress station news article from appearing.
Fixed stored ships not being displayed as impounded, causing a server error when attempting to transfer the ship to another port.

UI

NOTABLE CHANGE!
- Representations of multiple fleet carriers can now be stacked on system map.
NOTABLE CHANGE!
- Maps: Data displayed on the right hand panels have been moved around to be more sensical, for example only planets will now have planet information, and trade data will now live on the market panel instead of the information panel.
NOTABLE CHANGE!
- The contacts panel now displays soldier rank rather than combat rank.
NOTABLE CHANGE!
- Consumable slot data is now present on the suit loadout customisation panel.
NOTABLE CHANGE!
- Frontline Solutions map now disables the 'View planetary map' button when selecting stations.
NOTABLE CHANGE!
- Updated the flow in outfitting when equipping a clean module to a hot ship.
  - When trying to equip a clean module to a hot ship you will now get a confirmation popup before choosing a slot and we no longer re-open the equip popup after this step.
Fixed an issue where the search and rescue contact would lock up and become unresponsive.
Fixed numerous focus issues in the cockpit role panel, making navigation more fluid.
Fixed an issue where Commanders could soft lock the missions UI by taking more than 8 missions.
Station status icons in the on-foot navigation panel now display as intended.
location icons are now present and correct across all panels where these are displayed.
Maps: Visual pass made - all panels will now be consistent for behaviour and visual state.
NOTABLE CHANGE!
- Maps: Now showing suggested systems for specific systems states in the anti-xeno panel to clarify the weekly reset.
Maps: Added more faction details in the faction list.
NOTABLE CHANGE!
- Maps: Added fleet carriers as a POI category, so you can see at a glance what services a fleet carrier has active.
Material trader names now remain consistent across different screens.
UI will now consistently and correctly display station types.
System map now disallows targeting of invalid targets.
Outfitting UI now displays when multicrew support is available for fighters and SRVs.

VFX

Improvements have been made to the brightness, colour and visual frequency on the interceptor disruptor beam.
Festive Cockpit lights glow has been lowered - Personally, I’d rather go all in and enjoy the festive vibe than see whether my trajectory is all good, but I do get the point of this one, for sure.
Increased the Dolphin cargo hatch UI to improve legibility.

Known Issues

The following issues are currently known and under investigation with the team, on launch of Update 15.

As with the listing of any known issues along with a new update, we understand this can be disappointing for many but would like to reassure you that they are noted priorities to address as soon as possible. We'll keep you informed on progress.

Commanders are unable to plot route to settlements/ports through the points of interest panel.
Reboot Missions (specifically Thargoid War variants) do not currently count towards Jude Navarro Engineer progression.
Some Commanders may still be experiencing issues with unlocking Hero Ferrari.
Investigations continue over crashes or locks at Thargoid Barnacle Sites.
A crash can occur when running new Intel Drivers:
- Installing the newest Intel Arc graphics drivers both the normal release driver and the beta driver ('Release - 31.0.101.4314' - 'Beta - 31.0.101.4335') crashes the game on the planet generation loading screen and crashes after it reaches 100%.
Ranking up Engineer by modifying modules does not unlock higher tier modifications without reopening the workshop.
Missiles deal no damage to ships when hitting a shipkit part using SRV/On foot missiles.
Complete Missions tab can fail to open, kicking you back to the terminal home screen.

And with that, Commanders, here's to the rollout of much anticipated Update 15.

Once again, we're excited to share these monumental moments with you!

See you in the black o7

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