We learned some new and interesting details about 2.3 Commanders, during the Live Frontier Elite: Dangerous on Thursday, February 16th at 8pm GMT!

Check out the full video!

► Don’t miss: EVERYTHING about Commanders ◄

Summary:

  • The players’ faces are now displayed in the chat, while the NPCs are in a pilot’s suit with a black helmet.
  • The communication channel is now displayed in blocks of messages with different colors depending on whether they come from the wing, a private message, the local chat, …
  • The friends tab now offers the search for/join Multicrew function.
  • In Multicrew, before a search starts, a list of activities appears with different rules: Bounty Hunting, Pirating, Mentor a Player, Mining, Exploration, Smuggling. The rules allow a crew member to be kicked automatically if he breaks these rules, such as attacking an unwanted target.
  • Finally, we know more about the Watch tab in the upper left, this is the history. This feature tracks our last actions like the addition of Mr. HonkHonk in the squadron or the fact that we were killed by Barry Protter 12 minutes ago. Here you will also have options to add these people as a friend, post them, block, send a private message.
  • Naming our ship is confirmed, the Corvette used was called Rancorous Bison. NPCs also have their names.
  • When a crew member joins a ship, the rules are displayed before he can take his place.
  • The different roles, only three are available:
    • Helm Pilot – The player owning the ship will always be the Helm pilot. The latter manages the ship, operates fixed and guided weapons and controls the fighter (NPC ally). The latter also has access to the ship’s energy distributor, synthesis and navigation.
    • Gunner – Has access to turret weapons. This station offers a new interface allowing the gunner to handle a reticle in order to shoot all available turrets in the requested firing angle. They also have access to two quick accesses in addition to weapon groups. These can be customized to suit different weapons and scanners. The gunner has a 360 degree firing angle, allowing him to use scanners (such as the bounty detector) and weapons (such as missiles) in any direction. The Gunner has a bonus power point to spend in SYS, ENG, WEP, but no more than 4 points can be spent in a single capacitor.
    • Fighter Con – Controls a fighter launched by the Helm pilot. This additional fighter can be launched at the same time as the NPC-controlled fighter, indicating that two fighters will be able to fly with the main ship. The Helm pilot can also enter a fighter in place of the NPC, which makes three vessels controlled by players thanks to the Multicrew.
  • The gunner can switch to Combat mode, like the turret mode of the SRV. With this new view, it displays an external view of the ship and one is able to shoot with the turrets, use their primary weapons, secondary ones as well and various utility modules or shield cell banks. With this Combat mode, we can easily follow the nearby ships in order to attack them. The interface is interesting and it clearly displays the targets and their states, however the target’s status is in the bottom left corner while ours is in the bottom right corner.. which makes information reading slow in combat. A hex means that a crewmember also attacks your target.
  • There is a recap page per driver: how many rules broken, amount of rewards, destroyed targets, gameplay time in a given role, completed missions, …
  • Voice chart will start by default for all crewmembers, but it can be disabled.
  • The Multicrew does not work with the SRV at this time because there is no Multicrew SRV (yet).
  • Playing a role in Multicrew will not make you progress your Combat, Exploration and Trade ranks. Not even Powerplay Merits. Only the pilot will earn these.
  • We quickly saw a « Data-Link » module passing by, but it was not planned and the devs didn’t comment on it and moved quickly to another topic.
  • No information on the Panther Clipper.
  • New ships kits are coming, we have seen the Federal Corvette kit.
  • Being able to walk in a ship is not for yet.
  • Repair drones are something interesting to them.
  • Mining Laser Turrets are confirmed.
  • Edward announced that we have not yet seen the best of this update 2.3.

 

Multicrew Gallery