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Hi everyone,

This week has seen the release of the latest Mac beta build. As always I’d like to thank everyone testing the build and providing feedback – it is much appreciated and please continue to do so! The Mac team are currently focused exclusively on the Mac build in isolation, but in a few weeks we’ll run a combined Mac and PC crossplay test. I’ll post more details on that as we approach that test.

We’re only one week away from the Powerplay announcement, but in the meantime I have more ancillary goodness that will form part of the update alongside the new features. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the new drones that are coming and I have one more to tell you about – the prospector drone. This can be fired off to investigate an asteroid and determine its metal/mineral composition. Like all of the other drones (and limpets) each unit occupies a cargo slot and requires an appropriate module to control the type. So you need a cargo hatch breaker module and a collection drone controller to deploy either of those types of drone. The drones are universal and it is up to the controller to determine the actions of the launched drone.

While it does make some of the mining gameplay easier the main reason for adding the drones is to provide scalability for mining (in particular) thus making the larger ships more useful in that role. I also mentioned that there would be more love for mining beyond the new drones and here it is. Two new mining minerals are being added – painite and osmium. There will also be a bonus in created minerals or metals when mining at resource extraction sites. Beyond that we will have low and high intensity resource extraction sites. At low intensity sites there is lower output for mining, but also a heavier system authority presence and lower pirate presence. For the high intensity sites this is reversed, so is more dangerous with more pirates and less security, but also greater rewards for mining there.

It’s not all about miners of course. Continuing from last week’s details on the new mission system there’s another change that I can tell you about. Currently targets for missions are found in USSs (Unidentified Signal Sources), this will remain the case for some targets, but others like assassination targets will have to be hunted down in supercruise before they can be taken out.

Thanks!

Michael