This is Witchspace News for Friday the 16th of September 2022. I'm Commander Burr. An Elite Dangerous News this week. Console Account Copy Process goes live. Horizons 4.0 launches with some controversy and AXCZs featuring capital class vessels return, but with a twist. If you enjoy our videos please do like and subscribe. Don't forget to click the little bell icon and turn on all notifications to ensure you see our Elite Dangerous videos and community posts. And if you'd like to directly support our work on this channel you'll also find our Patreon linked below. The Console Account Copy System promised by Frontier after the cancellation of the console version of Elite Dangerous Odyssey went live this week after the announced period of intensive testing last week concluded. The system allows commanders on the PlayStation or Xbox platforms to copy the vast majority of their commanders' progress and assets from the now static console side of the game over to the PC side of the game. Where onward development as well as plot progression is proceeding exclusively. The word copy is important as well. The account being copied will still be playable on the console after a copy is made onto the PC side, but any progress made on either platform will remain exclusive to that platform. The only items that can't be copied across are things like fleet carriers because they're persistent across all versions already. Squadron and friends or block lists as they're not relevant across versions and any remaining arcs balance with Frontier encouraging those arcs points instead to be spent before the copy happens as the purchased assets will then exist on both accounts. Overall the copy system has generally been met with approval by the community and does for the most part seem to have gone fairly smoothly despite apparently being quite heavily used, particularly once the news started to circulate widely. That it was available. Currently there is no date for the service to end. All Frontier have said at the moment is that before it finishes they will give the community plenty of warning. As we reported earlier in the week, three systems in the bubble came under apparent Thargoid attack this week when AX conflict zones spring up in the bubble followed by a trio of community goals in support of defense efforts against those attacks. Unusually for a Thargoid assault the starports in the three affected systems have been left intact. Meanwhile there are now three unknown interstellar anomalies that are being tracked by multiple commanders making their way seemingly inexorably toward the bubble. Their final destinations are as yet at least unknown. After the three system invasions appeared this week a Gellnet article arrived stating that the federation was dispatching several Farragut class battle cruisers to assist in the defense. True to their word the three targeted systems do now have AXCZs within them featuring resident federation battle cruisers. These are of a similar type to those seen at the Battle of HIP22460 and the cruisers will indeed fire on the attacking Thargoids. In a twist on the instances seen in the run up to the firing of the Proteus wave however the larger Thargoid vessels in these encounters appear to be present with their swarm of Thargon drones intact and very much active. In the previous versions of this encounter the Thargon swarm whilst present was in fact passive and just followed its parent vessel through the fight without actually engaging. As was the case in the past times with these instances they are an excellent opportunity to try out your Thargoid smacking prowess even if you're not directly participating in the community goals. The value of a large solid object covered in guns that's firing at the Thargoid alongside you cannot be overstated if you're just looking to loose off some practice rounds. Just a couple of days after the console account copy system was launched Elite Dangerous Horizons 4.0 arrived on the scene. For the uninitiated way back in the head more innocent days before Odyssey launched it was announced by Frontier as always part of the plan that the vanilla version of the game now commonly referred to as Horizons would be upgraded to reflect the Odyssey graphics refresh, interface changes and planetary terrain rendering. Right before the Odyssey expansion launched that plan was put on hold but promised for a later date. Odyssey as we know has had a year plus of updates and patches to bring it to the place it's in today and in this altogether calmer landscape the Odyssey codebase refresh has now been made available to Horizons commanders to try out. The original Elite Dangerous Horizons codebase is referred to by Frontier as 3.8 the Odyssey era codebase is known as 4.0. Along with the obvious graphical and rendering changes the new era 4.0 codebase is able to handle some new storytelling elements that we're starting to see arrive in the game now. The Proteus Wave Site Phenomena that is visible from orbit in HIP22460 or the inbound Stargoid anomalies being the most obvious examples. So if you're on Horizons on PC you do now have the opportunity to test the engine upgrade out for yourself, see if they are to your liking and importantly test to see if they'll run on your rig or the Odyssey being somewhat more resource intensive than it's now nearly a decade old parent product. The launch has however not been without controversy and has sparked no small degree of community grumbling. Predominantly due to Peggy rating issues Horizons 4.0 and Odyssey won't instanced together. You can't have the lower age rated product of Horizons displaying gun violence against humans which is one of the tenets of Odyssey gameplay. That would change its rated content post release and lawsuits would then likely be firing off left and right as a result. This has been known for some time. However, right before the update dropped it suddenly became apparent via a forum post from Frontier that Odyssey commanders wouldn't have the option to drop into Horizons 4.0 to play alongside their non-oddly owning friends. If you own just Horizons you have access to Horizons 3.8 and Horizons 4.0. If you own Odyssey you have access to Horizons 3.8 and Odyssey but not Horizons 4.0. If you want to instanced with your Horizons friends and experience the new story and content etc they need to buy Odyssey. The end result of all this is that Horizons 4.0 is essentially a tech demo or a free taster of what to expect, albeit a necessary one. As I've mentioned Odyssey has some significant system requirement overheads that just weren't necessary with 3.8 and if folks are going to make the leap then it's sensible to give them a test pop first to make sure it's going to work for them. The problem with the Horizons 4.0 launch ever since it was first announced has been the muddled messaging and slow erosion of features. For example when originally discussed with the community some significant time ago now, Horizons 4.0 was pitched as being able to instanced with Odyssey in space at least, that then apparently changed. Had Frontier been up front right from the start saying commanders who own Odyssey won't have access to Horizons 4.0 then likely the current backlash they're facing wouldn't have been an issue. It's the perceived removal of some anticipated functionality together with further segregation and dilution of the community between now five versions of the game that is causing the issue. Frontier quite rightly wants everyone on PC playing Odyssey and in order for Elite Dangerous to have any kind of meaningful future as many people as possible need to buy the product and move across, making it more profitable for Frontier. That's just practical commercial realities and I don't personally have a problem with that. Odyssey is a great product and it's got some fascinating, engaging, challenging gameplay in it as I type these words. And I believe there is much more on the horizon for it, no pun intended. As I've mentioned, it's the expectation management from the corporate entity of Frontier that has in this instance again sadly let them down. It's a difficult line that Frontier has to walk, the level of their communication at the sharp end has been significantly improved of late and I'd hate to see that rolled back because of a bad experience like this. I understand plans change in game development particularly for a live service game like Elite but if those changes could be solidified internally before then being communicated in a more timely manner to the community then problems like this could be avoided in the future. With all that said, what's happened this week in what was a fairly monumental week for the game should now be the final hurdle for the community and for FDEV in an Odyssey saga that began with the expansions launch some 16 months ago. Consolid Count copies are now available PC horizons commanders can now try out the Odyssey engine and for the Odyssey and horizons 4.0 players the story arc of Elite Dangerous is finally moving forward into new and unknown territory. Have you been trying horizons 4.0? Have you perhaps tried Odyssey for the first time this week and just what do you think the Thargoids or indeed the Stargoids are up to? Let us know in the comments below. That's it for now. Thanks very much for watching. We'll be back later this week with more videos. Until then, O7 Commanders follow the Greens on the way out and do keep clear of the Toast Track. We very much look forward to seeing you next time.