So they rolled a massive patch last night for this. I am honestly pretty amazed and impressed at the scope of this game already -- especially given how little hype the 'open world' component has received. The combat is fluid and it looks great even on a low-medium spec machine. Still trying to figure a lot of it out, but my initial impression has been really positive.
Yep
New features:
-
Expanded playable bubble to 21 ly radius (@50 systems)
- Added Viper, Imperial Fighter (AI only), Lakon Type 6
- Added text chat, voice comms
- Added missions
- Added fuel consumption
- Add support for friends management
- Allow matchmaking through jump to specific island
- Supercruise supports multiplayer
- Add RandomEvents to the current interdiction functionality. Random locations will now be spawned in front of the player while in supercruise
- For new bounties & fines, adding a "Local Security Office" to the contacts menu
- Added server moderated bounties vouchers
- Docking computer added
- Added trade route visualisation to galaxy map
- Add system connections based on fuel to galaxy map
- Added new paintjobs
- Gas giant features dervived from stellar forge data
- Chaff launcher stops scans and confuses tracking weapons but doesn't effect missiles
- Added new station variants
- Updated trade commodities
- Smuggler AI behaviours added
- Art updates for Orbis station
- Added new pilot animations
etc.
The full patch notes are massive on
Beta 1 Available for Download - Frontier Forums