Frontier's final stream covering features of the Beyond chapter one series ended earlier tonight and here is the final summary regarding engineers, storage and material traders:

Engineers

  • There will be no changes in mod blueprint cost
  • No changes to the way engineers are unlocked
  • New visuals that show upgraded stats of modifications are being added
  • Each mod grade needs to be unlocked the same way as now (rolling for grades, bringing specific items/data to engineers...)
  • The general progress is apparently significantly faster in the new system
  • Number of mod grades haven't changed – so there are still 5 grades
  • Grade penalties are marked in red, grade upgrades in blue
  • No more RNG penalties - they are a fixed value now
  • The amount of progress is still RNG (each roll has a random amount that fills your progress towards the next grade)
  • The smaller number in the grade marker icon shows your current stat value, and the large value shows the max stat for that grade roll
  • Dotted lines display how far away you are from the next grade
  • Experimental effects are no longer RNG - you can simply purchase them for a specific number of materials
  • New experimental effects have been added
  • Secondary effects have been removed
  • Existing engineered modules are not going to be reset, but players will have the option of converting them to the new system
  • Converted modules will drop down one grade
  • The new modules will end up being better than old rolls in the long run because they can be upgraded to the best stats while the old ones required godrolls or very lucky RNG combination of stats and secondaries
  • Each grade unlock should take 2-5 rolls while grade 4 and 5 will take a few extra rolls to level up, so in the long run - leveling each module will take less time than before where people kept rolling hundreds of rolls to get best stats
  • The new system is much clearer with progression in mind, especially to new people that haven't done any engineering so far
  • Overall, most modules with max grade rolls will be better than old mods
  • Experimental weapons effects can't be stacked - they can be swapped though
  • Experimental effects can be removed
  • Fighters / Fighter bays can't be engineered
  • Pinned blueprints can be generated in all major stations, however you can't apply experimental effects there
  • At the moment - only one blueprint can be pinned (slight chance it will get changed later)
  • All current reputation with the engineers will stay saved after the new system gets implemented. This way current players don't have to level all the module grades all over again
  • Current modules with G5 rolls with stats around 75% of max rolls will be better off if converted to the new system

Storage

  • Storage is no longer a single inventory
  • Every material will have a "personal" cap - currently set to 100 (both data and material storage)
  • Module storage is not planned to be expanded at the moment

Small UI changes

  • Contacts panel shows materials/quality/quantity
  • Contacts panel allows ignoring items (they are then shown with a different icon and fall to the bottom of the list while being greyed out at the same time)

Material traders

  • NPCs that transfer one type of materials into another with some loss
  • There are various types of material traders, and their location depends on system type
  • Galaxy map has a filter for services that can be used to show locations of material traders
  • Material trader shows a list of materials laid out in rows (type of materials) and columns (quality/grade of each material)
  • Lower tier of the same material can be traded for the higher tier (6 to 1) as well as the other way around (1 to 3)
  • You can't trade between different type of materials

Keelback

  • Willy is finally free! (2nd seat added)

GalNet audio

  • New ship computer voice is being added (Victor)
  • Computer voices can be switched within game options
  • Frontier is working with HCS now and will be bringing in more voices in the future
  • At the moment they will not implement the vast variety of responses like the full HCS voicepacks have in combination with VoiceAttack. The same computer warnings/replies that are currently ingame will be available with Victor
  • Personal callouts can now be changed to your ship ID and/or name
  • GalNet news audio can be played and paused while mid-flight
  • From the GalNet news screen, players can queue the articles or remove them from the playlist
  • Galnet audio is localized for all supported languages of Elite: Dangerous (English, German and Russian showcased during the stream)
  • Controller bindings will be available for controlling GalNet audio
  • It is possible to listen to the stream inside the SRV and the fighter

Planetary surfaces

  • The new planetary textures will be applied to planetary surfaces as well. So not only will the planets look better from space – but once you land as well
  • Better planetary rendering will be implemented later this year and is not part of the current update

And finally, once again - a reminder all of this will be available to PC/Mac users in the beta test starting this thursday, January 25th.