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Frontier promises to fix Elite Dangerous' bug-ridden update with early May patch

Plus, an overhaul of multicrew coming soon.

Elite Dangerous developer Frontier has announced plans to release a patch designed to squash the many bugs introduced into the game with the recent The Commanders update.

The hotly-anticipated 2.3 update came out this month and got off to a rough start. Among many issues, the update caused a galaxy-wide sim failure, with huge influence swings in systems that made the work players had put in pointless. In response, Frontier had to trigger a galaxy rollback.

Yesterday, Frontier took to the Elite Dangerous forum to announce update 2.3.01, due out "early May".

Fixes include (but are not limited to) the below list:

  • Galaxy map UI tag not pointing to selected target body
  • Packhounds having infinite ammunition
  • Multicrew bug fixes
  • Various Stability improvements across the board
  • Missing Galnet articles will be fixed
  • Xbox main menu softlock will be fixed
  • Large frame rate drop when friends log in to the game

The Packhounds infinite ammo bug is worth explaining. For some reason the 2.3 update gave Packhound launchers infinite ammo and no heat generation when fired by crewmates. This means you can get spectacular space missile effects as seen in the video below, but it's not particular fair if you're on the receiving end.

Cover image for YouTube video2.3 Multicrew Packhound Bug

While players have welcomed the announcement, many are upset they're having to wait so long for Elite Dangerous to - in their eyes - become playable again. As many players have pointed out on the Elite Dangerous forum, a lot of these game-breaking bugs were reported back in the long-running beta for The Commanders, and yet they made it into the full release.

Elsewhere, the multicrew feature is changing. Multicrew launched with The Commanders update but the general feeling is that while it's fun, there's not much to it and there's not much of an incentive to stick with it. Yesterday, Frontier outlined an overhaul of the feature that should make it a lot more interesting.

There's a planned significant payout increase, rebuy cost reduction for players hosting multicrew sessions in their ships, and helm safety measures.

Here's senior community manager Edward Lewis on the helm safety measures:

"We've been actively listening to feedback from the community and one thing we've seen is a number of requests for greater protection for hosts of multi-crew sessions and improved safety measures.

"That's why we're going to be introducing two new function controls for the role of Helm. The first change will allow Helm to toggle limited access for the Gunner role. When toggled on the Gunner will only be able to use weapons, not utilities (such as shield cells), and only Helm will be able to deploy and retract the ship's hardpoints. When toggled off the Gunner will have full access as they do now.

"The other change will allow Helm to toggle the availability of the Fighter Con role - this will stop people launching fighters until Helm turns the toggle off."

On multicrew, the first two changes (payout increase and rebuy cost reduction) are coming as part of a server-side update in the next few working days, with the Helm safety measures coming as part of update 2.3.1 (this is separate from the 2.3.01 patch mentioned above).