Elite Dangerous update 1.66 was released today for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. You can get the complete patch notes for this update from here.
There are a number of bug fixes implemented in this new patch according to the developers. Changes have been made to AI and Graphics in addition to general stability and performance improvements. There are some known issues that have been mentioned by the developers that could occur after this new patch. Take a look at the changelog below or see it on the official website.
Elite Dangerous Update 1.66 Patch Notes
Features of Note
- Added an illegal variant of the Settlement Defence mission to provide support to criminal factions being raided by Omnipol.
- The “Pre-Engineered” Frame Shift Drives obtained through recent in-game events can now have experimental effects applied.
- This change also includes descriptions, tooltips, and fixes to various UI flows for many other pre-engineered modules allowing Commanders to better identify which modules are pre-engineered and if they will accept any further modification.
- The development and customer support teams would like to thank everyone who waited patiently for this fix.
- A shipyard terminal has been added to the on-foot areas within detention centres allowing Commanders to recall their active ship rather than being forced to take a shuttle.
- When a player’s bounty is claimed whilst they’re on foot, their active ship will be impounded at the detention centre they’re sent to.
- Added the ability to access a number of UI elements whilst seated, such as the comms panel.
- You can now interact with the Bartender whilst sitting at the bar (within range).
- The screen attached to the Owner’s Chair on the Fleet Carrier is now interactable (whilst seated) and will take the owner to the Carrier Management UI.
AI
- Non-combative humanoid AI are now more effective at removing themselves from combat during raid missions.
- Following the conclusion of a raid, resident humanoid AI are less likely to become hostile with any player who aided them, unless they are provoked.
- Fixed duplication of engineers who spawn inside ship hangars caused by the player repeatedly requesting and cancelling docking.
- Prevented hostility between friendly ships when in the presence of a significant common enemy.
- Fixed bug that would sometimes cause ship-launched fighters to be assigned two AI pilots.
- Fixed a clothing arrangement that was causing clipping on certain NPCs in space stations.
- NPCs in Fleet Carriers will no longer have conversations as if they were in starports.
Audio
- Fixed missing UI sound when selling stock in the Fleet Carrier Management screen.
- Fixed missing elements of the SRV turret’s Audio when firing
- Fixed the SRV’s turret gun shots sounding muffled when ammo count was below 270.
- Fixed Capital Ship and SRV Turret Weapon Fire audio playing on the wrong Audio Emitter Position
- Fixed all ship weapon hardpoints sounding muffled when in normal space.
- Fixed various instances of missing audio for damaged stations (fires, explosions and alarms).
- Fixed missing fire and alarm sounds when logging in to a ship docked at a damaged station.
- Fixed damaged station fire sounds turning on and off quickly and harshly
- Fixed Cuttable panels sound rapidly retriggering when it hits the ground
- Rebalanced NPC conversation frequency in concourses.
- Fixed various issues with music when transitioning between Ship/SRV/On-foot.
- Fixed missing attack swing sounds when performing melee hits with tools.
- Improved audio behaviour of deploy and stow sounds for the Fleet Carrier Captains tablet.
- Fixed the Fleet Carrier purchase movie’s volume not following the game’s volume sliders.
- Fixed some abrupt audio transitions on fumaroles and geysers.
- Rebalanced the audio mix for Skimmers whilst on foot and in SRV
- Fixed ambiences being too loud when logging in to a ship docked at an engineer base.
- Fixed missing In space Dogfight Combat music
- Fixed Stopped various UI sounds which would continue looping after exiting the screen that triggered them.
Character
- Fixed player torsos sometimes disappearing when looking down on uneven surfaces.
- Hand motions of the ship’s pilot should correctly match flight maneuvers when observed via multicrew following a hyperspace jump.
- Fixed several clipping issues on the Vintage outfits.
- Fixed hair appearing alongside hats on the Frontline Solutions vendors.
- Fixed torso clipping with the camera when using an extremely high FOV and sitting on the bar stool.
Ships/SRV
- Ship kits should now correctly block the vanity camera.
- Fixed a Scarlet Krait error when destroying your own ship from a fighter.
- Fixed a rare Scarlet Krait error when deploying an SRV.
- The ambient temperature of the ship’s location is now taken into consideration when a ship is running cold enough to have previously built up ice on the canopy.
Graphics
- Fixed an issue where setting ambient occlusion to “low” would cause artefacts
- Fixed an issue where volumetric effects such as fog could have silhouette artefacts depending on quality or resolution scales
- Fixed an issue where Trespass zones appeared very dark/black on the radar
- Fixed an issue where flickering of invalid pixel values occasionally being generated in ring fog
- Fixed an issue where a triangular pattern would be present in planet normals on certain GPUs
- Fixed an issue where night vision would be applied to thumbnail generation
- Fixed an issue where a black box could appear on the main menu in certain scenarios when either in or switching to VR
- Fixed an issue where the introduction during the on-foot tutorial would not be correctly displayed when in VR
Interactions
- Fixed an issue to ensure the organics heatmap properly initialises to the selected filter when the scan completes instead of defaulting to all
- Fixed incorrect genus names for brain tree organics displaying when selling data
- Guardian site pylons will now emerge when approached on foot and the charging timers are visible while on foot.
- Thargoid surface sites will now open automatically for exits, entry still requires an SRV carrying the correct cargo.
Factions
- Anarchy factions now offer full market value for stolen commodities.
Performance & Optimisation
- Reduced the amount of work required by avatars that are not visible.
- Shadowed lights will now render more efficiently.
- Miscellaneous optimisations to the rendering of all light types.
- Rebalance the use of cached particle lighting, reducing the performance impact of particle-heavy scenes.
- Optimised player proximity checks for terminals in settlements.
- Optimisations to on foot animation blending.
- Improvements to the occlusion system.
Missions
- Fixed some NPCs getting stuck when dropping in during a Defence Mission.
- Fixed a broken inbox message sent during megaship missions.
Fleet Carriers
- Fixed server errors when using Fleet Carrier services that have individual tariffs set.
- Fix a Yellow Adder error when confirming the transfer of items to or from a Fleet Carrier.
- Fixed Fleet Carrier jumps being possible to schedule during cooldown.
Stability
- Fix for anti-xeno conflict zone progression sometimes getting stuck due to authority transfers.
- Fix for issues connecting to telepresence multicrew sessions when near certain planets.
- Fixed an “Unable to load commander data” login error for players with an excessively large bounty.
- Fix a bug preventing players from joining some newly created private groups.
Art
- Fixed several settlement clipping issues.
- The cargo loader found at settlements now has a schematic.
- Added Exobiology ship decals.
- Added some optimisations for holoscreen materials.
- Fixed a number of occlusion issues on doorframes.
- Corrected the model used for a basic door frame.
- Fixed a decal which was incorrectly mirrored.
- Fixed the Fleet Carrier Command Tower’s hitcheck to remedy some issues with the vanity camera.
- Fixed an issue in the Pioneer Supplies Fleet Carrier store where the player could become snagged.
- Various geometry and texture issues resolved in hangars.
- Added some missing decals to the L1 Lod of the Asp Scout.
- Adjusted the nameplate on the Diamondback Scout slightly so it is not partially obscured
- Fixed an area in the Fleet Carrier bar where it was possible to get the vanity camera out of bounds.
- Fixed some z-fighting on the Fleet Carrier’s shutter doors.
- Fixed the shield being slightly offset on the Guardian Fighters.
- Adjusted the fade range of some Thargoid decals used in settlements to improve visuals.
- Fixed some z-fighting on the floor of a depot building.
- Fixed a number of floating decals on a legacy building.
- Remodelled the steps at the side of the Owner’s chair on the Fleet Carrier.
- Various fixes to the Viper MKIV.
- Fixed some edge clipping seen at barnacle sites.
- Fixed a barnacle spike which was pushed underground
- Hitcheck fixes for the Gateway tower arch seen at some Horizons settlements.
- Fixed vanity camera sometimes being able to pass through the window on planet port concourses.
- Fixed a railing model which had an offset LOD.
- Fixed a glass material used on a prop in the habitat building.
- Fixed a problem where the player could become stuck in the Fleet Carrier corridor leading to the bar.
- Fixed a number of floating items appearing at Guardian sites.
- Improved the arm for the Fleet Carrier Owner’s chair screen.
- Fixed an issue with the Python cockpit and some external geometry which was clipping through to the interior.
- Fixed some z-fighting on the main console seen on the Fleet Carrier bridge.
- Centred some UI locators in the Type9 cockpit which were offset slightly.
- Adjusted the hitcheck for the Python to fix an issue with the vanity camera being able to see inside of the hull in places.
- Fixed the hitcheck material for the Electricae organics so that the player ship cannot clip though.
- Re-made the ambient occlusion maps for the Type-9 to remove some baked-in shadows that should not have been there.
- Fixed a number of UV mapping issues on the Anaconda.
- Adjusted and re-organised the materials used for Thargoid damage decals to optimise and improve quality slightly.
- Fixed the Scorpion SRV vanity cameras being inverted for the rear seat.
- Added a layer of hitcheck to the social area lifts to prevent the vanity camera from entering and getting out of bounds.
- Adjusted bar stools so that NPCs and players are now more centred when seated.
- Minor change to Stygian paint jobs to reduce the texture compression artefacts when using a torchlight under the ship.
- Added hitcheck to the Anaconda upper hardpoint doors, fighter bays doors, and the heat vent doors.
- Fixed hitcheck on Anaconda which was causing an issue with the vanity camera.
- Fixed an offset detail dome model used on Fleet Carrier externals.
- Fixed error in the ambient occlusion map for a ship kit piece on the Python.
- Re-exported a number of wallset pieces to fix and improve occlusion culling in Odyssey settlements.
- Fixed the Fleet Carriers seen under construction having a hole where the concourse would normally be.
- Fixed an issue on the upper hard point doors on the Python.
- Fixed an obscure piece of geometry which was clipping through part of the hangar lobby in some “large” hangars.
- Adjusted the Exploration decals to be more metallic and more closely match their appearance in Horizons.
- Fixed a number of mapping issues on an Anaconda Raider ship kit piece.
- Added new occlusion geometry around all stations (Coriolis, Orbis, Ocellus and Asteroid).
- Adjusted internal occlusion geometry for a number of internal station components.
- Fixed seating locators for NPCs/Players on chairs and sofas for better alignment.
- Fixed the offset default VR camera for the Scorpion when in the livery hangar.
- Fixed damage decals appearing in unexpected locations on cargo loaders.
- Fixed head orientation in backwards walking animations to stop a head glitch when 3rd person characters stop running.
UI
- Fixed weapons being ordered incorrectly at Pioneer Supplies.
- Fixed a server error appearing when selling some modified suits.
- Weapon reload speed is now correctly reported as a multiplier, not seconds (e.g. 1x vs 1.25x) as reload speed mods were incorrectly implying they increased reload time.
- We no longer show settlement info when disembarking at places that are not owned or controlled by a faction.
- Adjusted the right-hand panel of the options menu to allow for scrolling, so cut-off descriptions can be viewed in their entirety.
- Improved readability of text on the Carrier Management dashboard’s banner.
- Made sure HUD rings weapon overheats always reset to the correct text colour.
- Updated squadrons applicant list, the button will remain enabled even with no applicants, with a message displaying ‘no applicants’ to prevent the UI from getting into a weird state.
- Multiple icon changes in the various mission panels so that the correct icon size variants are used, preventing them from looking blurry or low-resolution.
- Fixed the boarding panel/express lift UI displaying placeholder information briefly when opened.
- The right-hand cockpit panel will now be correctly focused when opening the transfer UI.
- Made sure all station contact menus are closed properly when necessary, prevents an issue where they would still be visible when closing the game.
- Remove the quick-plot route delay on carriers, it should now plot correctly on the first time.
- We now show all galaxy map search results rather than filtering out duplicates, this prevents edge cases where some results could have the same name and we’d erroneously hide one.
- Mission help popups now correctly listen to the ‘back’ keybinding.
- Fixed an issue where text formatting tags would sometimes be displayed in the info panel.
- Added voice/wing icons to the on-foot HUD in the bottom left, and also made them visible in social spaces.
- Separation of overdraw bar in outfitting for retracted and deployed into their own bars.
- Fixed a variety of truncation issues in multiple UIs.
- Fixed errant multicrew/team markers showing up while not in multicrew turret view.
- Fixed various issues with the private group menu including an issue which may have caused your own private group to show as not created if you are a member of many groups.
- Fixed role switch panel improperly updating AI rank when taking over from a multicrew pilot.
- Frontline enlistment system map mode now shows player criminality status on conflict zones.
- Fixed an issue to hide rotation button prompts in carrier interior livery screen as these bindings cannot be used.
- Fixed an issue to ensure the vessel pane of the internal panel updates properly between ship, SRV, and fighter when transitioning between vessels.
- Players in training simulations will now appear as such in friends lists.
- Fix promotion inbox animations for Elite I-V displaying as one rank lower.
- Fix some crime stats not always updating.
- Telepresence guests will no longer send or receive chat messages based on their physical location.
VFX
- Fix for, and rebalance of previously missing Capital Ship heat relay particle effects.
- Rebalanced plasma accelerator to more closely match Horizons.
- Fix for over-bright lightning in stellar phenomenon that could cause visual artefacts on some GPUs.
- Reduced the proximity of camera shake in the Fleet Carrier elevator, as occasionally players could experience the VFX and audio just by being very close to an elevator.
- Fix for reactor lighting casting bright spotlights across the room.
- Rebalanced the tendril effect on the Guardian Fighter.
General Fixes
- Some modified guardian weapons were applying synthesised ammo damage bonuses improperly. Synthesised ammo will now apply a damage bonus as expected
- Shadows would appear to detach from light sources when looking around in VR
- Passenger missions offered at outposts now set their expectations of passenger capacity based on ships that could have landed on medium pads.
- Secondary objective ships in space Conflict Zones now count towards massacre missions
- Fixed some massacre missions not registering valid targets correctly at mission locations
- NPC visual variety has been fixed
- System maps for systems you are not in will now have distances reported correctly from the primary star
- Guardian fighters will now correctly rearm on docking
- On-foot commander panel should now display notoriety correctly
- Fixed an issue where some suit decals would not be visible when viewed in the vanity camera
- SRV Tutorial ability to break tutorial flow fixed
- Further increased the scale of the small landing pad schematic used at Odyssey settlements
- On foot conflict zone enlistment (Frontline dropships) is now properly wiped when returning to a station
- Fix for Fleet Carrier weekly upkeep message not displaying
- Fixed players sometimes receive system chat messages after they have left the system
- Fix for glasses/sunglasses only appearing at close distances
- Fix a Black Adder error on the first hyperspace jump after travelling onboard a fleet carrier
- Fix for game stuttering when flying away from settlements
- Ship kits will no longer block weapon fire
- Fixed a gridding artefact on some surfaces near planetary settlements on certain GPUs
- Fixed server errors when using Fleet Carrier services that have individual tariffs set
Horizons Update
- Fixed facilities not showing up in system map for stations
- Fixed Capital Ship Weapon Fire audio playing on the wrong Audio Emitter Position
- Anarchy factions now offer full market value for stolen commodities
- Fix a bug preventing players from joining newly created private groups
- Allow pre-engineered modules to have granular modification restrictions applied (e.g. allowing certain CG modules to have experimentals applied)
- Fix server errors when using fleet carrier services that have individual tariffs set
- Fixed a disconnect that could occur while deploying a ship launched fighter
- Fixed a decal which was incorrectly mirrored
- Re-made the ambient occlusion maps for the Type9 to removed some baked in shadows that should not have been there
- Fixed SRV bay contents not showing correctly in advanced SRV trainign scenario, blocking progression
Known Issues
- Cannot use Tap X/Square (XB/PS) input on controller when onfoot. You will need to rebind. This will be addressed in a future update.
