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Elite: Dangerous’ New Year server hiccups created a bit of a mess

Elite: Dangerous' New Year server hiccups created a bit of a mess

The New Year brought with it countless hangovers, the stale smell of spilled booze and, in my case, the loss of my favourite scarf. But it was much worse out in the cold depths of space. 

On January 1st, Elite: Dangerous had some server issues which led to broken missions, stuck cargo, vanishing ships and exploits. Frontier is still cleaning things up, according to an announcement made yesterday. 

After the disruption on the 1st, Frontier refunded players for lost transactions and cargo as well as a 20 percent bonus, but that wasn’t a smooth process, either. Some pilots ended up winning the lottery, receiving up to 5 billion credits.

These players won’t be banned, since it wasn’t their error, however, Frontier is handling it on a case by case basis, but some of these players might not be eligible for the Race to Elite competition if they have an unfair advantage due to the mistake.

Problems continued until the 3rd, but after going through the database again, Frontier reckons that it’s got rid of the gremlins.

This database bug created an exploit which some unscrupulous space cowboys have used to create credits. Unlike the players who received extra cash by mistake, action might be taken against them for being naughty.

The result of all this is a new server status dashboard that’s going to be stitched onto the launcher. The developers will be using it to communicate any server issues, which is pretty standard for online games these days.

Did any of you lovely folk fall foul of these hiccups last week?