That's what I was hoping for!

Now we just need purple and I'll be a happy camper. :D

Thanks man!

How exactly do they work?

Do you expend a shader to apply one-color to your entire set of armor or piece-by-piece? Do you keep the shader in your inventory permanently or is it expended after each coloring?

Why isn't there purple? </3

In the Alpha, you'd equip the Shader in one of your Vanity slots (same Inventory screen that shows your Ship, Sparrow, and Ghost Shell). Once you did that, any armor you were wearing that had a "Coating" on it (see pic below) would be re-colored to match whatever Shader you had equipped. Changing armor didn't affect the color (as long as it also had the Coating attribute).

The leftmost (me) and center (Biwald) characters in this pic are wearing the FWC shader in the Alpha:

Do you expend a shader to apply one-color to your entire set of armor or piece-by-piece? Do you keep the shader in your inventory permanently or is it expended after each coloring?

Why isn't there purple? </3

The only thing that seemed like it would let me, the shaders, isn't even accessible until Level 20.

In the Alpha, there were Shaders available from the Faction and Crucible vendors, but those disappeared for the Beta. Now the only place I can find them (apart from the Iron Banner guy) is with the nice old lady in Tower North who also sells Emblems, and, as you said, those require Level 20. I hope we get some of those Shaders back for launch, they were really cool.

Also, why can't I customize my colors? :(

The only thing that seemed like it would let me, the shaders, isn't even accessible until Level 20.

There wasn't even a purple one...

(Okay, that was my one really bitchy post about the beta. No more whining.) :)

I am surprised how clumsy some of this stuff is.

For example: when I pick a strike mission the UI says that the difficulty is normal. When I went to change it to hard I saw that my options were level 6 Normal and level 8 normal.

Which normal do I have by default?

When the UI says normal is that 6 normal or 8 normal?

To make sure that I get the harder difficulty I always specifically select 8.

It is possible that the default is 8 and I'm wasting my time, every time?

This is confusing. Why did they abandon easy / normal / heroic / legendary descriptors? No confusion. It was actually more clear in the Alpha, where you selected your difficulty (heroic / legend), then a graph told you if you were geared correctly for that difficulty.

What this new systems seems to be doing is having the level number be the difficulty, then a descriptor is applied to let you know how hard that level will be.

The pointlessness of Orbit neatly dovetails with another quibble I have with The Tower: it feels lifeless. We're sat right on the edge of a massive city, but other than a handful of Guardians at a time, there's not much going on in the Tower. It actually feels quite small and claustrophobic after a while, and the relative lack of NPCs undermines the sense of immersion. I've noticed there are quite a few places where other NPCs might hang out, so possibly the intention is to add more in the full game that aren't relevant during the beta, I'm not sure.

This is the same problem that Bioshock Infinite had - namely that the aesthetics suggested a larger world than what could be mechanically created, resulting in a disconnect. There's not much you can do to fix it besides upping the mechanical complexity of the game, or altering the aesthetics.

Still, remember last choice, would have been best.

For example: when I pick a strike mission the UI says that the difficulty is normal. When I went to change it to hard I saw that my options were level 6 Normal and level 8 normal.

Which normal do I have by default?

When the UI says normal is that 6 normal or 8 normal?

To make sure that I get the harder difficulty I always specifically select 8.

It is possible that the default is 8 and I'm wasting my time, every time?

The lower difficulty is always the default.

The higher difficulty for each mission has the 'heroic' modifier enabled:
"Enemies appear in greater numbers and are more aggressive."
If you've selected the higher difficulty, a little icon for this 'heroic' modifier will appear above the difficulty selection in space. You'll also see it in the bottom right when you press the trackpad to bring up your Ghost in-game.

'Normal' indicates the relative damage scaling. 1 level above and up to 3 levels below your level is 'normal.' You do much less damage per shot to 'hard' level enemies.

Here is my information:

• Easy - "The enemy cowers before you. If your armour and weapons are good enough, victory will be easy." - 4 or more levels below yours.
  
• Normal - "You and your opponents are fairly matched. With determination you will emerge victorious." - 1 level above or 3 levels below.
  
• Hard - "Survival is not guaranteed. Only by demonstrating great skill you triumph against a relentless foe." - 2 or 3 levels above your own.
  
• Very Hard - "The enemy is hungry for battle and ready to bathe in your tears. Only a fool would endure this punishment." - 4 or more levels above your own.

Hard is - perhaps unsurprisingly - really difficult. Enemies take a lot of headshots to kill. I just about managed to scrape through the 4 story missions with a new Hunter character selecting Hard every time. With plenty of deaths and very conservative strategies. As both a Warlock and Titan I got thrashed so gave up on those.

Very Hard only appears if you're a level 4 vs. The Last Array level 8. Depending on how you play, you might already be a level 5+ by the time you get here.

Any point in it?

Apart from the extra challenge, you also seem to get more bonus XP when you complete it the first time. Depending on the level, you'll get between 550 and 1100 extra XP compared to doing it on the lower difficulty. Plus since there are more enemies along the way, you can get a bit more from killing those as you go and not have to 'grind out' as much in other modes.

From the exterior shots of the tower there looks to be a large portion covered in trees. A garden perhaps? Hope we get to spend some time there in the final build.

It is, perhaps, the largest area of the tower, is very serene, and has gorgeous views of the mountains beyond.

But what are all those activities? The ones that aren't utility tasks? Do you just mean selecting destinations?

Right now, that's basically it — but it also encapsulates the social side of things. I guess my perspective is coloured by my experience of similar things in other games, so I'm expecting that ultimately we will get some more rich communication between players, even if it's not directly voice / text chat.

I would like to have the option of picking missions and destinations from the companion app.

I know that not everybody has one but so what? Let them use in-game mechanisms if they don't have a smart phone or tablet or don't want to go to their PC. I'm not advocating removing in-game mechanisms.

Hey if that works for you, sure. I'm really not sure what the point of that is, personally (or indeed the companion app in general… I've not found any significant purpose for it yet).

The Tower might become a ghost town and that would be a pity. The game would lose something but is it worth the hassle and does the tower deserve to live if it has nothing innately interesting about it?

Valid questions that Bungie needs to answer!

basically every orifice was flapping

Also, is it just me or does nobody bother with the gun selling guy? He sells stuff I can't use or stuff that is significantly worse than anything I already have. If what I suspect is true then Bungie will have the stats to confirm this.

I always check all the vendors. Occasionally they have something green that's worth picking up. My Cydonia AR-3 I bought before I was even the right level, because it looked so nice.

And they cordon off the nicest part of the tower - it just seems to be the lobby for that Iron Banner thingy. What a waste of space - literally :-)

From the exterior shots of the tower there looks to be a large portion covered in trees. A garden perhaps? Hope we get to spend some time there in the final build.

That's why The Tower should be the hub of all activity rather than just a place for certain utility tasks.

But what are all those activities? The ones that aren't utility tasks? Do you just mean selecting destinations?

I would like to have the option of picking missions and destinations from the companion app.

I know that not everybody has one but so what? Let them use in-game mechanisms if they don't have a smart phone or tablet or don't want to go to their PC. I'm not advocating removing in-game mechanisms.

If I have my tablet beside me I can:

• give or accept invitations
  
• press the NEXT button to get the next mission
  
• pick up messages without going to the tower
  
• decrypt items
  
• stick stuff in the vault
  
• set a destination

All that without going to orbit or travelling to tower.

The Tower might become a ghost town and that would be a pity. The game would lose something but is it worth the hassle and does the tower deserve to live if it has nothing innately interesting about it?

I agree that two "Normal" settings are confusing, so I've chalked it up to Beta status.

It seems like that's variable based on your level, giving you a "You will find this normal" vs. "You will find this hard", rather than Normal difficulty vs. Hard difficulty.

So you've got the default mode, then you've got it with the "Heroic" modifier. When you're level 2 (for example) the level 2 story mission Restoration lists the Default as normal and Heroic as Hard. But when you're level 8 they'll both be comparatively easy, so they both get listed as Normal.

The difficulty setting options is one of the most dramatic changes from the Alpha, so I would expect that those UI elements are getting tweaked. I agree that two "Normal" settings are confusing, so I've chalked it up to Beta status. Sometimes the level of polish on this Beta is so remarkable that it's difficult to remember that this is pre-release!

Odd, given that the UI is one of the things you would have expected to be the earliest to be nailed down (with release impending). The impression I'm getting is that Bungie stepped out of their comfort zone (for whatever reason) with this new interface direction, and so they're encountering a few snags and places where it's less intuitive than a more traditional d-pad controlled menu.

[*]or sitting ('normal', lotus position, that Japanese one you do in Aikido classes)

正座, literally "proper sitting"