More than 26000 contributors to the CG

[Surprize960]

With the new modules, the Mandalay will carry 129 tons with >1200 MJs shields and 1300 armor, armed to the teeth, jumps north of 55 LYs, with all the equipment for all multi-role puposes (limpets, DSS, PVH, Scoop).

The 33 tons increase will allow taking on high value cargo missions without sacrificing some fun along the way. So perfect for smaller ships.

 

[Kira Goto]

Biggest ever CG is about hauling and coincides with the introduction of the largest cargo ship.
Reward is 4(!) cargo racks with slightly bigger capacity when in top 75%.
This is going to set the THERE'S_MORE_TO_ED_THAN JUST_SPACE_TRUCKINGsayers back significantly.

In all fairness, this isn’t the first time we’re seeing something like it.

While I don’t have a particular memory of how many players were there, the Python MKII had just been released for early access when Thargoid Titan Hadad became open to direct assault (I’m sure it had nothing to do with it being the furthest one at over 30k ls, heavily encouraging use of SCO… but it probably was just a coincidence in players’ choosing of the order which benefitted Frontier) and it had a record time kill of less than two days, barely even allowing the weekend to start off before it was brought down.

Normally they’d take a minimum of at least three [not counting Frontier meddling with Titan hitpoints in obvious ways after said massacre], so it’s fairly safe to say there was a fair interest in that combat ship at the time. There was also a lot of unhappy people who didn’t get a shot (pun not intended) because it was obliterated so quickly finishing on early Saturday [in Europe].

The main takeaway is of course that releasing an activity-appropriate ship in a certain time will naturally draw in players much more. … while admitting the Python II benefitted from being the first “new”/ship variant in a long time too.

And I’m sure your comment wasn’t made entirely seriously, or as a bit of a poke, but figured I’d mention it anyway, since we are on the subject of record breaking with this CG.

 

[SlickPBW]

Steamcharts numbers in terms of absolutes might be off (I'm not playing via Steam either) but it's still useful for trend analysis. And as @Darth Ender stated, it looks like player numbers pointed down since a relative peak in March 2025, unless suddenly most new players all rushed to Frontier's store (despite its notorious lack of regular discounts compared to Steam).

Ah. steamcharts. This is what everyone cites as data. They measure something, that’s for sure: the people who play via Steam. What percentage of all players is this? There’s no way to know. But they don’t have anything to do with FD actual, nor their future business plans. I don’t play via steam so it doesn’t count me, but that doesn’t say anything either.

For me, and I’m only speaking for myself, the most encouraging indicators are the significant amount of recent development and attention that ED is continuing to get FOR A 10 YEAR OLD GAME. New ships, PP 2.0, Colonization, Vanguards; not to mention the little things like cosmetics, community goals, livestreams, and similar. For me, I can’t fathom a business model where a DOOMsayer perspective matches in any way with FD’s business actions recently, and throughout ED’s 10 year reign so far. For me, it’s quite the opposite outlook being demonstrated by the company.

Yep, as much as it’s cringeworthy, I’m going to quote myself:

This is going to set the DOOMsayers back significantly.

 

[HansAcker]

Would be interesting to know how many delivered more than say. 100 tons.

The 75% line was around 3000 tons when I joined and it is still below the ~6000 tons I delivered.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

Ah. steamcharts. This is what everyone cites as data.

Yeah, it's crazy isn't it. Sole source of relevant data gets quoted a lot. Whoda thunk it.

For me, and I’m only speaking for myself, the most encouraging indicators are the significant amount of recent development and attention that ED is continuing to get FOR A 10 YEAR OLD GAME. New ships, PP 2.0, Colonization, Vanguards; not to mention the little things like cosmetics, community goals, livestreams, and similar. For me, I can’t fathom a business model where a DOOMsayer perspective matches in any way with FD’s business actions recently, and throughout ED’s 10 year reign so far. For me, it’s quite the opposite outlook being demonstrated by the company.

Yep, as much as it’s cringeworthy, I’m going to quote myself:

As cringeworthy as it may be to remind people constantly - No Man's Sky released in 2016, and that is also still getting -free- updates regularly (without the devs going bust somehow!). X4 Foundations released in 2018, still getting beefy free and paid updates very regularly, only getting better with each, and its Steam stats is about half of what Elite pulls (and probably closer to the real figures, too). Devs in no apparent financial troubles either. ETS2 released in 2012, enjoying fantastic support and updates still. These are just a few examples from my personal library, I'm sure there's tons more out there I'm not aware of.

Elite isn't as special as some people here think it is when it comes to longevity*.

*edited for clarity

 

[Cheese Helmet]

Here's hoping they don't rest on their laurels and use the momentum to go after more core game system improvements, as well as new gameplay loops to retain those numbers

 

[vanFace]

Elite isn't as special as some people here think it is.

But you've just perfectly described in which way it IS special: FDEV it is not doing what apparently all the others are doing.
I suspect that this is because they are a bigger company with a diverse portfolio of games, and committed quite some management oopsies in the past. So in order to keep the lights on for our beloved game - which happens to be maintained by a company taking questionable turns here and there - special measures have to be in place. P2W is such a special measure, and it seems to work out perfectly fine. We can now argue that we are just paying for stupid decisions done by some people in that company (and I might agree), but in the end it doesn't even matter.

 

[Jmanis]

'Build it and they will come' Frontier giving players new reasons to log on in a live service game.

What's the new reason? Isn't this CG just a fairly standard "deliver X goods"?

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

But you've just perfectly described in which way it IS special: FDEV it is not doing what apparently all the others are doing.
I suspect that this is because they are a bigger company with a diverse portfolio of games, and committed quite some management oopsies in the past. So in order to keep the lights on for our beloved game - which happens to be maintained by a company taking questionable turns here and there - special measures have to be in place. P2W is such a special measure, and it seems to work out perfectly fine. We can now argue that we are just paying for stupid decisions done by some people in that company (and I might agree), but in the end it doesn't even matter.

This is getting a bit off-topic so will leave it at that after this post I promise Dear Mods, but what makes FDev special (imho) is how much they charge for content of often questionable quality (be it skins with low res/borked patterns, low-effort ship kits, cosmetics as basic as laser/thruster colours, naming self-built stations, per station, etc etc.). They get away with it due to a passionate fanbase but it is remarkable that they do.

And yeah, the other IPs in their portfolio are a handful of very successful park sims, and quite a lot of duds that cost them a fortune. Imagine all that R&D money for those went to Elite instead... ugh.

PS - also edited my original comment you replied to as the intent was a more narrow statement than originally posted.

 

[KRISXR]

My fault, I just bought a kitty for my most junior alt and have moved a few units of CMM composites, need to get him up to trade elite, you understand. Went up 2 ranks with 2 loads! (He had 372 Arghs left in his pocket after the Kitty)

Isn't that crazy! After my almost nine and half year hiatus (lol i called it a hiatus) I participated in the first hauling CG since my Nov '24 return, I think it was the, omgosh Minerva again, delivering goods for the Trailblazers launch and went up to elite IV. It took me six and a half months back in the day to get to trade elite. I quadrupled that in a few nights of trading.

I like the big racks.

Flimley

Well, I like all racks, just something about them. And I'm only 11 and a half years old! (well some of my humor is at least)

Shout out to Helmut Grokenberger, I watched Lave Radio last night and you had some funny comments. I also think the game needs a ship called the Bushmaster. It's a cool name, for the adult and kid that I tend be both of.

 

[Freyar]

What's the new reason? Isn't this CG just a fairly standard "deliver X goods"?

It feeds into the following:

• Gives players spending money on PCMKII to exercise its benefits immediately.
• Gives players considering the PCMKII a quantifiable observation of what the PCMKII's haulage benefits are.
• Gives players interested in hauling a currently unobtainable set of modules that furthers the PCMKII's benefits (as well as other ships).
• Feeds in a significant credit faucet for the upcoming Vanguards update.
  • I expect significant costs standing those up in any meaningful way.
• Slows colony construction a good deal since cargo throughput is a shared statistic between both of those goals.
• By extension with the credit faucet, gives people the significant opportunity to earn enough for their own fleet carriers, accelerating future colonization efforts.

The goal at it's base is a very standard "deliver x goods", but feeds into many other areas of the game.

 

[Pville_Piper]

I like the big racks.

Flimley

Hooo-raaaayyy for big racks!

Oh, wait... We were talking about ships?

 

[DrakeAurum]

Hooo-raaaayyy for big racks!

Oh, wait... We were talking about ships?

I generally prefer standard racks than engineered ones, but these do seem very impressive.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Isn't that crazy!

I did a few hours hauling last night and this morning and made the 4 promotions to get elite - so access to Jameson & a discount!
Now onto trying to make sense of PP2 with him. (the account was bought with the intent of doing stuff my outlaw gang wouldn't) Although I'm not sure how long I can remain Lawful...

Funny ol' game, innit!

 

[Cheese Helmet]

But you've just perfectly described in which way it IS special: FDEV it is not doing what apparently all the others are doing.
I suspect that this is because they are a bigger company with a diverse portfolio of games, and committed quite some management oopsies in the past. So in order to keep the lights on for our beloved game - which happens to be maintained by a company taking questionable turns here and there - special measures have to be in place. P2W is such a special measure, and it seems to work out perfectly fine. We can now argue that we are just paying for stupid decisions done by some people in that company (and I might agree), but in the end it doesn't even matter.

Calling p2w a special measure is a reach. It's monetization, where they sell pieces of the game to you ship by ship at around 1/3 of its original purchase price. A special measure would be ramping up development, addressing core issues, integration of features in need of such, etc.

 

[Neilski]

Progress has accelerated again the prediction has gone from 82% complete by the finish time to 100% five days early.

Nah, I think this is just part of the normal daily cycle - the Inara "estimated completion" figure appears to average over only a few hours worth of progress, so it ramps up and down each day with the "contributions per hour" figure shown in red in the first pic below.
If anything, the daily progress is continuing to flatten off, albeit slowly (second pic).

 

[SlickPBW]

Yeah, it's crazy isn't it. Sole source of relevant data gets quoted a lot. Whoda thunk it.

Yeah. Data. But not from FD actual. Please explain to everyone, using this data, how many people are playing ED. If it’s useful data then this should be trivial.


Edit: I’ll make it as easy as I can for you: using steam chart data, show (only) that ED is doing well or poorly. Surely if data is useful it can show that.

As cringeworthy as it may be to remind people constantly - No Man's Sky released in 2016, and that is also still getting -free- updates regularly (without the devs going bust somehow!). X4 Foundations released in 2018, still getting beefy free and paid updates very regularly, only getting better with each, and its Steam stats is about half of what Elite pulls (and probably closer to the real figures, too). Devs in no apparent financial troubles either. ETS2 released in 2012, enjoying fantastic support and updates still. These are just a few examples from my personal library, I'm sure there's tons more out there I'm not aware of.

Elite isn't as special as some people here think it is when it comes to longevity*.

And these are all true, and in no way mean DOOM for ED. What’s your point?

 

[RadiKyle]

The boycott was promoted by disgruntled vintage Cutter/T9 owners. Can't have anything topping their end game ships!

CMDR Disco Stu: "Did you know that Cutter and T9 sales were up 400% for the year ending 3302?..."

Spoiler

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Edit: I’ll make it as easy as I can for you: using steam chart data, show (only) that ED is doing well or poorly. Surely if data is useful it can show that.

That one is pretty easy, even with a restriction to only use that data and not cross-check it at all

1) Assume that Steam users are not massively unrepresentative of the wider user-base (since they are the wider user-base, this is almost certainly safe)
2) Take a six-month moving average (to smooth out the effects of spikes around releases and troughs between them) of the average player count [1]
3) Note that the figures are higher now than they were during almost all of the pre-pandemic period
4) Assume that if ED had been doing badly pre-pandemic Frontier would have given up on it, so it must have been doing reasonably well back then
5) Therefore it's probably doing well now, too.

[1] Or peak player count if you like, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.

 

[SlickPBW]

That one is pretty easy, even with a restriction to only use that data and not cross-check it at all

1) Assume that Steam users are not massively unrepresentative of the wider user-base (since they are the wider user-base, this is almost certainly safe)
2) Take a six-month moving average (to smooth out the effects of spikes around releases and troughs between them) of the average player count [1]
3) Note that the figures are higher now than they were during almost all of the pre-pandemic period
4) Assume that if ED had been doing badly pre-pandemic Frontier would have given up on it, so it must have been doing reasonably well back then
5) Therefore it's probably doing well now, too.

[1] Or peak player count if you like, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.

Thanks. No DOOM indicated. And it matches with all the obvious signs.