Does this include graphics? Will the look of the game downgraded/locked to xbone abilities?
The look of the game won't be downgraded to XBoxOne abilities, no.
Some forum members have their knickers in a twist right now about consoles crashing their private Elite party, and seize on any render bug as "evidence" that Frontier are "dumbing down" the game for console release... but this strikes me rather disingenuous.
There have been some gfx changes, for sure. What we
do know about graphics evolution of Elite...
- The early versions of ED (alpha, beta) had a higher definition version of the Sidewinder cockpit than we have today. This occurred at or slightly before official game release (December 2014). It's easy to spot by looking at some vents on the left/right of the cockpit - they are no longer perfectly round, but are straight-line approximations. Presumably, this was done for a reason... Sidewinder cockpit rendering was probably chewing resources, and they got changed because it was deemed non-essential for a starter ship at the time. Personally, I don't agree with such things, but hey... I haven't flown a Sidewinder much since 2014, so they might have a point.
- I've just submitted a version 1.3.06
bug report about the "Shadow Quality" options not doing
anything at all, when sitting in an asteroid belt. From OFF through LOW to ULTRA, the changes don't have any effect. This is a bug, pure and simple. So you can disregard any conspiracy theories that involve asteroids and shadows, lol. It's a bug introduced at the upgrade from 1.2 to 1.3... end of story.
The latest version changed things like "space station interior" rendering (ie. how far from the station you have to be before you see the inside) and such.
To someone who is pretty new to the game, this seems like a sudden big Thing. To those of us who were playing through most of 2014, however, it might be viewed differently... because stuff like this (and, in fact,
exactly this) have come and gone, been raised and lowered, many times as versions changed.
I think it was from "Beta 2" to "Beta 3" where the station interior was no longer drawn until you were almost inside. It had been better before, and was put back to its former setting shortly thereafter. Revisiting the same issue? As easy as before to fix? Great... then it's not worth shouting "console conspiracy!".
It's also worth noting that the pre-release 2014 versions weren't perfect either. We saw some detours into Ugly Town along the way. Does anyone remember...
- An entire Beta phase in which most nVidia cards' rendering got
badly broken. And it was broken for weeks and weeks. Oh, the wailing, lol.
- An entire Beta phase in which nearby stars in the skybox got drawn as "Pretty Christmas Stars", with a cross shaped chromatic travesty of ugliness assaulting our eyeballs. More wailing!
- Lens flare that would have made JJ's head explode with excitement. Insanely over-the-top lens flare. You couldn't actually see out of the canopy if you were facing a local star!
But now, all we hear is how perfect it all was then, and how bad it is now.

ED ain't perfect... that's for sure... but I don't think there is an Evil Conspiracy of XBox Inspired Degradation. Sorry to anyone who has purchased an expensive tinfoil hat.
As a final word, if anyone has complaints about 1.3.06 graphics quality in asteroid rings, please head on over to
this thread, perform the same sort of test as the one in my vid, and add your results to the thread. That will help FD a lot. Cheers!