i have never seen any official statement about atmos or space legs, but i could have miss it
Seems like you missed it.
Atmospheric planets:
On December 14, 2012,
David Braben explained the development plan
“What I want to see down on the planet is interesting things, cityscapes, even animals, live trees, being a big game hunter. All of the things that we’ve been very ,very excited about for a long time, we want to be able to realize. The amount of work required to create those things is so huge we want to do it properly. What’s really important is we do each of these things really well. So that sort of thing won’t be included on day one. We don’t want it to be a dull experience where you just go down, you get essentially exactly the same experience wherever you land." “we’ve designed the game with that capability in mind going forward and at a later date we’ll gradually add more functionality to allow you to do that and the game’s richness will gradually increase."[1]
Newsletter #29 confirms that
"Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces" is part of the development plans.
[2] In Newsletter #32 confirms
"Major new features will include planetary landings and even walking around inside ships, stations, and planet surfaces with time."[3]
In 2016, during an AMA with David Braben, this question was asked
"Is there a small team doing any preliminary work on atmosphere landings / walking (in stations etc) currently being looked at? As it is almost there for walking in station..." Braben said
"Yes. We have ongoing work on planets, including atmospheres, planetary life, walking about and lots of other very exciting things for the future."[4]
During a Charity Livestream, David Braben commented that atmospheric planets won't be coming "anytime soon".
On June 15 2017 community manager Dale Emasiri said
"Having spoken to our team at E3, atmospheric landings remains something we are still working towards and the whole studio, including David, is very keen to implement. We'd like to be able to give you an idea of the rough timeframe for it, but unfortunately that’s not possible at the moment - we don’t want to make potentially empty promises to you."[5]
Space Legs:
Since the 2012 Kickstarter campaign there's concept art of extravehicular activities. This ranges from people walking in a station to first person combat and ship repairs. There's a 3D blockout of a
station with a 3D character holding a weapon. Docked ships are loaded with
cargo and flying
drones carry cargo containers.
On 12 March 2015,
David Braben said
"as you can walk around inside your ships, things like leather upholstery are also things that we can do. It’s not a pay-to-win thing but actually makes your ship more shiny."[8]
On March 20, 2015
Braben was asked about the long roadmap ahead and he said (at 5:20):
"Well I'm very excited. I've said over a long time I'm very excited about some features that we will do down the road including things like landing on planets, walking around inside your spaceship, getting out of your spaceship, all of those things I think are very very exciting and obviously those are in the long-term roadmap."[9]
On May 26, 2016 during an AMA with David Braben, this question was asked
"Is there a small team doing any preliminary work on atmosphere landings / walking (in stations etc) currently being looked at? As it is almost there for walking in station..." Braben said
"Yes. We have ongoing work on planets, including atmospheres, planetary life, walking about and lots of other very exciting things for the future."[10]
On 08 April 2016, Braben reiterated that walking around will be a future update. He said:
“There was a lot of discussion prior to and during the Kickstarter project as to whether you should be able to walk around in your ship. We looked at that in great detail. Ultimately we decided the arbiter has to be, ‘Does it make the game more fun?’ Because it’s a lot of extra work and it brings in more constraints. It’s something we will do, but it’ll be in a future update because we need so many things on a human scale for that to be additive and enjoyable.”[11]
On March 10, 2017 during a Q&A at PAX East, lead designer
Sandro Sammarco said Space Legs is way off in the future.
"How will Telepresence and Multicrew work in the future with Space Legs and EVA gameplay? 'Just to set the record straight, Space Legs and EVA gameplay, that's way off in the future. That's a goal. I've talked to David and it's always been part of his core vision for what Elite really is, even from way back in the day, it's always been about you're a person in a real futuristic setting, not just a ship. However, I think it's also fair to say Space Legs is effectively dovetailing a whole new game into Elite. We take steps towards it, it's our end vision, but we're not there yet, we're... it's a long way off. And when it does, by the time, if we get there, if we manage it, I'm sure we'll have the time to sort out any consistencies that need to be sorted out." [68m04s]
[1]
On April 11, 2017 during the The Commanders Release Livestream (at 10:10), Braben confirmed that space legs is coming and is planned, but it's not imminent. A person in the chat asked
"Will we get space legs at some point? If yes don't say when, but answer with long, medium or short." Braben said:
"It's coming, but obviously it's not imminent, but it is coming and it is planned."[12]
On 11 April 2017, Braben's closing statement of a Reddit AMA:
"The future for Elite Dangerous is very exciting, including a whole raft of incredible features, yes including 'space legs' but so many more things too. We have such a great community, and we're really glad that you guys share our passion and support us."[13][14]
On October 4, 2017
Zac Antonaci said
"Spacelegs (as the community are dubbing them) is something that David B and the development team are very excited by and it’s certainly high on the list of features they would like to make. However, as we’ve mentioned before, “Spacelegs” is something further down the line. After 2.4 we’ll be focusing on the core gameplay experience so it’s not something that we will be announcing at Frontier Expo. I do have to say though, I truly hope that the community are excited by the content being revealed at FX."[15]
On January 27, 2018 Sandro Sammarco said
"The team and I all see Space Legs as the feature we will love to add and are at the top of our specification, but it's something that will not happen in the Beyond season. We will talk more about it later."[16][17]
On 31 August 2018 Zac Antonaci posted an important community update with relevant information: "
A while ago, our development went from pre-production into full production on our next major milestone of Elite development. What that means in the simplest terms is that the team are actively working on the next major landmark which takes us into our next era for Elite. We aren’t going to be ready to talk about or announce any details for quite a while yet, it is early in the development and there is still a long way to go, but I can say that this is something that will be scheduled to release a considerable time after the final update in theBeyond series. We will have more details on exactly what this means and how the era will roll out after the release of Beyond – Chapter Four, but this does mark some exciting next steps and a continued commitment to the long term vision for the game and our community."
[18]
When Wolvie said
"Thanks for the update Zac, it's good to hear some honest comments as things have been quiet for several months on the Focused Feedback. I'm a Beta Backer with Lifetime Expansion Pass and have always seen Elites development as a journey not a race, I'm looking forward to what comes next."[19]
Antonaci responded:
"Thanks Wolvie, I hope you enjoy the next leg of the journey."[20]
https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/File:Commander_Chronicles_Lift-Off
On June 26, 2018, Frontier released the cinematic video
Commander Chronicles: Lift-Off. This was the first time that we could clearly see a
pilot walk in-game. It shows a commander walking on a
landing pad in a
station. He uses a lift to get to the entry door of the
krait MkII. The door opens and he walks inside. There are 2 other pilots in the cockpit. He proceeds to sit in the pilot seat. The
ship lifts off, departs the station and jumps into
hyperspace.
[21]