No they implied that colonisation from non bubble start locations might be coming after the beta was complete back when colonisation was still in the future, I don’t think they have said anything about it since, well at least not as definitely.
I've got to admit, I'm getting really tied of the age-old problem of lack of communication from Frontier. For me, and I can only speak for me, Elite Dangerous is a project-based game. I pick a project, be it building a colony, setting out to explore a specific region of space, building rank or credits, or something else. When the project is complete, there's normally a sense of "well now there's really nothing going on" until a new project idea comes along.
This time though it's worse, and for two reasons. Firstly I have built a colony, and I'm all set, with all the commodities needed in place to get started, to build a second colony. But there are so many questions at the moment about how colonisation might change, all based directly on things Frontier have previously said, about the distance out we can build, and building from Colonia into the future, that I'm holding fire until I know more.
I'm also planning a new exploration trip, maybe with a fellow Cmdr, to map around some of the large permit-locked regions out near Colonia, but that's on hold pending any news about the future of colonisation. I don't want two projects going on at once, that's just messy and confusing.
But then, we get the news about the forthcoming Panther Clipper, a ship I personally have been waiting for and getting excited about (on and off) for the last ten years. The problem is this announcement now feels like "Ooh, we're not fixing or finishing what we've got so far, but look... here's something shiny to distract you!" That feels to me like the worst way to treat your customers and audience, like they think we're stupid and can be convinced to look elsewhere and be distracted like it's a conjuring trick.
I want to be playing Elite, being out there and doing stuff, not permanently waiting around for an announcement that'll probably come when I've given up waiting and am half way through doing something else.
Sorry if this comes off as ranty, but this lack of communication, followed by an announcement of "ignore that, we've got shiny new thing incoming" is
really frustrating!
