Narrative
New ships
- Commander Chronicles (Cinematic Shorts):
[*=1]Retaliation (Sept 2017)
[*=1]Devastation (Dec 2017)
[*=1]The Deal (Feb 2018)
[*=1]Lift-Off (Jun 2018)- New planetary sites added, with audio logs - Video
Missions and Scenarios
- The Challenger
[*=1]A modified version of the Alliance Chieftain, the Alliance Challenger has been envisaged as a frontline combat vessel. With a generous complement of hardpoints, the Challenger can more than hold its own in a fight, and although it weighs more than its sister ship, it has retained the Chieftain’s characteristic agility. It also has stronger armour than the Chieftain, allowing it to soak up a significant amount of punishment.
[*=1]Specifications: Hardpoints: 1 Large - 3 Medium - 3 Small. Multi-crew capable (+1 seat).
[*=1]Video: Lavecon 2018
[*=1]Images:
- The Krait Mk II
[*=1]The Krait MkII is a reimagining of the Krait Lightspeeder, which was originally manufactured by Faulcon DeLacy in the 3100s. Although the new ship is larger than the original, it possesses many of the same characteristics, emphasising speed, manoeuvrability and firepower over defensive capability. The ship also boasts a fighter bay and space for up to two crew members, making it a good option for those seeking a medium-weight, multipurpose vessel.
[*=1]Specifications: Hardpoints: 3 Large - 2 Medium. Medium ship. Multi-crew (+2 seats) and fighter bay capable.
1984 Original:
Frontier Expo 2017:
[video=youtube;cz5JVeOTv-8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz5JVeOTv-8[/video]
PCGamesN:
Megaship and Installation Interactions
- First introduced in Chapter One of Beyond, we are introducing a Wing Mining Mission for you and your fellow Commanders to take on!
- Added new high threat USS's, and missions that can direct players to them/
Technology Broker
- In a similar fashion to the Megaship interactions, which were introduced in Chapter One, Commanders will now be able to scan and interact with Space Installations.
[*=1]Scan – Scanning the installation will allow Commanders to see what they can interact with: Turrets, Comms Arrays and Cargo Bays.
[*=1]Turret hack – Disable turrets protecting other potential hackable points. This will deactivate security measures put in place to protect the Comms Arrays and Cargo Bays.
[*=1]Comms array – Get tradable data from the Comms Array.
[*=1]Cargo bay – Fire a limpet on the Cargo Bay to unlock and steal commodities and materials.- Video: Medical Installation Scanning
- Added Escape Hatch interaction points to damaged megaships - Escape Hatches
Thargoids
- There are now large variants of weapons available at Guardian Tech Brokers and Human Tech Brokers, including the return of the Guardian FSD Booster module!
- These Tech Brokers will issue blueprint requests to collect Guardian data as well as materials and then, once delivered, will unlock certain Guardian modules or weapons for purchase.
[*=1]Large Plasma Shock Cannon (Fixed, Gimbal, Turret) - Image
[*=1]Large Guardian Shard Cannon (Fixed, Turret) - Image
[*=1]Large Guardian Plasma Launcher (Fixed, Turret) - Image
Crime&Punishment Changes
- Thargoids continue to be an intergalactic menace! With the Alliance introducing a new ship, the Thargoids intend to up their game too, introducing new Scouts that will buff other Scouts and increase their combat efficiency.
- Players can now hand themselves in to security contacts, if they have outstanding bounties, and a zero notoriety rating. Players that hand themselves in will pay off the bounty and be deported to the nearest detention center
- Relaxed the friendly fire thresholds against NPC ships, to lower the amount of erroneous crimes being handed out
- Notoriety now decays whilst the player is docked
- Players current notoriety level displayed in cockpit will no longer be potentially out of date
- Relaxed the rules for Multicrew gunners so that they are less prone to accidental assault/reckless weapon discharge crimes
Guardian Beacons
New ships
- New Guardian Beacons have been discovered in the galaxy. These will lead you to new discoveries and help you uncover new Guardian secrets. The puzzles you solve at these giant structures will lead you to unlock some incredible new technology.
New Wing Missions
- Hybrid Ship Launched Fighters
[*=1]The Hybrid fighters combine the best of both standard and Guardian technology to make them hyper-effective combat machines. They come in three variants:
[*=2]The Trident (XG7) armed with a plasma charger - Image
[*=2]The Javelin (XG8) with a shard launcher - Image
[*=2]The Lance (XG9) with a gauss projector - Image
[*=1]These ships are light, fast and agile with strong shields to let them dart into the fray. The trade-off, as with other smaller fighters, is that they have weaker hulls.
[*=1]To acquire a Hybrid fighter blueprint you will need to investigate new Guardian beacons which will point you in the direction of the sites to investigate.[video=youtube_share;B9hu4DXno5w]https://youtu.be/B9hu4DXno5w[/video]
- The Crusader
[*=1]A new member of the Alliance ship group, the Crusader acts as a midpoint between the Chieftain and the Challenger with one very important difference: A fighter bay!
The Krait Phantom
[*=1]Leaked briefly on the Frontier Store. Not officially confirmed. More information here.
Engineers in Colonia
- Commanders will have the opportunity to take on planetary Wing Missions, further increasing the mission types you can take on with your friends:
[*=1]Planetary settlement hack
[*=1]Planetary settlement disable
New Weapons
- The Engineers have arrived in Colonia! The engineers will be found at planet bases across the Colonia region and will only be available to players who have purchased the Horizons expansion and have done some engineering previously.
- The new Engineers will only make contact with Commanders who have interacted with Felicity Farseer, Elvira Martuuk, The Dweller, Liz Ryder and Tod “The Blaster” Mcquinn. As with all existing Engineers, the new additions will all have to be unlocked before they make their services available.
- Given that Colonia is a human colony on the fringe of space, not all technology will be available at first. Commanders out in fringe will need to work together with the Engineers to expand the available tech. That means the more a recipe is used the sooner will the improved version be made available.
- Each Engineer will start as level 1 and as usual you will need to complete a request to unlock the engineer before you can upgrade any modules. The community can work together to raise the level of these engineers from 1 to 3! The current grade of the Engineers will be show on a local news article.
- The galaxy grows ever more dangerous, so we've increased the available firepower to help you defend yourselves. The following weapons have been added to outfitting:
[*=1]Large Dumbfire Missile
[*=1]Large Seeking Missile
[*=1]Large Torpedo Launcher
[*=1]Large Multi Cannon (turret)- The following weapons have been added to the human tech broker:
[*=1]Small Shock Cannon (turret)
[*=1]Small Shock Cannon (gimbal)
[*=1]Small Shock Cannon (fixed)- The following weapons have been added to the Guardian tech Broker
[*=1]Small Guardian plasma launcher (turret)
[*=1]Small Guardian plasma launcher (fixed)
[*=1]Small Guardian Shard Cannon (turret)
[*=1]Small Guardian Shard Cannon (fixed)
[*=1]Small Guardian Gauss Cannon (fixed)
Greetings Commanders,
First of all, we would like to take a moment to thank you all for the continued support and making Elite Dangerous the incredible, community driven, phenomenon that it is today.
We started our Elite Dangerous journey over 6 years ago and today hundreds of thousands of Commanders log in regularly to continue their epic space journey. From a personal perspective, joining the team shortly after the kickstarter, and being a part of this incredible community has truly been one of the most amazing highlights of my career. From in-person community meet ups, online community groups and jaw-dropping events, you have always inspired us with your passion and enthusiasm.
We wanted to take a moment to talk about a number of topics being discussed in the community and to be as open and transparent as possible. It’s a long read, so make sure you’re safely docked and comfortable before attempting to navigate this post.
The things we’d like to go through include Chapter Four content and a little about a future beyond “Beyond”, as well as touching on the subject of “paid premium content” in 2018 for Lifetime Expansion Pass owners.
Let’s get started with Chapter Four content. As all of you know, our largest update of the year is in final development and will be available for players to get hands-on with in just a number of weeks (Some time in Q4).This will be the final update of 2018 and the Beyond season. The Beyond season was always something that we wanted to do in order to bring even more enhancements to the core experience of Elite and being able to dedicate a full development team (over 100 people!) for a full year of free content was specifically to gear ourselves up to support our long term vision for the game.
On a personal note, Squadrons is something I’m most excited by. Seeing our player groups grow and the stories they’ve created has been incredible and now being able to see them take that to the next level, formalize their groups in-game, TAG up and team up is something I’m really looking forward to.
There’s also a huge group of players who are most excited by the many new additions to exploration. I know from talking to so many of you online and in-person, this is a huge moment and the development team are working really hard to deliver new content and mechanics to give explorers that thrill of venturing out into the black. And then there’s even more with additions with significant mining enhancements, a full game visual upgrade and the Codex which all bring even more richness to the game experience and depth to the way people play. It’s certainly an update we’re all very excited to see the community explore.
We do have one exciting piece of news to share that to date, we have not shared with our community. 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 the Beyond 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.
Naturally, there will be community questions that might come up from this information. We aren’t going to be ready to talk about what method or model the content will be. What we can say is that it’s expected to be a major milestone in the history of Elite and will be paid content. Lifetime Expansion owners will obviously receive the content as part of their pass.
As part of pre-production, the team investigate all areas of the content and scope them out thoroughly. It’s important to take the time to be clear on what the vision for this is and how we imagine the content working. During this process, we have made a decision to adjust the focus of content that were previously planned for the Chapter Four update, adding some significant new gameplay, but it also means some other aspects will have to change. This means that some elements of content such as Ice Planets (which many of you will have seen some fantastic progress updates from LaveCon earlier this year) and Fleet Carriers for squadrons will not be coming as part of the Beyond – Chapter Four update. Some of the technology from the ice planets specifically will be used within our wider and global visual upgrade, so there will still be general improvements, but not everything we originally envisaged. However, we wanted you to be aware that these two elements specifically would be reprioritised out of the upcoming Beyond - Chapter Four update. What this does mean is that the rest of the content will be able to benefit for the changes in scheduling through deeper and richer gameplay mechanics. The Chapter Four update still has the same, if not bigger scope and continues to promise the largest update of the Beyond season and a truck load of great features for all Horizons Commanders for free. We’re very excited to be sharing the details with you over the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more info.
Another area that we’ve had a number of questions on is the “premium content” coming in 2018.
As many of you will know, we previously mentioned that premium (paid for) content would also be coming within the Beyond season of updates and that Lifetime Expansion Pass holders would be getting this for free. However, as we went through the early stages of what the next era for Elite Dangerous would be, we decided that it would be better to spend that additional time on the future content, rather than bringing new types of purchasable content out this year.
This is a big positive for the long term future of the game and its content. However, we also understand that there are people with Lifetime Expansion Passes who haven’t received paid for content in this season, because Beyond has been free to all owners of Horizons. We truly appreciate the support and commitment that those owners put in us when they purchased the LEP and we will be making sure that there is a form of free store content going out to them by the end of this year.
The most important thing we would like for our community to take from this, is that there are some incredibly exciting things just over the horizon. The Elite Dangerous development team is larger than it has been at any point in the last 6 years. It is thanks to your continued support, dedication, feedback and engagement that has made this possible. We have the Beyond Chapter Four update coming soon, our largest update in the Beyond season, with some awesome headline features and a fantastically promising future of content and ongoing development. We’re looking forward to sharing more details with you in the future. However, if you have any questions feel free to share them with us by posting in this thread and we’ll try and answer as many of them as we can.
Thanks
