I took a break ▸ I'm back!

[Lhorndra]

Greeting Commanders!

I took a break from Elite Dangerous for a while. No, not years, but as things are developing so quickly at the moment, it surely feels that way. Now, I think I'm ready to hop aboard a spaceship once again. Especially because we have several new ones! So much else has changed too. Well, to make sure I've caught the most important updates, here's a brief summary of what I seem to have missed. Written largely for myself. However, I would be very grateful for any comments or corrections that you might add. I didn't look into Community Goals yet. Were there some interesting ones? Have I missed anything more?

New Ships
Nice! When I took a break, the Python Mk II was already in-game, but I have yet to spot a Type-8 with my own eyes. As someone who is more inclined to explore, I am particularly excited about the Mandalay. Do we know more about that ship yet? Not a big fan of Zorgon Peterson, though, I'm more of a Lakon person.

Supercruise Overdrive
Have not tried the new FSDs yet, but will eventually. I understand SCO was changed numerous times to make it easier to use, right? And the new ships will handle SCO much better than the old ones?

Early Access & Pre-built Ships
Minor "pay to win" arguments here and there because of that. Oh well, whatever. Not really worth my attention. Or is it?

Engineering Overhaul
Gathering engineering materials was buffed dramatically. Insanely. In a good way. Does this apply to raw materials as well?

Thargoid War
So many updates to the Thargoid war and its mechanics that I lost track. I'm not much of an AX pilot anyway, but to be clear, two Titans remain, yes?

ShinDez Was Thargoided
Thargoids attacked Shinrarta Dezhra! Holy Braben! Quite the excitement. While I totally get why FDev did this, I think it would have made more sense story-wise to attack Sol, Achenar, Alioth, or the Navy headquarters. Maybe they'll do that in the coming days? Haven't read the Galnet news about that yet. Do Thargoids understand the concept of a capital city/planet?

Powerplay 2.0
It's coming with the next big update 19, right? Is there a (more or less) specific timeline? I'm not exactly having sleepless nights in anticipation, but I'm happy for all Powerplay aficionados.

President Felicia Winters
I guess she can't take office until Powerplay 2.0 is released.

Frequency of Updates
There have been updates almost monthly since update 4.0.18 in February. Wow. That's quite a different FDev than it used to be.

Also, surely you'd be very happy to hear that I gave myself a RTX 4080 Super as a present. That's why I've been sifting through all the tweaks and optimisations (usually by @Morbad ) again. All the info is somewhat scattered over several threads and some websites, making it difficult to get a clear overview, especially for rookies. Plus, the relevant files are scattered over several folders as well. So, I might post a summary of the most important tweaks and relevant files at some point. Maybe. Eventually. Sometime.

Anyway. I'm back. See you in the Black, CMDRs.

o7

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Greeting Commanders!

I took a break from Elite Dangerous for a while. No, not years, but as things are developing so quickly at the moment, it surely feels that way. Now, I think I'm ready to hop aboard a spaceship once again. Especially because we have several new ones! So much else has changed too. Well, to make sure I've caught the most important updates, here's a brief summary of what I seem to have missed. Written largely for myself. However, I would be very grateful for any comments or corrections that you might add. I didn't look into Community Goals yet. Were there some interesting ones? Have I missed anything more?

New Ships
Nice! When I took a break, the Python Mk II was already in-game, but I have yet to spot a Type-8 with my own eyes. As someone who is more inclined to explore, I am particularly excited about the Mandalay. Do we know more about that ship yet? Not a big fan of Zorgon Peterson, though, I'm more of a Lakon person.

Huge 'jumpaconda' range, Mamba style cockpit, DBX size footprint, avilable for 16500 Arx on 22nd Oct, and for Cr 3 months later.

Supercruise Overdrive
Have not tried the new FSDs yet, but will eventually. I understand SCO was changed numerous times to make it easier to use, right? And the new ships will handle SCO much better than the old ones?

New ones don't drift off course in SCO.

Early Access & Pre-built Ships
Minor "pay to win" arguments here and there because of that. Oh well, whatever. Not really worth my attention. Or is it?

See ships for Arx ^

Engineering Overhaul
Gathering engineering materials was buffed dramatically. Insanely. In a good way. Does this apply to raw materials as well?

Raw mats available as mission rewards, otherwise no.

Thargoid War
So many updates to the Thargoid war and its mechanics that I lost track. I'm not much of an AX pilot anyway, but to be clear, two Titans remain, yes?

Yes Cocijo and Raijin (for the next week or 2)

ShinDez Was Thargoided
Thargoids attacked Shinrarta Dezhra! Holy Braben! Quite the excitement. While I totally get why FDev did this, I think it would have made more sense story-wise to attack Sol, Achenar, Alioth, or the Navy headquarters. Maybe they'll do that in the coming days? Haven't read the Galnet news about that yet. Do Thargoids understand the concept of a capital city/planet?

No idea, but it means we aren't bombing Raijin this week.

Powerplay 2.0
It's coming with the next big update 19, right? Is there a (more or less) specific timeline? I'm not exactly having sleepless nights in anticipation, but I'm happy for all Powerplay aficionados.

22nd October

President Felicia Winters
I guess she can't take office until Powerplay 2.0 is released.

Guess so

Frequency of Updates
There have been updates almost monthly since update 4.0.18 in February. Wow. That's quite a different FDev than it used to be.

Also, surely you'd be very happy to hear that I gave myself a RTX 4080 Super as a present. That's why I've been sifting through all the tweaks and optimisations (usually by @Morbad ) again. All the info is somewhat scattered over several threads and some websites, making it difficult to get a clear overview, especially for rookies. Plus, the relevant files are scattered over several folders as well. So, I might post a summary of the most important tweaks and relevant files at some point. Maybe. Eventually. Sometime.

Anyway. I'm back. See you in the Black, CMDRs.

o7

o7

 

[DjVortex]

I understand SCO was changed numerous times to make it easier to use, right?

Not really. It works exactly as it did when it was introduced.

The main difference is that the new ships handle it much better than the old ones. (In fact, that's the in-game lore for why new ships are being designed: Motivated by SCO drives, and how unwieldy they are with existing ship tech.)

 

[aRJay]

Greeting Commanders!

I took a break from Elite Dangerous for a while.

Welcome back.

No, not years, but as things are developing so quickly at the moment, it surely feels that way. Now, I think I'm ready to hop aboard a spaceship once again. Especially because we have several new ones! So much else has changed too. Well, to make sure I've caught the most important updates, here's a brief summary of what I seem to have missed. Written largely for myself. However, I would be very grateful for any comments or corrections that you might add. I didn't look into Community Goals yet. Were there some interesting ones? Have I missed anything more?

The latest one was to defend Shin Dez and get some AX weapons.

New Ships
Nice! When I took a break, the Python Mk II was already in-game, but I have yet to spot a Type-8 with my own eyes. As someone who is more inclined to explore, I am particularly excited about the Mandalay. Do we know more about that ship yet? Not a big fan of Zorgon Peterson, though, I'm more of a Lakon person.

Type 8s are out as early access ships now, the Mandalay will be available that way on the 22nd. It is Anaconda jump ranged, sits on a medium pad but the landing gear footprint looks to be small, it has a big window under the console looking forward so we can see stuff on the ground and land by it. Lots of optional slots including two 6s so now crippled scooping like the DBX. It is supposed to have the slowest but most stable most economical SCO drive setup.

Supercruise Overdrive
Have not tried the new FSDs yet, but will eventually. I understand SCO was changed numerous times to make it easier to use, right? And the new ships will handle SCO much better than the old ones?

It’s more that the manufacturers have released a prototype, all drives C class, followed by the production model, all classes available, you can’t use an undersized drive still and how wild the ride is depends on ship drive class and throttle setting. The new ships are much less wild.
SCO drives can just outperform preengineered FSDs.

Early Access & Pre-built Ships
Minor "pay to win" arguments here and there because of that. Oh well, whatever. Not really worth my attention. Or is it?

The arguments not really, unless the idea sits strongly with you.

Engineering Overhaul
Gathering engineering materials was buffed dramatically. Insanely. In a good way. Does this apply to raw materials as well?

Not so much but engineering requirements were nerfed and the randomness has been nerf hammered out of existence.

Thargoid War
So many updates to the Thargoid war and its mechanics that I lost track. I'm not much of an AX pilot anyway, but to be clear, two Titans remain, yes?

Yes.

ShinDez Was Thargoided
Thargoids attacked Shinrarta Dezhra! Holy Braben! Quite the excitement. While I totally get why FDev did this, I think it would have made more sense story-wise to attack Sol, Achenar, Alioth, or the Navy headquarters. Maybe they'll do that in the coming days? Haven't read the Galnet news about that yet. Do Thargoids understand the concept of a capital city/planet?

The attack coincided with various anniversaries of Elite and ED.
It was exciting while it lasted fortunately the Thargoids committed a much larger force than normal so even with non AX players joining the fight via the CG the invasion lasted through the weekend.
The CG was especially good as it only accepted bonds from the Shin Dez battles.

Powerplay 2.0
It's coming with the next big update 19, right? Is there a (more or less) specific timeline? I'm not exactly having sleepless nights in anticipation, but I'm happy for all Powerplay aficionados.

The have started naming updates again, I think that one is called Ascendency, it is due on the 22nd.

President Felicia Winters
I guess she can't take office until Powerplay 2.0 is released.

Frequency of Updates
There have been updates almost monthly since update 4.0.18 in February. Wow. That's quite a different FDev than it used to be.

Also, surely you'd be very happy to hear that I gave myself a RTX 4080 Super as a present. That's why I've been sifting through all the tweaks and optimisations (usually by @Morbad ) again. All the info is somewhat scattered over several threads and some websites, making it difficult to get a clear overview, especially for rookies. Plus, the relevant files are scattered over several folders as well. So, I might post a summary of the most important tweaks and relevant files at some point. Maybe. Eventually. Sometime.

Anyway. I'm back. See you in the Black, CMDRs.

o7

In the store at the you can get Ruby anniversary decals for zero Arx and a Ruby skin for all vehicles currently in the game for 10,000 Arx each.
That ends on the 21st

 

[Jack Winter]

FWIW, the latest discovered method of farming raw materials involves shooting brain trees or crystal shards with flak launchers, mines, and I think dumbfire missiles work too. You then ascend with your ship until the brain trees / crystal shards despawn and then you let your limpets do the work. It's very efficient and using brain trees you can fill up all the raws without using a material trader.

 

[Viscera]

Have I missed anything more?

Don't forget your free ruby anniversary gift, available until the 21st October.

 

[St0rmFury]

There's also the great Argh inflation.

 

[Lhorndra]

Thanks everybody!

Huge 'jumpaconda' range, Mamba style cockpit, DBX size footprint, avilable for 16500 Arx on 22nd Oct, and for Cr 3 months later.

Very promising! I can't wait to see how good the pitch rate is, because that's why I don't use the Phantom for exploring and exobiology. It's too sluggish for me in the pitch department.

Type 8s are out as early access ships now, the Mandalay will be available that way on the 22nd. It is Anaconda jump ranged, sits on a medium pad but the landing gear footprint looks to be small, it has a big window under the console looking forward so we can see stuff on the ground and land by it. Lots of optional slots including two 6s so now crippled scooping like the DBX. It is supposed to have the slowest but most stable most economical SCO drive setup.

The small footprint is nice for exobiology, but I wonder if the wing span will make landings in narrow canyons challenging. We'll see.

SCO drives can just outperform preengineered FSDs.

So, the oldfashioned FSDs as well as the pre-engineered ones have no real use cases anymore, I guess. The old ones are also not that much cheaper, so even money is no argument here, even for beginners.

FWIW, the latest discovered method of farming raw materials involves shooting brain trees or crystal shards with flak launchers, mines, and I think dumbfire missiles work too. You then ascend with your ship until the brain trees / crystal shards despawn and then you let your limpets do the work. It's very efficient and using brain trees you can fill up all the raws without using a material trader.

Thanks! I was aware of that method, but haven't tried it yet.

Don't forget your free ruby anniversary gift, available until the 21st October.

I've got the decals! Thanks for poiting that out. The other anniversary stuff is far from free, though.

There's also the great Argh inflation.

Ooof. I can remember when a simple "Tactical White" livery cost 600 arx, now it's 6000. That's quite the price increase.

 

[londonx]

You would have been around to know that there is also as yet unkown new Game Feature coming but we now know that it will be talked about on the Livestream on October 30th, this should hopefully reveal for first time what this new game feature it will be.

Lots of speculation on this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/whats-the-brand-new-feature-for-ed-in-2024.622952/

 

[Lhorndra]

You would have been around to know that there is also as yet unkown new Game Feature coming but we now know that it will be talked about on the Livestream on October 30th, this should hopefully reveal for first time what this new game feature it will be.

Lots of speculation on this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/whats-the-brand-new-feature-for-ed-in-2024.622952/

Sure, that was anounced long ago. Maybe I'll take a look at the livestream this time. Usually, I don't.

 

[Hank]

This thread is a testament that this game is Alive and well. There's so much help from the community. There's so much good info here that I scan it every day. Have a great day Commanders

 

[Lhorndra]

This thread is a testament that this game is Alive and well. There's so much help from the community. There's so much good info here that I scan it every day. Have a great day Commanders

I wholeheartedly agree.