New expansion for Elite Dangerous will add tens of thousands of locations to the game
First-person combat and exploration is just the beginning
www.polygon.com
Some snippets:
Hughes tells Polygon that there will be three types of social spaces: Planetports, Spaceports, and Outposts. These will be added to the game at pre-existing locations all around the Milky Way, depending on the types of structures already in place.
Small orbital stations — little mining outposts, perhaps, or trade depots with just a few landing pads — will get Outpost social hubs. Meanwhile, larger starbases — the game’s iconic 20-sided-die-shaped Coriolis starports and massive, spherical Orbis stations, each with a dozen or more landing pads — will get Spaceports. Finally, large surface installations — think Survey sights and Observatories, each with as much capacity as a large starbase — will get Planetports.
Based on information provided to Polygon by the player-run Elite Dangerous Star Map (EDSM), those additions alone will add more than 40,000 new interior spaces for players to hang out in.
Some of that visual punch will come from massive windows. For instance, in Spaceport social hubs, players will be treated to full, 360-degree views of the inside the drum of a busy space station. When NPCs and other players come in to dock, those sitting inside the social hub will be able to watch them fly around in real time.
When Odyssey launches in early 2021, “thousands” of new Settlements will be added to the game. They will show up on the surface of existing planets, but also on newly accessible planets with thin atmospheres. And each of them will have one or more factions vying for control.
Once players arrive at a Settlement, they will be able to transition smoothly between exterior spaces — the dusty surfaces of distant planets — and these themed interior spaces through airlocks. Once inside, they’ll be able to breathe without the help of their spacesuits. Missions might require them to visit a given location, to retrieve a specific item, or to kill a certain NPC.
Alternately, players can just roll in on a Settlement uninvited and do whatever they want. Options include looting the place stealthily, or killing every NPC they can find and making off with everything that’s not nailed down. If there’s combat, Hughes also said it can be of the combined arms variety. That means players on foot can be supported by other players inside wheeled SRVs and even starships, all working toward the same goal.
