Elite: Dangerous Newsletter #64

Greetings, Commander,

Welcome to Newsletter #64.

This week, we’re taking stepping outside and taking a look at our ships with the new external camera, available in March’s Wings content update. We’re also taking a look at Wings’ new HUD in this week’s Peek Of The Week and putting out a call to the best of the best – the Triple Elite.

As always, check out our Forums, Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates from Elite: Dangerous’ galaxy, and stick with us for what’s new this week.

Contents This Week

• Winging It Peek Of The Week Best Of The Best Comms Chatter GalNet

This week Executive Producer Michael Brookes announced a number of new features you'll find in March's Wings content update.

Wings is all about giving you ways to play with a tight group of friends and share in the galaxy’s rewards together. Cooperative wings are flexible and adaptable, giving you faster comms and constant status updates between ships, and allowing you to easily follow friends into Super Cruise and Frame Shift. Whether you’re protecting your friends on a risky trade run, spreading out to hunt prey, or scouring an asteroid field for valuable mining opportunities, you’ll be able to form up and do it together.

You might have heard about that already, but this week we're announcing more of the things we’re squeezing into Wings. We’re overhauling communications, with new commands like /T to talk to your target, /R to respond to the last pilot who hailed you, and /W to talk to your wingmen. Docked commanders also remain on your comms list so you can chat while docked, and players can now send an open broadcast to all ships nearby.

We’re also excited to unlock our debug camera for player use. We use the debug camera in-house to take beautiful screenshots that show off the ships and liveries, and we’ve had countless requests from players to open the functionality up to everyone.

Of course, a true third-person camera would give players increased spatial awareness and advantages in combat, so we had to be sure players can't use the debug camera to cheat. The solution you’ll find in Wings offers limited control of the camera outside your ship and confers no advantage to gameplay; it’s there for you to admire your beautiful spacecraft and take shots like the one below.

Wings will enter beta testing for Alpha and Beta backers next Tuesday, and will go live – all being well, this time – the following week.

Wings’ new co-op HUD gives you at-a-glance data on your wingmen’s shields, hull, position and current target. Click for a closer look.

This week we’ve had two commanders make a claim for the £10,0000 prize in our Race To Elite competition. Back when Elite: Dangerous launched in December, we promised a £10,000 cash bounty to the first player to achieve Triple Elite status with the highest possible rank in Trading, Exploration and Combat.

To choose a winner, we have to go over their save with a fine-toothed comb, crossing the Ts and dotting the lower-case Js to be sure all three ranks were achieved legitimately and without any cheating or exploitation.

While we’re checking, we’re putting a call out to the very few Triple Elite pilots to stake a claim for the cash prize. If you’ve made it to Triple Elite legitimately, mail community@frontier.co.uk and give us your commander name so we can examine your Elite credentials. For everybody else: keep your eyes peeled for the very small handful of Elite pilots currently trading, exploring and blasting their way across the galaxy.

Thanks to CMDR Dethblight and his group of screenshot-taking pals, we have this beautiful collection of Elite: Dangerous screenshots. Why not join the Flickr group and add some pictures of your own?

And don’t forget we’re at PAX East in Boston next weekend. Our ambassadors have been chosen, our bags are packed, and our Cobra MK III engines are warming up ready to ship us over to Boston. We’ll be showing off Elite: Dangerous at PAX East for three days from March 6 so make sure you come and say hi if you’re around.

For those new to the game, DoubtOutLoud wrote An Introduction to the Metagame of Elite Dangerous. As well as being an entertaining read, and he certainly does a good job of expressing his love for the game, you might learn a thing or two about the game’s mechanics.

Finally, fan podcast Lave Radio now broadcasts 24 hours a day seven days a week. The station has an assortment of live shows, audio drama and music composed by Elite: Dangerous fans. Listen live, and get in touch with the crew here. The Commanders at Lave Radio are always looking for new content to feature, so don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’ve got any ideas or musical creations of your own.

Tensions have been running high aboard Effinger Port this week as doctors, nurses and scientists worked around the clock to find a cure for the Volungu Blight. A cure was eventually found, but it was too late for the thousands of families in Volungu, Furbaide, Liaedin and LHS 3505 who lost loved ones over the past two weeks.

An assassination attempt was made on Éamonn Uí Laoghire as he addressed the crowds after his second attempt to gain an audience with Alliance representatives. While engaging with the huge numbers that had gathered to hear him speak, Éamonn was targeted by a single shot that was fired from a nearby building. The shot missed the ambassador but killed a member of the crowd.

Over the last week hundreds of independently minded contractors delivered over 500,000 tons of land enrichment systems to Cassie-L-Peia. Specialist farmers from Kappa Fornacis were then able to stimulate the mass growth of Lucan Onionhead clones. Production of Onionhead is booming in the area.

Sirius is currently offering sizeable monetary rewards for explorers who bring usable exploration data containing potential candidate sites to their offices aboard Nourse Orbital in Lambda Andromedae.

The Federal Navy, in conjunction with Core Dynamics, has declared their intention to commission the creation of a new capitol ship. The new ship will be built in the recently recaptured shipyards of BD+03 2338, and the Admiral's personal contingent will remain in the locale in order to protect the construction of the new vessel.

That’s it for Newsletter #64. As always if there is anything in particular that you’d like to hear more about, or you'd like to ask a question, then please contact us at elite-newsletter@frontier.co.uk.

Click for the latest Game Manual, Quickstart Guide and Pilot Training Videos. Visit our Support team here and read all our previous newsletters here.

Until next time, fly safe and Right On, Commander.

The Frontier Team