Elite: Dangerous Update #89

Hello, Commander,

Welcome to Elite Dangerous Newsletter #89.

This week we're back from PAX Prime 2015 and getting geared up for the Golden Joystick Awards. We've got a report from the PAX show floor, a heads up for some brilliant Mad Catz deals, an updated list of new territories where you can now play Elite Dangerous on the Xbox One Game Preview Program, a peek of the week that 'skims' the surface of Planetary Landings, and much more.

As always, you can hear the latest news and updates directly from the development team on our Forums, Twitter, Facebook, Community Homepage, and right here in the newsletter every week, and we're always eager to hear your feedback.

Contents This Week

• Golden Joystick Awards
• PAX Prime 2015
• Mad Catz
• New Regions Added For Xbox One GPP
• Peek Of The Week
• Developer Update
• Community Goals Update
• Comms Chatter
• GalNet

Golden Joystick Awards

We are delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted for no less than FOUR Golden Joystick awards. They are...

• Best Audio
• Best moment (Hyperspace)
• Studio of the Year
• Best PC Game

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PAX Prime 2015

Our engines are cooling after an explosive trip to Seattle for PAX Prime 2015. Thousands of potential new recruits visited our stand at the Washington State Convention Center, as did many current commanders. We absolutely loved meeting our current players - their enthusiasm and positivity towards the game, and the team behind it, was genuinely heartwarming and endearing.

We were lucky enough to show off CQC for the first time in the US, only a few days before the beta went live for PC players. The response was hugely positive, with players returning time after time to improve their CQC skills... nobody quite managed to beat the ambassadors, or Community Manager Ed, in our end of day mini-tournament, though.

PAX is a fascinating show for cosplay enthusiasts, and we had some brilliant visitors coming to our booth. Check out the photos below.

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Lifetime Expansion Pass

Elite Dangerous: Horizons is a full season of expansions coming in 2015 starting with Planetary Landings. Take the all-new Surface Recon Vehicle (SRV) the ‘Scarab’ and explore planet-sized sandboxes, finding crashed ships, outposts, fortresses and more. You can pre-order Elite Dangerous: Horizons now, or go straight for the Lifetime Expansion pass (available for a limited time only), which will get you all of this and more.

The Lifetime Expansion pass will be available on our store until midnight on September 14th. That means there’s not long left to take advantage of this amazing offer. The Lifetime Expansion pass gets you access to all current and future Seasons of Elite Dangerous, including the upcoming Elite Dangerous: Horizons, and access to all current and future betas, including the CQC beta, which is playable right now. Click here to visit the Lifetime Expansion pass page on our store.

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Mad Catz

There are some amazing deals in the Mad Catz store right now with headset and HOTAS setups going for a significantly reduced price. Although you don’t have to play Elite Dangerous with a HOTAS, the X52 and X52 Pro are both fantastic additions to your setup. Click here to browse the deals now.

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New Regions Added for Xbox One GPP

We are happy to announce that the following countries have been added to the Game Preview Program, and are now eligible to play Elite: Dangerous on the Xbox One: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Buying Elite: Dangerous now on the GPP at a discounted preview price will get you a free update to the full game upon final release.

Click here to visit the Elite Dangerous GPP page.

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Peek Of The Week

Check out one of the surface defense ‘Skimmers’ that will be coming in Planetary Landings, the first installment of Elite: Dangerous Horizons. Pre-order the new season of expansions now!

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From the desk of Executive Producer Michael Brookes...

Hi everyone,

As you can imagine this week's big focus has been the Beta release of the CQC update on PC and Mac. This update includes a number of changes which need hammering by you wonderful beta testers. As can be expected there are certain features that really need mass testing to shake out any issues.

CQC Championship is the headline feature and as well as the matches themselves the matchmaking system is a different system to that used on the Xbox One and so needs as much of a hammering as you guys and gals can give to it.

The background sim has also had a range of updates, in particular reducing cooldown periods which will help make changes quicker. With the addition of more player groups that should make things a lot more dynamic across human space. Any groups participating on the beta should give these a good testing so we can make sure they behave as we expect them to. We've started a thread for discussion and feedback on the Frontier Forum.

As always the audio team have been busy, not only with supporting the new content (for example there is a new music system for CQC), but updating and tweaking issues in the game. They've worked hard on optimisations to address some specific audio performance issues.

The process for the beta is changing as well. The period of beta testing will extend to two weeks to gain more coverage. We will issue more builds during this phase, the number of which will depend on the issues encountered during the test. We're also adding a stage of mass testing before releasing the update. This will work in a similar fashion to the gamma phase before launch and will be available to all players to help stress test the game and the servers. Like the beta, this will take place on the test servers and no progress will be carried over but the benefit is that all players get to practice their close Quarter Combat skills before the official release (where having ready honed skills may work in your favour).

We have identified an interaction between the launcher and the game that may have caused some stuttering issues on some people's machines. The new launcher will be released when 1.4 has completed its test process and released. We are still investigating other possible causes.

For the Xbox One we are currently preparing a GPP3 release which will bring the Xbox One version into line with the current beta build. This includes a number of changes to improve matchmaking and we're looking for useful feedback on those in the wild. All changes for this build are encapsulated in the change log released for PC/Mac beta build.

Thanks!
Michael

You can discuss this article by clicking here

Community Goals Update

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Comms Chatter

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Today was the last day for the millions of mourners to pay their respects to the Emperor in the Hall of Martyrs. In the past month an estimated seven million mourners arrived on Capitol and have waited in line to enter the vestibule where the Emperor’s body has lain.

Spokespeople for Utopia have responded to recent accusations that dissidents in systems under their control are being roughly treated.
"I've been saddened by recent publications that describe the Utopia movement as a cult or oppressive theocracy," Utopia futurologist Dr Saeed McNamara said. "All societies have disruptive elements who threaten the stability of the whole, but I like to think we take a more humane approach to dealing with them than others."

The words “I made it to Hutton Orbital” carry a certain amount of weight among pilots. As seasoned navigators know, the starport lies approximately 0.22 light years from the nearest star – a significant stretch by anyone’s standards – and it is not unusual for novice pilots, having failed to check the distance from Alpha Centauri to Hutton Orbital, to run out of fuel long before they reach the station. Completing ‘The Hutton Run’, as the journey is sometimes called, is therefore a badge of honour among pilots, an achievement that distinguishes the amateur from the professional.

The funeral of Emperor Hengist Duval, the 15th Emperor in the Duval line, took place today amidst a crowd of millions on Capitol in the Achenar system. Mourners from all over the Empire lined the streets of Capitol. All over the city, the streets were filled to bursting and in a sombre reflection of the wedding a month ago, the white dress uniforms of the Imperial Naval Infantry lined the streets.

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That’s it for Newsletter #89. As always, if there's anything in particular that you’d like to hear more about, or if 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 our previous newsletters here.

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

The Frontier Team