Elite: Dangerous Update #90

Hello, Commander Commander,

Welcome to Elite Dangerous Newsletter #90.

This week we're causing mayhem, showing off an expensive-looking Sidewinder, and taking a peek at a ship coming to Elite: Dangerous as part of a future update. We have details on the final release date and pricing for Elite: Dangerous on the Xbox One, and a last chance mention for the Lifetime Expansion Pass.

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

• CQC Mayhem
• The Golden Sidewinder
• Last chance for the Lifetime Expansion Pass
• Xbox One Release Date and Price
• Peek Of The Week
• On the Horizon
• Developer Update
• Community Goals Update
• Comms Chatter
• GalNet

CQC Mayhem

As you may have read in this week’s Dev Update, we are shortly ending the CQC closed beta and moving into stress testing. To support this, and to celebrate the launch of CQC, we’re opening the test servers for all our players and hosting a series of events that we’re calling ‘Mayhem’.

All PC and Mac players of Season 1 (not just beta players) will get access to the test servers next week, with the scheduled events starting on the week beginning September 21.

The full program of events will go up on the community site next week, giving you enough time to clear your diaries and brush up on your piloting skills.

For the official livestreams, hosted by Community Manager Edward Lewis, we’ll be bringing in special guests from the development team to take on the community in tense CQC matchups and showcase other aspects of 1.4.

We’re pulling together a team of the best Elite: Dangerous streamers to add their own flavor to the mix, arranging events and hosting their own streams throughout the Mayhem period.

If you’d like to help us out through streaming or other promotion, please email community@frontier.co.uk with the subject heading ‘Mayhem’ and we’ll be sure to add you to the program. We’re looking for events that are going to get lots of commanders involved, hitting up those test servers to give them a thorough run through.

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The Golden Sidewinder

The categories we’ve been nominated for are:

Best Audio
Best moment (Hyperspace)
Studio of the Year
Best PC game

Every vote counts and we would be delighted if you could take five minutes to lend us yours.

Happy voting commanders!

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Last Chance for the Lifetime Expansion Pass

There's only a few days left to pick up the Lifetime Expansion Pass. From 12PM BST on September 14 (that's this coming Monday!), the pass will no longer be available on our store.

The Lifetime Expansion Pass gets you access to all current and future Seasons of Elite: Dangerous - including the upcoming Elite Dangerous: Horizons. The pass also gives you entry to all the Elite: Dangerous beta builds, so you can play the latest content before anybody else.

Existing Elite: Dangerous players will also get the £10 loyalty discount applied at checkout, making this brilliant offer even better!

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Xbox One Release Date and Price

We aim to release Elite: Dangerous on Xbox One on 6 October 2015 for $37.49 in the US, £29.99 in the UK and €37.49 in Europe. This is the final release price, but remember, you can pick up the game at a discount price on the Xbox Store now as part of the GPP, which will automatically update for free to the full game upon final release.

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Peek Of The Week

An early look at the Federal Corvette, coming to Elite: Dangerous soon. The Corvette is the largest pilotable Federal ship, with some massive stopping power - two medium, three large and two huge hardpoints.

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From the desk of Executive Producer Michael Brookes...

Hi everyone,

The beta test for the CQC update continued this week with two new beta builds. Beta 3 was released on Monday and Beta 4 is expected to go out today. As always a big thank you to everyone taking part and for providing your feedback – as well as identifying serious issues that we address immediately there are also minor issues which are being batched up for the next major release. We’re pleased to see so many people enjoying CQC – it is a blast even if I am a bit rubbish at it!

The next phase is the stress test which will be open to all players. All being well we plan to start this phase next week and when it starts we want as many people as possible to pile into the game (CQC and the main game) to see what shakes out.

As mentioned in last week’s dev update we have been working on a new GPP build and that will be released today. The change log will be posted to provide the list of specific fixes. There have been some changes to matchmaking for CQC which should make the process smoother, so this is something we would like you guys to test. To help this CQC is now part of the demo so you can give it a try and the demo time has been extended to 2 hours. Unfortunately if you’ve already played the demo then the time isn’t extended for you.

We’re aware of some networking issues once you’re in the CQC matches (and in the main game) and we need your help in tracking these down, so we’ll analyse the telemetry from people playing to help us isolate the issues. As with the PC/Mac betas it’s this valuable feedback that helps make the game stronger – for all platforms.

During the stress test phase we will also migrate the Xbox GPP players onto the same test servers as the PC/Mac CQC. Note that when this happens the reduced ship and outfitting prices will be removed. For the Xbox One players the same details that persisted with previous GPP releases will repeat.

The first batch of player sponsored minor factions has been processed and will be available in the beta build soon. When the CQC update goes live they will migrate onto the live servers. The aim is to release this at the same time as the Xbox One release, so on October 6th. For the minor factions that have been approved we’ve added descriptions to the relevant systems. The few that haven’t been approved will be communicated directly through the community team and we’ll take another look at them when they’re resubmitted. Note that while we can add new minor factions through the server, the text descriptions are client based so will only be updated when there is a client release.

Finally a shout out for the Hutton Mug crew – the organisation and response from players who really want a mug from Hutton Orbital was quite impressive – even when encountering opposition!

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Community Goals Update

Greetings Commanders,

Welcome to this week’s community goals blog, and what an interesting week it has been!

Thousands of Commanders decided to take on the long, long journey to Hutton Orbital in order to create the Hutton Mug. A total of 2,474,096 tonnes of Scrap were delivered to the station in a one-week period - an achievement made all the more impressive by the fact that Hutton Orbital doesn’t have a large landing pad!

I personally really enjoyed watching how the community reacted to the goal: we had people handing out scrap from their Type 9’s, the appearance of pirates, and of course an attempted blockade. In the end, however, the community won through, with the Hutton Mug being created with an allowance of 30 units. We expect that the mug will be available shortly after the upcoming 1.4 update.

After a week of poring over exploration data, the Empire’s finest bureaucrats have identified Emperor’s Dawn cells in the Mauusk and Dakshmandi systems. Senator Denton Patreus has announced that he is spearheading an all-out attack against these cells, and has launched initiatives in both systems for Commanders who are willing to fight.

Elsewhere, Emperor’s Dawn has also called for aid, asking Commanders to deliver Progenitor Cells to Ipilyaqa and Basic Narcotics to Ch’i Lin. They are offering high credit rewards for Commanders who are willing to assist them in their campaign to reform the Empire.

If you are looking for the goal this week, the breakdown below should help you:

Maausk – Maausk – Deliver Combat Bonds to the combat bond contact.
Dakshmandi – Hevelius Enterprise – Deliver Combat Bonds to the combat bond contact.

Ipilyaqa – Furuta Orbital – Deliver Progenitor Cells to the commodities market.
Ch’i Lin – Fallows Orbital – Deliver Basic Narcotics to the commodities market.

It’s time to pick a side, Commanders.

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Comms Chatter

The community team kept a close eye on the Hutton Mug Community Goal. The dedication that was put in to completing it is was inspiring as it was impressive. You can learn more about the goal, and what happened, by visiting the group's website here, or clicking the image above.

CMDR Hugh Man created a bit of a musical storm this week with his Fuel Rats parody of Hotel California, called Hotel Dalgarno. Hugh Man, under his musical moniker Elementz, also recorded a parody of Queen's the Great Pretender, which he renamed the Great Explorer. You can listen to both songs by clicking the link here, or clicking on the image of his logo below.

Lolligerjoj put together this truly enchanting piece of art (yes, we're calling this one art) using Elite: Dangerous footage. Put on some headphones, turn off the lights, and turn up the volume.

For some reason Hutton Orbital has been very busy this past week... so LumenLTE made a one hour timelapse video of the comings and goings at the suddenly popular station.

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With the Imperial Senate now in closed session, political commentator Marcus Macmillan takes a look at the likely candidates for the throne. For political commentators, the varied landscape of Imperial politics provides plenty of intrigue to delve into, and this is particularly true of the Imperial throne. In theory, every member of the Duval family has an equal but invalid claim, and for those that lack the right blood there is always an opportunity for the right marriage. Doubtless many whispered deals of support and corresponding reward are being proposed between the senators to get their votes as we speak.

Imperial senator Denton Patreus has taken a strong stance on Emperor’s Dawn, condemning the organisation and vowing to eradicate it from the galaxy, but responses to his statements have so far been mixed. Some have speculated that he is simply trying to curry public favour, while others have suggested he is attempting to draw attention away from his connection to Brendan Paul Darius, the Emperor’s assassin.

One of the defining characteristics of the Eagle Mk II is its peerless manoeuvrability, so when it was announced that the successor to the popular fighter would be less manoeuvrable than the ship it was replacing, eyebrows were raised. It seems, however, that there was little cause for concern, as while the new Eagle doesn’t quite rival its predecessor in terms of agility, it outclasses it in virtually all other respects.

As the campaign against Emperor’s Dawn escalates, captured materials have revealed more about the group and its aims to destabilise imperial society. Reporters from a number of respected imperial newsfeeds, including the Imperial Herald, were invited to inspect some of the seized information. At first the reporters were surprised by how innocuous the material appeared. Taken at face value, it seemed to espouse beliefs and traditions supported by many throughout the Empire, despite the rather extreme tone. The propaganda became more sinister, however, when it elaborated on how these beliefs would ideally be enforced. Some of the items included speeches denouncing the Emperor and his ‘complicity in the erosion of tradition’. Elsewhere, demands were made to remove the Emperor so that someone more fitting could take his place. So far, nothing has been revealed about who the group considers a proper candidate for Emperor.

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That’s it for Newsletter #90. 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