Elite: Dangerous Update #93

Hello, Commander,

Welcome to Elite Dangerous Newsletter #93.

This week, we're giving you an exciting first-look at the planetary approach HUD, giving you details on the Xbox One Elite Dangerous launch, teasing about new bobbleheads coming to the store, and catching up with the latest GalNet news.

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

• Planetary Approach
• Elite Dangerous on Xbox One
• Bobbleheads
• Offer of the Week
• Developer Update
• Community Goals Update
• Comms Chatter
• GalNet

Planetary Approach

When Elite Dangerous: Horizons launches this year, you'll be touching down on the surface of unexplored worlds, so you'll need some on-screen help to make sure you complete the landing safely. Here's your first glimpse of the on-screen planetary-approach HUD. Click on the pictures to get a closer look at what's coming as part of Elite: Dangerous Horizons.

A crashed Type 9 with possible spoils?

Approaching the ground, the surface dust kicks up around your ship

Your HUD will automatically show and hide certain gauges to keep the information relevant. As you approach the planet from a distance, you'll notice the first new thing on the cockpit display - the altimeter (the single vertical line seen to the right in the screenshot above). The altimeter will show you how close you are to the planet's surface, and help you control the speed of your approach.

The pitch gauge can be seen in the very centre of the cockpit display - it will align itself to the planet's gravity. This gauge will help the player to determine which way is 'up' - a brand new concept for Commanders in the Elite Dangerous galaxy! The pitch gauge also contains a horizon line, which will help you determine when you're flying 'flat' to the surface.

When you get very close to the surface, and you're nearing the point where you're ready to land, the heading gauge (seen at the top of the new information in the screenshot) will point towards the poles of the planet and help you orient your direction when landing.

As you can see in the screenshot, your scanner will switch to the landing-assist display, just as it does when you're landing your ship at a starport, but showing you the nearby terrain. The representation of your ship will light up blue when you're okay to put her down.

Now that you're safely down on the surface you're free to explore the entire planet in your SRV - who knows what you might find down there... we'll be revealing more in the coming weeks.

Pre-order Elite Dangerous: Horizons now
Pre-order Elite Dangerous: Horizons beta now

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Elite Dangerous on Xbox One

Elite Dangerous launches on the Xbox One on October 6, so means you only have a few more days to take advantage of the brilliant Xbox One GPP discount price. Buy it now for £24.99.

On the launch day there will be a few changes that GPP players will need to know about as their accounts are transitioned over to the full game. Head over to the forum post to see all of the latest details.

To celebrate the launch of Elite Dangerous on the Xbox One, we have a whole day of events planned. An AMA with members of the Elite Dangerous Xbox One team, including Executive Producer Michael Brookes, will be live on the Xbox One Official Subreddit from Midday to 3PM BST.

After that, Community Manager Edward Lewis will be hosting a four-hour livestream (link available soon) bringing in guests from the development team, including David Braben himself.

And finally, an exclusive Community Goal will be available for Xbox One players, and a competition will be hosted on the Xbox One Subreddit.

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Bobbleheads

Last week, to celebrate the return of bobbleheads to Elite Dangerous as part of Horizons, we put the flightsuited Commander Braben Bobblehead on the Frontier store for a limited time. The Commander Braben Bobblehead will go off-sale on Wednesday October 7, so make sure you pre-order now to have Elite's co-creator ready to sit upon your ship's dashboard this Holiday season.

Commander Braben might return to the store at a future date, but he may look a little different, with the potential for a seasonal outfit change!

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Offer Of The Week

In the newsletter every week we’ll tell people a day, a time and a social media channel they should keep an eye on, to get access to a limited-use discount code.

This week's code will get you 50 percent off a physical copy of the Elite Dangerous Soundtrack. All you have to do is keep an eye on our official Twitter page on Saturday October 3 between 9PM and 10PM BST to see the posted code, and be one of the first 20 people to redeem it. Good luck!

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From the desk of Executive Producer Michael Brookes...

Hi everyone,

It was good to meet some of you at EGX last week. I don’t go to many of the shows and was impressed by our stand there and pleased to see that it was always busy and with a long queue to see Elite Dangerous on the Vive! The dev panel with Sandy and David was a lot of fun as well and I hope you all enjoyed the announcements.

I’m back in the office now and there’s been a lot of progress for the upcoming Xbox One and CQC Update release. These releases will require some server downtime – we’ll announce the details nearer the time once everything is confirmed. Many of the teething issues with matchmaking should now be addressed, but please raise a bug if you continue to experience issues on either platform.

This week sees a new (and hopefully the last) gamma release for the PC CQC update. The release date is still expected to be October 6th, but we’ll confirm once all the details are in place.

Earlier in the year we updated the mission system to allow us to add more variety and mission related content and that process has progressed throughout the year and will continue into the Horizons season and beyond. There are a number of changes and additions coming in the 1.5 Ships update and so will be available to both season one and two players.

Missions can now be received in space, so they’re not always taken from the Bulletin Board and can be received from encounters with other ships. A variant on this are missions that can be triggered by scooping certain items in space. Timed assassination missions will be available from the Bulletin Boards, similar to the assassination missions in FFE you need to find your target at a certain time and place.

This timing mechanism is also available for other mission types where the mission target can only be found at a specific time. Alongside this, missions can now have multiple stages – this applies as sequences of the same mission type, so delivering goods to a station and then bring something else back. Note that this isn’t fully chained missions yet (which we define as different missions in a sequence), although these are planned as part of the Horizons season. A specific variant on this are tasks that have to be completed after a successful assassination.

A survival element to missions means that a player will have to survive specific encounters before being able to complete a specific mission, for example delivering secret information to a contact while being hunted. Another aspect for a player to be aware of are those that require them to be completed without being scanned – something I’m sure skilled smugglers will have an advantage with

There are a couple of other elements too – but I’ll keep them as a surprise for you!

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Elite Dangerous at EGX

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Community Goals Update

Greeting Commanders,

Welcome to this week’s community goal blog.

On A lighter note this week, it seems the people of Bacon City are planning one hell of a party to mark the upcoming anniversary of the so-Called ‘Bacon Protests’. Julissa Silver the Spokesperson for the Bacon Cats released the following Statement.

"It's true that we're planning something special. We invite everyone to come together, in a spirit of celebration, to commemorate the repeal of the ill-thought-out and short-lived prohibition laws here in the Carnoeck system. There will be many historic exhibits and displays, but most importantly there will be free bacon and libations for all visitors."

Import demands in Carnoeck have hit new highs in recent weeks, and demand for goods continues to rise while locals speculate about the nature of the celebrations and event organisers have requested that all available traders bring supplies to the system. Members of the Bacon Cats have said that the celebrations will be positive and respectful, but some news outlets have raised concerns about the event, predicting astronomical policing costs, and speculating that it could attract pirates and other unwanted elements to the Carnoeck system. Looks like it’s time to party like its 3299.

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

Carnoeck, Bacon City: Deliver Animal Meat to Bacon City markets
Carnoeck, Bacon City: Deliver Narcotics to Bacon City markets

Safe flying!

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Comms Chatter

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Last week, The Voice of Varati published a message from the Canonn Interstellar Research Group, an independent scientific body, inviting Professor Ishmael Palin to join their organisation. Professor Palin recently made headlines when his Federation-backed programme to research the so-called anomalous extraterrestrial objects (or AEOs) was abruptly terminated. When asked for a response to the message, Professor Palin made his feelings clear: "I admire the enthusiasm of the Canonn Interstellar Research Group, but I sense that our respective philosophies concerning the anomalous extraterrestrial objects are somewhat at odds with each other. So while I am flattered by their invitation, I feel I must decline."

Two weeks ago, the organisation known as Emperor's Dawn issued a public appeal for progenitor cells and narcotics. Given the group's extremist ideals, the response was understandably mixed. Many of those who oppose the Empire were only too happy to help, but for others – even those with no particular affinity for Imperial ideals – the idea of helping a known enemy of the Empire was unthinkable. The result was that while the request for progenitor cells was successful, the request for narcotics was not – a result that no doubt reflects the divided attitude towards Emperor's Dawn. The question of what impact this will have on the organisation and its ability to further its agenda remains to be answered.

In the early hours of tomorrow morning (7.00am GMT), the GalNet monitoring of powers' activities will go offline for a short period while the latest data is assembled. Any pilots who operate for one of the powers must deliver any cargo or vouchers before this time to ensure their activities are registered.

President Hudson responded today to Shadow President Winters's call for investigating the allegations raised by the Federal Times. In a press conference at the White House on Mars, he said: "The allegations raised by the Federal Times are indeed grave and I have already instructed the responsible agencies to pursue the evidence and determine its veracity. If the evidence proves to be true then the wrongdoers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

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That’s it for Newsletter #93. 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