Elite Dangerous Update #97 - First Look at Settlements, new gameplay details and gifting digital items

Hello, Commander,

Welcome to Elite Dangerous Newsletter #97.

This week we're continuing our Elite Dangerous: Horizons reveals with a first look at the settlements you'll be visiting on the planet surfaces in the latest of David Braben's sneek peeks videos. We're enabling the gift of giving, catching up with Comms Chatter, the latest GalNet news and much more.

Pre-order links:
Elite Dangerous: Horizons
Elite Dangerous: Horizons Beta

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

• Settlements First Look
• Horizons - New Gameplay Details
• Gifting Digital Items is Now Live
• The Golden Joysticks
• On the Horizon Livestream - Q&A with David Braben
• Educating Ed Community Livestream
• Community Goals Update
• Comms Chatter
• GalNet

Settlements First Look in Sneek Peek Video

This week David Braben gave us another amazing sneek peek at Elite Dangerous: Horizons, with a new video posted to his YouTube channel. The video shows two SRVs dodging gunfire from Skimmers and turrets as they speed by the edges of a settlement.

"Another quick-and-dirty grab from the same dev machines as before, showing our SRV coming to the rescue of another. And yes - the collision at the end was Adam's fault!" writes David in the video description.

This is the first close look at one of the settlement types you'll encounter in Elite Dangerous: Horizons, and there's still so much more to show!

Pre-order links:
Elite Dangerous: Horizons
Elite Dangerous: Horizons Beta

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More Horizons Gameplay Details

In this week's Dev Update, Executive Producer Michael Brookes talked about some of the fascinating things you will discover and interact with on the planet surfaces.

On the surface there are many different things to see. Different military bases, research establishments, hideouts, starports, mining complexes, crashed ships and debris to investigate, and perhaps a few other things too. We are collectively calling these things ‘points of interest’. There is essentially a scale of items on the surface from starports and settlements, down to interesting mineral finds. Points of interest cover the encounters at the lower end of that scale, so as you travel across the surface you have a chance of encountering one of these points. The nature of the encounter will vary depending on where you are, the type of planet and the local topography and geology.

So for example you could be exploring an old mining world within the human bubble and find old mine workings, or machines. You might find a crashed ship way out beyond the frontier and who knows beyond that?

These points of interest come in a variety of flavours broadly split into two categories: natural and constructed. Natural points of interest are things that occur naturally on the planet such as mineral deposits. These themselves come in a range of elements and compounds and these feed into the new type of resource collection that we are adding as part of the loot system. Some elements of this will be part of the planetary landing release and will allow some specific modifications to your ship and SRV – we’ll have more on this coming in the next few weeks.

As well as naturally occurring formations we also have resources that can be found that have arrived from beyond the planet, but still of natural origin. These include items like meteorites that again feed into the new resource system. These will include resources that can only be found on the ground.

Manmade constructs can also be discovered on the planet’s surface and again these come in a variety of guises ranging from crashed ships to small encampments and other devices. More familiar cargo containers or other scoopable objects can be found at these encounters, so a crashed trading vessel may well have spewed the contents of its cargo hold. Or they might have something that needs scanning or data extracting from. These will tend to be found in the human habited region, but also beyond as tales of The Missing can attest to.

It’s often wise to approach these sites with caution as they can be protected by automated systems!

There are points of interest that don’t neatly fit into those two groupings, but we can leave them for you to discover for yourselves

How you find these depends on your current transport. While on ships you only get a vague knowledge of whether there are points of interest nearby – this is shown as an area on your scanner. You will need to deploy your SRV and with its more specialised equipment locate whatever is there. This new equipment will form the focus for a new stream and update in the next few weeks.

As well as continued development with Horizons we’re supporting the released game and this week we deployed a server update to tackle the issue we encountered with the servers last Sunday. We are still looking into changes to address issues with the background simulation and player backed factions.

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Gifting Digital Items

You can now gift items from the Frontier store to other Elite Dangerous Commanders! Whether you want to pre-order your wingman a bobblehead or give them a new look with a shiny new paint job pack, gifting on our store makes this possible!

Gifting is possible on any digital item found in the store, and the procedure to give a gift to a friend is simple. Find the item you want to send to a friend, tick the box next to 'This is a gift' and you will be prompted to fill out the recipients details.

At checkout, a small present icon will appear next to the item you are sending as a gift next to the recipients details. It will also show as a gift in your purchase history.

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The Golden Joystick Awards

A hearty congratulations goes to all the winners at today's Golden Joystick awards. Although we didn't take home any of the four awards we were nominated for, we were told it was a very close call! Third place in the Best Audio category is still a massive achievement, so as a huge thank you to everyone in the community who voted for us, we're putting the Golden Sidewinder Paint Job available on our store at a special reduced introductory price of £2.50!

So pick up yours right away and join the golden fleet as we give a warm round of applause to the Elite Dangerous development team, and thank you to everyone who voted!

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Store Spotlight

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.

Faction mugs are currently on sale with 20% off for everyone! And the first 20 people to use the code found on our official Facebook page between 12:00 and 13:00 on Sunday October 1 will receive an additional 20% off of the already reduced price!

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Horizons Livestream: David Braben Q&A

Continuing our On the Horizon series of livestreams, Community Manager Edward Lewis will be joined by Frontier Developments CEO David Braben for a very special live Q&A. This is a rare chance to ask David any of your burning questions about Horizons - so make sure you don't miss out.

The stream will start at 6PM GMT on Wednesday November 4 on our official YouTube channel, and David will spend one hour taking questions from the community.

Keep a close eye on our forum and social media channels for more details on how you can get your questions to us before the livestream starts.

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Educating Ed Community Livestream: Joining The Elite Secret Service

"Educating Ed" is the new community livestream where Community Manager Edward Lewis becomes the Galactic Intern to spend time with some of the prominent community groups that populate the Elite Dangerous galaxy. Episode 2: The Elite Secret Service, will be live on our official YouTube channel on Thursday October 5 at 7PM GMT.

Very little is known about the secret missions of the Elite Secret Service, and so far the Galactic Intern has only received one mysterious transmission about next Thursday's mission - "Welcome agent Intern. We are pleased that you’ve established contact with the BUREAU. You will need to meet with our agent at REDACTED and await further instructions."

On this week's episode of Educating Ed, Ed spent the evening with the Fuel Rats, completing a real life rescue of somebody stranded after they'd been overly zealous with their fuel reserve. You'll have to watch it back in full to see if the Fuel Rats offer the Galactic Intern a full-time position or not, though!

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Community Goals Update

Greeting, Commanders, and welcome to this week’s Community Goals blog.

The Explorers’ Association has announced that, thanks to the efforts of thousands of independent pilots, construction is underway on its new Ocellus starport. The organisation is about to enter the second stage of construction, relating to the station’s internal systems, and is once again looking to independent pilots for assistance. A spokesperson for the Explorers’ Association said:

“Our contacts at Brewer Corp, the contractor building the new station, have said that the more Palladium that can be sourced, the better the systems that can be installed in the station. The Explorers’ Association would like to make this new station a shining example of what is possible with the latest technologies, so we are looking to pilots to deliver as much Palladium as possible to Neville Horizons.”

But the massive construction project has not been without problems, and it looks like the Explorers’ Association will need help cleaining up the spaceways around Kaushpoos:

“Projects of this sort are bound to attract opportunists, and unfortunately ours is no exception. Pirates have begun congregating in the Kaushpoos system, preying on the traders and contractors travelling to and from the construction site. Fortunately, we anticipated such an eventuality, and set aside a cash reserve specifically for the reimbursement of bounty hunters.”

Last month, the reclusive philanthropist Alfred Jeffress made headlines with his galaxy-wide treasure hunt, and now it seems the eccentric billionaire is at it again. Having promised that the first event would not be the last of its kind, Jeffress has announced a second treasure hunt, and once again he is offering a share of his vast personal fortune to the winner. A spokesperson for Jeffress said that pilots should keep an eye on GaNnet for the first clue, which should be appearing at some point today.

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

Kaushpoos, Neville Horizons: Help construct a new station in the Pleiades Nebula and earn rewards by selling Palladium to Neville Horizons in the Kaushpoos System.
Kaushpoos, Neville Horizons: Help with the mission to build a new station in the Pleiades Nebula by submitting Bounties to Neville Horizons in the Kaushpoos System.
Unknown location, GalNet bulletin: Take part in a galactic treasure hunt to earn a share of billionaire Alfred Jeffress’ fortune.

Happy hunting, and be safe out there Commanders!

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Comms Chatter

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For the past two weeks, the Empire has been battling the insurgent organisation Emperor's Dawn in the Namarii, Tabaldak and LTT 874 systems. This morning, the Empire confirmed that the campaign had been a resounding success, resulting in the total destruction of all three Emperor's Dawn bases. Senator Denton Patreus, who has been leading the campaign against the insurrectionists, issued a defiant statement: "Today we have delivered a decisive blow to our enemies, shattering their forces and leaving them scattered and defenceless. For all their bluster, these dissidents have been shown themselves to be nothing more than petty brigands, lacking in unity and moral conviction, and unable to withstand the might of our combined military forces. Their bases have been destroyed, their fleets routed. Emperor's Dawn is no longer a threat."

Work has now begun on a new Ocellus starport in the Kaushpoos system. The project began with a request from the Explorers' Association, which issued an appeal for metals for use in the station superstructure. The response to the request was overwhelmingly positive, and work on the starport is now underway. A spokesperson for the Explorers' Association released a brief statement: "We're delighted with the response, and are hugely excited about starting work on the starport. With a little luck, there will soon be a brand new, state-of-the art outpost in the Pleiades Nebula."

Following recent news of technical issues in the Warkushanui system, officials at Gurragchaa Gateway have announced that all station services, bar refuelling and rearming, have been suspended. A member of the starport's technical team released a brief statement: "Due to ongoing technical issues, we are currently unable to offer access to the commodities market, shipyard and outfitting services, and other frontline facilities. We are still trying to determine the cause of the problem, and will notify the public as soon as services are reinstated. Your patience and understanding are appreciated."

The war between the Empire and the insurgent organisation Emperor's Dawn has taken a decisive turn, as the Empire dealt critical blows to the insurrectionists' forces in the Namarii, Tabaldak and LTT 874 systems this week. In response, Emperor's Dawn has issued a statement indicating that it intends to dramatically increase the amounts it is offering to privateers: "The Empire thinks that those who fight on its side do so because they share its ideals. We believe they fight because they are well paid. Fortunately, the Imperials are not the only ones who can purchase victory. From this point on, we will give any pilots who fight for our cause double the amount originally offered. Let us see how much people really believe in 'Imperial values'."

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That’s it for Newsletter #97. 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