Elite: Dangerous Blog

Last week at EGX I met a lot of really great people. One person I met was new to Elite: Dangerous, although he knew of the Elite games of old.

CMDR Satvia bought the game at the show and made a note of my gaming community group (www.deadmen.co.uk) as the URL was on my hat.

He popped on our teamspeak channel the following week, after registering with the forums and we started to talk through how to play the game, solve issues with outfitting and where to find things in-game. With all the usual dMw banter!

During the conversation I explained what I had been doing with merits and bounty hunting for Arissa Lavigny-Duval (see my previous post) and Satvia, being more interested in combat, asked if a new pilot could achieve the rank 5 and associated riches with just a basic ship.
Why not?

Challenge accepted!

Satvia threw himself into the task with enormous enthusiasm - first we Winged up and went bounty hunting in a resource extraction site and raised some cash to furnish his ship.

On evening one, we had the Sidewinder fully decked out and ready for long travel. Evening two, Satvia had relocated his ship to ALD space and some more RES hunting brought over a million credits, plenty to upgrade to the slower but hardier Cobra Mk III.

Then the merit hunting began! Slow initially, but with help from CMDR SneakyTiger, CMDR Ranualf, CMDR AgentZigZag from dMw and miscellaneous like-minded commanders in OPEN play, we racked up merits for five days. By Tuesday evening, Satvia had over 8000 merits, with two evenings to go before the PowerPlay cycle, it was a cynch!

When I arrived home from work this evening, CMDR Satvia had posted that he had hit the magic 10,000 earlier in the day!

Here is his video showing him posting the final merits and telling it in his own words!

Well, this year’s EuroGamer exhibition is over and I sound, well quite sinister! Vocal cords are shot and I have a voice like two miles of rough gravel.

It was four long, but excellent days. We had the show itself, and afterwards a few nice meals out around Birmingham with the other Elite Ambassadors and a few guys and girls from Frontier.

At the show the stand was set up with two long tables with four Xbox One’s per side on one (8 in all) and ten PC’s on the second table – eight for players and two for streaming. All running CQCC.

I’m not a console fan. At all. I don’t get on with the controllers. I use the X52Pro joystick at home and I’d never played anything on an Xbox One, so when I was picked to operate the Xbox stations, I thought “this’ll be a challenge”. But after playing a few rounds of CQCC I got the hang of it and while nothing beats the X52, I found the Xbox conversion of Elite to be very good. Visually, it’s almost identical and plays very smoothly.

We had a separate queue for the Steam VR PC running an HTC Vive and this was always busy. The ambassadors showed players the controls and described the HUD functions and we kept the queues moving in batches of eight players for each match on both platforms. I have to say though, the PC was the most requested platform. The XBOXs weren’t idle by any means, the queue was just shorter. The Vive was amazing. I have a DK2 and while the resolution isn't that much higher on the SteamVR, it makes a big difference. No "screen door" at all.

On Friday we got to hear about the Q&A panel announcements a while after they happened and I will write another article on what came out about “season 2”. Exciting stuff.

Bobble. Heads. Confirmed. (I've pre-ordered my DB bobblehead)

Yogscast crashed James Vigor's livestream (see photos here) and LaveRadio's Ben was around the stand at different times interviewing the crowd (and having a few games of CQCC).

There was a prize raffle, which everyone that played entered. On Friday it was one lad who had been dragged along reluctantly by his friends. He liked the game so much, he kept coming back, then bought the game and won the Victors raffle going home with an XBOX One. The winner on Saturday had initially put his raffle entry into the wrong bucket, but someone spotted his mistake and he won an XBOX as well. The best one for me, was on Sunday, a young man who’d never played Elite on the XBOX had a try and won his first round, so he came back again and won his second game. On the third game, a few Elite Ambassadors had joined as well as Adam Woods, Elite Dangerous producer from Frontier. These guys are competitive. He beat Adam by 50 points! (Not that Adam would have gone in the raffle anyway) and an hour later his was name drawn from the Victors Raffle and went home with an XBOX one.

The commander who bested @adwoods666 in @EliteDangerous at @EGX won the prize raffle. What a day! pic.twitter.com/Wp4lBSYXOb

— CMDR Arithon (@achunt) September 27, 2015

How can you top that? Elite at number 1 on the Steam charts of course!

Thanks to Zac, Rob, Aaron, Jess, Alison, Kenny, Rob and Robin from Frontier for taking care of us Ambassadors an keeping us fed and watered over the four days. A great bunch of people.

Following today's development update, we now have some names to put to the ship roster that makes up the promised thirty ships (excluding the Cobra Mk. IV arriving with Horizons in December).

Ships have been added to the game at almost every major release, in groups of two or three. Some have proved to be very unique, while recent additions have been variants of existing ship designs. Either way, we now have enough ships to fill the list of "over thirty" with only three craft as yet unconfirmed for 1.5.

So what are they?

Since PowerPlay was launched I haven't really enjoyed interacting with that aspect of the game. I tried when 1.3 was first released to pledge my allegiance to Edmund Mahon, because his faction primarily awarded people who traded and trading is my core game play style. So, after a brief stint with Aisling Duvall where I attained rank three, so that I could purchase Prismatic Shields, I have abstained from PowerPlay until now...

On Monday I went into the Mobius group team speak server and chatting with some of the friendly commanders there, I was advised that if I was pledged to Arissa Lavigny-Duval I could attain 10,000 merit points in one week and gain rank five easily. With her faction not only would rank five come with a 50 million credit weekly pay cheque, but it would also give me 100% additional bounties when bounty hunting!

To me this frankly sounded easy, but also impossible. A bit like saying "go to the moon it's only a two day drive (if you have a spaceship)". So can it be done? Well, PowerPlay cycles on Thursday, so I had Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday to attain 10,000 PowerPlay points from scratch. Now I'm in full-time work, so only have 3 to 4 hours in an evening to play Elite.

Challenge Accepted!

How does it work? Well, I signed up with Ms Duval’s faction, I then flew to one of the two systems in expansion from the Galactic Powers interface and found a contact in the system named “Crime Sweep”, which is like a combat zone, but the opposing side is always the local system defence who you are there to suppress on behalf of Ms Duval. You just fly around and kill every ship that's red on your radar - don't hit the green ones! Once you've finished in the zone, jump to a Controlled or Exploited system and hand in the combat merits to convert to PowerPlay points. You also get paid at this point, but the reward is 100CR per merit (I think) so it only covers ammo costs really.

One of the key elements to my success was being able to wing up with various commanders in the Mobius Group (too many to thank here) who helped me take down ships at a very rapid pace. Each ship you kill, regardless of size or difficulty, awards you 10 PowerPlay merits. It is therefore easy to wrack up between 1000 and 2000 merits per hour which meant that on my first day - Monday between 7pm and 10pm I gained 3,100 merits. By 11pm on Tuesday I had 6,910 merits and a little after 12pm last night I had managed to attain 10,030 merits! This meant I would have rank five today when PowerPlay does its weekly cycle; now I stand to gain a 50 million credit pay out at the end of the cycle! Not to mention of course double bounties in the coming week!!!

Can it be done? YES! Was it hard? NO. How long did it take you? A little over nine hours. Was it worth it? In my ‘Conda I can make millions per night trading, but not 50M in three days and on top of that I have the bounties I’ll make in the coming week doubled, so YES!

Even a player in a fairly basic Viper could have joined in over the last three days and be looking at a Python-sized payout by the end of the cycle. Now that’s cool.

After the various announcements so far at GamesCom 2015 we know a lot more about the forthcoming CQCC add-on to Elite: Dangerous and the other content being added.

We've heard a lot about it and that it will be a (short) Xbox One exclusive.

When is being released?

September, first on the Xbox and then on the PC a day or two later. The Beta for 1.4 has been confirmed for September 1st!

What else is in the update?

• Player factions are being added to the game. Groups of players can have their own faction and homeworld and (if they want) work up influence to make themselves a Power.
• The mission system is getting some love.
• Legal salvage missions are coming, so you can grab booty on the right side of the law.
• Delivery, courier and smuggling will gain long range variants that can set destinations from tens to hundreds of light years away for long haul missions.
• A new variant on the massacre mission will have higher numbers and greater time for a more sustained strike against the mission target.
• An even more hazardous extraction site has been added to provide a more dangerous environment.
• Changes to the background simulation are being made around systems changing from war / civil war states and also around population and political stability based on population size.
• Frontier has confirmed that assets from CQC will be included in the main game.

What new ships will there be?

The Imperial Eagle

A variant of the Eagle with a larger power generator, higher straight line speed, a medium hard-point on top and a less agile flight model.

Federal Dropship Mark II "Federal Assault Ship"

An improved combat model of it's predecessor. A more agile flight model and two medium plus two large hard-points (instead of four medium and one large) this is at the expense of some internals space.

Federal Gunship

And finally the Federal Gunship which will have two small hard-points, four medium hard-points and one large hard-point. This will be a large ship and with those seven weapon hard-points, will be the second best armed ship in the game after the Anaconda. While similar to the dropship in shape, it has delta wings at the back, more like a Vulture and what appear to be folding fins at the front. Much has been made of the large hatch visible on the underside. It looks like the Anaconda's landing bay hatch.

Frontier have rather quietly announced the next major update to Elite: Dangerous after Close Quarters Combat Championship (1.4) will be called "Ships"

When is being released?

After CQCC in September, but before "Horizons" which is being released in "Holiday season" (late November to early December), so some time in October or early November. 

What else is in the update?

Well, ships. Clearly.

The update will take the number of unique ships (excluding variants we assume) to over thirty. We already know Horizons will bring the Cobra Mk IV and 1.4 will add the Dropship Mk II, the Federal Gunship and the Imperial Eagle.

There are still a number of ships hinted and teased to date we haven't seen confirmed for any release and they are:

The Panther Clipper - large trade ship. This ship from the earlier Elite Frontier game had huge cargo capacity and formidable defences.

The Imperial Cutter - a large ship which we know little about, but would speculate is an Empire equivalent of the Python, somewhere between a Courier and Clipper or perhaps larger than a Clipper? The concept art we've seen appears to show what became the Imperial Clipper, so will we see a Cutter or not?


The Federal Corvette - the largest flyable ship to be in the game, almost a third larger than an Anaconda. A slow moving weapons platform.


The Dolphin passenger vessel and Beluga Passenger liner - which with the Orca, are Elites passenger transport vessels.

With the introduction of these passenger ships it would follow that passenger transport would become a career path in Elite as well. Something many have waited for.

What else might we see?

Big on the wish-list is ship-in-ship transport and deployment. With SRV's being launched from all ships in Horizons, the idea of a "launch bay rack" for Class 6 & Class 7 internals sounds more plausible. And rather appealing.

While at LaveCon I had the chance to see the ED Tracker, a low budget motion controller for the PC that works with games like Project Cars, Eurotruck Simulator and of course, Elite: Dangerous.
“Why would you want one of those, you’ve got an Oculus?” I hear you ask. Well, firstly I cannot afford another DK2 for my children and my younger son plays a lot of EuroTruck and some Elite. Also, the hot summer weather in the UK has meant I haven’t been using the Oculus as much, to avoid having a stroke – yes, there are brief moments in the UK when it isn’t raining!

So, what is it like? What do you get for £45 ($70)? (Assuming you don’t build it yourself)

Firstly, I would like to say thanks to Dan and Becky at ED Tracker. At LaveCon I mistakenly picked up two ED Trackers instead of two ED Tracker Pros and didn’t spot my mistake until I got home. They shipped out replacements very rapidly, so kudos to them for excellent customer service.

The ED Tracker is a small black plastic box, the size of a matchbox, with a mini-USB socket on one side. To install it, I attached it to the top of my headphones headband with one of Mrs Arithon’s hair-ties (she’ll never miss it) and plugged in with the USB braided cable I bought from ED Tracker.

Windows 8 made the usual “boing” noise and listed “ED Tracker Pro” as a new joystick in my “Devices and Printers” list.

I then downloaded and ran the ED Tracker Pro software, which detected the device immediately and instructed me to calibrate it. This involves turning your headphones around on various axis.

Once that’s done, you find the 3D head model on the screen moves to mirror your own heads tilt and turn.

Getting it working with Elite: Dangerous

This was a little harder, as the instructions on ED Tracker’s website didn’t match the current version of the OpenTrack software used. I didn't get the joystick selection right and couldn't figure the OpenTrack setup. Never fear there’s loads of information on Forums everywhere! I got mine here. The OpenTrack software turns your virtual joystick into an emulated TrackIR.

So, having got it working, what was it like?

Well, it isn’t an Oculus, since you don’t have 3D vision and for 18% of the cost, I wouldn’t have expected that. But it is pretty damn good! You move you head left or right slightly and the screen turns to match your head movements. In combat you can look around to follow the action (very useful when pulling up and banking to follow a target) – you can look up and down and tilt your head and Elite’s display matches.

It is very good for viewing side panels too. All in all a very cool solution for anyone who doesn’t fancy the Oculus or cannot afford one (or is just waiting for the CV1) and a much cooler option for the hotter weather.

I will set up my second unit on my sons PC for him to play EuroTruck and get his input – saving it for the dull end of the school holidays!

This weekend is LaveCon 2015, the convention for the game of Elite and the science fiction universe that surrounds it.

The event is organised by the creators of the Lave Radio podcast, the weekly web-based chat show and this year the event is pretty big. I’m told the first LaveCon was just 40 people. This year added a hundred to that number at least.

One guest today was Frontier, who held a Question & Answer session, open to the floor. Michael Brookes, Chris Gregory and Sandro Sammarco were on the panel with Sarah-Jane Avory and Mike Evans also present.

So did they spill any beans?

Well.. yes!

Firstly they gave away a unique paint skin for the Vulture, Cobra and Asp – but sadly for you, only to those commanders present for LaveCon. This was a flaming Elite logo and a flame skin. So if you see these in game, you know that commander was here!

They then announced a new ship variant, the Imperial Eagle (Impegal) a stylish (and blue lit) variant of the Eagle, less manoeuvrable but fast and tough with a medium hard-point on the top and a bigger power plant. This Imperial variant will be very like the old Frontier II version of the Imperial Eagle (or that at least is the intention). David Braben specifically requested this ship variant.

Other gems of information that were “leaked” when the panel were questioned by the audience.

• The Thargoids are still a way off yet, however there is already evidence of them to be found in the game.
• The game has a ten year plan.
• All the ships fit on a “backbone” which is an outline of the total ships and where they fit in the game, although this backbone is revised based on player feedback after each ship is introduced.
• The LaveCon skin was done by one of the Frontier artists in his evenings to get it done specially for LaveCon.
• No part of the game is currently considered finished. That is Frontier feel that there is plenty of room for addition and adjustment (see ten year plan).
• The power-play characters appearance was modelled initially on the actors David Braben would have selected to play them in an Elite feature film (“which is not being made” – Michael Brookes). According to Sandro they are not all modelled on the actors that some have speculated.
• The PC release of the free CQCC expansion will follow as rapidly as possible after the XBOX One release. So it will be exclusive for an exclusively short period!

With GamesCom in Cologne coming up next month (August 6^th-9^th) Frontier have said they are making an announcement at the event.

"The Elite: Dangerous team is bigger than ever, and the majority are working on something secret for PC and Mac. It's not quite ready for the world just yet, but we'll be able to tell you more at Gamescom. Believe us: we can hardly wait."

So what is this big announcement?

Put on your tinfoil hats and follow me….

A LOT of people on the forum have been “SQUEE”ing (prematurely I think) that the announcement might be the Planetary Landing expansion.

For those who don’t know, Frontier have said, in addition to the core game which all players get, there will be two major expansions for Elite: Dangerous.

The first will be the Ship and Station exploration expansion that will allow players to leave the cockpit and explore their ship, as well as disembark at outposts and stations, go visit Starbucks and get a manicure etc.

The second expansion will be Planetary Landings, where players can take their ships into planet atmosphere and land on the surface to trade, set up terraforming and interact with native fauna & flora. 

Both of the First Person expansions are paid extras, except for those players who signed on for the Alpha and Premium Beta.

It follows that Ship Exploration has to be launched before Planetary Landing, else why land on a planet when you cannot get out of your ship? For that reason I think it would have to be ship exploration first, or a simultaneous release of both.

More likely is the addition of passenger transport, as the Orca is currently a 43M Lakon Type 6 with some paint options. Passengers would give the Orca a game role and would allow for the introduction of the Beluga Liner and the Dolphin small passenger craft, giving players a whole new avenue to explore.

What else has been teased?

• Stations in asteroids (very early on)
• The Federal Corvette
• The Panther Clipper.
• Ship transport (mentioned early on, then teased in XBOX trailer - sidewinder launching from Anaconda).
• Thargoids (the insectoid alien race from earlier games)

What of these constitutes a "big" update? Or will it be none of the above; something totally from left-field, like PowerPlay? A race of fashion-concious cats?

Like Mr Creosote (my personal hero) I would love to have everything, in a bucket, with the eggs on top, but it could just be a wafer-thin mint, so don't blow your air-lock just yet! We’ll know for sure in August.

No, I didn’t run down a homicidal spaceman while at the wheel of my Anaconda and stash his lifeless body in a resource extraction site, only to be stalked and killed along with my implausibly attractive female friends at a later date. The truth is worse….

On Sunday CMDR Albert and myself were all Winged-up and patrolling Tau Bootis for enemies of the Edward Mahon faction in Super-cruise. We’d been lapping the system for a couple of hours. Albert in his Anaconda and me in my “Combat” Python – my Anaconda is set for trade, so while armed, it doesn’t have the extreme shielding and various scanners and shield cells needed for a good scrap.

We’d been knocking anyone marked as “enemy” out of super-cruise with my FSI, scanning them and if they held a bounty, collecting it. With extreme prejudice. Now Powerplay is far less rewarding than real bounty hunting, because killing a faction enemy only gets you 200CR and 15 merits if you are in the right system and they are carrying faction goods and the moon is full etc. Which is why we were scanning for bounty, making sure any combat paid for the ammo and fuel at least.

The odd NPC Asp or Python showed up and they went down easy (the bigger they are the harder they fall) but the real challenge were Wings of small ships, such as a Vulture and three Cobras. A challenge to take down a ship with two or three others pounding your shields. The AI ships are determined little buggers in the latest release.

Time flies when you’re having fun, so before long CMDR Albert had to sign off, European time being an hour ahead and I was left patrolling alone.
It was at this point that the first non-faction human CMDR showed up. After a quick scan in super-cruise, it became obvious that the CMDR in the Fer-de-Lance was pledged to Zachary Hudson, the very enemy we were here to oppose!! After a few maneuverers in super-cruise to get behind the ship, I fired my FSI. The FDL struggled and fish-tailed, but I’d been doing this for hours, so getting the fish landed was a forgone conclusion.

BOOM! Dropped to normal space and the FDL took off away from me like a startled hare! I fired up the KWS and scanned the ship for bounty, by which time it had left me way, way behind. Finally with more than 5km between us, the FDL jumped back to super-cruise, so I span up my FSD and jumped back after it.
The Fer-De-Lance was still in the system and not far ahead, so I got into FSI range and tried again.
BOOM! Back into normal space and this time the FDL turned to fight. I opened up briefly with all lasers then switched to KWS while my turrets continued to fire at the FDL while he tried to get behind me and out of range. However, my Python has Class 6A Thrusters, so I could keep turning fast enough to keep my guns and scanners on the FDL.
After the first pass, the Fer-De-Lance’s shields are down to one ring, but clearly firing a shield cell or two, as they returned quickly to three rings. On the second pass, the FDL’s shields are down to one ring again and then I realise my shields are also down to one ring, so I fired a shield cell.
Sadly, too late as on the third pass, as the FDL’s shields collapse, mine quickly follow.
By this point my grip on the stick of my X52 is leaving finger marks and the adrenaline is really pumping. The FDL’s hull is at 20% when my cockpit blows! Shhhhh out goes the atmosphere and a muted ships computer tells me I will shortly be screwed.
The FDL has realised this is not one it can win, as despite taking damage, my ship is still at 60% hull and firing continually with two sets of pulse-lasers and a C3 cannon, so the ship turns to make a run for FSD and safety.
It’s now or never to finish the FDL off! Boosting like mad to keep up, I keep firing relentlessly... 8%.. 5%, “Frameshift charge detected..”, 3%, 1%, 0% BOOM!

Is this how Luke Skywalker felt killing his first Tie Fighter? Probably.

The bounty? 742,000CR - to quote Monty Python, “He’s a very naughty boy”. So I’ve killed another CMDR. Do I feel bad? A little. Did I enjoy it? Hell yeah!

With the 5 minutes of oxygen I had left I jumped to super-cruise to get urgent repairs. As anyone who has flown with a blown-out cockpit knows, flying without the HUD takes a bit of concentration. But I got there with three minutes of oxygen to spare.

Now you know what I did last weekend.