The second announced expansion to Elite: Dangerous in Horizons is titled “Guardians”.
2.2 – Guardians - Coming Summer 2016
“Take what comes and strike back with double. Bring a second ship to every combat encounter with Ship-Launched Fighters and defend your passengers against the deadliest threats in the galaxy.”
Picking the text apart for the language used, reveals more detail.
What is said is “a second ship”.
One.
Not ship-launcher fighter(s) plural, but instead a single deployable fighter or drone, depending on if you or the A.I. are flying it.
So my hopes for a “Type-9 Galactica” with half-a-dozen hangar bays are dashed! And I had a "launch fighters" voice-attack command all ready to go!
Have the fighters been limited to one-per-commander due to constraints of A.I.? The Mistress of Minions would probably disagree that her children of chaos are in ANY way limited, so I suspect that the limitation is to prevent richer commanders becoming one-man-armies of unstoppable A.I. fleets.
On the one hand, having three or four deployable Condors would not make me unbeatable, but having been on the wrong end of a Python with two Eagles attacking my rear, I can appreciate why it might be overkill. Still, a Wing of four pilots with deployable fighters becomes a Wing of eight. Ouch.
Something else mentioned, is the phrase “defend your passengers”. A similar wording slipped out of Ed during the recent live-stream from PAX and was thought to be the result of jet-lag, but the clear mention of passengers here would imply we are going to get the long-awaited passenger missions. This opens up more career paths to players and makes the likelihood of the Dolphin passenger vessel and the Beluga Liner making an appearance in Elite at long last a distinct possibility. No more sad little Orca. Friends at last! And hopefully a career path that warrants a 44M credit price-tag.
Continued...