Frontier had their expo last week and discussed the 2018 updates for Elite.
Summary borrowed from Reddit
- 2018’s Series of updates will be called “Beyond”, with the first release happening in Q1 2018 and will be FREE for Horizons owners
- Planetary Tech rework: new lighting system, material rendering pass, diversification of landscape, and more.
- Quality of Life improvements: Better Crime and Punishment (including better armed system authority), Better trading data for more informed decision making, Wing Missions, and Engineering to be reworked to guarantee improved equipment for players.
- Guardian Arc to be revisited: providing new content such as Guardian tech; notably new hardpoint equipment. These will need to be unlocked for players on an individual basis (through “personal narratives”).
- Galnet Audio: Galnet will be provided with a text-to-speech medium for its articles.
- “A lot more ships to come”: So far, Type-10, Krait and Chieftain ships have been confirmed. Latter two are Lakon projects in conjuction with the Alliance. Type-10 Defender. Krait. Chieftain
- Squadrons: New platform for clan-like system offering enhanced communications for a range of players. Also offering the ability for Squadrons to purchase ship carriers, which allows players to rearm, repair, refuel and respawn.
- Mining to be revisited: Devs want to invoke a feeling of “Wild West Prospecting”, giving players new tools to find and exploit ore reserves.
- Planetary Terrain Rework: Addition of Rock Scatter update for larger size and scale of terrain objects, along with localised fog effects too in order to make different planet types feel more distinct from one another.
- Exploration to be revisited: Will be updated to add a suite of new activities to find and engage with. In addition to Exploration missions and a Codex to log discoveries and act as a sort of encyclopedia for space anomalies. With the addition of new effects, phenomenae and anomalies to discover.
- Thargoid Arc extended: Story will naturally be progressed, with the introduction of a new ship or “clan” of Thargoids. Screenshot. Additionally, the 2.4 Teaser shows the remains of an INRA outpost and a crashed ship which seemingly looks like an older Cobra model.
That’s a long list, but not as meaty as I might have hoped for. The terrain stuff will be nice to reduce the sameness of the beige moons, but I would have hoped for an evolution of the planetary stuff this year. Would be nice to fly into gas giant atmospheres, or volcanic planets, or something. I didn’t expect to see atmospheric planets next year, but a half-step would be nice.
I’ve never interacted with the story stuff, especially since it seems like it’s a requirement to watch Reddit for the evolution of the storylines. Having a carrier for you and your mates sounds cool, but I’m a solo player so nothing there for me. I’m also a pretty casual player, not interested in optimal builds, so I bounce right off the engineers stuff. It’s free for current Horizon owners, but I hope 2019 brings more substance – particularly on the planetary side of things.
All that said, I’ve been back to playing and have been having good fun doing sight-seeing passenger missions in my Asp X. The payout is pretty good, especially when you do a bit of scanning on the way. When I need some pew-pew, I head to the nearest res in my Federal Dropship. It’s got good firepower, but it’s so slippery!
It’s still by far my favorite VR experience.