Elite Dangerous: Beyond

Elite Dangerous: Beyond season

Elite Dangerous: Beyond is the third season of expansions planned for Elite Dangerous through the year of 2018. As it is a continuation of Elite Dangerous: Horizons, all Beyond updates will be provided free of charge to Horizons owners and release simultaneously across PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

The Development Plans has an overview of major updates and expansions.

Upcoming expansions

The main focus of this season is core gameplay, existing features, quality of life and other improvements.

Chapter One

The Chapter One update will introduce a host of additions and improvements to Elite Dangerous. The open beta will be available to all PC Elite Dangerous and Elite Dangerous: Horizons players on January 25, 2018.

Features:

• New Ship: Chieftain. Elite Dangerous: Horizons Commanders will be able to take to the stars in the new Alliance Chieftain, designed not only to dish out punishment, but to avoid it. Manufactured by Lakon Spaceways, the Chieftain is more maneuverable than ships of similar size and weight, and its combat profile means it can more than hold its own in a fight.

• Wing Missions and Mission improvements. Chapter 1 of Beyond will give you the chance to take on wing missions with your fellow Commanders, sharing both the efforts and rewards.
  • A CMDR can select a Wing Mission on the Mission Board, then share it with Wingmates to invite them participate. Wingmates will see the invite on their Transaction panel, and can accept or reject it. CMDRs that are not in a Wing can still select and complete Wing Missions on their own.
  • There is no limit to how many Wing Missions can be accepted by a CMDR at the same time, but a CMDR can only share 1 Wing Mission with their Wingmates at once. In a full Wing of 4 CMDRs, this means each CMDR can share 1 Wing Mission and accept 3 invites to their Wingmates' shared missions, for a total of 4 active shared missions across the group.
  • Wings Missions can be turned in for a partial completion at a certain threshold by the CMDR who originally selected them. The mission will be considered a success, but CMDRs will receive reduced rewards. In trading missions, CMDRs holding any undelivered mission-only items will be fined.
  • Missions will now offer three different reward packages upon completion: Credits (larger amount of Credits plus Reputation and Influence), Reputation (larger amount of Reputation plus small Credit amount and Influence), or Materials/Commodities (Materials/Commodities plus moderate amount of Credits and Influence). In Wing Missions, each Wing member can select a different reward.
  • New Mission Depot menu at the Mission Board. CMDRs can view individual mission progress, and in the case of trading missions, they can buy the necessary Commodities directly through the Mission Depot if they are available and make multiple delivery runs to fulfill the mission's requirements.

• Revised Trade Data. Commanders will now be able to access trade data from systems they have previously visited, in order to make more informed decisions when shipping goods across the Milky Way.
  • In the Commodities Market, the level of supply and demand for a commodity is signified by pips. Three pips indicates high demand or supply, one indicates low demand or supply.
  • The "Galactic Average Price" parameter can be changed to "By Market", allowing CMDRs to check prices at specific markets. CMDRs can search a database of all systems and stations they have visited. As CMDRs dock at stations or scan Nav Beacons, they acquire the trade data for those locations.
  • New galaxy map overlay, "By Commodity". Systems marked with a blue diamond indicate where a commodity is imported, systems with a green triangle indicate where a commodity is supplied. Buy and sell values for that commodity are shown.
  • Trade route data revised. Galaxy map now displays "trending trade data" for the previous 24 hours, including both Background Simulation trading and trading done by CMDRs. CMDRs can purchase this data for a small fee to see it.

• Planetary Visual Improvements. Chapter 1 also includes the first of the planetary visual improvements coming as part of the Beyond series of updates. More surface level improvements are coming later in the year. It brings a new vibrancy to the Elite Dangerous galaxy and encourages wanderlust explorers to discover far systems and planets.
  • Frontier has overhauled the surface material system for the rocky, high metal content and metal rich planets. Pushed the system to get a lot more out of it, but this is just the first step towards further major planetary system improvements. The contrast and variation across and between bodies is much improved.
  • The colouration of the surfaces now more clearly telegraphs the chemical makeup and volcanic activity of the worlds. In addition, binary rocky/metallic planets more accurately simulate having similar colourations from shared formation materials where appropriate.
  • Greater ranges of coloration depending a rocky planet's composition and volcanism activity. Surface coloration is intended to directly indicate a planet's composition at a glance to inform what materials can be found there.

• GalNet Audio. With the introduction of GalNet Audio, you will be able to catch up on the latest news from across the galaxy without ever leaving the action.

• Crime & Punishment changes
  • Crimes are now attached to ships rather than CMDRs. Landing at a station with a wanted ship in a system where that ship is wanted will restrict certain services because the ship is forced to use "Anonymous Access Protocol". Modules in a wanted ship are "hot" and cannot be installed in a clean ship, and clean modules become "hot" once installed in a wanted ship. Wanted ships also cannot be transferred into systems where they are wanted.
  • Bounties will always remain active and no longer become dormant. The "Dormant Bounty" function will be removed. Bounties can still be paid off using Interstellar Factors, but this will now cost more than the bounty itself.
  • Bounties and rebuy costs are recalculated in cases of murder. Murderers' bounties include both a fraction of the rebuy cost of their ship and the ship of their victim. Victims' rebuy costs are reduced by a fraction of the attacker's rebuy cost.
  • Notoriety statistic. Increases every time a ship is used for murder and amplifies its rebuy costs. As Notoriety increases, the rebuy costs of victims are further reduced, and an increasing fraction of the murderer's ship's rebuy cost is added to bounties gained. Notoriety is attached to CMDRs, not ships, and is only reduced when a CMDR is defeated by security forces and sent to a Detention Centre.
  • Advanced Tactical Response (ATR). ATR ships are much more powerful than typical system security and will be deployed to eliminate highly Notorious ships. Each superpower has its own ATR unit (Void Runners in the Federation, Blue Epaulets in the Empire). The Alliance and Independent systems have their own ATR unit.
  • Detention Centres. When defeated by authorities, CMDRs with bounties will be forced to pay their rebuy costs, fines, and bounties in full; CMDRs with insufficient funds will go bankrupt and be forced to accept a loaned Sidewinder MkI. They will then respawn at a Detention Centre Megaship in a system near where they were defeated. Detention Centres lack Shipyard and Outfitting facilities, and will spawn CMDRs in Solo instances to protect them from spawn-camping until they jump to Supercruise or another system.

• Engineering mechanics and accessibility changes.

• Material Trader

• Technology Broker
  • Technology Brokers are dealers in rare technologies, and are usually found in high-tech systems with high security.
  • CMDRs can exchange certain materials with Tech Brokers to unlock unique modules. Once a module is unlocked, it is available for purchase in Outfitting.
  • Modules that will be offered by Tech Brokers include: Corrosion Resistant Cargo Rack (formerly exclusive to Professor Palin), Enzyme Missile Rack, Meta Alloy Hull Reinforcement, Remote Release Flechette Launcher, and Shock Cannon.

• Additional interactions with Bulk Cruiser Megaships
  • Bulk Cruisers are now equipped with Automated Defence Turrets, Cargo Bays, Hackable Data Transmitters, and Comms Arrays in addition to the original comms log data points. Data Link Scanners can be used to scan entire Megaships and highlight these points of interest.
  • Data materials can be obtained from scanning Comms Arrays.
  • Cargo Bays can be scanned by Cargo Scanners, then "interrogated" by Data Link Scanners and opened with Hatch Breaker Limpets to steal rare materials. The latter action will earn a bounty, summon system security, and turn the Bulk Cruiser hostile.
  • Bulk Cruiser improvements will also eventually be added to Installations.

• Speculated:
  • New tech and weapons derived from the Guardians.
  • The narrative of the Guardians will continue. We'll be able to unlock a personal narrative as well. 

Chapter Two

Update 2 will be the first of two smaller updates released between the Q1 and Q4 expansions. It will feature new ships, new weapons, and other improvements such as new missions, scenarios & progressing the interactive narrative.

Elite Dangerous: Beyond roadmap

Chapter Three

Update 3 will be the second of two smaller updates released between the Q1 and Q4 expansions. It will feature new ships, new weapons, and other improvements.

Chapter Four

The Q4 2018 update will be Elite Dangerous' largest content update yet.

• Features:
  • Squadrons - new in-game organizational structure for player groups. It adds tools to manage membership, hierarchy and the ability to purchase Fleet Carriers to serve as mobile bases.
  • Improved Lighting Model - will benefit planetary tech as well as space.
  • Planetary update - Improvements to the scatter rocks system, by adding a bigger variety of sizes and scales to them. Improved ambient effects for fog and vapour, planetary phenomena and volumetric effects.
  • Improved planetary environment - as per the concept art for ice planets.
• Mining gameplay improvements. Improvements to the way we detect and extract resources. A miner's toolkit of modules and capabilities, more options, variety and choice when we're in deep space.
  • Crack open asteroids.
• Exploration gameplay improvements.
  • New Codex to log personal discoveries and provide encyclopedia-style information about topics.
  • New phenomena and anomalies to discover in deep space.
  • More activities and tools focused on how we find stuff in the galaxy. This affects missions, commodities, other resources.

Premium Content

Additional premium content will be revealed in the future. Lifetime expansion pass holders will get this for free. Frontier's Zac Antonaci said "In addition to all the content talked about at Frontier Expo, we also have some pretty cool things in the works which will be available to purchase. We're not ready to talk about them just yet so we can't give you any details but rest assured that the lifetime expansion pass owners will be looked after and will be getting their hands on premium content as part of their lifetime expansion pass before the end of 2018 and the Beyond series of updates."

Vehicles

Spacecraft

• Chieftain
• Fleet Carrier
• Krait

Videos

Elite Dangerous Frontier Expo 2017 Content Reveals

Planetary Tech Preview - ESRB Teen

GalNet News Audio - Elite Dangerous - ESRB Teen

Elite Dangerous Beyond - Chapter One Beta Announcement

Gallery

Elite Dangerous: Beyond Planets Update

Planet generation improvements

A new weapon module made from Guardian tech

Chieftain FX17 screenshot.png

The Chieftain

The Chieftain's cockpit

Beyond Chieftain cockpit 2.png

Another view of the Chieftain's cockpit

The Krait

Beyond Krait 2.png

Another view of the Krait

Squadrons concept

Mining improvements

Beyond planet improvements 2.png

Concept of planet surface exploration

Exploration improvements

Elite Dangerous: Beyond roadmap

Elite Dangerous: Beyond Season