Greetings Commanders,

Elite Dangerous: Beyond - Chapter Three is launching on August 28, and is the second of our two smaller content updates before the larger update called Chapter Four at the end of the year. Here’s a breakdown of the key features that we talked about at Gamescom:


Guardian Beacons

New Guardian Beacons have been discovered in the galaxy. These will lead you to new discoveries and help you uncover new Guardian secrets. The puzzles you solve at these giant structures will lead you to unlock some incredible new technology.


New Ships – Hybrid Fighters

The Hybrid fighters combine the best of both standard and Guardian technology to make them hyper-effective combat machines. They come in three variants:

• The Trident armed with a plasma charger
  
• The Javelin with a shard launcher
  
• The Lance with a gauss projector

These ships are light, fast and agile with strong shields to let them dart into the fray. The trade-off, as with other smaller fighters, is that they have weaker hulls.

To acquire a Hybrid fighter blueprint you will need to investigate new Guardian beacons which will point you in the direction of the sites to investigate.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/B9hu4DXno5w





New Ship – The Alliance Crusader

A new member of the Alliance ship group, the Crusader acts as a midpoint between the Chieftain and the Challenger with one very important difference: A fighter bay!




Engineers in Colonia!

The Engineers have arrived in Colonia! The engineers will be found at planet bases across the Colonia region and will only be available to players who have purchased the Horizons expansion and have done some engineering previously.

The new Engineers will only make contact with Commanders who have interacted with Felicity Farseer, Elvira Martuuk, The Dweller, Liz Ryder and Tod “The Blaster” Mcquinn. As with all existing Engineers, the new additions will all have to be unlocked before they make their services available.

Given that Colonia is a human colony on the fringe of space, not all technology will be available at first. Commanders out in fringe will need to work together with the Engineers to expand the available tech. That means the more a recipe is used the sooner will the improved version be made available.

Each Engineer will start as level 1 and as usual you will need to complete a request to unlock the engineer before you can upgrade any modules. The community can work together to raise the level of these engineers from 1 to 3! The current grade of the Engineers will be show on a local news article.




Wing Missions

Commanders will have the opportunity to take on planetary Wing Missions, further increasing the mission types you can take on with your friends.


More Weapons!

The galaxy grows ever more dangerous, so we've increased the available firepower to help you defend yourselves. The following weapons have been added to outfitting:

• Large Dumbfire Missile
  
• Large Seeking Missile
  
• Large Torpedo Launcher
  
• Large Multi Cannon (turret)

The following weapons have been added to the human tech broker:

• Small Shock Cannon (turret)
  
• Small Shock Cannon (gimbal)
  
• Small Shock Cannon (fixed)

The following weapons have been added to the Guardian tech Broker

• Small Guardian plasma launcher (turret)
  
• Small Guardian plasma launcher (fixed)
  
• Small Guardian Shard Cannon (turret)
  
• Small Guardian Shard Cannon (fixed)
  
• Small Guardian Gauss Cannon (fixed)

Thanks again for your continued support Commanders. We can't wait to see what you think of these new additions! o7

Hello everyone,

Today, we deployed the 3.1.2 update.

Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a softlock that could occur when dropping in to a Military USS
  
• Fixed missing Search and Rescue contact text
  
• Additional minor optimisations and fixes

Greetings Commanders!

We will be taking the galaxy servers down for the 3.1.1 update now. Expected downtime will be roughly 30 minutes. We will let you know on the official forums and social media when they are back online.

Fixes and Improvements

Missions

• Fixed players not being able to hand in a mission after accepting certain mission 'wrinkles'
  
• Fixed some missions appearing incorrectly in the 'Requirements Not Met' section of the mission board

Ships

• Rearranged incorrectly placed internal power modules on the Alliance Chieftain, Alliance Challenger and Krait Mk.II

Stability Fixes

• Fixed a crash that could occur when dropping from Supercruise into a Covert Combat Mission USS
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur when dropping from Supercruise into an instance with a military installation
  
• Fixed disconnection issues around certain installations

Modules

• Fixed a "Jump Exceeds Fuel Use Limit" discrepancy when using a Guardian FSD Booster with FSD Injection or white Dwarf/Neutron star boosts

Installations

• Reinstated installations that were causing crashes

Greetings Commanders,

The galaxy servers will be taken down today (28/06) at 8:00 AM (BST) to deploy update 3.1 Elite Dangerous: Beyond - Chapter Two.

The downtime is expected to last for approximately 9 hours. There is a chance that this could run over, so we really appreciate your patience. As usual with these updates we'll keep you as up to date as possible.

The full changelog can be found below:


Missions and Scenarios

• Added new wing mining missions
  
• Added new high threat USS's, and missions that can direct players to them

Megaship and Installation Interactions

• Added existing megaship interactions to installations
  
• Added Escape Hatch interaction points to damaged megaships

Crime and Punishment

• Players can now hand themselves in to security contacts, if they have outstanding bounties, and a zero notoriety rating. Players that hand themselves in will pay off the bounty and be deported to the nearest detention center
  
• Relaxed the friendly fire thresholds against NPC ships, to lower the amount of erroneous crimes being handed out
  
• Notoriety now decays whilst the player is docked
  
• Players current notoriety level displayed in cockpit will no longer be potentially out of date
  
• Relaxed the rules for Multicrew gunners so that they are less prone to accidental assault/reckless weapon discharge crimes

Weapons

• New weapons now available at applicable Tech Brokers:
  
• Large Plasma Shock Cannon (Fixed, Gimbal, Turret)
  
• Large Guardian Shard Cannon (Fixed, Turret)
  
• Large Guardian Plasma Launcher (Fixed, Turret)

Modules

• The Guardian FSD booster is once again available at the Guardian Tech Broker, now with improved fuel efficiency

Ships

• Alliance Challenger - a medium sized ship, based on the Alliance Chieftain, that boasts a generous compliment of hard-points, whilst retaining the Chieftains characteristic agility. It also has stronger armour.
  
• Krait Mk.II - a medium sized, multi-role ship, that trades defensive capability for speed, fire-power and maneuverability. The Krait Mk.II has space for two crew members and is capable of carrying a fighter bay

Narrative

• New planetary sites added, with audio logs

Art

• Fixed some missing effects on Guardian Artifacts

Audio

• Fixed audio cutting out in supercruise near neutron stars

Background Simulation

• Fixed war missions incorrectly offering influence rewards (influence during a war state has no actual effect)
  
• Ensure that faction effects are the same from selling exploration data for pages as well as individual star systems, and balance those faction effects to have roughly the same galactic impact as before this release

Controls & Control Devices

• Prevented Flight Assist from automatically re-enabling after exiting Supercruise

Engineers

• Fixed an issue with fading text in the Engineers Cost help window

General Fixes & Tweaks

• Numerous performance optimisations for hangars
  
• Resolved some minor typos
  
• Fixed some cut off text in material descriptions
  
• Local news top 5 bounty list should ignore breaking characters from ship names
  
• Fixed situations where 'Last main sequence star' info message can appear incorrectly
  
• General stability fix for incorrectly replicated data between players

Holo-Me Creator

• Fixed an issue that prevented players from saving their avatar with the Frontier Expo suit equipped

Installations/POIs/USSs

• Implemented a maximum scan time multiplier to prevent excessively long scans on large Mega Ships and Installations
  
• Fixed an underground destructible panel at a Guardian Structure

Missions

• Removed the timed element from assassination missions, so that targets are no longer limited to spawning within a time window. Players can scan the systems local nav beacon to find the targets location.
  
• Fixed Mentor missions showing incorrect reward choice upon completion
  
• Raised pay-out rate for Elite Rank Mining Missions
  
• Updated Salvage missions so that factions cannot be duplicated as both giver and target
  
• Updated the mission timer for Massacre Thargoid Wing Missions so it matches the non-Wing variant of this mission
  
• Fix wing mission rewards from trade missions to award trade rank to multicrew crew members as well as the helm
  
• Colonia factions have started issuing mission tip offs for the region

NPCs

• Ramming a guardian sentinel will no longer give you a bounty

Outfitting

• Fixed long description texts for experimental modules not appearing properly under the "Read More" section in Outfitting

PlayStation 4

• Fixed an issue that could occur when playing the combat tutorial while background installation is in progress
  
• Fix for an issue where the “Put Your Fighters Up” Trophy was not being awarded when fighter ships were launched from your ship by an AI pilot

Powerplay

• Fixed Powerplay crimes incorrectly affecting notoriety

Ships & SRV
General Ship Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed cases of Collector Limpets clipping through the top of several ships when returning cargo
  
• Fixed some visual problems with short Ship IDs

Alliance Chieftain

• Addressed a specular highlight in the canopy that could flicker in certain lighting conditions
  
• Fixed a small gap in geometry
  
• Fixed some clipping on hardpoints 1 and 2
  
• Shrank the Shipyard schematic icon slightly to prevent clipping
  
• Realigned nameplates
  
• Fixed some clipping on the Ship Kit

Anaconda

• Fixed scratches being present on Ship Kit parts when there is no ship wear and tear
  
• The number of internal windows now correctly matches the number of external ones
  
• Fixed an instance of Paint Jobs not rendering over a heat vent door
  
• Smoothed out some overhead cables in the cockpit
  
• Adjusted some internal module target locations
  
• Fixed emissive decals on the Anaconda losing detail if the Fusion Paint Job is applied

Asp Explorer

• Fixed a 2D Cannon alignment issue

Diamondback Explorer

• Added Ship Kit cameras for outfitting

Dolphin

• Fixed a texture issue with the Prestige paintjob

Federal Corvette

• Fixed some reflective areas on the Icarus and Prestige paintjobs
  
• Lowered glossiness on Precision Paint Jobs
  
• Fixed some missing textures on Paint Jobs

SRV

• Fixed a visual issue that could occur with your commander when colliding in an SRV

Type 9 Heavy

• Fixed a missing thruster texture
  
• Fixed some texture and model position issues

Type 10 Defender

• Fixed some clipping on certain Ship Kit parts
  
• Fixed some texture and model position issues

Vulture

• Fixed misaligned small lights

Stability Fixes

• Fixed a crash to desktop that would occur when opening the galaxy map immediately after the game had loaded in a station
  
• Fixed a server error that could occur when trying to apply an experimental effect to a module that was originally modified by another Engineer
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur when using Collector Limpets

User Interface

• Fixed an issue in the Systems panel that prevented the module health from updating correctly when repairing a module using a AFMU
  
• Fixed legal salvage incorrectly showing as a loss when sold

Weapons & Modules

• The heatsink launcher no longer has an incomprehensible DPS statistic
  
• Human and Guardian Tech Broker blueprint requirements have been reduced

Multicrew

• Decreased the discrepancy in jump times between Helm and crew members

Greetings Commanders,

We are pleased to announce that Chapter Two of the Beyond series of updates is right around the corner. In just under a month, you’ll be able to get your hands on the Alliance’s newest Chieftain variant: the Alliance Challenger. We’ve also got a selection of new wing missions, installation interactions, new settlements to explore and, to combat the ever-growing and ever-encroaching Thargoid threat, a cache of new Guardian weapons and technology from the Tech Brokers.

And… you’ll be able to explore it all for yourselves on June 28.

This is the first of the two smaller instalments coming as part of the Elite Dangerous Beyond series of updates, with a larger coming in Q4 of this year, bringing Squadrons and improvements to Mining and Exploration, and much more! If you’d like to contribute ideas and find out more about what’s coming in the Q4 update, please check out our Focused Feedback forums here.

Please find a summary of Chapter Two’s content below.

https://youtu.be/9oFmaPCtEtE

Summary of features:

New Ship: Challenger
The Alliance continue to refine their warships in the face of the looming Thargoid threat. The Alliance Challenger, envisaged as a frontline combat vessel, has stronger armour than its Chieftain counterpart and will be able to soak up a significant amount of punishment.

Wing Missions
First introduced in Chapter One of Beyond, we are introducing a range new Wing Mission types for you and your fellow Commanders to take on!

Installation Interactions
In a similar fashion to the Megaship interactions, which were introduced in Chapter One, Commanders will now be able to scan and interact with Space Installations.

• Scan – Scanning the installation will allow Commanders to see what they can interact with: Turrets, Comms Arrays and Cargo Bays.
  
• Turret hack – Disable turrets protecting other potential hackable points. This will deactivate security measures put in place to protect the Comms Arrays and Cargo Bays.
  
• Comms array – Get tradable data from the Comms Array.
  
• Cargo bay – Fire a limpet on the Cargo Bay to unlock and steal commodities and materials.

Tech Broker
Tech Brokers will allow commanders to unlock large weapons versions of the existing guardian tech weapons. These Tech Brokers will issue missions to collect Guardian data as well as materials and then, once delivered, will unlock certain Guardian modules of weapons for purchase. Will you turn you weapons on Thargoid or use them to pirate rival Commanders?

Thargoid
Thargoids continue to be an intergalactic menace! With the Alliance introducing a new ship, the Thargoids intend to up their game too, introducing new Scouts that will buff other Scouts and increase their combat efficiency.

Redacted
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A full list of details and changes will be available in a changelog at launch.

We’d love to hear what you think about this next instalment of the Beyond series of updates and can’t wait to let you discover all the content ingame!

Source: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/429972

Hello folks,

For years, Will has dreamed of flying the stars under the sigil of the Federation of Pilots; an official pilot, well respected and appreciated throughout space. In order to earn his stripes and gain entrance to the Federation's academy, he will embody and become... the Cosmic Cadet, attending work experience with many different player groups in a hope to learn the ways of the… galaxy!

As part of the new Edifying Will series, Will will accompany the Sagittarius Eye player group, finding out what it’s like to be a member of the free press. Will he survive the pen, or face utter humiliation? Come along and find out tonight on our YouTube channel at 7:00 PM (BST).

This is a sequel to the Educating Ed series so if you enjoyed that, then hopefully you’ll enjoy this too!

Watch live on our YouTube channel here:

https://gaming.youtube.com/elitedangerous/live