Frontier Developments have recognised that September’s big Elite Dangerous update “introduced a number of issues and bugs which caused a lot of frustration.” They’re “really sorry” about that, they say, and by popular demand have declared a new commitment to fixing the game up. The next few updates will focus chiefly on improving both “recent and longstanding issues”, and frankly it sounds welcome. This does mean they’re delaying new content a little, pushing the fancy Fleet Carriers back from December into next year. Which is probably sensible. What use is a 16-player ship if it’s flying in a frustrating universe?
Elite Dangerous' already long-overdue 16-person Fleet Carriers will no longer arrive this December as previously announced, and are now expected to launch some time next year.
Fleet Carriers, as previously detailed by developer Frontier, are capital ships intended to function as a base of operations for large, organised Squadrons. They can be purchased (for a significant amount of credits) and piloted by a single Commander, but feature 16 landing pads to accommodate a full complement of players.
All of which sounds very exciting - just as it did when the feature was originally unveiled in 2017. Back then, Fleet Carriers were announced to arrive as part of 2018's Beyond update. However, as Beyond's fourth and final chapter neared release last October, Frontier revealed that Fleet Carriers had been "reprioritised". It later announced that they'd finally be implemented this December, a full year after their originally planned debut.
In August, Frontier Development announced that massive Fleet Carriers with the ability to travel great distances and serve as refueling and refitting stations for smaller ships would be added to Elite: Dangerous in December. That plan has now changed, however, as Frontier has shifted its focus for the remainder of the year, and beyond, to fixing bugs.
The shift in priority followed the release of the September Update, which apparently introduced a number of new bugs to the game. "We realise that some of the issues had an impact on your ability to enjoy Elite Dangerous. The team have been working hard to address the most critical issues and have already released a series of patches and updates to bring those fixes in as quickly as possible," community manager Will Flanagan wrote.
"However, we know there's more to be done. You've asked for more focus on existing bug/fixes and issues, and for the community to be better integrated into the development process and testing for these upcoming updates."
To make that happen, future updates "from now and into next year" will be focused almost exclusively on fixing both new and longstanding problems with the game, rather than incorporating new content. Those updates will be rolled out every three to four months, and will be preceded by a public beta. The first update is expected to begin beta testing in December, and barring any big problems will go live in early 2020.
"As a result of our updated plans, we have made the difficult decision to defer the release of Fleet Carriers," Flanagan wrote. "We are now planning for Fleet Carriers to be released in an update in the second quarter of 2020, rather than in December 2019 as previously stated. This will grant us additional time to refine the feature as well as focusing time on addressing existing reported issues.
"It will also ensure the state of the game is in a better position to introduce Fleet Carriers, that will provide Commanders even more opportunities to interact with the Milky Way. We understand that this delay will be disappointing for some players, but do know that this decision is one that we do not take lightly, and is made with the best interests of the community and game at heart."
Flanagan also touched on the next "major paid expansion" to Elite: Dangerous, which is expected to be out by the end of 2020. Everything is apparently on schedule, but Fronter won't be ready to actually revealed anything about it until—hopefully—sometime in summer 2020, after the Fleet Carriers update is live.
Dr. Kevin Hamlen, a computer science professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, was searching for the fastest route from Sol (that's our solar system) to Colonia, a system 22,000 light years away, in Elite Dangerous.
The previous record, set by Commander St4r Fox, was 1:55:32, but Hamlen and his six-year-old son Will managed the journey in 1:38:11.
"I realised that the problem of finding the fastest way to get from Earth to Colonia is actually a famous graph theory problem we teach in computer science," Hamlen told the UT Dallas magazine.
He says he solved the problem by analysing a "directed graph" to identify a "least-cost path", which I'm going to pretend I understand.
"I thought it would be fun to see how well I could do using science to solve it," he says. "I downloaded star map data and wrote some computer code to search for optimal flight paths, and then flew the route it discovered, with Will at my side calling out course corrections."
You can read more about Hamlen and his son's achievement on Sagittarius Eye.
Depressed Angel: Favorite Elite Dangerous memory would be spending almost a month researching HOTAS and looking at tutorials before even starting the game. That first moment where you take off with your sidewinder and come out of the mailslot with the whole galaxy in front of your nervous controls cannot be beat.
Nelanius: My favourite memory is when I tried to land on a high G planet, came in hot, crashed my Krait MKII and died. I then re-bought it, tried to prove to my friend that I'm not inept and tried to land again, killing myself once again. I had lost all my money in the first crash due to rebuy and was left with an outstanding loan and a default Sidewinder as my only ship.
Isadorious: My fondest memory is, when the Thargoids were first introduced and no one knew what to do against the new threat.
Dave: The start of Distant Worlds 2, meeting up with other commanders then the mass jump that crashed the servers. Lots of fun!
Mentift: My favorite memory is my first encounter with the Thargoids. I shot them, it did nothing, and I died. But it looked really cool.
ArmourFox: Favorite memory? Leading a friend of mine to Hutton Orbital to let them claim their free ship, then proceed to run off with all the mugs I could carry and try to avoid fire from an angry friend :P
Delco: My favorite moment in Elite has to be the first time I broke an asteroid. Finding one that was sure to be full of Void Opals, and cracking it open has got to be the most rewarding thing I've done in the game so far!
Getti: My favorite memory was taking 3 hours to climb a gigantic mountain in an SRV. And I lived. And I made it back down, alive, thanks to a friend's ship which served as an elevator. Fun times. All in VR too!
Timerider: My fondest memory is definitely that first time I jumped into a star system, there's many awe-inspiring moments in this game but nothing compares to that first feeling of the massiveness as the star fills up your screen.
Agatheis: Finding an abandoned base on a planet way out in the middle of nowhere. The sense of scale is insane. It's this tiny little thing that was so easy to miss, the distances are mind-boggling.
{PTV} Tiago Commander Agatheis Here! As humble as it was, my best moment was one of the most terrifying manoeuvres I've ever done... Making into a spaceport without autodock.
Saxtus: My favorite Elite Dangerous memory was when I bought my Federal Corvette. A dream came true.
JazzyJet: My favorite memory was hearing Blue Danube while playing Elite for endless hours on my Amstrad CPC. Literally the tune was stuck in my head for months and could even hear it in my dreams when sleeping.
Brock: Coolest memory was fighting pirates and having my screen get cracked and was losing life support. I made it to a station with just seconds to live. I felt like I was actually suffocating. Would almost die again.
Jessie Colt: Favorite moment so far would be my final arrival at Beagle Point during the DW2 journey. Was my first time really getting out there in the depths of space.
Trashdar: Commander Jessie Colt. My favorite memory? Buying the Vulture and kitting it out. Flying it out of the mail slot that first time was a total rush!
Maelstrom: "Capital class signature detected", And what followed. Definitely the best I've experienced.
Sweater Yoda: My favourite memory was discovering that you Sagittarius A was in the game and actually going there myself. It was long trip but well worth it. There are many nice nebulae and waypoints with awesome sights on the way here and back. A close second was the first hyperdictions, the general atmosphere of those events were mind-blowing, so much so i flew around the Pleiades so much to go get hyperdicted myself.
{KHI}Cerberus: Simply put, through playing this game with dear friends, I realized that in exploring the vast expanses out there, the entire time we were really exploring ourselves.
TheLyricalMiracle: My favorite memories are with an old friend of mine, Rob. He unfortunately passed away Feb 17th 2019, and forever on will be docked at hausers reach, where we used to bounty hunt in corvettes every night from sundown, to sunrise while talking about life, sharing stories, and just having a generally great time.
lolPants: My favorite memory of Elite is from when I bought my first ship. It was a Viper III, and it handled totally differently to a Sidewinder and that had me hooked. Cheers for 35 years, and for 35 more!
The1AndMany: The first time I saw a capital ship warp in I was in awe. That thing sounds MONSTROUS.
Megatome: There's a few memories I have. From the launch of Sagittarius Eye to the return of the Thargoids. But I think my favorite is building my own VoiceAttack profile from scratch to help me play the game. I don't really use him anymore, but KAI is definitely responsible for a handful of good gameplay experiences. (Especially once he learned from EDDI.) While I'm at it, a close runner up is running ED in VR for the first time. Glorious doesn't even come close.
Patholio: Once, I (Commander ScythianSteppes) destroyed a Thargoid Interceptor in a Sidewinder. Enough is said.
Laphisto: Docking manually for the first time in the original Elite so many years ago, such a feeling of success :)
Andyrew: My best memory in Elite Dangerous would have to have been taking note of the crippling loneliness, looking among the stars and the planets, the asteroid belts and the debris fields and granted it was sad at first but then the over whelming erg to find another person and to explore took hold of me and in no time I was jumping from system to system looking for others. it wasn't until I was near death fighting a pirate that a group of other players came in and helped me out and since then we have been the greatest of friends.
Kyo Arashikage: Best moment was in E:D, looking around my Asp Explorer for the first time in VR. Exploring space never felt so real.
ThatLunchboxGuy Personally, my favorite memory from this epic and stunning game was when I arrived at Artemis Lodge in Celaeno. Arriving and dropping out in front of the station and looking behind me, it almost looked like the ring of asteroids that were around the planet was circling the home star of the system as well, and it was almost convincing. Not to mention the eerie music added to the moment, making me shiver. I didn't think buying and selling cargo could give one shivers like that, but it did for me in this case.
Zamzee: I think my favorite memory of Elite is finding one of my friends randomly when farming for guardian parts. He happened to have the same type of anaconda as me and we started talking, we friended each other and started farming together since. We've been hanging out ever since and have done so many of the events together, if we never met I don't think I'd be as into Elite Dangerous as I have been.
Maksim: I traveled 10-15 jumps to get to the system, scanned the planet, did a detailed surface scan, and found the site. I was flying in my unarmed Type-6 and I had no idea what to expect. I slowly approached the site and just watched the activities of the little Thargoid rovers for 10-15 minutes. It was late at night and I was terrified to land. I had no idea what they were capable of. I remember hovering there in fascination just looking at everything. I finally found a spot with the barnacles that wasn't too close to the Thargoid rovers and landed. I deployed my SRV and went to two barnacles as fast as I could and got back in my ship. It was such a rush. I took back off and circled the site a few more times, then departed. It was super rewarding when I turned in one of the meta-alloys and unlocked the engineer. I love how Elite Dangerous is a a big sandbox that lets me and other players make their own stories. Looking forward to more adventures. My commander name is Zamzee Owagana (PC).
Al_Kinnon: Guys, what you do is awesome! I can't remember any game which can give feel of solitude along with picturesque deep space.
Blammo!!!!: OK, I'll bite (for the cobra mk3 paint job.) I'm an old elite fan. Back in the 80's I remember spending hours watching my older cousin playing the original Elite on his BBC Micro computer. Fast forward to the early 90's and my friends and I would come home from school and play Frontier Elite 2 on an Amiga, sitting on a bench, and pretending we were actually in the ship. I lived and breathed Frontier for years on my own or with friends; but my fondest memory is being passenger or pilot with my mates. As kids back then it was a great game to play with friends round. Now as a 40 something Elite has come a long way and I'm still playing (when the wife lets me!).
Metl: My favourite moment of playing Elite was just finishing up on some bounty hunting when all of a sudden I received a message from friend who was out of fuel transporting high value goods from one place to another. As a helping hand I dropped what I was doing and went to the closest station to gear up for a rescue mission and off I went, after a short trip I refuel repaired and they shared some of their cargo with me to hand in as payment. It was a short moment while playing Elite but it stood out to me as a memorable moment to me.
I vaguely remember playing Elite II or III, but I don't remember which one it was. From what I remember, I enjoyed it, but Ultimately Privateer took over my time as far as space sims for the day. I loved that feel of freedom that those early space sims had, and Elite Dangerous really brings me back home to that completely open world to explore!