Elite: Dangerous

The continually evolving, life consuming, ever immersive, space sim gains new planned content, as Chapter 3 of the Beyond DLC goes live.

I’m a big fan of Elite: Dangerous. I started off, like most, as a skeptic. Slowly but surely though, I found myself consumed. The openness, the freedom, the combat, the isolation, the rare but memorable human interaction, the exploration. Every time some new content is dropped, I immediately get it downloaded. Then its matter of securing some free time with the TV, getting my headphones on, locking all the doors and windows, and setting off. Second star to the left, and straight on until dawn…

Beyond: Chapter 3

The third of four planned DLCs within the complete Beyond package, this will be a smaller scale affair. The package was announced at Gamescom last week, with video footage airing during the past week, before its release yesterday. As a whole there will be new missions, new ships, new weapons, new engineers and new story aspects. The content will be based around Elite: Dangerous’ main story, centering around the Thargoid/Guardian/Human conflict. Check out the bottom of this page for the release announcement, complete with full list of new shinies.

Beyond has been a completely free series of updates for Elite: Dangerous. Their previous paid DLC was Horizons, and you will need to own this to experience all the features of the free packages. This will include the new engineers and anything planet based. There is another fourth chapter to Beyond scheduled for release before the end of 2018. Apparently this last update will be larger in size than the second or third, though there are no details yet on content.

Are you Elite?

Beyond has been a hell of a ride, encompassing those terrible Thargoids invading human space. One of gaming’s longest running story arcs, the Thargoids began as a rumor shortly after Elite: Dangerous was released in 2014. It was 2016 before anyone sighted a Thargoid ship, and another year before active contact was made.

Since then its been intelligence gathering, skirmishes, and organized defense of besieged human space. Taking on  a Thargoid ship is a terrifying, pulse pounding and beautiful experience. I tried to 1 v 1 a Thargoid before. Bear in my mind I owned the best rated fighter in the galaxy, with the hardest hitting weapons, and tightest defenses. The fight lasted about 3 minutes. It was a glorious death.

Elite Developer

With this continued support for players, developer Frontier are turning a niche space sim into a beloved gaming event. The community continues to grow. Elite: Dangerous was once an intimidating beast. But all these updates have lessened the steep learning curve, and there are any number of online resources for player information. If you’re not Elite yet, you can grab it now on Steam on sale. It’s also available on Xbox and PS4, if you’re a console peasant of course… GamEir.

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.

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)

 

About The Author

Brian started gaming on a Commodore 64 before you were born. He played everything worth playing on every platform worth playing them on since then, but refuses to mess with that new fangled VR stuff. Makes him nauseated he says.

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