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Discover EVERYTHING you need to know about the upcoming Elite Dangerous update: Beyond “Chapter 1”, the first update Beyond 3.0, coming end of January or early February.

Feel free to keep this article bookmarked in order to visit it regularly in order to catch up with new information!

Summary:

 

Release Date

  • The Beta 3.0 Beyond, Chapter 1, is scheduled for this January 25th 2018
  • No release date has been announced yet.

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General Information

  • Beyond is expected to cover 2018 and will be spread over four updates: two major in Quarter 1 and 4 + two minor in quarters 2 and 3.
    • Quarter 1 – Engineers, Wing Missions, Crimes and Guardians
    • Quarter 2 et 3 – Minor additions and Stories
    • Quarter 4 – Exploration, Mining, and Players Groups
  • Beyond will be free for all players with Horizons.
  • The story of the Guardians will continue, with new experiences and a personal story to follow, all supported by stories and events – Video recap
  • /!\Allegiances to Thargoids and Guardians? Mysteries…

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Criminality

  • Crimes are attached to ships which cause them to become ‘hot.’
  • Ships that are ‘hot’ have to connect to Starports services anonymously which limits their access to certain services.
  • Bounties are no longer dormant.
  • Murder bounties are being revamped to include the following:
    • A fraction of the perpetrator’s rebuy cost.
    • A fraction of the victim’s rebuy cost.
  • Commanders will have a ‘Notoriety‘ level:
    • It increases with each murder crime
    • It increases the rebuy cost fractions for both perp and victim
    • The victim’s rebuy cost is reduced by this amount
    • It decreases when a Commander is brought to justice.
  • Introducing ‘Power bounties,’ which only apply to ‘Power’ crimes
    • Power bounties replace normal crimes for Power activities
    • Power bounties can only be seen and claimed by appropriately pledged ships
    • Power bounties do not follow the crime flow
  • Superpowers will issue Interstellar bounties against Commanders that continually transgress against factions aligned with them.
  • An Interstellar bounty is issued once the credit value for all appropriate bounties and fines breaches a certain threshold.
  • Interstellar bounties are valid in every jurisdiction controlled by a faction aligned with the superpower.
  • When criminals repeatedly commit crimes in succession, they will eventually draw the attention of special authority ships: the Advanced Tactical Response.
    • These are powerful enough to pose a real threat to any ships Commanders have, though they will not insta-kill you.
  • When a criminal is detected and destroyed they respawn at the nearest appropriate ‘Detention Centre.’
  • At a detention centre a Commander must pay for crimes committed in the jurisdiction where they were destroyed. If you can’t pay the fines, two options: start the game all over, loan
  • Leaving a detention centre a Commander is safe from other Commanders until engage their FSD.
  • There are Superpower detention centres for Commanders with Interstellar bounties.
  • Ships that are destroyed unrelated to crime will respawn at the nearest and safest Starport in the system if possible, reverting to the last port docked if not.
  • Kill Warrant Scanner will reveal the single largest bounty.

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Wing Missions

  • In order to accept the mission, one member of the wing needs to access the mission board and select a wing mission, which are denoted by a special icon.
  • Once accepted, the player who took the mission can share it by clicking the share button on the mission’s entry, located in the ‘Transactions’ panel. Doing so sends the player’s wingmates an inbox message and adds the mission to their own Transactions panel.
  • The wingmates can choose to then either accept or decline the mission invite in the Transactions panel.
  • Important to note: each player can only share one mission at a time, this means that with a maximum of four players in a wing, players can be part of up to a maximum of four active wing missions at any given time.
  • All players who are members of the wing at the point that the mission is completed are eligible for the mission rewards.
  • Every member of the wing receives the same reward choices for completing the mission.
  • Wing missions are also using the new mission reward system, which provides players with three different, and roughly equivalent, reward packages allowing each player to choose which set of rewards they wish to claim. One of these reward packages will always be a credit based reward package.
  • The more a player participate in a Wing Mission, the more she/he will earn.
  • There are three rewards choices:
    • Reputation // minor factions
    • Influence // background simulation
    • Credits // Credits

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New ship: Chieftain

  • Price: Between 35M and 45M credits
  • Size: Medium, bigger than an Asp Explorer
  • Hardpoints: 3Small, 1Medium, 2Large, 0Huge
  • Utility modules: 4
  • Internal Core Modules: Power Plant C6, Thrusters C6, FSD C5, Life Support C5, Energy Distributor C6, Sensors C4, Fuel Tank C4
  • Internal Optional Modules: 2 C5, 1 C4, 2 C2 + 3 C4 military (Shield boosters, hull & modules reinforcements)
  • Details: Very nimble
  • FSD jump range 20LY no Engineered mods
  • VidĂ©o

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Planetary Visual Enhancements

  • Chapter 1 also includes the first visual enhancements to the planets, and further enhancements will follow later in the year.
  • These colours and variations are all very different and depend on the altitudes, planets compositions, their types, their materials, volcanism, temperatures, …

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Data Trading

  • You will now be able to access the Data Trading of the previously visited systems, in order to decide more precisely which business you want to engage.
  • Through the galactic market, we will be able to refine the search to make a better profit via the Galactic Average Prices button, on the top right. By choosing where to (and from our position now) we want to trade, we will be able to see the different prices and get a glimpse of the realisable profit.
  • The galaxy map has been reworked with Trading in mind: more icons, buttons and filters. It will be easy to see where or from where to make a profitable business with these tools.
  • To obtain the details of the commercial data, it is necessary to have previously scanned the system’s beacon or to have docked on a station of this system beforehand.
  • The Sorting option by “Commander” allows to see the routes ran by the commanders around, if they made interesting profits during the last 24h.
  • The Sorting option by “Commercial” is the standard giving us a visual of the commercial routes currently available, compared to the supplies and markets’ demands.
  • Sorting by pad sizes, surface or not and range

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Tech Broker

  • A very interesting system of Technology Broker, this NPC offers us technologies to unlock thanks to our narrative progression (?) and via materials.
  • Once unlocked, they will be available in our equipment but we will still need to buy them in order to equip them.
  • These technologies include:
    • An improvement of our hull with Meta-Alloys;
    • A Shock cannon reloading as time passes and shooting energy projectiles with great precision. If all ammunition are used, it will take a long time to recharge → use sparingly;
    • Caustic missiles, taken from the Thargoids but less powerful. Ineffective against Thargoids and shields, but dealing damage over time to the hulls.
  • There will be Humans and Guardians Tech Brokers

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Engineers

  • More details this January 25, 7pm BST
  • Enhancements
    • End of side effects, the basic effects will be more powerful
    • Mod tries will always be better than the previous ones. N will be modded to n+2, n+3 or more. N+2 will be modded to n+3 or more but will never go back to n+1.
    • Pinned mods recipes can be crafted from anywhere in the game
    • The experimental effects will not be random anymore, they will have to be added with additional materials
    • End of the loss of reputation Engineer
    • Materials Traders in the Spaceports
    • Storage of materials increased to 100 by materials
  • New Experimental Effects:
    • Multiservos – Increase the DPS +3% and the fire rate +3% while increasing the module’s energy consumption +5%
    • Oversized – Increase the DPS +3% and the Gamage +3% while increasing the module’s energy consumption (previously Overcharged) +5%
    • Flow Control – Greatly decreases the module’s energy consumption -10%
    • Double Braced – Increase the module’s integrity (previously Sturdy) +15%
    • Stripped Down – Decrease the module’s mass (previously LĂ©ger) -10%
  • Remote workshops allow you to craft an engineering blueprint pinned from anywhere on a non-Engineer station, however you do not earn the associated Engineer reputation.

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Materials Traders

  • The Material Trader will be in some stations, button Contact.
  • A materials board will be available and will allow you to exchange materials of the same type (chemical, heat, driver, …) against some others. For example, it takes 1 Tier II manufactured to get 3 Tier 1 manufactured. It takes 6 Tier I manufactured to get 1 Tier II manufacturing. → These values are subject to change depending on our feedback for the beta.
  • These materials merchants will be available for the Manufactured and Data, nothing has been seen about the Elements yet.
  • Raw (elements) Materials Trader – Found at extraction and refinery economie.
  • Manufactured Materials Trader – Found at industrial economies.
  • Encoded (data) Materials Trader – Found at High Tech and Military economies.
  • Systems also need to be mid to high security systems and have populations between 1,000,000 and 22,000,000.
  • These Traders can be found via a new filter in the Galactic map

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Galnet Audio

  • Listen to galactic news, without loosing focus from your cockpit! – Video
  • Galnet Audio will be available in all languages supported by the game
  • We will be able to create Galnet Audio Playlists

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Others

  • Some new buttons on the right panel, we can see Galnet Audio, Galnet News, a mystery button (Holo-Me?), Engineers and Powerplay
  • More interactions with the Megaships!
    • Many things to find on them like Cargo Bays or Hackable Data Arrays that we can Scan → Identify → Launch the correct Limpet → Profit
    • These Megaships have defences, and the developers would like to add these interactions to the fortresses as well.
    • Foster Pirating with more things to do and cooperation to defend/attack these Megaships like fortresses. They come in different types.
  • The Keelback now has a second seat, available for Multicrew!
  • Voices customizations in the ships will be available, we heard the male voice that can replace the traditional female robot. This is “Victor“.
  • Mining: We can now blacklist elents we don’t want to collect!

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Source

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3