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Elite: Dangerous was launched on KickStarter in November 2012 to raise funds for the development of this huge universe. Long videos and a lot of articles/posts were then created to highlight the progress made by the teams at Frontier Developments, but also to communicate about the vision proposed for the game.

This article will be devoted to the game’s many concepts officially highlighted during their past communications that aren’t currently in the 2018 experience. Feel free to watch all their interviews with the press, their YouTube videos and other sources… or read this article because I have done it for you these last five years 😉

Communications on the Elite: Dangerous development is becoming increasingly rare and information sparse. I hope, with all my heart, that the teams will gather round to think about Community content: Dev Diaries, explanatory videos, images of future concepts, things that motivates players, and fewer promises of dates and projects not held on time. We have to focus on the things that are really worth it, we want to see, we want to participate, we want to support Frontier Developments. Opening Beyond’s discussion topics is a great initiative, but it’s really only the basis of communication, you have to push the conversation further and come up with what you’re working on regularly, even if it does not represent exactly the final vision of the project.

Reorganize your means of exchange with the community, funnel the flow of information, build a special place to communicate with the largest players groups, conduct regular meetings and specific tests with them, share your life in the studios and especially: concentrate on the essentials and do not scatter to amuse the gallery. Certainly, some animations are fun, but do they have a real purpose? Do they bring things to the community? To Frontier Dev? To the development of a game?

I have been creating content about Elite: Dangerous for the past five years now, I am the official French moderator for E:D, I am the leader of the very enthusiast Remlok players, but above all I am an Elite: Dangerous player. All I want is the success of the game, the happiness of the community and also to share the Frontier’s employees passion about this magnificent project. Please, share your love with the whole community – Nicou.

Here, we will discuss about projects that were announced in the game concepts, but are not (yet) in-game as of 2018.

In 2015 and 2016, I published two articles presenting the players desires and expectations for the development of the game. Here we are now almost three and a half years after the release of Elite: Dangerous, and ultimately most of our wishes have been answered! The development is slow, yes, but in the end it still looks quite fast; It is the content and the stories that are sorely lacking between the Features updates. The community are left in suspense, they need quests, a goal, things to do and a longer “campaign” evolving with the new features.

In my opinion, we will need two good years – now that they have a better dev-pace, new techs, more employees and greater buildings, to see a FPS “Spacelegs” and atmospheric planets at stake. Keep it up, we only need more stories and communications about what you are doing.

We will do it. And we want to do it right – David Braben

• The desire to create atmospheres has always been very strong. Frontier is an expert in procedural generation and simulation: creating realistic clouds has been in their vision for a long time. Three times thanks to David Braben, he announced in 2012 and reiterated in 2016 and 2017 that he would very much like to be able to approach gaseous planets atmospheres,  like Jupiter for example. Collect materials in the clouds, hide into them, pay attention to electrical storms and navigate in the high atmospheres seem like something important to him.
• Being able to approach planets with a light atmosphere should be the next step now that Horizons is well implemented. Although we can only harvest surface materials currently through various gameplays (mining, fortresses, volcanism, points of interest, missions) they still are sterile planets. It is normal that there is little to achieve here. However, a planet with a light atmosphere could allow for larger human settlements, probably under domes. Frontier would need to work on a new reentry system so we do not consume in the atmopshere, add new things on some ships to get some aerodynamics otherwise our Anaconda would fall like a brick… maybe additional large deployable thrusters? Retractable wings? Other features? Or for those who can not go down, an orbit-surface shuttle system?

• The ships, and indeed all the concepts of the game, were designed to prepare the future. Many movable/dynamic parts are present, especially on the recent ships, and this should be reinforced in the future until a possible update allowing us to walk in our ships. We could then visit their interiors, extinguish a fire, carry out repairs, hide in other ships cargoes, see the commodities being brought in, and more when it is ready.

 

• The systems areas being closed now already have their drafts for next planned stories. These will be unlocked in due time but some mysteries scattered here and there could allow us to discover new parts of stories. Many experiments have been conducted but nothing new has been found, apart from the Salome and Formidine Rift plots.
• The shields were designed to have multiple generators providing front/back/top/bottom/left/right gameplay. The more one pulls on one side of the shield, the more they weaken and let the shots pass. This could have brought a very interesting gameplay to the Multicrew Gunner which is not currently exploited enough.

• Landing gears were basically made to dampen contact with a surface, however, it seems that it has been modified subsequently. We have no reason for this change (or do we?). It is unattractive to see our ships sinking into the surfaces with hard landing gear.

 

• The information displays in the cockpits would actually be related to a device from our pilot. This device is worn as a communications wristband and should follow us once FPS hits Live. This could be displayed in a station while you’re standing for example. I like to call these RIComs for Remlok Industries communications devices 🙂

• The FPS seems to have been under work for a while by the developers. It represents an extremely complex branch for the game because it should allow us to perform many other things to make the system interesting. A model of pilot in 0G in its ship had been shared in 2013. We could walk in our ship, in the stations and take on various missions directly with a FPS mode. The EVA could be a nice addition as sometimes heard from the dev team.

• Listening to many interview where David Braben talks about the Thargoids and their Interceptor ships, I really feel like the Thargoids we actually meet in-game are not the real ones, the true race might not be invading us. Those we meet right now might “not be real? who knows?” as Mr. Braben says, or even “are they fake or real? or manufactured?” (twice here). They might even come from the Magellan cloud as he said? Might they have been genetically engineered? By whom? The Thargoids would have attacked the Guardians 2 million years ago, they would have lost and the Constructs would have destroyed the Guardians. The Thargoids were mostly destroyed by humans. Humans recover Guardian and Thargoids technologies, team up with the remaining Thargoids and fight the Guardian Constructs, this AI having rebelled as they developped sentient self-awareness? The Thargoids currently encountered could have been manufactured by the Club in order to push their interests and make human civilization cooperate with their actions? So, so, so many mysteries…
• Possibility to recruit an internal defense crew to the ship, depending on its size, to protect the different rooms when we can walk with our characters.
• Different armours, from fabric to heavy ones, and different weapons might be available to manage the different players desires. We have few details on this at the moment, but David Braben has mentioned the possibility of breach enemy ships and even stealing them.
• A capital ship like the Empire Class Majestic contains 2 fighters squadrons for a total of a dozen fighters. In the future, perhaps we could control a capital ship and play with the crew: pilots, gunners, mechanics, fighters, engineers, navigation, shields tech?
• Possibility of improving our FSD to create mini-jumps between two distant points in the same system, like from star A to star B.
• Escape pods and ejection systems? Our escape pod would then fly in a straight line for about an hour to the closest safe stellar object to get into orbit. Generally the safe zone is neither too close nor too far from the star to operate at minimum power, emit a distress beacon and place us at a good temperature. The “glass” of our cockpits is actually a mix of various plastic materials called “Steel-Glass”. However, ejecting from a seat is dangerous and it is advisable to take refuge in one of the escape pods.

• The game instances have been greatly improved, unfortunately it is still not a great system, especially on consoles. There are times when, if we are friends on PC it works very well as shown in this image from a recent event Small Worlds Expedition III. (I should write an article on how to improve your instances). The game servers could allow all players to find the others more easily, but it is apparently in the sheets; Otherwise, the network teams would have not worked that hard to push the Peer-to-Peer system to its boundaries.
• The Cross-Platform feature has always been an heated topic between Windows and Sony. The latter would categorically deny Windows advances in order to keep its community “safe”. Sony highlights the contract that users have with PlayStation telling that the PS universe is the safest system they could have. “Exposing players and especially younger players to other worlds would not allow Sony to keep these players safe.” A response of course absurd but this is the official version given by Jim Ryan, head of global sales and marketing for PlayStation. At least, an Xbox One ↔ PC would be feasible and we all can’t wait to meet our friends on console! Maybe one day, PlayStation will allow the Cross-Platform… but it seems like this is far away. This would serve the entire E:D community and would greatly facilitate player-to-player exchanges while promoting the use of future features such as Squadron, a guild system planned for the fourth quarter of 2018.

Thank you to the entire community and the Frontier Developments employees who are working to bring us a world where freedom is second to none. Let’s take a step back, compare how long you have played E:D compared to other games, check out what the new features are even if not fully developped, raise your feedback and most importantly: take your time in or out of Elite: Dangerous.

Yes, there is a lot of work to be done, yes the communication does not seem to be the strong skill of Frontier now, but I think that discussing the gaps this year is the best thing we can do. Their new buildings and technologies, the new employees and this ongoing features overhaul will allow us from a complete and fresher game in order to provide the game with a brighter future. Also, keep in mind that the other financial resources from their other titles stay within Frontier Devs purse, so JWE will help E:D to grow for even more gigantic projects.

Frontier Developments, I’d be very happy and honoured to provide your Publishing & Community teams with the best of my skills, passion and knowledge. You know me. Feel free to contact me 🙂