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The Update – September will be available on Wednesday 18 September!
Downtime will start at 8am UTC.

September Update

New “In Ship” Starter Experience

Following on from what we set out to achieve with this year’s initial updates, we will be introducing a whole new starting experience right from the cockpit of a commander’s first ship, a loaned Sidewinder. With clearer instructions and guidance during the beginning of Elite Dangerous, we believe this will lead to a more engaging way to learn the basics and help commanders understand the tools they have at their disposal to become fully-fledged pilots. We can’t wait to see how these new commanders will involve themselves in the galaxy in the same way many of you have!

At the start of the experience, commanders will be guided through essential pilot training by a flight instructor from the Pilots Federation. During this training, a number of lessons will be taught to commanders, from space flight to combat.

• Basic flight controls and scanning.
• Supercruise and navigation.
• A combat exercise around a megaship.
• Culminating with the final lesson: completing one’s first Hyperspace Jump and docking at a starport.

All of the training will include VO across our supported languages, so whether you’re a commander, un commandant or ein kommandant, you’ll be able to follow each exercise without issue!

Veteran commanders out there who wish to experience the training will also be able to access it in the ‘Training Section’ via the right-hand panel.

New Livery System and Virtual Currency: ARX

Those on consoles will already be familiar with the concept of Frontier Points and, as part of the September Update, we’re reworking and rebranding them as Arx, across all platforms (including PC), ensuring the experience to acquire cosmetics is shared equally for commanders on any platform. This new currency can be purchased, as well as earned by simply playing the game, to acquire Game Extras such as Paint Jobs, Ship Kits, Bobbleheads and more!

As always with our optional additional purchases, Arx can only be used to buy cosmetic Game Extras and will not be used to introduce and acquire pay-to-win purchases. Ultimately, Arx will enable us to…

• Bring parity across all of our platforms
  At the current time, PC commanders purchase cosmetics directly from the Frontier Store with real world currency, while those on consoles must first purchase Frontier Points before acquiring that new and shiny Paint Job. With the introduction of Arx, the method of purchasing and spending Arx will be the same experience regardless of what platform you’re on.
• Allow commanders to earn customisation items through gameplay
  As part of the update to the livery system and the introduction of Arx, commanders will be able to acquire cosmetic items by simply playing the game! We won’t ask commanders to change how they play, simply being an active player and engaging with the game is all that’s required. A number of Arx can be earned each week and will be instantly added to a player’s Arx balance and can be spent there and then, or saved for later. We’ll have more details on how these can be earned in-game and the amount you can earn, closer to the release of the September Update.
• Introduce a new, flexible and informed choice when purchasing Game Extras
  We’ve made improvements to the entire in-game ship livery system, providing commanders with previews of all the different customisation options for their ships and multiple angles!
  Commanders will be able to purchase individual Game Extras that were previously only available in entire packs. For example, if you wanted the Anaconda White Pharaoh Paint Job, you would no longer need to purchase the entire Anaconda Horus Paint Pack to obtain it. We’re still going to be putting together bundles and packages, but this new system will allow commanders to buy the majority of Game Extras individually.
• Offering commanders the ability to change their ship’s appearance from the main menu
  One of the biggest improvements we are introducing is the ability to access the ship livery from the main menu, so even explorers out in the black will be able to change up their ship’s appearance without needing to head all the way back to civilization!

It will be possible to get up to 400 ARX per week by participating in various activities, such as combat, trading, exploration and more.

The Livery system has been improved. It will be possible to buy ship customizations with the ARX directly via the livery panel that will be accessible in-game as usual or via the main menu. The same goes for the Holo-Me and the customizations of your commanders.

Bug fixes & enhancements

With the recent Bug Tracker addition, the most known bugs have been raised and fixed by the dev team.
Among them, the most important:

• Fixed being unable to scroll through Tourist Beacon text in the archive section if it was longer than one page
• Fixed some issues with incorrectly reversed decals
• Fixed an issue where the outfitting camera was clipping into the hangar floor
• Fixed an issue where body data wouldn’t show up first time when using the Full Spectrum Scanner (FSS)
• Fixed an issue where the blue scan visual effect can appear on a nearby planet that you’re not trying to scan
• Added a cooldown when using hotkeys to give fighters orders, and prevented allowing players to repeat an order that has already been given to the fighter (multiple orders were creating network lag, resulting in an exploit during combat)
• Fixed an issue that could cause the AI ship not to appear after they interdicted a player
• Fixed holes in one of the Ship Kit pieces (Krait Phantom)
• Fixed missing Cyrillic letters in Squadron Creation and Rank Names
• Corrected spelling of ‘nonhuman’ in the Knowledge Base
• Fixed Mamba landing gear still appearing to be deployed even after the player had retracted it
• Decreased mine rearm time from 5 seconds to 2 seconds. The increase in time was an attempt to fix an issue where long ships were being hit by their own mines. However, the updated arming time was too long, making them ineffective. This new arming time should balance it.
• Fixed an issue where the SRVs weapon were firing slightly offset when used from the driver’s seat
• Increased the spawn rate of High Grade Emissions
• Increased the spawn rate for Non-Human Signal Sources
• More fixes, network and enhancements