Hi everyone,

Last weekend was Lavecon and a group of us went there and a good time was had by all! We enjoyed meeting the fans and discussing the game both in the panel’s Q&A and one to one as we mingled. A big thank you to Karen and her team for organising the event and to everyone who made us feel welcome. We had so much fun that this update has a bit of a Lavecon theme :-)

The next major PC/Mac release (which was 1.4) is now headlined CQC Championship and will be released within as short a window as possible after the Xbox release. We’re looking at weeks, rather than months as has been speculated.

As with all of our major updates there is more than just the headline feature. There will be new ships, one of which we announced at Lavecon – the Imperial Eagle. This new ship is more of an interceptor than the original Eagle with better straight line speed and less manoeuvrability. It also sports a medium hardpoint as well as two small ones, giving it a bit more of a punch than its counterpart.

Something else that came up in conversation with fans is how vulnerable the Anaconda is to having its powerplant shot out. We’re going to change how taking out the powerplant works in the CQC update. There will still be a very small chance of powerplant destruction blowing up the ship, but it will also suffer module malfunctions like the other modules. Specifically it will lose power and will need to be rebooted. For the Anaconda we’re also making it a bit harder to hit the powerplant.

Player groups was something that came up quite a bit in conversation at Lavecon and in relation to powerplay as well. During the run up to Powerplay’s release we talked about how a player sponsored minor faction can rise to become a power. We’ve been working on the process for this and will be talking about it in more detail next week. For players already supporting a minor faction in game they will be eligible.

The Elite Dangerous team have never been bigger, and we’re working long hours and weekends to have our major announcement ready in time for Gamescom. It’s something we’ve be building to for a long time and something we can’t wait to reveal. You’ll hear all about that when Gamescom opens to the press on August 5th.

Thanks!

Michael

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