Elite: Dangerous Blog

I have now added pages for the three Saud Kruger Passenger vessels; the Dolphin, Orca and Beluga Liner - largest flyable ship in the game currently!

Update January 2019 - all these blueprints have been superseded by the new "3305 Editions" here which include hard-point and utility slot locations.  

With the addition of the Dolphin, I have republished the full set with a few additions. There are size corrections on the Viper Mk III and I've added ZIP copies of all the JPEG version of each language. Additionally, the remaining translations have been applied, so this is the most complete set to date.

• English versions gb.zip (39.2 mb)
• French versions fr.zip (31.3 mb)
• German versions de.zip (27.9 mb)
• Spanish versions es.zip (35.9 mb)

Thanks to CMDR Noxa on reddit for finding out who manufactures the Corilios station.

Thanks also to all the others on Twitter, Reddit and the Frontier forums who have been spotting errors and mistakes and letting me know. It's been very helpful to have so many people proofreading this lot! As you can imagine, while most of this work has been done in my lunch hour, there have been a few nights where I burnt the midnight oil and almost certainly copied numbers from the wrong spreadsheet column!

Thanks to CMDR Aidan Abacus & the CMDRs of www.elitedangerous.de for German translations. Thanks to CMDR Nicou, CMDR Aymerix & CMDR Duita Rider of www.elite-dangerous.fr for French translations. Thanks to CMDR Nyra, with the help of CMDR Kimanuel and CMDR XPi2, from Corsarios de Heimdal for Spanish translations.

	Craft	Manufacturer	1920x1080	4096x2305
	Stinger-2 Attack Skimmer	Achilles Corporation
	S4 Sentry Skimmer	Core Dynamics
	S9 Goliath Skimmer	Core Dynamics
	Scarab SRV	Vodel
	F63 Condor Federal Fighter	Core Dynamics
	GU-97 Imperial fighter	Gutamaya
	Taipan Independent Fighter	Lakon Spaceways
	Sidewinder	Faulcon DeLacy
	Eagle Mk II	Core Dynamics
	Hauler	Zorgon Peterson
	Adder	Zorgon Peterson
	Dolphin	Saud Kruger
	Imperial Eagle	Gutamaya
	Viper MK III	Faulcon DeLacy
	Cobra Mk III	Faulcon DeLacy
	Viper Mk IV	Faulcon DeLacy
	Diamondback Scout	Lakon Spaceways
	Cobra Mk IV	Faulcon DeLacy
	Type 6 Transporter	Lakon Spaceways
	Diamondback Explorer	Lakon Spaceways
	Imperial Courier	Gutamaya
	Keelback	Lakon Spaceways
	Asp Scout	Lakon Spaceways
	Vulture	Core Dynamics
	Asp Explorer	Lakon Spaceways
	Federal Dropship	Core Dynamics
	Type 7 Transporter	Lakon Spaceways
	Alliance Chieftain	Lakon Spaceways
	Federal Assault Ship	Core Dynamics
	Imperial Clipper	Gutamaya
	Federal Gunship	Core Dynamics
	Orca	Saud Kruger
	Fer De Lance	Zorgon Peterson
	Python	Faulcon DeLacy
	Type 9 Heavy	Lakon Spaceways
	Beluga Liner	Saud Kruger
	Type-10 Defender	Lakon Spaceways
	Anaconda	Faulcon DeLacy
	Federal Corvette	Core Dynamics
	Imperial Cutter	Gutamaya
	Majestic Class Interdictor	Gutamaya
	Farragut Battle Cruiser	Core Dynamics
	Coriolis Station	Brewer Corp
	Thargoid Sensor	Thargoids
	Thargoid Marauder	Thargoids
	Thargoid Cyclops	Thargoids

So how does the Dolphin fit? Well it's size gives it a volume of 9,481.5m³, so it is between the Adder and Cobra Mk 3 on a small landing pad.

After threatening to get it done, here it is at last! in and 4k

Yesterday's was very cinematic, but hidden away in the folds of the advertising are gems of information on the next major Elite release.

E.V.A.

Now the first scene here, show a CMDR standing behind the pilot's chair. The ship looks to be a Cobra. While the scene looks more CG than game rendered, it depicts a pilot moving around the ship. Is this poetic licence, or a hint of what's to come in season 3? Walking around our ships and stations maybe?  Personally it might just be fluff for the trailer - a bit of scene setting. BUT... it could be an element of multi-crew. Instead of a fade-to-black screen when moving between each other's ships and chairs, we might see our avatar walk to the cockpit and sit down.

Asteroid bases

Since the Kickstarter in 2012, we've been tantalised with concept art of asteroid space stations. Either pirate bases or mining bases, built into larger asteroids. These have been high on players request list and the image at 18 seconds clearly shows "Boweens Hollow" an asteroid base. Awesome sauce!

More furniture in the room

At 49 seconds, the trailer shows a new space structure, similar to the civilian outposts we've seen added since 2.1. Not earth shattering, but nice to see more life in the galaxy.

It's not a station, but damn it's big!

With a drive section as large as Jacques stations, the ship depicted at 50 seconds is too "primitive" to be a Capital ship and it sure doesn't look Thargoid. So what is it?

Well, for those unfamiliar with Elite lore, there were, hundreds of years ago in game-time, generational ships that launched into deep space from Sol without the benefit of FSD drives. These ships would take centuries to arrive at their destination, with the great grandchildren of the original crew at the helm. In the time between, human technology progressed and ships could fly such vast distances in minutes, so present-day ships have caught up with those early pioneers.

The ship shown here is almost certainly one of the fabled generational ships. Who's going to be the one to tell their crew they could take a modern ship and be back on Earth by tea-time?

Crew-mates

Toward the end of the trailer we see a Cobra Mk III with a co-pilot. The real question here, is whether the person in the next seat is NPC crew or Human crew. We know 2.3 is multi-crew and we are going to have a commander avatar creator. Since the Cobra doesn't have a ship-launched-fighter, the other seat isn't occupied by the NPC drone pilot, so I'm fairly certain they are depicting human multi-crew.

Something fishy sneaked past at the end

Finally, in the last few seconds of the trailer, a little ship sneaks past (bottom left). It's not the Orca, even though it looks a lot like it. It's the Dolphin passenger craft. I would say that pretty much confirms the ship for version 2.3.

The Beluga Liner has been a long time coming. The ship was first touted in Newsletter #10 back in August 2013 - three years ago!

As you can see it's design has evolved from concept to implementation.

The only other ships we've seen in concept that are not yet implemented are the small passenger ship, the Dolphin and the huge trade ship, the Panther LX. Although we did get a sneak peek at the final Dolphin, but Frontier did not confirm it for 2.2.

So how big is the Beluga Liner?

Frontier don't give out specifications - they let the players grab data from the game, however FDEV did post a photo from October 2014 that showed a whiteboard with the list of ships on it, which (even back then) included the Beluga and the Corvette.

As you can see (with a bit of squinting) the Beluga is the same length as the Anaconda with a narrower body, the Beluga's tail making it slightly longer and a great deal wider.

Obviously this is going to be a large landing pad ship

What's it's role?

The Beluga Liner is primarily a passenger vessel.

Like the Orca, it will be able to carry luxury and first class cabins that other ships won't, so the ship will be required to pursue a career in tourism and luxury travel, the profitable end of the new passenger industry.

The internal slots may also be restricted to cabins rather than other equipment, just as the Orca.

The ship has 6 utility slots and has the following internal module slots:-

• 4 x Class 3
• 1 x Class 4
• 2 x Class 5
• 4 x Class 6

This should give you massive passenger capacity. And maybe some cargo capacity too?

Is the Beluga armed?

It has been confirmed that the Beluga will have five medium hard-points. That would give it comparable fire-power to an Imperial Clipper (I rate fire-power by multiplying the number of hard-points by their class size).

But, in addition to five Class 2 weapons, the Beluga will also have a fighter bay. So it won't be a warship, but it'll be far from helpless either.

How fast is the Beluga?

Well, not very. But a ship that size is not going to be a racer. Sandro said on Tuesday's Lave Radio interview that the Beluga was the same speed as the Hauler, so it will be 200M/s with 300M/s on boost. Now that is faster than an Anaconda and Corvette, but slower than the Cutter. He didn't comment on agility, but we would expect something similar to the Anaconda's flight model as the ships are of similar size.

The ship will come equipped with a Class 7 FSD drive, but because of the Beluga's size, won't give a high jump range.

Over the weekend a photo from Frontier offices, circa October 2014 surfaced. The photo was of a whiteboard concerning audio development, but posted on the corner of the whiteboard was a series of ship concept arts and ship renders.

This is where it gets interesting

Speculation alert!

From the concept art, I can identify all but the smallest ships. Interestingly the ships are all grouped by manufacturer.

The renders are all top-down. This gives us a clear indication of size, or at least the size Frontier planned.

Some of the ships are in their "early" form. The Imperial Clipper was still known as the Imperial Trader and was larger than the final Clipper became. The Courier was in the early concept stage and as we know changed a great deal in implementation.

How big?

As you can see the Panther and Beluga top-downs show they are both longer than the Anaconda and Corvette. We are fairly certain that large pad is the hard limit of ship sizes and the pad would appear to be approximately 200m x 120m. The Beluga therefore is likely to be the same size as the Imperial Cutter and the Panther is that much larger, so probably very close to the maximum 200m long. That would make the Panther a pretty massive ship!

When?

With Horizons 2.2 "Guardians" we are going to get passenger missions, so it follows that the most likely time for the Dolphin and Beluga Liner to sail into the game is in this version.

When will we see the Panther Clipper? Well 2.1 would be a nice surprise, but my bet is the ship and maybe some others of the same size class, are being held back for something special in 2.4. Currently passing cargo is a matter of eject-n-scoop between two ships, but with advent of super-heavy traders in the game maybe we'll see a ship-to-ship docking mechanism added for cargo (and passenger?) transfer direct.
This would allow for player-to-player cargo transfer and ships as large as the Panther could visit tiny outposts like Hutton Orbital and be unloaded by a group of Type 6 transports. It would also allow for the transfer of passengers to ships. Maybe you can take some guests to that wedding barge?

Frontier have rather quietly announced the next major update to Elite: Dangerous after Close Quarters Combat Championship (1.4) will be called "Ships"

When is being released?

After CQCC in September, but before "Horizons" which is being released in "Holiday season" (late November to early December), so some time in October or early November. 

What else is in the update?

Well, ships. Clearly.

The update will take the number of unique ships (excluding variants we assume) to over thirty. We already know Horizons will bring the Cobra Mk IV and 1.4 will add the Dropship Mk II, the Federal Gunship and the Imperial Eagle.

There are still a number of ships hinted and teased to date we haven't seen confirmed for any release and they are:

The Panther Clipper - large trade ship. This ship from the earlier Elite Frontier game had huge cargo capacity and formidable defences.

The Imperial Cutter - a large ship which we know little about, but would speculate is an Empire equivalent of the Python, somewhere between a Courier and Clipper or perhaps larger than a Clipper? The concept art we've seen appears to show what became the Imperial Clipper, so will we see a Cutter or not?


The Federal Corvette - the largest flyable ship to be in the game, almost a third larger than an Anaconda. A slow moving weapons platform.


The Dolphin passenger vessel and Beluga Passenger liner - which with the Orca, are Elites passenger transport vessels.

With the introduction of these passenger ships it would follow that passenger transport would become a career path in Elite as well. Something many have waited for.

What else might we see?

Big on the wish-list is ship-in-ship transport and deployment. With SRV's being launched from all ships in Horizons, the idea of a "launch bay rack" for Class 6 & Class 7 internals sounds more plausible. And rather appealing.

It's been quiet in the world of Elite: Dangerous. I've been pretty busy playing the game, so I haven't posted much in the last couple of weeks.

However, things are about to change with the (official) announcement this week of what 1.3 "Powerplay" actually contains. One confirmed addition is the new ship the "Diamondback", as teased in last week's Newsletter.
But what about the rest? Where is the Dolphin, Beluga Liner and Panther Clipper? Will the Imperial Courier and Federal Corvette make their début in 1.3?

We've seen lots of teasers for the Courier, from early concepts to interior cabin shots and some 3D designs from January. These show a ship smaller, but more militaristic than the bigger Clipper. Historically the Imperial Courier was a formidable combat vessel, so we should expect this ship to fit into the same role (and presumably the same price bracket) as the Python, being a heavy combat ship rather than a light fighter.




Then there's the passenger ships. Okay so the Orca is currently redundant. Without passengers to carry, it's a shiny white Lakon Type 6 for 42 Million credits more... But will 1.3 add passengers? If so the other passenger vessels would have a role to play at last.



Plus flying around in a Beluga would look pretty damn cool!

Then there's the big boys. And when I say big, I mean really BIG! The Panther is bigger than a Type-9 Heavy and almost as long as an Anaconda. The original Panther had over 2000T capacity and was heavily armed and armoured. This could well be THE ultimate trader ship. Tough, big and with enormous cargo space.

Then there's the Corvette. Confirmed as being the largest flyable ship in Elite. Will it even fit through the station entrance? Just..

 

This ship looks to be both military and built for combat. Being a third larger than an Anaconda, it's probably a third more expensive too, so look to be paying 200M CR for this monster!