The Lavecon 2018 has just begun this week-end and many Frontier developers have joined this event entirely handled by Elite: Dangerous players. The event aims to bring together the community, to play Elite and also board games, Larp, Cosplay, Lan, tournaments,… a lot of  fun!

Check out the first screenshots shared about Beyond Chapter 4, and some new details.

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Metals

Summary

• Mining – New mining equipment and lasers will be available depending on the minerals and materials contained in the asteroids. Precious elements will be collected but be careful of possible explosions, micro-debris, gas & corrosive elements and more. The prospecting drones will also be reworked. Sometimes you will have to cut in half the asteroids to collect their insides (urgh :p).
• Exploration – More processes to perform as a solo explorer or even in Multicrew. The Detailed Surface Scanner will send probes that will analyze the surfaces of targeted planets and asteroid rings. You will need to launch the probes so that they correctly scan their targets and be guided by gravity. Doing so, you will be able to collect certain data from the planet and even reveal interesting POIs visible from space. Multicrew exploration will be interesting and the rewards balanced. The Codex will be there as well, the galaxy separated regionally and new phenomena will appear.
• Thanks to the new tools and technologies, Chapter 4 will introduce Scatter Rock, which will allow for realistic physics on the surface, and also enhanced lighting according to local events and light sources.
• The surfaces of icy planets will change drastically, see Work In Progress screenshots.
• New large weapons Thargoids, Guardians but also Humans.
• Human sites where Thargoids roam have been shown very briefly.
• Attacked/destroyed/lost megaships will also have new rescue interactions and more.
• The Challenger gets two new screenshots. Apparently it would be more agile than the Chieftain, and own more hardpoints & armour.