Elite: Dangerous. What we know about Horizons

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Planetary Information

• Landing will be on airless planets and moons.
• There are four planet and moon types in the release to land on: Ice, Rock, Rock and Ice, and Metallic.
• Game play extends seamlessly from space to the surface - taken from Dev Update.
• Planetary Landing will follow process: Orbital Cruise (like Supercruise) > choose anywhere (surface allowing) to land on the planet/moon > Deploy SRV (Surface Reconnaissance Vehicle)
• Trying to land on a planet without Horizons or the correct equipment will result in an emergency drop.
• While flying above the surface in Orbital Cruise you can discover points of interest like crashed ships and surface installations.
• Ships will handle re-entry in different ways. Smaller ships will be easier to handle in orbital supercruise than larger ones.
• David Braben: "When you’re at low speeds, it’s going to be an interesting challenge, especially with the bigger ships; you’re not going to be able to just sit there and hover – they’re designed primarily for space travel. When you’re near a surface, their maneuvering thrusters are having to put in a lot of extra effort, so when you try and stay still, then try and tilt the ship, you’ll start to lose height and slip. It’s going to be very interesting."
• You can land on any airless moon/planet that does not require a permit (for instance landing the Earth's Moon will require one).
• All scenery is procedurally generated.
• Planetary maps will be available to players

Installations, Missions, Discoveries

• Scanning planets and moons from space is used to detect signals, crashed ships, mineral deposits, outposts and fortresses. This information will be found in the same fashion as current Unidentified Signal Sources in space.
• You will be able to dock and trade at these outposts and fortresses, or you can just choose to land (terrain permitting) in the middle of nowhere and drive about using your SRV.
• Planets will also have rare minerals, pirate bases, crashed ships. You can fly and dogfight over the entire planet once you've descended to it.
• Settlements on certain planets/moons will be fortified. These can be attacked from the air or defended from the ground.
• Sandro Sammarco: “We also wanted there to be more richer content other than completing missions [...] Not just your kill X ship and return for your reward; instead you might be tasked to go and steal some data plans, but that might evolve into cutting the power to get the doors open. Maybe it’ll involve destroying some large anti-aircraft guns to gain access to the landing pad in the base. These events will chain together to give players a more richer and compelling experience.”
• David Braben: “The other thing is to try and encourage cooperation between people in SRVs and people still in their ships,” .... going on to give an example of a player in an SRV knocking out a base’s weapons, allowing a pilot to swoop in and start blowing stuff up, which in turn will let the SRV player get further into the base.
• There will be missions to take whilst on the planets/moons.
• Missions will be connected between star ports and the planets.
• There are a different designs of bases on planets. Large ones will have landing pads, smaller outposts may be more orientated around missions.
• There will be lots of things hidden beneath the surface of the planets.
• Planetary bases will exist as a permanent feature of the planets and will not be instanced.
• Smaller points of interest will only show up on the scanner when you're near them.

Surface Reconnaissance Vehicle (SRV)

• The basic Scarab has 6 wheels
• SRV's will take up module/compartment space and you will have to buy the "module" to transport the SRV in the cargo hold.
• Nearly all ships can carry an SRV, but not every ship can carry every SRV. Different SRV's for different tasks with with some cross over like ships.
• David Braben: "With time there will be more SRV's in the same way that there are different kinds of ships."
• One ship (currently not in game) will not be able to carry an SRV.
• Gravity will affect SRV's differently depending on the planet.
• It will cost to buy an SRV as per normal equipment.
• The different planet surfaces will all give you a different handling experience in the SRV.
• Driving the SRV far enough away from your ship will cause your ship to take off and enter a low orbit supercruise of the planet or moon. This will be AI controlled 'for now' and would make the ship impossible to hunt down.
• Requesting that your ship returns to the planet will result in it flying to your location on the surface.
• Returning to your ship has been described as "interesting", the hint being that you can thrust/jump into your ships cargo bay as it is landing/taking off/thrusting above the surface of the planet.
• Your ship will appear on your SRV radar if you are close enough to it.
• Thrusters on each wheel will allow you to jump. On low gravity planets, jets will rotate round and force you on to floor for traction – to stop you floating away.
• Thrusters will also allow you to get out of situation where you might get stuck. Self destruction is also an option.
• SRVs are very small, and difficult to track by flying spacecraft, and enable you to tackle some of the fortifications you’ll find planetside in a different way from what you can do in a spaceship.
• It will be possible to blow up another player's SRV using your ship, but due to lack of heat signatures and the very small size and agility of the SRV, this will be hard to pull off.
• When you die on the planet you will return to your ship.
• Controls for the buggy will be re-mappable as you can do for your flying your ship.

Planetary Defences

• 'Surface skimmer' AI vehicles/drones will be remote controlled from a base on the planet. These will be 'almost land based' vehicles.
• 'Skimmers' will come in more than one variety.
• 'Skimmers' can be knocked out by destroying the control base, shooting them, or by destroying the 'relay towers' that exist on the planets surface. These relay towers give the 'skimmers' a better range.
• Wings can be used on the planet surface in co-operation. Other co-operative play can be used to destroy bases defences. For instance it might be necessary to destroy a bases defences in a certain order before it can be taken over or destroyed.

Future Horizons Updates

• Loot and crafting will be a Q1 (Jan-Mar) 2016 update to Horizons.
• Over the full season of Horizons more SRV's should be added
• Future planets updates in the Horizons season will include 'active volcanism' and 'ice volcanism'. At some point (before fully rendered 'atmospheric planets with life') there will be ones with weather systems.
• Atmospheric landings on planets with life will NOT be part of this Horizons release. That will come later in another paid expansion.
• The Unidentified Artefact will be woven into the narrative of the Horizons season and there is an answer to what it is about.

Other news

• Core missions are being enhanced for the basic game. This will move beyond basic A>B structure and will include 'new interactions' and multiple staged missions. There will be chained missions.
• Delivery, courier and smuggling will gain long range variants that can set destinations from tens to hundreds of light years away for long haul missions. A new variant on the massacre mission will have higher numbers and greater time for a more sustained strike against the mission target.
• "We’ve also heard some players wanting a bit more challenge in their scenarios so an even more hazardous extraction site has been added to provide a more dangerous environment. In dangerous systems the scenarios around the nav beacons can also be a high threat version if it has been compromised."
• Michael Brooks: "There are new things for explorers to find while they are out in deep space. They won't pop up on the navigation system unless you're close enough."
• Michael Brooks: "The CQC update progresses the tools we have to express story in the game, but it won't end there. We have some exciting plans for how we can expand the story further as we enter Season Two."

Future Seasonal Expansions

In no particular order

• Landing/ driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids – Horizons;
• Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships;
• Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports;
• Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces;
• Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players.

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