A couple of Elite players have reached the limits of the galactic ceiling after a mistake by Frontier led to superpowered stars boosting their frame-shift drives by 300%.
For more exploration through the (almost) endless black, check out our list of the best space games.
The beta phasing test for Elite’s Guardians update is currently underway, and one of the new things being tested is a new mechanic that allows players to turbo-boost their FSD drives by charging them up with the energy released bywhite dwarves and neutron stars.
Flying into the plumes given off by these giants makes players experience some turbulence as a bonus is applied to their drives. This bonus was supposed to be 25%, but the developers entered the wrong value and the stars were charging players’ FSD drives by a whopping 300%.
Using this extra boost, two players,Dr Kaii and Erimius, mapped a journey to the height of the galaxy, using these special stars as launchpads to cover vast distances, even getting across to areas that were almost unreachable by conventional means.
Their long, dangerous journey took them up 1884 lightyears above the galactic plane. Hanging up there, you can see the Milky Way’s galactic core, along with other distant galaxies and all the empty space in-between. It’s a hell of a view and you can see it in this video that charted the duo’s journey.
As forthe mistake, the developershave since decidedto keep neutron stars at 300% for now, while white dwarves are now 50%, as these appear more commonly within the bubble. Fan feedback seems to be erring on the side of keeping them that way, to allow for more perilous journies and to open up the game for even more thoughtful exploration.
Whether it will be like this or as originally intended when Guardians leaves beta this month isn’t clear, but ship-launched fighters, massive tourist ships and more are still coming soon, whatever Frontier decide.
Thanks, RPS.