Frontier released the Trailblazers update for Elite Dangerous at the end of February, and I have been eager to give the new update a shot. Unfortunately, my first attempt coincided with the new System Colonisation feature being put on a temporary pause while the developers ironed out a few issues. With the feature being available again as of March 14th, I have finally had a chance to dust off the controls, and ease back into my second life as a space trucker.
With Trailblazers, you now have a new contact at station services, the aptly named System Colonisation contact who allows you to place a claim on any unpopulated star systems within 15ly, as long as they don’t already have an existing claim. Like a lot of things in Elite Dangerous, finding yourself a suitable system can take a bit of work and it can require just a wee bit of patience (my search took so long, that now when I close my eyes, I can still hear the frame shift drive countdown echoing through my skull).
Blindly stabbing at the first and only unclaimed system that you see on the claim screen can lead to disappointing results, like realising that you are 25,000,000 credits down, and also the proud new owner of the rights to build a starport at a lonely dead star, with not a single planet in sight. So a bit of exploration is well advised before you make your first purchase, and you might also have to be accepting of the fact that in some of the more popular sectors, it is going to take you some time to find an unclaimed system that is worth your while.
It is early days in a brave new frontier for Elite, and some of the inner workings of system colonisation are still to be discovered. As the system architect you will receive an income from the star systems you colonise. Frontier says that the more developed a system becomes the more that you will earn. However it is understood to not be hugely profitable overall. The makeup of a system will no doubt have an effect on whether it is suitable for the type of economy that you want it to have, and whether it will be able to produce certain resources, but there is not a lot of information out there at the moment. In true Elite Dangerous fashion players have taken it upon themselves and they have been comparing notes on the Frontier forums to see if they can figure out what it all means.
In pure gameplay terms, the new update is not exactly groundbreaking, and you may well find yourself deeper in the Elite trading grind than you’ve ever been before. While that thought might send shivers down your spacesuit, what Trailblazers does is give you a newfound purpose to travel through the galaxy, which in 2025 remains just as incredible as it was 10 years ago. I have found myself getting completely side tracked, endlessly sifting through the distortions of the Signal Scanner to find interesting planets that could provide a nice backdrop for my soon-to-come starports. Then I continue down to the planet surfaces just to see how things look from down there, which I then use as an excuse to boost around in the SRV and see how far I can jump it in the low gravity.
Even the repetitive shuttling back and forth of the vast quantities of materials required for my new outpost has been an enjoyable experience. Lining up a suitable playlist of music and letting it be the soundtrack to my space truckin’, and just settling into the groove, gradually improving on the the time taken between each perfect departure and landing, provides me with a meditative satisfaction that few other games have. There is just something special about Elite, and it is amazing to see so many players returning to check out this new update. I look forward to developing uninhabited systems that will give me an attachment to different regions of the galaxy, and wonder what stories could play out within them. Elite has always had a player-driven element to it, but with the new ability create colonies, it is really going to be exciting to see how commanders shape the expansion of the bubble, throughout the rest of 3311.
I might have to dig out my spacesuit!