Greetings Commanders,
Last week we revealed more details about the Type-11 Prospector, coming to Elite Dangerous in Arx Early Access on September 23rd
In case you missed it, you can catch up with Phil and Curtis talking about the new features below.
The Type-11 Prospector is a beautiful new medium ship that has a very industrial look to it, invoking old sci-fi vibes but with a modern twist. As the first dedicated mining ship added to Elite Dangerous and created by Lakon it shares more than a passing resemblance to other ships, such as the Type-8. The cockpit is front-mounted with a wide angle for spotting all of the best asteroids. The engine pods on the outer arms will also retract when either the landing gear or cargo scoop are deployed, which creates a tighter profile for navigating between asteroids or core mining in particularly dense asteroid rings.
It's also impossible to miss the brand new precision mining tool, the Mining Volley Repeater! This new tool fires specially designed projectiles to maximise the amount of fragments extracted from an asteroid, granting a higher yield than other mining tools when laser mining. When laser mining it also has a chance to produce a higher density fragment similar to those found via abrasion point mining. The Type-11 has also been designed to handle the thermal load output of the new mining tool. As such, this large mining tool is currently only able to be equipped on the Type-11 Prospector.
The Type-11 Prospector features EIGHT hardpoints, four of which are dedicated mining hardpoints, which will only be able to equip mining tools. The sizes of these are one large, two medium and one small whereas the remaining four can equip any hardpoint that matches their sizes, which are three small and one medium. The Type-11 Prospector also has four standard utility mounts.
The Type-11 Prospector features 12 optional internals,
two size one,
one size two,
one size three,
one size four,
four size five and
three size six
As with the hardpoints, some of these internals are reserved for specific modules. One size five is dedicated to the fighter bay, in case you need a little extra defence while in those hazardous resource gathering zones, whilst another size five is dedicated to drone controllers and is the only slot that can equip the brand new size five Mk II mining limpet controller. This brand new Lakon prototype is being rolled out to maximise space saving by controlling all limpets from just one module type.
The ships core modules consist of
Size 6 Power Plant
Size 5 Thrusters
Size 5 Frameshift Drive
Size 3 Life Support
Size 7 Power Distributor
Size 3 Sensor Suite
Size 5 Fuel Tank
Whilst the Type-11 Prospector Is not a combat ship, it still has the potential to defend itself. The hardpoints dedicated to any weapon are positioned to favour turreted weapons. If you find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, it’s no slouch in a straight line when you decide to do a tactical retreat.
We’re excited to see what you do with the Type-11 Prospector when it launches into Arx Early Access on 23rd September.