Greetings Commanders,
As we work towards the upcoming Operations update on 30th June, we're delighted to share the first concepts of the next new vessel coming to Elite Dangerous, The Nomad.
Today we'll take a first look at this small but mighty explorer, including some early images straight from the design studio.
The Nomad is a small and compact ship-launched vessel which is built to explore planetary surfaces. Its rugged shape and design is perfect for getting up close with organics and new discoveries. As mentioned, the Nomad is ship-launched, so it creates a new kind of exploration approach for Commanders. You can still land your larger exploration ship on a planet's surface, but utilising the Nomad you're now able to choose to leave your main ship above the planet, deploy in the Nomad and get up close to those harder to reach organics. One of the first things to notice is that the Nomad utilises different landing gear to other ships. These narrower helicopter-inspired landing skids give the Nomad a smaller landing profile, allowing it to perch on more uneven terrain where previously it would have been a challenge to land in a larger ship. Another key visual distinction is that the engines will pivot upon landing, and naturally sit just above the ground. That's where those landing skids come in handy, as it gives a Commander more freedom in exploring different locations on a planetary surface. This new type of ship will offer Commanders using a larger exploration ship such as the Caspian Explorer more flexibility in how they approach scanning for organics. This is only the first look, but we have much more to reveal with the Nomad. There's more to this ship than meets the eye...
The Nomad will launch in ARX Early Access alongside Operations on 30th June. For more information on Operations, check out our recent May Dev Log, or our earlier deep dive. For all the latest news on Elite Dangerous make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can also subscribe to our regular emails for news straight to your inbox, or explore guides and upcoming content via our website.