Get ready for another major content patch for Elite: Dangerous. Today is the day we finally get to try out many of the already discussed features. And while we're waiting for the maintenance - take a look at the official trailer!

Some of the new features included in patch 2.2:

Fighters

  • Added F63 Condor as a playable ship
  • Added Imperial Fighter as a playable ship
  • Added Taipan as a playable ship
  • Added Beluga Liner as a playable ship
  • Added fighter specific weapon modules
  • Added fighter loadouts
  • Added Fighter Bays for supported ships: Corvette, Cutter, Anaconda, Type 9, Beluga, Federal Gunship and Keelback
  • Added Crew Lounge
  • NPC fighter pilots can be hired
  • Hired pilots receive a revenue percentage
  • Fighters can be given orders
  • Mothership can be given simple orders when player is in a fighter
  • NPC ships can use ship launched fighters
  • Role panel updated to support fighter operations
  • Display NPC Fighter Pilot name when targeting the ship they are controlling
  • Added a warning/reminder to set active NPC crew
  • Fighter and vehicle bays are now numbers this is to help match the bay to the vessel when using livery
  • Increased boost speed of all fighters
  • Rebalanced default speed for some fighters to make them inline with their original design (the Empire Fighter was too fast compared to the others)
  • Increased DPS of fighter weapons by 12.5%
  • Increased fighter production capability of the size 7 hanger module
  • Fixed fuel gauge disappearing when switching back to mothership
  • Missing avatar faces on the orders panel fixed
  • NPC crew do not have appropriate backgrounds when in your ship or in the fighter fixed
  • Added warnings why can't a player deploy a fighter
  • Move "Orders" to the top of the menu when interacting with AI fighters/main ship
  • Fighter descriptions hooked up
  • Able to issue orders using both fighters in the role panel even though only one is deployed fixed
  • After hiring, crew sometimes displays negative numbers fixed
  • Balance displayed in the Crew Lounge is incorrect fixed
  • AI Crew don't appear to be gaining any xp from combat in fighters fixed
  • Fixed logic error for allowing non horizons crew in to the crew lounge to fire crew they might have hired when they had horizons
  • Added default numpad keys for the new order bindings to each control scheme
  • Added in better descriptions for the fighter specific stats
  • Relaunching fighters resets ammo and pip setup fixed
  • Fixed radar not showing hostiles/allies correctly when switching vessel in a conflict zone
  • Helm 'Details' tab should go to ship description
  • Audio: Velocity of the ship launched fighter is now set to the same as long as the fighter stow interface is not active
  • Audio: Fixed "self" explosions to be triggered to ship launched fighters
  • Fixed headlights on the fighters
  • Dust layer on Independent Fighter is green, fixed it to dark grey
  • Fighters can no longer use boost while they are still attached to the launch ramp
  • Fixed Imperial Fighter hitspheres so weapons can be damaged
  • Fed Fighter 100% damage paint issue fixed
  • Fighters can no longer kill ships inside starports without being shot by the station when mothership is far away
  • Fighters will no longer retract their hardpoints when the AI is asked to dock them, stopping the error where a player asked the AI to dock then swaps to the fighter and has no hard points
  • Balance displayed in the Crew Lounge is incorrect and does not update on purchasing a pilot fixed
  • NPC experience always shows as 50% when they're in the main ship fixed
  • Removed the life support, self destruct and reboot options from the fighter
  • Fighters destroyed by the mothership jumping away shouldn't count as player kills
  • Fixed rendering bug causing text to overlap buttons on the role panel orders
  • Fixed issue with right panel in crew lounge not showing data after loading
  • The little fighter HUD no longer overlaps the target panel. It now has its own home near your ship's schematic
  • Healing lasers now work on fighters
  • Moved the 'Request Docking' from fighter bay to helm
  • Stop fighters being able to operate beyond 30KM range if you switch to the Mothership at the last second before the SLF explodes
  • Stop AI crew members leaving turret mode of mothership on "Fire at will"
  • Vessel Status UI (cockpit): display the correct fighter variant name
  • Fixed overlapping text on Role panel orders menu
  • Fixed hit markers on the ship schematics in the cockpit being the wrong size and appearing in the wrong position for fighters
  • Reduced the severity of a few info messages when changing fighter orders. Now uses a small 'log' message type, rather than the big flashy one
  • Only show "No active crew" warning when a hangar module is present
  • Unable to terminate crew without horizons
  • Crew total payment not updating immediately fixed
  • Created binding for opening the orders page (RB+B)
  • Reactivate the engineer button when switching back from a fighter
  • Allow the Orders GUI to move selection to the top of the list to navigate quickly to the bottom order
  • Added the available stats to the fighter details page in the role switch panel
  • Role Switch panel flashes, and doesn't let player click on slots and order commands fixed
  • Fighters under AI Crew control now use the AI friendly fire rules
  • Can no longer select ship description text in fighters tab of role panel
  • You are able to purchase a SRV or Fighter that you already currently own into the same slot fixed
  • Added in Gimballed versions of the Fighter Weapons so that the lasers don't look so wrong
  • Following NPC crew oddities (When NPC crew is flying a player's ship) fixed:
  • If MC turrets are fitted and set to Target Only, the combat AI cannot fire them
  • Can only use one missile launcher, even if two are fitted
  • Missiles are fired at long range and are wasted
  • AI doesn't use boost to chase and kill targets, instead lets them get away
  • When out of ammo, AI ship should drop back into formation
  • Player ships with just missiles won't fight
  • After requesting docking, all other order hotkeys are ignored
  • AI crew in mothership will not attack targets if they have non combat modules deployed before switching to fighter fixed
  • Added clearer message to indicate that the players fighter will be destroyed when they FSD away
  • Moved empire fighters hit spheres for the weapons even further forward to help in hitting them
  • Use numbers rather than bars for displaying fighter stats
  • Wanted NPC has clean fighter fixed
  • Fixed bounty credit notification not appearing or being awarded in a fighter when destroying a target with a nonlocal bounty
  • Added loading animation to screen for switching between fighters and main ship
  • Fixed missing font glyphs on Role panel when running in Russian
  • Fixed commander name having the "Crew" tag on the death screen when killed by a player in a fighter
  • Can use hotkeys to send invalid NPC commands to unmanned mothership fixed
  • Audio: target destroyed lines of NPC crews and ship voice do not conflict anymore
  • Audio: reduced probability of "no more targts" npc crew message down to 40%
  • Audio: Fix for Crew member saying wrong line when asked to attack target
  • Fix not being able to deploy an SRV or Fighter after resurrecting
  • Fix NPC Crew not increasing their total kill count when assisting with destroying NPC and Player ships too low level to award combat rank progression
  • Fighter ramming not counting as illegal fixed
  • Fixed the incorrect paintjobs used for red and blue in CQC
  • Make sure active crew are displayed correctly
  • Added an inbox notification when NPC Crew rank up
  • Fixed NPC Crew profit share not increasing when ranking up
  • Turret settings are recovered when switching back to main ship
  • Allow fighters to accept new orders if they've been told to dock
  • NPC Crew can't pilot ships near planet surfaces fixed

Surface Features

  • New geological features added (fumeroles and geysers)
  • Biological entities added
  • POIs can now be persistant (applies to new geological and organic features)
  • Mysterious things added

Engineers

  • Limpet blueprints added
  • Scanners (KWS, Cargo, Wake) blueprints added
  • Defences (ECM, Chaff, Heat Sinks, and Point Defence Turrets) blueprints added
  • Utilities (Life Support, Fuel Scooping, Refinery, AFM) blueprints added
  • Added new Engineers!
  • Make sure we always get the right string key for existing modification name
  • Added ellipses functionality to blueprint text strings. If they are greater than 25 characters an ellipses will be added
  • Fixed layout problems in engineers workshop that would cause a scrollbar to appear and have unintended effects
  • Fixed bug where engineer special effect animation would always overlay the description of the successful special effect, before the animation had completed

General

  • Implementation of patchbased planet rendering on the system and planet maps

Full patch notes can be found on the official Frontier forums.