Elite Dangerous Premium Beta 2 Out, Adds Stations, Ships

I've actually been dodging as much Elite: Dangerous knowledge as possible. The foolish, now semi-abandoned plan was to experience it at the same time as my first go on an Oculus Rift. The problem is those pesky folks over at Frontier Developments keep teasing all the beautiful things they're putting into the game. Even if I can't afford that hefty beta price tag, I'm spoiling myself with patch notes from the newest update containing phrases like "first flyable Zorgon Peterson" and "complex 8km diameter structures." If that weren't enough, they've put out a three minute video that's literally just things slowly rotating space and it's still one of the best trailers of the year.

Mmm, giant spinny space things set to classical music.

Have a gander at the highlights from the patch itself:

Three new star systems are available to explore and trade within, Aulin, LHS 3006 and Styx.

Giant Orbis class starports have been added, which are complex 8km diameter structures, larger and more luxurious than Coriolis star ports.

A new space ship type, the Hauler, is the first flyable Zorgon Peterson ship to be added. It’s an entry-level trading ship, to follow on from the Sidewinder. It has four times the cargo capacity of the Eagle, the entry-level combat ship.

Additional language support has been added, with German as the first such language to be added to English.

A high resolution screen capture facility has been added (capturing at four times the current screen resolution)

Improved functionality in the installer, giving incremental updates going forwards.

Improved performance.

There's also a whole two forum posts of tweaks, fixes and additions including options for pilot gender and that station rear beacons are now on. That's your "amusingly out of context patch note" for the day, please check back tomorrow. If you want it to make a bit more sense, you can get access to the beta yourself for (snort) £100 here.