 Update 17 arrived seamlessly into the Elite Dangerous Live game yesterday bringing with it some spectacular new features focused around the Thargoid Matrix sites that appeared recently as part of the aggressive Aliens invasion of the bubble. There's a lot to unpack so in this video I'll take you through where and how to find the new content, what the Spire sites are, what to expect when you visit and more. It goes without saying we'll be delving into heavy spoiler territory here so if you're sensitive to that stuff, look away now. If however you're eager to see what's waiting for you, strap yourself in. The teaser trailer for Update 17 that Fdev released at Pitcon in September heavily hinted that something would be happening to the Matrix sites that the Thargoids had established in some systems around their Titan Megaships. The sites had previously given the impression that there was perhaps some quake like movement around them and that they might have even been growing. This appears to have indeed been the case and oh boy were they growing. If you visit the formerly named Matrix sites you'll now find in its stead what is known to be a Thargoid Spire site. The Matrix's have grown into huge towering Thargoid Citadels and each one now features gigantic spires that reach over 5km into the sky. One of the more unsung features of Odyssey has been an apparent increase in the amount of scale that the game can now display. This was particularly noticeable with the introduction of the Titan Thargoid Motherships and we see it very apparent here with Update 17 again. The new Thargoid Citadels are gigantic and clearly visible from around 300km away as you approach. The Update 17 teaser also hinted that we might face a new variant of the Thargoid Revenant Drones and that has indeed proven to be the case with the appearance of the formidable Banshee variant. These lumbering drones are significantly bigger than their Revenant counterparts and with the size comes decent eyesight and weaponry to match. The Banshee will detect an approaching ship from 5km to 6km away and immediately fire a missile whose blast radius brings with it a weaker variant of the Thargoid shutdown field. It also launches a constellation of caustic seeker warheads that will rapidly ruin the day of any ship that has fallen foul of the EMP missile. Constant movement seems to generally keep your ship safe but still these defences are not to be taken lightly and so far the only way to kill these things that we've heard of has been with the liberal use of a scorpion SRV's roof mounted repeater cannon. The sides of the new spire like towers contain large flat petal like structures and it was rapidly discovered that these can act as make do landing pads meaning the towers exterior can to a degree at least be explored on foot. What initially comes across in a vehicle at least as a hugely hostile environment is actually fairly calm at the platform level as well as being even more utterly spectacular on foot and it's here that a lot of the new content currently seems focused. Exploration of the zone around the landing area revealed what's referred to as nerve clusters. These come in groups of 4 and they are each vulnerable to electrical discharge from a suit's power transfer tool. The clusters do call down and reset after a short while but if all 4 are in their angry red zapped state then a central console like container called a hybrid compound bin gives up a new odyssey on foot material called spire refinery compound. Also dotted around the landing zone area you'll find bio hotspots that can be sampled with an Artemis suit's genetic scanner tool. The usual system applies here scan 3 samples from a given tower and you can cash that data into Vista Genomics for a healthy payday. Dotted around the base of the tower there are similar nerve cluster hotspots and new materials can also be gathered there with the use of an SRV. Those are semi refined spire material and impure spire material. The gathering of those mats however can be seriously hampered by the presence of the band she and her accompanying revenants. Whilst we haven't yet replicated it here we've heard tell that these new SRV level mats can be traded into Professor Palin and doing so sparks a message from him asking for more as well as the new on foot gathered spire refinery compound and hinting at some future tools to be developed. This would seem at first sight at least to be a similar cycle to that recently seen during the unlocking of the titans. The new materials and their codex entries seem to indicate that the spire sites are some sort of colossal refinery. Just what it's refining and for what purpose we don't yet know. We do know that for the moment at least the presence of a spire site seems to prevent thargoid influence from being removed from the affected systems. So as things stand they're here to stay. The sites constantly see revolving traffic from atherous interceptors as they both jump in and also enter and leave the larger tower structures. Killing an atherous is worth around 40 million credits and the AXI have already started investigating the spire sites as their new money making matter. The presence of the thargoid banshees, scouts and atherous class interceptors means that for vehicles both in the sky and on the ground the spires can be a significant threat. But once clear of your vehicles and out on foot however the sites are actually very survivable and for right now at least as long as you stay out of sight of the patrolling revenants and banshees you're free to roam and explore. With the new tower material gathering and scanning introduced my Artemis suit has never had more screen time. Another that changes in the future is of course as always with Elite Dangerous likely to be the subject of much speculation. Last week we published a video about using Revenant infested human odyssey settlements to harvest rank and indeed revenants themselves. Update 17 has changed that dynamic significantly. Our initial investigations this morning would seem to indicate that those same Revenant infested sites now also contain at least one banshee an altogether more formidable opponent and we therefore advise extreme caution when approaching those sites. Overall the reception from the community for update 17 has been nothing short of spectacular. Following on from the arrival and revelation of the titans the environment created here is something unlike anything ever before seen in Elite Dangerous and is yet again one of the most spectacular things I've personally seen in any video game particularly when you consider that it all sits inside the one to one scale simulation of the milky way that we often take for granted. It's very encouraging to see not only more odyssey level content making it into the game but also for that content to not solely be first person shooter focused leaning as it does into the use of a suit tools and the Artemis Exploration suit in particular. The next official Elite Dangerous live stream the Halloween special is currently scheduled for Monday the 23rd of October at 1500 hours UTC. They will almost certainly be talking about update 17 on the stream so watch out for that and you'll find a spreadsheet listing all the current known spire sites in the game in the description below this video. I can't find a credit for the commander or commanders that created this so if you know please do let us know. Have you visited a spire site yet? Have you gone toe to toe with a banshee? Are you planning on exploring a spire on foot in an Artemis suit? Let us know in the comments below. If you've enjoyed this video be sure to like and subscribe to make sure you see all our Elite Dangerous content and if you'd like to help support our work here at the Burpit you can also become a patron just like the glorious folks you see listed on screen right now gaining access to exclusive perks content and community events.