 This is Witchspace news, for Friday the 28th of July 2023, I'm CMDR Buur. In a special Elite Dangerous Report this week, the release date for Update 16 is revised, FDev announced the size and extended downtime for the patch and we get some more tentative details about the new Hunter Class Thargoid coming to Update 16 next week. As always if you enjoy our videos please do hit the like button and if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and ding the bell so you don't miss any of our Elite Dangerous content. You can also join our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support our work, links to that and everything else are below. Before we get started this week Frontier have given us access to some footage and details from Update 16 as part of the Elite Dangerous content creator partner program and so some of what we're about to talk about should be considered spoiler territory. If you're sensitive to that stuff stop watching now. Update 16 to Elite Dangerous arrives into the live game next week and Frontier announced earlier this week that there will be a slight delay of just 24 hours to the patch meaning that it's now scheduled to arrive on Tuesday 1st August. As for patch day itself it does seem that this might be quite a significant patch. In a post this week to the official forums Senior Community Manager Sally Morgan Moore announced that the downtime on the servers to install the patch will begin at 7am UTC with the servers not expected to return to operation before 3pm UTC later that is an 8 hour downtime. Further the announcement does say that on the Steam platform at least the update will be a 3 gigabyte download. As part of the Elite Dangerous content creator partner program we got a very small sneak peek from Frontier this week of just some of the content of the patch. A few weeks back Frontier did tease some video footage on their Frameshift live livestream of a new Hunter class Thargoid vessel arriving in update 16 as part of the Thargoids continuing attempts to push further into the bubble of human occupied space around the soul system. You may remember that the Hunter class Thargoid vessels are a medium class Thargoid adversary bigger than the familiar scout class but still much smaller than the now venerable interceptor class Thargoid ships. The first of the Hunters was the Glaive introduced in update 15 alongside the Titan Hive vessels and the Revenant Skimmers. The Hunter class vessels appear to be built or should that perhaps be grown or bred to each serve a very specific purpose. Given its ability to disrupt a player's ability to move and escape a Thargoid interdiction the Glaive is able to hold a human ship in place cycling its attacks between either disrupting a ship's drive and weapon systems or the more familiar all out damage based attack. In the footage shown of the new incoming Hunter vessel for update 16 which I can now confirm is being referred to by Frontier as the Scythe the ship can be seen using what appears to be a Thargoid version of the familiar human collector limpid. In the footage released by Frontier last month the Thargoid limpid drones or Thimpits as they became known are very clearly targeting human escape pods in the aftermath of a battle and returning them to their mother vessel the Scythe. The footage released to us by Frontier is in a similar vein the Scythe can be seen hovering in the background making a very unsettling somewhat predator like clicking noise but before the process begins the ship appears to generate a pulse like wave similar to the familiar Thargoid shutdown field but red in colour and more translucent. We wonder here if the pulse is some sort of detection wave almost like radar as following its generation the collection process immediately begins. The Scythe's design is clearly Thargoid in origin and shares a lot of similar Hunter design cues with its sister ship the Glaive but it also sports a somewhat more malevolent and unsettling appearance Frontier clearly looking to underline the ship's dark purpose. The Thimpits themselves appear to have what looks like a permeable bubble or force field in the mandibles on the front end and the escape pods are taken inside that bubble before the Thimpits return to the waiting Scythe. In some of the footage there can clearly be seen an active and undamaged human python ship that neither the Thimpits nor the Scythe seem concerned about and it remains either undetectable or uninteresting to the malevolent alien. When the Scythe moves off after the collection process is complete the Thimpits leave their station keeping position circling the mothership and appear to either impact the front of the Scythe or re-dock with it the noise of which can clearly be heard as the ship moves away I presume to return to hyperspace. Frontier did say to us that learning how the Scythe selects its targets is key to understanding its intentions and that it's not like any traditional combat vessel that we've seen before further stating that it has new weapons that make it a very specialised vessel with a singular sinister purpose. None of the footage we were shown appeared to show anything that we would class as a weapon, traditional or otherwise so it remains to be seen if the Scythe carries energy weapons or whether perhaps the Thimpits have any more sinister purpose to them. Obviously scooping up human occupied escape pods and stealing away with them is pretty damn sinister I don't imagine for one moment that the occupants are being taken away to a charity bring and buy sale at the village hall. There is I think almost certainly something pretty awful awaiting the unfortunate occupants but it remains to be seen just what that fate is. As I mentioned at the top of this piece the patch is significant I think it fair to say that a 3 gigabyte download and a full 8 hours of downtime to deploy the patch is almost certainly going to be bringing much more than the already creepy as hell rife with dark intent hunter Scythe and indeed in their contact with us Fdev have said that there is more to the patch. I'll leave it up to you to decide what you think that something more should be or indeed what that something more is. I'm sure you'll have some very definite opinions we are of course assuming that the Thargoid war is moving towards some sort of crescendo moment I do find it hard to believe that the war itself is forever on our doorstep but there's also a lot of development work going into its creation and implementation so I also think it unlikely that this content will just go away after that presumed crescendo I do feel then that what it eventually morphs into will likely be just if not more interesting as its initial arrival update 16 is scheduled to arrive in the elite dangerous live game next Tuesday the 1st of August well you be seeking out the Scythe Thargoid hunter next week just what do you think the Thargoids want with those escape pods and what else would you like to see in update 16 let us know in the comments below that's it for now thanks very much for watching we'll be back later this week with more videos until then 07 commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack we very much look forward to seeing you next time