 Update 15 to Elite Dangerous Odyssey arrives next week as I speak these words bringing with it the next phase of the ongoing conflict with the Thargoids. We were recently invited to a preview presentation of some of the content and features that Update 15 will be bringing to the game and in this video I'm going to break down exactly what we saw and learnt. If you enjoy our videos please do hit the thumbs up, subscribe and ping that little bell so you can see all of our Elite Dangerous content and to directly support our work here at the Burpit you can also join our Patreon, links to that and everything else are below. A little over 5 months ago the 8 Stargoids ended their journey toward the bubble and upon arrival each one deployed a huge caustic cloud around themselves preventing commanders from accessing whatever is at the centre. Each cloud produced huge volumes of Thargoid vessels which immediately began to overrun and decimate the surrounding systems. After years of limited skirmishes and encounters the Thargoid race has now started a full on invasion into the bubble around Seoul. The source of that invasion however remains the 8 maelstroms and whatever lies at their centre. I'll give you fair warning now I'm about to talk about content to the game that no one outside of Frontier or the content creator program has yet seen so if you're sensitive to spoilers and want to discover all this stuff for yourself in game then stop watching now. With a cursory look at Galnet at the moment you'll see that the release of the Thargoid pulse neutraliser that provides a window of immunity to the barrier EM pulse at the centre of the maelstroms is imminent. I can confirm that with update 15 the Thargoid pulse neutraliser will be available as a tech broker unlock from the rescue megaships dotted around the bubble and we'll be travelling to the centre of the mysterious caustic clouds to see what's there. We do know that the unlock recipe for the neutraliser includes one unclassified guardian relic that's a ghrelic or a Thargoid pickled relic to you and me and it will also require a bunch of materials gathered from the maelstroms themselves. At the time of recording Frontier didn't want to divulge the rest of the recipe so if you've been holding off until now but you want to get your hands on a neutraliser we'd highly recommend getting yourself at least one ghrelic and farming materials from the maelstroms in preparation. Whether the neutraliser unlocks for purchase with credits once the recipe is fulfilled or whether the recipe needs to be fulfilled for every single neutraliser purchase is unclear currently. We're hoping here that it's the former rather than the latter. Frontier are understandably keen that we all discover just what is waiting for us at the centre ourselves and so whilst they have confirmed the experience contains its own game loops they won't say any more about it at the moment. Whatever is at the centre of the maelstroms is not the only new feature coming to the game next week however. As you may have seen in the teaser video we reported on last week there is a new Thargoid vessel coming to the game with update 15. As part of their presentation to us Frontier described the Thargoids as bioengineering solutions to their problems and this new ship is an example of that. The ship called a Glaive is the first of a new class of vessels called Hunters. The direct implication being we're likely to see more variants of this class of ship going forward just as we did with the Thargoid interceptors. Here is what we know about the Glaive so far. It's very fast and FDF have described it as hyper aggressive and that it will use tactics we haven't seen before. Frontier did emphasise that players may need to look at their loadouts as a result of the glaives presence. In the video we were shown of an encounter with the ship it's lightning attack can be seen randomly rebooting modules on the player's ship. In the example we saw the targeted ship at its velocity limited and boost ability disabled by a lightning attack. A separate lightning attack caused the ship's enhanced missile rack to reboot. After the ship was destroyed it left behind the familiar caustic cloud. Where and how the Glaive appears in the game we can't be certain of at the moment but it does appear to be designed to stop commanders from easily escaping an encounter with it. At the end of the video we were shown a frame shift anomaly and mass lock effect appeared just as the ship was destroyed. It certainly appears as though the Glaive may be designed to hold you down while reinforcements are on their way. It's that behaviour and where the Glaive is deployed specifically that does give me slight cause for concern. It can already be quite challenging for regular players to travel through Thargoid occupied space let alone make it to a maelstrom unscathed as the hyperdiction and interdiction element introduced in update 14 can be a genuine problem for slower vessels to escape from. Whilst anti-Xeno combat has absolutely been made more accessible in the game particularly as part of the Thargoid war it should I feel always still be a choice and AX operations is a loop that will just never appeal to a lot of players. I wouldn't like to see access to the maelstroms and whatever is inside locked behind a necessity for AX proficiency. With that said I am pleased to see AX players getting something else to contend with finally as it's been quite a wait for them since the Hydra and Scouts were first deployed. Next we were shown a new Odyssey surface mission variant that will be arriving in update 15. The mission is a version of the settlement power restore missions that we've become used to but it comes with a couple of important differences. The ultimate goal of the mission is to recover some important items from settlements that have been abandoned after the system they were in was overrun by the Thargoids. Once the power to the settlement is restored and it's brought back online using a supplied power regulator and appropriate security access there will be other tasks that will be required of the player before the mission can be completed. This can range from collecting a specific item from the settlement or getting a specific piece of data from a data port. These tasks will invariably involve moving between buildings after the settlement has been brought back online. Whilst ordinarily this wouldn't present too much of a problem Frontier have added an extra wrinkle to the settlements in Thargoid territory. That extra wrinkle is the presence of a new Thargoid surface enemy unit called a Revenant. These aren't yet the long awaited on foot Thargoids themselves but rather a biomechanical construct of the Thargoids. Similar to the Thargoid scavengers that can be found at the existing Thargoid surface installations they are however much more agile, much tougher and heavily armed. In the example we were shown the Revenants can be seen patrolling looking for intruders using what appears to be a detection cone which shows up in the form of a very bright forward looking light. Obviously elite being elite the surface environments will change as planets and stars move changing the lighting conditions but what we were shown was super creepy and very atmospheric being reminiscent of something like War of the Worlds. They were asked if the commander's flashlight which was used sparingly in the demonstration would affect the player's visibility as they try to remain hidden from the searching Revenants. Sadly the answer to that question was no which was honestly a little disappointing as it would definitely add an extra layer of immersion, tension and challenge to the experience in darker environments. I was also somewhat disappointed to learn that once reactivated the settlements own defence turrets won't themselves get involved in the defence of the settlement. They are it seems content to just shoot at naughty commanders and not slavering alien monsters from beyond the stars. Once a commander is discovered the Revenants begin attacking and they appear to swarm and work as a team on some level overwhelming the player with at the very least some form of beam based energy weapon. In a video of the Revenant attacks supplied by Frontier we can also hear what sounds like missiles and explosions. When we queried Frontier about this all they would reveal at the moment is that the Revenants have more than one weapon in their arsenal but they won't reveal any more for the moment. As far as on foot weapons were concerned when faced with Revenants Frontier did imply at least that plasma weapons might be important, again we can't confirm this at the moment but the footage we were shown did seem to indicate that the amount of damage done by laser and kinetic weapons was less than ideal. In one scene we did however see a scorpion combat SRV facing off against multiple Revenants and its combination of guided missiles and repeater gunfire did seem extremely effective on a single target at least making quick work of the unit before it was itself overwhelmed by the remaining skimmers. I'm looking forward to seeing what a two player scorpion could do to a pack of Revenants, one player concentrating on driving while their gunner takes the Thargoids apart. Frontier did say that ships could deal with the Revenants but that the skies above the settlements would not remain clear of Thargoids and that on foot stealth and speed would likely be the key to success. A Thargoid surface presence felt somewhat missing when systems started falling to the aliens advance so I'm pleased to see there will now be a logical presence on the ground with update 15. Whilst we do now finally have some more solid first person Odyssey combat coming to the Thargoid war I am of course a little bit disappointed that we're still not going to be face to face with a giant multi-limb slavering actual Thargoid on the ground at settlements and I think this will again frustrate a lot of the player base. That being said, none of us yet know what is waiting for us gameplay wise at the centre of the maelstroms and we've seen no reason to believe that on foot Thargoids are not still part of FDev's future plans. To further key points of note, in the example we were shown the new mission was picked up from the cockpit despite being an Odyssey on foot mission. If this new functionality extends to other missions or is limited to just this latest variation we don't yet know. And when referencing the scavengers at Thargoid surface installations senior producer on a leak dangerous Samantha Marsh did confirm that the Thargoid installations are indeed gigantic long dead downed Thargoid vessels and they're being deconstructed by the ever present Thargoid scavenger units. This had long been accepted as likely being the case by players but this is the first time it has actually been confirmed by Frontier. So another nice reveal, the video we were shown featured a commander wearing cosmetic items as part of their suit that we'd not seen before. As you can see on screen now these new cosmetics feature a cowl like hood and an opaque visor which was really good to see as we've seen a fair few folks asking for these. During the presentation we also noticed a new icon on the in game galaxy map, Thargoid controlled systems that have conflict zones available in them will now show this purple arrow above the usual white cross making them much easier to identify. It's clear from what Frontier have said that it's the maelstroms and what lies inside them that are the centerpiece of this update and understandably Frontier are unwilling to spoil that experience for anyone and we will all be discovering and getting to see that first hand ourselves as a community. If you're keen to get into the maelstroms at the earliest available opportunity to see what's there then there is some preparation you can do before update 15 drops next week. We know you'll definitely need an unclassified relic, in the description to this video you'll find a link to Commander Psykit's step by step guide to Pickling Guardian relics into unclassified relics. I'd also recommend you start hoovering up any mats you can get from the maelstroms. I've found the Taranis maelstrom is the easiest one to get to as it's the closest to the entry star in the system which cuts down significantly on the amount of time the Thargoids have to interdict you when you're in the system. If you haven't yet unlocked the Caustic Sync module then I'd absolutely recommend you take the time to do that before update 15. They are a literal game changer when it comes to facing off against Thargoid Caustic Damage. Alec Turner documented his journey with unlocking Caustic Syncs in a very informative forum post you'll find that linked below. We don't yet know the full requirements for unlocking the Thargoid pulse neutraliser beyond an unclassified relic, all Frontier will currently say is that it will require several materials from the maelstroms themselves so obviously harvesting liberally from there once you have the Caustic Syncs unlocked will serve you well. Update 15 is currently scheduled for deployment on the live version of the game on Tuesday the 9th of May starting at 0600 hours UTC with the servers not scheduled to return until approximately 1400 hours UTC. The downtime will not affect the legacy version of the game. Remember to back up your key bindings and we'll see you on the other side. We'd love to know how you're planning on dealing with the Thargoid Glaive. Will you be attempting to take on the Revenant units on foot and will you be gathering materials to take you into the heart of the maelstrom? Let us know in the comments below. That's it for now, thanks very much for watching. If you enjoyed this video consider subscribing to the channel and maybe take a look at one of our other videos linked on screen right now.