True
People knew already it will come one day as an expansion.
Now they just added vague date to it.
It can always be delayed … or released unfinished. 
they just said it and shown few seconds and it was enough.
There are people that swallowed it with fishing pole, yet seen nothing.
…tsk tsk tsk
I agree with “when it’s ready”
But this was cheap.
First off, these only cost 45$ if you pre-order the expansions… And the full contents of those expansions has yet to actually be defined. So you’re literally giving them your money on faith that it will be worth your while.
Second off, going by the relatively content-poor nature of the current “expansions” - Wings, Power-Play, (planned) Ships - then I have a very hard time using the term “Expansion”. Perhaps all of Season 1 together could be considered a full “expansion”, but individually, the term ‘DLC’ feels much more representative. So no, not 10 dollars per expansion, but 60 dollars per expansion.
As a Beta backer, I paid 75$ based upon the specifications and stretch goals posted on Kickstarter. Several of those have yet to be met - some won’t be met (singleplayer, for example). With that track-record, I can’t possibly justify pre-ordering the Horizons “DLC Season Pass”. So if I do elect to purchase it in several months, the final cost to me is 135$ - for a game that won’t even deliver on what I’ve just paid for for a full year.
Frankly it feels duplicitous. I understand how the economy works and that Frontier has to pay a lot of people to developthis game. Obviously they haven’t read up on the concepts of Supply and Demand - or have grossly overestimated the value of what they’re supplying - because I think this price point will place them far far on the backside of the optimal P-D curve.
I paid $150 to get access to this game originally! $60+ $60= $120, I should at least get one free expansion.
Did you back before the game was in beta? or after? It depends what you purchased.
This is what really bothers me. They need to show/define everything that will be in said expansion before asking for pre-orders IMO.
Yeah, they are counting on you trusting them for the rest of the expansions for the pre-orders, you can always wait until all the expansions are out and decide then though.
Here is a flowchart of the different tiers and prices concerning Horizons.
On the Frontier forums a bit more detail has been compiled about what’s coming in the Horizons update:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=172362
See the original post above to follow any links.
Basic Information
· Horizons is a ‘season’ expansion to the original Elite: Dangerous release.
· A season can be seen as roughly 8-12 months long.
· The price includes the content you will get when you purchase Horizons, plus all other content released in the Horizons season.
Planetary Information
· Trailer for Horizons can be seen here.
· Landing will be on airless planets and moons.
· Four planet and moon types in the release to land on: Ice, Rock, Rock and Ice, and Metallic.
· Some current moons and planets will change in appearance due to new information added via the Stellar Forge (which is responsible for generating the Elite Dangerous universe). This injection of data already exists on the system but is not currently in the game. You can watch a David Braben TedTalk on procedural generation here
· Game play extends seamlessly from space to the surface - taken from Dev Update.
· Planetary Landing will follow process: Orbital Cruise (like Supercruise) > choose anywhere (surface allowing) to land on the planet/moon > Deploy SRV (Surface Reconnaissance Vehicle) The basic vehicle is known as the Scarab.
· Trying to land on a planet without Horizons or the correct equipment will result in an emergency drop.
· While flying above the surface in Orbital Cruise you can discover points of interest like landed ships and surface installations.
· Ships will handle re-entry in different ways. Smaller ships will be easier to handle in orbital supercruise than larger ones.
· You can’t land on every airless moon/planet - some are closed off and require a permit. Any other in the universe is available.
· All scenery is procedurally generated. No tiling of structures. The artists ‘scultp’ the code to avoid there being unlikely scenery that would look really out of place.
Installations,Missions & Discoveries
· Scanning planets and moons from space is used to detect signals, crashed ships, mineral deposits, outposts and fortresses. This information will be found in the same fashion as current Unidentified Signal Sources in space - taken from Dev Update and Twitch on 7th August.
· You will be able to dock and trade at these outposts and fortresses, or you can just choose to land (terrain permitting) in the middle of nowhere and drive about using your SRV.
· Planets will also have rare minerals, pirate bases, crashed ships. You can fly and dogfight over the entire planet once you’ve descended to it.
· Settlements on certain planets/moons will be fortified. These can be attacked from the air or defended from the ground. There has been talk by Ed Symons (Elite Producer) of ‘hacking’ been an option to bring down a surface stations shields. Not confirmed, just discussed between the team.
· There will be missions to take whilst on the planets/moons.
· Missions will be connected between star ports and the planets.
· There are a different designs of bases on planets. Large ones will have landing pads, smaller outposts may be more orientated around missions.
Surface Reconnaissance Vehicle (SRV)
· GIF of the basic Scarab SRV can be seen here (thanks to ArmyDude on Reddit)
· SRV’s will take up module/compartment space and you will have to buy the “module” to transport the SRV in the cargo hold.
· Nearly all ships can carry an SRV, but not every ship can carry every SRV. Different SRV’s for different tasks with with some cross over like ships.
· One ship (currently not in game) will not be able to carry an SRV. Speculation: Planet & Moon bases/fortifications could have ground based defence craft. One of these might be one of the small ships seen in CQC and would not be able to carry a buggy.
· Gravity will affect SRV’s differently depending on the planet.
· It will cost to buy an SRV as per normal equipment.
· The initial SRV (Scarab) will be able to carry 4-6 tonnes or ‘units’ of cargo.
· Entering your buggy will be a ‘fade to black’ transition scene. No spacelegs at this time.
· Top SRV speeds will be about 100mph.
· The SRV will not need to be re-fuelled.
· The SRV will carry a weapon(s) that can be used to attack bases on the planet.
· The different planet surfaces will all give you a different handling experience in the SRV.
· Driving the SRV far enough away from your ship will cause your ship to take off and enter a low orbit supercruise of the planet or moon. This will be AI controlled ‘for now’ and would make the ship impossible to hunt down.
· Requesting that your ship returns to the planet will result in it flying to your location on the surface.
· Returning to your ship has been described as “interesting”, the hint being that you can thrust/jump into your ships cargo bay as it is landing/taking off/thrusting above the surface of the planet.
· Your ship will appear on your SRV radar if you are close enough to it.
· Thrusters on each wheel will allow you to jump. On low gravity planets, jets will rotate round and force you on to floor for traction - to stop you floating away.
· Thrusters will also allow you to get out of situation where you might get stuck. Self destruction is also an option.
· SRVs are very small, and difficult to track by flying spacecraft, and enable you to tackle some of the fortifications you’ll find planetside in a different way from what you can do in a spaceship.
· It will be possible to blow up another player’s SRV using your ship, but due to lack of heat signatures and the very small size and agility of the SRV, this will be hard to pull off.
· When you die on the planet you will return to your ship.
Planetary Defences
· ‘Surface skimmer’ AI vehicles/drones will be remote controlled from a base on the planet. These will be ‘almost land based’ vehicles.
· ‘Skimmers’ will come in more than one variety.
· ‘Skimmers’ can be knocked out by destroying the control base, shooting them, or by destroying the ‘relay towers’ that exist on the planets surface. These relay towers give the ‘skimmers’ a better range. Speculation: At the moment these are AI controlled, but it might be possible for players to fly these ‘skimmers’ from the base of a moon or planet.
· It’s been suggested that ‘Skimmers’ when skimmers are destroyed that they can be collected in your SRV and then sold on the black market.
· Debate in-house on on what happens to ships when you leave them and drive about planet - not decided whether someone else can destroy or just damage it. Note: This seems to be at odds with another statement that the ship will simply take off and fly around the planet in a low orbit supercruise. Speculation: It might be referring to what happens to your ship if you are landed at a moon base and the base is destroyed.
· Wings can be used on the planet surface in co-operation. Other co-operative play can be used to destroy bases defences. For instance it might be necessary to destroy a bases defences in a certain order before it can be taken over or destroyed.
· Cobra Mk IV - Photo HERE access available to buy in-game for all early backers, plus anyone who has the original game and orders Horizons. The new ship is apparently 'better in lots of ways, better weapons placement and 1 more hard point.
Future Horizons Updates
· Loot and crafting will be a Q1 (Jan-Mar) 2016 update to Horizons. (Speculation: loot has been spoken about before in terms of leaving stolen goods stashed on a planet or you to return to or others to find. Or it might be related to finding goods and equipment on crashed ships or destroyed bases. )
· Over the full season of Horizons more ships being released. (NOTE: This might be confused and in fact relate to the 1.5 update bringing more ships) This update would be in addition to SRV’s which are due to be added in the Horizons season.
· Future planets updates in the Horizons season will include ‘active volcanism’ and ‘ice volcanism’. At some point (before fully rendered ‘atmospheric planets with life’) there will be ones with weather systems.
· Most if not all content mentioned is already in game. No footage available as yet as textures have not been applied. This should be seen Soon! ™
· Atmospheric landings on planets with life will NOT be part of this Horizons release. That will come later in another paid expansion.
· The Unidentified Artefact will be woven into the narrative of the Horizons season. Confirmed again on the 9th August Twitch stream that there is an answer to what it is about and it is not a wild goose chase.
· Ed Symons said there is something else he is working on that he is more excited about than planetary landings, but that obviously he can’t talk about it. It would appear there’s still plenty of surprises within the Horizons season.
Core Game Improvements
· Core missions are being enhanced for the basic game.
· This will move beyond basic A>B structure and will include ‘new interactions’ and multiple staged missions. (Source: Sandro here at 1hr 35 mins onwards) There were other details that Sandro couldn’t talk about at the moment.
· Further confirmation on the 9th August Twitch stream that there would be chained missions.
· There has been discussion at FDev about player built structures, but that is no guarantee they will be in the game at some point.
I’ve learned my mistake of pre-ordering based mainly on the rep of the company and scant footage back when Egosoft teased XR. So no pre-order for me, unless I know exactly what I’m getting into, like the Homeworld Remastered or a kickstarter of a game that I know will come to fruition (like this certain space game I know…). I’m not touching this thing with a 29 1/2 foot pole until I see some let’s plays.
They did define what they were planning to make during their Kickstarter and that backfired, because people don’t like it when plans change.
The lesson they learned is clearly that it’s better to hold back on promises until you are 100% sure about what you can deliver.
I don’t think it’s a problem at all though.
People who don’t want to take that risk just wait until they feel confident that what they are getting is what they want, nothing is forcing people to jump in now.
In fact if they really have the patience to wait, they’ll probably be cheaper of during next years Steam summer sale.
And honestly, since we are talking about taking money before having something to show for it, I’m more worried that you guys aren’t taking money yet. If anything you should have a donate button on your website.
There have been many people who would have loved to help if they only been given the chance to do so.
Sadly we live in a capitalistic society so you need money to effectively realize your vision.
Well since you raised it already…
I was saving it as a last measure idea for funding. (already said it on FD forums once i think)
(BUT YOU WILL BE SUCCESFUL GUYS ! 
)
What about Patreon?
And don’t tell me people would not support it… there is plenty of people living out of it - doing literary nothing.
That’s what the upcoming Kickstarter is for. We’ve been down the donate button road many times, long ago, we’re not going to ask for donations in that manner.
Plus we’ve had all this time to save sooo much more money for the KS right??? 
I’ll assume there will be a link here on the forum for easy donations purposes.
Just pointing that out…
Sorry, but what are you actually pointing out here?
The way it’s been worded is a bit ambiguous IMO. The way it’s been said “atmospheric landing on planets with life” will not be in Horizons kinda suggests that “atmospheric landing on planets without life” will be…
But I don’t think so. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3fvm1r/elite_dangerous_horizons_wont_include_atmospheric/
That players will have to pay for another full expansion to get planets with atmospheres/oceans/foliage/clouds/creatures, is the way I read it. The first installment of planetary landings for this season appears to be airless moons + buggies only. It seems maybe Frontier has learned a thing or two about marketing from Star Citizen…
I don’t like to read too much into one liners, but that comment sounded more like, “Selbie, you are wrong, as pointed out by Crayfish and so it follows that the Horizons Season is obnoxiously expensive.”, but getting the proper meaning of a one liner is somewhat unreliable, so that is why I’m asking…
I think that’s pretty explicit. What is there to misunderstand ?
Selbie said he was expecting more planet types later on, in the same expansion, ie. you pay for Horizons but you’ll get the other planet types later on for free.
That one-liner which I extracted from Cray’s post is coming from Frontier, and they say pretty explicitely that it’ll come in another expansion, and that one will cost $$ too.
So I just finished my two servings of humble pie. I might finish the meal with a serving of foot as well 
I suppose if the fans really want it they’ll buy it. Just like SC fans. I’m just glad I chipped in for the early expansion pass deal.
