After the recent escalation in Thargoid activity, the team at Frontier have finally allowed prospective combatants to get their hands on a new ship for Elite Dangerous. Known as the Type 10 Defender, it’s basically a militarised version of the Type 9 Heavy freighter designed to offer players a lot of bang for their bucks. Available from high tech Alliance systems, it’ll apparently set you back at least 120 million credits so you may have to start saving quickly.

There’s still more ships to come in the new year, including the previously revealed Chieftain, but this will hopefully keep players occupied for the time being. The design and concept of the Type 10 certainly has some modern counterparts in the military like the Lockheed AC-130 Spectre gunship, which is a C-130 Hercules transport converted into a ground attack craft, so in terms of the game’s canon it might potentially be seen as an interim solution until more dedicated craft are developed.

With stations now under Thargoid attack, we need different ships for the emerging roles in the galaxy.

There’s definitely situations now where this kind of vessel can be incredibly useful. With the recent attacks on stations in the Pleiades, having tough battle ready ships capable of shifting refugees in large numbers seems like a perfect use for the Type 10. That is, if you’re not equipping it for Thargoid hunting (see Obsidian Ant’s video below)…

Elite Dangerous is out now for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.