Player owned Fleet Carriers will soon be a reality in Elite Dangerous with the team at Frontier finally settling on a release date. The announcement can be read here on the Frontier Forums but can also be read below.

Greetings Commanders,

We’re thrilled to announce that the first look at the upcoming Fleet Carrier update will be coming to your screens on Thursday, 2 April! Lead Server Developer, Dav Stott, and Game Designer, Luke Betterton, will join us on a special video to talk us through what these vast vessels are and how they’ll be shaking up the galaxy!

Since the initial reveal of Fleet Carriers, we’ve examined the concept of predefined load-outs and decided to invest additional time to ensure that fleet carriers offer the same level of flexibility and customization as other ships within Elite Dangerous. We’ve done this by adding more loadout options to make your carrier unique, and allow for player-to-player interaction like you’ve never seen before in Elite Dangerous!

Squirming in your cockpit chair wanting to know more details? Here is some key information on Fleet Carriers – but for the entire content reveal, tune in to our Pre-Recorded Stream on YouTube, on 2 April at 18:00 (UTC). Although we won’t be live, our team will be there in the chat to answer any questions that you may have.

* One of your most frequent questions about Fleet Carriers was: How much do they cost? Fleet Carriers will be a lucrative investment, costing 5,000,000,000cr at launch.
* Fleet Carriers are individually owned and feature 16 landing pads (of varying sizes) for other players to dock at.​
* Fleet Carriers use a new fuel, Tritium, to jump from system to system.​
* Fleet Carriers have a max jump range of 500LY at one time, with the ability to jump whenever the owner wants, however, they will have a build up and cool down period between jumps.​
* You can manage your carrier’s finances by setting tariffs and adjusting the buying and selling prices for commodities traded in it’s market.​

As it currently stands, we’re aiming to launch the Fleet Carriers update in June and will be calling all commanders to experience Fleet Carriers (as both visitors and owners) in two upcoming public betas before the update is live! The first beta will begin on 7 April for PC only, and the second beta which will be launched on PC, Xbox and PlayStation, will take place in May. Please note that there is a chance that these time frames may change slightly in the coming weeks, but we’ll keep you up to date on the specific times, dates and instructions.

See you there, Commanders.

The 5 billion credit cost of a carrier is definitely going to keep these vessels restricted to those players who’ve made a lot of good money over the years. At the moment I think I’d be lucky if I have 1 billion credits with my cash and ships combined so it’s one heck of a new goal and might push a lot of players into the higher paying vocations. Some of this may change depending on the response from players during the beta so will be interesting to see what the reaction is from next month.

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