Elite Dangerous Players Rally to Save Expedition of Fellow Player Fighting Cancer

The Elite Dangerous community has its ups and downs, much like any other online game. Sometimes, [...]

By Liana 'LiLi' Ruppert

The Elite Dangerous community has its ups and downs, much like any other online game. Sometimes, however, they really ban together to show the good the gaming community is capable of. As one Elite player continues his fight against cancer, others are rallying to keep his hard work safe from griefers.

Since mid-January, many players have been making their pilgrimage out to the Dove Enigma station, named after Brandon "DoveEnigma13" Keith. With a charity drive to keep the journey going while Keith continues the battle against terminal cancer, things have been going relatively smoothly with efforts to help out both Keith and his 5 year old daughter. That is, until a few other players decided to take it offline.

Immediately, the community was quick to react:

Luckily, one Elite developer stepped in to offer some clarity in a forum post stating:


Many of you will be aware of the recent delivery of Unknown Artefacts to the Dove Enigma, a prominent charity and memorial megaship relating to the Enigma Expedition. For those who hadn't heard, you can find out more about the Enigma Expedition here.

The team have spent their evening investigating the deliveries and they believe the use of a known exploit is possible. We take the use of exploits very seriously, and we will continue the investigation. Should there be evidence of any exploit in use, we will take appropriate action against any commanders found to be using them. The exploit believed to have been used here has already been fixed in the current 3.0 beta, and the fix should be making its way to the live game when the Beyond – Chapter One update goes live.

Many of you have asked why a black market existed on the megaship to begin with. As you know, the galaxy's background simulation manages the states and services of stations based on the faction controlling it. Because all dockable megaships are subject to the changing tides of the galaxy sim, the memorial megaship's owner meant the addition of a black market. However, we also understand that this event was a finish line for the Enigma Expedition and in hindsight we should have manually removed the black market for a limited time while the expedition took place. We would like to apologise to Commanders for the upset we've caused. As with all our in-game memorials and tributes, they are added with the very best intentions.

This evening we have been looking into whether to take steps to correct that mistake, but I'm pleased to say that won't be necessary. Thanks to the great work of our incredible community.

The Dove Enigma is 'Experiencing Technical Issues.' This means interference from Thargoid Sensors has been detected and – if not countered – will result in the shutdown of some station services, but this will not happen. From our view of the galaxy we can see an overwhelming number of Commanders taking flight in one direction and with one purpose: to counter the shutdown.

With this staggering outpouring of support, we are confident that the shutdown will be averted as Commanders arrive. Lend them your support if you can, and take part in this new and unexpected chapter in the history of Elite Dangerous.

To the many Commanders that have come to the aid of the expedition as well as the hundreds of Commanders taking part in this expedition itself: thank you. Seeing the community come together to support their fellow commander and support such a good cause is amazing for all of us in the studio. We're sorry for our oversight, and we thank you for taking to your cockpits.

Thanks to the overwhelming support of the community, and the developers, the Dove Enigma is safe once more proving that the Elite: Dangerous community is one legendary group of gamers!

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