Frontier Developments has today launched Beta 3 for the upcoming PC videogame Elite: Dangerous, bringing with it a host of new updates ahead of the full release. You can see the whole changelog here, but it’s very long. incgamers have summarized the most important:

“NEW FEATURES & CONTENT
– New ship – Imperial Clipper added
– New ship – Federal Dropship added
– Added player driven interdiction
– Players can now interdict NPC ships and the NPC will be recreated in normal space along with the player (player interdiction is also possible)
– Fuel scooping from stars added
– Asteroid mining added (metal and rock)
– Players can own multiple ships
– Play area expanded (capsule 350ly long, radius 37 ly – 2400+ systems)
– Planet visuals overhaul
– Planet liquid colours now reflect chemical composition
– Atmospheric colours now reflecting their chemical composition
– Surface types and colours now reflect chemical composition
– Planets display volcanic features
– Complex Craters can create dust ejecta
– Crater frequency dependent on atmosphere thickness
– Ice planets now have fracture features
– Dynamic ice caps on all planets
– Dynamic liquid levels on all planets
– Asteroid belt clusters added
– Nebulae added to galaxy map
– Nebulae added to sky map rendering
– Make outpost landing pads more zero-g
– Status panel now shows faction reputation
– Improved range display and route finding in galaxy map
– Philanthropy missions added
– Partial name searching added to galaxy map
– Additional ships added to loading screen”