Operations Is Live
Elite Gets Four-Player Co-Op

Elite Dangerous Operations
Co-Op, Merc Coin and Hard Mode

• Author:

  Watty

• Category:

  Elite Dangerous

• Date:

  Aug 3, 2026

Operations is live in Elite Dangerous, and it is the closest the game has come to giving a squadron something to do together with a clear start, a clear finish and a reason to bring friends.

The short version: an operation is a multi-stage scenario for up to four commanders, and it mixes ship combat with on-foot work in the same run. You pick the operation you want and you pick a difficulty, either easy or hard. The scenarios have names and personalities rather than being generic instances. Firestorm Rescue drops your team at a burning station to get the people inside out, which means opening blast doors and dealing with environmental jammers while the clock runs against you. Reclamation Point is another in the rotation that commanders have been grinding since launch.

Merc Coin and what you actually earn

The reward that matters is Merc Coin. You bank it by completing objectives, and you spend it on pre-engineered modules, the same class of kit that normally only shows up as a community goal reward. Every engineer now offers engineering for Merc Coin modules, so you can buy something like a size 5 or size 6 cargo rack and take it to grade 5 using Merc Coin and materials.

There are limits worth knowing before you plan your week. You can hold a maximum of 9,999 Merc Coin, and there is a weekly allowance of 1,000. That caps how fast you can convert time into modules, so operations reward showing up regularly rather than binging one weekend.

A rocky start, and where it stands now

It was not a smooth launch. Operations was pulled shortly after the update went out while Frontier worked through technical problems, with the Nomad still arriving on schedule, and the servers had a rough few days on top of that. Since then it has come back with hotfixes and follow-up updates, and commanders are running the scenarios and comparing reward tables rather than swapping outage screenshots. That is the part worth noting if you wrote it off in early July.

Running it with the squadron

Hard difficulty is where this becomes squadron content. The guidance from commanders running it is straightforward: bring three or four people in properly engineered ships, because the NPC ships you are up against are engineered as well and an unmodified build will struggle. If you would rather fill those seats with people you know than roll the dice on matchmaking, come and say hello in our Discord, and our Elite Dangerous hub has more on flying with the squadron. New commanders welcome, no gatekeeping.

Further reading: Frontier: Operations update notes | The Exiles Elite Dangerous hub