Massive Newsey Updatey Thingy!!

Haaaaaaaayyyyy folks, happy Whenever-I-Finally-Post-This! ;) I hope these last weeks have found you all well, and less busy/tired than I’ve been. ;) I’ve just not had time to do the news (or much else) in the past several weeks. That’s a-changing though, for a couple of reasons. First, work is slowing down, so I’ll have more physical and mental energy to put toward the blog. Secondly, I found I was more productive on the blog before my awesome girlfriend moved in, so I’ve come up with the hopeful solution of setting aside certain nights of the week, and weekends when I have time, to dedicate time and energy solely to this blog. This should help me find a better balance and begin to put out content more regularly again. :)

As for news, let’s just dive in, as there’s a TON to go over (so much so I’m putting it under a cut):

• Infinite Space 3: Sea of Stars – The big news is that the sequel to Weird Worlds has launched its Kickstarter! Yay! Go kick to it! NOW I tell you! ;)
• New Kickstarters – I also seem some new spacey gamey Kickstarters in Tradewars Rising (yes, THAT Tradewars) and Galactic Domination. Go check ’em out.
• LucasArts – Thanks to GameInformer for pointing out a eulogy and photo gallery in honor of LucasArts from one of its former composers, Jesse Harlin.
• Distant Worlds: Shadows – Even though we all knew it was coming, there’s now an official announcement over on Matrix Games’ website! WANT TO PLAY NAO PLZ!
• Imperium Galactica – Adam has a new interview with the CEO Digital Reality, Andras Peller, about the latest title in the series.
• Dominion – They’ve now gotten onto Steam Greenlight! Go vote for ’em!
• StarMade – The dev posted, like, 80,000 news pieces in one day earlier this week, so head over to their news page to see ’em all.
• Star Conflict – A new patch called “Reach for the Stars” which apparently cleans up the interface, improves communication and so on. Another new patch called “Beacon Hunt” brings a new game mode.
• EVE Online – First off, on the official side, besides the new Odyssey expansion (announcement here), the devs are looking for stories from the first decade from users, you can see the trailer for the Battle of Caldari Prime — which I’ll embed below — the community site has been updated, and there’s a new chrnonicle called “After the Fall“. From the Mittani, there’s lots of news here, including the theft of 45 billion ISK from TEST Corp’s coffers, CCP’s stand against a neo-nazi CSM candidate, starbase iterations for Odyssey, a review of Battleship Tiericide, a TEST Alliance update, the “gerontocracy of EVE”, a look at the rare Revenant cap ship, the art of flying capital ships, an intro to planetary interaction, the creation of carebears, a case for and against wardecs, bringing life to highsec and a look at faction cruisers. There might be more, but wow that’s still a ton. Love those guys. Gamasutra also has an article on how the author used the game to predict the great recession.
• Drox Operative – There’s a new patch (1.008 as I write this) with a ton of fixes, as well as reviews from Pixel Perfect Gaming, I-Luv-Games and Game Industry News. You can now also buy the game on Amazon in both Windows and Mac flavors.
• Beyond Beyaan – According to an update on Kickstarter, the dev can now add branches on Desura, allowing folks to get the most recent dev version or stable version. Nifty! There are also new updates covering regions and sliders, animation effects, planet management UI and the game’s launcher.
• Vendetta Online – According to Polygon, the game will be coming out on the iPad on April 17th. Wheee!
• Star Citizen – Wanna meet another member of the team? How about two! Here’s Brendan Jackson and Dan Tracy! (for some reason I can’t embed these)! There’s also an archive entry from the Advocacy folks about Bounties, a new issue of the Lost Generation, a news update on the Kaizen and an entry on a recent UEE congressional session. You can also find an interview with Richard Garriott, who’s actually been to space. I’m lso surprised I can spell his name correctly. The BEST post, however, is this detailed look at ship components. Soak in in…..mmmm….
• Void of Darkness – Just a few small updates telling us how things are going. Also, there’s a new video showing off some combat, which I’ll embed below, as well as a look at the crew system and talk of a starmap.
• AI War – There’s a new patch called “Deflecting Attraction” which has over a dozen small balance changes, apparently.
• StarLife – There’s a new look at the Tech Screen from the game, which looks all kinds of awesome. There’s also information on the Krom race, as well as some info on espionage.
• Limit Theory – There’s a new dev update video which I can’t wait to watch in its entirety (and will be embedded after the cut).
• FTL – There’s a fascinating little postmortem article over on Gamasutra that is totally worth your time. The devs also won big at IGF 2013! Congrats!
• Epic Space Game – There’s a new version which adds jump drives, among other things.
• OpenIG – According to the folks at Indie Retro News, there’s a new version to this open-source remake of the amazing Imperium Galactica for y’all (and I really mean me) to toy with. ;)
• Starsector – There are two separate posts (part 1, part 2) on fleet encounter mechanics that are wonderfully detailed, just like we like ’em.
• Rogue System – There’s a new dev entry over on the game’s forums for y’all to check out.
• Enemy Starfighter – There’s a new update with some fantastic animated images of progress in-game. Want nao plz!
• StarDrive – The folks at Indie Retro News and The Mittani both have a preview, which is something I myself need to work on. :/
• Predestination – I know it’s April, but check out their March dev update! ;)
• And Here the Wheel – The bloke behind the official Elite: Dangerous novel has a podcast! There’s been two done, so here’s the category page so you can snag ’em both if you’d like. There’s also a progress update to read.
• Kerbal Space Program – Apparently if you own a copy of the game, you can now get Steam keys! Nifty! You can now also buy the game on Steam as part of their new early access program.
• Dominion – There’s a new pitch trailer for upcoming funding campaigns, which I’ll also embed below. There’s also a post about mining! Yay mining! Finally, there’s a look at some of their new graphics.
• Strike Suit Zero – Two new Strike Suits have been announced, the Marauder and the Raptor. There’s also a nifty new video that shows ’em off, which I’ll embed below. There’s also new DLC for a Raptor
• Oresome – There’s a new post on IndieDB talking about making the game more refined.
• StarStrategy – The dev feels he’s reaching a dead end in Construct development — whatever that means — and is asking for help.
• Endless Space – Amplitude have put together a design doc covering system invasions.
• Sword of the Stars II – There’s a teeny-tiiiny update that fixes a few bugs.
• Galaxy on Fire II HD – You can now download the soundtrack to the game and its expansion! Yay soundtracks!
• Star Trek Online – The upcoming expansion, Legacy of Romulus, has finally been revealed. Yay Romulans!
• Starflight II – The CRPG Addict gives the game his final rating, and it’s about what you’d expect if you’ve played the game.
• X-Rebirth – OMG, WE HAVE LIFE! There have been two videos released, one on cluster design and one on turret testing, which actually shows some gameplay!
• 0x10c – According to Rock, Paper Shotgun, the game is on hold until it’s fun. Sounds good to me!
• Rodina – If you’re lucky enough to be at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry on April 24th, you can see and play the game as part of their OMSI After Dark series.

We’re not done yet! First, in deals, you can get Galaxy on Fire II HD for $4.99 on Green Man Gaming right now. FINALLY, there are some great entries on the Concept Ships blog from Roberts Space Industries, Dorje Bellbrook and Colie Wertz.

That’s it! Enjoy the videos below, and have a great day!

https://youtu.be/AWxtNOwMS78