The News Cannon for 12/12/14: NEWS IN YO’ FACE, FOOL

Hello my friends, and welcome to the daily news cannon! ;) This is something of an experiment, because the main reason I don’t post news more often is because there’s so much of it now, it piles up to such a degree that it would take hours to make one post covering everyhing. Well, rather than try to climb an entire mountain at once, I’ve decided to try to chip away at it instead, bit by bit. So starting today, I’ll just post a small news blast of what’s come to my attention in the last 24 hours since the last news piece. That way the time involved in writing these posts is much more manageable and less daunting, and you get the news more often. Yay! Now with that said, let’s dive in!

• Freespace – So here’s a fascinating thing. Apparently former Interplay designer Chris Taylor (who worked on Starfleet Command, for example) has launched a Kickstarter for a Freespace-based board game called Freespace Tactics. It’s officially licensed and all that fun stuff, and takes place during the Terran/Vasudan war that led us into the first Freespace video game. I mean, I’m totally gonna back it, because duh, but it sure is out of the blue.
• X Rebirth – Big day for this game yesterday, as both its big 3.0 patch and the Teladi Outpost DLC was released. The patch apparently adds crafting and improves things like trade, fleet command and more (they’ve also released a series of video tutorials explaining each of these), while the DLC adds two new sectors and a boatload of new missions. I’ll have to dive back in and see if it’s more fun than my last excursion.
• Starpoint Gemini 2 – The folks at LGM have launched a best mod idea contest over on Reddit, go check it out modders!
• Galactic Civilizations III – Stardock has launched beta 3 of this upcoming 4X, which adds a new race (the Yor), damage states for ships, race traits and more along with a ton of balance and UI fixes.
• Habitat – The devs have launched beta 0.5, which adds things like junk cities, normal citizens, a new control panel and more.
• Interplanetary – Hey, lookit, new AI and single player gameplay has been added in their latest patch! YAY!

That’s it for news, but I’ll close on a bit of housekeeping. First off, I’ve launched a new SGJ SubReddit to help with both community building and promotion, so please go check it out. Finally, Jim has launched Mecha Game Junkie and is doing some great work over there, so go give it a visit.

That’s it for today folks. Have a great weekend, and keep an eye out on Twitch.tv for some Elite: Dangerous streaming tomorrow. :)