A Busy Day – Daily Dispatch for 12/11/18

Opening/Random Thoughts

Hey folks, happy Tuesday! Man, this new editor for WordPress is WEEEEEEIRD. I’m gonna try to get used to it because it does some neat things, but if not, I am so, so, sooohooohooooo glad there’s the option to use the “classic” editor instead. This new one is based on “blocks”, as in right now I’m writing this in a text block. Up there is a block with an image in it, and below will be blocks with videos in them. Weird, right?

I think these blocks will come into their own when you can save them as templates — which is hinted at, but not added yet — so I can just load one of these up and start writing. Sadly it’s not there yet. Hah, this paragraph is now its own block. So weird, WordPress. Anyway, how are you guys doing?

Today’s Video(s)

Today’s X4 entry has more mission running…because I love missions. I do feel like I’m learning about the economy a bit though. 

This morning Spaz and I got up super duper early to talk to Bernd Lehahn — you know, the guy who created Egosoft and the X series — to talk about the aforementioned X4: Foundations as well as the series as a whole. After a late start — due to some Discord weirdness — we ended up having a really fun and engaging podcast, with a lot of audience questions and some really great info from Bernd. Overall a success!

Today’s News

• Ancient Frontier: Steel Shadows will apparently be out today, but as I write this, it’s not yet available. Soon I hope!
  
• Star Control: Origins has new DLC called “Earth Rising” which is part of a four-part expansion that’ll be coming over the next year.
• Astrobase Command has a new dev update which talks about fleets in the game.
• Elite Dangerous launched the latest big patch for Beyond today, so big the server is still crashing. 
• Sirius: Age of the Free Agents — a new project from the Sirius Online developer — is coming soon!
• Prosperous Universe — which I just found out about — is launching its first access to players on Thursday!
• Objects in Space has a massive new patch which allows you not only to engage in piracy and smuggling, but to report those types of ne’er-do-wells to authorities as well. The patch also streamlines missions, yay!
• Interstellar Space: Genesis has released Alpha 1A, which fixes a ton of bugs!
• Interstellar Prime will be launching its Kickstarter campaign in January.
• X4: Foundations has added three new patches since my last dispatch, which is insane. They also added a new video talking about the game’s short-term updates which are incoming.
• Spacebourne got a new patch which adds player-created contracts! Neat! They also got patch which adds a panel which shows missions and such!
• AS+CEND got new Martian combat theaters in its latest update.
• Stellar Tactics got a big patch with lots of quality of life improvements.
  
• AI War 2 got a patch which adds custom stacks and more.
• EVE Online has released its December release update which adds a “host of improvements.” 
• Avorion has a beta patch with just oodles of improvements.
• Planetes got a small patch with server persistence features and more.
• Reentry got a teensy little patch.
• Helium Rain got an even teensier little patch.
• ModDB and IndieDB have launched their 2018 Mod of the Year and Indie of the Year award nominations, and some great space games are in there, so check it out.

Today’s Deal(s)

• Star Control: Origins is also on sale on Steam, to go along with its new DLC. 
• Humble is having an Indie Mega Week with a lot of great games.

What I’ve Been Playing

• X4: Foundations – Still getting the hang of this thing, but boy is it fun. Seriously, I’m having a great time. 
• Forza Horizon 3 – Still enjoying the holy heckfire out of this one, and just expanded another festival location! Plus I raced boats! So fun!

That’s it for today y’all! Have a great one!