Hello Friends, It’s Been a While – Daily Dispatch for 10/4/18

Opening/Random Thoughts

Happy Thursday folks! So sorry I’ve not written one of these in a while, but wow did my week and weekend get busy, so much so I had no energy for anything else. We didn’t even do a stream last Thursday because we were both so bloddy tired. But now things are evening out, and I’ve got time to put this together. I actually began working on this entry on Monday, it took that long to put all the news together, for there is a LOT of it. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Today’s Video(s)

At the end of my Star Control: Origins playthrough, I kinda ran into a wall, which means I need to grind upgrades and such, which I am FINE with. This game is great. It captures the exploratory spirit of those original space adventure games while adding plenty of new features to make it fun and modern. DEFINITELY one to own y’all.

Sector Six is a side-scrolling shooter that, on paper, I SHOULD LOVE. Lots of weapons, RPG elements, a meta map and so on. However, after a few tries, I just couldn’t get it to click. Like, at all. It’s not a BAD game, as it’s got a lot of moving parts that are competently assembled, I just felt no thrill or rush while playing it. Not sure why that is.

60 Parsecs is an odd duck. You have sixty seconds to grab whatever you can off your space station before it explodes, then take your crew and survive for as long as you can on what you were able to scavenge. It’s weird because you’re forced to make one decision a day, but sometimes, through lack of having a specific item, your only choice is to do nothing, which feels just weird. Once I played this a bit, I was done with it. It just made me sad.

Final Theory is another odd one. It’s something of a 3X (explore, expand, exterminate) with tactical combat, and while it’s not a badly made game, I just never felt super excited to play it. This likely comes from some confusing rules (I HAVE SIX FLEETS WHY CAN I ONLY MOVE ONE PER TURN?) and just a very poorly-explained universe. You’re the [insert color here] faction. Kill the other color factions. Take their planets. That’s pretty much it.

The other night we had Derek Smart back on the show to talk Universal Combat, which thankfully we did talk about for a while. Of course we went on tangents — that’s just how it goes — but overall it was a pretty fun show.

Today’s News

• Nimbatus is now available in early access on Steam! Yay! If you own Avorion, you’ll be getting an additional 10% off coupon! Yay! They also have a small hotfix as well as a larger patch too.
• Beat Hazard 2 is now also available in early access! YAY!
• Space Bob vs. The Replicons is out on Steam, and I’m shocked I’d never heard of it. Hopefully I’ll get to try it soon.
• Catastronauts is also live on Steam, and this looks like a local co-op version of FTL.
• Star’Shoot is also live on Steam, and it looks neat.
• Asteroid Fight is also out in early access on Steam.
• Executive Assault 2 now has a Steam page! Get to wishlisting!
• X4: Foundations is releasing on 11/31, and you can pre-order it now!
• Overload now has an awesome-looking Community Level Pack for y’all to buy.
• Rebel Galaxy Outlaw has a video up of its ship painting tool, which I’ll never use but am so glad exists.
• Descent: Underground will soon be resurfacing as a reimagined Descent, according to this dev update.
• Speaking of Avorion, they have a pretty massive beta patch with a lot of experimental fixes.
• Limit Theory has ceased development.
• XO has posted their September development recap, which makes me hopeful that someday we’ll actually play the thing.
• Star Traders: Frontiers now has xeno hunting missions! They’ve also reworked the starport UI a bit.
• Celestial Command will be getting capital ships, which look really awesome.
• Galactic Shipwright has hit 1.0 apparently, but as I write this, I’m not sure if that means it’s out of early access. The news post about it says LITERALLY NOTHING besides the new version exists.
• Flat Universe is having a tournament this very weekend! I’d go but I’ve got a thing.
• Skywanderers has a new devlog showing off some recent updates to the game.
• Void Destroyer 2 has a new devlog and video showing off platforms in the game.
• EVE: Valkyrie – Warzone made a post celebrating its birthday, and thanking folks for playing it. I need to reinstall it once I get my new rig.
• Heat Signature released its birthday update, which adds daily challenges and much more to the game.
• Starflight Remastered (which is what I’m calling it) is coming along nicely, according to this latest post about gas giants.
• Star Explorers will be getting more stuff to do, according to this post! Yay!
• Infinity: Battlescape has a new dev update talking networking and more.
• Interstellar Prime has a new dev update showing asteroid base building.
• Ancient Frontier: Steel Shadows has a new unit preview, the smugger light escort.
• Rodina got a big update to its interiors, which makes Xeno bases look a lot creepier.
• No Man’s Sky got a big patch which adds community research goals plus some small fixes.
• Star Valor got a massive patch which adds new ships, special abilities and more.
• Angels Fall First got a huge update which adds corvette loadouts and more.
• Helium Rain got a pretty big update which includes UI and economy fixes.
• StarMade got its first update in a while, which adds a new sidebar, drones and more.
• Predestination has released a massive update which changes and overhauls a TON of crap.
• Stellaris has a beta patch which includes a revamped multiplayer system. They also have a new dev diary looking at decisions and planetary bombardment, and one about trade routes.
• Hellion is getting an update in November called Rude Awakening, but at this point we’re not sure what’s going to be in it.
• Starcom: Nexus is doing a trivia contest to give away beta keys. Good luck!
• AI War 2 got a huge patch which apparently makes the galaxy map usable!
• SimpleRockets 2 is also looking for some beta testers.
• Interstellar Rift got a development update about rail weapons, and a patch to go with it.
• Children of the Galaxy posted their September update, which updates the game to .NET 2.0 and more.
• Objects in Space has a pretty big patch with around two dozen fixes, and the ability to skip introductory NPCs, which is nice.
• Landinar: Into the Void got a sizeable patch which adds a camera mode, and fixes a lot of stuff.
• Planetes got a small patch which adds some notifications and so on.
• Avalon: The Journey Begins got a patch which adda a demand support button and more.
• Vendetta Online got a small patch which includes updated ship stats.
• Galactic Dominion got a patch which adds more hotkeys. Always a good thing. It also added more game speeds and more in another patch. Love the work the dev is doing on this one.
• Galactic Crew got a big patch that adds a tutorial and ground combat improvements.
• Reassembly got its first patch in a dog’s age, with a ton of fixes and improvements.
• Battlevoid: Harbinger also had its first patch in ages, which adds a new ship and more.
• Hyperspace Delivery Service got a pretty big patch which fixes a lot of stuff.
• Galactic Civilizations III got a patch which adds a new racial trait, and fixes a bunch of little things.
• Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion has a mod highlight article showing off some of the recent mods to the popular game.
• Impulse: Space Combat has a dev update stating that the dev is finished with the game, which is kind of a shame, but understandable.

Today’s Deal(s)

• Chrono.gg has the Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition for a nice deep cut.
• IndieGala has an Indie Bomber Bundle that includes the fantastic Unending Galaxy.
• Steam is having a Stardock Weekend with all the usual suspects.
• Humble is having a Daedactic Weekend sale which includes The Long Journey Home. They’re also having a Paradox weekend sale as well.
• Green Man Gaming is having a sale on EVE Online bundles, which includes Alpha time, Plex and all that fun stuff.
• Green Man Gaming is also having a sale on No Man’s Sky, but it’s not really at its historic low.
• Steam’s Weeklong Deals have some spacey games for y’all.

What I’ve Been Playing

• Beat Hazard 2 – It just came out yesterday, it still has some issues, but ALREADY I LOVE IT. Seriously, I wasn’t sure one could improve upon the already sublime first game, but the dev looks to have succeeded.
• Din’s Legacy – Each patch makes this a bit better, and I am having such a fun time with it. SO FUN.
• Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients – I’ve owned this for a while, so I keep trying to click with it. It has a lot of moving parts, a tutorial that’s…interesting, but some fascinating gameplay elements, so I’m gonna try to stick with it this time.
• Diluvion – Once I got used to the controls — which are just weird — I began to really enjoy this underwater adventure and exploration game.

WHEW! This one took forever to put together, my friends, but I hope you find it useful. Have a great day!