The big news is that we reached internal alpha on 12/20, just ahead of the schedule we posted last month! Of course we still have quite a few features to complete before we will be ready to send the game out to our alpha backers, but all of the core functionality is now in the game. Hooray!

Scouting

Let’s talk about one of our stretch goals: scouting.

You can choose to send any ship (except your battleship) ahead to scout nearby locations. It takes time for a ship to reach the destination and return. And there is a chance the scouting ship may be lost. Sending a warship improves the chance of survival.

Once the scout returns, your starmap will list the number and types of ships present, what factions they belong to, tell you if a station is present, and give you a more precise indication of the quality of each resource available.

Of course, if you order a fleet jump before a scout has returned, the scout is lost forever…

Team contributions

Brian Jamison worked on ship placement and swarm progression rules for where ships and the Harvesters spawn in the game, prepared for and showed the game at Indie Game Con, compiled the final list of to-do items for alpha and beta, set up our public facing bug tracking system, and started work on the new game trailer.

Brian Davis worked on the galaxy map design, art and animation, created our custom mouse pointer, and designed shuttles for boarding parties and diplomacy. He also created the self destruct countdown timer, adjusted our palette for ship materials, animated the shield effect and worked with Dominic to implement multiple materials on ships.

Dominic worked on UI implementation, finished game functionality, and worked on memory management — this had him touching nearly every bit of functionality in the game over the past two months…

There are still a few backers that have yet to fill out their Kickstarter survey!

Thank you for the words of support and patience you continue to show — we are at least as eager as you to deliver the game. We wish you all the very best holiday season and a healthy and happy 2017!

Brian Jamison

Portland, Oregon