Hey guys - here's what's been happening.
I'm nearly done with the "quick pass" of the story - I've taken a bunch of detours along the way, adding very important (but minor in terms of coding features), tweaking existing ones and adding loads of polish.
Some of the features/polish is the ability of bases to have a dedicated fighter slot (making fighter production much faster). Adding to the "resource request" system so that it works via gates and finally enabling/giving the "ship posture" controls to the player. Letting the player control how their ship(s) respond to enemies. These items became an obvious need to add/tweak when I did the story pass through.
I've added 10 new instant action scenarios - these are simple dogfight type missions. Letting players have space combat without some of the real time strategy elements getting in the way of enjoying the ship to ship combat engine. Instant action scenarios are a great opportunity for me to give players a challenging battle or a unique perspective on the game world (via being able to pilot other faction ships).
There's been loads of tiny polish given to the game, many issues were looked at and I've tried to finalize them versus putting them off like I tended to do before. For example I'm pretty sure that the sound "pop" issues are a thing of the past, and tactical mode to ship mode toggling has had a few bugs fixed. Issues like - when a map first loads - a single frame would render without the visual "outline and toon" effects added have been fixed - while small are an important step towards reaching full release.
Anyway - I've put together a development video for those interested in a more visual demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tnIczGCiJc
What's left:
Finish up the story pass through (about an hour to two hours worth of story to go). Finish up the story. Add about 4 or more instant action scenarios. Finish the GUI elements (this unfortunately depends on outside artists). Finalize and finish up command ship upgrades. Most likely add in a "base versus base skirmish" type "addon" (letting you setup a quick base versus ai base battle) to the Instant Action mode of the game. And that's it - we would be at the "released" stage - and then go beyond that.
The above seems like a lot - but as usual... I'm pretty optimistic and the above are mostly finishing touches.
I mentioned this in the end of the video, but I'll mention it here as well - I'm nearly a year behind schedule. It is pretty obvious that I'm unable to estimate time very well and I constantly think about that - and to cheer myself up I think that the game is a much better game as a result of a longer development.
Once again thank you for supporting the project during Early Access.
If you have any issues or feedback please let me know.
Paul