Hey guys!
Thought I'd update you how Beta is going.
Quick Summary -
Currently I'm in the process of doing an entire play through of the game. Then as I see issues I either make a note for later or address it. For example yesterday I noticed that pirates weren't aggressive enough in taking asteroid fields. This means that auto generated missions linked to asteroid fields weren't as plentiful as I'd like and that the game world was far too "friendly" than my intention.
I started my play through in a peaceful way as a law abiding citizen, doing missions for various factions to be able to buy bigger and better ships, when I'd hit a wall in the missions I added a new auto generated mission. I then played story missions until I hit another wall - where I needed a bigger fleet and so I decided to go pirate and play test their missions as well. For a while I was able to skirt the law - I'd do a mission for the pirates - killing scouts and couriers - then murder other pirates to stay in the neutral range. When my next task was to destroy civilian transports - my ability to stay lawful ran out.
So I decided to capture ships. Including some mining and transport ships - which I put to good use to test the balance tweaks on pirate attacks of these and their response.
Gotta say! I'm having fun! I can't wait until I get my own base and get it setup for capturing other ones!
And it's very satisfying to polish the game and feel the satisfaction of many small improvements.
Hope you guys are feeling this too!
Thanks for your support!
Paul