New one:
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.821Okay this one is huge. Not because it adds much in the way of new features -- I think the only actual new features are the ranged interception buildings, which I did not adequately test by the way. Those are basically like "deflector dishes" in Star Wars, I think of it. Anyhow.
Balance has been shifted on all the combat-related stuff like crazy. Saucers are one part of that, but in general lots of changes for the better I think. I may have made some mistakes in ways that will bite folks, though, so I made a new 0.820 branch in case you need to revert to that.
There are also a ton of bugfixes, and then there is a new graphics quality option because we hand't realized we had downed the general graphical quality of the whole game in order to suit the low-ram folks (oops). Now everyone should be able to get the nice graphics for the most part, unless you have below the new system requirements (3GB of ram), in which case you'll get slightly artifacted elements but still better than last release.
All that stuff from the
5/14: Chris's thoughts on what comes next (yikes balance!), and blueshirts. thread still pretty much holds true as of this release. A lot of the military balance has come into much
closer form a lot faster than I expected, which is very gratifying to see. That said, there are still a lot of intertwined balance issues that need to get sorted out in the next week or so, and then we should be blueshirt-ready.
Not that I think balance will be perfect after one more week, mind you, but I think we can get it much more in the ballpark and something that people can handle a lot better. If today is any indication of the sort of progress we can make, we'll be all right.
