this game sounds like its going to be super interesting but holy smokes your working on this AND enougher title as well as the constant updates for ai war and tlf?! I hope you guys aren't pushing your self's to hard...
We're not really working on the next game after this one yet, but I have to always be planning one game ahead so that when development wraps on one we are ready to move the artists to that one. Art is always the first thing to wrap up for one of our titles, and I wouldn't want people to just be sitting around for a period and then being bored later.
Not so constant updates, surprisingly for Arcen 
I think theres been maybe one each recently, to fix notable issues.
Yep, this new game is just monster huge and we haven't had time for anything other than critical fixes on the others. A project of this scope... well, it just sucks in everyone and all the time availability. TLF took slightly less time to make, and that was really split between two different games that we had to build separately: the solar map and then the battles. And there was so so so much redoing of the battles, and that was individually very complicated. And still it took less time than this game, which is just one game rather than two mashed together. That gives some indication of the scale here, heh.
Not that I want to oversell this either and have people expecting AI War + 6 Expansions level of content from day 1 here, but -- AI and networking aside -- a 4X title is inherently a lot more complicated to create than an RTS one.
Yeah this is one area that needs a lot TLC.
Good interface design is an art form and difficult to get it 'just right' without sufficient time.
My first impression of TLF was that the UI buried the detail and hindered the fun.
Yep, for sure on how important this is. And yes, I agree on TLF. That went through a lot of iterations and ultimately it was as good as we could make it UI-wise -- I'm not sure if a generally-better design is around for the underlying gameplay there -- but ultimately it left me with a lot of lessons on what I wanted to do differently this next time.
From what you've describe here and previous messages, SBR has a lot of moving parts. The more time you can devote to making the UI intuitive is quite understandable.
Yep, for sure. Some of it comes down to actually altering the game itself to make the UI more possible, though, so it's a bit more than that. Which is part of why I don't want anyone else but me in there yet, because it would just confuse things.
As one example, there was a given stat that was city-wide and very important relating to your efficiency. It's a key thing, and I was constantly having to look to the upper left corner of the screen to find out what it was. This was no good at all, it was very distracting how my eyeballs were having to move the more I played.
Eventually I figured out that that simply doesn't work as a city-wide stat, because you have to check it too frequently. And... hang on a minute... actually I can do some cool things with it if it's building-based instead, but calculated at the start of each turn based on the central city stuff, I realized. So instead that is moving to buildings, where for the most part the answer is "I'm fine so I'm invisible," which was already the case, and then it's "something is going on so I'm showing a progress bar on this specific building right now" for the ones in question.
That keeps my eyeballs on my buildings themselves, without adding clutter to the majority of the town, and actually improving a gameplay mechanic without being a complete overhaul of the concept (well -- in my opinion. Opinions on how much of an overhaul that is may differ, which again is part of why no other players yet.)
So it's things like that. I play and every time I get annoyed, I try to figure out why. Every time I feel tripped up or slow moving between turns, I look at why. Every time I'm groaning at trying to figure out some stats that are buried, I look to see if they need to be simplified, altered, or exposed in the interface better. And so on.
In a lot of respects it's not really the interface itself that is my focus, but rather how I move and flow through the game myself. It's a process that definitely takes time, but it's so rewarding and it's crazy to see how different the game is after just a week and a half of that. I'm playing for longer and longer stretches without getting frustrated, the game puts up the right amount of resistance to me doing things rather than too much or too little more of the time, etc, etc. Another couple of weeks of this and it's going to be quite slick, I think.
However I suspect that if you didn't need to pay the bills, you might keep tweaking and tuning indefinitely. 
I'm actually pretty good at knowing when to stop, which I can say with some certainty given this was my lifelong hobby before I ever had to pay the bills, heh. Some people are consumed with endless polish, but I try and get to a reasonable place and then recognize the diminishing returns. Sometimes I (ahem) don't quite make it to that place, and other times I push way past that place and just burn money, but overall I'm pretty decent at it. When I push way too far and burn money, it's usually because of an underlying problem in the game itself, which I don't have the faintest sense of here. Thankfully!
NOOOO THIS IS TLF ALL OVER AGAIN WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE
Well, take your time. Late may not be nice but it's a lot better than broken or never, as my ma used to say* 
Especially when you're banking large amounts of sales revenue and a good chunk of reputation on it.
*not actually said by my ma
Haha. Indeed. Your ma is smart.
Some weeks I didn't come for news about SBR; just having a daily glance on the front page (still stuck on the funny "Incident on the previous Thursday").
Yeah, I really need to do another post soon -- and I have some content queued up to show -- but I really don't want to push things further on the main side until I can show gameplay video. I feel like I'm passing the point where I can talk too publicly about this for very long without showing some actual in-game footage. I don't know why I have that feeling, but it's why I've been posting on the forums instead of the blog. That will change!
I'm just out from the reading of what I missed on this part of the forum. And I saw so many "Added you to the list!" in the "Specs are finally feature-complete" thread. So, is it as simple as that? I just ask and I'm "in the list" too? Can I? Really? If so, yes, I want, I wish to be in the list!
You are in the list!
You, Chris, talked about donation... and that testers get the game for free?!? I want to buy the game! I want to give you money, because it's the normal way: you all work and have bills, and you make "delicious" games for us to eat, to feed our imagination and enjoy our lives! I'll buy the game twice its price! A restaurant cost about the price of a game, and it feed so few...
What? Game/Restaurant? I guess I was carried away by my own enthusiasm. Well, you see what I mean.
You are extremely kind.
Yes, as part of the beta process, we send you a steam key, and you register that and get updates through Steam. You can't buy a game on Steam that you already have in your library (well, except to gift), and at any rate we're grateful for the feedback and feel like a free copy is the least we can do.
But, recognizing that some folks do want to contribute more, and admitting to the fact that we can use that given the nature of the market at the moment and the length of development, etc, etc, I did mention the donations thing. It also has the lowest cut out of all the ways of giving us money -- 0%, IIRC. 2% at most. On our site the cut for buying it outright is 8%, whereas usually in the industry it's 30%.
Anyway, PLEASE do not send us any money related to this game until you actually have it in hand, because I don't want anyone having buyer's remorse after getting something sight-unseen when it's in an early state, etc. If you are in the beta and feel like you want to throw in a tip, we do have a page for that on the main site navigation area, and we'll link to that.
But seeing as you guys are doing us a service by testing and giving feedback, a free copy of the game is the least we can do, so don't feel obligated. We'll be fine even without any tips/donations, don't worry.
SBR, then Airship Eternal (or any morphing of it, never mind), and then maybe an AI War new expansion, not counting the TLF expansion I haven't unpacked yet!!! So many presents and so few birthdays to fit them all! I'll never age fast enough if you guys keep going that way!
Pushed into June? Peh! Push it next years if you think it's better. I trust you. I trust you all for making the best game.
Thank you for being awesome.
Thank you so much! It really means a huge amount.
