Greetings.
Still plugging away on that next version. It's taking a long time because of the nature of changes being made plus the difficulty in securing sufficient time to complete the tasks. Anyway, here are some of the major highlights for the next version:
- Re-calibrated armor/shield system
- A dozen new racial traits
- Lots of new components/facilities
- New maintenance system
- Added missing elements from previous version (mines, stellar manipulation, etc)
Most of the above items are already done, except for implementing the new maintenance system which will be based on work done by SJ and Fyron. The only other stuff that remains to be done outside of that is a few minor fixes to broken AI design files, updating empire files, and ensuring there are no major bugs.
This patch will also bring the mod much more into the way I had hoped it would be. Aside from the addition of more unique vehicle types to the races and balance issues, there's just the graphics to do. These graphics will be designed for the Space Empires V version (which I've already started to think about, btw) but will also be patched into the SE:IV version. I certainly hope I can get a lot of them done in time before the year is out!
Also, a website update is in the works (heck, some of the pages have already been silently updated!) and will feature a more complete space yards section with some game stats. After this patch is released, I will also start working on the database/help pages on the website which will certainly come handy when trying the mod for the first time.
That's all for now.