Some last questions? Thanks much

[tinkthank]

Well I solved most of my problems about which I posted below, and this sure is a neat game.
I basically only have these two questions:

1. Like almost everybody else here on the couple of pages of threads I read through, the only thing that really bugs me is the hyperdrive and the Folding ability of the Zorg Helmsman. Someone likened to finding the HD to a Yahtzee or a jackpot -- and that's true. But on medium or larger maps, it seems I almost always can find one, and it makes time management and nebular planning retroactively useless.
Over at the Mod forum, I saw here that PvK asked about modding the hyperdrive, since it didnt work for him, and that he was told that the HD recharge time is currently hardcoded, so that this cannot be modded, but that this might change in an expansion pack. IIRC that was about 8 months ago.
Is there any new developments on this? Will there ever be? Any Digital Eel input on this?

2. From what I can gather, there was a mention about a month or so ago here on this forum to this tune:

Don't worry, new stuff will come

There is so little traffic on this board, however, I wonder are people playing it still, and how I am to understand this phrase?

Thanks very much for taking the time to answer

[Shadowcat]

The programmer has been unavoidably otherwise engaged for the last several months, so Weird Worlds support has been fairly much on the back burner. Don't be surprised if nothing much happens for a while longer, but I have faith that things will start to happen again in due course. Digital Eel are decidedly good sorts.

[Fingers]

I was away from January until late July due to military service.

We have been working on the 1.2 upgrade since I got back a couple of months ago. It'll go into beta testing soon. There's some new content included as well as the usual bug fixes and some mod-related features. Some of the previously hardcoded numbers will be modifiable, including the hyperdrive charge time. We hope to release the upgrade before the holidays.

[tinkthank]

Thank you very much for your time in answering.

If you don't mind, a follow-up question?

a. Holidays? Which holidays? (I take it that you are European (otherwise, no military service), but I am unfamiliar with every nation's holidays...)

b. Does that mean that Digital Eel is (b1) run exclusively by you, Fingers, and what's more: (b2) in your spare time? And that (b3) you must be under 21 years of age to still require to serve in the military?

thanks much and all the best, you've done a good thing here with WW

[Ace_Garp]

An update!
With extra content! (more stuff please)
Now that is indeed music to my ears.

Any idea when it'll be available for the Mac though?
(Yes - there's always a downside)

[Fingers]

a. I mean the generic "holiday season", as in Christmas & New Year. I'm a Finnish citizen but live in the US.
b1. As you can see in the WW credits there's three of us plus Ed Zavada who's responsible for the Mac ports. I'm the only programmer (apart from Ed making changes to make the code run on Mac).
b2. Yes, it's a spare time thing although we're all from the "real" game industry.
b3. Male Finnish citizens are required to serve a term in the military before they turn 30 (which I will next year). One of the ways this is enforced is that you can't get a Finnish passport after the year you turn 28 unless you've performed your military service. I'd been putting it off ever since I moved to the US in 1998 but my time finally ran out at the end of 2005. In theory I could've stayed in the US, but then I wouldn't have been able to visit my relatives in Finland until 2010 when the statute of limitations on "desertion" would've expired.

Ace_Garp: We're going to try and release both Windows and Mac versions roughly at the same time. The upgrade doesn't have many platform specific changes, but as the Mac port can only be compiled (and tested!) once the Windows version is complete it probably won't be perfectly simultaneous.