This is the update I have been working toward for a while, and it is now live.
Two things in this update are bigger than anything in any previous demo release: a completely rebuilt trade system, and a thorough overhaul of the UI.
The Trade System
The old trade goods never felt right. Water, raw metals, biomass -- things like that make sense for local trade within a solar system, but not for interstellar FTL commerce. Any system worth colonizing will have everything it needs to build a civilization. So what actually gets traded across the galaxy?
Three things: rare materials that most systems simply don't have, high-tech goods that only advanced civilizations can produce, and exotic goods -- food, art, textiles, flora and fauna -- that have value precisely because they come from somewhere else. Authentic human music made by actual humans will always have a market with the right alien buyer, even if they could produce something similar locally.
This makes the economy feel real in a way the old system did not. What you trade now has a reason to exist.
The UI
The old system window had grown into something unwieldy. Drawers, popups, sub-windows stacked on top of each other. It worked when the game was simpler, and then it didn't.
It has been replaced with a full-screen detail view that puts everything in one place. Font sizes are larger across the board. Things that used to require digging through multiple windows are now a single click away.
If the old UI was keeping you at a distance from the game, this should help considerably.
Coming Up: A Playtest
I will be organizing a playtest in the near future. If you want to be involved in shaping the game before Early Access, keep an eye on this space. More details soon.
The demo is free. If you have played it before, now is a good time to come back. If you haven't tried it yet, this is the best it has ever been.