Early Access 3 is our planned end of EA for Lord of Rigel. The next update includes one feature we had wanted to include in release but was not part of the original roadmap- Leaders.
Leaders
Leaders are empire wide, and have a chance of being rescued from empty star systems or after defeating space monsters guarding a system. They can also be hired on. Leaders can provide technologies and unique bonuses that are applied empire wide to fleets, planetary economies, or the empire wide economy.
With many decisions in LoR, the plan was to have the player feel like an Emperor, you set the overall economic focus of planets and can micromanage construction if wanted but can focus on the higher level issues when using the automation systems without the game "playing itself."
The leader system follows this same idea with them being cabinet members making high level impacts.
Rebellions or loss of a capitol or homeworld all effect your leaders "on the map."
Image 1. Leader System
Tactical Updates
Also requested were some features for tactical. This includes being able to scan visible ships with a tooltip hover when up close.
Additionally, a combat timer that can be set in options (default 5:00) that ends combat in a draw has also been added. This behaves like the existing retreat system.
Image 2. Scanning enemy ships
Image 3. Combat timer
Advanced Settings
Advanced galaxy settings will also be present, letting you set victory conditions, and aspects of the game such as the presence of elder species and doomsday clock or maximum number of planets in a system.
Soundtrack Preview
Finally, as we approach release we aim to have the LoR soundtrack also available, but here is a preview of the soundtrack that doesn't include everything from the game or the planned OST: