This is the official 5.0 Update I've been harping on about for over a year!
What's New?
There are a lot of new features and improvements in this major update, when compared to the previous version (4.6.5D is still available in under Properties>Betas if you want to continue your current game).
I cannot list all the new features, but here are a few big ones:
Ship interior:
Your spaceship has a few extra areas. The storage room is no longer just a door, but an actual room you can go in. In it, you will find your storage locker as well as a sleeping pod. Using the sleeping pod will restore your health, try it!
There is also a proper hangar for your landing craft.
Finally, an airlock allows you to actually dock with the mothership...
The Mothership Altair:
Now when you visit the mothership, you can enter and interact with the people, buy goods from several shops, and have a cup of coffee at the Cygnus Lounge (now serving Starbux Coffee), or at either of two Starbux Coffee locations.
Shops will have specific items in stock, for greater reliability in terms of getting repair kits, ammo and other reusables.
More Surface Features:
More unique features will present themselves on planet surfaces, offering emergent gameplay and challenges.
Tornadoes can spawn on some planets, presenting a different kind of environmental danger.
Meteors will occasionally fall on some worlds, depending on certain conditions. These pose a danger, but it is rare that one would actually fall on or near a person...
Planets now have a temperature range. Day and night will differ from one planet to another, depending on atmospheric conditions. On planets with no atmosphere, the change from day to night can be extreme. Planets with a vaporous atmosphere will have more consistent temperatures etc...
Caves also have a different temperature than the planet's surface. Usually caves will be cooler, but on some occasion, the hot core of a planet may warm up its interior. In general, cave temperatures will usually be easier for the player to withstand than those on the surface.
There are so many other features, it's tough to try to list them all here. If you really want to know everything that's changed, go ahead and play the game. Or you can read through the last year or so of updates.
About the Interactive Guide:
The interactive guide is working, but I am calling it a "beta" because it has some known issues. It will guide you through the opening sequence, and explain the interface for new players. If you use it, I recommend doing what it says, and only what it says. Try to avoid experimentation until the guide lets you know it is finished.
Also, I would suggest playing through the whole guide in one sitting if possible. Saving and returning to the guide at the wrong point can cause issues. I plan to revisit the guide in the next few days, to make sure it is more robust.
About Version 5.0:
Version 5.0 represents the full feature list of Star Explorers. I am uploading it now for two main reasons. First, I am fairly confident that it is more stable than the previous 4.6.5D version (especially after the game breaking planet landing freeze bug was fixed this morning). Also, with the recent Realms Deep conference, I wanted to make sure that new players have the best experience possible.
While the game now has the full set of features I have had in mind (with one or two exceptions) I make no claims that it will be a completely bug free experience. So, while I have no current plans to continue adding new features to the game, I do plan to continue supporting it and fixing any outstanding problems. If there is one thing I have learned through the many years of working on Star Explorers, it's that I am definitely not qualified to have made this game. So I offer my sincere apologies to anyone who was not satisfied with the experience.