DocRandal

Watching a number of you tube let's play previews, I'm glad to see that all the missions got a workover to the extent that most of the old missions should now be new again. It really shows that the Unidentified Signal Sources in the current client are really just placeholders. Looking foward to when I can dig in and start playing again.

Just got my preorder Stellaris keys registered with Steam, although it won't be available for another 8 hours. Looking forward to hitting it cold and learning the ropes this week.

I Kickstarted this and also bounced off the beta because I had too many other games to play. I have a Guild Master's Kickstarter account, so if there's a Thumbs guild that's going to form I think I may provide some bonuses to it. Let me know if there's interest. (By this I mean, if you make me the figurehead Guild Master, you get extra free cards on a regular basis, I think)

Wookie, I think the line you said about the planetary/scan missions is what I meant. I guess scan missions could be in space too. Interesting notes about the component reward choices. I probably won't get a chance to play much until late June; it's grant proposal deadline and conference talk time. Toblix, I have the impression that the re-vamped game UI for ship outfitting would make ship layouts easier for you; however, the game is balanced around any one ship not being able to stock everything to prevent players from just centering around one jack-of-all-trades supership. So if too many things is a negative, I have a feeling it will remain so.

The only 'new mission' references I caught were 'new planetside POIs'. Did I miss any?

Engineer's beta is live, changelog: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=246284 Everything here looks great and should substantially improve the game. I hope all the new components are stored in the massless "component" cargo inventory that goes with you from ship to ship. Given that all coded information is stored in your ship's inbox that has a 30 day expiration timer, I wonder if valuable codes are lost after 30 days. Wookie, having not going out and collecting any current components, is there a limit to how much you can collect?

Wookie, re: Missions - that's what I thought was going in. It's a good upgrade, and I'm sure they'll add more mission types later. Obviously when they start introducing capital ships and aliens the new missions write themselves. I'm looking forward to actually doing some missions now that I can identify what's going on in the Unidentified Signal Sources.

Wookie, I didn't have time to do much more than skim the livestreams. Are they adding completely new missions to the mission lists in 2.1 or are they just going to be UI updates/bugfixes to the existing mission types?

Possibly different star render engines, or perhaps atmospheric effects? Ice mining for volatiles is finally a thing, making icy rings around planets useful and adding a new environment to fly in:

The Blorg casts show a familiar setup, but there's enough new and/or more interesting in there that I'm still sold for the following reasons: 1) They're playing buggy nightly builds so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. 2) They're deliberately skipping a lot of detail in favor of just showing as many game systems as possible. 3) There's been no late-game events yet as they're just getting into the mid-game. Yes, early May launch. I vaguely remember May 8th or 9th.

Introducing the Eelume robot, a self-propelled aquatic mechanical snake designed for subsea inspection and repair work. http://gizmodo.com/robotic-snakes-are-the-stuff-of-undersea-nightmares-1771769733

The new UI interfaces look amazing. Those and the new sorting/bookmarking features of the galaxy map will go a long way to make the game more enjoyable to play. The game will have surpassed its previous iterations (Frontier) after this patch. Space Traffic Control around bases: Engineer Bases:

AIs have already gotten their inside info on humans from their ancestors:

I wonder if the blue-hued landing bay highlights are specific for engineers or if a Frontier dev is hacking the color palette.

Rob's comments on the ability to make a game where (paraphrasing) "you can do awful things to people but it's far enough removed from reality to make it all right" made me immediately think of the comparison between Destiny and The Division. I feel fine shooting aliens that almost destroyed humanity with my space magic guns in Destiny (great), but I can't bring myself to play The Division where I'm gunning down looters in hoodies (ugh). Edit: Framing, that's the term I was searching for while writing this. Good framing in Destiny makes the ultra violence enjoyable, bad framing in The Division keeps me from playing it. Thanks Aleryn. Edit 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKsj345Jjw

If Boston Dynamics is bought by Panic at least branding will instruct humans how to behave.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/google-is-said-to-put-boston-dynamics-robotics-unit-up-for-sale Google puts Boston Dynamics up for sale. Possible acquirers include the Toyota Research Institute, a division of Toyota Motor Corp., and Amazon.com Inc. Basically the refusal (bee-fusal?) of the military to fund or buy product from Boston Dynamic was its undoing. PetMan will remember this.

So far I'm liking all of the background music I'm hearing in the play demos.

Looks good. I especially like the planetary colonization restrictions and end-game events that, correctly balanced, should keep the game from being too micromanaged. It also feels more realistic that once your stellar empire gets too large you will need to build additional super-hierarchies (using sector governors) to control it, sacrificing some control for size.

The random "strange/fell" moods that Dwarves go into insert chaos and can disrupt a fortress. Not to mention accidentally "digging too deep". Edit: Also, the random named fell beasts that appear at rare intervals.