It's been a little while since my last post here but I wanted to wait until I had something really significant to report. Here are the things that have been worked on from least to most noteworthy:
Improved Menus
This mainly concerns the Ship Menu where you see the ships your team has, where they are, and who is in them. It had previously worked to show you which ships you could hop into but would not show full ships. It also showed only 6 ship at a time and was quite limited in how much information was provided to the player. With the redesign, you have every ship that your team has in a scrollable list, able to show several at time with which sectors they are in, which abilities that have, and who controls them. You can also take over a seat that is currently occupied by a bot so they don't get in your way as much and joining a friends ship is easier and not a race to beat a bot to the seat. Much better!
Controller Support
During a recent playtest, I decided to try out my Xbox 360 controller which I could bind to ship controls but nothing else worked. It probably shouldn't be surprising but it worked great! Piloting feels very natural with an analog stick instead of on/off keys and immediately decided I needed to support the controller completely (so you don't have to switch between keyboard and controller constantly). This was no small task but with enough diligence and slogging through menu after menu it's finally done. All controls are completely bindable so players can use whatever control system they prefer: keyboard, mouse, gamepad, joystick, or any combination.
Open Alpha!
Last and certainly not least, there will be an Open Alpha for BoTC. There are still several details to sort out but it will be the latest version at the time and free! This effort will be primarily driven by the need for feedback and hopefully can help to gauge interest in the game as a whole. More details will come. Get hype!
Nice! Interesting concept!