Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Spaced Out - Vega Strike and Pioneer betas plus Multiplayer Simutrans and MotoGT

The recent blogging activity, spurred on by the growth in official Free Gamer blog authors, is a pleasure to see. When I started the blog back in 2006, I didn't think it'd ever be so popular, let alone last this long.

* Casual reference to remind readers that I am the original author and, should I ever be displeased, I will smite thee with banana flesh limbs.

^ Reference to IVAN; LIVAN or IVANX are better - see community site for variants.

Vega Strike Shaders

There's a new beta release for Vega Strike. Version 0.5.1 beta 1 (forum announcement) is a bigger point release than the 0.5.0->0.5.1 step implies. Improved planet shaders, lots of bug fixing, lots of general tidy up, video support (mainly for mods) and a lot more ships.

Coincidentally, one of the original Vega Strike authors is working on a project called OurBricks for online collaboration of 3D resources. Lots of the Vega Strike ships are already uploaded.

The ever impressive Pioneer Space Sim project, an Elite-inspired game, continues its activity with the release of Pioneer beta 9. Changelog includes rewritten combat AI, lots of HUD work, some even nicer planet terrain, trade ships, and more.

Also there's big news for Simutrans fans. There was a lull in releases after Simutrans 102.2.2 as the team worked on introducing multiplayer. After nearly a year, version 110.0.1 (and 110.0.0 before it) has arrived with the usual plethora of fixes and well as full multiplayer support.

Our final exciting release is for the fourth beta for MotoGT. Changes include new tracks, effects, joystick support, full championship mode, and more. A video: