As promised, we're trying to keep the news updates more frequent than once every three months. Of course, this does mean that there isn't as much progress to report in individual updates as there would be otherwise, but at least you know we're working. So, what's been going on with Standoff lately?
Well, first up, the Ep 4 missions continue to develop, and their pace is starting to pick up. That doesn't mean we're anywhere near release (...not by a long shot), but at least we've finally reached that point where our testers have some actual campaign missions to work on. By the way, if you're wondering how long it might take to develop all the missions in this episode, here's something to put things into context - this episode has more missions (including the usual ship selection-based variants, mind you) than Episodes 2 and 3 combined. Don't worry, though, it definitely won't take as long to develop as those two episodes combined :-P. We are still hoping to get both remaining episodes finished this year, after all...
The other thing I should mention is some further simulator changes. When released, Ep 4 will add scoreboard-capabilities to a few more missions (we're not currently sure if that will include all of them, or if some will remain to be done in Ep 5, however)... but that's not all. Pierre has also been working on implementing more DLL hacks to improve the system overall. So, first up - you will never again have to use the 'alswantsmoreships' cheat. All fourteen ships will now be selectable in the sim at all times. The second, and even bigger, change is the addition of further explanatory captions during the battle. Every time you get a special bonus of any kind, the game will explain how many points you got, and why. This will be especially important in the non-gauntlet missions, which will feature a number of special bonuses other than the quick-kill bonus you're already familiar with.
To finish off the update, we've added four new screenshots. The first shows off the Broadsword in the sim, now easier to choose than ever :-P. The other three shots show off some of the new information features - there's a Kamekh giving you 5x the normal kill score (by virtue of being a corvette), a quick-kill, and finally, a piece of information unrelated to the scoring system, but equally vital - info about which wave you've reached (obviously, only visible in the gauntlets).
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