BETA 8 Update! The last few weeks has been a bit on the quiet side. Summer stuff going on and just the usual challenges. Here is what we've done since the last news post.

AI fixes

AI now properly weighs control groups and attempts to pick the best weapon for the current task (which is blowing stuff up). AI should make better choices about when to turn and when not to turn in order to bring weapons to bear. It now factors in weapon cooldown as well. It does mean some vessels with obvious weak/open spots will still be a bit of an issue--as in too easy--and we'll be updating those vessels.

Level and Content Changes

Going over the recent changes and we have decided to consolidate things down to five levels. This is to give a better "wide" experience, with more ships and stations per level as opposed to a "once you've seen it" type of experience seen before. This also means there should be better challenges per area, and no more easily acquired "biggest ship on the block" issues. Ores are also changing. It will now be the previously seen "one ore = one metal" connection, and no more ore->different metals refinement. Additionally we are making some reduction on the amount of crystal types that will be needed for manufacturing. Even broader, we've been looking at every recipe, every assembler, every fabricator (formerly lab) as well as the rest in an effort to make things better. It's a surprising amount of work, and it's just something that needs to be done. As always, we are working towards a soon(tm) goal for Pre-Release.

Power Level

We have also come up with some basic means of calculating relative player power. The game will now inform you if it thinks you're too low/weak for an area when you enter. This is loosely tuned at this time and is mostly meant to help newer/less experienced players who sometimes need an extra reminder about what they are doing. On a final note here is a gif of a small tweak to how missiles are launched inspired directly by feedback from the community:
Stay cool and enjoy.