Hey everybody, hope you are having a nice spring! I've been coding a bit of Galimulator stuff and after some positive feedback from my alpha testers it's time to do a first public beta release with some new stuff. As with every beta release, there are likely to be many bumps ahead - but I do hope that there will be some brave people out there who give it a go and let me know what you think. Here's some of the most major fixes: * Moving stars! Some galaxy types now have stars moving around in them. * Cultures added to the game, pervading the galaxy like empires or religions * Easy to make custom maps using just a single image file - check out http://blog.galimulator.com/2-uncategorised/4-galimulator-map-making-in-4-9-and-onward * Added an option to disable empires spawning from Neutral * Made it possible to designate any person anywhere you want in your empire in emperor mode * Dreadnaught ship added (it's pretty big) * Option to add separate density image during custom map creation * Improve galaxy selection screen, including preview window * Empires can now create multiple artifacts, with a configurable artifact cooldown * Added an option to log bulletins to text file * More empire achievements * More options in drawing the galaxy, like removing empire borders, simple stars * Supernovas and other AOE effects now also damage ships * Countryball fixes * Performance improvements * Fixed a whole lot of bugs (like the gradually slanting text ... don't ask) And very importantly with this one. This version *should be compatible with your old saves*! If it is not, if old save files break, then I'd super much appreciate if you send me your broken saves so I can try to make them loadable again the next beta update. To join the beta track, just right click on Galimulator in your Steam client, and find the "Betas" tab. As always, let me know down below in the comments if the new features work and if you like them. Or drop by on the Discord, reach me on Twitter, email, whatever. Input from the community is absolutely essential for the game!