We're getting very close to our Early Access release!  We currently plan on that being October 18th, or something very close to that.  Looks like a target we can actually hit this time, finally, too.  Things are looking up!  If you're reading and you don't already have a copy of the game, you can wishlist it on Steam to get notified when it goes live. Here's a video showcasing some of what's new in the most recent release.
That video does a great job of showing off the visual improvements and the AI logic improvements in particular.  I love watching the ships kite around in the clips later on in there in particular.  But there's really been a gargantuan amount of stuff happening lately.  The most recent release notes are worth a read in particular, if you want to know the very latest news. Basically, if you haven't been following things closely... things are just coming along really, really well.  We still have a ways to go before we're ready for Early Access, but the schedule seems manageable finally, and it should be a really positive showing that we have at launch there.  No multiplayer right at first, but that will come in a few months.  Just too much to polish on single-player first, basically.  We had working multiplayer months ago, but disabled it for now because we kept breaking it while making gameplay changes, and it would be a better use of time to just finish fixing it back up all at once after the gameplay settles out. We should start having some press preview (not REVIEW) builds in another week and a half or two weeks.  Very excited but nervous about taking that plunge.  The full game should be out by Q2 of 2019. Oh, by the by: there was some back and forth for a while about "is this diverging too far from AIWC" and then "is this just going to be a graphical/performance upgrade of AIWC."  Two extremes, I know.  But now we've landed in a happy medium space, where the game is a clear improvement from AIWC, but also not remotely just a clone of it.  I'm super proud of the strides this has taken forward during the Era of Discovery phase that we entered in August, because I feel like this has really brought the game into its own. That's all for now -- thanks for reading and watching! Chris