Major version update. This adds much of the game functionality that has been in development for the past few months:

Skills - There are currently four skills. Combat, Light Weapons,. Heavy Weapons and Commerce. Increasing these skills affects what Licenses can be acquired, what missions are available, the prices of items in stations (improved Commerce implies better price negotiation) and many other possible gameplay factors.

Missions - These can be taken only from stations at present (soon from NPCs as well). Missions can do nearly anything, and some are randomly generated when you request more "Info". Completing missions has monetary and skill-improvement rewards, as well as "Accomplishments", which can take a variety of forms and be used for further game-content availability (example: only people who complete the Ultra Cool mission can get the Elite Laser, or open up new mission progressions, or whatever).

Licenses - These are another factor that denote what equipment is available to the character. License levels appear periodically for a particular skill, at present. Once you reach a certain skill level, it's possible to "Test" for a license in that respective area of study. The tests are currently trivial.

Factions - The faction system is now implemented and basically functional, but will be in need of tweaking (along with everything else). Various factors can improve or reduce standing with a particular faction. The lowest level of faction standing implies Kill On Sight by members of that faction. The various higher levels can make available different types of equipment, missions, and/or improve prices for items.

Character Information Screen - Now bound to "k" by default. If someone is selected, it should bring up their character information (minus a few stats, like money and their actual skill levels). Otherwise, it should bring up your character information. Can also be accessed from the commandline with /charinfo . Without a character name specified, it brings up your information.

Problems:

A lot of things are still going to be very broken. Expect plenty of bugs. Aside from that, the game is also lacking in content. We haven't added a lot of new ships and equipment yet, so we've made all the original content available based on a new character progression scheme (various skill and license levels). The numbers of skill/character progression are very temporary, as is everything about this release. Right now the numbers are a little difficult. So, in other words, expect to spend a lot of time flying around in a bus, for the moment. Note, all this gameplay stuff is very new and rough.. this is NOT indicative of the final game. We're still just making the basic features work.

A lot of things are missing that will be added "shortly". Various automated defense bots, additional mission types, the new chat system, etc etc. Some other things (the new Universe / Nav system) will appear in about a month.