I'd rather have low hanging super weapons and cool toys than ribbons, is all Im saying. Ship varients can't be tough either right? Like, how bout letting us fly seekers!?

Thats the difference between 'big' updates and 'small' updates. The 'small' updates are relatively easy to do and accomplish a couple of things as well. One, they test the ability of the development tools to drop something significant into the game at short notice and two, they provide extra elements of long term gameplay.

If this is the amount of complaining that comes from visible, useful additions to the game, what's going to happen when you see that 'negotiating update..' text on the updater and there is absolutely nothing visibly changed?

Oh hang on, I know, it will be 'where are the damn capships, have you guys been sitting on your thumbs this week or something?'

There is an awful lot more to this game than what is seen on the monitor. Speaking for myself, the updates I have seen have made a real difference to the gameplay and have given everyone something to strive for. If you stop and read the changelog, you will see that there is something building which is going to be huge. Wait for it, appreciate it when it arrives.

Oh and give these devs some love will you?

*smacks trav* we give them maybe to much love =P

It doesn't seem exactly right even on the second ribbon. I mined a few loads of ore, and unloaded it all at the station (without ever jettisoning it). When I was finished, I loaded all the ore I had in that station, which included some ore previously stockpiled, and moved it a couple of systems over. When I sold the ore I got credit for none of it.

We have a lot of long-term development going on. Andy and Michael are working on Kourier and re-architecting the way the back end of the game works (the whole concept of what bots are, how they're spawned, how their AI works, what jumping/warping even meanings, fundamental stuff). Ray is migrating static data into the database and helping me with FF/Faction related features. Neither of the above are visible at all. Thus, I try, every week, to come up with *something* visible to release. It's not that I think ribbons are particularly exciting, but they have resulted in useful changes to the game (at least, from the development end), and have made for *something* visible being added. I could have just said "invisible background updates!" for four weeks instead, but I didn't think that would be a better idea.

If I spend a lot of time on re-designing sectors or new shiptypes or anything more involved, I'll be spending even less on the damned FF/Faction thing, which is taking forever as it is.

Our priorities are straight, we are working on the thing that will hopefully inform you of said priorities (Trac) and trying to make the basis for the game being capable of doing the stuff we all want it to do (Kourier, blah). It's just taking awhile. In the meantime, I tried to put out a few things I thought would be at least mildly interesting.

* NOTE: Ship variants are a little problematic right now. I mean, they can be done, but I end up backing myself into a balancing corner with the current system. We're adding some more parameters that will make that all a lot easier, but it's a work in progress like everything else. So, I try to add stuff that I think improves the game (even mildly) without horrendously screwing something else up.

* NOTE2: We are all very tired of the 1.7.x tree, and are working to free ourselves of it.

What about making them organic and when they explode they explode bloodily? :3

Like: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/46012920/?qo=23&q=spaceship&qh=boost%3Apopular+age_sigma%3A24h+age_scale%3A5 :3

Nice pic Innociv…