Good work, devs!!! My gawds, you've just added an entire friggin' skill-tree to this game like it was a widget or asteroid! Shows some well thought-out coding and development work. I imagine adding new sectors and stations won't be too difficult as well, and ships, too. I'm passing the word wherever I can on this game - it's excellent!

Again, KUDOS!

Amen, the universe is still a bit sparse and unpopulated. Yes mining is something else to do, but its less exciting than killing bots, and less rewarding since there's nothing that costs a significant amount of money yet (sure there may be capitals later, but not yet). However, it is the little things that make the universe more complete, and I appreciate that.

It's the cargo war that keeps me coming back for more.

I think that effort and envolvement of the developers makes or breaks a good massively multiplayer game. Keep up the good work.

It's obvious that lowguppy has not participated in any of the Capture the Cargo rounds. Not only are you likely to encounter at least one, but more often than not, 3 to 10 other players, it doesn't feel very unpopulated or unexciting anymore. On top of that, you find that in all the PvP experience that you'll be accumulating, money leaves your bank account in a steady stream.

Capture the Cargo, oooo so fun. Money time!

Well, I'm not commenting on the "sparse universe" theory (don't I wish some of the jump points would be sparsely populated), but the mining addition is awesome. It's fun for reasons I can't even begin to understand. It has secured my ongoing payment, that's for certain.

If you group for mining, how does that work? Do the spoils get split automatically? Or do you just watch each others' backs while they mine?

Re: CrippledPidgeon: I have not yet joined in CTC, but I just got the levels to buy a Warthog, so I should be able to have some fun with that (I'm one of those fabled "casual players" who only logs on once in a while). BTW, the 201 and 202 channels are not widely known. These need to be published better.

I think the NEWS channel the devs described in the In-progress section will inform players about game events and what channels to tune to for more information.