[ExplorerBob]

It's here.

What New Things This Mod Does:
If you haven't read the 001 or 002 read-mes yet, go ahead and do so now; for a newcomer, understanding what the mod has done in the past is just as or more important than knowing what's been newly added.

That said, this is as close to a maintenance release as I'd like to get. There are no or few ground-breaking changes here; mostly I've tried to further the changes I've done in the past, including the work on balance. In this case, I've tried to make tweaks to missile and beam balance, since it seemed very broken after doing more game testing. I think these changes are a step forward, but I suspect I went overkill on the beam power, and it is entirely possible it will take further revision to get things to where they're closer to being balanced.

In any case, here's what we have in the meantime:

• The impaler rack and fusion rocket launcher now fire smaller and less powerful missiles, at a much higher rate of speed.
• The fission torpedo launcher and the fission missile launcher have been drastically changed; they now fire swarms of missiles instead of one at a time.
• The multi-missile launcher has been tweaked.
• The Tchorak lava bomb now splits into pieces after it's been shot, making it harder to kill.
• The Aethric Mirror has been heavily nerfed, thus hopefully ending its six-years-plus reign of terror over all those who love balance and difficulty in their SAIS/WW games.
• Two new weapons have been added, the Molecular Disruptor and the Proton Torpedo.
• The Muktian armaments have been changed up a bit, to reincorporate weapons like the moly cone gun.
• New introduction music for all of the major races, taken right from SAIS. I realized, after listening to it, that some of the music -- such as the Tan Ru theme -- is awfully cheery, considering that these are your enemies. I changed the default WW music to only play for ally or mercenary ships, and the new (or rather old) themes are used for race first encounters.
• The mod's file size has been reduced to about 16% of its previous size -- making it slim and trim instead of horribly hefty. Most of it was taken up by normal music that I left in and didn't get around to throwing out before.
• The Hyperdrive now takes 540 days to recharge.

Fortunately, I didn't make much in the way of promises, so you don't have to hear about how your expectations were met or failed. I did drop a ship I mentioned as being in development; the Freighter, I decided, would not be conducive to building a good mod, at least not at this point in time. Likewise, I didn't have graphics for the Talshkjen gunship, so it isn't available in the game, although you can see the hull file I have in the files. Hopefully these developments won't disappoint you too badly.

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It's something to look back at what's gone on over the past year, and to see how while so much has happened, so little has changed. I don't think I've become a better person, like I would have liked to, but hopefully I have at least been able to create a better, more interesting mod, for your enjoyment. If you can profit from my work, I will have achieved at least one thing of value.

Also always remember to live life to the fullest, because you may not have much of it left. God may return, or if He doesn't yet, something else could come up. Just tonight I was reminded of an acquaintance of mine, from another online community, who passed away several years ago… he was online and active just a month before that, and we never knew anything was wrong, and we never heard back from him either.

You may not have much time left. Accidents can happen, so make the most of what you have now.

And please leave a will with details as who all to contact… if you disappear, I don't want to wonder where you went, years down the line.

I want to say a lot more than this, but I don't have time. It's important to me to release this on the same minute that the first release was made, so.

Thanks to Christ Jesus, for everything, and thanks to all of you who helped along the way.

Now go download the mod!