Its Here!

Ok boys and girls (right, who are we kidding). The interstellar era has been deployed. I did a little last minute testing and calibration of the weapon strengths and everything seemed cool, so I just went for it.

You can now create interstellar era games!

Here are some highlights:
1) Carriers and Fighters! They're pretty fun to use. But when you add the carrier to your fleet, it is empty. You have to add fighter wings to your fleet, and then assign those fighters to the carrier. You assign fighters to a carrier on the "My Fleet" page. Also, you don't directly control the fighters -- you assign them a task like attacking a specific ship or defending a ship and they go do it. They return to the carrier when they are out of fuel. Captial ship weapons cannot target fighters -- only other fighters and point defense systems can.

2) Shields! Most ships have shields. There are four shields: fore, aft, port and starboard. When a weapon hits, depending on the weapon type and the angle it hits, it can damage one or more shields. Different weapons are affected differently by the shields.

3) Different Beam Types! In addition to the standard laser, there is now a tractor/repulsor beam and an energy drain beam. The energy drain can take the targets reactor offline which can stop the ship and cause other problems. The tractor/repulsor can pull or push another ship.

4) More Effective Beams! Beam weapons have much longer ranges and do more damage.

5) Directional Weapons! Projectile weapons can now be mounted to face backward or to port and starboard. This means you can fire to the side like a classic battleship broadside.

6) Jump Drives! Many ships have Faster Than Light jump drives. You can select a destination that is anywhere on the map and engage the drive. Different drives take longer to spool, but once they do, you will jump to the destination within a few seconds.

Thats pretty much it. There are some other minor changes and bug fixes.

I hope you enjoy it. As usual, please report any bugs in the forum.