V11 Beta 2 release
New stuff, Beta 2 with fixes and aesthetics improvements, and an intro movie have been posted in the Work in Progress forum.

Link:
http://www.pds.homeworldaccess.net/forum/viewforum.php?forum_id=37
V11 Beta Release and TFS Collaboration
Right, here goes:

http://www.pds.homeworldaccess.net/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=37&thread_id=836

You can get the beta (20mb) there.

Also, I'd appreciate some support for TFS II headed by Battlecry, past history between us aside. Part of our long-term strategy in PDS should be to find common ground between us and other mod managers so that we can finally get out of our self-imposed box of high complexity, slow paced gameplay.

TFS II is going to be based mostly on PDS ships and weapons and will share very similar objectives to V11, that is, providing a far more refined sense of gameplay than we boasted in First Era.

You can try the beta for yourself, remember to read the readme first - its Hiigaran skirmish AI function is operational, so is the new duel gametype by SunTzu.

It took just 20 days to finish half of the Enhanced First Era project, and with your support you can expect much more from Battlecry and myself. So check out the TFS dev forum and consider that I have only finished the Hiigaran side of V11 and Battlecry is aptly experimenting with the Opposing Forces.
First Era Enhanced - PDS Mark II (V11) Order of Battle
As you can see, the list in the link is pretty much identical to what we have in V7, except heavily optimised for gameplay. No "armoured engines with guns" or way obsolete craft.

Link
http://www.pds.homeworldaccess.net/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=37&thread_id=824
Will there be an "Official" First Era update?
Let's see, with SunTzu's independent coding and the reappearance of the BBX (Battlestar) ship model there exists potential for a large revamp of HW2's stock Hiigaran campaign, that is now played in truncated form.

Imagine leading the HGN in a Mothership class superbattleship fighting masses of Vagyr ships through all 15 campaign missions (redone, of course) with dynamic unitcaps. That means the more command ships you have, the more combatant ships your netcentric fleet command system can support. Couple that to the adaptive ship spawn aspect of Relic's campaign programming and players can expect to tailor the size of fleet engagements to their desire and system capabilities.

Before that there needs to be a lot of streamlining done to First Era's file and weapon data structures. That is, if you want to see fleet battles again. V10 is a good base for such modifications - with BBX size units you'll definitely require "properly ranged" main weaponry. None of that 6km nonsense please.
V10/Unsung Era Reactivation
Due to RL interests I've taken to restarting UE development, after a review of my test package from 3 months ago.

Work is underway in porting the test ships into a functional build and research system that when complete will consist of 3-4 tiers of technology from low-tech backwater forces to that of the famed Galactic Core super-capitals.

Tier 1 - massdriver, standard intercept missiles, and chemical/electrical laser main armament, primitive plasma and particle weapon tech (existing V10 test packages for frontier era/"22nd Century" armaments)
Tier 2 - sub-calibre parallel array (hypervelocity) massdrivers, anti-starship or strategic missiles and smart attack drones, plasma and particle lance technology, lasers for sensor blinding and commo purposes
Tier 3 - strategic-level beam weapons, hyper-V missiles, massdrivers for CIWS only
Tier 4 - you have items like the direct reactor discharge parallel array plasma weapons like the Progenitors

I am currently aiming for weekly updates. Note that we have returned to Square One in terms of development modus operandi - efficiency-oriented centralised C2. It works in getting results.
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