Eder
Mr. Standoff
Seeing as how this is the first time we have new screenshots since... forever... I guess this update deserves its own thread. Here's me with the news.
Ok, really, we're making much more progress than the frequency of our news updates would indicate :-P. Although, unfortunately, it no longer seems possible to finish Episode 5 in time for a 2008 release, we're getting close, and you can expect a release date announcement soon.
On the progress page, you can see that the cutscene/briefing voiceovers have turned blue, and "additional videos" has turned green. "Additional graphics" remain green, but they're very, very close to blue - they should be greenish blue, really :-P. I've just finished the very last of the cockpits - every flyable ship now has a cockpit. So, if you've ever wanted to see the inside of a Talon, head on over to the screenshots page. Also, a few more ships have appeared on the progress page, and immediately went blue - these are the very, very final additions to Standoff, though ;-). These new ships include the Salthi, Dralthi and Bloodfang. These ships aren't really slated to appear in the campaign, but the Dralthi and Salthi at least will show up in sim missions. And of course, like any other ship, you'll be able to admire them in the in-game ship database (...and the website's ships page too, when I have a spare moment to update it :-P ).
Missions are making progress too - Pierre has recently been concentrating on scoreboard integration in the remaining six missions, while Quarto and Pedro are currently working on the winning path missions. Altogether, there are still four missions that have not yet been started, but next week that number should drop down to three.
As we gear up for the final offensive to finish this long-overdue episode, we'll be posting updates more frequently, too. I don't know if we'll manage an update every week, but hopefully close to it. In the last few months, there's been hardly any new screenshots. This will change also - today, we have two new screenshots for you, showing off the Morningstar and Talon cockpits. Expect more screenshots next week...