Signature, the dry dock and three ways to play
The demo mission is now Signature, a dry dock teaches you the ship, and you play seated, in a 2 × 2 m area or walking. Plus a new warp core in Engineering.
The last week changed more aboard the IKAREE than any week before it. Here is what is new.
The demo mission is now Signature
The free demo's story has a new heart. A year ago the IKAREE fought an unknown ship above the gas giant Thessaly, drove it off and went dark. Now you come back to wake her, with Chief Engineer Mara Voss, who brought the ship back with her own hands. Then a Vrask captain arrives who is sure the IKAREE attacked his people's convoys: the attackers' signature leads straight to her. Words won't convince him. You will have to find proof. Read the whole set-up, with the endings unspoiled.
The dry dock
Before the game you stand in the dry dock. You set up your space, learn how to talk to your crew and how the intercom works, and try every order: pick a department and an order, say it, and the panel shows what the game heard and whether the ship understood you. If it missed, it offers the closest order.
Seated, 2 × 2 or walk
You now choose one of three ways to play. SEATED: everything from the chair, and the turbolift comes to you. 2 × 2: a 2 × 2 m command area around your chair where you walk freely, for a boundary of at least 2.6 × 2.6 m. WALK: the whole command block with the turbolift right behind your chair, for at least 3.7 × 2.9 m. More on the ship page.
Department consoles
The panels beside the captain's chair are gone. Their pages now live on four department consoles around you, helm, tactical, science and engineering, and every order you can say also has a button there. When a decision is yours, your officers put their options to you: ask "Options?", agree with one of them, or overrule them all. They remember whose advice you took.
Engineering and the bridge
Engineering has a new warp core, a glass vessel with a bright heart and glowing rings over a plasma column. And on the bridge you can now say "Play some music."