I have been watching this game for a while now, the ship textures are starting to look really good.

Here is another topic on Eterium: http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/topic/1747-eterium

I'm curious about if there are any Jump capable fighters, and if they can jump from anywhere or if they have to fly to specific locations. Also about how Vega gained it's independence.

I don't think that specific info has been released as of yet, to my knowledge and doing a quick dive of the website I couldn't find info on it there either.

Yeah I found a screen shot referring to a jump point forming, but it doesn't say what's coming through or if the Jump points work like Babylon 5 where jump drive equipped ships can open points where they wish or Wing Commander where they can only be opened at specific locations.

And all it says about the Republic of Vega is that some of their fighters are leftover UEA craft from prior to their declaration of independence, nothing on how long ago that was or how the United Earth Alliance government reacted, if it let them go willingly or if a civil war between Sol and Vega resulted from the declaration. The site implies they are at war when the game starts but nothing about that being the result of the declaration or if it started later

Hi everybody. I am glad to see people showing and interest in Eterium. We are very busy finishing out the missions of the game and getting the final art assets in.

Jump points work similar to both Wing Commander and Babylon 5. In general a ship is required to be at a designated jump point, but there are exceptions. Jumping is entirely story driven. The gameplay is very much like Wing Commander. A majority of the missions are computer generated with predefined parameters, so the missions are a bit different each time you play them.

The Free Republic of Vega and its formation is a major story point in the plot, so I don't want to spoil too much. But I can say that the Free Republic had just claimed its independence and while there is a state of conflict between the Free Republic and the UEA, there is not a declaration of war. The player will find himself fighting both with the UEA and with the Free Republic throughout the game. An alien race known as the Revi are the enemy and they are invading Vega sector, which is mainly controlled by the Free Republic.

The plan is to release the game on Xbox Indie first and follow up with PC soon after. Releasing on a PC is a lot more difficult due to all the different specs out there. We have not yet decided on a price point for this game.

Sounds fun. I personally prefer the idea of being able to jump pretty much anywhere since I feel that it adds more tension if you have no idea where enemy forces might drop out on you or something you are supposed to defend from. Nowhere near a game ruining factor though but I'll have to wait for the PC verision since I got a PS3 rather then a 360.

Will you be doing a demo?.

Some of the missions will have waves, so additional enemies may unexpectedly arrive while you are trying to defend a capship. Also the missions may place enemies anywhere in the field, not just at individual nav points. So you might have cleared your final nav point and be heading home only to run into a pair of heavy fighters or a light capital ship. As I said in a previous post many of the missions use a procedural mission generator that I developed for this game, so each time you play, the missions will play out a little differently. You will never know where or what enemies you will face (except on a few scripted missions that tie very closely to the storyline).

As far as a demo is concerned. On Xbox Indie, I believe there is a enforced time limit to the "trial mode" and unfortunately for a game like Eterium, judging the game under such a restrictive time limit does not do it justice. On the PC, however, I would like to release the first few missions (or maybe even the entire first chapter (6 missions)) and maybe one of the later missions as a demo. But we have not yet decided what online publishing service we will use, so the demo restrictions might be contingent on the publishing service's requirements.