Recruitment - Free
Log in and you have access to a recruitment channel on comms.
You are held in limbo and exist only as an avatar name if your other subscriptions expire, or never had one in the first place.
You can return to your last location if you are still in an empire and resume your subscription.
See if anyone is willing to recruit you to active service in their empire by sending you a token, or if you need to buy your own way in.

Adventurer - $2.50/m
City construction and empire management interfaces disabled.
Can only join existing empires, access to comms from the selection screen to seek recruitment.
Anti-grief measures, emperor can immediately dismiss you from the faction, returning you to the empire selection screen.
Some details of and interactions with the empire you join are initially hidden/disabled, pending permissions to see them.

Governor - $5/m
Same as the above.
Emperor can assign you to manage select worlds/systems/sectors, or allow you to found and build new ones.

Emperor - $20/m
Granted 2 governor tokens and 4 Adventurer tokens per day.
Give tokens to friends and recruits so they can join you and play for free. 1 token = day.
Tokens are automatically consumed by your subjects daily at the expiry point, if you kick them out for misbehaving, unused tokens are returned to you.
Start your own empire and create a species of your design, you have total control of it as the founder.
Basically the game as it is currently for all existing subscribers.


The idea here is to encourage players to join existing empires, and make it pain-free to have your friends join you in yours, even if only briefly.
If you receive a token, your personally paid subscription is paused.
There's a lot of particulars that need to be worked out and discussed here.

I left the page after registration and logged back in, and now it says that I am no longer eligible for the $5 15 day trial nor using a friend code.

Also wondering how the subscription works, does your game time only count down while you're logged into the game? It said it doesn't work like a regular subscription and accommodates people who cannot play often, so I'm just assuming it's based on play time, which I'm happy to pay in that case.

It's been a few years and I mostly just wanted to drop in and see the changes, chat a bit, maybe tag along on some adventure, not really feeling up to sim city in space though.

With the Steam release off in the horizon, and the disposition some of the established players have, I have some serious concerns about new players being stamped out before they have a chance to learn the game and see it for what it can be. If the graphics don't put them off, getting annihilated overnight will certainly shoo off a big chunk of the rest.
This game is niche, it's not going to draw a lot of players to begin with, and even fewer will stick around for a long time.

So, assuming there's an empire that's dead set on crushing every new empire that pops up, what can these new players do? How can they be helped?
What measures can they take to defend themselves, fight back, or hide, in the face of empires with limitless resources, advanced technology, and sprawling infrastructure?

I haven't played SOH in years and I just hope some bad apples don't ruin the steam release, I really hope for the best on this project. It's going to be bad enough with the negative reviews.

Star Map
Star map draws slowly.

Recreated the star map display widget using OpenGL.

Removed star map density control.

Fixed various minor bugs with the star map.

Increased size of explored sprite in empty sectors, so they stand out a bit better.

Seamless Sky Box
The corners and edges of the sky box are distracting. Sometimes they are very visible.

The sky box is now seamless. The fix resulted from changes to the way the cloudy background of the galaxy is rendered.

Currently it seems that too much crit damage can roll a system over to around 4.2 billion HP.  The system is then nonfunctional until disconnected and reconnected in the power distribution panel.

Rolled over systems cannot be repaired by hand, until said work around is performed.

Empty Sectors
Every sector has at least one solar system. That means you can go on forever outside the galaxy.

The number of solar systems in a sector is now allowed to reach zero when the star density of the galaxy reaches zero. Star density reaches zero outside the galaxy and it can reach zero in thin areas within the galaxy, creating starless voids.

You can travel through empty sectors. The star map will show a single "explored" dot at the center. That is where the ships present and energy emissions appear.

Star density is not allowed to reach zero at the core. There is always at least one solar system at the core.

Existing sectors and solar systems are not affected.

Organ Models
Some organs still do not have 3D models.

All organs now have models to represent them in the game environment.

The organs dropped by creatures are now determined by their DNA. 

Videos Link Broken
The Videos link on the screen in the game does not work.

Fixed videos link.

Asteroid Impact Inconvenient
Some players cannot defend against the asteroid because the impact happens at an inconvenient time in their real lives.

When starting a new avatar, the impact time of the asteroid can be adjusted up to a full day before or after its scheduled time, which is one week from creation of the avatar.

Field of View Angle
The field of view angles are shown on the screen when resizing the window. They are wrong, by a factor of two. The numbers shown are twice the size of the actual field of view angles.

Field of view angles fixed when reported on the screen.

Field of view angle adjustment added to Settings|Scene window.

Default field of view angle changed from 45 degrees to 60 degrees.

Sky Box Resolution
A request was made to increase the resolution of the sky box texture.

Sky box resolution control added to Settings|Scene window. Default is 1024.

Sky box mipmap control added to Settings|Scene window. Default is on.

I find the picture quality to be the best when this is set to about 1/2 the width of the view window. Field of view angle determines how much of the sky box will be stretched across your screen at any given moment. Each 90 degrees of field of view width equates to one pane of the sky box; at 90 degrees, the number of pixels of sky box across the width of the scene equals the sky box resolution; at 120 degrees, the number is about 1.33x the sky box resolution. If the window is less than that width, the sky box texture is too big; pixels will be lost; that is where mipmapping can help. Using a skybox resolution that is 1/2 the size needed insures ample color data is available to paint each pixel of the scene, providing a richer deeper star field.

My view screen is 1600 pixels wide. At 800 pixels, my sky box looks fantastic.

Observed System Contents
The star map should show the contents of systems that are explored but not scanned.

Star map will now show contents of explored systems. Right-click now offers an "Observatory Report" for systems that are explored but not scanned.

Manufacturing Processes for Hull Modules
Why are there manufacturing processes for hull modules?

Manufacturing processes for hull modules should no longer appear anywhere.

Biodome in Deep Crater Has No Plants
A biodome in a deep crater on a moon did not have any plants inside.

Fixed plants in biodome.

I spacewalked out of my ship to visually inspect some hull damage and check my exterior collision model. Ship was moving at the time. Instead of floating alongside me, it zoomed away as if I'd just finished hopping freight and jumped off the railcar.

This is highly unexpected, unrealistic and, when in a vehicle with collision damage, potentially deadly. Say you have a ship the shape of a Star Destroyer. You open a hatch on top of the nose and float out, but, instead of gently coasting along in the serene ballet "2001" has taught us to desire, the superstructure slams into you from behind like a stagecoach and six panicking horses.

It's also the source of the classic newbie (and not-so-newbie) complaint "I accidentally pressed E trying to steer my rocket and it dumped me".

When a ship is not in an atmosphere, can objects transiting from a hull void into space just inherit the ship's velocity (add it to their own velocity at the point of exit)? That way it's all intuitive and a bit safer. Doesn't need to apply to transporters, the most common method of travel, but should apply to launch tubes.

Just getting back into the game and I know there have been a lot of changes. The more recent changes seem to have removed all of my buildings. I managed to build a basic mine to gather stone but the city is not showing on the city list. I still have a flag standing where the town square used to be but there is no square? I used the build window and tried to demolish it to place a new flag but there is nothing to destroy. I then tried to use a new flag but nothing happens. I have 4 flags in my inventory and none can be used/placed. All I have left of the cities are the roads. The only city that shows up on the F12 window is the one I had in the Babylon system. 

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Shield textures for the bubble around milliatry shield bases are glitchy, flashy, and headache inducing.
bubble textures appear to be zfighting everywhere.

Image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fhryr4d4qjzh2m...h.png?dl=0

Both shield base and weapon base consoles do nothing in buildings, no buttons can be clicked.

Troops also do not spawn at troop berths in buildings, and will not man stations.