The link for the Debian build of the launcher points at ShoresOfHazeron64deb7.tar.gz instead of ShoresOfHazeron64deb8.tar.gz

The day I made my happy daily visit to Hazeron.com, to find a "thank you and goodbye" instead of the usual tantalizing slides of a world far away, the bottom fell out of my stomach. That was the day I realized how much Shores of Hazeron really meant to me - I was far from alone. It is a game, a universe and a work of art which feels somehow benevolent and familiar even at its most urgent and frightening moments, because of the unique stamp of Haxus' mind on it. That is something which could never be recaptured. When the game went down in 2015, I felt that even if I'd waited till 2215, nothing could truly have replaced it. I'm grateful to all the people who fought for its return - I was too young to get involved - and of course to Haxus himself, above all, for being persuaded. A subtle, deep-down sense of not quite believing it, of having things to good to be true, has pervaded all my playtime since then, like someone living on borrowed time. I understand we all owe the French players substantially for that.

Now that we've been talking about Steam, resets, critics, sustainability and all the rest of it, it seems like the right time to ask how we, as a community, can make sure that sad day never comes again. I hope Haxus is much more aware now than he was then how much his creation means to us, how much we care and what lengths we will go to to keep it alive: and that he will not be shy of asking of us whatever is needed. He must have felt very alone in this project, back then.

While believing in the fundamental appeal of the game and taking all the practical steps we can to make Hazeron a continuing success - pitching in with every community effort, the wiki, the design exchange, orientation and recruitment of players - should we also start to make our Plan B (or Plan Z)? Let's say that, after the Steam launch, Hazeron's server costs cannot be met by the number of subscriptions, and Haxus is sitting on the tarmac scratching his chin, preparing to fly down to the server room for the last time. What offers, what commitments, what opportunities would he need to be aware of, on such a day, to have options beyond just pulling the plug?

The main things I'm currently aware of are: servers hosted, at least partially, by the community. Lots of games have this and some of those also have official servers, alongside. A graceful decline and transition of players from official to community servers, in the case that they cannot continue, would be one of the least rupturing ways to continue. Cloud hosting options and rented server power, together with more advanced tech solutions, are something that we often hear about from knowledgeable players. Selling the code and the database to the community or its chosen technical leaders would also be a way of keeping it alive if Haxus can no longer justify the commitment to himself. What offer would we need to make, if it came to it? There is also the question of finding a worthy inheritor to continue the game into the next generation, once Haxus' great grandchildren come along and his jam-making business explodes, and he is so busy with them he has less time left for us - so these questions will face us even if Hazeron is the success we all so earnestly desire it to be. It is better to talk now, when there are no clouds on the horizon, even while we work to ensure they never come.

While last time we shut down Haxus contemplated resurrecting Hazeron in the future, and was thus unwilling to let go of it, our suggestions here should be aimed at a situation where Haxus does not imagine a comeback. In such a situation, I hope he would believe that the game deserved to survive - as a monument to his skill and cosmological poetry - even if he felt it was time for him to become its grandfather rather than its father. 

I invite the technically minded to repost here some of the ideas they've had on the Discord and the galactic chat over the years. Tackeart, will you get the ball rolling? Haxus, are you willing to give us some figures, in a private subforum if necessary, on how the logistics and economics of the game actually work? And again, let's hope this topic becomes so irrelevant so quickly that it can simply be deleted a few months from now...

I get some questions now and again about where to get Gw6, it is gone forever? or will it make an appearance at a later point? I did think it was an interesting game, but prefer SoH by far.

i think armor designer implementation, although might take a while, is important to create before steam release, as all empire wearing the same armor literally rips apart any and all uniqueness of empire culture in invasions and combat, when everyone is wearing green space suit theres no real difference.

although not simple and time intensive, a clothing/armor designer where you edit the armor textures on the models per specie of that empire would give very empire a unique culture that would further Shors of Hazeron's strength, customization.

The process of publishing Shores of Hazeron on Steam has begun. I reviewed all of their documents, found nothing objectionable, signed the documents, and paid the product registration fee. I am currently waiting for their review and approval. It will take a minimum of a month, mainly because it is my first product on Steam and there is a built-in 30 day time delay in that case.

In the mean time, I'll be working harder than ever to fix bugs and tie up loose ends to get ready. There are a few minor items on my list that must be done before publishing.

Some integration of the Steamworks SDK is also beneficial. I have made good progress there, currently waiting for things to move along with my application paperwork before I can go much further. At this point I need a valid application code, which I can't get until the paperwork is done.

There are some approval steps along the way, when Valve reviews my software product and marketing materials. That could introduce delays.

Nothing is ever as done as you would like. There's a million features and minor improvements that could be made. My to-do list still has over 1000 items on it but they are dwindling. Many are just that, new features and minor improvements.

At the bottom line, SoH is feature-complete. No essential feature of the game is missing. It is well poised to mature and grow. It is ready enough to go to the next level.

Who knows. Maybe SoH will actually make some money. I'd be most happy to just earn enough to pay my server bills every month. That would be a welcome milestone, to have this project funding itself. If that goal cannot be met on Steam, then the future of Shores of Hazeron is in serious doubt.

With a little luck, maybe we'll pull the nose up on this thing before it hits the terrain.

Commander Settings
Settings window is incomplete for Hazeron Commander. It has controls it doesn't need. It is missing controls that are needed.

Finished Hazeron Commander settings windows.

Commander Sound
Sounds in Hazeron Commander are not responding to volume settings or sound file overrides.

Used a different/better sound object. Fixed sound file override bug.

Admin Unpublish Blueprints
A building blueprint was reported to have an offensive thumbnail image.

Changed blueprint exchange to permit admins to unpublish designs. Unpublished the offensive design.

Unpublish Name
It would be nice if the response from the server included the design name when unpublished.

Changed server response to include the design name when unpublishing a design.

Commander Network Activity
The network activity indicator from the OpenGL scene would be handy in the commander, to know when it is alive.

Created a widget from the OpenGL code that rendered the network activity indicator. The widget does not use OpenGL, just simple painting. It is positioned in a vertical space that may eventually include critical information, such as your health bar.

Ship Damage Bug
A spacecraft was destroyed. After recovery, the amount of metal needed to repair the ship far exceeded the amount of metal needed to build the ship.

The ship had an adamantine hull module. None of the repairs required adamantine.

Fixed a bug in the spacecraft damage code that did not consider adamantine to be a repair component. This was likely the cause of the problem. We'll see.

Launch Commander
Launcher does not have a button to launch the commander.

A button was added to the launcher to launch the commander. If you were using the most recent version of the launcher, it should have shown a message indicating that a new version was available.

Offer Item Overlapping Text
The offer item window has some text that overlaps other text.

Fixed layout error on offer item window.

Delete Design Unpublish
When I delete a design it disappears from my blueprint exchange as if unpublished but later it shows up again in the exchange.

Fixed code that was supposed to unpublish designs as they are deleted. You now get a feedback message regarding the unpublish when you delete a design.

Cities Mission Orders
Crew does not execute "city" related orders when the target is a new style city.

Updated NPC AI to find new style cities when executing orders to patrol or go to cities and airports.

"Armor" Inadequate
When building structure is inadequate for the environment, the message says you need more armor.

Updated messages to say "framework" instead of "armor".

Hazeron Commander
A stand-alone client chat program would be handy.

First version of Hazeron Commander is now ready.

• Launcher downloads the program but it does not have a button to launch it yet.
  • On Windows, look for Hazeron Commander.exe.
    
  • On Linux look for HazeronCommander.
    
  • On MacOS look for HazeronCommander.app. This app could be missing a file or two, pending testing.
    
• Network activity indicator is needed.
  
• Body stats are not immediately visible.
  
• No indication of hits as your body takes damage.
  
• Your avatar is visible in the universe, just like when you are using the OpenGL client. Your avatar will starve and be affected by conditions like poison and disease.
  
• Most user interfaces are available from the OpenGL client, including mission orders, building/city windows, and cargo hold access.
  
• Design studio and building construction windows are not available.
  

I found a funny video about tractor beams... thought I should share.
https://www.facebook.com/CollegeHumor/vi...447162807/

For a long time when you turned off the skybox there was no visual effect to warping. This bug seems unfortunately to have been fixed , so could we perhaps have an option to turn off the warp visual effects?

I prefered looking at the black void and ocasionally seeing a system when I pass by or seeing how i approach, or move away from a system or ringworld.

Not urgent or crucial, so perhaps when everything else is fixed and you have nothing esle to do, maybe in 2025 or something like that, if you feel like doing it :D If not so be it.