As additional features, functionality and game mechanics come online, the need for an updated game manual becomes more important especially as we bring new backers on board. Will we be seeing more updates to the downloadable PDF game manual?asked by Shrike

Yes, absolutely! We are actually working on the manual right now for the 'mini PU' 2.0 experience.In addition to that the current experience is not great for a new player at all. We are partly dealing with the downside of having such a big team: you've got a team in this location [gestures left] working on this feature; team in this location [gestures right] working on this feature; a team in this location [gestures far right] working on this other feature. And a lot of times it's like "Oh, what am I going to do for activating autopilot?", "Oh, what am I going to do for going to cruise?" So at the time the developer is like "Oh, this key's not used: let's use this key".But there hasn't been an overall 'ten thousand foot' view of that and that's something we've been wanting, planning, meaning to do. Everyone's just been so busy with stuff. But with the release of 2.0 I feel it is very important to increase, to improve, the UX experience greatly. As you get into the game it should be, if you don't know much about it, it should help you learn how to fly your ship. Also as you upgrade your ships they could get more and more complicated, so the basic Aurora should not have all the features in terms of tweaking your IFCS, or doing as much targeting, or fidelity stuff, that a dedicated combat fighter ship, like a Hornet or a Sabre or a Gladius, would necessarily do.I think one of the big keys is to have that gradation of complexity in avionics, complexity in weapon systems, that come with the components and the whole system we've got. So you start out, first get into the game, and it's fun: you can fly around pretty easy, it's easy to pick up. You know now to play an FPS game so you know how to move around. And then you go "oh, you know what, I really want to know more about this" and you can turn on the 'advanced mode' just like anything you do on your dialog box on most software you use there's the 'basic/simple use' or and the 'advanced mode'. We'll have versions of that and you'll also want to be upgrading, so the base starter Aurora will have a simple avionics package but maybe the Legionnaire has a more complicated one with the 'advanced mode' that allows you to do more tweaking than you can do right now.So we want to make that experience better. We want to unify the controls: you don't want to go from FPS to EVA to flying a ship and strafing left and right on the keyboard are all different keys. It should be consistent. So we're making a big push to improve the UX and the whole so it should just feel like "okay, I go left and right: same keys no matter which mode I'm in".So we are trying to do that as an overall pass; make the experience better; have your 'Bitching Betty' "hey do you want me to walk you through the flight controls sir?" when you first get into the ship as a new player. So all those things I think will help out a lot in addition to the manual we are doing. It's pretty important for us. I think we've got to the point now where all these systems together and we need to unify the user experience. We've got to make it less complicated for the people first beginning to play. And we still have to keep all the detail and complexity for the experts. And that's a great game learning curve.People say it all the time but "simple to learn, difficult to master". So it's get in, have fun and then you want to push it, you want to be a better combat pilot, you want to be a better racer, well pull of the the 'training wheels' and start turning the knobs. So we're going to be focusing on that as a priority for me in the early part of this year.