Progress update; enhanced view mode

[peteyg]

Things are progressing nicely. Jennos has done a lot of playbalancing work on our ships, so that they'll be fun to play. We've pretty much got the ships we need for a new release (Great Battles of the Dominion War, volume One), and have just a few things to go before we can do a final round of playbalancing and mission scripting, followed by a new release!

One of the things that will be changing is the default view mode. The first-person cockpit view is no longer default. Instead, we will be using the chase camera view, with the HUD displayed, and a target camera in one of the screen corners. This allows the player to have a wider field of vision, see how cool his ship looks, be able to tell just how close his ship is to other objects, and quickly determine where his target is. It looks and plays a LOT better than the Wing Commander style first person mode, and I am very enthusiastic about it.

The old mode will still be there, but I think everyone will like the new view mode best.

I'm working on doing up a slightly more Trekkish HUD, some original music, and perhaps a few more ships... but there are really only a few things standing between us and a new release!