Anyone tried this yet?

I've just got home and am attempting to upgrade, but the launcher seems stuck on 'download manifest' without actually doing anything.

Having not participated in a beta since launch, is it completely separate from the main game? At the moment I'm well on the way to Sagittarius A*, currently about 10,000ly from Sol and not ideally placed for testing new multiplayer features

It's started downloading, guess my questions will be answered very soon...

There be the kraken out there brun

I tried it.

It's a copy of your main savegame you can select and activate from the main launcher.
It will NOT bear anything in your main game so play it rough!

Most of the new toys cost only 100 credits. Ship included.
Had some fun with the New Fer de Lance.

You can see there's some work still to do as many animations and such are broken.
New GUI in game is pretty much more of the same slick perfection we are used to even though still no HUD colour customisation in-game. Only INI crack (which is game safe!)

External camera is active and pretty nice. Careful to use it when safe as you are completely immobile and vulnerable.

When beta period expires all is lost, so- really- ride it hard.

PS: took me quite some time to download it.

Figured it might be something like that. Since I'm currently in the absolute middle of nowhere it seems like a good opportunity to check out the external camera, but I won't be heading back to test-drive any new ships.

Well you could just erase the save for the beta segment and start in the middle of man-space.

Remember if you die in Beta you don't die in Real Save

Sorry, say that again about the camera? You ship stops in space? I was hoping to get a few "action" shots of me entering/exiting the slot in formation with a few AI ships...

No, it travels on at same speed and direction when you activated the camera. The camera is tied to the ship and you can move it with the normal ship controls. I only tried it for a short time yesterday, but it seems' it is not for action movies. Sufficient for good screenies though. Explored the outside of my Asp and was impressed, first time I got a sense of how big it is.

Worth reminding it's a plug solution to relieve some pressure from art team!
And sell more liveries! The right implementation will come with time.

It'd be cool if the little icon of the ship that's targeted showed paint jobs or something, but that doesn't really fit with the GUI aesthetic they're going for.

It would be a shame to mistake the ships "Rape and Pillage Express" with "Galactic Puppy Rescue" when you couldn't read the hull paint though.