Relatively minor interest before likely getting even lower now. I mean, is this speeding up of things and shortening of the game some sort of optional setting or enforced? Because I quite fail to see it as a positive thing.

(And heh, of course the regional pricing matrix was updated to the new model of having even poorer non-Euro and even non-EU European countries getting the hiked up EU price.)

Thanks, that helped me too. It seems you're on the same boat with another GOG member that i've been chatting and he seemed thrilled by it too. I just placed it in my wishlist but it'll have to wait since, currently, life gets in the way of enjoying PC gaming. :) Had the same problem with Battlefield 2142 & another one that was called Warhammer 40K. XD

You can't save in combat, but most combats are fairly short. Otherwise you can save as often as you want (I think there is an optional Ironman mode or something similar with a single save system, but it's optional)
There isn't a whole lot of randomisation. I don't think you can see every alien event in one play through and they are randomly assigned, and the starting situation of the galaxy is semi random (which colonies and resources are intact and the rates they generate resources I believe).
It's definitely not too punishing, you can lose ships and officers if they are destroyed/die in battle, but in the later version you can clone officers so you don't have to worry about losing experience etc.
No problem :)

This I'd like to know as well.
Not a fan of dumbing down gameplay mechanics etc. to make a game more 'accessible'. :/

Overall, the campaign takes a much shorter time to complete (down to about 12-15 hrs instead of 20-25 hrs) but no content was removed, we only adjusted the overall progression to be faster and require much less grinding.

The bulk of balance and progression tweaks fall into three main degrees of change:
“Greatly increased/reduced” indicates changes in the 25% to 50% range
“Increased/reduced” indicates changes in the 15% to 35% range
“Slightly increased/reduced” indicates changes in 1% to 15% range

*slight spoilers ahead!*

MAJOR CHANGES

STREAMLINED CAMPAIGN:
Reduced total campaign grind/length by:
greatly reducing costs for unlocking tech research
reduced costs and build times for building starbase rooms
reduced time to complete exploring ruined areas of the starbase
reduced times required for recruiting crew
greatly reduced times required for creating Dark Multiplier
greatly reduced times required for replicating Materials
reduced number of starbase room clearing encounters
greatly reduced frequency of Chruul base incursions
reduced time it takes before player is allowed to build satellite drones and allocates 3 drones immediately when the tech is unlocked
Lowered officer level restrictions for deploying satellite drones and reduced costs and time to build and deploy satellite drones
Reduced costs and time for cadet upgrades, chruul lab research, fleet speed upgrades, officer cloning chamber, general upgrades to facility

Resource Tweaks:
Resources of rewards from combat encounters
Resource bonus at beginning of Act 2
Costs for cloning dead officers
Material production on colonies
Chances of equipment loot drops without overkill

Missions Tweaks:
Greatly reduced time it takes for the first Spire to appear
Greatly reduced wait times between Chruul lieutenant appearances
Reduced time for chimera to reach starbase
Reduced frequency of Chruul, Voraash, and Faction raids in Act 2
Increased strength of Chruul presence on ground missions
Enabled retreating during ground missions on destroyed colonies
Slightly increased difficulty of main campaign encounters

NEW OFFICER PROGRESSION SYSTEM:
New subclasses and prestige classes:
Each class (science, engineer, tactical) has 2 subclasses to choose from. Science → Biologist or Physicist, Engineer → Mechanic or Inventor, Tactical → Operative or Strategist
There are also 3 new prestige classes that your officer can spec into as they grow in experience: Chaos Theorist, Counselor, or Commando
Chaos Theorist Skills: Force Targeting, Reflective Shield, Dimensional Inversion, Dark Matter Storm
Counselor: Meditation Boost, Subtle Encouragement, Microaggressions, Psych Up
Commando: Guard Ally, Focus Fire I, Focus Fire II, Focus Fire III

Other officer related tweaks:
Reduced XP requirements for higher levels
Reduced costs for unlocking additional Officer slots
Expanded custom officer selection process which includes Kickstarter Backer officers
Added class-based status effect resistances, vulnerabilities, and proficiencies

ENHANCED COMBAT
25+ new alien faction space combat powers for Pirates, The Collective, Yabbling, Korzan, Voraash, Xlar, and Chruul
more combos for both players and enemies, increased faction weaknesses and resistances, and other balancing tweaks
increased faction-based resistances for enemies at higher tiers
increased faction-based weaknesses for all enemies
greatly increased the damage inflicted by exploiting effects
increased evasion of all alien faction ships
increased resistances and vulnerabilities of terran ships
increased base chance to land all status effects
various tweaks and balances for powers across the board

NEW UI OVERHAUL
Designed for greater readability and usability
Shows the ship construction screen with the ship queue
View colony and send fleet buttons on the starmap
Sector names can now be toggled on or off in the starmap view (n to toggle)
UI can now be toggled on or off from any screen (h to toggle)
All new officer death animations, even more gruesome than before in pixelated glory!
New ship configuration screen before each combat
Ability to store 3 loadout configurations for each ship
Lots of little quality of life UI tweaks

From what Picard has posted it looks like they just cut out a lot of the grindier elements and made some things cheaper. I personally wasn't too bothered, but I actually enjoy grinding in RPGs so I'm a bit odd.
In general I think it's a fairly positive change.

Plus it looks like they've significantly improved customisation so replays should be more varied, and if the campaign is quicker to get through then you can replay it more often without being burned out.

Ah, thanks. :)
That doesn't sound too bad, I was fearing they got rid of whole gameplay elements, but if it's only to reduce grinding I'm all for it.

So... is this like... the thursday release?

The game did not update in Galaxy, and when I go to the store page, it doesn't offer it for free, so sorry if it's a dumb question but how do I claim this version?

It's already in your library, or should be.

It's not an update to the old game, but a new game entry entirely.

Fantastic! So glad this is finally out. Gonna play the game all over again and enjoy the massive content update.

Oh, and thanks GOG for picking my backer commander in your screenshots. Yes, I'm Howard Kistler, the human-plant hybrid commander in the game. It was a blast working with the Halcyon 6 team to come up with the in-game character, and I hope folks like all the new choices!

Oh I see, thank you very much!

You guys are selling me on this.

Can it be played windowed?