By

Brad Wardell
Executive Producer

&

Lead Designer

September 2017
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[NON-DISCLOSURE IN EFFECT]
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 BEGINNING THE ROLL-OUT

We have a call with Valve next week to get the needed Steam keys to start rolling out the Super Melee beta for you guys. Just remember, do NOT share
screenshots or videos of it.

It is definitely nice to have reached the stage where real stuff is happening really fast.

By this time next month, you guys will have the Super Melee beta.

DESIGN EVOLUTION

Now, originally, we had expected release the game in November of 2017 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Star Control 2. That’s not going to happen
and I’ll walk you through why that is in a moment.

For many of us, Star Control 2 was immensely influential. I still remember where I was, even what snacks I ate, in November 1992. I was living in Kalamazoo
Michigan with 4 roommates, all girls. That’s not nearly as fun as you might think. I was a junior EE major at Western Michigan University so my life consisted
of classes and then Star Control 2 in the evening.

Earlier this year, Stardock decided to make some changes to the way Star Control was being made which ultimately resulted in some staffing changes. One staff
change was that I became both the Executive Producer and Lead Designer.

Because my vision of Star Control was somewhat different than what was being made, my changes have inevitably extended the development time. So what
are those changes?

1. Ship Design. I want players to be able to design and share their own ships for Super Melee.
2. Planet Design. I want players to be able to design and share their own worlds to explore.
3. Aliens. I want players to be able to add their own aliens to the game.
4. Building design. I want players to be able to put together structures that they can place on planets.
5. Living Galaxy. I want to be able to zoom out from a solar system and see the entire known universe in one fluid zoom and interact with
other ships that are flying around living out their lives (merchants, pirates, civilians, escorts) in their own unique ships.
6. Competitive Super Melee. I want players to be able to compete online with their own custom fleets from a long LONG list of canon ships
and be ranked.
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 Story wise, things remain much the same. We absolutely love the story. I think it’s brilliant and I think you guys will love it too. But I also want the experience
to be very non-linear. If you’ve ever played the game Pirates! then you have an idea of the experience I have in mind. The galaxy was a busy place long before
the Earthlings decided to crawl out of the trees.

MORE ALIENS

Some of the fans were concerned that we have too many humanoid aliens. More aliens will be being added to the game, especially what we call encounter
aliens (i.e. ones that aren’t central to the story).
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The Measured, Greegrox and Jeff are getting a revisit.

 This is the new concept for Jeff. He’s a von Neumann probe from a super advanced civilization thousands of light years away.
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 These are some concept for Trandal related aliens.
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 This is all from a single race that evolved a symbiotic relationship with creatures that do their bidding. Thus, while they don’t move (and are rooted to a
particular spot) their symbiotes, at their direction, do all the physical labor for them.
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 This is the updated Greegrox concept. We are looking for greater diversity in individuals within a single race.
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 SUPER MELEE

These 15 are the initial ships for Super Melee. We hope/expect to have more including possibly Star Control 1, 2 and 3 ships coming on board later on.
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 UI concepts for Super Melee iteration. Note the way health and energy are being displayed.
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 In engine, fully animated Commander.
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 The moon of Triton.
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 FALL SCHEDULE

Below is the tentative schedule.

Date Milestone Description

10-Oct v0.65 Super Melee BETA 1 to all Founders
Release of Star Control: Ur-Quan Masters on Steam, release of Star
Control: Kessari Quadrant on Steam, Star Control: Origins page created on
19-Oct Steam Steam
26-Oct v0.66 Super Melee BETA 1A to all Founders
7-Nov v0.69 Super Melee BETA 1B to all Founders
16-Nov v0.70 Super Melee BETA 1C to Founders, Steam Pre-order testers
7-Dec v0.71 Super Melee BETA 1D to Founderse, Steam Pre-order testers

These dates are subject to change but they’re generally pretty firm.

The October 19th release will be a big one.

First off, the title of Star Control 1 and 2 bundle is Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters. This will be the unaltered, original 1989/1992 release. You can get the
Ur-Quan Masters HD here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/urquanmastershd/. But we want to make available on Steam the unaltered version. It’ll be $3.99
and the GOG version will be similarly updated.

Second, we are calling Star Control 3 “Star Control: Kessari Quadrant”. The Steam page will make clear this is Star Control 3. The purpose here though is to
help make clear that Star Control 3 does not take place in the same universe as Star Control 1 and 2. We are still hopeful that Paul Reiche and Fred Ford (the
creators of Star Control 1 and 2) will return to create a new game in the Ur-Quan universe and this helps make it clear that Star Control 1 and 2 are not the
same universe as Star Control 3.
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Thus, player will have:

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 • Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters
• Star Control: The Kessari Quadrant
• Star Control: Origins

Each title will have its own individual Steam page that goes into detail about what each package contains. This should, we hope, introduce a new generation
to Paul and Fred’s work while reducing the chance of confusion like was seen last year when during the Master of Orion releases.

CLASSIC SHIPS FOR SUPER MELEE

We are talking to Paul and Fred about permission to use the Ur-Quan universe ships in Super Melee.

It’s a complex licensing situation. The Ur-Quan lore is owned by Paul Reiche personally and not Toys for Bob (which itself is owned by Activision). When Star
Control 1 (and later 2) was made, Paul effectively licensed his lore to TFB to use in that game and gave Accolade permission to use the aliens (but not the lore)
for Star Control 3. Thus, Star Control 3 is not canon in terms of the Ur-Quan lore. Yes, it’s confusing.

Now in terms of what Origins can and can’t use, it’s really muddled. Atari believed they had a perpetual, unlimited license to Star Control and all derivative
work including aliens, lore, etc. However, that is not Stardock’s position. Our reading of the agreement is that Atari only owned the trademark and publishing
rights to Star Control 1 and 2 but does own 3. Moreover, we have chosen to interpret our trademark rights to not cover any of the names or likenesses of the
aliens. To this day, we pay a royalty on Star Control 1 and 2 (but not 3) to Paul and Fred which we expect to continue for the foreseeable future.

So from our perspective, Paul and Fred own the lore, the aliens and the alien names. My view is informed by my own creations: the Drengin Empire, the
Arceans, the Yor, and so forth from Galactic Civilizations. I created those civilizations before Stardock existed. They belong to me, personally. Not Stardock.
Similarly, my position is that Paul and Fred have the same rights for their lore and aliens.

Speaking of confusing, apparently Star Trek has similar issues. CBS owns the TV rights and Paramount the movie rights. In effect, when this happened there
was a”fork” in the Star Trek lore (Kelvin vs. Prime).

Licensing agreements are always possible but that comes down to having confidence in whether the licensee will do right by the IP holder’s creation. So the
near-term answer is that I am hoping that they’ll let us use the ships from the Ur-Quan universe for Super Melee. But that’s up to them. We will probably
eventually add ships from GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire for players to play in Super Melee.

That said, it’s kind of a moot issue because the ship designer will let people create any ship they want and play online with it. So inevitably, you will see
someone flying the Enterprise vs. a Star Destroyer.
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