Guard Frequency Episode 544 | Hornswoggled

Cits and Civs, Captains and Commanders, you’re tuned to episode 544 of Guard Frequency — the best damn space game podcast ever! This episode was recorded on Friday, April 10 and released for streaming and download on Tuesday, April 14, 2026 at GuardFrequency.com

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This Week’s Schedule

Flight Deck
- Elite: Dangerous
- Star Citizen
- Starfield
- No Man’s Sky
- Dune Awakening
Guard Frequency Exiles, where X always marks the spot – for hijinks
Feedback Loop

Links & The Like

Elite: Dangerous

Elite Dangerous, once again, has not announced a release date for Operations. They said it would be “April” so they still have a little time left. To prepare for the new feature, FDev ran a popular Community Goal with a Grade 5 Engineered Maverick Spacesuit. All you had to do was be in the top 75% of CMDRs who shot alien pods off of alien plants. The only thing wrong with the CG was the part where they gave out the wrong suit… and also the part where they went back to doing the “top 75%” thing.

Star Citizen

Star Citizen released Early Access Pre-Alpha Release Candidate Prototype Experimental Test Build 4.7.1 11592622 to the LIVE server. You can tell this patch is going great by all the Hotfixes in the Hotfix channel that keep getting Hotfixed. And if the Easter Bunny left bundles of cash in your basket, you can spend it at any one of the four big sales events taking place this month. The Misc Hull B, the new monthly bundle sale, the “Titans of Industry” sale, and the new subscriber sale. SO MANY SALES! And I hope you didn’t melt your earlier backer packages, because if you had physical items or a Squadron 42 pass, you’re not buying it back until CIG sorts itself out.

The Rest of the Lot

No Man’s Sky released its Super Pokemon Epic Xeno Arena Fight Battle Dragonball Extravaganza this week, and it may be possible that Hello Games has run out of ideas for new features. Starfield released its long-awaited Terran Armada DLC and it’s, y’know, OK so far. And Dune Awakening finally chose a side in the great PvP vs. PvE debate, and you’ll never guess who won.

Community Questions

Another space game is offering beta access and physical goodies as an incentive to pre-order. Are you falling for it like Tony is?
What do you think about chaining quest rewards so that the prize from the first quest becomes a tool for completing the next? Good design or just a way for people to feel left out?

Patreon Backing

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Posted

April 14, 2026

Podcasts

First Verse Problems

Tags:

dune awakening, elite dangerous, no man's sky, podcast, star citizen, starfield

Comments

3 responses to “Guard Frequency Episode 544 | Hornswoggled”

seanewboy

April 14, 2026

cq1) no more preorders, no more special editions. cq2) Fine as long as it isn’t short, limited time. excellent show everyone.

Reply
Bennu

April 19, 2026

Q1: No, $300 is a lot of money for a game I might not like and a tchotchke I could 3d print later in my own basement.
Q2. It could be bad. It really depends on whether you can get the prize a different way and just buy how vital the prize from step 1 is in the quest to complete step 2. Can I spend a couple space bucks in the in-game store to get it? No problem. Is it something that make the grind for step 2 just a little less grind-ey? No problem. Is it the difference between 2 hours of grind and 1 hour.. plus you can’t get it anymore? Problem.

General: Did Kinshadow lay out an argument for why SC is doomed to fail?
In a past episode you were talking about Dune and congratulating them on “choosing PVE over PVP.” I remember Kinshadow saying that, for a PVP game you have to be really on top of bugs and keep things balanced. That a new PVE mission could be successful even with bugs as long as there was a workaround, but that a PVP buggy mission with workarounds turns into an exploit. Given CIG’s problems with bugs, their need for constantly selling new stuff that “punches above it’s weight”, and their laser focus on “the universe MUST be dangerous and we MUST have PVP by default” – doesn’t that mean they’re doomed?
I know that they’ve recently allowed for instanced PVE in dungeons… but you still have to get to the dungeon. And maybe you really wanted PVE in your spaceship, not PVE on foot in a base. I’m having a hard time imagining CIG pivoting to “mostly PVE with PVP in *special* areas” like the Dune devs did.

I cackled with glee at hearing the confusion my last comment sowed. If you had seen it in context on the Patreon page, it would have made sense.
See… Episode 543 was “brought to you by the letter Ӫ” and 542 was missing from the feed… so my first message was “Theta umlaut? And is 542 a shining nugget lost in the ocean of AI slop on the internet?” Then I found 542 on the main page and learned the title “Pig Shaped Turd” and was “…greatly amused. 542 is titled ‘Pig-Shaped Turd’
What could possibly be a better title for a lost Patreon episode? Pigs eat slop. AI enshittification leaves turds everywhere. I love it.”
And now it’s so much funnier because I’ve explained it!
Love the show, keep it up! Also, I’d listen to a “Statler and Waldorf” take on the days news.

Reply
Bennu

April 19, 2026

Wow, that’s a wall of text.

Reply