Cits and Civs, Captains and Commanders, you’re tuned to episode 550 of Guard Frequency — the best damn space game podcast ever! This episode was recorded on Friday, July 10 and released for streaming and download on Tuesday, July 14, 2026 at GuardFrequency.com
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This Week’s Schedule
- Flight Deck
- Elite: Dangerous
- Star Citizen
- Interstellar Frontier
- Guard Frequency Exiles, where we ask the question: why can’t spacesuits hold more grenades?
- Feedback Loop
Links & The Like
Elite: Dangerous
Elite Dangerous released the long-awaited Operations update and… yeah, it’s not bad. It’s not great either, YET. In typical FDev fashion, the concept is good, but the initial execution leaves something to be desired. On the plus side, the mission designs are solid, the gameplay works, and it pretty well nails the combined-arms concept that has been missing from Elite since the release of the Odyssey update. On the minus side, well, it’s Elite. Network errors, missing rewards, and some confusing UX and UI issues drag down the first impressions. However, only a week after the update, the major issues appear to be either fixed or ABOUT to be fixed, so it looks like they might be able to avoid serious comparisons to the Odyssey release.
Star Citizen
Star Citizen released Early Access Pre-Alpha Release Candidate Prototype Experimental Test Build 4.9.0-PTU.12198266 to the PTU server. As we wave farewell to 4.8 in all its glory, we reflect back on the good times everyone had with that patch. The account lockouts, the missing pledge items, the crashes, the bugs… So much has happened, it’s hard to believe that it was only 8 short weeks ago that we started asking the question: was this patch “3.18 Bad?” Well, one look at the 4.9 patch notes tells us: yeah, probably. The number one priority in both the notes and in the latest Roadmap Roundup is bugfixing. And CIG is committing top men across multiple departments to addressing the complaints of the noisy backers. TOP men. So congratulations, everyone! They’re adding a bonus month to the 2025 Year of Content and Stability. And 4.10 is already going to the Evocati as CIG tries to catch up to Elite with their version of Operations. It will be interesting to see who gets to a stable version first.
Interstellar Frontier
Interstellar Frontier is a brand new pre-alpha prototype experimental space game that we are EXCLUSIVELY announcing here at Guard Frequency. No, this isn’t a satire or some kind of 550th episode stunt. This is an actual game in development that Tony is so excited about that he stole the copy-reading assignment for this segment from Henry. It’s got everything that a space game enthusiast could want: starship combat, away teams, crafting, resource management, loadout configurations, exploration, a huge sandbox galaxy AND a narrative storyline. And as a special treat, we have the lead developer here with us tonight to talk about it and give us a little demo on the livestream.
Community Questions
- Are you interested in following Henry to the Interstellar Frontier?
- Have you tried Operations? What did you think about it?
Patreon Backing
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