Love flying drones? LuGus Studios, developer of the highly rated Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing have announced Liftoff: Micro Drones as their next racing and drone flying sim. While Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing focused on big drones, Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing as the name suggest shrinks things down with any indoor area becoming an exciting aerial playground thanks to the focus on tiny drones.

Check out their teaser:

Watch video on YouTube.com

"The new simulator will be released via Steam’s Early Access program: even before the official release, fans of the series can get an early look and can be involved in shaping the future of the project. Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing went through a similar process, to great success. Based on community input, over 100 updates helped shape the game exactly into what its players wanted, giving the team at LuGus Studios confidence in continuing that approach. Future updates for Micro Drones will bring a track editor, Steam Workshop integration, extra game modes, and new frames and environments to explore."

Liftoff: Micro Drones is planned to be released in Early Access on Steam for Linux, macOS and Windows in late 2021.

You can follow it on Steam .

Inspired by the Werewolf/Mafia genre and similar games, Untrusted from developer evolvedlabs has now left Early Access and it seems it has done quite well.

"In Untrusted (or “Untrusted – Web of Cybercrime”), hackers from the fictional NETSEC group are tasked in hacking a specific server on a computer network. NETSEC members must use their skills and wits to outsmart the undercover AGENTs that will try each night to perform arrests or have other players become snitches for them."

Watch video on YouTube.com

Features:

• Hacking themed game focused on social interactions.
• Hack into computers and analyze their log to find out who is telling the truth
• Keep your personal log and cross-reference data to find out who are the undercover agents
• An amazing, friendly community ready to welcome you
• Multiple winning conditions for both factions: hack or murder your way to victory.
• 2 Factions and many neutral classes
• 23 Unique classes
• More than 80 unique skills
• Unlock avatars and badges as you win
• No bogus IP addresses! All IP addresses are from RFC 5737, for all of us IT people :3
• Discord integration

For a niche experience given the interface and gameplay, it's managed to gain a nice following. With a few hundred user reviews on Steam giving it a Very Positive rating and it regularly sees a few hundred players online at any one time so for a game with no marketing it's doing okay.

Also, you can claim an exclusive GamingOnLinux avatar! See our previous article for the link, you need to be logged in on GOL to claim the redeem code.

Check it out on itch.io and Steam . It's free to play.

The Invisible Hand is a first-person stockbroker experience where you try and get rich quick, while you work for the trading firm FERIOS. Your only job is to make money and as much as possible.

Just like the real thing you will buy when they're going up, sell before you make a big loss and make as much commission as possible. Of course, it's not that simple. This is, after all, a game. You can find ways to make things easier, like lobbying an influential group to affect the market or even drive down an entire currency to boost your margins. It's a cut-throat world out there.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Developed by Power Struggle Games, a French game development collective cheekily intent on dismantling Capitalism from the inside, through games and they say they're "unabashedly political".

On Steam, the developer mentioned a Linux build has now been provided and they're looking for feedback on it.

Check it out on Steam .

Ready to explore a bigger universe? The upcoming X4: Cradle of Humanity expansion along with the big free 4.0 update for all players is now confirmed to launch on March 16.

Taking the X series from Egosoft back to Earth, it will significantly increase the size of the game's universe giving you new sectors to explore along with two Terran factions to X4: Foundations, along with their economy, ships, weapons and stations.

Watch video on YouTube.com

What Cradle of Humanity will include:

• Big expansion of the X4: Foundations universe with new sectors
• Return of Terran factions with economy, ships, weapons and stations
• Thrilling new story missions and adventures to experience
• New game-starts that allow new perspectives on the X4: Foundations story
• Introducing a new terraforming gameplay feature, evolving the endgame
• Visual improvements such as volumetric fog, making the X universe look better than ever

As for the big 4.0 free update, Egosoft continue mentioning it will be the biggest free update in the game's history. You can even try a Beta for it on Steam right now . It does sound pretty expansive with a new coordinated attack system for fleet commanding, volumetric fog graphical feature has been added, a new transaction log to see a good breakdown of your monies, a new message system for important communication with NPCs, new Escorts missions, an option to declare war on a faction and absolutely loads more.

X4: Cradle of Humanity is probably one of the biggest, or perhaps actually the biggest and most in-depth single-player space sim around.

For the full game right now you can buy it on Humble Store , GOG and Steam .

In need of a new fun physics sim? How about one that's free, open source and can be played in multiplayer? Rigs of Rods might be what you're after and they have a new release.

What actually is it? Rigs of Rods is a free/libre soft-body physics simulator mainly targeted at simulating vehicle physics. The soft-body physics system is based on mass-spring-damper theory. It's pretty much a sandbox vehicle playground, one you setup yourself with trucks, cars, cranes, boats, bridges, aeroplanes and much more.

Not the most beginner friendly game, with it needing plenty of modding and configuration to get it where you want it but it seems like a nice option for some physics amusement. As it turns out, we've never written about it here, despite it being around since at least 2005 - madness!

Watch video on YouTube.com

Seems the team has been busy since the last release over a year ago, with a major new release landing on February 2, 2021. Quite a lot is included too, and much like Pioneer (another open source sim), they've moved their UI system over to the popular Dear ImGui . Now they have a modern UI system in place, it should be a lot easier to tweak it and work with it.

Not only that though, here's a bunch of what else is new:

• Major cleanup of the codebase
• Upgraded the translation system to work with popular Weblate
• A new Quake-style console variable system
• Vehicle speedometer will now be based on wheel speed rather than vehicle speed
• Added the ability to configure the blinker lock range
• Added the ability to toggle hydro speed coupling
• Added support for OS-specific input mapping
• Added a game controls information panel
• Added thrust reversal for aircrafts
• Added the ability to individually remove vehicles
• Updated Xbox 360/One controller and G29 wheel input maps, added wireless PS4 controller input map

Plus the usual assorted bug fixes.

Find it on the official site and download it easily from itch.io .

As impressive as it is, hopefully someone will be able to hook up a good introduction / tutorial for new players getting into it. While it's been around a long time and there's beginner guides out there, having something in game for people to follow would really help.

Pioneer is another classic example of a long-running free and open source game doing well, with a brand new release up that overhauls plenty of important parts.

The Pioneer 2021-02-03 release has been a year in the making and implements their new UI system built on top of the powerful and open source ImGui . They also mentioned vastly improved combat with some aim assist, better trading, you can now actually rotate the camera with the middle mouse button for better camera control and plenty more.

Here's what else is new and you can see just how much went into it:

• New ship: Skipjack Courier from OKB Kaluri ( #4871 )
• New model: Escape pods (initially only to be scooped up, not purchasable) ( #4877 )
• Improve combat targeting by adding aim assist for player weapons ( #5037 )
• Complete overhaul of commodity prices, to be similar to Frontier ( #4831 )
• Redesign System and Sector Map View layouts ( #4852 )
• NewUI is dead, long live PiGui! ( #5032 )
• More lively station traffic control communications ( #4987 )
• Ship-specific atmospheric pressure limits ( #4958 )
• Add surface impact alerts #4891
• Captains log added ( #4795 )
• Show background stars in system view ( #5068 )
• Show surface starports in system view ( #5060 )
• Significantly reduce savefile sizes ( #5075 )
• New BBS advert for soldout commodity ( #5059 )

That's only what they consider to be major, there's a huge amount of smaller fixes and improvements across the whole game including a new unified colour theme and new icons, stars on the map showing up as bigger and brighter depending on their actual size in space, translation improvements and so on.

See more on the official site .

A big feature players have been asking for a long time is now live in the Factorio 1.1 update, and it should run smoother than ever with big factories.

Blueprint flipping is the big headline feature here, allowing you to pretty much copy and paste creations while also now flipping them around. They repeatedly said no on it but then they wanted it and so they hooked it up in a way that only allows it for blueprints that can flip properly (preventing giving you a bunch of broken creations).

Seems to work okay too:

Lots more than just that arrived with Factorio 1.1 including:

• Spider waypoints and the ability to set spiders to to follow other things. Making controlling the big spider mechs a huge amount easier.
• Smart belt building to lock quick building into a direction, and automatic underground belt traversal. Building belts nicely has never been easier looking at it.
• Multithreaded belts to help boost performance. This will be especially noticeable in the later game stage.
• New Train Overview GUI.
• Much faster saved games.

That's just the basic gist of it, you can see the full details of the 1.1 update here .

Factorio is an absolutely incredible game and I imagine most people who've put a few hours into it will agree. Looking at Steam, it's hit over 87,000 user reviews now and still remains on an Overwhelmingly Positive rating. That's pretty amazing and so hopefully they can keep on expanding it for years.

You can buy a copy of Factorio from Humble Store , GOG and Steam .

After a new online experience to play with friends and one that's free to play? Untrusted is a new social deduction hacking game with two sides facing off. Now available in Early Access, developer evolvedlabs plans to keep it there until Q2/Q3 this year so they can thoroughly test it with players.

Inspired by the likes of Werewolf / Mafia and other similar types of games with support for 10 to 16 players to join a game online. The idea is that hackers from the fictional NETSEC group are tasked in hacking a specific server on a computer network, while there's a few AGENTS try to arrest them or convincing players to snitch on others. There's a few ways to each side to win and it sounds quite interesting.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Feature Highlight:

• Hacking themed game focused on social interactions.
• Hack into computers and analyze their log to find out who is telling the truth
• Keep your personal log and cross-reference data to find out who are the undercover agents
• Multiple winning conditions for both factions: hack or murder your way to victory.
• 2 Factions and many neutral classes
• 22 Unique classes
• More than 70 unique skills
• Unlock avatars and badges as you win

Find it free on Steam .

The developer added in an official GamingOnLinux avatar, so you can show off a bit if you wish. This needs to be done by redeeming a special code and we have lots to give away for you below:

[giveaway]26[/giveaway]

Kalypso Media and Realmforge Studios have now confirmed that Spacebase Startopia is now ready to launch on March 26. The delayed release will see it supported on Linux and we expect it to work well, considering the great work Realmforge did with Dungeons 3.

Spacebase Startopia sells players the galactic dream: managing their very own donut-shaped space station. Overseen and assisted (when it feels like it) by the base's prickly on-board AI, players will play Commander to their floating home-away-from-home, kitting out the station's three unique decks with a variety of galactic gadgetry whilst tending to the wants and needs of a diverse array of vacationing extra-terrestrials. In multiplayer, up to 4 players can work together to build the galaxy's greatest getaway, or seek oblivion upon their rivals with daring feats of economic sabotage.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Feature Highlight:

• Single-player campaign with 10 fully voiced missions
• Manage a melting pot of different lifeforms, each with their own individual – and sometimes contradictory - needs and desires
• Build a variety of rooms across three very different decks to cater to the needs of visiting aliens
• Explore the potential of your space base in a fully configurable sandbox mode
• Produce and trade resources to turn a profit while running sabotage missions against your competitors
• Work together or compete against rivals in competitive and a coop multiplayer for up to 4 players

It's available to pre-order on Steam .