Stardock announced that the second Star Control: Origins Fleet Battles beta is available now. The beta is accessible to anyone who pre-ordered Star Control: Origins (through the official website or Steam), as well as those who've won a beta code from our previous giveaway.

　　Star Control: Origins is due to launch later this year for PC.

　　Top Changes in Beta 2

　　New Ships

　　Greegrox Swarm

　　They might look squishy, but these space jellyfish are not to be underestimated! Each ship within their swarm represents a single unit of crew that fires an individual microbolt. Did we mention that the swarm can heal itself, too? They must go through a lot of band-aids…

　　Mu’Kay Grasper

　　Don’t make them ink! It gets messy. This giant squid-ship can throw down ink blobs that both damages and sucks energy from their enemies. Unlike most other ships, the Mu'Kay don’t use any projectile weaponry - they rely on getting up close and crushing their opponent with their ship’s tentacles.

　　Lexite Interceptor

　　Be careful with these guys - they’re hardy! This fast-moving ship has “dual-shot” blasters and an extremely tough-to-penetrate shield. When the shields are engaged, the ship is pretty much invincible - but, it drains energy. You’ll have to time your attacks carefully in order to achieve victory against them.

　　New Weapon Components

　　Heal: Restores lost crew. Does that make them zombies, or..?Death Ray: The name explains itself. You probably don’t want to get hit with this one.Dual Shot: Fires a fast double shot. Hey, two for the price of one!Ink Blob: Drops an inky blob that drains energy and crew. Clean-up on aisle three!Shield: Holding down a button makes you invincible... until you run out of energy. Suggestion? Don’t run out of energy.Custom Matches

　　First things first: you can now use your own custom ships in multiplayer mode. Woo-hoo! You can also customize your battle experience with the following knobs and dials:

　　Enable custom ships in multiplayerCreate a private, password protected lobby for multiplayerSet the arena sizeAdjust the number of asteroids, wormholes, and ion stormsAdjust the Fleet max sizeChoose from one of three different arena mapsOther Improvements

　　We’ve made a lot of other tweaks and adjustments to Fleet Battles in order to continue bringing you the best experience! Beta 2 includes things like:

　　Pilot Graphics - Many ships now have custom animations for their pilots. More will be coming later!High-Resolution UI - Fonts and UI graphics now look better on high res displays.Balance Updates - Almost all of the ships and weapons have been updated for a superior experience.Improved Performance - Substantial improvements have been made to memory use and visual effect performance.