Good thing there are 29 days in February or we wouldn't have gotten this out "this month".

Beta 5 of Twilight of the Arnor arrives and it has some pretty huge new features.

Here are a few of the major highlights:

• Ascension Victory Condition is now in! Maps with this condition enabled get 5 ascension crystals. Build a starbase on them and collect 1 ascenion point per turn for each one. Collect 1000 and win. Of course, the alien civilizations won't be too keen on this.
  
  
• AI designed ships.  Players can now opt to have the computer AI design combat ships for them.
  
  
• Auto-Launching of ships. Players can specific various parameters to have ships auto launch when they're built.
  
  
• Custom Races are back in! Now you can design your own race and choose which technology tree for them to use.
  
  
• Updated graphics. Make sure you ooh and ahh at the updated human ship textures and such. And feel good knowing they use a fraction of the memory that they did back when they were ugly.
  
  
• Updated Economy. Mo money.
  
  
• New weapon effects!
  
  
• First build with any real AI updates.  The beta 5 series begins the official updating of the computer AI players. 

Full change log