I thought Arena Commander 1.0 is a public test for backers.
So now you can test the patches for the test?

Yeah, that is my first thought as well.

Saw the title and was like, "Awesome, they've got the larger world up and running and now we can....test the next Arena commander patch!? WTF!?"

This is an agonizingly long wait. They seem to be able to deliver content just in time to keep me interested but I would like them to deliver something that feels complete in arena commander very soon. Even if it's just two or three ships I think that would be better to have the full polished experience on those ships instead of the dozen different things we have now all in various stages of development.

It is what it is. Tim Schafer described game development as tons of little projects all coming together at the end and nothing ever feels done until suddenly it's all done. (or something like that) So this is how it's supposed to look I guess.

I just want to fly my ship around space and not feel like I'm in some battle arena. I want to land on space stations, mine asteroids, load and unload cargo and go launch my Merlin and scout around. That's in the next patch...RIGHT!?