It is not dead actually, but it has been a one man project for a few years now, and I can only spend time on it when I am on longer holidays, due to work and family stuff.
I was hoping that I could finish Part 2 last summer. I even made a second teaser movie for the release but I was wrong.
I have started working on it again recently. There is one more mission I should do for Part 2 (2-3 more weeks) plus the voices and briefing anis.
Hopefully this summer ...
Yes we really introduced the idea of bypassing stable nodes (not subspace) and moving between any two points with certain ships only.
This was something to provide advantage to the GTVA side without unrealistic ship sizes, numbers and BFGs.
Without being too scientific on something that is not scientific at all, I realize that nodes (possesing, keeping, capturing them) are a basic element of FS, so we try to keep a balance with this.
But instead of extending the old plotline with endless fighting for nodes we really wanted to bring something new (well maybe not entirely new), and to move on with the story as well. We do not depart from basic FS concepts.
It's quite impossible to please everyone with something that would "continue" the original FS story, and really the interest / feedback has not been too inspiring in the past years either.