Is Data just fiddling with minor tweaks, or does this mean that B25 is actually sufficiently complete that he A) feels confident that the updates he makes to these missions will not later become as obsolete as they just were and B) feels that such a relatively trifling matter is worth posting? I'm not exactly an expert on the matter of designing a game, but given that I've converted missions to work with different builds myself, I'm guessing it's significantly less difficult than all the other stuff Data's implemented lately.

Of course, it could just be that it's such a drastic change between B24 and B25 that it's actually a marked improvement to make this conversion. Of course, he didn't bother to convert them for B24. God I'm confused.

tl;dr I'M CONFUSED AND HOPEFUL BUT DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK

Hey, I'm confused about the metagame system, and I'll bet there's an explanation somewhere, but why don't you just tell me: how is it going to work? Is the game going to have a sort of story (as missions like first signs seem to imply) or is it just going to be a free for all kickass conquering game?

Look through the devlog. It's going to be (as far as we know) a risk-like Civ-5 control game with plot missions scattered about.

I've gotten the impression that it's going to be like Total War. The planetary control mode, that is.
So that there's 3 modes: Planetary Control, Scenarios and Story.

Awesome. That's the best possible answer.

Although of course it's going to be hugely strange not having infinite money to send spiraling down to hell on a flaming dropship.

Most likely this update was made by a content dev taking advantage of a few new Lua hooks in B25, not something Data did personally. It's "worth posting" only in that every SVN update is supposed to have a message attached to it; the SVN bot just posts what's going into the SVN logs as a twitter post.

Abdul Alhazred just updated the missions - it doesn't mean anything in particular, other than that he felt like updating them, I suppose. He referred to it as B25 because, technically, the build we have on the SVN server is B25. It isn't in any way completed and ready for release though, and there isn't a set release date for it or anything. Sorry if it got your hopes up.
On the other hand, scriptable attachables and Lua bindings for weapons are definitely something to be excited about. We can change weapon magazines with Lua now.

Ha. Damn. I was hopeful, but not terribly expectant, so this is okay.

Still, I'm impressed with the stuff you guys are doing. Also embarrassed that I completely forgot that Dan is not the only developer. ♥♥♥♥.

Did anyone else see that work was done on the CVE engine?

That supprised me a little bit. I had thought it was dead.

The CVE is meant as the successor to the RTE that powers Cortex Command. Whatever Datarealms next major game is, it'll (probably) be powered, at least in some ancestral form, by the CVE.

B25 feels so near.

I just want to know about official dates.

Why does it feel like Groundhog's Day, and the damn critter saw its own shadow.
[Yes, I have started to believe that talking about a date is asking for disappointment]

Okay, allow me to re-state this:
B25 does not have an official release date. It probably won't have an official release date for a while. At this point, B25 is (as you should be able to see from the Twitter feed) almost entirely modding-related changes. I don't expect B25 to come along until at least the campaign mode is playable. Don't get your hopes up.
Now, all that said, I could be entirely wrong, but Data usually lets us know when we're getting close to a release, and I haven't heard anything yet.

Well, if it will come up with many important changes made to the game and the campaign mode, I guess there are enough reasons to take time.
And many reasons to keep waiting.