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SpaceX’s giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video) – Space.com

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SpaceX's Starship, the largest rocket in the world, will get even bigger as the company continues to target Mars missions in the future.

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as tall as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20% higher than the massive system aboard the Super Heavy rocket right now.

What's more, advances in reusability will have each launch cost roughly $3 million each, Musk predicted; that's less than a third of what a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch cost in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC, which is roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.)

"These are sort of unthinkable numbers," Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly April 6, roughly one month after the third and last test flight to date. "Nobody ever thought that this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this. So this is within the bounds, without breaking physics. We can do this."

Related: SpaceX fires up huge Super Heavy booster ahead of 4th Starship test flight (photos, video)

Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once a year to highlight progress the company is making toward its long-term plans of settling Mars. Indeed, the last year has seen three Starship launches, so there has been progress made recently. Musk didn't, however, address delays in launching Starship that have contributed to pushing back the launch date for the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.

SpaceX was named the vendor for the Artemis 3 landing mission that, until recently, was set for 2025. In January, NASA elected to hold the launch date another year, to 2026, due to a range of technical issues. Aside from Starship not being ready the agency wants many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights Artemis 3 was also delayed due to slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft, among other factors.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

However, Musk's words about Artemis, to employees, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven on its three test flights.

"This will ... be very important for the Artemis program for the NASA to get back to the moon," Musk said of those capabilities. He also envisions a "Moon Base Alpha" that would include ships "specialized for going to and from the moon", meaning there would be no heat shield or flaps due to the lack of atmosphere.

Related: NASA celebrates SpaceX Starship's 3rd test flight, but more work needed ahead of Artemis moon missions

Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for his Red Planet updates, focusing on how to send a lot of cargo out there for eventual settlers. He noted that would take thousands of launches to do; for perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches and about 80 percent of those had reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost.)

SpaceX is by far the most active launching entity on Earth, and Musk forecasts the company will send roughly 90 percent of orbital mass aloft this year compared to China's 6 percent (the second-largest entity.)

Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected to take place in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land "on essentially a virtual tower" in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company safely gets that done, they will consider using the launching area at Starbase, in south Texas, for future landings as soon as Flight 5. (Musk pegged the chances of success on Flight 4 at 80% or 90%.)

Musk also wants to perform two splashdowns of the upper stage of Starship in a row, in a controlled fashion, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. "We do not want to rain debris over Mexico or the U.S.," he said. "My guess is probably next year when we will be able to reuse Starship."

Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches to take place this year, and suggests SpaceX will build an additional six spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company should be available in 2025, which would make production even faster.

Future versions of Starship will include a "Starship 2" to send 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and the 500-foot "Starship 3" for 200 or more tons. Bigger vehicles, Musk stressed, will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for the journey to Mars someday.

Of these milestones, Musk said it would be "very much a success-oriented schedule." His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each one of the launches, nor ongoing criticism of the environmental impact of Starship on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.

That impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches a day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make a long-term settlement feasible. As for the number of Mars-bound people, that would be roughly a million folks, he said that matches predictions he made at least as far back as 2017. Musk also says he wants to get the settlement going "in 20 years." He said the same thing in 2011.

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SpaceX's giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video) - Space.com

SpaceX’s giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video) – Space.com

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SpaceX's Starship, the largest rocket in the world, will get even bigger as the company continues to target Mars missions in the future.

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as tall as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20% higher than the massive system aboard the Super Heavy rocket right now.

What's more, advances in reusability will have each launch cost roughly $3 million each, Musk predicted; that's less than a third of what a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch cost in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC, which is roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.)

"These are sort of unthinkable numbers," Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly April 6, roughly one month after the third and last test flight to date. "Nobody ever thought that this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this. So this is within the bounds, without breaking physics. We can do this."

Related: SpaceX fires up huge Super Heavy booster ahead of 4th Starship test flight (photos, video)

Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once a year to highlight progress the company is making toward its long-term plans of settling Mars. Indeed, the last year has seen three Starship launches, so there has been progress made recently. Musk didn't, however, address delays in launching Starship that have contributed to pushing back the launch date for the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.

SpaceX was named the vendor for the Artemis 3 landing mission that, until recently, was set for 2025. In January, NASA elected to hold the launch date another year, to 2026, due to a range of technical issues. Aside from Starship not being ready the agency wants many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights Artemis 3 was also delayed due to slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft, among other factors.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

However, Musk's words about Artemis, to employees, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven on its three test flights.

"This will ... be very important for the Artemis program for the NASA to get back to the moon," Musk said of those capabilities. He also envisions a "Moon Base Alpha" that would include ships "specialized for going to and from the moon", meaning there would be no heat shield or flaps due to the lack of atmosphere.

Related: NASA celebrates SpaceX Starship's 3rd test flight, but more work needed ahead of Artemis moon missions

Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for his Red Planet updates, focusing on how to send a lot of cargo out there for eventual settlers. He noted that would take thousands of launches to do; for perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches and about 80 percent of those had reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost.)

SpaceX is by far the most active launching entity on Earth, and Musk forecasts the company will send roughly 90 percent of orbital mass aloft this year compared to China's 6 percent (the second-largest entity.)

Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected to take place in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land "on essentially a virtual tower" in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company safely gets that done, they will consider using the launching area at Starbase, in south Texas, for future landings as soon as Flight 5. (Musk pegged the chances of success on Flight 4 at 80% or 90%.)

Musk also wants to perform two splashdowns of the upper stage of Starship in a row, in a controlled fashion, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. "We do not want to rain debris over Mexico or the U.S.," he said. "My guess is probably next year when we will be able to reuse Starship."

Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches to take place this year, and suggests SpaceX will build an additional six spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company should be available in 2025, which would make production even faster.

Future versions of Starship will include a "Starship 2" to send 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and the 500-foot "Starship 3" for 200 or more tons. Bigger vehicles, Musk stressed, will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for the journey to Mars someday.

Of these milestones, Musk said it would be "very much a success-oriented schedule." His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each one of the launches, nor ongoing criticism of the environmental impact of Starship on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.

That impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches a day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make a long-term settlement feasible. As for the number of Mars-bound people, that would be roughly a million folks, he said that matches predictions he made at least as far back as 2017. Musk also says he wants to get the settlement going "in 20 years." He said the same thing in 2011.

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SpaceX's giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video) - Space.com

SpaceX launches advanced weather satellite for US Space Force (video) – Space.com

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SpaceX launched its second national security mission of the year Thursday (April 11).

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base at 10:25 a.m. EDT (7:25 a.m. local California time; 1425 GMT), on a mission for the U.S. Space Force called USSF-62.

USSF-62 will send the Weather System Follow-on Microwave (WSF-M) satellite to low Earth orbit. WSF-M is a next-generation spacecraft that "will provide critical and actionable weather intelligence to military operations in all warfighting domains," according to BAE Systems, which developed and built the satellite.

Related:SpaceX: Facts about Elon Musk's private spaceflight company

WSF-M's primary instrument is a microwave imager, which will measure sea surface winds, the strength of tropical cyclones and gather other environmental data. Also flying on the satellite is a space weather sensor provided by the U.S. government, according to BAE Systems.

"Were absolutely thrilled be out here on the Central Coast, with a superb team primed and ready to launch the USSF-62 satellite," Col. Jim Horne, senior materiel leader for Space Systems Command's Launch Execution Delta, said in an emailed statement. "With each national security launch, we add to Americas capabilities and improve its deterrence in the face of growing threats."

The Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth safely, touching down at Vandenberg's Landing Zone 4 just under eight minutes after liftoff. It was the third launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

The rocket's payload fairing the "nose cone" that protects satellites during launch is also a spaceflight veteran, marking a first for a national security launch, Horne said in his statement.

USSF-62 is SpaceX's 37th launch of 2024 and its second of the year for the Space Force. A Falcon 9 launched the six-satellite USSF-124 mission from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Feb. 14.

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SpaceX launches advanced weather satellite for US Space Force (video) - Space.com

There Appears to Be a Huge Problem With SpaceX’s Starlink – Futurism

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Did Elon Musk fib about the service breaking even? Balance Sheet

In a brief announcement on his social media platform last year, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk celebrated that the company's Starlink broadband service had "achieved breakeven cash flow."

"Starlink is also now a majority of all active satellites and will have launched a majority of all satellites cumulatively from Earth by next year," he said at the time.

But according to a damning new report by Bloomberg, Musk may have once again rigged the numbers in his favor by greatly underplaying the costs involved in launching the satellites, when in reality the company is losing "hundreds of dollars on each of the millions of ground terminals it ships."

According to Bloomberg's sources, SpaceX's accounting was "more of an art than a science" and the much-hyped system isn't actually profitable, despite Musk's assurances.

The company has kept its financials close to its chest, especially while fundraising. During a March press conference, SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen appeared cagey, telling reporters in a carefully worded comment that "I dont know that I want to quantify those numbers, but we are in positive cash flow and profitable territory for our satellite business now."

In short, is SpaceX's Starlink business cashflow positive, as Musk claims, or merely in "profitable territory"? The distinction could make all the difference for Musk's outsize plans for space colonization.

The mercurial CEO has long argued that the internet satellite broadband arm of his space company will provide the funding necessary to get humans to Mars. According to Bloomberg, Starlink represents more than half of SpaceX's revenue this year.

As of now, SpaceX has launched 5,600 satellites into low-Earth orbit and is planning to launch tens of thousands more.

Despite eclipsing the total number of all operating satellites in Earth's orbit, Starlink isn't just struggling to cut even. Experts are concerned that trying to provide the entire globe with internet via satellites instead of expanding coverage with cell towers where needed could prove difficult, with speeds already beginning to decrease in 2022.

In other words, SpaceX will have to pump out untold numbers of satellites to keep up with quickly growing bandwidth demands.

That's not all the bad news. According to Bloomberg, all major US airlines have rejected SpaceX's Starlink to provide internet service on flights, though an exact reason as to why remains unclear.

Nonetheless, SpaceX has exceeded expectations when it comes to generating revenue over the years. Sales could grow from $4.7 billion a year ago to $15 billion this year, per Bloomberg's sources.

SpaceX may end up spinning off its internet service with a potential IPO. But that's still years out, according to company officials.

More on Starlink: SpaceX Announces Plans to Set 100 Starlink Satellites on Fire

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There Appears to Be a Huge Problem With SpaceX's Starlink - Futurism

GPT-5 might arrive this summer as a materially better update to ChatGPT – Ars Technica

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When OpenAI launched its GPT-4 AI model a year ago, it created a wave of immense hype and existential panic from its ability to imitate human communication and composition. Since then, the biggest question in AI has remained the same: When is GPT-5 coming out? During interviews and media appearances around the world, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman frequently gets asked this question, and he usually gives a coy or evasive answer, sometimes coupled with promises of amazing things to come.

According to a new report from Business Insider, OpenAI is expected to release GPT-5, an improved version of the AI language model that powers ChatGPT, sometime in mid-2024and likely during the summer. Two anonymous sources familiar with the company have revealed that some enterprise customers have recently received demos of GPT-5 and related enhancements to ChatGPT.

One CEO who recently saw a version of GPT-5 described it as "really good" and "materially better," with OpenAI demonstrating the new model using use cases and data unique to his company. The CEO also hinted at other unreleased capabilities of the model, such as the ability to launch AI agents being developed by OpenAI to perform tasks automatically.

We asked OpenAI representatives about GPT-5's release date and the Business Insider report. They responded that they had no particular comment, but they included a snippet of a transcript from Altman's recent appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast.

Lex Fridman(01:06:13) So when is GPT-5 coming out again? Sam Altman(01:06:15) I dont know. Thats the honest answer. Lex Fridman(01:06:18) Oh, thats the honest answer. Blink twice if its this year. Sam Altman(01:06:30) We will release an amazing new model this year. I dont know what well call it. Lex Fridman(01:06:36) So that goes to the question of, whats the way we release this thing? Sam Altman(01:06:41) Well release in the coming months many different things. I think thatd be very cool. I think before we talk about a GPT-5-like model called that, or not called that, or a little bit worse or a little bit better than what youd expect from a GPT-5, I think we have a lot of other important things to release first.

In this conversation, Altman seems to imply that the company is prepared to launch a major AI model this year, but whether it will be called "GPT-5" or be considered a major upgrade to GPT-4 Turbo (or perhaps an incremental update like GPT-4.5) is up in the air.

Like its predecessor, GPT-5 (or whatever it will be called) is expected to be a multimodal large language model (LLM) that can accept text or encoded visual input (called a "prompt"). And like GPT-4, GPT-5 will be a next-token prediction model, which means that it will output its best estimate of the most likely next token (a fragment of a word) in a sequence, which allows for tasks such as completing a sentence or writing code. When configured in a specific way, GPT models can power conversational chatbot applications like ChatGPT.

OpenAI launched GPT-4 in March 2023 as an upgrade to its most major predecessor, GPT-3, which emerged in 2020 (with GPT-3.5 arriving in late 2022). Last November, OpenAI released GPT-4 Turbo, which lowered inference (running) costs of OpenAI's best AI model dramatically but has been plagued with accusations of "laziness" where the model sometimes refuses to answer prompts or complete coding projects as requested. OpenAI has attempted to fix the laziness issue several times.

LLMs like those developed by OpenAI are trained on massive datasets scraped from the Internet and licensed from media companies, enabling them to respond to user prompts in a human-like manner. However, the quality of the information provided by the model can vary depending on the training data used, and also based on the model's tendency to confabulate information. If GPT-5 can improve generalization (its ability to perform novel tasks) while also reducing what are commonly called "hallucinations" in the industry, it will likely represent a notable advancement for the firm.

According to the report, OpenAI is still training GPT-5, and after that is complete, the model will undergo internal safety testing and further "red teaming" to identify and address any issues before its public release. The release date could be delayed depending on the duration of the safety testing process.

Of course, the sources in the report could be mistaken, and GPT-5 could launch later for reasons aside from testing. So, consider this a strong rumor, but this is the first time we've seen a potential release date for GPT-5 from a reputable source. Also, we now know that GPT-5 is reportedly complete enough to undergo testing, which means its major training run is likely complete. Further refinements will likely follow.

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GPT-5 might arrive this summer as a materially better update to ChatGPT - Ars Technica

Elon Musk’s recent all-hands meeting at SpaceX was full of interesting news – Ars Technica

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Enlarge / Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO, recently held an all-hands meeting with employees at the company's Starbase facility in South Texas.

SpaceX

Last year was unquestionably the best year in SpaceX's history, CEO Elon Musk told his employees during an all-hands meeting in South Texas last week.

There were 96 flights of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, plus the first two test flights of the enormous new Starship rocket. In 2024, SpaceX said it aims for more than 140 launches of the Falcon rocket family. There may be up to 10 Starship test flights this year, according to the NASA official who manages the agency's contract with SpaceX to develop Starship into a human-rated Moon lander.

SpaceX posted a video late Friday on the social media platform X of Musk's all-hands meeting at the Starbase launch facility near Brownsville, Texas. The hour-long video includes Musk's comments on SpaceX's recent accomplishments and plans, but the video ends before employees ask questions of their boss.

While it would be nice to see space reporters get more opportunities to question Musk about SpaceX, it's good to see the company sharing these kinds of videos. Musk has presented several formal updates on Starship in the pastin person and virtualand taken questions from reporters and space enthusiasts.

Nevertheless, the recent all-hands meeting included significant updates on Starship and other SpaceX programs. We now know a little more about what happened at the end of an otherwise successful Starship test flight from South Texas in November, preventing the rocket from achieving its planned trajectory. And Musk talked about what we can expect in upcoming Starship test flights.

He also touched on the records set by SpaceX's workhorse Falcon rocket family this year. Until Starship is fully operational, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy will keep flying. SpaceX has launch contracts for both rockets into the late 2020s.

Musk said SpaceX is working on extending the life of Falcon 9's reusable first-stage boosters. Originally, SpaceX said each Falcon 9 booster could fly up to 10 times without a major overhaul. Some Falcon 9s have now flown almost twice that number of missions.

Weve done a 19th re-flight," Musk said. "Were now qualifying Falcon 9 to be able to do 40 flights, and were aiming for maybe as much as 150 flights this year."

Ramping up the launch cadence will require SpaceX to increase factory throughout to produce more Falcon 9 second stages, which are only used once. And SpaceX will need to get even better at turning around its Falcon 9 launch pads between missions

"Were aiming to hopefully, I think, get under 24 hours pad turnaround by the end of this year," Musk said.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Musk's presentation centered on Starship.

Starship's second full-scale test flight on November 18 surpassed SpaceX's goals going into the launch. Musk said the primary objective was to get the rocket past staging, a milestone just shy of three minutes into the flight when Starship's upper stage separated from its Super Heavy booster.

Getting to that point, the Super Heavy booster's 33 Raptor engines all worked, apparently flawlessly, then Starship's upper stage lit its six Raptor engines to continue the climb into space.

The Super Heavy booster exploded moments later as it began a boost-back burn to guide itself toward a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. This was a secondary objective, but SpaceX engineers will have to correct this issue before it can recover and reuse a Super Heavy booster.

Starshipthe rocket's upper stagecontinued flying until around eight minutes into the flight, when it broke apart in space over the Gulf of Mexico. This happened less than 30 seconds before Starship's engines were supposed to cut off, when the vehicle would have accumulated enough velocity to reach its planned trajectory, taking it most of the way around the world. If everything went perfectly, the ship would have reentered the atmosphere and splashed down near Hawaii.

Musk didn't discuss what happened with the Super Heavy booster on the November flight, but he said Starship disintegratedduring a liquid oxygen vent late in its burn. The Raptor engines consume liquid oxygen and methane as propellants.

Flight 2 actually almost made it to orbit," Musk said. "The reason that it actually didnt quite make it to orbit was we vented the liquid oxygen, and the liquid oxygen ultimately led to a fire and an explosion.We wanted to vent the liquid oxygen because we normally wouldnt have that liquid oxygen if we had a payload. Ironically, if it had a payload, it would have reached orbit.

SpaceX

Musk didn't offer any more details about the liquid oxygen vent but said he thinks SpaceX has a "really good shot of reaching orbit" on the next Starship test flight. This third full-size Starship test flight is likely weeks away. Jessica Jensen, SpaceX's vice president of customer operations and integration, said in a NASA teleconference last week that SpaceX aims to have hardware for the next Starship launch ready this month.

She said SpaceX anticipates getting a commercial launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration in February. SpaceX launched its first two Starship test flights within a few days of receiving its FAA license.

SpaceX introduced numerous changes to the Starship design between its first and second flights last year, including a water deluge system at the launch pad, a redesigned stage separation technique, and replacing hydraulic thrust vector controls with an electrically driven engine steering system.

"With Flight 1, the goal was not to blow the pad up and ideally get some distance, which we did," Musk said. "With Flight 2, it was to get past staging, so we achieved the goal of getting past staging and almost to orbit."

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Elon Musk's recent all-hands meeting at SpaceX was full of interesting news - Ars Technica

Fallout 76 pulls a Cyberpunk 2077, is better than ever with 17 million players – GAMINGbible

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It seems as though 2023 is the year of the redemption arc. With Cyberpunk 2077 finding its feet three-years after release, it now appears that Fallout 76 is following suit with recent figures showing it's garnered 17 million players.

Despite a rocky start when it was first released in 2020, regular updates and the arrival of the expansion Phantom Liberty mean that Cyberpunk 2077 has gone on to become one of the most successful games in recent years. So much so that fans recently agreed it would have won Game of the Year if it was released today in its current state.

Check out the Fallout 76 trailer below!

Now, it seems as though Bethesda is following in CD Projekt Reds footsteps with its 2018 Fallout instalment Fallout 76. When it was first launched back in November 2018, it was criticised for its game-breaking bugs, shabby performance, and lifeless world to explore.

Since then, Bethesda has been working hard on improving it. This included the 2020 Wastelanders update which saw fully voiced NPCs added to the game which became a catalyst of change for Fallout 76.

Now, five years on from launch, Fallout 76 sits at a mostly positive rating on Steam and it was recently revealed that the game had reached over 17 million players. The news was shared by Bethesda art director Jon Rush who posted a blog post detailing the Fallout 76 roadmap following the recent release of the Atlantic City - Boardwalk Paradise update.

Over 17 million players have experienced new Fallout tales and characters with Wastelanders, he wrote.

Despite the good news, Bethesda is still not done with Fallout 76. Early 2024 will see the arrival of the Atlantic City - Americas Playground DLC which will include a new mission where players take on the legendary Jersey Devil. This will come alongside new quests, new areas, and more.

After that DLC, Fallout 76 will get an expanded map later in 2024 which will see the wooded heartland of Shenandoah added to the game.

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Fallout 76 pulls a Cyberpunk 2077, is better than ever with 17 million players - GAMINGbible

Owlcat devs rank top games they played in 2023, from BG3 and Cyberpunk 2077 to Disco Elysium and Dishonored – Game World Observer

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It is always interesting to see what games developers enjoy themselves. Owlcat, which just successfully launched its new RPG Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader, shared the top titles that their staff played in 2023.

Owlcat Games posted the top games that our dear owlcats played this year on X (formerly Twitter), adding that while were in love with our games, however, to make it fair, we decided not to add them. It is also worth noting that some titles on the list were released before 2023.

Baldurs Gate 3, one of this years biggest hits from fellow RPG creators at Larian Studios, ranked 1st. Not only did it smash the charts on Steam and receive recognition from millions of players around the world, but it also won Game of the Year awards at the Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards.

The second-favorite game that Owlcat developers played this year was Cyberpunk 2077. In 2023, CD Projekt finally managed to win back players trust by releasing a massive update for the base game and successfully launching the Phantom Liberty expansion. The latter has already sold over 4.3 million copies,

Other 2023 releases on Owlcats list include Remedys award-winning survival horror title Alan Wake 2 (#4), Avalanche Softwares global bestseller Hogwarts Legacy (#6), and Mundfishs shooter Atomic Heart (#10).

The full top 10 can be seen below:

2023 was also a successful year for Owlcat Games. On December 7, the studio released Rogue Trader, a complex RPG set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Despite many bugs and other technical issues, the game peaked at over 46.7k concurrent players on Steam and became one of the top-grossing titles on the platform upon its launch.

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Owlcat devs rank top games they played in 2023, from BG3 and Cyberpunk 2077 to Disco Elysium and Dishonored - Game World Observer

When is the Best Time to Cruise the Caribbean? – Cruise Hive

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Caribbean cruises can be booked throughout the entire calendar year, but the best time to visit is from December to April. If youre looking for the best deals, book a cruise between May and November.

This time frame overlaps hurricane season for a few weeks, but if youre willing to take the risk, you can find significantly more affordable prices for cruises, tours, and on-shore excursions.

Lets take a closer look at everything you need to know to book your Caribbean cruise at the time thats best for you.

To understand the best time to enjoy a cruise in the Caribbean, you first need to know how the seasons in the region work. Essentially, this tropical climate experiences two noticeably different seasons the dry season and the wet season. As you may have guessed, these two seasons revolve around the amount of precipitation the region experiences during different times of the year.

Given the unpredictability of Caribbean weather, the dry season does not have a specific start and finish date, but it generally runs from early November until late April. During this stretch, temperatures tend to be relatively mild, while precipitation is at an annual minimum.

During the first half of the dry season, you can expect daily average temperatures to range somewhere between 70 F and 80 F. This means you can enjoy pleasantly warm temperatures and plenty of sunshine without risking the sweltering intensity of the summer heat.

During the back end of the dry season, meaning January until the end of April, average temperatures rise by a few degrees, but the skies usually remain clear.

When the dry season ends in late April, the wet season begins. May tends to be the informal beginning of the wet season, so temperatures increase alongside humidity levels.

The temperatures vary between the Southern Caribbean Islands, like St Lucia and St Vincent, and those in the Western Caribbean closer to the continental United States, like the Cayman Islands, St Maarten, or Jamaica, but you can expect the average daytime temperature to be around 91 F. As the name suggests, precipitation increases throughout the wet season, but showers are brief and sporadic during the first few months.

Once you reach July, you are at the very peak of the Caribbeans wet season, which means you can expect high temperatures, plenty of rain, and humidity levels that can be uncomfortable. During these mid to late summer months, the Caribbean is also at the greatest risk of experiencing tropical storms, multi-day rainfalls, and even hurricanes.

Given how the wet and dry seasons pan out, you are always better off booking your Caribbean cruise vacation during the calendars shoulder seasons, meaning late fall and early spring.

Read Also: When is the Best Time to Visit US Virgin Islands?

More specifically, you will want to favor the months of November and April when booking your trip. If you want to avoid hurricanes and tropical storms, we recommend April over November, but remember that November can be a pleasant time to enjoy a cruise in the region.

As you can tell from our breakdown of the wet and dry seasons, conditions tend to be at their most pleasant and calm right before the start of the wet season and shortly after it has concluded.

This gives you that perfect blend of warm and sunny weather while minimizing your risk of rainfall and severe storms. Nighttime temperatures are also pleasant during these months, rather than muggy and humid.

While there is always the risk of the occasional light rain shower when you are in the Caribbean, they tend to be fairly minimal during the late fall and early spring.

Beyond ensuring that you have a high chance of enjoying pleasant temperatures and minimal rainfall, the shoulder seasons are also an excellent time to book your vacation because of the calmer sea conditions.

Even though modern cruise ships are all designed for stability and passenger comfort, it is always more pleasant to be a passenger when traveling through calm seas.

Not only does it minimize seasickness and that unpleasant rocking motion some passengers find irritating, but the Caribbean Sea and its numerous coastlines are most beautiful when the turquoise water is perfectly still.

The Caribbean Sea is usually relatively calm during late fall and early spring. As you can imagine, this helps ensure all passengers enjoy a smoother, more relaxing cruising experience.

While it is possible to enjoy a pleasant cruising experience in the Caribbean throughout the year, it is generally understood that cruising during a summer month is the riskiest.

When you book a cruise that sets sail between August and September, you almost guarantee that you will travel during the peak of the wet season. This is also when the CCaribbeanshurricane season is in full swing.

Temperatures can be warm and enjoyable, but many people find that the humidity can be unpleasant. Rain is also more frequent, which can makeexcursions and exploring portsof call far less enjoyable.

If you choose to travel during peak hurricane season, there is also the risk that a hurricane or serious tropical storm will disrupt your cruise vacation.

This can mean your itinerary can be disrupted, or the cruise line will be forced to cancel the voyage entirely. Whilethis outcome is fairly unlikely, it can be a concern for those who cannot delay their trip due to work commitments.

This is one of the reasons why Caribbean cruises during the summer tend to be relatively affordable. Not only is there a higher risk of rainfall and high humidity levels, but you also risk trip disruptions due to storms and hurricanes. With that said, due to the lack of demand, fewer Caribbean cruises set sail during this time of year, which can increase costs and level them out.

While it may surprise you, some of themost affordable monthsof the year to cruise the Caribbean are some of the most pleasant months to travel in the region.

Tickets for cruises that set sail between January and March are usually among the most affordable. This is because these months and those between them are when demand is high enough to warrant an increased number of cruise voyages, but they miss the most pleasant months of November and April.

In other words, plenty of cruise lines offer Caribbean voyages during this period, but demand is lower than during the peak travel months. This increases the chances of scoring anamazing Caribbean cruise deal.

If you want tokeep costs to a minimum, it is also worth noting that you should try to avoid booking your trip for days that land near major holidays, like the week between Christmas and New Years Eve. This is because demand increases, which usually translates to higher prices for cruise ship tickets. March break should also be avoided, as many families with children try to book during this week.

Most experienced Caribbean cruisers will tell you to avoid the middle of the wet season. We tend to agree with this advice, as it helps you avoid the most unpleasant Caribbean weather.

Regarding our top picks, we almost always point towards November and April, as they provide the least precipitation, the calmest waters, and plenty of sunshine. These are also some of the most expensive months to travel, so you may want to pick some other time during the dry season.

Ultimately, thebest time to cruisethe Caribbean depends on your personal budget and preferences. If you hope to enjoy a cruise during a less ideal month to celebrate a particular occasion or life event, book your trip and enjoy yourself!

While it is true that certain months are better than others when it comes to reducing your risk of rain storms and unpleasant temperatures, the Caribbean Sea is a year-round cruising destination. As long as you have realistic weather expectations and areprepared for your trip, you will enjoy yourself!

In other words, dont get bogged down in the details! Book when it makes the most sense for you and your loved ones.

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When is the Best Time to Cruise the Caribbean? - Cruise Hive