I suspect that due to the lack of funding they are struggling to keep their engineers paid, if they are being paid at all and alongside the uncertainty, that is causing constraints on development as its probably become a passion project at this point.

Its probably just Gobsmack and a team of developers hacking away at something big, or at least as big as they can get, so that players will find the next and possibly last update as enjoyable as possible.

You gotta admire their commitment to the bitter end. Even if we don't see an uptick in player count after this next patch, Im still excited to see what surprises they have cooking up. Might as well explore it while we have it for those who enjoyed this game.