Here it is: our first monthly devlog summary for September 2025!
September was all about gateways! After a short summer break, Michi returned to the office ready to dive back into one of the biggest technical additions to Prosperous Universe: gateways. These will eventually allow ships to traverse huge distances apart from the established FTL connections, but there’s a lot of groundwork to lay before that becomes reality.
The month started quietly as Michi got back up to speed, integrating the new “gateway address” system into the flight model. This technical step ensures gateways fit naturally into the existing pathfinding and mission systems. With that foundation in place, he moved on to make the first successful gateway jump, traveling between two previously linked gateways. Early tests showed the navigation system adapting dynamically as gateway conditions changed, like operational status or link availability.
Once the basics were working, it was time to dive into the details. Michi added proper checks to make sure ships only attempt a jump if the gateway is ready: things like ensuring there’s enough vortex fuel, the gateway link is established, and the player has the funds to pay the gateway fee. Flights now “pause” mid-mission while verifying all of these conditions. If one is not met, the flight will be aborted at the gateway and the player will receive a notification.
From there, the focus shifted to testing edge cases and putting the system through its paces. Michi caught a sneaky bug where ships starting directly at a gateway could get stuck in limbo if a jump failed right away. That’s now fixed, and the whole process of communicating between ship and gateway has become much more robust. With everything working locally, it’s getting closer to being ready for testing on the test server.
There were also new visuals showing off multi-gateway routes, including a trip from Umbra to Griffonstone via Etherwind, showing how multiple LOCK - GTW - DCAY flight segments string together.
With gateways:
Without gateways:
On the economic side, gateway fees now properly flow into the accounting system. Operators (currently only governments) receive revenue from fees, while companies see them listed as expenses.
Finally, work has begun on a new Steam client build! The update is meant to improve usability (especially tiny fonts) and boost visibility on Steam. We'll likely see a release in October.
Of course, the new economic report for September is out as well. This time, besides the usual one-month timeframe, we can also show pretty graphs for a three-month timeframe.
Click the image for the full report
You can find the individual devlogs here:
- Back to Work - Development Log #496
- Opening the Gates - Development Log #497
- Traffic Control - Development Log #498
- Putting the Pieces Together - Development Log #499
As always, we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!