Demo Patch 0.1.4 - Demo Feedback, Trading, Fuel, and Economy Tuning

This update is focused heavily on feedback from recent demo playtests. The big goal was to make the early game less brittle, make different playstyles more viable, clean up some rough UI/economy issues that were making trading and settlement play feel confusing or too easy to exploit.

Onboarding no longer pushes players into founding a settlement as the only “real” path forward. You can now progress through alternate objectives such as trading or exploration, so merchant-style and scout-style runs should feel more natural.Fuel also got an important fallback loop: colonists now generate biowaste, and biowaste can be converted into emergency Helion. Combined with better fuel hints and more reliable early-game fuel access, getting stranded should be less sudden and less dependent on pure RNG.Trading received a larger pass. The trading screen now has a Buy/Sell switch, category filtering, search, clearer price information, and better state handling after transactions. Market demand has also been expanded so more items have somewhere useful to go. I also fixed confusing pricing displays, including separating base unit value from base stack value.The economy has been rebalanced across several areas. Scan/research data rewards, ship module prices, mineral prices, and supply/demand effects were adjusted to reduce obvious money-printing loops while keeping trading useful.Other notable changes:

• Added in-game save deletion.

• Improved save safety and old-save loading.

• Increased shipyard availability.

• Adjusted difficulty starts, wages, and starter ship modules.

• Reduced water extraction output.

• Added better event cooldowns and conditions.

• Toned down unfair early lethal events.

• Fixed several trading modal, order, and interrupted ship action edge cases.

This patch should make the demo less “colony trap or merchant exploit simulator” and more “pick your poison, survive the stars.”

Have fun!

Szymon