Update 0.16.0 — New Desert, Shipyard & Mortal Crew

Highlights: the new desert, the shipyard and the floor cutaway. The world is freshly generated (wadis, planted oases, steppe belts), the hull is built in the shipyard, cut parts look solid — and the game gains real survival stakes: the world's edge is deadly, your crew can die, and losing the cruiser ends the run.

⚠ Saves from 0.10.0 still load — but check three things after loading:

• Position: The outer edge of the world is now deadly hot. If your cruiser sits far out, it may be in the scorch zone — drive inward immediately.
• Ammo: Existing ammo counts as 20 mm. Flak (80 mm) and artillery (180 mm) run dry until you produce the new calibers.
• Four modules are gone after loading: Phalanx, Flak Cannon, Artillery System and the old catch-all generator. Rebuild the replacements (Phalanx Mk. 3, Flak Mk. 5, Artillery Mk. 4, three new generators) — they don't take their place automatically.

Because the world was regenerated, the landscape around a saved location may look different than when you saved.

⭐ New

• Crew can die. Anyone who starves, dehydrates or is too badly wounded dies for good — gone even after loading; from the second loss on it's counted
• Settlements in the desert where you can recruit new crew. A marker shows the offer; the window names the applicant and the distance at which the offer closes again
• The world's edge is deadly. A wide band of heat rises day and night until nothing survives; the warning names the direction to escape
• Losing the cruiser ends the run. If more than half of the structure is destroyed for two seconds, the drive is over — from then on nothing is saved, so your last good save stays
• Ammo comes in three calibers — 20 mm (point defense), 80 mm (flak), 180 mm (artillery). Before, every weapon drew from the same pool
• Three new generators: Diesel, Twin Diesel and Turbine replace the old catch-all generator
• Swarm columns migrate between the nests — traveling across the desert over minutes, a contact of their own on map/recon, interceptable or avoidable
• Turrets recoil when they fire — the barrel kicks back and springs softly to rest; multi-part barrels telescope into each other
• Multi-barrel turrets fire from their barrels in turn (round, muzzle flash and recoil switch barrel shot to shot)
• The steppe belt around the oases is planted (grasses, thornbushes, cacti) — the cruiser flattens them instead of snagging
• A scan reveals which deposit a nest guards (how much is there still comes only from drilling)
• The main menu names the development stage + version number and what it means for scope/stability/saves

⚙ Changed

• Three turrets replaced: Phalanx, Flak Cannon and Artillery System are now Phalanx Mk. 3, Flak Mk. 5, Artillery Mk. 4 — thoroughly reworked: heavier, hittable, destructible. The old ones are gone from the catalog
• The artillery traverses and lays slower
• Many modules weigh differently (computed from the actual model): tanks/containers much heavier, some furnishings lighter — on existing ships this shifts weight, drive load and tip stability

🔧 Improved

• In the shipyard the world stands still. Wear, time, hunger and thirst don't run while you build — a long rebuild no longer costs supplies or a day
• Build mode is now the shipyard. Outside it the hull is welded solid; you change walls/floors/track units in the shipyard, modules/furnishings in colony mode
• The floor cutaway shows closed cut faces — cut walls/floors/stairs look solid instead of hollow, readable day and night
• The periscope shows the world — terrain, ships and sky are really visible in the round view
• Many modules got their own model instead of a placeholder (bed, galley, sickbed, shower, dining table, chair, fire pit, butcher bench, hydroponics, fermenter, nutrient mixer, water collector, battery, the three generators)
• Battles with several ships run smoothly — craters/fires/smoke cost less, damage work spreads over several frames
• Distant ships are merged into one piece (yours too, once you zoom out) — damage/bullet holes stay visible
• Fire and smoke of burning ships are visible at combat range (before they ended after a few hundred meters)
• The desert has pronounced wadis — channels that shape driving routes; slopes taper softly instead of breaking off sharply
• The salt pans slope into the sand instead of dropping as an up-to-75 m vertical wall; outlines are contiguous (rock flanks stay steep)
• Oases no longer sit bare in the dune — a steppe belt wraps each one; the growth fills the whole basin (green at the core to dead wood at the rim)
• Recon separates how much you know — located / identified / scanned, with estimated swarm strength; without a fix the bearing shows in the range field
• The periscope's sector list now names nests and swarms too (before, everything was "unknown contact")
• A scan survives a brief loss of contact (it used to have to be paid for again)
• The build step is 10 cm everywhere (before, only in colony mode)
• Between the track band and the stand-in body there's now another track level in full detail — the zoom transition stands out less
• Contact labels stick to their ships while panning
• Labels stay readable when many pile up (stacked); how much you know is shown by shape instead of color
• Brief hints appear only after a short delay and vanish as you move on

🐛 Fixed

• About 130 labels stayed German in English — crew/build/combat windows, recipe picker (fully missing), menus, map legend, wiki, shipyard/drive/colony buttons, recruitment, crew-loss messages, nest recon, scorch-edge warnings
• Found wrecks survive saving (discovery, sighting, salvage state, range, cargo) — the 0.10.0 point is resolved
• A save could delete all discovered wrecks (in the short window with an empty map) — unrecoverable
• The crew hauled ammo endlessly between turrets — a scarce stock is now spread evenly, then the trips settle
• The frame rate dropped when zooming in on burning ships — the damage system now batches its work
• Bullet holes and the floor cutaway now appear on the filler pieces between walls too
• You could drive off the map edge — there's now an invisible wall behind the heat band
• Sun and moon jumped visibly instead of moving
• Entering and leaving the shipyard via the main menu left you in a pitch-black world — the sun didn't come back
• The combat alert dragged its state from the main menu into the session; the fade-out delay now works
• Saved volumes didn't apply at startup (only after moving a slider)
• The heat shimmer always ran at full strength (even at night) — it now follows the temperature
• Floor stacks in the cruiser were drawn twice when starting via the main menu
• A rare math error in the track drive could put a ship in an invalid state — it's now caught
• A floor couldn't be placed flush against an edge (outline green, click did nothing) — a tolerance 7000× too tight counted flush edges as a conflict
• A rejected placement now says why (blocking part marked red + the reason)
• Beveled parts stay full height at the opposite edge
• Trees in oases stood as bare trunks; growth was missing on some tiles; trees/rocks vanished with their crown still on screen — all three fixed
• The ribbed rock ridges sat half below the ground
• A harvest drone stalled when there was nothing left at its target — it now returns with its partial cargo

⚠ Known Issues

• Turret fire doesn't sound positional — equally loud everywhere, audible well beyond combat range
• Oasis trees also snap under the cruiser like brush instead of stopping it
• A track unit behind a hull or hill is still drawn in full
• The remaining points from 0.10.0 still apply

🧪 Please test

Focus this time: the new desert (wadis/oases, the deadly edge), the new survival rules (crew dying/recruiting, losing the cruiser) and the shipyard. Feedback in our Discord — tell us what's broken.