Hello SectorLords!
As promised earlier in the week, the content patch is here. This is not THE major content patch this summer, that's coming in a couple of weeks and will be followed up with an announcement post. With this patch, I do recommend that you start a new game in order to properly enjoy the new content, and definitely do start a new game if you are turn 9000+ as some of you have undoubtedly run into the wall-o-pirates respawn issue by then.
What's new:
Federation Capital is now accessible in Sector 1 via the LAND command. The Citadel Construction Yard and Federation HQ are currently offlimits to pilots. The Federation University is accessible and researchers there are awaiting for reports on anomalies in the quadrant, however the endgame gameplay from research completion will be LOCKED until closer to 1.0 launch just to keep some things secret.
The Guild Bank is available with functions are described in the previous announcement.
Black Market spawn rate increased, there should be inbetween 5-10 Blackmarket hubs per game.
Promotion Charges now refund upon Captain death.
There are several new triggerable combat events.
Combat has been rebalanced with Fleet combats less punishing and 1v1 and wingman combat diffculty bumped up.
Numerous major/minor bugfixes
Steam Deck/Linux Beta Branch is updated with the latest build. This will not be promoted into production until I receive more reports, but it looks like at least Steam Deck users will be able to play without issues.