Stardeus · experimental, public · first seen
Hey everyone, Stardeus v0.15 is live! This update has been in the works for over a year. It is the longest and by far the biggest update Stardeus has ever had: more than 1,500 changes, and there is hardly a system in the game that wasn't rebuilt, reworked or expanded. Quests, a Rogue AI path with its own endings, diplomacy, completely reworked ship and ground combat, a brand new interface and a whole new look for the ship. Here is a tour of the highlights.
The ship has never looked this good. Light now behaves like light: walls cast shadows, light pours through open doors and windows and fades softly at its edges, and bright lamps, lit floors and effects glow. Explosions and gunfire flash across the room and send out shockwave rings. Lamps flicker when power runs short or a storm passes by, and the whole ship pulses red while an Emergency Siren wails. Damaged floors, walls and devices show cracks, scratches and soot, freezing rooms frost over, overheated rooms glow red, and hot air shimmers with heat distortion. When the Ship Computer itself takes damage, your view glitches and loses its color. Everything got crisp ink outlines. Plants sway as colonists brush past them, colonists and pets bob as they walk, the injured squirm where they lie, and if you watch your colonists closely enough, you'll catch them blinking. Zoom out and the ship turns into a solid hull of armored plating in one of three styles, with floors that show their thickness. Space itself changed too: the nebula takes on the color of the sector's danger and flashes with storms. All derelict ships were redrawn, there are new Armored Floors, new clothing and suit colors, and ship battles got hit explosions, rippling shields and missed shots that fly on past their target. Most of the new effects have their own toggles in the settings.
Every screen in the game was rebuilt. Pick one of 6 UI Themes (including "Legacy", the darker purple look of older versions) or make your own. Quick Search finds anything in the game and jumps right to it. The Notification Hub groups alerts and warnings so the important ones stand out. The Ship Computer now has Apps, a single home for every costlony management screen: Diplomacy, Production, Log, Situation, Policies, Job Matrix, Combat Controls, Battle Stations, Notes and Paint. The Codex was rebuilt from scratch with video tutorials, charts and search. New Airtightness and Insulation overlays find the leaky and cold rooms for you. Key bindings were reworked so many more actions can be bound, AZERTY keyboards included. And the main menu now plays a live demo of your last save in the background.
Stardeus finally has quests, and lots of them. The ships and stations you meet have work for you, from quick errands to dangerous hunts, and your own colonists will come to you with personal requests, some of them sweet, some of them strange. The more dangerous the sector, the bigger the reward. There is also a new way to finish the game: Silence the Sentinel.
The new default scenario, New Beginning, is a gentler start. A tutorial quest chain walks you through the early game one step at a time, and the interface opens up as you go. Veterans can skip the whole chain with a single click, or untick Gradual UI Reveal next to Embark to have the full interface from the start.
Story events start later and come less often, so the first days are about building. Quick Start asks whether you're new to colony sims and picks the difficulty for you, and Peaceful now means no raids or heavy disasters at all. If everyone in the colony ends up unable to work, a distress beacon calls in a rescue pod.
Randomly generated ships got new hull shapes, some of them asymmetric, with interiors that mix large halls, rooms and closets along corridors.
The Stasis Array now has a Manifest. Everyone asleep in it is a specific person with a name, a backstory and skills, and you decide who to wake up next. In Custom Start you can reroll or rename each of them before the game begins. Wake-ups are announced in advance, the freshly woken suffer from Cryo Sickness, and you can put colonists back to sleep. But keep the array stable: unstable stasis harms its sleepers and can kill them.
AI Alignment is now Trust, and it depends on what you, the ship's AI, do. Putting a colonist's friend into stasis, waking them up, installing Obey Chips or holding funerals all leave a mark. Only distrustful colonists join a mutiny, and a crew that trusts you will stop one from starting. Skills were reworked from the ground up. Colonists start with a few strong skills, an expert works several times faster than a novice, skills go up to 25, and they slowly fade without use. Set job priorities from 1 to 5 for every colonist in the new Job Matrix. Colonists also have 18 new ways to lose it (sabotage, arson, lockdowns, tantrums, streaking and more), new traits like Thrifty, Fastidious, Minimalist, Wimp and Stoic, vegan and carnivore food preferences, a dislike for wearing a dead man's gear, and they get bored of doing the same fun thing over and over.
Ground combat was rebuilt around cover, suppression, stuns and fleeing. Shots fly on past a miss and hit whoever stands in the line of fire, friends included. Shooters keep their distance and pick firing spots behind cover, like the new Sandbags. Most fights now end with beings downed from pain or system shock rather than dead, which leaves time for a rescue. Armor was reworked so better armor really matters. Arm your crew with an SMG, Sniper Rifle, Nail Gun, Vibroblade, Machete, Stun Baton, Riot Shield or the robot-wrecking Ion Disruptor, and suit them up in Combat, Assault or Power Armor. You will need it: raiders got a lot smarter, and the richer your ship grows, the bigger a target it becomes. When their army is broken, they flee. Drafted units get Hold Fire, a visible weapon range and hit chances on hover, while undrafted colonists keep working and only fight what is within their reach.
Ship combat was rebuilt around Battle Stations and flux. A single Battle Station controls several ship weapons of the same type, and you can control them with F1 to F10. Every shot you fire and every hit your shields take builds up flux: vent it in time, or overload and ride it out. The new Flux Vent and Weapon Capacity Upgrade help you push your setup further. Battles are faster, and NPC ships pick their own strategies. Law enforcement can come to your aid against pirates, and you can join an ongoing battle between NPC ships by picking a side.
For the first time, you can form alliances with other factions. Win a faction over with trade, gifts and quests, and once they like you enough, propose an alliance. Allies send reinforcements into your ship battles, and diplomacy shapes raids, trade and whose deposits you can mine in peace. Rescued survivors of friendly factions stay aboard as guests until you send them home for payment and standing.
A normal ship AI manages people. A Rogue AI manages assets. Take the Virus up on its offer and install the Asimov Override, and a whole new research tree opens up. Feed your colonists through tubes, bend them to your will with Obey Chips and a Beta Wave Emitter, rip the brain out of a living colonist, hack hostile robots into joining you, turn hailing an NPC ship into an attack, and turn the Stasis Array into Elysium, where the sleepers produce electricity and biomass. The path has its own devices and its own endings. Just know that raids grow stronger the deeper you go.
Operations can now fail, and when they do, a body part can be wounded, crippled, destroyed or welded in place, the patient can get an infection or even die. Surgical Fatigue builds up with repeated operations on the same body. Failing kidneys slowly poison the blood, and new implants like the Mood Regulator and the Pain Inhibitor join the lineup. Crawlers have brains that can be transplanted, every bot and animal species shows its own body parts, and dead bodies rot and corrode over time.
Running a big ship got a lot smoother. Save a ship plan to a file and load it into another game. Large orders are built in waves so they don't leave loose ship sections, higher priority tasks get materials first, and hovering a task for 3 seconds boosts it. Haulers bring materials for many floors and walls in one trip, Nanobots can haul, refuel and replace tiles, and you can order several upgrades for the same device without waiting for each one to be installed.
Find a Game Cartridge and your Ship Computer can play remakes of some classic games. Give your Ship Computer a name when starting a new game. Voice Alerts call out critical events. There are 46 new achievements to hunt, and Halloween Decorations that can be built every year from October 1 to November 7, so they are up for grabs right now.
The map rendering system was rewritten, which opens the door for multiple maps and planet surfaces in future updates. Pathfinding, AI, atmosphere and large end-game ships all got faster, and the game starts up much faster.
JSON files support comments, and typos or invalid fields now show errors instead of failing silently. Every Core config has a JSON schema, mods can patch other mods, and patches apply in mod dependency order. You can build your own UI themes, hull styles and body part looks, define gameplay curves in their own files, override core translations, run C# snippets against a live game with the script console command, and create a new mod with mod create. Uploading to the Steam Workshop is simpler too.
Saves from v0.14 can't be loaded in v0.15. To finish an older game, switch to the v0_14_x branch: right-click Stardeus in your Steam Library, select Properties, open Game Versions & Betas and pick v0_14_x. Some mods may need an update for v0.15. Mods that are known to no longer work are disabled automatically, and newly added mods start out disabled.
Thank you to everyone who played the experimental builds, sent bug reports and feedback, translated the game and kept the community going while this update took shape. The full list of changes is provided below. I hope you have a great time with v0.15!
v0.15.0 (2026.10.29)
- [Major] New Quests System
- [Major] New UI
- [Major] Add new default scenario for a less stressful start: New Beginning
- [Major] Rework Ship Combat around Battle Stations and Flux management
- [Major] Rework ground combat (cover, suppression, stun, fleeing)
- [Major] Rework surgeries, body part operations can now fail
- [Major] Add Rogue AI path with its own research tree, devices and endings
- [Major] Add Diplomacy system with faction alliances
- [Feature] Add tutorial quest chain that guides through the early game
- [Feature] Add personal quests given by colonists (pets, personal quarters, beds, devices, stashes, crushes, revenge hunts, experiments)
- [Feature] Add passenger delivery quests
- [Feature] Add bounty hunt quests for NPC ships
- [Feature] Add scavenge, delivery and resource mining errands
- [Feature] Add ship race quest to recover the loot from a point of interest
- [Feature] Migrate trade signals from story events to the new quest system
- [Feature] Add new alternative end game quest: Silence the Sentinel
- [Feature] Add new upgrade: Signal Amplifier
- [Feature] Add a Manifest to the Stasis Array, everyone asleep in it is now a specific person you wake up by choice
- [Feature] Unstable stasis harms and can kill sleepers over time
- [Feature] Stasis wake-ups are now announced in advance
- [Feature] Custom Start lists everyone in stasis, each of them can be rerolled or renamed before the game starts
- [Feature] Allow putting colonists back into stasis (if stability >= 90% or have Asimov's Override)
- [Feature] Add "Cryo Sickness" condition for colonists who just woke up from stasis
- [Feature] A distress beacon calls in a rescue pod when nobody in the colony is able to work any more
- [Feature] Add Voice Alerts: spoken callouts for critical events, toggleable in Audio settings
- [Feature] Add 46 new achievements
- [Feature] Add Beta Waves research and Beta Wave Emitter, which forces every biological colonist aboard to obey
- [Feature] Add new trait: Beta Wave Resistant, granting immunity to remote mind control
- [Feature] Add new research: Cortical Override, making brain extraction from a living colonist far more likely to succeed
- [Feature] Add new research: Signal Intrusion, allowing hostile robotic beings to be hacked into joining your faction
- [Feature] Add Intrusion Suite research and device, which turns hailing an NPC ship into an attack
- [Feature] Add Nutrient Infusion research, Tube Feeder now feeds colonists directly from a piped nutrient supply
- [Feature] Add new research: Elysium Electricity Production and Biomass Harvesting
- [Feature] Add new Security research branch for personal weapons and protective gear
- [Feature] Add new weapons: SMG, Sniper Rifle, Nail Gun, Vibroblade, Machete, Stun Baton and Riot Shield
- [Feature] Add Combat Armor research with Combat Helmet and Combat Suit
- [Feature] Implement combat stun chances per weapon
- [Feature] Enemies will flee towards the map edge once their army is broken
- [Feature] Ships defeated in combat leave hostile crew remnants on their derelict (dead, wounded and unharmed)
- [Feature] Add new device: Battle Station, which allows controlling several ship weapons of the same type from one workstation
- [Feature] Add new device: Flux Vent that increases flux vent rate
- [Feature] Add new research and device: Sector Nuke, a single use weapon that obliterates the entire sector
- [Feature] Add new upgrade: Weapon Capacity Upgrade
- [Feature] Ship weapons and shields will support Speed Upgrade
- [Feature] Thruster Upgrade will increase the range of Maneuvering Controller
- [Feature] NPC ships will be able to join player's ship combat as an ally (first use case - law enforcement officers will help you fight pirates)
- [Feature] Player can now join an ongoing NPC ship to ship battle by picking a side
- [Feature] NPC ships will pick their own flux and target selection strategies
- [Feature] Add Resonance Charge: an explosive that instantly deconstructs a ship section
- [Feature] Asteroids break up into smaller fragments when shot or when they hit the shield
- [Feature] Add Surgical Fatigue that builds up with repeated operations on the same body and recovers over time
- [Feature] Failed operations can wound, cripple, destroy or weld body parts, infect the body or kill the patient
- [Feature] Crawlers now have a brain that can be extracted and transplanted
- [Feature] Add Mood Regulator implant
- [Feature] Every bot and animal species will have their own body part visuals
- [Feature] Add 18 new mental breakdowns (sabotage, arson, lockdowns, tantrums, streaking and more)
- [Feature] Add 3 new story events for the deserter to return back to the ship
- [Feature] Add new story events for finding damaged bots on expeditions
- [Feature] Add Clown Raid story event and a rare Clown Costume
- [Feature] Colonists dislike wearing second-hand, tattered or dead people's gear
- [Feature] Add Thrifty and Fastidious traits
- [Feature] Add "Minimalist" trait (prefers compact personal quarters, 3-9 tiles large)
- [Feature] Implement Vegan / Carnivore trait food preference and buffs / debuffs
- [Feature] Repeating the same fun activity gives less fun, so beings seek variety
- [Feature] Add Nowhere to eat / Nowhere to drink debuffs for failing to find a safe spot to eat or drink
- [Feature] Some conditions (diseases, depression) will prevent colonists from taking colony tasks (unless forced)
- [Feature] Crawlers will be able to feed themselves using regular food
- [Feature] Rescued survivors of friendly factions stay as guests and can be sent home for payment and standing
- [Feature] Add "Guest" door permission for non-hostile passengers of other factions
- [Feature] Nanobots can haul materials (same room or outdoors), refuel devices and replace tiles
- [Feature] Dead bodies will rot and corrode over time, degrading the body parts inside them
- [Feature] Add Scrap Metal, produced by deconstructing metal structures (Demolition skill reduces the loss)
- [Feature] Allow ordering multiple upgrades on the same device without waiting for the previous upgrade to be installed
- [Feature] Add "Destruction Level" modifier for Wrecked scenario
- [Feature] Add Game Cartridges, rare upgrades that unlock Ship Computer minigames (Snake, Breakout, Stacker, 2048)
- [Feature] Allow naming the Ship Computer when setting up a new game
- [Feature] Ship plans can now be saved to a file and loaded into another game
- [Feature] Hovering a task for 3 seconds boosts it and retries it if it failed
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps, a single place for all colony management screens
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Diplomacy for managing relationships and alliances with factions
- [Feature] Implement various diplomacy effects for ship combat reinforcements, raids, trade, mining owned deposits, etc
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Production, tracking material and object production / consumption over time
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Log with a searchable history of notifications and story events
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Situation with a detailed breakdown of the colony state
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Policies with Equipment Policies
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Notes for leaving yourself notes
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Paint for tinting objects and floors
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Job Matrix for managing job priorities of the entire colony
- [Feature] Add Ship Computer > Apps > Combat Controls for drafting units and setting their Combat Reaction from one list
- [Feature] Add support for time-locked seasonal content
- [Feature] Time-lock "Halloween Decorations" (October 1 - November 7)
- [Feature] AI Alignment is now Trust, shaped by what the AI does to colonists and their friends instead of Sanity
- [Feature] Trust decides mutinies: only distrustful colonists join, and a trusting crew stops one from starting
- [Feature] Set job priorities from 1 to 5 for colonists too, workers take tasks of their highest priority jobs first
- [Feature] Badly hurt beings go down from pain shock, robots from system shock
- [Feature] Add the Pain Inhibitor implant and the Wimp and Stoic traits
- [Feature] Missing or failing kidneys slowly poison the blood and damage organs instead of killing instantly
- [Feature] Add Sandbags: cheap cover that is slow to climb over, buildable from the start
- [Feature] Shots fly on and can hit whoever stands in the line of fire, friends included
- [Feature] Some raids gather at the edge of the map and attack together
- [Feature] Badly wounded colonists leave the fight to get treated, unless drafted
- [Feature] Colonists near your robots direct their fire, making them more accurate
- [Feature] Virus and Sentinel raids can bring humans controlled by robot minds
- [Feature] Add the Ion Disruptor, a heavy energy weapon that hits robots extra hard
- [Feature] Add Assault Armor and Power Armor with matching helmets, the toughest armor for humans
- [Feature] Animals with an Obey Chip take direct orders and can be drafted
- [Feature] Add Armored Floors in several designs (plain, angled and lit), unlocked by Armored Structure research
- [Feature] Random ships get new hull shapes and interiors that mix large halls, rooms and closets along corridors
- [Feature] Outlaw traders deal in people after Black Market research
- [Feature] Deep Scan can focus on a chosen resource, with better odds after each miss
- [Feature] Add Long Range Connector research with a new Connector 4-20
- [Feature] With the Auto Connect Upgrade, a new connector also connects the unpowered devices around it
- [Feature] Bot Docks get a Work Radius that keeps their bot's tasks close to the dock
- [Balance] Attempting to install ObeyChip into human subjects now violates Asimov's 1st law
- [Balance] Ship size will have an effect on ship evade % bonus given by thrusters
- [Balance] Thruster evade bonus requires a Bridge Controls operator, whose piloting skill adds up to 15%
- [Balance] Make ship combat faster (shorter weapon charge times, reworked flux venting)
- [Balance] Destroyed devices will absorb some of the hull damage
- [Balance] Flux overload will grant an armor bonus that reduces hull damage
- [Balance] Rebalance NPC ships (less health, fewer engines, better flux balance, always armed, no hyperjump escapes)
- [Balance] Game difficulty strongly affects NPC ship loadouts, late game encounters are easier
- [Balance] Rebalance ship class points and make ship class unlocks more expensive
- [Balance] Rework raid strength and composition around colony wealth
- [Balance] Map edge raids can bring humans in jet suits and bots on mini jets
- [Balance] Raids come less often and less on schedule, some get skipped in favor of a stronger one later
- [Balance] Raids now grow stronger the deeper you commit to the Rogue AI research tree
- [Balance] Story events start later and come less often, so the opening days are about building
- [Balance] Rework Chaos story generator to be more brutal
- [Balance] Slow down colony growth (less frequent stasis wake-ups and newcomer events)
- [Balance] Reduce Stasis Array capacity to 30 (was 100), scenarios start with 15 sleepers plus a few pets
- [Balance] Stasis Arrays use more power per sleeper
- [Balance] A destroyed Stasis Array ejects fewer survivors, the rest are lost
- [Balance] People in stasis no longer age
- [Balance] Friendly fights are shorter (6 hours max, was 12) and hurt sanity less (-6, was -12)
- [Balance] Friendly beings will no longer chase fleeing enemy raiders
- [Balance] Sanity follows mood about 5x faster
- [Balance] Rebalance mental breakdowns and allow retrying lower tier breakdowns
- [Balance] Remove the mechanic that made beings ignore their own safety at very low sanity
- [Balance] Softer mood shocks: dead bodies -5 each (was -10), Psychic Storm -5 (was -7), on fire -20 (was -50), grief halved
- [Balance] Optimist and Pessimist give a mood of their own, +3 and -3 (was +1 and -1 on every other mood)
- [Balance] Relationship statuses are soft-capped by affinity and attraction, which are now hidden outside sandbox
- [Balance] Unlock more research upfront
- [Balance] Increase expedition mining, shuttle and copter speed
- [Balance] Double the hyperjump speed
- [Balance] Allow hyperjumps when some of the engines are discharged
- [Balance] Expeditions need a working Radar
- [Balance] Deep scans are weaker and their number depends on the difficulty level
- [Balance] Radar scanning finds resources closer to the current region first, but base scan speed is 4x slower
- [Balance] Resource deposit mining output depends on difficulty (was always 100 per kilometer)
- [Balance] Increase default Beam Drill max depth to 4km (was 500m)
- [Balance] Make Crude Oil and Gold deposits slightly less difficult to find
- [Balance] Adjust starting resources for all scenarios
- [Balance] Transistors will now be part of Online Shop inventory
- [Balance] Adjust merchant markups for upgrades and make trader cash reserves more varied
- [Balance] Merchants pay less for second-hand and dead man's gear
- [Balance] Rebalance Rock grinding outputs and Rock price
- [Balance] Enriched Uranium now requires 10 Water to produce (was 1)
- [Balance] Rebalance device costs so low tier devices don't require high tier materials
- [Balance] Reduce material cost of 2x2 and 3x3 Solar Panels
- [Balance] Scale quest rewards, mining amounts and bounty targets to sector difficulty and player strength
- [Balance] Add global cooldown support for NPC ship reactions (mainly to stop NPCs asking for fuel too frequently)
- [Balance] Adjust faction attitude changes for multiple events
- [Balance] Reduce frequency of Stasis Pod and Storage Capsule events
- [Balance] Stasis Pod events bring fewer dead travelers and rotten corpses
- [Balance] Reduce the default amount of wreckage at easier difficulty levels
- [Balance] Spawn more exciting derelict ships, with a much higher chance of finding a Particle Collector
- [Balance] Don't spawn Cargo Copters / Autodrill Rigs on derelicts before they can be used
- [Balance] Items on derelicts, asteroid loot and weapons dropped by incapacitated beings are automatically forbidden
- [Balance] Change crafting device <-> recipe mappings to make items that have Quality handmade in Crafting Stations
- [Balance] Balance production times and the energy cost of producing body parts
- [Balance] Meteoroid showers hit in several waves, stronger on higher difficulties and in dangerous sectors
- [Balance] Permanent Magnetic Storms appear in fewer sector types and deter NPC ships from combat
- [Balance] Each kind of space event has its own chance to happen in a sector, so some sectors no longer go quiet
- [Balance] Increase duration and strength of Comet Shower sanity buff
- [Balance] Fire is more dangerous (depends on difficulty), burning devices can't be worked on until extinguished
- [Balance] Extinguished fires no longer reignite until every fire has been put out
- [Balance] Explosions now spread through open doors
- [Balance] Fluid Cannons need to spin up and no longer instantly put out a fire in its early growth phase
- [Balance] Oxygen and heat spread 4x faster
- [Balance] Reduce chance of clashing expedition events such as romantic expedition + fist fight
- [Balance] Make bots more likely to go for a recharge when the battery is low
- [Balance] Increase operating speed of Radiator / CoolMatic Floor
- [Balance] Heaters / Coolers now stop consuming power once their own tile is within 1C of target temperature
- [Balance] ML Booth accepts and heals damaged brains / cores, but trains 5x slower by default
- [Balance] Adjust Long Sleeper / Short Sleeper traits (sleep duration change 25%->15%)
- [Balance] Bridge Controls, Battle Station, Surgery Hub and Assembly Hub default to job priority 4 (was 3)
- [Balance] Make Asimov Override Upgrade impossible to remove
- [Balance] "Rotate ship / section" will only consume the engine's charge if the maneuver succeeded
- [Balance] Disallow local maneuvering into corner zones, allow it inside no-fly zones for sections already there
- [Balance] Increase Maneuvering Controller range
- [Balance] Remove winching restriction during fire, combat and incoming flying objects
- [Balance] Close Stasis Pod merchant loopholes (disassembling the pod, raids on demand)
- [Balance] Mutiny story event will require at least 3 mutineers
- [Balance] Guns reach 1.5x farther and keep more of their accuracy at long range, Mini Turrets reach 16 tiles (was 10)
- [Balance] Rework armor: better armor protects much more, softens hits from every weapon, and every weapon pierces part of it
- [Balance] Armor only slows its wearer while it shows: outdoors, drafted or in combat
- [Balance] Most fights end with beings downed rather than dead, giving time for a rescue
- [Balance] Rebalance bleeding: small cuts clot on their own, and pets bleed like people
- [Balance] Scars are much rarer, and each scar lowers body part quality
- [Balance] Robots can't use heavy weapons like Sniper Rifles, Energy Rifles and Vibroblades unless the Asimov Override is installed
- [Balance] Raiders always come armed, with better weapons and armor the bigger the raid
- [Balance] Raids ease off for a while after crew deaths or downings, and grow slowly over a long run without losses
- [Balance] Rework skills: colonists start with a few strong skills, skills grow slower unless the colonist loves the job, go up to 25 and fade above 10 without use
- [Balance] Skill matters much more for work speed, shooting and melee, loving a job no longer speeds up the work
- [Balance] Crafting skill decides item quality, a colonist's mood only nudges it
- [Balance] Difficulty only changes colonists' resting mood, not the chance of mental breakdowns
- [Balance] Rebalance build, deconstruction and repair times: basic floors and walls are faster, most devices take longer
- [Balance] Damaged floors and walls left unrepaired collapse more often, collapses are not rebuilt automatically in the first 30 days
- [Balance] Deconstruction leaves fewer, bigger piles: materials join a nearby pile of the same kind
- [Balance] Expedition loot and signal offers follow sector difficulty instead of your wealth, rare items only show up in harder sectors
- [Balance] Relaxing and Peaceful have as many story events as Balanced but smaller ones, Peaceful has no raids or heavy disasters
- [Balance] Starting ships are smaller in every scenario
- [Balance] New games start in one of the easiest (green) regions of the universe
- [Balance] Reduce Energy Connector range to 12 (was 20)
- [Balance] The Online Shop sells Uranium, Silver and Platinum
- [Balance] Early and mid game research needs fewer Nuclear Datoids
- [Tech] Upgrade Unity to 6.5
- [Tech] Rewrite map rendering system to decouple it from Unity layers (unlocks possibilities for multi map / planet surface support in future updates)
- [Tech] Change fastest clock speed from 10x to 6x (can be restored via mod)
- [Tech] Improve display and vsync handling (laptops, switching displays, different refresh rates)
- [Tech] Downscale save / feedback screenshots if they exceed Full HD resolution
- [Tech] Clean up leftover backup files of deleted saves that kept taking disk and Steam Cloud space
- [Tech] Move third party libraries into embedded packages
- [Tech] Validate StreamingAssets integrity on startup and warn about a broken installation
- [Tech] Fix Steam could keep showing the game as running after exit when a link or folder was opened from it
- [AI] Build and deconstruct large orders in waves to avoid creating loose ship sections
- [AI] Higher priority tasks get partial material deliveries first when materials are short
- [AI] Mass-deconstructing derelicts in the no-fly zone is faster, with an option to keep objects
- [AI] Allow critically low Fun need to interrupt work to prevent depression
- [AI] Beings will automatically undraft once combat is over
- [AI] Improve pathfinding accuracy
- [AI] Undrafted colonists and robots keep working through raids, fighting only enemies within reach and fleeing only from those close by
- [AI] Shooters keep their distance and pick firing spots behind cover instead of walking up to their targets
- [AI] Enemies and the crew no longer walk through each other in a fight, and fighters spread out over firing spots and cover
- [AI] Drafted units move at full speed on move orders, which also cancel their attack orders
- [AI] When a raid threatens, colonists allowed to auto-equip weapons go get the best one right away
- [AI] Raiders break through the door that leads to the crew, and stop when another way in opens
- [AI] Forbidden items are left alone: the crew won't haul, build, craft or eat with them ("Forbid Storing" is now "Forbid")
- [AI] Workers no longer pick tasks, storages, beds, docks or gear behind doors they may not pass
- [AI] Workers pick nearer tasks and get to work faster after big orders
- [AI] Haulers bring materials for many nearby floors and walls in one trip, and deliver to higher priority storages first
- [AI] Storages only auto-haul things within 10 tiles of their ship section, order the rest with Store
- [AI] Cleaners finish the room they are in before moving on to dirt in other rooms
- [Performance] Optimize pathfinding, AI planner, AI auction, atmosphere simulation and flood fill jobs
- [Performance] Optimize performance bottlenecks with large end-game ships
- [Performance] Render long lists in the UI virtually instead of spawning every row
- [Performance] Internalize core sounds for faster startup time
- [Performance] Speed up the game start and reduce its memory use and loading freezes, most of all on Intel or smaller graphics cards
- [Performance] Much faster large colonies with thousands of tasks, loose materials or material piles
- [Performance] Remove log entries older than 7 days, keeping long-running saves smaller
- [UI/UX] Add UI Themes with 6 built in themes and full modding support
- [UI/UX] Add Quick Search for finding and jumping to anything in the game
- [UI/UX] Add Notification Hub that groups notifications and warnings, with a detachable warning list
- [UI/UX] Show a demo of the last save behind the main menu (can be disabled in Settings > System)
- [UI/UX] Rebuild the Codex with video tutorials, charts, search and a Back button for internal links
- [UI/UX] Add airtightness and insulation overlays for finding leaky and poorly insulated rooms
- [UI/UX] Rework key bindings: many more actions can be bound, several defaults changed, AZERTY layouts supported
- [UI/UX] Allow reeling in Winch Anchors by click-dragging a line from a Winch Hook
- [UI/UX] Improve the virtual keyboard behavior on Steam Deck
- [UI/UX] Add Share Save option for sending a save file to someone else
- [UI/UX] Add "Leave note to self" when saving and exiting, and buttons to delete all saves / autosaves
- [UI/UX] Make tooltip delay configurable in Settings > Gameplay
- [UI/UX] Add Settings > Video > Post Processing for choosing different color grading options
- [UI/UX] Disable automatic widescreen UI padding by default
- [UI/UX] Failed tasks explain more clearly why (unreachable, walled in, material out of reach)
- [UI/UX] Rotate ship section will show a preview instead of initiating the rotation immediately
- [UI/UX] Add "Ship Forward Direction: Auto" to the ship config and allow to override it fully
- [UI/UX] Improve Ship Config (Show Sections button, better Move Ship, class points and ship class details)
- [UI/UX] Allow controlling ship battle stations via F1..F10 / vent via V in ship combat view
- [UI/UX] Improve ship combat UI with a Hail button, device stats, flux overload warnings and detailed fire tooltips
- [UI/UX] Warn about undelivered online orders and abandoned materials / objects before a Hyperjump
- [UI/UX] Approaching a derelict is now an actual flight, available from any distance
- [UI/UX] Improve Starmap (auto refocus, Auto Miners block, clustered object popups, Hyperjump Relay hints)
- [UI/UX] The Copter Missions window lists your deployed auto miners, with a button to recall each one
- [UI/UX] Improve Research Tree visibility (clearer lines, highlighted unlockable paths, zoomed out tooltips)
- [UI/UX] Tidy up the research tree layout, with each research lined up under its tier line
- [UI/UX] Put all body and surgery actions (including Euthanize) under one Surgery button in the bottom bar
- [UI/UX] Consolidate task management into a single button in the bottom bar
- [UI/UX] Improve body part status icons and condition lists (grouped wounds, "Not Removable" marker)
- [UI/UX] Improve being tooltips in Morgue, Mechuary and gift packages
- [UI/UX] Add a trade tab for Stasis Pods and show more details about cores and brains in trade
- [UI/UX] Show equipment quality ranges in the equipment choice list
- [UI/UX] Allow Click+Drag to reorder crafting recipes
- [UI/UX] Improve storage filter UI with tooltips and number of filtered items in the filter button text
- [UI/UX] Store tool now works on items and un-forbids what it is used on
- [UI/UX] Show more stats (Health, CPU bonus, Beam Drill max mining depth)
- [UI/UX] Installing the Asimov Override Upgrade now lists the actions it unblocks
- [UI/UX] Expedition setup pauses the clock, skips crew who can't go right away and can be refreshed
- [UI/UX] Improve the quest widget with step tooltips and adjustable width
- [UI/UX] New games reveal the interface step by step, untick "Gradual UI Reveal" next to Embark to see it all from the start
- [UI/UX] Add more tutorial popups after connecting devices that have a dedicated codex page
- [UI/UX] Improve clicking and cycling through stacked objects, floors and walls
- [UI/UX] Build menu snaps to the item grid and stacks tab buttons in rows when they don't fit
- [UI/UX] Add confirmation to the "Erase Plan" button
- [UI/UX] Sandbox mode can spawn beings and materials via Quick Search and install any body part instantly
- [UI/UX] Remove legacy Ctrl + Left Click force commands for tasks and drafted beings
- [UI/UX] Bug reports can be sent from a stuck loading screen and have a "Balance" category
- [UI/UX] Warn when playing with mods and allow enabling / disabling all mods at once
- [UI/UX] Add a Hold Fire toggle for drafted shooters, show a selected shooter's weapon range and the hit chance on a hovered enemy
- [UI/UX] Show how far heaters, oxygen pumps, radiators, turrets and similar devices reach while placing or selecting them
- [UI/UX] Group variants like floors, beds, chairs and tables under one build menu button
- [UI/UX] Show colored dots on crew, guests and hostiles when zoomed far out
- [Graphics] Display heat distortion in hot areas of the ship
- [Graphics] Damaging the ship computer will apply a global interlace / color saturation visual effect
- [Graphics] Show unconstructed tiles that aren't buildable right now as more transparent
- [Graphics] Change Bridge Controls looks to prevent a common misconception that corners are walkable
- [Graphics] Adjust ship visual sizes in starmap and starfield
- [Graphics] Colonists will now blink if you watch them closely
- [Graphics] Fix visible seams between floor tiles
- [Graphics] Fix particles and texts could stay behind after winching / local maneuvering
- [Graphics] Walls cast shadows and light shines through open doors and windows, corners hidden from a lamp are dark for plants and colonists too
- [Graphics] Add a soft glow to bright lights and effects, and light flashes from explosions and gunfire (both toggleable in Video settings)
- [Graphics] Lamps flicker during power shortages, damage and storms, ship lights pulse red while an Emergency Siren sounds
- [Graphics] Show cracks, scratches and soot on damaged floors, walls and devices
- [Graphics] Cover freezing rooms in frost and make very hot rooms glow red
- [Graphics] Beings flash red and jolt away when hit, explosions get a shockwave ring
- [Graphics] Improve ship combat effects (explosions on hits, missed shots fly past, shields ripple where hit)
- [Graphics] Ships look solid: floors show their thick side, and zooming out shows the plated outer hull in a Default, Bulkhead or Armored style
- [Graphics] Add thin ink outlines around devices, walls, colonists, items and plants
- [Graphics] Add soft shadows where floors meet walls (Floor Shading setting)
- [Graphics] Add Ambient Motion: plants sway, colonists and pets bob as they walk, downed beings squirm
- [Graphics] Space nebula colors reflect sector danger and space storms
- [Graphics] Redo lit floors and all derelict ship artwork
- [Graphics] Add new color sets for casual clothing, suits and helmets
- [Audio] Add new UI sounds
- [Audio] Reduce low frequencies in Shredder Cannon SFX
- [Audio] Change Fluid Cannon shot and impact sounds
- [Audio] Incoming Stasis Pod will no longer trigger an annoying warning sound
- [Mods] JSON files support all types of comments and trailing semicolons, typos and invalid fields cause errors
- [Mods] Disallow overwriting core Def JSONs in full (JSON Patching is preferred)
- [Mods] Add support for JSON patching other mods by providing "targetMod" id
- [Mods] Consolidate mod loading errors into single popup when possible
- [Mods] Mod JSON error popups highlight the line and position, open the file's folder and can restart
- [Mods] Implement [SelfInit(order: 0)] static method attribute for more flexible self-registration
- [Mods] Add UI Theme JSON files with a schema for building custom themes
- [Mods] Body part looks are defined via JSON, any installed body part can change any look part of a being
- [Mods] Add SortOrderDirectional and HideInBed for LookPartType defs
- [Mods] Define gameplay curves as separate CurveDef JSON files
- [Mods] Add tunables for atmosphere spread speed, auto-forbidding loot and worn gear mood effects
- [Mods] Add Species FunRepetitionCurve and BodyPartSlotSizes, and Admirable FunSubject properties
- [Mods] Ship weapon Accuracy and ShieldPenetrateChance are now flat numbers instead of curves
- [Mods] Add "mod create <ModId> <Mod Name>" console command
- [Mods] Add "script" console command for running C# snippets against a live game
- [Mods] Simplify Steam Workshop uploads (in-game instructions, no playtest requirement, correct version tag)
- [Mods] Newly added mods will be disabled by default
- [Mods] Disable outdated mods that no longer load, such as Better Start, Fog of War, Mod Config Framework and Tritanium
- [Mods] Fix non-standard bot species wouldn't get spawned in custom scenarios
- [Mods] Add a JSON schema for every Core config file in Config/Schemas, generated from the game code
- [Mods] JSON patches apply in mod dependency order, and a failing patch no longer drops other mods' patches to the same file
- [Mods] Mods can override core game text in their Translations CSV files, per language
- [Mods] Mods can set "Cheat": true in ModInfo.json to disable achievements and get a Cheat tag on Steam Workshop
- [Mods] Add hull styles (HullStyle.json in Graphics/Structure/Hull/YourStyle) and floor Foundation strips
- [Mods] Add "BuildGroup" to defs, so defs of one build menu tab can share a button
- [Mods] Add "Walk" and "Wiggle" to species looks, and SpaceSky / SpaceSkyStorms configs for nebula palettes
- [Mods] Add "RequiresBodyFlags" and "AddsStatModifiersWhenShown" to inventory items, "RoboticDamageMul" to attack methods
- [Mods] Rename IsHaulingForbidden of UnstoredMatComp and StorableObjComp to IsForbidden (the old name still works but is obsolete)
- [Mods] Replace DeconstructionSpeed tunable with DeconstructionSpeedStructure, DeconstructionSpeedObjects and DeconstructionMaxWork
- [Translations] Add translation tooling to Settings > Language
- [Translations] Update Russian and Ukrainian translations
- [Translations] Update official Simplified Chinese and Spanish translations to 100%
- [Translations] Update Italian and Japanese translations to 100%
- [Misc] Rewrite and simplify all being and object descriptions
- [Misc] Purge outdated codex entries and stale translations
- [Misc] Add many new codex entries and video tutorials
- [Misc] Quest targets will have unique names instead of generic "Quest Target"
- [Misc] Add console command `dev debug_tasks` and Task Debug tab to allow troubleshooting AI bugs
- [Misc] Update Discord SDK
- [Misc] Remove the Invincible Pets setting, it left pets stuck with injuries or fatal conditions that never went away
- [Bug] Fix clock precision drift potentially affecting game systems after many hours of play time
- [Bug] Fix an avatar could be created with an incorrect visual offset if it was rebuilt while the colonist was punched in the face
- [Bug] Fix when a raid would start in the middle of a friendly fight, the friendly fight would become lethal
- [Bug] Fix game would fail to load if a tile without passability component would exist
- [Bug] Fix many Local Maneuvering failures (refusing to move, leaving objects behind, false collisions)
- [Bug] Fix Local Maneuvering could freeze the game, break pathfinding or wake up sleeping colonists
- [Bug] Fix ship direction would change to West if there was the same count of engines in all directions
- [Bug] Fix pausing the hyperjump queue or removing its last jump could get the ship stuck in hyperspace or bounce it out right away
- [Bug] Fix ship could warp on its own after loading a save, and Local Warp Drive could reach other regions
- [Bug] Fix beings could neglect critical needs (i.e. recharge battery) while working through chains of many fast tasks
- [Bug] Fix starving sane colonists could start eating food in unsafe areas without bringing it to a safe location first
- [Bug] Fix beings could die by walking into unsafe areas during some actions (e.g. zero oxygen when reaching a fire)
- [Bug] Fix guests / passengers could be treated as enemies by some systems or couldn't use beds
- [Bug] Fix several ways bots could stop recharging (docks after expeditions, discharged in devices, Assembly Hub)
- [Bug] Fix construction could get stuck, leaving single unbuilt walls / floors (especially in room corners)
- [Bug] Fix Nanobots could perform construction work on objects that didn't have floors built under them yet
- [Bug] Fix Fusion Drives and other fueled engines would receive refuel orders while on a derelict ship
- [Bug] Fix ejecting device fuel could result in ejected material getting stuck
- [Bug] Fix paused crafting orders kept consuming electricity and were not copied as paused by Copy Config
- [Bug] Fix ship weapons would not target the enemy ship while asteroids / meteoroids were around
- [Bug] Fix saving and loading mid exploration expedition could get the expedition stuck forever
- [Bug] Fix starting storage units could wall off passages, leaving starting materials unreachable
- [Bug] Fix "Windowless room" debuff could be given in areas with windows
- [Bug] Fix "A Romantic Expedition" story event could involve a dead being
- [Bug] Fix beings could be generated with age 0
- [Bug] Fix trader could get assigned to a Crawler faction in rare edge cases
- [Bug] Fix trader stasis pods could get stuck if they tried to launch while in hyperspace
- [Bug] Fix live enemy beings could be put into storage
- [Bug] Fix stabbing could be performed from a distance
- [Bug] Fix changing colonist and pet count to 0 in new game's Custom Rules would still spawn colonists and a pet
- [Bug] Fix one failing device, need, condition or being could stop the others from updating
- [Bug] Fix interrupted saves, failed loads and saves to a full disk could leave the game paused or stuck loading, or damage the save and its backup
- [Bug] Fix all story events could stop for good when a colonist left the ship during a chase, date or other drama
- [Bug] Fix space storms, meteoroid warnings, planet colonization and the teleporter clone event could stop working after loading a save or another game
- [Bug] Fix beds and chairs could stay occupied after their user left, and workers could go for food or drink someone else had reserved
- [Bug] Fix several ways haulers could stall for hours when storages were full or set to priority 0
- [Bug] Fix material piles could get forbidden from hauling by mistake, or picked up while forbidden
- [Bug] Fix shooters could ignore targets near the far end of their range or in plain sight along a wall
- [Bug] Fix attack orders were forgotten after loading a save or when the enemy was in another room
- [Bug] Fix melee attacks could hit through wall corners
- [Bug] Fix beings with several bad wounds on one body part could die after loading a save or while healing
- [Bug] Fix burning incapacitated enemies were never extinguished and kept setting the ship on fire
- [Bug] Fix colonists who lost both legs were left on the floor to starve instead of being carried to bed and fed
- [Bug] Fix several backstories and traits had no effect on the jobs colonists and bots love or can do
- [Bug] Fix auto connect could pick far connectors, add needless links or need several tries
- [Bug] Fix fuses did not protect devices from Short Circuit fires
- [Bug] Fix a single Storage Capsule could carry a whole raid, and capsules with attackers inside never opened after loading a save
- [Bug] Fix anomaly and planet expeditions could return empty without finding anything
- [Bug] Fix Uranium and Enriched Uranium found on expeditions would always be just 1 unit
- [Bug] Fix No Reload games could be saved and reloaded at will
- [Bug] Fix Enlightened colonists could have mental breakdowns
- [Bug] Fix a colonist could get stuck for good in an airlock between two freezing or airless rooms
- [Bug] Fix pets could become nomads and found a faction when colonizing a planet
- [Bug] Fix cancelling a construction could lose the materials already delivered to it
- [Bug] Fix drones and crew could pass through a closed door when given a new order while opening it
- [Bug] Attempt to fix some fire graphics could get visually desynchronized after a long play session
- [Bug] Fix colonists could stop short of where they were going and act as if they had arrived
There are many many more smaller changes that didn't make it into this changelog.
| Depot | New manifest | Previous manifest |
|---|---|---|
| 1380916 | 3361158900498945422 | 5842883992545823905 |
| 1380917 | 3093481060300139574 | 463039454602047245 |
| 1380918 | 5413915226732125407 | 5193839875089762220 |