Dead Reckoning: The Long Drift · published
Three systems land on the experimental branch: the departure board, genetic decline as a force that can end the voyage, and the science team's long projects. This build ships to the experimental beta branch (opt-in) only — the stable branch stays on 0.2.125.
The ship commits its departure corridor at the launch board. Year 1 offers three corridors on file — the nearest reachable system, the most promising world in the far window, and the densest cluster of onward stars — each a named, real star with its class, distance, and contact year. The choice sets your first system and the shape of the early voyage.
The pre-launch founding log lists the same board. The corridor you commit at Year 1 is the one the launch record promised.
The Sol system holds still when you commit. The drive keeps the maiden heading through the solar transit — the planets stay where they loaded, the flybys happen — and the committed corridor's course change executes at the heliopause exit, shown as a bend in the plotted route.
The Sol-transit briefings run on every corridor, not just the default heading.
Genetic diversity can now end the voyage. Decline drains the pool across generations; a depleted pool kills colonists and suppresses births.
Founding bloodlines are load-bearing. When a founding line's last living carrier dies childless, that diversity is gone for good.
Two new endings record where the genome goes: GENETIC EXTINCTION, and ONE LINEAGE — a colony that survives as a single genome.
The science team works decade-scale studies. Three standing projects begin at launch — a drive harmonics study, closed-loop agronomy, and a hull fatigue atlas. The pace follows the living science staff and slows under knowledge regression and class stratification; field data found during the voyage joins the same queue.
Found technologies are on the record. Everything acquired mid-voyage lists under SHIP LOADOUT with its year and source; live projects show progress and an estimated completion year.
Lists scroll by trackpad drag, with a wider scrollbar to grab.
The Mission Archive closes when you click outside it, and its BACK button stays pinned in reach.
A ship that loses power gets its ship-loss ending rather than a survival coda.
The abandoned-lifeboat line appears only on runs that landed.
A collapse epilogue no longer repeats its "eleven years" line.
The intro sequence keeps its aspect ratio on 16:10 screens instead of stretching to fill.
Deep ideological drift now calls the ship the ark; identity announcements are clearer and sound less like bad copy (yeah that's me; some of these were late night writing sprints, and I need to clean them up — but they're a start).
Note: A number of new lines temporarily read in English in German, French, Italian, and Spanish while their translations are refreshed.
Opt in under Properties > Betas > experimental, and let me know your thoughts.