Version 2026.10.9 – The black-gold update: tar seeps, an oil echo in the scanner and lubricant from biofuel 🛢️📡

October 7, 2026

Until now, oil was almost impossible to find – and without oil there was no lubricant, so no jump generator, no better drills and no hover speeder. That changes now! 🛢️ On worlds you create from now on, about three oil pockets in eight reach the surface: you see a black tar seep with a small oil puddle in the middle, and under it a column of soft tar leads straight down to the pocket. Just follow the black trail! Nothing grows or gets built on such a spot, so you can recognise it from far away. The pockets were also flat by mistake – now they are up to ten blocks tall and hold about twice as much oil.

📡 On living worlds, the terrain scanner now also listens for oil with every scan pulse: the nearest oil pocket within 800 m gets a ping on your compass and map and a violet marker, and a second message tells you how far away and how deep it is. A pocket you have pumped dry stops answering. This oil echo also works on your existing worlds if they already have oil pockets. And if you can't find any oil at all, or you play on a world that is older than oil: the refinery now also makes lubricant from biofuel (3 biofuel + 1 carbon). Crude oil stays the cheaper way. The Codex explains everything in the new article Oil and Lubricant, and gas giants no longer promise oil in the planet scan that they never had.

🙏 There are also fixes from your reports. VEGA's tip about debris fields never reached you, because the line broke before it was shown – thanks to Hadewin for the crash report that uncovered it! Layex found something strange in a debris field and asked: "What is this?" It's the flight recorder, a near-black box you can hardly see against dark space. Now it is bigger, has a glowing copper line and is called "Flight recorder" in the target lock, and VEGA explains that it stays when everything is salvaged. Floating loot is now simply called "Loot". And Justus noticed that looking past a fruit under a tree crown showed the sky through the leaves – the crowns are closed again. Thank you, all three of you! 💛

🛡️ And one more thing for fair play: the fluid pump, terrain blaster, stasis projector, creature translator, sampler and the rail tools now only work on what you can really reach – the same 8 blocks as mining. In normal play you won't notice a thing.

Your saves and worlds stay as they are. Only worlds you create from now on get the tar seeps and the fuller oil pockets – existing worlds look exactly as before. The oil echo and lubricant from biofuel work everywhere, though. All new texts are available in all 14 languages. The desktop game updates itself on start, the browser is always current. Good luck hunting for oil! 🛢️