Version 2026.7.19 – No two star systems are alike anymore 🌌

July 28, 2026

Yes, that version number is real: after 0.9.1 comes 2026.7.19. We switched to date-based versions — year, month, and which release of the month it is. And yes, that really is a 19 at the end: that's how many updates July alone has seen. 😄 Why we switched is a story for its own tech post coming right up — this one is about what's inside. And there's a lot. 🚀

Every star system has its own character now. Until now, every system was the same kit: a few planets, a few moons, one station. Newly created worlds now roll an archetype per system: Lone Giants (one oversized planet with 4–8 moons), Swarms (many small planets, hardly any moons), Belts (asteroid fields with barely a planet in sight), Trade Hubs (guaranteed stations and busy traffic), Desolate systems (empty, silent space), Pirate Havens (always lawless — no stations, more camps, more wrecks) and Twin Worlds (two like-sized planets on close orbits). Your home system always stays friendly — it never rolls the hostile or empty archetypes. 🎲

And planets finally differ in size. Giants reach 16,000 blocks around, swarm dwarfs go down to 4,000 — and the orbit view, the sky and gravity all play along. The inhabitants follow the system's character too: trader traffic, bandit camps, drones and wrecks all read the archetype now. The Danger option in world creation, which so far simply did nothing, now genuinely scales hostile encounters. Important: existing worlds are completely untouched — the new variety only applies to worlds created from this update on.

The game now tells you about updates itself. On startup, the installed client quietly checks whether a newer version exists and offers it on the main menu: Install now downloads and restarts, Later postpones it to the next launch. Not your thing? Turn it off in the settings. There's also an official update feed attached to the GitHub release now — until today, the "Check for updates" button literally had nowhere to look. 🔔

And you can read the news in-game from now on. A new button at the bottom of the main menu opens exactly these release notes — in German and English, newest first. After an update they open once by themselves, so you see what changed without hunting for a blog post. 📰

We tidied up too: the GitHub link in the "Join in" overlay is a real button now (it merely looked clickable before — on every desktop it wasn't), joined by a second one that opens the game website in your language. In the settings, language and back are always visible now instead of hiding at the very bottom of the list. And the pilot-name field on the main menu finally stands out — it is the first step, after all.

One last manual download: since the update notice only arrives with this release, versions up to 0.9.1 won't show it yet. Grab this version from the website yourself one more time — from then on, the game will speak up on its own. ✨