Version 2026.8.18 – The galaxy comes alive 🌌

August 21, 2026

This is the biggest update we have ever shipped — and it has a single question at its core: What keeps you playing after hour five? The first hours guide you through the game well, but after that the air got thin: the tech tree eventually ran dry, the world didn't react to you, and the story had no real ending. Today we change that. All at once. 🌌

The story has an ending now — and that's where it really starts. Finish the story arc and you get a proper finale: a resolution sequence, a credits roll, and an epilogue that hands you something new — the relay network. Every station you have commissioned can be converted into a relay (co-op if you like, every contribution counts). Two finished relays in range span a jump lane: along it you jump without a jump generator. And every new lane can grow the galaxy at the edge — new systems appear because you linked them up. Want to watch the ending again? It's waiting in the Story tab. 🎬

People instead of scenery. NPCs have a memory now: buy from the same vendor a few times and you're greeted as a regular. They call you on the radio — with missions, hints and rumours, and of course you can turn it off. And you can finally talk to them: press E, a dialogue opens, with real choices and real consequences. Two characters travel the whole galaxy with a fixed face — Yara Senn in the settlements and Sel-9 behind the station counters. Meet them in another world and they recognise you. And the world notices your base: from three machine blocks on, settlers move in nearby, and traders prefer worlds where people actually live. 🧑‍🚀

For the builders. Settlement mission boards now post Build missions. The new blueprint tool copies a whole build into a share code — paste it in chat and others can place your build in their world (validated block by block, no cheating). And things get colourful: glass and all the lamps are dyeable now, and dyed lamps cast coloured light — on planets and aboard ships. Plus fourteen of the prettiest decor blocks that only admins could place before are finally craftable. 🌈

For the explorers. The map remembers where you've been — the fog stays lifted, and foreign systems read "Unknown system" until you enter them. Discovered places pay knowledge. And the far-out is finally worth it: the further a system is from home, the richer its rare ores. With the new "Growing galaxy" world option, the edge is never the end. Settlements and stations come in four shapes instead of one. And three places exist exactly once per galaxy — the Singing Shrine, the Sealed Observatory, and "The Long Quiet", a named derelict you can board. Trusted NPCs share each legend exactly once. Out in space, escape pods and anomalies drift by now — fly close, rescue, scan. All peaceful, all family-safe. ✨

For the story hunters. Story fragments now hide inside structures — and a bad-luck brake makes a long dry streak raise your odds. A story objective at the edge of the screen and a reader show where you stand, and 26 new found-texts give runes, wrecks and ruins something to say. 📖

Playing together, each your own way. The game mode is now per player: dad plays survival while the kid builds in creative — in the same world, at the same time. One command is all it takes. 🎭

Tidied up and hardened. We audited the whole package twice against its own plan before release and fixed everything we found — among other things, all the reward loopholes are closed (crates, pods, arcade, small talk). Corrupted save data is now rejected cleanly instead of half-loaded — thanks to our community contributor ahmdkaml, who is now in the credits for it. On top, rendering on planet surfaces is noticeably smoother again, and the Codex chapters "Guide" and "Items", which had gone blank, are back. 🩹

Important for everyone hosting: the protocol stays 3, but there are seventeen new messages — update client and server together, or half the update is simply missing. Old saves keep working unchanged; existing worlds keep exactly the buildings they have.

Fly out, talk to people, build the network. The galaxy isn't waiting any more — it's alive. 🌌✨