Stations rebuilt and a galaxy that speaks

A big day, v0.10.293 to v0.10.304. Your Colony Station now looks like it belongs to your faction, from a distance and up close. You can make your own modules, sell goods to other captains and stay one captain on every device. And the galaxy has started to talk.

Every faction, its own station

Eight factions, eight crowns.

Colony Stations are rebuilt from the core up. Each faction has its own flat core of hub, piers, deck and rings, and at Tier 5 each one wears its own crown: the Solari Meridian Crown, the Hegemony Iron Citadel, the Nereid coral-glass crown, the Fungus Elder Canopy, the Synthari Overmind Hive, the Spacers Grand Bazaar, the Veilborn Starless Spire and the Gobbos Big Boss Heap.

The Synthari station is a machine hive in black chitin with red-hot seams, and the Nereid harbour is warm nacre with an abalone sheen that shifts as you fly round it. An Embassy tower wears the colours of the faction it hosts.

Stations up close

Fly in close: every faction has something to show.

The detail pass is now done for all eight factions. Hulls are bevelled so their edges catch the light, with window bands, layered plating and lit hangar mouths, and every station gets glowing window panes, beacons and guide lights. Each faction also has a signature of its own:

• Solari: gold light shafts round the Meridian Crown.
• Hegemony: searchlights sweeping out from the Iron Citadel.
• Nereid: a bioluminescent pulse, with shell plates, branching reefs and a ribbed shell canopy.
• Fungus: shelf fungi with glowing gills, and spores drifting off the canopy.
• Synthari: mandible arms round a red-hot reactor heart, compound-eye sensors, radiator fins, brood cells and a halo of wasp-shaped drones.
• Spacers: patched cabins, crates, awnings and lanterns that sway.
• Veilborn: bone ribs, violet seams and a shroud that shimmers.
• Gobbos: pipes, junk, smokestacks, fires and welding sparks over patched, welded plating.

The finest surface detail loads on Medium settings and above. Low settings and phones skip it.

Workshops: make your own modules

Your work, with your mark on it.

Dock at a faction Shipyard, a faction capital or the Charter bench and press Workshop. Commission your faction's house modules from Mk I to Mk III, or Charter patterns at Mk I and II. Pick one of three maker's touches, then fit what you made. Every crafted item carries your maker's mark.

Each bench has its own character. The Hegemony works to regulation issue: every touch at the top of its range, but two touches instead of three. Tear down a module you own and you learn its pattern for good, starting with the old lantern on every bench. Finished work ranks you up as an Artificer or a Breaker, and Teardown Studies is half price in research for the next 30 days.

Know what you're buying

Every number, before you pay.

Every item tooltip now opens with what the item does, with its numbers at its Mk. A mining beam, for example, reads "+12% ore from every cut, 2.5% of every metal-rock cut comes up as crystal". The tooltip compares the item only with what you have in the same slot, or says "Fills an empty slot", and lists every number that changes in green or red.

The outfitter is grouped by type and slot, from Weapons and Mining to Engines, Power and gear, with filter chips. A greyed-out Buy button tells you why ("Need 378 GC more"), and you can see how the stock turns over. We also fixed the Deepsight Array, whose reach now grows with its Mk, and corrected several item texts to match what the items really do.

The Exchange and the Trade Net

Sell to other captains, from any Market Hub.

Every Market Hub now has an Exchange. Dock, list goods from your Cargo bay and set your price. Other captains buy at your price, and you collect it less a 4% tax. Trades above 500 GC need a signed-in account at least three days old and Star Captain level 8.

The Trade Net shows every Exchange from your Flagship, the Command Deck or the Companion on your phone. Buy where you are docked, or buy from afar and a courier brings the goods to the hub you name. The courier's fee and travel time are shown before you buy.

Galactic Credits are in-game only. They are never bought, never sold for money and never cashed out. On the Exchange they change hands only as payment for goods between captains.

One captain on every device

Sign in, and you are one Star Captain on every device. Signing in on a new browser no longer gives you a second home planet, and a recovery key that belongs to your account says so and offers Use this key.

Contracts follow the same rule. A contract is completed and paid only by the captain who accepted it.

The galaxy speaks

Real news, real events, every day.

The Command Deck has a new panel, the Galactic Bulletin. Its headlines come from what really happens in the living galaxy: raids, shortages, breaches. The stories nearest your home and Flagship come first, each one a Set course away. Galactic Chat News no longer invents takeovers.

Today in the galaxy brings about a hundred events every day: derelicts, distress calls, comet passes and Kin sightings. They are the same for every captain. Find them pinned on the Galactic Map, under "Near you today" on the Deck and in the Companion, and on your arrival banner in the Flagship. Nothing pays yet.

The lanes between stations and gates glimmer with far traffic and blinking beacon buoys. Lightmote shoals drift near gas giants, through nebulae and across Nereid space, parting round your hull. Scrap Moths nest on old wrecks and swarm a lit engine. The Local comms strip carries radio from the ships around you, tied to the day's real events, and you can mute it whenever you like. All of it is light on your device, and phones show it at reduced counts.

Smaller fixes

• Contract tracker. It no longer hides under the cargo meter or the weapons panel. Trackers move up their column, and on small screens they fold into a chip under the top bar.
• Fleet and Yard panels. Rebuilt in the Inventory's style: a card per ship with its status, hull and priced actions, and a Yard that shows each design's price and build time before you order.
• Level Up. On a brand-new profile, the Level Up box waits until the Companion sheet is closed.

What's next

The galaxy moves. The next phase of the living galaxy is planned: trade-route heat, derelicts that pay, rare-resource surges and stations going about their business.

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