0.9.2 Balancing, bugfixes and QOL

Here is the latest set of patch notes! This update focuses heavily on economy balance, quality-of-life improvements, and introducing some new module mechanics.

New Features & Items

• AddedNova ModulesAdded extremely rare "Nova" modules that fundamentally change how the game's rules work. Keep an eye out for these!
• AddedFuel ModulesAdded a new module specifically for expanding fuel capacity. A base variant of this module is now available across all shops.

Balance Adjustments

• Ship Stat Scaling: Recalculated base stats for Tier 2 through Tier 4 ships. This should help them better fit the intended balance curve with the module system. (I'll be keeping an eye on this and may iterate further based on your feedback).

• Module Economy: Completely rebalanced module pricing. Lower-tier modules are no longer prohibitively expensive, while higher-tier modules are now properly valued.

• Smuggling Rewards: Significantly buffed the sell value of illicit cargo. The payout should finally feel worth the risk.

Gameplay & AI

• Contract Failsafes: Bounty and Survey contract objectives will now automatically reroll/repair themselves if the target goes missing or becomes blocked.

• Faction Warfare: Hardened faction warfare protection. Attacker, defender, and final target checks will now safely skip over your active contract objectives and bounty targets.

• NPC Navigation: NPC ships will now properly treat active, unvisited patrol waypoints as reserved tiles.

Quality of Life, UI & Audio

• Recipe Book Upgrades: The recipe book now clearly marks which recipes are currently craftable and allows you to load/craft directly from the UI. You can also now consume a finished item to reverse-engineer and archive an unknown recipe.

• Smart Targeting: Clicking to target will now prioritize nearby dock/comms targets over any hostile ships that happen to be behind them.

• Contract Auto-Tracking: Newly accepted contracts will now automatically track on your HUD.

• UI Clarity: Clarified "Fuel Efficiency" by renaming it to "Fuel Save Chance" so the mechanic makes more sense at a glance.

• Menu Clarity: Renamed the "Flight Training" menu to "Tutorial" (turns out people didn't realize "training" meant they were going to be taught how to play!).

• Audio Tweaks: Seeker missiles now use the heavier, torpedo-style sound effect instead of the laser/target-lock audio. As always, please restart Steam or verify your files to manually trigger the update. Please join us in discord to report bugs, suggest features, or just hang out and talk!

If you are enjoying the game, I'd love it if you could take a few minutes to leave a review on Steam.

Thank you for your attention, Captains.

||| HopefullyHeroic