What changed

2026-09-23

• Scrap plating can be smelted into Reclaimed Alloy, and four of those reroll into an ordinary steel plate — the same plate the mined route makes, and the same one components are built from.
• Sixteen scrap plates for one steel plate. The mined route costs two alloys and a carbon, so this is deliberately the worse deal: a wreck is worth stripping when the alternative is nothing, not instead of a belt.
• Until now the only thing to do with a hold of scrap was turn it into electronics and sell it. Salvage had no way into the workshop at all.
• Asked for on the signal board: “what do we do with the salvage? is this part of the tech tree?” It is now.

2026-09-23

• Manoeuvring Thrusters are the first engine you can make rather than buy. Fitted, they raise your engine tier — which shortens every jump, widens the tank and refills it faster. Three things at once; nothing else you can bolt on does that.
• One new thing to smelt — Palladium Mesh, from platinoids and deep brine you have been able to bring home for weeks — and three components above it: pressure valves, fuel lines and injector heads.
• Every axis the yard refits can now be fitted instead. Cargo, shields, mining, weapons, engines: build it or buy it.
• The thrusters list under the tier-2 refit they replace, so making one is still cheaper than buying the tier.

2026-09-22

• The Pulse Laser is the first weapon you can make rather than buy. Fit it and your weapon tier goes up like a refit, on any hull in the yard.
• Two new things to smelt — Glass Blank and Yttrium Oxide — and five components above them: sensor dies, ground lenses, laser diodes, accelerometers and targeting processors.
• Every recipe in the chain is the one the design document wrote down, ingredient for ingredient. That is a first.
• It lists under the tier-2 refit it replaces, so building one is still cheaper than buying the tier.

2026-09-22

• Four new things to smelt: Copper Stock, Argon, Liquid Hydrogen and Plastic Stock. Nothing new to mine or draw — every one of them is made from what you are already bringing home.
• And seven components above them, made at a workshop: boards, processors, cells, capacitor banks, looms and connector sets. They are what modules are made of now.
• The three modules cost more to build and are worth more by exactly the same amount, so what you clear on one has not changed. What has changed is that you build the parts first.
• All three are still cheaper to make than the refit they replace. That is the rule, and it is what decides how much can go into one.

2026-09-22

• Buying a higher freight certification put no better contracts on the station board until the ones already posted expired — up to a day. The board now always carries work for every licence you hold.
• Nothing already posted is removed to make room. The board is shared with everyone at that dock, so it gets longer rather than being reshuffled under them.
• If a licence you hold has nothing posted at this station right now, the board says so instead of looking unchanged. Someone else may simply have taken it.
• Bonded loads are 16–34 units and a Mule holds 26, so the biggest of them still need a cargo refit. That part is deliberate — it was only invisible because of the bug above.