What changed

2026-09-19

• A refinery used to do exactly one job: three ore in, one alloy out. It now has a menu, and the ore run is the first thing on it.
• Three new processes. Steel Plate, out of alloy and carbon. Ceramic Powder, out of silicate and carbon. Industrial Diamond, out of carbon alone, compressed past the point where it argues.
• Nobody will buy any of the three off you at a station counter. They are what the fittings are made of — the Mining Laser wants the diamond, the Shield Generator wants the ceramic, the Cargo Expander wants the plate — and another pilot who is building one will pay for them.
• Every process loses money and saves space. That is not a bug in the prices: a smelter is a thing you use because your hold is full, not because it makes you rich.
• You order batches now rather than quantities, so the smelter can no longer look as though it kept your odd unit. It never did, and now it cannot appear to.
• The screen lists everything the smelter runs, including what you have nothing for, and tells you exactly what you are short of.

2026-09-19

• A fitting is a part you make at a bench and bolt to your hull. It does the same job as paying a yard to upgrade a subsystem — the difference is that you made it.
• Three to start with: a Cargo Expander, a Shield Generator and a Mining Laser. Each costs about half what the yard charges for the same tier, and each takes research, materials and time you would rather have spent flying.
• Your hull decides what it will take. Most of the fleet has nowhere to bolt a mining laser, and no amount of building changes that — it is the hull you chose.
• Fitting one is free. It comes out of the hold and stops being cargo; pulling it puts it back, and you need the room for it to land in.
• A fitting is yours to sell. Somebody who cannot make one will pay for it.
• And you lose it with the ship. Insurance covers the hull and has never covered anything bolted to it — so the better kitted you are, the more a bad night costs.

2026-09-19

• When a ship is destroyed, a wreck is left at that system for a day. Anybody standing there can strip it.
• It asks for nothing — no licence, no ticket, no refit. It is the only work out here that does not.
• What comes off is the hull: plating, salvaged circuitry, spent power cells. Never the cargo, which burned with it.
• The screen tells you what a wreck would give you and how long it takes, before you touch it. Claiming one takes it off the field — nobody else can work it, and you cannot put it back down.
• Most of the time there is nothing there. That is what makes finding one worth the look.
• A new thing to learn, Salvage, makes the work quicker. Like every skill, it costs time and nothing else.

2026-09-17

• The three rings being built at the edge of charted space now take money, at the station they are being built at.
• What you put in is gone — there is no refund and nothing to cancel. What you get is your name on the ring, where anybody standing there can read it.
• The panel says what has been raised and what is left. It does not say when it opens, because nobody knows.
• When a ring is paid for, that is the fleet's part done. Somebody then opens it, and a system nobody has ever flown to is on the map.
• You will not be told when that happens. You will find the lane on your chart, the way you find every other one.

2026-09-17

• There is a chronicle on your record: stories about the galaxy, the flags, the people out here, and where you came from.
• Chapters open because of things you have already done — charting a system, holding a licence, your first sale — and stay open.
• When one opens, it turns up on the station page, in full, on the screen you landed on.
• Nothing in it is a task and nothing in it pays. A story you have not finished is not late.
• Chapters you have not uncovered are counted, not listed. Finding out what they are is the point.