v0.42 introduces a three-layer defense system of shield, armor and hull on ships and stations, alongside procedural NPC loadouts, armed sector stations and an overhauled hostile detection in the sector map and minimap.
New
Three-layer defense system for ships: damage hits the shield first, then the armor, and finally the hull. Excess damage is immediately passed on to the next layer. Shield and armor systems use existing primary system slots; ships without these systems have 0 maximum points while all three bars remain visible.
Three armor systems with world blueprints: three passive primary systems without MK tiers, fully researchable and installable.
Three shield systems with research and blueprints: the new primary system generators smallShield, mediumShield and largeShield, analogous to the armor systems.
Destructible and armed sector stations: the 11 normal and 7 exotic inhabited sector stations become independent prefab variants with fixed station system loadouts. Each station has very high hull values, dedicated armor, shield and weapon slots, fights pirates on its own and returns fire. Home station and abandoned station remain unchanged.
Changes
Threat-based NPC ship templates and procedural systems: the previous finished civilian and pirate combination prefabs are removed from the active spawn flow. Each hull now has a clean NPC template without hard-built systems; threat profiles pick the hull, and the shared ship system manager then installs a complete, energy-valid slot loadout.
UI / UX
Red display of hostile ships and stations on the sector map and minimap: hostility is read uniformly from HostileObject. Whenever a ship or station becomes hostile, the object list, minimap, sector map and world name update automatically. Neutral objects keep their previous colors.
Short-range scanner layout adjusted: contents are no longer cut off.
Selected sector object is pinned to the top of the list.
Bugfixes
Fixed a display error in the station computer UI.
Fixed a display error on the precision laser: the misleading „MK3" suffix was removed.
Fixed a display error on ship system icons, including the now permanently repaired IonEngine icons.