Today the final frontier expands with a nicer background. We are adding realistic distances within star systems as well as stars and planets. These new planets will now serve as points of interest where stations and more will spawn.
In addition to planets we are also taking the training wheels off the warp drive and allow you to accelerate up to 1.5 AU per second at warp factor 9. These new warp factors will be required in order to make your way around the new star systems. That said the faster you travel the more power you will require. As your power consumption in warp is now dependant on your ship's mass as well as the warp factor at which you are traveling. We realise that these high speeds will make it easy to overshoot your targets. To help combat this, ships will automatically shift back to a lower warp factor the closer you get to a planet. That said you will be able to override this by simply accelerating again. But be warned, your ships are not rated for atmospheric flight, traveling straight into a planet or a star will damage and eventually destroy your ship.
For the time being we only have gas giants and stars as celestial bodies in Interstellar Rift, but we are looking to expand this to include rocky planets and moons as well as different types of stars.
But wait there’s more, we’ve also added several new server stability fixes, and updated the cockpit interface so it displays in which system you currently are and more!
As with most of the systems we implement these are not the final versions, and your feedback is much appreciated. So please feel free to let us know what you think of warp and planets so that we may improve upon them. For this very purpose we have made a patch 0.1.27 feedback thread on the steam forum where you can leave all your thoughts. Alternatively, please feel free to share your thoughts on our forums, Facebook or Twitter!