The unstable branch has been updated with additional features meant for the Alpha 7 build.
The new build contains several of the systems being built out but not quite ready for consumption. Instead of forking code and wasting a lot of time some of the viability of these changes can be found on this build.
For instance, you should now notice a new icon when near Earth as the ark leveling system comes online. This system will track your overall actions over each playthrough and provide bonuses from purely exploring and experimenting.
One example of this is crew members will now not only level themselves up but their teachings will go into a pool of knowledge which will provide experience levels and new crew members that join will have higher levels based on this knowledge. In other words, as the grew gains experience this will be combined which has its own leveling system. This should greatly aid with the gap that is caused when getting very far out into space and basically losing one of your greatest commodities, that of your crew.
New skills have been added to the mechanic to truly focus on their vast abilities. A new skill has been added for fixing the power armor systems as well as a new skill for storing weapon and shield energy in the engine room. Also skills that are not necessary for a class has been removed to reduce confusion.
Although this is a massive change this build also fixes several navigation issues and button presses that were causing issue with the game settings menu.