Note up front: this update shipped earlier than planned. I built a crash reporting system and wanted it in your hands immediately, so the rest of this patch rides along in a work-in-progress state. It all works and is tested (as much as I can), but tuning is ongoing and a follow-up is coming fast.
🚨 Crash Reporting: Help Us Hunt
The game now notices when it did not shut down cleanly. On your next launch you may see a small "Unexpected Exit" notice telling you where it happened, with an Open Logs Folder button (also available in Settings). If you ever get kicked to desktop with no error: hit that button and send the newest log file to me in our Discord, along with what the notice said. That turns "it just closed" into something I can actually fix (maybe). One silent Empire-screen crash is already dead thanks to exactly one player report, and I want the rest.
🧪 The Research Tree Is Fully Real
Every research unlock now does what it says. All placeholder effects are gone: every passive, ability, and Keystone is wired and visible in play.
Keystones earn their drama: Mass Production stamps out a gunship escort mid-battle, Living Hull regrows dead modules before your eyes, The Wound curses a ship for the whole fight.
Full ability VFX pass, a real ability picker, and battle-order color coding so you can see which orders buff which abilities at a glance.
⚔️ Combat: Weapons Behave
Turrets aim before they fire and respect their range. No more opening salvos into empty space.
Enemy gunners now lead their shots. Strafing at range is no longer an invincibility trick.
All Ahead Full delivers a true +15% top speed, and ramming at full charge is properly catastrophic, for both ships.
Shields explain their downtime, ground hazards no longer blot out the screen, beams hold steady, and core-death craters glow hot and cool like they should.
🏛️ Strategy
Contested sectors offer real choices: fight the defenders, hit the besieging fleet, or join a siege at Allied standing.
Currencies simplified: Supplies and Salvage are the two that matter, and trade hubs exchange between them.
Your feedback shapes where this goes. See you on Discord!