Three new world bosses, the Hollow Belfry raid, energy farms and a raid finder

This update brings the hardest fights in the game so far. Three new world bosses stand at the Hollow King's level, a raid for six to eight pilots waits behind them, and every one of them flies a hull of its own. Gridcraft opens as a new core skill with energy farms and data halls, a raid finder puts groups together for you, and quests now pay real gear. Phones get a cleaner landscape layout, and planets, colonies and lighting look better on the higher presets.

New

• Three new world bosses. The Bellfounder (Lawless space) shuts out every damage type but one for 18 seconds at a time, brands a pilot and shares the blow with everyone within 2.5 km, and raises Chorus Bells at 66% and 33%. Cinderhook (Lawless space) takes only 35% from hits that miss its stern, hooks your engines to 40% for 6 seconds and rains slag on any ship that sits still. The Tidewrack (Contested and Lawless space) halves the engines of every ship within 10.8 km with its undertow before a 6 km blast, sends storm cells and strike craft, and raises Tide Anchors at 70% and 35%. All three are tier 3 world bosses, the Hollow King's tier, which brings the roster to 11.
• Hollow Belfry raid. Six to eight pilots in hulls up to tier 7 enter at a Lawless Shatterdrift's Rift Accelerator with a Belfry Score, assembled from 4 Bellframe Shards that the three new bosses drop. Break three Bell Ringers, then face the Ninth Bell: hold its toll on a tank, cleanse Bell Rot with a repair cycle, move out of the Clapper Sweep, and finish it before the Final Toll, 15 minutes after the bell wakes. The reward pays once every 72 hours per pilot and per account, and everyone paid takes an Exodus-Pattern module, Exodus Core Fragments, Rift Residue and Crown Alloy, with chances at the new weapons and a Legendary.
• Boss weapons. The Sunder Lance L is a heavy energy turret (4,300 damage every 20 seconds, 26 km; Gunnery 80, Engineering 40). The Scatter Cannon M and L are high-slot flak with splash that clear drones, missiles and strike craft (5 km with a 900 m splash, and 7 km with a 1.5 km splash; Gunnery 45 and 70). The Legendary Knell Lance drops only in the Hollow Belfry (6,020 damage every 20 seconds, 29.9 km; Gunnery 85). The Bellfounder drops the Sunder Lance blueprint, Cinderhook the Scatter Cannon M blueprint and the Tidewrack the Scatter Cannon L blueprint.
• Boss hulls of their own. The Bellfounder is a 12.4 km cathedral foundry, Cinderhook a low wedged slag raider with a hook on its keel, the Tidewrack a 17.7 km jawed leviathan, and the Ninth Bell a 30.2 km cathedral with the great bell inside its tower. Each leaves a wreck of its own, and the Almanac now names the hull each boss really flies.
• Raid finder. Press Shift+F, or open Missions & Activities in the menu, to see every world boss, Rift tier and Stronghold with its group size, hulls, key, lockout and how many pilots are queued. Queue alone or as a squad and pick Tank, Damage, Support or Repair. When a group forms, a 30 second ready check starts, then you get a squad and a meeting point and fly there yourself. Groups relax to their minimum size after 3 minutes and drop role places after 5. Leaving a matched group during the run blocks the queue for 15 minutes.
• Gridcraft and energy farms. Gridcraft is a new core skill for every pilot, and your total level now runs up to 1,881. Press Shift+G, claim an anchor near a star, planet or moon, and fit solar arrays, battery banks, a Cell Press and a Link Pylon. You can hold up to 6 farms, opened at Gridcraft 1, 12, 30, 48, 66 and 84, with Contested anchors at 8 and Lawless anchors at 25. Press your stored energy into Charge Cells and sell them to the Grid Authority, or beam power to your own station, colony or rig. Farms are never destroyed, but raiders can tap them in Contested and Lawless space, and solar flares can be shuttered.
• Data halls. From Gridcraft 50 you can build rack halls on a farm (Rack Pod, Rack Hall, Rack Spine and Rack Spindle at 50, 70, 85 and 95) and sell compute to the Grid Authority in four contract classes. Heat is the limit, radiator wings carry it away, and the hall's earnings wait in its ledger on the farm page.
• Homeward Tether. A single-use, tradeable item that takes you and your ship home, docked, after a 10 second channel. It recharges for 3 hours, works from any dock and in flight in Secure space, carries at most 10 m³ of cargo and 100,000 credits, and is not for capital hulls. Damage, a hostile lock, a combat timer, a warp, a jump or docking cancels the channel and you keep the Tether. Build it from 1 Warp Coil, 6 Void Matter, 2 Quantum Processors and 8 Cryo Isotopes; the blueprint is sold at NPC trade hubs, and the Long Haul Apprenticeship pays two.
• Quest gear. Seven quests now pay a bound module of their own, such as the Long Haul Trim Thruster, the Sunresin Survey Auger and Harun's Sounding Rod. If you lose one, replace it for a fee in the Quests window, Completed tab, under Lost something?
• Two lore chains. The Pale Ledger (4 quests, after any faction's first quest) and the Quiet Rooms (3 quests, after The Listener with Exploration 10) dig into the old arks. Quest items carry from one quest to the next, and the Pale Ledger ends with a choice of reward.
• Standing orders. Twelve repeatable orders for Racing, Engineering, Navigation, Exploration, Colonization, Captaincy, Leadership and five Vanguard skills. Each comes back every 3 hours and pays 1,500 to 3,500 credits.
• New goods. The Resin Sealant Block, the Field Overhaul Kit (restores 45% armor and 20% hull in space) and the Deepcell Cartridge (refills your battery) are made from gathered materials, with blueprints at NPC trade hubs.
• Charter-Pattern gear (Vanguard Charter). Five new Charter commissions, the Far Ring Survey and the Charter Foundry, open a members gear tier: six modules about 8% above Exodus-Pattern on their main stat (Railgun M, Pulse Emitter M, Mining Laser M, Barrier Amplifier, Nanite Repair Array and Hold Extension), built from the standard module, Charter Alloy and Quantum Processors. They trade only between members. Every standard module stays open to every pilot.
• Drone roles (Vanguard Charter). Every Droneworks frame now has a job while it flies with you, Refined or Elite and not in Standby: Spotter, Assayer, Decoy, Collector, Picket, Mender, Marker, Charger, Surveyor and Aegis. Elite drones do 25% more, wings do their job at 75%, roles never stack, and none of them gives XP. Against pilots the Decoy, Picket and Mender work at half strength and the Marker not at all, and bosses ignore the Marker and the Decoy.
• Field repair (Vanguard Charter). From Droneworks 20 your companions slowly mend your ship's armor while you are out of combat, drawing your battery but never below 20%. Turn it off in Settings > Gameplay > Companion.
• XP tracker (Vanguard Charter). Press Shift+K for every skill's XP per hour, per session and over time, with charts from the last 24 hours to the last 12 months, a breakdown by skill, goals, level-ups (including those earned while you were away), past sessions and an opt-in Compare with friends and clanmates. Progress rings on the HUD show the time to your next level. Right-click or long-press a skill to set a goal or pin its ring.
• Cargo finder and courier. The new Cargo finder station service lists every station where you keep items, in hangars and in the holds of parked ships, with search and Set destination. Ship to... sends hangar stacks to another station by NPC courier: 2 minutes per jump, fully insured, and a cancel returns the goods and half the fee.
• Lift jets. Every ship that can land now has cold-gas lift jets under the hull. They fire as you take off, land and hover, raising a cloud and a ring of dust in air and kicking up grains on airless worlds.
• Squad hunting. A squadmate's kill now counts for every squadmate with a matching Bounty Office task within 100 km, guns off or not. The head price is paid once and split evenly, and the contract purse follows your share of each kill.

Improvements

• Phones held sideways. The landscape HUD keeps the middle of the screen clear, puts Tactical and the target card on the right and your locks on the left, and fits the modules in one row. Notifications share one queue, the most urgent first, two cards at a time with a +N count, and a repeated message counts up (x2, x3) instead of stacking. Tight controls show icons; a long press names an icon, and Settings > Accessibility > Text labels on HUD buttons brings the words back.
• Taps on phones. A tap outside an open menu only closes the menu instead of also pressing what is under your finger, touch controls light up while pressed, and tap targets are larger.
• Item lists. The module picker, blueprints, colony depot, Contracts and the Quests window share one filter bar with search, sort, filters and category counts. Quest tabs show their counts, and Keep window open lets you accept several quests in a row.
• Item cards and Examine. Every item row shows its card, and Examine on any item writes its description into a new Game tab in chat.
• Tactical ore filter. A new Ores group in the Tactical filter menu shows only the asteroids and belts that hold the ores you pick, and is saved with your other filters.
• Owned blueprints. The Market marks blueprints you already own, can filter by owned or not owned, and asks before you buy one you already have.
• Launcher ammo and builds. Load for launchers has a preset for each munition: a reload set (5 minutes of fire), fill, or an amount. Saved builds gain Overwrite.
• Player stations. The owner of a player station always sees its goods in the price lookups, at any distance, and player stations are no longer cut off the regional market list.
• Rifts with a dropped connection. A pilot whose connection drops keeps their place for 2 minutes, and the Rift's clock pauses while they are away, up to 5 minutes a run. If the run then fails, the leader's key comes back. Every Rift tier lists its possible rewards, and a results card after a clear shows what each pilot got.
• Deed Points on the website. The Leaderboards page has a Deed Points board, and every player page shows the pilot's total.
• Lighting style. Settings > Graphics has a new Lighting style: Enhanced lights ships from the planet below, lets windows and lamps glow, opens up dark hangars and adds screen-space reflections on WebGPU. It is the default on Ultra and Cinematic, and your own choice always wins. A new Filmic option joins Tone mapping.
• Trees and grass. Ultra and Cinematic get new trees, including a new broadleaf oak, new grass, wind, and turf and leaf litter on the ground.
• Clouds and planets. The new clouds now also draw on Ultra, cloud decks look solid from orbit, a high cirrus layer joins them, and clouds cast shadows on colonies.
• Colonies. Colony buildings have framed windows with lit rooms and blinds, weathering for each world, faction colors, beacons and a new hub and towers.
• Hangar signs. Bay signs now show their words in your language.
• Phone memory and loading. Android phones now get the memory guard and lighter textures on 4 GB devices, and loading into a docked ship is much faster on slower phones. If the browser closes the game in the background, the next load takes you straight back to your pilot within 30 minutes.
• Game emails. Every game email has a new, cleaner design that reads well in dark mode.

Fixes

• Salvaging quests. Scrap Run, Third Wreck and Picket Wrecks can now be finished: the ships that attack you leave a wreck for you to strip.
• Reconnecting. After a short network drop the game keeps trying to reconnect for up to five minutes instead of sending you back to the menu.
• Far Ring markets. Markets in Far Ring systems without a trading post no longer fail to open.
• Retainers. Retainers no longer fail to undock in systems without a station.
• Smoother undocking. The first moments after undocking no longer stutter near colonies, and WebGPU starts up without errors.
• iPhone and iPad. The keyboard no longer covers chat or sign-in, nothing sits under the Dynamic Island or the home bar, and the trial pill's Save and Details buttons now do what they say.
• Galaxy map. Clicking a button on a system card no longer also selects the system behind it.
• Unload all. Rift Keys and Stronghold charts now stay in your hold when you unload a ship.
• Tactical on touch. A double tap on a Tactical row no longer warps you.
• Friends. "Came online" shows at most once per friend every 10 minutes.
• Session expired. A long session no longer ends with a Session expired message while you are playing.
• Tellurion wreck. The Moon Eater's wreck now shows its textures at the right scale.
• Folded HUD cards. A HUD card you moved or resized now folds down to its header.
• Temporal upscaler. With the XETODUS Temporal upscaler on, explosions, trails and shields leave fewer after-images.

Balance

• Harvesting pacing. Harvesting pays more XP between levels 18 and 84, so level 99 now takes about 169 hours instead of 180, and level 50 about 4.3 hours instead of 5.8.
• Infiltration pacing. XP per clean clear rises for Grades III to VI to match, so level 99 takes about 186 hours instead of 196. Credits and loot are unchanged.

Thank you to every pilot who reported a problem or suggested a change. Questions and feedback are welcome on Discord. The Game Guide is updated for everything above.

New to XETODUS? The Game Guide explains how the game works, chapter by chapter.