Bounty marks, Scrapfields, new capitals and Aether bundles

New

Bosses

• Bounty marks. Six named Crown captains hold the deep lanes of the Shatterdrifts. Four are fought alone and two by a squad of up to 5 pilots, in a private pocket you open at the drift's Rift Accelerator with no key. The accelerator shows each mark's mechanics, its rewards and when it returns for you, and each mark has a trophy of its own.
• World bosses spread out. World bosses now appear across more of the galaxy instead of the same few systems, and the Almanac and Raid finder show when the next one is expected instead of an exact countdown.
• Buffs and debuffs. Your target, the boss bar and Tactical show a row of effect icons: shield gates, an enrage, Last Call or Final Toll with its countdown, an ability charging, wards and weak points. Each squadmate in your system shows theirs in the squad block, such as a held drive, a jam or lingering damage, so you can see who needs help. Hover or tap an icon for what it does.

Ships

• Landing gear. Many ships now lower landing gear from wells in their hulls as they come in to land and stand on it. On water they rest on floats and ride the swell.
• Dolmen and Cenotaph. Two new tier 6 capitals. The Dolmen is a bastion tender with the heaviest armor of its tier, sixteen strike fighters, ten heavy turrets and +25% battery recharge. The Cenotaph is a capital raider, the fastest hull of its tier, with eight heavy and six medium turrets, +10% turret damage and +30% signature shroud strength. Their blueprints are sold at the capital trade hubs, and a build takes Shipwright's Commissions and parts made from salvage.
• Spolia. A tier 5 ship of the line built from salvage, with the heaviest armor of its tier, six large and four medium turrets, two salvage rigs and 15% more salvage chance, and a 4,000 m³ hold. It is built from salvage-built components and Shipwright's Commissions.

Aether

• Buy Aether. Aether now comes in seven bundles, from 500 Aether for $4.99 to 67,500 Aether for $499.99, with more bonus Aether in the bigger bundles. It buys paints, pilot card frames, Drone Bay cosmetics and, for Vanguard members, pilot renames. Vanguard members still earn Aether as before.
• Eight new paints. Sunthrone, Thunderveil, Wardbloom, Shoalfire, Fernback, Sapphire Cut, Plumewake and Rosefoil, from 1,500 to 12,500 Aether, with pearl, diamond, iridescent and bullion finishes and moving trim on some.

Prestige builds

• Shipwright's Commission. A new item sold at the capital trade hubs for 25 million credits. Every build below takes Commissions, together with new parts made from salvage materials: the Keel Truss, the Shrouded Reactor and the Fire Director.
• Masterwork paints. Battle Rust, Slipway Stone, Ashen Laurel and Sovereign Bronze, account-wide paints with patterns of their own, for 150 million, 300 million, 600 million and 1 billion credits.
• Trophy Hall pieces and clan memorials. Build the Keelstone, War Lantern and Triumph Ensign to show in your Trophy Hall, and clans can raise a three-level memorial at their clan home.

Salvaging

• Scrapfields. Every system has four Scrapfields full of old hulks to strip with a salvage module, and auto-salvage works there. Stripped hulks drift back in over time, and a hulk you are working is yours and your squad's while you work it.
• Battlefield. A new event beside a busy or worked-out Scrapfield: a large fight leaves fresh wrecks for 30 minutes, and each wreck's haul goes to the salvager who strips it. In Contested and Lawless space Crown scavengers come for the field.
• Salvage materials and XP. Field and Battlefield wrecks give new salvage materials that foundries, trade hubs and pirate bases buy, and every wreck you recover gives more Salvaging XP as your level rises.

Mining and hunting

• Regrowing rocks. Tactical, a belt's card and the minimap show which ores are growing back in a belt and when the next rock returns. A belt picked clean of its most valuable ore can now get a Mining Surge too.
• Nearest bounty site. Hunting guidance now takes you to the nearest bounty site where your task counts.
• More Cipher Cases. Cases drop far more often, about one an hour of play: a Battered case now comes from 1 in 32 pirate kills instead of 1 in 300. Mining, salvaging and harvesting now find cases as you work too, Sealed ones from level 30.
• Longer Cipher hunts. Sealed hunts now take about 45 minutes, Encrypted about an hour and a half and Crown-Sealed about two hours, with guardian fights along the way and consoles that set several puzzles in a row. Their rewards rose to match, and a Battered hunt stays quick.

Market and contracts

• Sell to other stations. Sell now sells into another station's buy orders at once, and the courier carries only what sold. Buyer rows also offer Fly there to carry it yourself, and the Sell now button shows the total for the units you picked. Trades with other stations earn Trading XP like a trade where you are docked.
• Fitted ships in contracts. An item contract can hold up to 5 assembled ships from the hangar, with their fit and, if you choose, their cargo holds.
• Market API and game data API. Vanguard members can create API tokens under Account settings, API access, so their own tools can read the market and place buy and sell orders for their pilots with the same fees and rules as in game. Anyone building apps for the game can read items, ships, modules, skills, recipes and places from the public game data API. The developer guide explains both.

Fitting

• Shadow fit. Plan a fit for any hull with any module, with full stats, without owning anything. Save it as a build, share it as a build link or use Fit this build. Linked fits from chat open in a window you can move and keep on top.

Colonies

• Frontier taxes. Colonies collect 5% more taxes in Contested space and 15% more in Lawless space, plus 5% more while your clan holds the system's Control Beacon.
• Frontier Strongroom. A new colony service for Lawless space halves what Hollow Crown raiders loot and doubles the part of the treasury a breach can never touch.
• Colony breaches. In Lawless space any other pilot can breach a Township or larger colony, and in Contested space only clans at war with the owner can. A breach starts close to the colony during the owner's daily window, which owners pick on the colony's Overview. More attackers go faster and defenders in range push it back. A breach takes part of the treasury and lowers taxes for a while, but nothing is ever destroyed, and the colony is protected for a time after.

Squads and clans

• Squad calls. Attack my target (PgUp) marks your locked target for squadmates in your system, each with a one-click Lock it, and sends your strike and retainer wings at it. Heal me (PgDn) asks squadmates with a remote repairer to repair you. Both are also on the squad block, the target card and the controller wheel.
• Clan skill XP. The clan Stats tab now shows the skill XP members earned over 7 or 30 days, with the top members for each skill.

PvP

• Flying by hand. Autopilot fire (Engage, Orbit, Hold range and auto-fire) now misses more often against pilots who fly by hand, most against the smallest ships and not at all against capitals.
• Drive Tethers. The new Drive Tether and Heavy Drive Tether hold a pilot's warp, cruise and gate jumps for a few seconds in Contested and Lawless space, and the law applies as for any attack. Each tether on the same pilot is weaker than the last, new pilots can't be held (nor starter ships in Contested space), and a Drive Ballast helps you slip free.

Pilots and quests

• Switch pilot. Right-click or long-press your portrait in space for a pilot menu, then pick Switch pilot to see your other pilots and swap with one click. It is also in Settings. Docked, the switch is instant. In space it waits while you are in combat and shows why and how long, and your ship stays where it is, as when you sign out.
• Quest lines in the Database. Every quest page in the Database and on the website shows its requirements, its whole quest line in order, the earlier lines it needs and what it unlocks. An item a quest pays links back to that quest.

Controls

• Share keybinds. Share your keys, controller buttons and flight options as a code, a .json file or a chat chip other pilots can open. An import shows every change before you apply it, with Undo import, and profiles keep several named sets on one device.
• Community keybinds. Settings, Controls, Community keybinds lets you publish your setup with a title and tags and browse other pilots' sets by Top rated, Most imported or New, for keyboard and mouse or controller. See what a set changes, import it with the same preview and Undo, and like it. Each set shows its likes and imports.

Improvements

• Planets from afar. Planets seen from orbit and far away show sharper ground detail and smoother cloud edges.
• Tactical colors and spent wrecks. Pick a text color for each kind of row and for your favorites under Filters, Colors in Tactical, used in Tactical, the minimap and space labels. Looted and salvaged wrecks and opened vaults are dimmed.
• Text selection. Dragging or Ctrl+A no longer highlights random parts of the game screen. Chat, descriptions, Database articles and other useful text can still be selected and copied.
• Install the web app. Installing the game from the website or Settings, Install app, now explains what it does first, and the website has a Get it on Steam button.
• Vanguard Permits. Newly bought permits can usually be traded right away.
• Rename button. Change pilot name on the pilot card is now a small Rename button.

Fixes

• Your own wreck. The wreck of a ship you lost is tagged Yours in Tactical and can be found and warped to from anywhere in its system, not only from close by.
• Retainers. The Retainers pill on the flight HUD opens with a mouse click again.
• Hangar credits. Your credits in the hangar now update right away after a sale to another station or any other payout. Click them to open the Wallet, and click again to close it.

Balance

• Fighters. Fighter wings hit a little harder against NPCs, NPCs no longer lock them the moment they launch, and point defense strikes them less often, so tenders lose far fewer fighters.
• Ore. Ferrosite now refines into 8 Ferrium per 10 ore instead of 5, and the Hull Plating Bundle for tier 6 and larger hulls takes some Xetium and Void Matter in place of part of its Ferrium.
• Quest gear. The Exchange-Seat Hold Frame now adds 45% cargo instead of 36%, and the Long Haul Trim Thruster 48% speed instead of 45%, now at 16% less battery drain than a Burst Thruster instead of 30%.
• Sunresin Survey Auger. It now adds 115% planetary harvest instead of 72%, above the Deep Auger Array's 100%.
• Auger prices. Augers cost much more to craft and buy, and their recipes take more components plus Rare Earths, Piezo Quartz and other planet materials. The Regolith Auger is now about 60,000 credits instead of 7,000, the Deep Auger Array about 400,000 instead of 23,000 and the Sunresin Survey Auger about 450,000 instead of 42,000.