Frontier Stations Update

New

Player stations

• Found your own station. Pilots can now found a station at one of a few fixed sites in a star system, most of them in Contested and Lawless space, close to belts, gate ruins and megastructures. Open Player Stations to pick a site and a type.
• Eight station types. Haven, Observatory, Ore Works, Drydock, Assay Lab, Exchange, Rampart and Shipwright Annex, each with its own look and specialty: cheaper repairs at a Drydock, better refining at an Ore Works, faster manufacturing at an Assay Lab, faster hull construction at a Shipwright Annex, lower broker fees at an Exchange, longer undock protection at a Rampart, and an Observatory that reveals the hidden sites your Exploration can find when you dock.
• Build it in two steps. Pay the deed and a construction frame appears at the site. Then deliver the material bill to its hangar within 14 days, or buy out whatever is missing.
• Twenty modules. Twelve outside and eight in the hangar: paint schemes, running lights, banners, a habitat ring, deck finishes, bay lighting and more, plus a few with real effects, such as a beacon that drops warping ships closer and a Repair Gantry that makes repairs cheaper. Some unlock as more pilots visit.
• Premium services. Every station sells a battery overcharge (more capacity and faster recharge for 30 minutes after you launch), and stations in Contested and Lawless space can be your home point. Owners set their own prices, with caps on the docking toll and the repair markup.
• Owner rewards. Owners earn a share of what visitors pay, appear on the busiest stations board and the galaxy map, and can let their clan dock for free.
• Upkeep. A station costs a weekly upkeep, paid up to four weeks ahead or straight from your wallet. If it goes unpaid, the station closes to visitors for a 14-day grace period, with warnings. After that it is released, and every ship and item stored there moves to the nearest NPC station.
• An endgame goal. Deeds run from 250 million to 800 million credits. Any pilot on an account at least 14 days old can found one, one station per account. Stations can't be attacked.

Racing

• Two racing modes. Circuit is the new default: a lit lane with soft walls, steering help, a Brake control and boost pads, with no crashes. Gauntlet is the hard mode: free flight through solid rings past hazard buoys, where a crash costs 3 seconds and puts you back at your last ring. Gauntlet pays 25% more Racing XP and has better podium odds.
• Prizes by name. Race results now name your purse, your Racing XP and your prize, and say where the prize went. Show in hangar opens your hangar right on the item, marked New.
• Race HUD. Start lights, your position, splits at every ring, a Wrong Way warning and a finish moment. Each course has a leaderboard per mode with its five fastest pilots.

Ships

• Filigree and Reliquary. Two Choir-lattice hulls, cast on a gold cell frame over a dark honeycomb core. The Filigree is an Outrider and the strongest small hull in a fight between small ships. The Reliquary is a Behemoth, a shield-tanked fleet anchor. Neither can be bought from an NPC: each one is a long chase through rare drops from world bosses, Strongholds, exploration, hunting and more, then a long build. A finished Filigree can be traded between pilots; a Reliquary stays with the pilot who built it.
• Pack for transport. In the hangar, an undamaged ship docked at the station can be packed back into a hull item to trade, sell or haul. Its modules and cargo go to the station hangar, and any hull bond or replacement cover on it ends with no refund.

Battery

• Battery pressure. Big ships now need battery management. Small hulls stay forgiving, but from tier 3 up, a ship running every gun, its repairers and a lit thruster can run dry without battery modules, and from tier 6 it takes real planning. Every battery module now buys you more time.
• Battery readouts. The Fitting window's battery card says whether your fit holds or how long until it runs dry, also against a drain weapon, and shows your hull's weapon load. On the HUD, a low battery turns orange and pulses, a countdown shows the time left while it falls, a chip tells you when Auto modules are paused for a low battery, and a marker names whoever just drained you.

Chat

• @mentions. Type @ to pick a pilot's name. A line that mentions you is highlighted, and a mention in a tab you aren't looking at shows a notice. The mention sound can be turned off in the chat menu.
• Tab badges. Chat tabs show unread counts and mentions. Each tab can notify you for every line, mentions only or nothing.
• Profanity filter. Turn the chat's profanity filter on or off in the chat menu. It is on by default.

Pilots

• Inspect. Choose Inspect ship from the player menu, the target card or a pilot card to look at another pilot's ship up close, within 50 km. Turn and zoom around it exactly as others see it, with the pilot's avatar, title and clan. You see only what anyone flying past could see, such as the hull, plating and weapon mounts, never their modules or cargo.

Quests

• Difficulty ratings. Every quest, daily, weekly and Job Board offer now shows its difficulty and a recommended ship before you accept, such as "Medium · Recommended: Gunship (Lancer)", with a warning when your active ship is smaller than that.

Improvements

Phones and tablets

• Modules are within reach beside the stick, so you can use them while you steer.
• Tactical opens as a sheet on phones and a side column on tablets, with search and filters on one line.
• Every window opens full screen on phones, with its main buttons at the bottom.
• Larger buttons and touch targets throughout.
• The module panel can be moved, resized and folded into a pill that snaps anywhere on screen and remembers its spot for each layout. A tap on the pill always opens it.
• Keyboard hints no longer show on touch screens.
• Auto-mine now has a touch button, and asteroid rows in Tactical show how much ore is left.
• Nothing covers the attack button anymore.

Interface

• Colonies show the full costs and effects of a building before you build it, and list every missing material at once.
• Merit Stores have a button to set a route to the nearest station of your faction.
• The Game Guide is now complete in Turkish.
• Retainers account for every deposit in their notices and the wing panel.
• Ship names, pilot bios, clan descriptions and other text other pilots see now get the same cleaning and filter as chat, and new pilot names can't imitate someone else's.
• Guest trials now end right at the two-hour mark with a save screen, and your pilot is kept for you to claim.

Graphics

• New defaults on every preset: native resolution with no upscaler, and bloom at 30%. High, Ultra and Cinematic use 4x MSAA. If you use a Custom setup, your settings are kept.
• The graphics settings have a short main list, with everything else under Advanced.

Fixes

• The end of a jump no longer jerks: no hull flip or camera swing as you arrive.
• Fewer hitches when docking.
• Hangar cables now hang in smooth, natural curves.
• Racing rings now count whenever your ship flies through them, whatever its size or speed.
• Hidden quest sites, such as the one in The Relic Hunter, now resolve at any Exploration level with a Deep Scanner sweep anywhere in their system.
• Sites you have scanned stay revealed after you die, respawn or reconnect.
• Retainers no longer take damage from their own crashes or atmospheric heat.
• Buy last ship now fits your build onto a matching hull already docked at the station, such as your Sparrow, instead of buying a second one.
• Fixed black speckles in the warp tunnel and jump corridor with Temporal anti-aliasing.
• Fixed Bond and Insure staying unavailable for your active ship after docking at another station. When one can't be bought, the reason is now shown as text.

Balance

• Syndicate-Issue Mining Laser S: about 13% more yield and 35% more reach, now ahead of the Vein Splitter S. The Syndicate Seam Cutter M gets 15% more reach.
• Items that were outclassed by a cheaper choice were retuned so each has a reason to fit: Penrose Cutter, Quarry Tracker Railgun, Dominion-Issue launchers, Accord-Issue Barrier Amplifier and Dominion-Issue Reserve Cell Bank.
• Early story and faction arc fights are easier. The Relic Hunter and Meridian can now be won in a starter ship, and the Frontier Run daily asks for two kills instead of three. Rewards are unchanged.
• Drain weapons now drain a share of the target's battery, so they matter against big ships. Some hostiles in Contested and Lawless space carry them (never in Secure space), and two more world bosses gain a drain pulse.