Nine new ships, first person flight and new weapon looks

New

Ships

• Aerie. A tier 8 assault Behemoth built like a split mountain. Twelve heavy turrets stand on terraced ledges up two armored ridges, and its 36 strike fighters, 18 out at once, launch down the chasm between them into the fight. Its doctrine reaches twice as far. It moors at orbital stations and cannot land.
• Firmament. A tier 8 strike-wing Behemoth built around its flight decks. Hangar galleries run the length of the hull and launch bays line both flanks, carrying 48 strike fighters, 24 in the air at once, while four projectors keep its escorts patched. It moors at orbital stations and cannot land.
• Quarrel. A tier 7 missile flagship shaped like a crossbow: eight large launchers in armored banks across its bow-arm and twelve strike fighters launched down the rail in its spine. Its volleys split to saturate point defense, and every Missiles level adds damage and reach.
• Vespiary. A tier 7 fighter tender a size above the Colossus: deep hangar decks, launch bays down both flanks, 36 strike fighters with 18 out at once, and sixteen turrets to cover them.
• Mangonel. A tier 6 missile ship of the line, a magazine fortress with four throwing arms ending in heavy launch blocks. Each volley leaves as three bodies to swamp point defense, and every Missiles level adds damage and reach.
• Trebuchet. A tier 6 siege ship of the line with ten heavy turrets on long-recoil mounts. Its guns hit harder and reach further with every Gunnery level. It has thinner armor than a Colossus and no flight deck, so it wants a line in front of it.
• Lazaret. A tier 5 fleet hospital the size of a ship of the line: five remote projectors on a halo frame over the bow, three ward decks and a triage bay. It mends shields and armor further and faster than any Mender below a Sanctuary.
• Dovecote. A tier 5 light fighter tender: one armored flight deck, twelve strike fighters and a modest turret battery. It puts a strike wing over a fleet that cannot yet afford a Colossus.
• Menhir. A tier 5 ship of the line shaped like a standing stone, with six heavy turrets in a superfiring line. It is the Monolith's cheaper cousin, with lower skill requirements and a lighter bill of materials, so a growing fleet can bring more of them.

First person flight

• From your own bridge. Scroll in past the closest chase view, or pinch in on a phone, to fly from inside your ship: the canopy on small hulls, the bridge on capitals. Your hull steps aside so only the sky, your guns' fire and the target remain. Scroll out once to return to the chase view, or press Shift+H.
• A crosshair for it. A thin first person crosshair with the lead marker and target brackets you already know. Aiming and automatic fire work exactly as in the chase view.
• Settings. Settings › Controls has a first person field of view and a switch for scrolling into first person. Warps, docking, landings and the arena cameras bring you back to the chase view on their own.
• Middle mouse orbit. A new choice under Settings › Controls: Hold, as before, or Toggle, where one click orbits the camera and another click returns it behind the ship.

Missions

• Staging points. Kill missions now have their own staging point in the target system, on your map and HUD with a Travel button. Warp there and the mission's pirates come to you one after another, so a mission is done in one sitting instead of a long wait at a belt. In Secure space they stay weak and the Marshals still answer. Missions you already hold get their staging point too.

Quests

• Where a quest starts. Every locked unlock, counter or quest now says which quest to do, who gives the first one and where, and quest names link straight to the quest. Another faction's story says so plainly.
• Locked tab and filters. A new Locked tab lists what is still closed to you with what it needs. Filters for where a quest starts and for other factions' stories, a sort by easiest, credits or Deed Points, and an Available count that only counts what you can take.
• Phones. The Quests window is tighter on phones, with the tab strip easier to scroll and cards that fit the screen.

Weapons

• Rebuilt launchers. Swarm pods, missile and seeker launchers, torpedo launchers and rocket pods have new models on their own armored mounts: swarm cell grids, missile cells with doors that open as they fire, hooped torpedo tubes with muzzle doors and rocket pods packed with tubes.
• Missiles and torpedoes. Heavy torpedoes, large missiles, seekers, micro-missiles and cluster bomblets each have their own body, and launch smoke is soft with no hard edges.
• Flak. Flak bursts as a real proximity airburst: a white-hot flash, a sphere of fragments and a dirty puff of smoke.
• Spinal lance. The spinal lance holds a full beam from the bow to its target for the whole shot, with a charge-up at the emitter and sparks where it lands.

Trade

• Buy from trade posts in your reach. When a trade post shelf within your Trading reach sells an item cheaper, Buy there, courier here pays for it there and a courier brings it to your station.
• Vanguard trade. Vanguard members buy from any market in the galaxy and sell from any hangar, with delivery by courier.
• Market hubs. Fatal, Bagoia IV, Selnem and Seldeax Reach each have a Hub Depot counter at their trade posts, with the full NPC catalog in one place.
• Not here pointer. When an item is not sold where you are, the Market names the nearest hub and how many jumps away it is.
• Courier here quantity. The Courier here button shows how many units you are buying, for example ×20.
• Sell at trade posts. A new Sell view at every trade post lists what in your hold the post buys, with quantity, price and total. Sell a single row, or Sell all after a confirmation. My hold jumps straight to it.
• Sellable here. The cargo window marks what a trade post in range will buy with a badge, a price tooltip, a filter and a summary line.
• Hangar and cargo value. The Hangar header and the ship's cargo window show the estimated value of everything in them.

Battle Arenas

• Broadcast cameras. Every duel opens with a four-beat flyby: the whole bubble with name tags on both pilots, a long-lens close shot of each fighter, then in behind your own ship. A finale shot and a winner orbit close the fight.
• A bubble that reads clearly. The shell keeps the size of its hex pattern in close-ups, and neighboring bubbles are dimmed, so you can tell your own duel's boundary from the others.

Worlds

• Aurora and storms. The night sides of worlds glow with aurora, storms flash with lightning seen from orbit, and colony windows open onto lit rooms.
• No more pop-in. Grass and trees no longer appear in blocks around colonies and on the way down. Scenery now loads ahead along your descent and dissolves in smoothly.
• Rebuilt rigs and colonies. Colonies have street-level detail, with pressure modules, airlock porches and cargo yards, and the harvester, water collector, Core Bore and Tidal Rig have new, much more detailed models.

Interface

• New item icons. Over a hundred items have new icons of their own, including the Tidal Shear Array, data hall kits, missile and rocket ammunition, launchers, pearls, relics and trophies. Many used to borrow another item's picture.
• Item filters. Weapon types such as missile, rocket, torpedo and laser are filter chips in the Market, trade post shops, Manufacturing and the fitting picker, and every module row shows its type. Shops can show only the blueprints you own or do not own yet.
• Minimap presets. Three editable presets, Travel, Mining and Combat, live in the minimap's Filters popover. Rename them or reset them any time.
• Almanac Hunting tab. Redesigned: Bounty Masters grouped by level, a row for every quarry with its grounds and your kills, and a grid of drop tiles with rarity frames that fill in as you find them.
• Doctrine effects. A new setting under Settings › Gameplay, Full, Reduced or Off, softens the Doctrine Array pulse. Reduced is the default.
• Chat sizes. Five text sizes for chat, up to XX-Large, and a slider.
• Trade lesson. Flight School now teaches trading: fly to a trade post in one click, shop, make one cheap buy and check your Hangar.
• Universe Firsts. New records for the first pilot to reach mastery 120 and the first to reach 250M XP in each skill, a first for every Hunting-exclusive quarry, and new milestones: the first pilot to hold every skill at 99, every skill at 120, a Clan Vault, a Credit Ingot, a Battle Arena win, a Metropolis colony and a station with 50 visitors.

Improvements

• Thruster plumes. Cold-gas thrusters fade out softly instead of ending in a hard edge, fan out wider, and each puff keeps drifting and spreading after the valve shuts.
• Cleaner weapon models. Loose fittings on many turrets and launchers now mount properly, and weapon markings are clean plates and stripes.
• Faster planets. Descents and landings run noticeably faster on both WebGL 2 and WebGPU, most of all on Cinematic.
• Integrated graphics. Laptops and other integrated GPUs run smoother, including 4K screens at full resolution and while a video plays next to the game.
• Smoother sessions. The server no longer hitches briefly every 15 minutes and uses less memory in long sessions.
• Thrusters. Cold-gas thruster pods sit cleanly on the plating of more hulls, including the Ballista and the Ninth Bell.
• Phones. The Locked targets chip is quieter and popups stay clear of the thumb controls.
• Rig alerts. A full rig alerts you once, with a summary every 30 minutes, and a new Rig full alerts toggle turns them off.

Fixes

• Planet trees and grass. Forests and grass cards on planets failed to load and fell back to simpler trees. They now load as intended.
• Courier here. The Market no longer offers stock from a trade post counter you have not unlocked yet.
• Launches. Switching away from the game during an undock no longer cuts the launch short with a stall error.
• Colonies and moons. Palm trees no longer grow in colony streets, and boulders appear on moons again.
• Turret heat. Overheating turrets glow smoothly up to white heat instead of jumping to white.
• Dovecote. The front of the Dovecote's bridge no longer shows through from inside.
• Chat. System messages now stay in the channel history instead of vanishing when you open the window.
• Crew orders. Crew ships that ignored Mine, Dock and Follow now obey them, Follow warps to its slot from far away, and an order that cannot be carried out shows why.
• Flotilla. Crews set to Flee to dock now wait in dock while a Crown ship or boss holds the belt and run from them, and you get alerts when a crew has fled or is holding in dock.
• Auto-mining. Your target selection no longer snaps back to the rock being mined, and an automated run keeps your Next ore choice.
• Mac colors. Textures on macOS Chrome looked too bright and washed out. They now match Windows.
• Battle Arenas. The flyby lands exactly on your chase or duel view with no jump, the duel camera stays close to your hull instead of sweeping round it when an opponent flies past, a spectator who watches again starts on the duel camera at once, and the HUD and result card step aside during the flyby and finale.

Balance

• Hunting and harvesting. Bounty hunting and harvesting now pay much better, with more guaranteed rewards.