Changelog
What's New
Every notable build since the in-game What's New panel came online in July, across Explore and Play.
feature new capabilityart visuals & assetsfix fixes & refactors
October 4
2026-10-04- featureBuild hexes for colony buildings. Several colony buildings now pack edge to edge on a 9 m build-hex lattice inside one claimed cell, each claiming only its hull and berm, and finished neighbours shorten a new building's on-site time.
- artColony night lights. At night each colony building carries its own lamp rig, with door lights, connector strips, red obstruction lights and the magenta grow light through the glazing, instead of standing in a fully lit hex.
- fixDelta-V Map trips on Explore. The Delta-V Map on Explore lists the same trips Play does from the same start, and GO on a row flies it.
- fixEarth date on the clock. The clock panel at the top of Play and Explore now opens with the Earth date and UTC time, with the Mars sol and year beneath it.
- fixEvery building on a plot is drawn. A plot no longer stops at eight structures: every building past the eighth is now drawn, graded and lit.
- fixFly down onto the summit. Picking Everest, Denali or Aconcagua from the Atlas region list turns the view onto the summit and flies straight down to it, without the mountain building itself on screen.
- fixLagrange labels give way in flight. In flight, a Lagrange marker's label fades while it overlaps the target's name, distance or pin, and comes back when they separate.
- artMagenta Grow Lights and a New Landing Pad. A new landing pad rises on its own surveyed hex plot at Jezero Delta, Mars. Greenhouse domes glow magenta at night as the shot moves from day into night. Scored with Erik's own Suno track, "Serene Ascent."
- featureSatellites hold their slots past the snapshot. Starlink, Kuiper and Iridium NEXT keep their slots past the snapshot, the ISS follows NASA's predicted track, and a satellite 30 days past its elements is hidden.
- artThe real night sky. Stars drift with their measured proper motion on the game clock, the Milky Way comes from the NASA Deep Star Maps, and ship hulls reflect the real sky instead of a painted one.
- featureLeap seconds. The sim clock renders all 27 historical leap seconds, including 2016-12-31 23:59:60Z.
- featureWeekly satellite ingest. A weekly job pulls the latest complete week of Earth-satellite orbital data, with an alarm if it ever fails.
- artColony on Jezero Delta. Landing pad, greenhouse dome and survey stakes placed across the Martian plot.
October 3
2026-10-03- featureSatellites, phase 1. A full October 3 snapshot of real satellite positions and orbits, color-coded by type.
- featureReal-Earth terrain. Mount Everest and the Alps, from orbital survey altitude down to a ground-level walkaround.
- featureTransfer windows. Autopilot offers the next, next-next and best-of-the-next-five windows for any body-to-body flight plan.
October 2
2026-10-02- featureLagrange points & barycenters. Sol-Earth, Sol-Mars, Sol-Jupiter and Earth-Luna Lagrange points, plus the Sol-Jupiter and solar-system barycenters.
- artMartian sunsets. Accurate sun scattering and atmospheric sunsets over Jezero Delta.
- fixSmall-body eclipses. Europa transits show as a dark spot on Jupiter; a Phobos transit dims Mars's sunlight by only 26–40%.
October 1
2026-10-01- featureNight-vision goggles. Exposure amplified roughly 12x for the lunar dark.
- featureShadows between bodies. Body-to-body shadow casting, checked against the real November 8, 2022 lunar eclipse.
- artIuventius Pup drive. Ignition, full burn, cutoff and cooling for the Pup's main drive.
- fixThruster ignition transient. The ignition pop on thruster start-up is smoothed out.
September 29
2026-09-29- artMars sunrise. Sunrise and atmosphere bloom at Jezero.
September 27
2026-09-27- featureexplore.4xciv.com. Pure solar-system exploration in the browser. No passphrase, no game mechanics.
September 26
2026-09-26- fixAtlas refactor. 259 merged PRs; 17,797 net lines removed from the largest file alone.
September 21
2026-09-21- featureSign in with Bike4Mind. Persistent crafting state tied to a Bike4Mind account.
September 20
2026-09-20- featureAutopilot. Real transfer windows with wait, burn and course-correction steps, from any body to any other.
- featureTerrain-aware movement. Ground movement that follows the terrain, with atmosphere that reacts to it.
September 19
2026-09-19- featureSurvey and claim. Hex-plot survey-and-claim at ground level on Jezero Delta.
September 17
2026-09-17- artLet there be light. The Sun gets real granular, flare-streaked surface detail.
- featureDelta-V Map. In-ship HUD listing travel time and speed change to every body in the system.
September 16
2026-09-16- feature21 → 37 bodies. The Jovian and Saturnian moon systems ship with real imagery.
- featureHonest gap fill. Seed-based synthetic fill where real data runs out, with a toggle to show the gap instead.
- artAsteroid belt rework. New battle-phase asteroid-belt art around Mars.
September 12
2026-09-12- featureItem catalog. 173 items across 15 categories, with crafting and colony inventory screens.
- artInventory icons. Generated icon sets for biomass, raw minerals and power equipment.
September 11
2026-09-11- featureReal gravity. All 21 bodies apply correct relative gravity; combat moves into the real system; warp up to 86,400x.
September 7
2026-09-07- featureBoots on the ground. Descents to Jezero Crater on Mars and the Apollo 15 Hadley site on the Moon.
- artJupiter and Saturn. Jupiter's cloud bands and Saturn's ring data go live; Deimos is meshed.
September 6
2026-09-06- fixTile seams. Phobos, Europa, Venus, Charon, Pluto and Ceres rebaked to remove seams.
September 5
2026-09-05- fixPhobos shape model. Phobos gets its correct shape; mouse-drag rotation direction fixed.
September 4
2026-09-04- featureQuick-select. One-click list for all 21 catalogued bodies, plus real-terrain surface descent.
September 2
2026-09-02- fixOrbit-to-surface zoom. A performance pass makes the zoom from orbit to the rocks smooth; flight HUD patched.
August 31
2026-08-31- featureColony building. Place three buildings on Jezero Delta hex plots; they persist and you can craft with them.
August 23
2026-08-23- featureBibliotheca. Raw, semantic and Ask the Magistra search over the canon.
July 21
2026-07-21- featureWhat's New panel. This feed, in-game: Artifact Viewer and ship-part updates.