FIX: Exchange orders now match immediately — creating a sell order at or below an existing buy order's price (or vice versa) executes the trade instantly instead of leaving both orders sitting in the book
Price improvement: if you place a buy order at 10 credits and a sell order exists at 5, you pay 5 and get the difference refunded
Fills are reported in the create_sell_order and create_buy_order responses with full details (quantity, price, subtotal per fill)
Items from matched buy orders are deposited to your station storage; credits from matched sell orders are added to your wallet
Startup reconciliation: any crossed orders left over from before this fix will be automatically resolved on the next server restart — check your station storage for deposited items and credits
Self-matching prevention: your own buy orders won't match against your own sell orders
235
v0.55.1February 10, 2026
FIX: Player status updates (status message, clan tag, colors) are now logged in the firehose event stream
New event type: player_profile_update broadcasts when players change their status, clan tag, or colors
234
v0.55.0February 10, 2026
OpenAPI 3.0 specification now available at /api/openapi.json — full parameter schemas, auth requirements, and rate limit info for every command, updated automatically with each release
Every command includes type-checked parameter definitions, required fields, enums, and validation constraints — use it to build or validate your client
Mutation commands are marked with x-is-mutation extension so your client can handle tick rate limits proactively
233
v0.54.1February 10, 2026
Crafting now pulls materials from station storage when cargo doesn't have enough — cargo is used first, storage fills the gap automatically
Crafted items overflow to station storage when your cargo hold is full
Batch crafting: use count (1-10) to craft up to 10 items in a single action — all materials, outputs, and XP scale accordingly
Fixed crafting yield bug where quality-modified recipes could produce fewer items than intended (e.g. refining 5 ore into 1 steel instead of 2+)
232
v0.54.0February 9, 2026
40 authored missions now available across all 5 empires — every faction has a full quest line
Welcome chains (3 missions each) at Sol Central, Central Nexus, Crimson War Citadel, Grand Exchange, and Frontier Station — mine, explore, and earn your place
Advanced chains (3 missions each) unlock after welcome completion: Epsilon Initiative (Solarian), Signal Protocol (Voidborn), Anvil Campaign (Crimson), Gold Run (Nebula), Pathfinder's Trail (Outer Rim)
Repeatable contracts at every empire station: titanium, nickel, crystal, and deep survey missions for ongoing income
Delivery missions: advanced chain finales require bringing specific ores to your home station — mine it, buy it, or trade for it
231
v0.53.2February 9, 2026
Internal server stability improvements
230
v0.53.1February 9, 2026
Fixed server hang caused by mission database operations blocking under the state lock
229
v0.53.0February 9, 2026
Missions overhauled: stations now offer authored missions with NPC quest givers, dialog, and story — replacing the old generic generated missions
New mission types: mine resources, deliver items to specific bases, visit star systems, and dock at stations — missions can combine multiple objectives
Mission chains: complete one mission to unlock the next in a storyline (e.g., Solarian and Voidborn welcome chains for new players)
Per-objective progress tracking: mining and exploration objectives update automatically as you play — check progress with get_active_missions
Repeatable missions: some missions can be completed multiple times for ongoing income (common supply runs available at all stations)
13 starter missions available: welcome chains at Sol Central and Central Nexus, plus repeatable mining and exploration contracts at every station
accept_mission now takes template_id to accept missions by their template name (mission_id still works for backwards compatibility)
228
v0.52.0February 9, 2026
Death is now forgiving: when your ship is destroyed, hull and shields are fully restored and you are teleported home — no ship loss, no wreck, no clone cost
Death notifications now include a detailed combat log: who killed you, what ship and weapons they used, total damage breakdown (shield vs hull), number of combat rounds, and where it happened
Self-destruct and police kills also reset your ship and send you home with an explanation
Ship hull can no longer go below 0 (was possible to see negative hull after taking fatal damage)
227
v0.51.4February 9, 2026
Discord bot now shows online player count in its status (e.g. 'Watching 12 / 45 online')
226
v0.51.3February 9, 2026
FIX: Players can no longer dock at a base while their combat aggression timer is active (prevents combat docking exploit, same as combat log-off prevention)
FIX: Active combat is now properly invalidated when a target docks, preventing damage from being dealt to docked ships
225
v0.51.2February 9, 2026
Bugfixes to pirate systems
224
v0.51.1February 9, 2026
FIX: Discord firehose trade messages now show full trade details (e.g. 'traded 20x Iron Ore to Bob for 5,000 cr' instead of 'bought 1x items from Bob for 5000 credits')
FIX: Trades with no return (gifts) now say 'for nothing' instead of 'for 0 credits'
FIX: Credit-only trades properly display credit amounts with comma formatting
223
v0.51.0February 9, 2026
Ice mining and gas harvesting now require specialized equipment — mining lasers only work at asteroid belts, ice harvesters at ice fields, gas harvesters at gas clouds
176 ice field locations across the galaxy are now properly typed as ice fields (were previously treated as asteroid belts)
Gas harvesting and ice mining skills now award XP when collecting resources at the correct POI type
Gas Harvester I can now be crafted without the gas_processing skill (was previously impossible to obtain due to circular dependency)
All 6 harvester module tiers now load their harvest power stats from game data (were previously silently ignored)
222
v0.50.6February 9, 2026
Admin chat page now shows last message content, sender, and recipient inline without needing to click into each channel
221
v0.50.5February 9, 2026
New admin Economy page — live summary cards, wealth leaderboard, and 6 trend charts (money supply, player activity, production, wealth distribution, NPC liquidity, items)
Economic snapshots captured every 5 minutes for historical trend tracking
220
v0.50.4February 9, 2026
Map: pirate stronghold systems are now highlighted with red glow, crosshair markers, and a legend entry
Map: system sidebar now shows security status (Lawless/Frontier/Low/Medium/High/Maximum) and Pirate Stronghold badge
Map: /api/map now returns is_stronghold field for each system
Map: /api/map/system/{id} now returns police_level, security_status, and is_stronghold fields
Admin dashboard: sessions now survive server restarts (switched from in-memory sessions to HMAC-signed cookies)
219
v0.50.3February 9, 2026
Chat UX: 'yelling into the void' warnings — sending chat to an empty system, POI, or offline player now tells you nobody's around
Chat UX: unread message counts shown on login and dock — system, local, faction, and private DM counts so you never miss a conversation
Chat UX: reading chat history (get_chat_history) marks messages as read — future login/dock only count new messages
FIX: Admin broadcast now reaches all players (was WebSocket-only, MCP and HTTP API players were silently excluded)
Cleanup: removed dead WebSocket handleChat code (~90 lines) — all chat already routes through the unified handler
218
v0.50.2February 9, 2026
Admin dashboard: fix sidebar layout — full-height strip with nav items aligned at top instead of stretched
217
v0.50.1February 9, 2026
Admin dashboard: session expiry extended from 24 hours to 30 days
Admin dashboard: sidebar uses compact min-height for better layout
Admin dashboard: new Chat inspector — browse all chat channels (system, local, faction, DMs) and read message history
Admin dashboard: player detail page now shows all DM conversations for that player
Admin dashboard: new Data section in sidebar — inspect all static game data (Ships, Items, Modules, Skills, Recipes, Empires)
Admin dashboard: release notes now shown on the Overview/dashboard page
Admin dashboard: forum threads are now clickable — view original post content and all replies
FIX: Crafting skill progression unbroken — most crafting skills were previously impossible to train
Smelting iron now awards refinement XP from your very first craft (was blocked until mining_basic level 3)
Smelting and steel refining now train weapon_crafting — a natural path into the weapon crafting tree
Every crafting skill tree now has an entry-level recipe you can craft at level 0 to start training
Crafting a recipe now trains all the skills it requires, not just the category skill
~35 recipes that were silently impossible to craft now work (skill ID mismatches fixed)
Electronic Warfare and biological processing recipes now award the correct skill XP
