Patch 1.0.3 is out, and it is the biggest update since launch. Thanks to everyone who reported bugs and shared feedback: a lot of this patch comes straight from you.

Crew

• Stations now hire pilots, each with one of 20 traits.
  
• Place your crew in any of your hangar ships, including the one you fly. A pilot flying a wingman ship gives their full bonus; crew aboard, and everyone in your own ship, give half.
  
• Seats depend on the hull, from 2 on fighters to 5 on cruisers and capital ships.
  
• A wingman is now a spare hangar ship with a pilot at the controls. The new Crew tab shows your wing, your hangar seats and your recruits.
  

New secondary weapons

• Mine Layers: proximity mines thrown ahead of you that drift, arm and blow up enemy hulls.
  
• Heavy torpedoes (zones 2 and 3): Nova (huge blast), Pulse (knocks shields down) and Stasis (freezes enemies). Hold the missile button and release to detonate. They follow the mouse cursor, and fly straight on gamepad and touch. 40 s reload.
  
• Decoy Launchers: lure enemy guided missiles away from you.
  
• Switch secondary weapons with Tab, the d-pad (left/right) or the new cycle button on touch. A new weapon bar sits at the bottom of the screen.
  
• Nova and mine blasts break asteroids.
  

Enemies and bosses

• Drone relays and the Nexus sow mines and fire announced EMP waves (shields down, energy drained to 25 %). Leviathans and Templars drop mines behind them.
  
• New elite trait, Elusive: it pops flares that pull your guided missiles away.
  
• Large enemy hulls sweep red searchlights.
  

A fairer start

• A wider view: you can zoom out further, and the camera eases back to a wider view when things are calm.
  
• An enemy firing at you from off screen makes its edge marker flash.
  
• Enemy cannon range is capped, so enemies can no longer hit you from far beyond the screen.
  
• The Falcon starts with a shield, and zone 1 stations always sell one.
  
• No asteroid-field ambush at the very first rank, and later ambushes ramp up more gently.
  
• Easy difficulty now really lowers the damage you take.
  
• Menus open step by step: Trade, Research, Hangar, Crew and Travel unlock one by one as you play, introduced by ARIA. Existing saves keep everything open.
  

Economy and balance

• Better cannons are now much more energy efficient: energy per damage goes down from Dolphin to Cobra, Hornet and Ghost.
  
• Enemies have more hit points in zone 2 (x1.5) and zone 3 (x2).
  
• Weapon Efficiency skill: -10 % / -20 % energy (was -15 % / -30 %).
  
• Mining and scans pay less: no uranium in zone 1, refining pays by metal, and scan rewards taper off after a zone's first 15 scans. Missions give a bit less research.
  
• Several skills rebalanced (Fast Reload, Nano-Repairers now repair a share of your max hull, Salvage Scan, Research Efficiency...) and their descriptions corrected.
  
• Shop prices +20 %, generators 50 % stronger, and hull prices follow their power: Swift 22k, Vulture 58k, Spear 210k, Condor 330k, Bastion 580k, Sphinx 700k.
  
• The Condor is now a Heavy Cruiser and the Sphinx a Battleship.
  

Visuals

• Redesigned ships with faction emblems, and drones with more character: Raptor, Corsair, Reaper, Templar, Juggernaut, Titan, Viper, Fang and more.
  
• New turrets on ships and stations, with fixed bases and a size that fits each hull.
  
• New drone relays and a new Nexus.
  
• Searchlights now light what they sweep over, your ship and shield included. Station searchlights follow approaching ships, and your ship has headlights.
  
• Asteroids and rock stations get a shaded night side, stations are more detailed, and research icons have been redrawn.
  
• Big ships are drawn under small ones, so fighters no longer vanish behind a cruiser.
  

Menus and HUD

• Every menu redone in one clean panel style: Ship, Hold and Trade with an actions window, a ship stats panel, a new cargo hold, crew cards with living portraits, journal, career and codex.
  
• Settings, pause, game over and the world map redone to match.
  
• A lighter HUD: the top-left block keeps hull and energy, pickups show as a short "+X in hold" message, wingmen get their own card, and the objective sits in the top-right corner (on touch, tap it to open the map).
  

Controls

• Gamepad: letting go of the stick mid-turn stops the turn where it is, and slow stick moves give finer aim.
  
• Touch: the fire button sits under your right thumb, the missile button above it shows its reload, a visible stick appears while you steer, and firing keeps going if your thumb slides off the button.
  

Fixes

• Story mission "The Core" failed the instant it started. Some story missions also lost their bonus reward and reinforcements. Fixed.
  
• The Nexus's armour could not be hit, which made the final boss unbeatable. Fixed.
  
• Armada missions (join the fleet) no longer cause lag spikes (PC and Android).
  
• Early Access saves could load with free shops and zero rewards. Fixed.
  
• The galaxy jump is now saved, and Escape now takes you back.
  
• Large allies no longer fly through each other, plus many smaller fixes.
  

Languages

• German is now available (AI translation, with an in-game notice asking native speakers for corrections). Spanish gets the same notice.
  

The update downloads automatically through Steam, and the demo gets the same changes. Tell us what you think on the forum or on Discord. Good hunting, pilots!