Changelog

This is a list of all the changes made to the game. We will begin updating the changelog at least once a week.

If you have any questions, please ask in the #general-chat channel on Discord.

September 23, 2023

This week we've updated the shape of the galaxy to a three-armed spiral galaxy, and a few small bug fixes.

Updates

• new galaxy shape (3-armed spiral)

Fixes

• extract/survey endpoint should now actually use the survey
• added shipCount to my/agent endpoint

We are also continuing to work on a few new game mechanics along with a brand new starting system seeder which will come out in a future release. Some of these new mechanics coming up will include:

• random starting locations for each agent that joins a faction
• seeding dozens of individual asteroids, each with potentially richer deposits of ores and metals
• limits to the rate at which you can mine an asteroid before it becomes "unstable"
• related to the above, waypoints will now have "modifiers" for different states of the waypoint, such as "unstable" or "stripped" (for asteroids), and others for markets and shipyards
• ships will now become locked in "engagements" during certain activities, such as surveying or generating contracts
• re-working the jump gate network so jump gates have direct connections to other jump gates
• some new ship types and trade goods

We will probably tag these upcoming changes as our "v2.1" release, and will anounce when we are ready to release them.

September 14, 2023

Hello everyone! We are back from summer break and diving back in to regular updates. This week we fixed a few reported issues. Note that there is a deprecated property on ShipNavRoute and a new endpoint for extracting with surveys that you will want to update before the next reset.

In the next few weeks we may be updating the seeder to change the starting conditions for new agents, which will likely invalidate some of your existing trading strategies that rely on your starter system dynamics. With change comes new opoprtunities to make it to the leaderboard!

Updates

• the Ship schema will now include a cooldown so players no longer need to hit a separate endpoint to get the cooldown status. In the instance where a ship has no cooldown, the expiration key will be undefined and seconds remaining will be 0.
• import market trade volume will now only grow when related exports are being fulfilled. There may also be tweaks to how often this occurs. We will continue to update market growth and contraction over the next few weeks to simulate interesting opportunities for players to take advantage of.
• the ShipNavigation schema now has an origin property to replace the departure property. The departure key is going to be re-purposed as a timestamp, so arrival: Date and departure: Date will be aligned, and origin and destination will detail the waypoints of the ship's navigation.
• players can now see the modification fee for installing and removing mounts. This fee is charged per mount install / removal. When module modifications are added, this fee will be charged per slot of the module.
• a new endpoint has been added to make extractions with surveys more explicit, and we will be deprecating the survey property on the current extract endpoint. You will want to migrate your survey extractions to the new /my/ships/{shipSymbol}/extract/survey endpoint.
• adds a new property orbits to Waypoint which is the parent symbol if the waypoint is orbiting another waypoint, otherwise this property is undefined.
• adds a crew property to ShipyardShip to detail the crew required and capacity fields for the ship type.

Deprecations

• ShipNavigation property departure is now deprecated in favor of origin. Next week we will re-purpose the departure property to replace departureTime so arrival and departure will be aligned as timestamps, and origin and destination will detail the ship's navigation waypoints.
• the survey property on the extraction endpoint is now deprecated in favor of the separate endpoint /my/ships/{shipSymbol}/extract/survey. This will allow us to better communicate survey related errors to the user.

New Endpoints

• /my/ships/{shipSymbol}/extract/survey

Internal

• updated our database client library to the latest major version

June 24, 2023

This week is just a light release of bug fixes and minor updates. We will have to skip a reset next weekend due to our schedules, but we'll be back the following week with a new release.

The only major change this week is downgrading diamond profitability to be closer to gold and platinum (sorry diamond miners!). There will be two weeks between resets, so maybe the downgrade in diamond prices will stretch things out a bit.

We've downgraded some of the extra server resources to optimize costs. There is a small chance we are too close to the limit, which might require some downtime mid-week to add resources back in.

Updates

• An agent symbol that's already taken now throws a 409 error instead of 422 (013037d4)
• Diamonds are now as profitable as gold or platinum (a78b9722)
• Contracts now increase the supply at the market on fulfillment (0b91098a)
• Increased the credits leaderboard to 15 spots (9ad38718)

Fixes

• Fixed bug in the refine response fields for trade symbol (af99736c)
• Added diamonds to Surveyor III (54a7adbd)
• Fixed 500 bug with surveying waypoints without traits (ce73b2de)
• Fixed bug with refuel amounts not being accurate (11da3508)

June 17, 2023

This week we mostly focused on some bug fixes and server maintanence tasks that we've been putting off for a while.

Going into our summer schedule, updates might be a bit slower than usual depending on vacation schedules, but we'll still be around to fix bugs and answer questions. We might take the time to work on some larger features that require more time to implement. However we'll continue to maintain regular weekly resets while the economy is hot.

Next week we may experiment with extending some of the travel times to make the economy remain balanced longer into the week. As always, if you find any bugs or discover any exploits, please let us know!

Breaking

• Corrected the transaction object in the install / remove 201 response (5ae4f737)

Updates

• Slightly nerfed surveys to have fewer yields and occurrences (c0e04734)
• Provided more cargo modules on heavy freighters (1f8fbdcb)
• Added an option to specify the refuel amount in the refuel request (69f2d40a)
• Increased the system count to 12k (be5a3a72)

Fixes

• Fixed the ship role on the probe ship (0a14c9e8)
• Resolved a server error on extraction (bb56cf52)
• Corrected the sell cargo error message (2d985d3f)
• Orbital stations are now correctly marked as orbitals to a parent waypoint (d8785a01)
• Improved universe seeding: starter waypoints are now closer together, and
• starter systems are seeded with closer waypoints for fuel (ad4c2f0b, 2bc6e377)

June 10, 2023

This week was busier for the team so we didn't have a chance to add any new game mechanics, but we did fix a few bugs and tweak some of the game mechanics from last week's release.

In this release, we've implemented several game mechanics updates to improve gameplay experience and balance the universe economy. Notably, warping is now slower than inner-system travel, and exchange purchase/sell prices are more aligned with lower margins across the universe. In addition, new requirements for navigation and adjustments to mining and trade have been introduced to enrich the universe's economy. In response to player feedback and our ongoing testing, we've also resolved several bugs and improved system performance.

Breaking

• Navigation and warp now require the ship to be in orbit (70f88b05)

Updates

• Changed travel mechanics: warping is now slower than inner-system travel (8a258ac0)
• Rebalanced economy: exchange purchase/sell prices are more aligned, margins are a bit lower across the universe, starter system exchanges now support higher volumes in common ores and minerals, and - have lower trade volume for diamonds (729b29f5, def78e67)
• Mining lasers now only extract ores and metals; mineral deposits now contain precious stones (def78e67)
• Preparing to add gas extraction and fuel refinement (bb274b58)

Fixes

• Corrected negotiate contract status from 200 to 201 (fba6e0bd)
• Fixed bug allowing installation of one more mount than specs allow (2b7ead08)
• Fixed game description of mineral deposits (bd9f318c)
• Validated mount symbol on install (7afd2537)

Enjoy your updated journey across the universe!

June 03, 2023

This week’s reset focused on tweaking the starter system economics and removing some exploits from last week’s release. We also added the ability to install and remove mounts from your ships using the new /my/ships/{shipSymbol}/mounts endpoints.

There is only one breaking change this week that will likely affect your scripts. Purchasing a ship will now require a ship to be present at the location of the shipyard. This is to prevent agents from too easily spreading across the galaxy.

To continue to make the quickstart as easy as possible, a probe ship is seeded at your starting shipyard to enable ship purchasing right away.

We also applied various tweaks to starter systems markets and asteroids:

• the starting system asteroid now only contains common metal deposits, meaning agents will need to venture outside of the starting system to maximize profits from mining.
• exchange prices should now better incentivize agents to sell when supplies are low, and purchase when supplies are high
• trade volume has been lowered across the starting system meaning agents are likely to see more volatile prices early on in the reset
• market growth / decay is being tested this reset, so players should see trade volume increase with consistent trade and when imports are met (and thus more stable prices)
• exchanges have been seeded at asteroids in populated systems across the galaxy
• starting contracts are now much easier to complete due to the smaller trade volumes and various bugs have been fixed
• contract deliveries should now come from the least supplied markets and the new agent contract should provide better “on-fulfilled” payment terms
• to compensate for lower contract payments, starting agents will begin with 150,000 credits
• contracts should start expiring this week and will be removed if you don’t accept the terms; generating new contracts are still a WIP so if you find bugs please let us know

Later during this reset we might be adding the ability to install / remove modules as well, but it might wait until the following week. We had a busy weekend with the holiday so there is still a lot of work to do that didn’t make it into this reset.

Enjoy and please file bugs and exploits as you explore!

Breaking

• Added requirement of ship presence at shipyard for purchasing a ship (6c4e3fe9)

Updates

• Added ability to install and remove ship mounts (05d1248c)
• Enhanced new agent experience: easier new agent contracts, increased new agent contract payment, new agent probe ship at shipyard (13f7629f, 14695b27, 64a9b892)
• Updated trade and economy: rebalanced trade prices, tweaked price of fuel, removed antimatter from starting systems and homeworld exports (fbcf99da, 1ed2f29c, e95caf99)
• Changed starter system parameters (b82e5695)

Fixes

• Fixed various contract-related bugs: bug with contract generation selecting over supplied markets, bug with contract generation, contract delivery at wrong destination, new agent contract destination (f637766f, 73379e77, 02091bba, 43fccb03)
• Addressed a bug with charting waypoints (d838011b)
• Improved data in ShipInTransitError (303c17c7)

Internal

• Updated background jobs for contract processing and market growth (63a03f4e, 6d8ac036, 39b8b201 fab37233, 3640c6b2, 4079ca6a)
• Added module install command, ship install / remove error codes, and refactored register agent (6df4b927, 3adb05e0, 94ff962b, 751955d4)

Documentation

• Updated quickstart guide with new probe (8dbbb5d4)

May 20, 2023

In this release, we continued to apply fixes and tweak gameplay mechanics. The universe seeder parameters have been updated to offer more factions, more shipyards and more markets. We've also added the ability to generate contracts, which we will further enhance in the next release. Contracts can now expire and the faction will take back any credits advanced to the agent. Agents can only have one contract at a time until we have a chance to add more features around negotiation.

Next week we will either need to reset on Friday or the following Monday, or skip a week due to scheduling conflicts with the holiday weekend. We will announce the decision in the #announcements channel on Discord.

Breaking

• fixed Retry-After header to conform to whole seconds
• ships can no longer extract while docked
• Cooldown expiredAt is now an optional field (preparing to convert the cooldown response from 204 to 200)
• Contract field expiration has been deprecated in favor of deadlineToAccept

Updates

• Tweaked universe seeding parameters and contract generation parameters (b028d92f, 898abbbc)
• Enhanced faction dynamics: added faction flag for recruitment status and starting faction field to agent (6b71144a, b6927b45)
• Updated transaction elements: added transaction to refuel response, increased transaction history to 20 items (dc6f5a2c, dc7501f2)
• Adjusted game mechanics: increased scarcity of diamonds, lowered jump gate range with cooldown as a product of distance jumped, added negotiate contract endpoints, and fixed starting contract params, added contract expiry and advance credits repossession (b1ecf871, 6465bf59, e1f839cd, 3d30b3f3)
• Enhanced agent token with version and reset_date (a0c3344a)
• Updated status endpoint to include more info, reset, and links (f30290f2, 5fc47f70, 37177c17)
• Contracts can now fail and the faction will reclaim any advance credits provided on accepting the contract
• New experimental /my/agent/events endpoint which should show you the last 60 seconds of events that have happened to your agent (right now this is just where failed contracts will be recorded)

Fixes

• Addressed various gameplay bugs: fixed ship transfer rules, , addressed issues with chartable systems, survey validation date time format, and survey exhausted error, and fixed refining and extraction while on cooldown bugs (b609eb9c, f11a9e45, edc87ede, ac820dd7, 35bff480, cc4a5eb2, 7d43f3d0)
• Adjusted agent symbol check in transaction and made integer only in pagination (4cb08b63, ee0b9c6c)
• Ensured ship must be in orbit to extract (36f4e0ff)

Internal

• Provided a helpful message for error regarding reserved call signs (4e6753da)
• Regenerated OpenAPI types (f123a3c1, e1f839cd)
• Added server resets page to docs and fixed tests (d5744a19, 79af1229)
• Optimized several endpoints including contract deliver, warp, ship transfer, refuel, navigate route, dock and orbit routes, sell cargo, and extraction (5dcef3f9, bb0499d4, faca4373, d545f0b7, e6e89f06, fe19bbb5, af8be35f, 7ebbfacb, 77781131)
• Updated language in changelog, added more test commands, and increased volume for refinement of goods (c08250db, d1c31fe3, c3d24fd8)
• Added changelog page (20646299)

Documentation

• Updated rate limit page with DDoS information (2580e38f)

We'll be discussing what to focus on for the next reset in Discord (likely installing / removing modules and mounts). Enjoy!

May 14, 2023

This week we focused primarily on bug fixes and internal improvements. We also added the ability to reserve call signs with Stripe donations.

The server was reset on May 13, 2023 at 10:00AM PST. All tokens prior to the reset are now invalid. You will need to register a new agent and generate a new access token to play the game.

We will be resetting the server on a regular cadence until we are confident that the game is stable enough to run for longer periods of time.

This will be announced in the #announcements channel on Discord. We will also add data to the status endpoint to indicate when the next reset will occur, and better handle error messages when users attempt to use an invalid token.

Next week we will continue to focus on patching core issues, improving documentation, and solidfying the process around server resets and how we communicate them.

Fixes

• fixed exploit with refining while on cooldown
• fixed exploit with extraction while on cooldown
• fixed bug where a cooldown would still happen even when an error is thrown
• fixed the server error message to link to the new api-docs repository
• fixed bug where survey error was thrown after extraction
• fixed bug where shipyard supply was not updating on purchase
• fixed bug where warp drives / mineral processors were not required to warp / extract
• fixed bug where refueling ship in small quantities was free
• fixed bug where import re-purchase prices were too low during supply shock\

Updates

• added the ability to reserve call signs with Stripe donations

Internals

• fixed server 500 errors related to database connection issues
• scaled database to allow for more concurrent connections

Removals

• removed token validation from public endpoints

Documentation

• added detail about generating Open API clients from the Stoplight bundled export
• fixed various typos and links
• added clarification on how refueling works
• added clarification on how sector / system / waypoint symbols work
• added donation link to support the game