Development Update - August 2026

Dear Captains,

August marks another massive milestone for our game: the debut of our Steam Store page. We are completely humbled by the love and support we’ve received from the community, most especially the dedicated fans of the great Sci-Fi show Firefly, with over 500 wishlists in the first 24 hours and nearing 1,000 as I type this only a couple days later. Creating experiences for people to enjoy and spark their imagination is the entire reason I got into game design, so to see such a positive reception to our game is overwhelming in the best possible way. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all!

This month, we’ve mostly prioritized the features we need to get us ready to cut the demo branch for our game, which we hope to release early this month. A lot of focus was spent around cleaning up the game options and settings, including difficulty options that will allow players to tailor the experience to just the right amount of challenge for them. For those looking for a more relaxing journey, the simulation elements can be significantly toned down and enemy spawns reduced. For those who prefer pain, enemy spawns can be increased, equipment availability can be restricted by level, and consumable supplies can be restricted to only the ship carrying them, no more sharing.

On the character creation side, we’ve added 11 new facial hair customization options, as well as the ability to fully customize the name and appearance of non-story officers you recruit. In addition, check out the full changelog to see the plethora of quality-of-life and UI/UX improvements added this month.

Last but not least, we’ve completed work on another location to visit during your travels across the Cortesia System, the Pirate Haven of New Providence. Once a thriving Iridium Mine, the station was abandoned by Providence Metals, and has since turned into a haven for all kinds of scum and villainy. It serves as the central hub of Cortesia’s illicit black market, and a haven for Pirates to fence stolen goods and settle their feuds.

This month, we’ll be focused on getting the demo live for everyone to play and crushing any bugs that are uncovered from it. In addition, work continues on general polish, and adding more locations to explore and more unique story mission content to enjoy.

As always, thank you for your support and for making this game possible. Keep an eye out for the demo launching early this month!

Best Regards,

Vincent De Tommaso

Game Director

Full Changelog:

Game Settings

• Character Creator Preset Difficulties - added presets players can choose to automatically tune the game’s various difficulty settings.

  
  

• Enemy Spawn Difficulty Options - added a difficulty option to reduce or increase the amount of enemy groups that spawn in combat encounters, and the number of enemies per group

  
  

• Casual Supply Consumption - added a difficulty option to double the effectiveness of consumable supplies for a more relaxed experience (e.g. each unit of food feeds twice as many crew, etc.)

  
  

• Level Requirements for Weapon Tiers - added a difficulty option that prevents higher tier equipment from spawning in shops until the player reaches certain level milestones (high tier items can still be discovered through exploration)

  
  

• Video Settings - added a plethora of video and graphics settings to the options menu for players to tune.

  
  

• Key Binds - players can now rebind input keys in the options menu

  
  

  RPG Mechanics

  
  

• Accessory Scriptable Object - Game designers are now able to create accessory objects that officers can equip which provide passive bonuses to attributes and/or combat parameters

  
  

• Randomize Officer Outfits - Officers spawn with random outfits instead of naked if a specific outfit is not assigned by the game designer (speeds up level creation)

  
  

• Officer Customization - players now have the option to fully customize the name and appearance of any non-story officer they hire

  
  

• Respec Characters - Players with sufficient med-bay upgrades can assign their officers to retraining, allowing them to redistribute their attribute and skill points. Retraining time is determined by the current amount of assigned points that officer has.

  
  

• Dialogue Call can Select Speaker - game designers now have an easier time assigning multiple speakers to dialogue interactions

  
  

• Event System - added an event system to space navigation to improve the captain-simulator aspect of the game. When sailing, there is now a chance for events to occur that require the Captain’s personal intervention, with various consequences.

  
  

• Backstories for Procedural Officers - Game designers can now write different backstories for procedurally generated officers to spawn with.

  
  

• Officer Generator Avoids Duplicates - the officer spawner will attempt to avoid creating duplicates

  
  

• Incorporate Brian's Facial Hair Models into Character Creation - added 11 new facial hair options for character creation

  
  

  Space Combat

  
  

• Better Cannon Aiming - improved the space combat cannon aiming algorithm to better lead fast moving targets and reduce constant under-shooting at long range

  
  

• Recolor Ships - players are now able to change the livery of their flagship and any ships in their squadron.

  
  

  Ground Combat

  
  

• Prevent 2nd Sentry Shot from Triggering on Same Enemy - Units with the ability to fire more than one sentry shot per turn can no longer use the additional shots against the same target in one turn

  
  

• Clean Up Animation Overrides - Added support for more combat animations, and added attack animations for dual wielding melee weapons and mixed melee/pistol

  
  

  UI / UX

  
  

• Character Rotation in Inventory Screen - players can now rotate character avatars in the inventory screen to check out their fancy duds

  
  

• Add Ship Name Field to Ship SO - Ships now have a separate class and model name (e.g. “Sidewinder” class Cutter)

  
  

• Color F Key Interaction Radial Indicator - The color of the radial progress bar for F Key Interactions in Space Combat now matches the interaction icon

  
  

• Scaling System Map - System Map scales down on narrower screens

  
  

• Clicking a Speech Bubble Container in an Obstacle Collider Navigates Player Near It - fixed an issue where clicking a character you can speak with, but who is standing on a gridspace that cannot be navigated too, was preventing the player from moving towards them.

  
  

• Auto-Triggered Word Bubble Duration - speech bubbles that are triggered by proximity now last their intended duration instead of disappearing as soon as the player moves away

  
  

• Cursor for Dialogue Starter - added a custom cursor when mousing over people and objects that can be spoken too.

  
  

• QoL: Ground Exploration Entire Party Selected by Default - when loading into a ground scene, the player’s entire party is now selected by default

  
  

• Overworld Click Navigation and Autopilot - players can now sail their ship across the Cortesia system by left clicking in space, in addition to the WASD controls

  
  

• Double Click to Unlock Skill - skills can now be unlocked by double-clicking them, in addition to the unlock button

  
  

• Allow Map Hotkeys to be used while Map is Open - players can now swap between the Local and System maps using their respective hotkeys without having to close the map first

  
  

• Mission List on System Map - mousing over a location in the system map now displays any active jobs you have at that location.

  
  

• Area Loot - looting a body or container will loot all others within 5 grid spaces.

  
  

  General

  
  

• Pause between Music Tracks - added a fade out and slight pause to smooth the transition between music tracks

  
  

• Pop-Up Music Disclaimer - added a disclaimer about the game’s use of licensed music to the splash screen to help prevent streamers from getting falsely copyright flagged by YouTube

  
  

• Refactor Controls into New Unity Input System - All input controls using Unity’s legacy system have been updated to the new system in preparation for controller support.

  
  

• Bug: Buying cargo validation glitch - fixed an issue where buying exports would validate against the non-export price, preventing the player from filling their cargo hold in one transaction

  
  

• Bug: Pressing number keys in the Cargo Store breaks it - fixed an issue where pressing number keys in the cargo store would trigger dialogue choices behind the scenes.