Development Update - June 2026

Dear Backers,

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July! This holiday was extra special, not only because America turned 250, but because Digital Tinker is also celebrating its first birthday! Looking back, it’s truly incredible to see all the progress we made in such a short amount of time. Thanks to your support, what started life as a simple prototype has evolved into a fully-fledged Space Captain Simulator with exotic planets to explore and powerful starships to command.

Right now, players can engage in broadside naval battles, run trading and smuggling operations, take on missions, explore planets, maintain crew morale through supplies and wages, and upgrade their ship. The same officers you recruit and level up also fight alongside you in detailed tactical battles during boarding actions and planetside gunfights. The integration of these systems creates consistent progression: the crew you manage directly impacts both your success in space and your effectiveness in tactical combat, and that unique blend is going to give us the edge as we go to market later this year.

While escorting a merchant captain, the player encounters a pair of pirates.

The player assists the militia of Nuova Tripoli in clearing out a raider base.

This month has seen massive improvements to planetary navigation. When arriving in orbit, players are now presented with a real-time rendered version of the planet, the locations they can land their shuttle, and some background information on the planet itself.

Porto Palladio's Landing Map.

While on the surface, players can now access the system map, allowing them to check the trade information they’ve discovered and plan their next route. We’ve also introduced a local map with fast-travel functionality, allowing players to quickly transit between locations they’ve previously visited.

The Cortesia System Map displays useful information on planets you've visited.

The Local Map allows you to fast-travel between locations you've visited previously.

The addition of combat drones to ground combat has added another layer of tactical depth. The medical drone is a flying medkit that allows combat medics to stabilize downed allies or heal injuries remotely, without exposing themselves to enemy fire. Once deployed, the sentry drone guards an area and automatically engages any enemy it detects, perfect for covering the advance of your squad. We’ll be adding even more drones in the near future, so stay tuned.

A sentry drone covers the party's advance through the enemy's cargo hold.

This month, we are finalizing the gameplay trailer that will be used for marketing and to showcase the game in our Steam storefront. We’re also continuing to expand upon our current systems by adding more content and numerous quality-of-life improvements. As always, check the full changelog below for all the progress made this month, and you can find this, and all our updates, on our website. Thank you all again for helping us make this game a reality.

Best Regards,

Vincent De Tommaso

Game Director

Ground Exploration

• System Map can be accessed while planetside - system map can be accessed while on planet

  
  

• Local Map & Quick Travel - Added a planetside local map to the system map with fast-travel functionality when on planet

  
  

• Ground navigation camera tracks active units - changed default ground camera behavior to follow active unit

  
  

• Ground Navigation target decal persists - ground navigation target decal persists until the unit reaches it

  
  

• Can assign ground party to flagship positions - officers in ground party are no longer prevented from being assigned to officer positions on the players flagship

  
  

Ground Combat

• Reload Animation - add reload animations to ground units

  
  

• Drone Base Class - implemented base class to support drones in ground combat

  
  

• Medical Drone - implement medical drone that heals and stabilizes units

  
  

• Sentry Drone - implement sentry drone that shoots enemies who come into range

  
  

• Enemy Group Spawn Rebalance - Evenly distribute spawned enemies across spawn groups

  
  

• Recruitable Officers start with weapons - hired officers now come with weapons based on their level and specialization

  
  

• Balance raider base spawns against player - raider base enemies scale with player party

Space Combat

• Incorporate New Projectile Assets - replaced placeholder projectile effects with final art

Space Exploration

• Additional planet reveal states - added an additional reveal state for planets, where the name and location is known, but not detailed trade information

  
  

• Accepting mission to unknown location reveals it - accepting a delivery or escort mission to an unknown location makes it known

  
  

• Escort Captains contact you when reaching planet - When reaching an escort destination, the captain contacts you to inform you the mission is complete

UI/UX

• Hide quick tooltip on disable - hide quick tooltips when the object they are attached to is disabled

  
  

• Weapon tooltip add tiers below type - indicate the weapon tier in the inventory tooltip

  
  

• 3D model for character inventory - display a 3D character model in the inventory menu and update it dynamically when equipment is changed

  
  

• Minimap derives cannon pips from ship variant prefab - minimap displays correct number of cannon pips for each ship variant

  
  

• Refactor Officer Bar - Officer bar sorts by active party

  
  

• Replace Character Images with generated versions - replace placeholder character avatars with procedurally generated versions using our character models

  
  

• XP & Money Feedback improvements - improved the readability of floating text

  
  

• Update Planet Map visual - replaced placeholder planet map image with dynamic version using our in-game planet models

  
  

• Item descriptions in gun shops - weapons and items in shops display item descriptions

  
  

• Grey out unavailable skills - made it easy to see which skills are available for purchase

  
  

• Improvements to System Map - Update system map visuals with final art assets

  
  

• Cargo Stores Highlight Import/Exports - Goods that are imported or exported by the planet are indicated in the cargo store interface

  
  

• Equipment Store Buy/Sell UI Affordances - added Buy/Sell labels to transaction pop-ups

  
  

• Create Engineering Screen Wireframe for Fluyt & Tartane - added engineering wireframes for the new ships

  
  

• Inventory Store Popup shows item description - Item description also shown when buying/selling through the transaction pop-up

  
  

• Loading Screens - added the ability to assign custom loading screen images for each game scene and a loading bar

  
  

• Tips for loading screens - loading screens now display helpful gameplay tips and lore

  
  

• Cargo Menu top bar sorts - players can sort the cargo menu interface by the top bar categories

General

• Ship Prices - serialize ship prices and repair costs for easy balancing by game designers

  
  

• Bug: Dragging armor/outfits to unit doesn't cost money - fixed a bug that allowed items to be stolen from equipment shops

  
  

• Bug: moving item from vendor to weapon slot to other weapon slot makes it free - fixed a bug that allowed items to be stolen from equipment shops

  
  

• Expand Character Creation Flow - players now choose their home planet and backstory during character creations, which determines their starting stats and dialogue flags

  
  

• Bug: Fix vendor item price highlight - fixed UI issue causing inconsistent price highlighting

  
  

• Bug: Character Menu Skill Panel reading available attribute points - fixed labeling error on skill panel

  
  

• Combine Boarding & Melee Attributes - combined melee and boarding attributes. All bonuses previously provided by melee are now part of the boarding attribute.

  
  

• Bug: Hide ground nav UI when opening system map - fixed a UI layer order issue

  
  

• Bug: Hire officer character models appearing bald with new hair assets - fixed issued where hirable officers were using old character model, causing new hair styles not to appear