31 May 2025
Unstable release 0.10.13
Summer is just around the corner, or half a year away, and what better to celebrate than a new update for Endless Sky! Version 0.10.13 is now live on GitHub, Steam, and GOG! This is an unstable release bringing new content, mechanics, visuals, balance changes, and more. One of our bigger releases in some time, so if you’re interested in seeing all of the changes, head on over to the changelog.
As always, the following are some highlights of what’s coming with the release:
The first addition you may notice this update is that the UI has been given a few sound effects for targeting, clicking, and menu hopping. This brings a bit more life into what has been otherwise dead silence in the UI panels and menu, however if you’re used to that silence or prefer to play without those sounds, you can adjust them in the audio tab of the preferences. Thanks to tibetiroka for this functionality!
Before this update, missions involving specifically-defined NCPs could only have so much control over where the NPCs are, or more specifically, how they moved. Outside of entering a system, leaving planets in one, the only means of moving an NPC was to follow the player. Thanks to m0ctave and tehhowch, NPCs can now be given travel instructions to pass through particular systems, visit particular planets, and land on a particular destination. While this hasn’t been specifically implemented in vanilla yet, it is a great tool for content creators and will likely see use in the future.
One feature that has been requested for a long time has now found its way into ES’s settings. Originally existing only when launching ES in debug mode, a keybind to pause the game has finally been added to the game, thanks to efforts of TomGoodIdea, Zarkonnen, TheGiraffe3, and Amazinite! Being able to pause the game can be used to analyze a battle more closely, or perhaps freeze gameplay to see that neat ship or creature that just flew by. At the very least, it’s a means to pause the current gameplay that doesn’t require backing to the main menu.
Moving over to the balance side of things, we’ve taken a look back into Free Worlds fleet balance. While it is intended and possible to play the campaign in a singular ship, it can be difficult in some vs. others due to the volume of fleets you’re fighting against. Recent changes to the Carrier have also had an effect on the balance.
Several Free Worlds battles have had their fleets toned back a few pegs, reducing some clutter in fights and decreasing the odds that the player can get caught out and destroyed quickly. Additionally, there are some ship compositions adjustments. Some changes are notable while others may be subtle, and we’ll be keeping an eye on balance and feedback for the fights once more.
In the future, we’ll be taking a look at the Pug fights as well as Wanderer content, so stay tuned for updates there.
There has been discussion over many years on the usage of weapons that require ammunition. It seems to be the case that many players prefer to use weapons that do not consume ammo, with the main reason for this being that you generally have to restock ammo for weapons where they’re sold from. While this may not be a large deal for human space, it can be a decent time-sink to jump across the map to refill ammunition for alien weaponry, such as Thunderheads or EMP Torpedoes.
After some consideration, we’ve decided to test out a change to restocking by Amazinite. Ammunition for weapons you have outfitted can now be restocked at any planet with an outfitter. This is quite a big gameplay change, as it changes ammunition from being an in-lore outfit to a gameplay convenience - the same as how crew and credits are kept simplistic for the sake of gameplay. Of course, this includes ammunition to weapons you normally don’t have access to purchasing, such as looted weapons from species like the Korath. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this new mechanic and see how this affects the usage of ammunition-based weapons, and will be gauging feedback throughout the update period. For now, go ham on those fancy weapons!
Speaking of big changes that have been talked about over the years, it’s finally time we talk about the elephant in the room. The Quarg’s ships have been regarded by MZ himself as placeholders until a day came to revamp their stats and looks. Many years back, there were plans to do such a thing, expanding the Quarg’s shipyard and balancing them properly to other species in the game.
Brought by the efforts of many, including Arachi for lore and weapon ideas, Azure for interesting descriptions, Brick, Todd and Jimmy for some amazing sprites, the long-awaited Quarg rework is finally here! it a redesign of Quarg ships into the Skylark-style, along with adding a few more to their roster. Their existing outfits have been adjusted as well, with a few new ones coming alongside the new ships. The old Wardragon style has been retired, however you’ll still see Captain Pester flying one, and any Quarg ships you’ve already captured will retain the old styles.
Additionally, the Pug Arfecta has been slightly adjusted to match this balance change, with both factions now working around their respective tiers. Either way, don’t go stealing things you shouldn’t be! ;)
And last but most certainly not least, if you’re itching for more content about that funky black hole system that suddenly appeared down in the Graveyard one day, well, you’re in luck - Becca has been hard at work to bring you the next chapter of Patir’s story! If you don’t know what that is or haven’t found it yet, be sure to explore the Graveyard when you get a chance, as there’s a ton of interesting lore and fun things to discover, including some beautiful sprites from not only Becca but Gefu.
Aside from these major takeaways, some various additions, changes and fixes coming with this update include:
Two new “older” human ships and the Heavy Blaster. (Saugia, bene-dictator, DoomKorath), Various flavor missions about exotic lifeforms in human space. (reticent-rem), Blast damage now affects minables. (TomGoodIdea), Local Maps now reveal minables. (comnom, TheGiraffe3), You can now manually aim turrets with your mouse. (Koranir), Animated menu starfield. (Amazinite),
As always, if you want to play unstable updates on Steam or GoG, you’ll have to opt into a beta branch:
- For Steam, go to your library, right click Endless Sky, go to Properties, go to Betas, select the beta in the drop down box, and that’s it!,
- For GOG, go to your library, right click Endless Sky, go to Manage Installation -> Configure, and select the beta in the Beta Channels drop down box.
As mentioned above, this is a hefty release with big changes. Head on over to the feedback box for this update if you’d like to leave any!
Don’t forget to star us on Github, if you haven’t already, which helps the game’s discoverability! You can also find the GitHub Discussion post for this release there as well.
The next release, v0.10.14, focused on mainly bugfixes for this release, will be coming in late June. We’ll see you then!