Rendwar 0.1.8: Letters from the client, and a galaxy that shows the way

Every contract now comes with a letter from whoever gave it, the maps tell you what is in a system and where your business is, and space is busier than ever. The stars and planets have new names too: update to see them, as an older version still shows the old ones.

New

• A letter with every contract. Take a contract and whoever gave it writes to you: a short, funny story of why the job exists, in the manner of its people — a Doln government, a Korunni clan, a Bastion's HQ or a pirate base. The letter opens at the desk the moment you take the contract and waits in the journal.
• Nearly three hundred consignments to carry instead of a hundred, each with a story of its own, and the hundred you know now have icons of their own.
• Your warehouses at a glance. A new key above your credits lists everything you keep at any dock: what lies where, its weight and worth, its card (a ship's slots too), and a course there. It appears once you have stored anything.
• The galaxy map says what is in a system. Hover a star to see its colonies with their people and economy, its stations by name, how many worlds are uninhabited, and your contracts, warehouses and bookmarks there. The system's card lists every planet and station; in flight, click one to set course. The map's search finds planets and stations too, and stars carry a pin for your bookmarks and a box for your warehouses.
• Course to a place, not just a system. A course to a planet or a station in another system jumps there and flies you to it on arrival. In a system the ship follows a planet along its orbit and docks.
• Marks in space. What your contracts want in the system you are in is marked: a ring around the planet or station on screen, or an arrow at the edge with its name and distance — click it to set course. A hunt's quarry is never marked: you find it yourself.
• The minimap's new keys list the system's planets and stations, your contracts' places first, and show the legend of its marks.
• Miners work the asteroid fields of peaceful systems and sell their ore at the markets nearby.
• Every inhabited world keeps patrols of its own people, and a call for help is now heard one jump away.
• Three new pieces of music for the menus.

Changed

• A row above your credits. Your contracts, bookmarks and warehouses sit in a row above the status plate and no longer crowd the bar; what does not fit folds into a round counter.
• The journal opens a contract in place: what it is, what to do now and where to hand it in, who gave it, its deposit, rewards and risks, with a course and the map.
• A contract's chip names its next step — the pickup, the quarry's system, the convoy — and its course goes there. A hunt's quarry lurks somewhere in open space: there is no planet to fly to.
• The hold shows the room left, and in flight its meter wanes as the hold fills, like the fuel's. Its tooltip shows the free space, the cargo and the equipment.
• A planet's or a station's card in flight lists its services, the contracts you hand in or pick up there and what you keep in its warehouse. A dock's dossier has a «Here» section with the same, and the crisis it is living through.
• A system out of reach says why: not enough fuel or range, with how far you can jump. In a fight the jump button says you cannot jump.
• The stars and planets have new names in Ukrainian, Russian and English, and every season draws them anew.
• Space is livelier. Pirates work the trade lanes, the Rend's garrisons swarm their systems, traders steer clear of systems that have seen robberies and raids, a trader with the odds fights back while an outmatched patrol calls for help, fast ships steer round one another, and a Rend raid passing through is marked on the map and announced.
• New faces. Doln, Korunni and Veltra captains now look like their own people, traders and miners have portraits of their own, and the crises have banners.
• Notices about your warehouses say how many pieces moved and where: a destroyed station's warehouse, one left behind in a blockade, a courier's delivery, a crisis reward.
• At a desk the contracts lie beside the conversation. The market and the shop count what you keep in this dock's warehouse.
• The level's gold «+N» now says it is unspent skill points and where to spend them.
• On Windows, menus have a thin scrollbar.

Fixed

• «Show on map» now brings the system into view.
• The galaxy map's search list no longer hides under the map.
• Setting a jump while approaching a planet no longer calls the jump off.
• The hold's tooltip no longer reads a bare «Free».

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Stingtail Play brings the update in by itself the next time it starts. New to the galaxy? Download Rendwar.

This update is required: earlier versions can no longer join the galaxy.