🛠️ The Makers of the Galaxy
Every ship you have ever flown, every shield that has saved your hull, every cannon that ended a fight before it cost you anything, somebody built that. This update is a tribute to those people. We have just dropped twenty brand new characters into the galaxy, a whole community of engineers, gunsmiths, shipwrights and quietly brilliant specialists, and they have work for you.
With this batch, the galaxy is now home to over 230 named characters across 13 different kinds of NPC. The place has never felt more lived in.
📜 A New Kind of Contract
These twenty are something we have not done before. Each one offers a full story arc, an eight stage chain of contracts with a beginning, a middle and a genuinely satisfying end.
They are not throwaway fetch jobs. Every character has a history, a voice and a reason for asking, and the story moves forward each time you return. You will meet a grizzled old privateer who got tired of burying his crew and now builds shields instead. A reactor physicist who talks at twice the normal speed and has singed her eyebrows off more times than she will admit. A station engineer who has kept a dying outpost lit for nineteen years and refuses to leave while a single window still glows. They are funny, they are gruff, they are stubborn, and they grow on you fast.
⛏️ Mine It, Refine It, Earn It
These are hands on contracts for hands on captains. Across each arc you will be asked to mine raw ore, refine it into the materials these craftspeople actually need, and haul it home. If you have never refined before, do not worry. Every contract tells you exactly which raw ore to mine and what it refines into, so new pilots can follow along from their very first delivery.
There is also something genuinely new here. Some of these contracts call for special ores that you will only ever find while you hold the contract for them. They do not show up on a standard scanner, they cannot be bought, and they cannot be sold or traded. The only way to get them is to take the job and go dig them out of the belt yourself. No shortcuts, no stockpiling, just you, your ship and the rock. It makes every one of these arcs feel earned.
📘 The Reward Is Worth the Work
Stick with one of these characters all the way to the end and they will hand you something special. Every arc finishes with a blueprint, the plans to build a piece of equipment for yourself at a Manufacturing Office. We are talking armour plating, hull reinforcement, thruster enhancements, shield modules, defensive arrays, heavy weapons, compact power cores, cargo and passenger modules, harvesters and mining drones, and more besides.
The credits and experience climb steadily as you go, and the final stage of every arc pays the most, on top of the blueprint itself. These are some of the most rewarding contract chains in the game, and they are designed to give you a real goal to work towards.
🌍 Scattered Across the Stars
You will find these new faces all over the galaxy. A couple are right at home in Feris for newer captains to cut their teeth on, and the rest are dotted outward through the systems, from busy core worlds to lonely refineries out on the frontier. Some of them are tucked away in places you might never have docked at before, so this is a fine excuse to go exploring.
Keep an eye out for the storyline tag when you dock. If a character has one, they have a tale to tell and a chain worth starting.
🚀 More to Come
Twenty new characters, thirteen NPC types, and a galaxy now more than 230 souls strong. We are not done. This new style of story driven, craft focused NPC is something we want to build on, so expect more makers, more arcs and more blueprints in the future.
For now, go and meet them. Bring them good ore. Hear them out. Somewhere out there, someone is building something remarkable, and they have been waiting for a captain exactly like you. Fly safe, and we will see you out in the black.