"We reverted yesterday's changes to captains from the previous version of this patch. We didn't think that change through and it wouldn't have achieved what we wanted to achieve anyways (which is getting exponential growth of mining fleets & passive income a little more under control). We still want to make fleets somewhat more mid- and late-game focused, but not at the cost of early game becoming a mindless grind."

• Fighters fly differently when using non-armed weapons (mining/salvaging lasers, etc)
• Fighters approach their target slower and fly away later

• Crew salaries are now visible as tooltips in Fleet Tab

• Fixed an issue where mining fighters would generate less revenue without a player in the sector
• Fixed an issue where Xsotan were not attacking
• Fixed an issue with scrolling in quick selection

After reviewing your criticism we decided to roll back the update 0.20.5 due to a very specific issue: Captains now costing lots and lots of upkeep. This made it impossible for players with fleets of lots of small ships to keep up financially, potentially leaving their ships stranded without crews and screwing up their saves. We apologize if this patch resulted in crews leaving your ships, we rolled it back as soon as we realized what damage it could do.

We wanted to push fleets and fleet management a little more to mid and late game, because we feel that that's the place for it, not early game. Early game in Avorion should be focused on building and improving your first ship. What we underestimated, is how many players there are who had already built ships and fleets in the early game and how this change impacted them.

Nobody likes grinding, and we do want you to be able to automate some tedious tasks towards mid and end game. So this change has nothing to do with us wanting you to grind even more. Automation, especially with the latest update, has become a very important gameplay pillar in Avorion and is here to stay. (Just please keep in mind that having hundreds of ships is not possible due to hardware and engine restrictions, the game engine simply isn't made for that kind of simulation.)

We stand with what we think about early, mid and late game and we will be looking into making fleets more of a mid, late or end game focused feature, but not at the cost of having the early game be a tedious grind, because nobody wants that. Instead, we want to give you more challenges to overcome, sinks to invest your resources into, and to give you goals you can work towards. We want founding new ships to give you a sense of progress, every new ship you found to be more special, and not just yet another mindless minion doing tedious tasks.

The update has been rolled back since it screwed up existing saves and fleets.

We're currently preparing a statement as to why we did what we did and what our current struggles with Avorion are.

We still want to push automated miners more into mid/late game, since we're facing a few long-term issues with passive income starting at a very early stage. But we realize that this patch was too premature to be released and we apologize for any inconveniences.

The update has been rolled back since it screwed up existing issues. To get the rolled-back version, please restart Steam.

We're currently preparing a statement as to why we did what we did and what our current struggles are.

We still want to push automated miners more into mid/late game, since we're facing a few long-term issues with passive income starting at a very early stage. But we realize that this patch was too premature to be released and we apologize for any inconveniences.

• Fighters fly differently when using non-armed weapons (mining/salvaging lasers, etc)
• Fighters approach their target slower and fly away later

"With the new update, players now have a tendency to build a lot of ships and abuse things like automatic mining very early. We don't want to inhibit you from automating some things, but we want to raise the bar a little for automated ships in the early game. So we're adding some static costs to captains and increase the difficulty to get them a little, to make automated ships more the mid- to late-game feature they are meant to be."

• Captains now cost 75.000 Credits
• Hiring Pilots now requires relations of at least 40.0000 (Excellent)
• Hiring Boarders now requires relations of at least 40.0000 (Excellent)
• Hiring Commanders now requires relations of at least 40.0000 (Excellent)
• Hiring Generals now requires relations of at least 40.0000 (Excellent)
• Hiring Captains now requires relations of at least 70.0000 (Admired)

• Crew salaries are now visible as tooltips in Fleet Tab

• Fixed an issue where mining fighters would generate less revenue without a player in the sector
• Fixed an issue where Xsotan were not attacking
• Fixed an issue with scrolling in quick selection

We improved the pathfinding and flying AI, so now ships will fly full speed and use boost whenever they safely can. They will also maneuver a lot smarter, for example through sectors with lots of objects like asteroid fields. Keep in mind that this will make the game harder, since you won't be able to run from enemies as easily as before!


We added improvements to the AI for harvesting, ie. mining and salvaging. Before, this was done by the same AI that's responsible for attacking enemies, making mining look silly and be rather inefficient. We've now implemented a separate AI for harvesting, which will improve some behavior of miners and salvagers a lot.


We reworked the player fleet management window. Aside from obvious layout and overview improvements, it can now display every ship's plan so you can easily see which is which. You can also rename your ships in this window now, and it shows you what each ship is doing, and where it is - including a button to show you on the map.

This is one of the main reasons the update took so long and this technical background will probably mostly interest modders or other Avorion-tech-enthusiasts: We've been laying the ground work for calling functions and executing code between sectors. Scripts from one sector will now be able to call functions in scripts of another sector. This wasn't possible at first, due to the asynchronous structure of the Avorion server and its simulation. But this will lead to a lot of great features, like...


The above groundwork allowed us to do the following: Inter-Sector commands for ships! You can now command ships over the galaxy map even when they're not in the same sector as you. But that's not all: We're also adding command queues, so you'll be able to order your ships to fly to one sector, mine asteroids, trade goods or attack enemies, and then jump to yet another sector. And you'll be able to loop these commands as well, so you can now have ships doing more complex things all over the galaxy.


VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR MODDERS AND SERVER ADMINS: We've added extra security for calling functions remotely, THIS WILL BREAK YOUR OLD MODS if you're using client-server remote invocations. Check out the patch notes for 0.20.0 for more details!

We added lots and lots of other improvements as well, including
- Massive performance improvements while saving sectors
- Map improvements (you can toggle various features of the map on/off)
- Auto-reloading of torpedoes
- Transporters for long-distance interaction with stations
- Alliance map editing rules
To see the full log of changes, check out the patchnotes below:

You can find the full patchnotes posts here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1736603828382199440
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1737729374513583078
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1701699309006895212
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1701698220997927027
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/3225038806769208976
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1702821402270802571
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1701694867577204850

This time the patchnotes aren't long, but all the more important!
We could finally fix one pesky bug that's been with the game since the very beginning, and we finally managed to reproduce it!
We also improved some issues with server performance when sectors with lots of activity or blocks were unloaded.

We're also planning to set the update live to the default branch early next week!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

• Improved server performance a lot when sectors are being unloaded
• This fixes some hangs that could take over 30 seconds and more

• [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships would keep flying during loading screen, crashing into things
• [UBR] Fixed an issue where craft portraits would contain messed up pictures on AMD

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

• Removing upgrades at enemy equipment docks is no longer possible

• Improved readability of cargo amounts

• Added Version class
• Added GameVersion() function that returns the version of the game

• [UBR] "Attack Enemies" orders given to stations via map commands are now persistent
• [UBR] Fixed an issue where items could be duplicated when selling them as trash
• Fixed an issue with looping of commands
• Assigning orders to a ship is now impossible if a player is piloting it
• Fixed a massive performance issue after founding a station
• Fixed a rare crash when changing a player's craft through scripts

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

• Attacking ships check for free line of sight before firing (considering allies)
• Ships without a player automatically comply after the timeout when investigated by an anti-smuggle ship
• Improved AI while chasing (again)

• Fixed an issue in search and rescue mission
• Small performance improvements
• Fixed some scripts changing the player's relations even if interacting as an alliance
• Fixed a cash in trading stations
• [UBR] Alliances are now correctly handled in pirate/xsotan attacks and smuggler fight
• Fixed a crash for objects that are being pushed away by stations

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

• Improved flight behavior of ships while chasing
• Removed PDCs from MAD science lab

• Map can now toggle displaying of wormhole and gate routes
• Turrets and upgrades can now be displayed in ship overview as well
• Added a new tip for players not to invest all resources into their first ship

• Added missing functions for blueprints in script hangar
• Implemented conversion and comparison of vectors (vec2, vec3, etc.)
• Allows conversion from/to another vector
• Allows comparison with == between two vectors
• Added properties to ship infos to check if it can pass rifts
• Added a functionality to Galaxy and Entity to check if hyperspace jumps from A to B are possible

"Fixes marked with [UBR] are user bug reports. Thanks for reporting and keep it up! We also improved debug logging to better find errors in the future without you having to report them."

• Fixed a crash in reading order info in strategy state
• [UBR] Fixed craft portraits not updating when ships change
• [UBR] Fixed missing escort icon
• Fixed duplicated weapon name in german translation
• Fixed an issue where servers would reload all sectors from disk after a server-wide save
• Fixed an issue where deadlocks weren't printed as they are supposed to
• [UBR] Fixed a hang in server
• Selected object is now correctly reset when AI enters aggressive state
• [UBR] Fixed an issue where jump orders over rifts would not cause an error
• Fixed an issue where the repair brush couldn't reconstruct hologram blocks

A lot has happened this last year and as the year draws to a close, we’d like to take the chance to make a review of the year in Avorion! A big thank you to everyone helping us, without this wonderful community this wouldn’t have been possible.


Let’s start at the beginning of the year. Last year in December 2017 we released the Economy Update and due to your feedback we spent most of January working out the last kinks and add in a few more things. The Economy Update brought player stations into the game, an improved economy and AI docking. Another exciting part of the update were cargo shuttles! The first way to let your stations directly deliver and fetch goods to and from other stations.


The first big update in 2018 was the Combat Update I in February. With switching to a sector the first easy fast travel was introduced. No endless flying through multiple sectors if all you want to do is see why that mining ship back home isn’t mining anymore!

Another feature of this update brought us a lot of heat with you guys: Torpedoes. We introduced torpedoes as a new ammunition based weapon with high damage. Torpedoes were also used by Persecutors, which we introduced to make progression into the galaxy a little more difficult. If you were a player back then, you know that we were a bit over-enthusiastic with the damage these things dealt and in the following patches we toned it down considerably without damaging their effectiveness. By now torpedoes have their rightful place as a very strong weapon type, but are no longer over-powered.


In April we introduced a smaller update containing UI improvements. A big part of that was the changes to the server browser, now featuring a server history, the possibility to favorite servers and more filters. Additionally we implemented automated crash reports, and got a ton of information on crashes. That made it possible for us to hugely improve server stability! Thank you for everyone who took part :)


After that update we continued work on Combat Update II and released a first version of it in June. With this update we introduced player designed turrets, complete with an all new build mode just for that! And were overwhelmed by the amount of cool designs that we had just three days after release of the update! You guys blew us away with you enthusiasm :D


In August we had the wonderful opportunity to go to Gamescom in Germany. It was our first ever time showing Avorion and it was amazing. We met so many fans and new players, got a ton of feedback and were genuinely surprised how many people liked Avorion! It was a huge boost to our motivation to continue the work on Avorion! Thank you to all who stopped by, we had a blast!


Right after Gamescom we threw ourselves back into work. The System Upgrade Update contained a rework of our upgrade system. Making them more consistent and also introducing permanent installation for nice extra perks. And while we were busy reworking the upgrades, the Xsotan artifacts got some more love as well. Every artifact has now specific perks that are dependent on the boss that drops them.


And last, but not least: The AI & Map Commands Update that we’re testing right now on the beta branch. It gives you the means to command your ships via the galaxy map, even if you’re half a galaxy away! And not just to send them mining or patrolling. You’re now able to enchain orders and send ships on trade routes with multiple stops.

A big pet peeve of our community was the AI behavior. And with this update we tackle that: AI is now able to boost, path finding calculation is done much quicker and those escort ships don’t struggle to keep up with you anymore!

And now it’s today, the last day of this wonderful and productive year. Thank you to all of you who have helped us by playing the game and providing feedback!

We wish everyone a happy new year!