We're happy to announce that the big "Zharkov: The Vortex" update has just been released!

Look forward to an all-new star system, a new spaceship class, companion, main and side missions, activities, challenges, and more than 100 improvements and fixes.

Please see the complete list of changes below (note that a few bugfixes are tagged with "(Exp)" - these are only relevant if you have been playing a preview of this update on the experimental branch - for all others these bugs never existed in the first place).

A big shoutout and many thanks to all test pilots who have already been playtesting this update on the experimental branch and helped us tremendously in ironing out some kinks!

• Added new main and side missions
  
• Added new star system: Zharkov
  
• Added new player ship class: Vanguard
  
• Added new companion: Tareen (spoiler)
  
• Added new device: Fusion Hook
  
• Added new missile weapon types: Corrosion, Armorbreaker, Shieldbreaker, Destabilizer
  
• Added Bloodstar items set bonuses
  
• Added new item affix "Swift" (reduces ramp up and charge time by 30%)
  
• Added "Union Explorer" challenges + challenge reward for "Explorer" challenges, allowing to fast-forward in supralight
  
• Tier 2 ships are now available at ship dealers
  
• Added English voice acting for all dialogs that were added since the previous Contracts/Hinterlands update
  
• Cinematics now feature improved animation and professional voice-overs (but are still WIP)
  
• Added new music tracks
  
• Increased max level to 18
  
• Added 10 new ship colors to collect
  
• UI: Added "new" and "invest" indicators to the perks tab
  
• UI: Item crafting and modification rework including item preview and materials overview

• Game assets are now compressed to save disk space
  
• Distributed game assets among several .pak files to speed up patch installation via Steam
  
• Optimized texture memory usage
  
• Improved Thermo Gun projectile performance
  
• Overhauled enemy damage and hitpoint balancing
  
• Balanced difficulty when fighting against multiple enemies at the same time
  
• Fewer Outlaws in Siren's Sea and Palaemon's Wound
  
• Cargo space will now increase with higher ship tiers
  
• Slightly reduced Scout agility
  
• Increased ship acceleration while not boosting
  
• Outlaw Ravager and Bloodstar Overseer now have fewer and more prominent weak points
  
• Outlaw Vipers now leave behind a corrosion field when destroyed
  
• Creatures and cruisers can no longer be targeted by the Magnetic Repulsor
  
• Nanobots and Nano Injector will now repair a percentage of hull hp, not a fixed value
  
• Improved Teleporter collision detection to prevent getting stuck in geometry
  
• Corrosion will now first damage the armor before damaging the hull
  
• Annihilator Virus: reduced explosion delay and doubled infect interval
  
• Annihilator Virus: reduced kinetic damage from 150 to 90
  
• Annihilator Virus: limited maximum number of infected targets to 6
  
• Annihilator Virus: increased range from 400m to 600m
  
• Annihilator Virus "Symptomatic" mode: increased target damage reduction from 20% to 50%
  
• Annihilator Virus "Incubation" mode: renamed to "R-Naught" - now increases the maximum number of targets by 2
  
• Corrosion Injector, Annihilator Virus, Quantum Entangler and Quantum Tether (Striker ULT) can now be used on capital ships
  
• Doubled Quantum Tether (Striker ULT) effect range
  
• Rail Gun: Reduced energy consumption
  
• Rail Gun: Added zoom when charging
  
• Rail Gun: Increased full charge damage by 50%
  
• Baron Executioner: Increased max spread angle from 0.5 to 1.5 degrees
  
• Beam Laser: Increased energy consumption by 20%
  
• Elek will only jump in if the player is in a fight with more than 2 enemies
  
• Reduced "Play It Safe" perk effect duration from 12s to 5s
  
• NPCs will now gain EMP resistance immediately after receiving the EMP debuff to prevent stun locking
  
• EMP resistance duration is now scaled with the duration of the EMP itself
  
• Increased hull hitpoints of G&B and Freelancer freighters
  
• Decreased probability of Interceptor passive perk that recharges Weapon Overdrive with critical hits from 50% to 20%
  
• Increased global elite enemy probability
  
• Signal Decoders will now reveal a high-risk area inside the current region of the system
  
• Signal Decoders will now always have a higher rarity (no more common signal decoders)
  
• The first boss now gives more and better loot
  
• Improved support for mixed input methods like joystick + mouse (added option to specify input method or use auto-detect)
  
• Prevented crafting exploits via reloading
  
• Fully mine ore deposit when using Flak or Missile Launcher
  
• Portable debris can now be picked up from a further distance
  
• Only play detonator drone warning sound when it is flying towards a target
  
• The pinging sound and icon-effect of invisible containers continue until the container is emptied
  
• Added options to quickly invert camera pitch/yaw (in addition to the already present invert option in the "customize controls" screen)
  
• Force fields now have two distinct textures representing their access state
  
• Flying Dutchess will now spawn-kill enemies when jumping in
  
• Post effects produced by conditions, devices and damage are now hidden in Photo Mode
  
• UI: Added dedicated HUD marker icons for different drone types
  
• UI: Improved speed when first opening the map
  
• UI: Joystick keybindings are now displayed in HUD when a joystick binding is assigned
  
• UI: Tractor Beam Range is now shown in "Ship" screen
  
• UI: Master rewards for challenges are now instantly revealed
  
• UI: Added implicit cargo sorting for M&K in case sorting was active on the last menu visit
  
• UI: Repair and device hold actions trigger an error on the start of hold action in case of insufficient credits/points
  
• UI: Clickable action buttons in crafting result screen
  
• UI: (Batch) marked items now feature an animation
  
• UI: Added ingame menu tab pre-loading for Inventory, Ship, Perks, Mission, Data and Map
  
• UI: Better explanation of locked player perks when in space
  
• UI: "Crafting XP" is now called "Crafting Data"
  
• UI: Opening ingame menu with gamepad implicitly sorts inventory and selects the first slot
  
• UI: Dismantling and destroying while using a controller now implicitly sorts inventory (removes empty slots in-between)
  
• UI: Enabled "Expand Cargo View" / batch actions in loot container view
  
• UI: Enabled "Send To Homebase" action in loot container view
  
• UI: Added navigation SFX to mission item inventory
  
• UI: Hovering one of the six main attributes will now show the items that contribute to the respective value
  
• UI: Added descriptions for condition tooltips in ship screen
  
• UI: Added storage slot ratio to inventory headline
  
• UI: When activating a high-risk area and choosing to show it on the map it's now highlighted and centered

• Fixed ship selector sometimes not being displayed in Homebase despite owning multiple ships
  
• Fixed floating-point precision issues related to weapon aim
  
• Fixed already destroyed Bomb Thrower Turrets sometimes still throwing bombs
  
• Fixed energy orbs not restoring armor
  
• Fixed not being able to activate buttons using a flak cannon
  
• Fixed a potential blocker and a wrong dialog being played in "I Heart Scrap" side mission
  
• Fixed dialogs related to fights being played when colliding with level geometry
  
• Fixed destroying Okkar units not yielding correct XP
  
• Fixed Okkar being spawned by the Wanted System giving loot and XP after re-entering a location.
  
• Fixed player stats not being updated immediately after re-entering stats screen
  
• Fixed highlight effect on some structures being visible from far away
  
• Fixed "Data Fishing" side mission briefing dialog being played again when docking before leaving the location
  
• Fixed mission item "Drone Debris" not getting removed from inventory after becoming obsolete
  
• Fixed Gauss Cannon and Rail Gun having improper affixes
  
• Fixed Baron Executioner weapon receiving energy damage modifiers
  
• Fixed item bonus attributes that grant extra damage not working properly
  
• Fixed bounty not increasing when defeating an enemy with a device like the Corrosion Injector
  
• Fixed problems with axis inversions also affecting other logical axes that were bound to the same physical axis
  
• Fixed that Elek could appear multiple times in a location
  
• Fixed that Elek sometimes left too soon
  
• Fixed that Elek and Dax could die when acting as wingmen
  
• Fixed enqueued hull repairs being lost when docking to a station
  
• Fixed faction rewards not being displayed for accepted jobs in the missions tab
  
• Fixed being able to use warfare devices on allies
  
• Fixed timestamps of items accidentally being renewed after having been moved to a different inventory slot
  
• Fixed device inventory did not update after changing ships under some circumstances
  
• Fixed quick equip with right mouse button in loot container screen might send an item to Homebase instead of equipping it
  
• Fixed that some item attribute bonus values (like Resistance) would not spawn
  
• Fixed Sentinel ULT (Static Overload) not scaling with Utility attribute
  
• Fixed Sentinel passive "20% reduced cooldowns for warfare devices." falsely stacking until cooldown was zero
  
• Fixed that missiles could not be destroyed after the ship or turret that fired them died
  
• Fixed additionally spawned Okkars not leaving location after having paid bounty
  
• Fixed "ULT ready" not being triggered by Interceptor passive perk
  
• Prevent being able to switch camera while in "1st person no cockpit" view and having activated auto-pilot
  
• Fixed that retractable turrets could be destroyed by very high damage, e.g. Annihilator Virus
  
• UI: Fixed that only one missing attribute was shown when comparing items
  
• UI: Fixed item actions for Aeterna Bypasses and Signal Decoders being visible in multi-select mode
  
• UI: Fixed equip action being visible in multi-select mode
  
• UI: Fixed focus and hud visibility problems after very quickly opening and closing ingame menu
  
• UI: Fixed wrong device slot length in item selection
  
• UI: Fixed wrong implicit cargo sorting when using a gamepad and first opening the menu
  
• UI: Fixed inventory items clipping through scroll indicators
  
• UI: Fixed icons for companion perk upgrade requirements sometimes being wrong
  
• UI: Fixed that when using mouse+keyboard, gamepad icons were displayed on a device icon and consumable slots in the menu
  
• UI: Fixed stats and condition tooltips sometimes still being shown on screen after changing ships
  
• UI: Using dedicated icon for ship special in the stats panel
  
• UI: Fixed that log sometimes displayed items with the wrong affix
  
• UI: Fixed that pressing Tab while "Press Tab to Show" was shown for completed or new challenges not opening the challenges screen
  
• UI: Fixed slot focus being lost after clicking on various regions in ingame menu header
  
• UI: Fixed item sorting type 'Latest' (newest item first) not working properly
  
• UI: Fixed "Quick equip" action of selected equipment in storage inventory being broken after changing ships on Homebase
  
• UI: Fixed icon scale for devices that can't be used not being reset after being replaced by another device
  
• UI: Fixed damage numbers not shown for damage-over-time conditions like Corrosion
  
• UI: Fixed shop icon not being shown on map for Flying Dutchess beacons
  
• UI: Fixed Ben's speaker image not showing implants after his operation
  
• UI: Fixed "Outdated Equipment" message appearing at a bad time
  
• (Exp) Fixed a bug that resulted in inadvertently easy fights against large numbers of enemies
  
• (Exp) Fixed that energy spheres would show resist marker in radiation fields
  
• (Exp) Fixed false unlock of random system regions when entering supralight which leads to Union Explorer Challenge unlock banner not being shown
  
• (Exp) Fixed being able to activate gas harvester boss from the outside
  
• (Exp) Fixed invisible forcefield spawning right above shield generators after beating gas harvester boss and loading checkpoint save
  
• (Exp) Fixed being able to damage the Okkar Corvette during "Tipping The Scales" Side Mission
  
• (Exp) Fail "The Vortex" main mission when attacking G&B at Vesna Mining Colony
  
• (Exp) Fixed colliding with invisible ships on ship dealer platforms
  
• (Exp) Fixed that fast-forwarding in travel mode affected playtime
  
• (Exp) Fixed faction standing not increasing after completing a job
  
• (Exp) Fixed fast-forwarding not pausing when opening menu
  
• (Exp) Fixed camera being inside remote drone occasionally
  
• (Exp) Fixed that the Raid Booster's "Boost After Kill" bonus was stackable