Apart from some major GPU optimizations to reduce memory consumption, this contains a lot of smaller fixes and changes. Here are the major points:

• added anti-gravity toggle to extra settings panel (for easier ship re-entry)

• zooming in (reducing fov) shouldnt drop FPS anymore

• ship and booster should swing less now when on chopstick rails

• engines now shoot out when popped

• overall GPU RAM requirement should be a bit lower

• it can take some time now until textures are fully loaded in

• start menu loads in quicker now, filling less RAM, and you should be able to enter this always now to adjust settings before loading into map

• re-arranged the start menu and added a test map that just has the launch site, if you need something that requires less memory

I got a lot of small things off my list including some annoying ones that were there already before the latest update. So Im quite happy now and can fully focus on next update. Ill update the roadmap soon.

Full changelog

added display of horizontal velocity components in booster/ship panel, removed unnecessary center of mass offset on Block 2 that is on Block 1 to balance it on sticks, fixed some panel tool tips and tank farm digit displays, fixed game crashing on server when restarting with client connected, fixed an issue with booster lod, added anti-gravity toggle to extra settings panel (for easier ship re-entry), extra settings have now a separate panel, set r.RayTracing.Culling=3 and r.RayTracing.Culling.Radius=153333 (should increase ray tracing performance, especially when reducing field of view), added script commands to retract OLM and QDs as well as Masseys Deluge (see readme), added overlay that shows version number (only for itch and dev version), added Stargate to optional spawn toggle on extra settings panel, added reset all booster and ship settings button to extra settings panel, added option to toggle auto exposure to lighting panel, made it so that clicking hot stage button on ship panel also triggers sequence on booster when stacked, adjusted ship payload door opening mechanism so that it is a bit less glitchy on client, fixed fov not resetting when zoomed in and not closing game via menu, fixed some tank farm panel digit display issues, fixed volumetric fog setting not being saved, fixed some issues with volumetric fog and ray tracing (r.VolumetricFog.InjectRaytracedLights=1) ship and booster should swing less now when on chopstick rails, engines now shoot out when popped, added test map to start menu and re-arranged buttons to fit everything better, added nanite toggle in extra settings panel for testing, replaced ship nanite version with lod, optimization: different things on textures, which can load in slowly at beginning now, optimization: cleaned up unused/invisible objects, optimization: start menu doesnt load in everything anymore, optimization: reduced water quality a bit (bit scuffed for the moment, but will be replaced sooner or later altogether anyway, added one second delay when spawning stack on map start to see if it fixes random explosions, fixed when spawning full stack block 1 option not working, fixed when spawning full stack with run script ticked, it doesnt initialize it fully, and also not adding it to the selection boxes

[ 2025-06-15 19:05:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Besides the new Starship model, that has a movable payload bay door now, there are also a few general additions and fixes to the ship. Here are the major changes:

• added Starship Block 2 model by ChameleonCir
• you can select which version to spawn
• added possibility to choose from multiple onboard camera positions defined by json file (only for ship for now)
• added engine failure mode toggle to extra settings tab (also just for ship)

and some that may seem not so major, but are important changes or fixes that I'll explain below:

• added gravity toggle for ship/booster to extra settings tab
• some multiplayer fixes/changes
• fixed z attitude error not wrapping correctly between +/- 180 and the associated gimbal twitching in certain situations
• fixed RCS stuck on 1.0 input when it should go from 1 to 0

NOTE: Linux version should be ready soon.

Performance

Before I explain everything, one remark about performance issues. I noticed that, on my system at least, there are more often now brutal frame rate drops, especially at the beginning after launching the game, but also in certain situations like when zooming in (reducing FOV). In that regard I made some changes, that should improve the situation at least a little bit. But overall the situation is getting worse and worse. Please let me know, when you experience something similar and what's your PC specs. Also let me know, if you don't have these problems. I think, it might be connected to the GPU memory requirements going up after adding more and more stuff. I might need to do a bigger optimization pass after or for the next update even.

Explanations

I will just put some words quickly together here for now and then full devlog will follow later when I post it on the homepage.

Flying

First of all, with Block 2 the drag coefficients as well as flap controllers are now set up in such a way that it should be possible to have proper re-entry aero braking. However, there is still a flat earth. BUT, you can now toggle off gravity for the ship. This makes it easy to stay at an altitude or slowly adjust it by using only the flaps to change the angle of attack. So you can brake down a bit more realistically now. For the next patch, I can also try a mode to add some force based on horizontal velocity to fake a curved trajectory.

Multiplayer

While trying out things to fix an issue, I tried enabling Unreal Engine's new experimental predictive interpolation feature, and it is great! It reduces the high velocity glitching on clients a lot. You can actually do something now on a ship that is flying at 6 km/s! :D I thought, I tried this feature already after upgrading the engine and remembered that it wouldn't do much, but maybe I misremembered. Then there have been some major changes in the back to how things are spawned, also due to the new option to be able to select what model to spawn in case of ship. This should also fix some multiplayer issues, but it might have introduced some new. So we have to see how it goes.

Controllers

For the longest time there was this annoying z attitude error issue which led to the gimbals twitching in certain situations. I looked at it one time already and copied some code from the original Arducopter library. It improved the situation, but didn't fix it completely. So I looked at it again, and with the help of Grok, I realized that the Unreal math functions are not doing exactly the same as the math functions from the Arducopter library even though they look very similar. So I copied the functions from the library as well and now the gimbal twitching is gone. I'm very happy about this :) The other issue with the RCS getting stuck was mostly a problem with manual control, which made that basically useless. So it's useful now, yay!

Outlook

Since Linux version is also available now on Steam, next up is Mac version. I might set up a go-fund-me or something to help with that. btw, there is also a Steam dev version now. Things like cameras and engine failures will, of course, come also for the booster. But that will be part of a major overhaul of how this is set up which will be done when upgrading the booster to the next block version. But that is further out in the future. For the next update more launch site stuff is planned like new chopsticks and maybe some of Pad B. Then maybe also some of the features that I didn't get in before release for this update, like custom decals on ship, starlinks, or the capped test ship that appeared in Zack's latest video.

Full Changelog

"adjusted scripts for rough landing attempts for retail release", "enabled predictive interpolation option on booster and ship (should glitch less now on clients)", "added PopEngine, ChillValve and DumpFuel command to scripting (see scripting readme for details)", "added very simple fuel dump mechanic (via chill valve)", "addded spawn highbay option to extra settings tab on panel", "booster ship clamp is now being released automatically on firing the ship", "fixed can't open valve when rocket tank is empty and pump is running", "fixed when 'run ship' is toggled and you spawn a new booster, it doesn't take it into account", "fixed gridfin drag indicators not being updated" "added engine failure effects", "changed some things on how ship and booster are spawned so that it is hopefully more reliable now in multiplayer" "engine toggles now change color based on engine state", "added more and custom onboard cameras for ship", "added first iteration of engine failure mode for ship (extra settings tab)", "added gravity toggle for ship/booster to extra settings tab", "fixed z attitude error not wrapping correctly between +/- 180 and the associated gimbal twitching in certain situations", "fixed an issue with hot stage ring collider activation handling (might fix it getting stuck when detaching)" "added 'fold' command for flaps in scripting (use instead of 'on', only works if flaps are not on)", "changed terrain lod settings to try improving frame drop situation when zooming in (reducing fov)", "added option to choose which ship model to spawn", "door on block 2 can be operated now", "made Pad B launch mount movable", "fixed a small RCS bug, so that it won't do anything anymore below a small tank pressure" "fixed RCS stuck on 1.0 input when it should go from 1 to 0" "replaced Ship Block 1 with Block 2", "added option to reduce flying speed to settings panel"

[ 2025-05-26 16:15:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

"2025-03-26:": [ "fixed BQD not connecting to booster", "fixed shadow draw distance" ]

[ 2025-03-26 20:44:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a small patch, mostly to fix a few things that were left unfinished in the latest release. Here are the major changes:

• ray traced shadows are activated again
• added possibility to clamp ship to booster (experimental)
• HSR can now be attached/detached/spawned from booster settings panel
• TWR on booster panel does now take into account ship, when it is detected
• Retro button does now activate a mode where it continuously updates the attitude target
• SQD has been finalized with animations, colliders and destruction

Below you can find the full changelog. If you are wondering why are there so many dates thats when updates to the dev version have been released. You can get access to the dev version, when you become a builder via the ko-fi commission.

Ship Quick Disconnect (SQD)

This has been a major time sink with this patch as I had to dig really deep into how to rig stuff in Unreal Engine, which I havent done before much, and I had to try out different methods on how to move the SQD. In the end I settled on what you can see in the screen shot from the editor above. All the animations are happening in a control rig now. The only parts that are moved by physics are the main arm, the work platform and the QD plate that attaches to the Ship. These are driven directly through the blueprint and constraints. A lot of time was also spent on how to animate the hoses. I even asked for help on the Unreal Source discord and some nice person suggested to use full body IK and it did the trick! Just needs some tinkering with all the settings. Of course, there is a lot of room for polishing the SQD, especially since it doesnt have proper textures yet. But for early access status, its good enough for the moment. Unfortunately with the current method it wont be easily possible to make it move so that you can connect to the ship without the HSR. So this possibility probably wont come anytime soon and its not important anyway. This would be more for historical purposes and then one could as well also add the old SQD again.

Ship Clamping

Its a very simple system, so dont expect too much from it. It basically just lets you set up a constraint between ship and booster, if the ship is within a trigger box on top of the booster (what was previously the Ship detected text appearing instead of where the Clamp Ship button is now).
You also have an option in the booster settings panel to increase the strength of the clamps (the threshold at which the constraint breaks). If you set this to a very high value, you should be able to fly the full stack through almost any maneuver, with some exceptions. Like when you have an empty ship on top, this wont hold very long, or when you have a fully loaded ship and you stop the engines while going full throttle.

Ray Traced Shadows

Its really nice to have this back. I had to quickly disable it before the Steam release as there was a problem with dark areas on Nanite meshes that I only noticed shortly before release and I couldnt look into it anymore. In the end it was an easy fix. The problem was that the shadows are calculated based on the fallback meshes and some method that can be affected with the command r.RayTracing.NormalBias=10 at this setting and with higher quality fallback meshes pretty much all the dark areas could be eliminated.

Outlook

Next thing will be having a go at the Linux version for Steam. Then for next update at least Block 2 Starship is planned as I want to have it in before next flight. So it depends on when that happens. If soon, then not much more might be in this update. I will also look into how to make the dev version available on Steam again for the people who dont can or dont want to use EGS for that.

Full Changelog

2025-03-25:: [ added a couple of colliders to the BQD, fixed some small SQD issues, fixed condensation effect bounding box ], 2025-03-24:: [ finalized SQD with some hoses, colliders, LODs and destruction, added toggle to run also ship script to booster settings panel, fixed some smaller client side issues on SQD and subcooler ], 2025-03-21:: [ added BigFlame and BoosterClamps commands to scripting, added HSR multi function button to booster settings panel to attach/detach/spawn it, removed detach HSR button from booster main panel, its now possible to clamp ship to booster also when HSR is not present, retro button does now activate a mode where it continuously updates the attitude target to retrograde orientation until it is turned off again, TWR does now take into account ship, when it is detected, changed LODBias on low preset back to 1 and instead adjusted booster and SPMT LOD a bit, re-enabled ray traced shadows and increased drawing distance (r.RayTracing.NormalBias=10, r.RayTracing.Culling=0) ], 2025-03-17:: [ added booster ship clamp strength setting to booster panel, also adjusted detection range for the clamping a bit ], 2025-03-16:: [ added clamp ship button to booster main panel, added detach HSR button to booster main panel, added raptor chill valve button to booster and ship panel, added !blockFTS chat command and also made all chat commands case insensitive, cryotanks (including subcoolers) are not exploding anymore when destruction is off, fixed SQD (still havent added all hoses yet though), fixed OLM clamps, fixed hot stage ring can only be attached and detached once to booster, fixed LOX subcooler stops working when pressure is too high, fixed some nitrogen storage tank parameters so that it should behave same as other tanks now, fixed some smaller launch site models issues, adjusted auto graphics quality detection thresholds in favor of more FPS, changed LODBias on low preset from 1 to 0, so you are able to see highest detail mesh on low quality (might lead to more crashes on low end GPUs with little RAM), removed the often incorrect ping display on session entry in session search results ],

[ 2025-03-26 19:56:35 CET ] [ Original post ]