Food and water are real supplies, produced by a chain you build yourself. Ice Drills mine ice out of the belt, Water Refineries turn that ice into water, and the Hydroponics Farm turns water into food. Let either run dry and Comfort falls, production slows and your crew starts leaving.
Two new buildings, the Ice Drill and the Water Refinery, each with their own construction stages, interior and lighting. Ice is a new basic mineral, found in every belt.
The Hydroponics Farm is a real producer now: water goes in, food comes out, with a live craft animation like any other factory.
Water is its own Comfort pillar, next to housing, food and wages. Both food and water raise their own shortage alerts, held back while you are still founding the colony.
Surveyed asteroids show what is left inside them right on the rock, counting down live as you mine.
The population panel breaks food and water down per colonist type: what each tier wants, and what it actually gets.
The tutorial now walks you through the ice and water chain, and the New Game screen lists the food and water you start with.
Changed
Cores need a small crew now, on the station, the mine and the spaceyard alike. They are staffed first, ahead of everything else.
Cargo shuttles route smarter: after unloading, they favour a job that starts where they already are, so they fly far fewer empty legs.
The asteroid belt sits further out, leaving more room to build around the planet.
Your starting shuttles rest on a landing pad instead of the middle of the core.
The play button pulses gently while the game is paused, so a forgotten pause is obvious.
Asteroids have a cleaner silhouette, and buildings under construction no longer look stretched.
Fixed
Building ambience kept humming while the game was paused.
A batch of backlog bugs fixed.
Balance
You start with a little more ferrite, plus a founding stock of food and water to carry the colony through its first minutes. Existing saves pick up the new chain on load; nothing is lost.
v0.5.1balanceuifixes
The Long Rebalance
Added
Local market prices: each world sets its own. Whatever is scarce on a planet sells for more there, so shipping the right cargo to the right market is worth the trip. The market table shows how much each world pays above or below the standard.
Every administrator now starts with an advantage that fits them: extra metal plate, a research head start, spare probes, or more founding cash.
Changed
The New Game screen is now a full administrator dossier: pick a face on the left, read their file on the right, with their strengths and weaknesses as colored cards and everything they start with laid out below.
Crew wellbeing is now a single Comfort score instead of two overlapping stats. Housing, food, wages and consumer goods all feed it, and it drives growth, immigration and how well your buildings run. Let housing or food slip and your production slows down too.
Buildings only make noise while they are actually running, and go quiet when they break down or you pause.
Interface polish: main action buttons match the frosted glass HUD, confirmation windows are easier to read, the research view's header is one clean block, and building priority now reads LOW / NORMAL / HIGH.
Fixed
Power generators could sit dead forever because nobody ever shipped them fuel. Fuel is now delivered to them like any other supply.
Steam kept showing the game as running after you quit.
A batch of backlog bugs fixed.
Balance
The whole economy is retuned, from your first minutes to the Space Elevator. Existing saves pick up the new balance on load; nothing is lost.
The debt you owe Earth now grows at a real yearly rate, but can never pass a hard ceiling. Falling behind hurts, it can no longer bury you.
The tech tree is deeper and lasts the whole campaign instead of running dry in the first hour.
Buildings cost more and more of them need materials to build, so what you build first matters. You start with more money to match.
Charter Tribute: deadlines are more forgiving, the later steps ask for less, and running late only stops you from selling. You can still buy, at a markup, so you can always trade your way back out.
Futures contracts now ask for amounts you can actually deliver, and buying then reselling on the spot is no longer free money.
Goal rewards are worth having again at the point you reach them.
Shuttles burn far less fuel. One used to drink more than a whole refining chain could produce.
Clinics and rec domes no longer eat through their own supplies, and buildings cost less to maintain: a single spare-part factory keeps a large base running.
v0.5.0contentbalance
Under New Management
Added
Administrators: found a new empire by choosing one of six administrators, each with a full portrait, a story, and strong modifiers that bend the whole run to their style, from trade margins to research speed. The Colonial Council makes it official with an assignment ceremony.
Deeds and directives: your accomplishments during a run are recorded as deeds and earn Administrator Points; spend them on directives in your administrator's skill tree to push their playstyle even further. A commendation board keeps track of it all.
Your administrator lives aboard: spot them strolling your station's corridors, wherever you are.
Futures contracts: planets now post bulk delivery orders at a locked premium price. Accept one on the planet's Futures page and deliver before the deadline for a rich payout; miss it and the shortfall becomes debt. A new docked panel keeps your active contracts in view while you build.
New Power Regulation research unlocks the Reactor Tuning upgrade: +25% power output on tuned reactors.
Changed
The Seller now takes up its full 2x2 footprint when placed.
Fixed
A batch of backlog bugs fixed.
Balance
The Solar Dominion capstone goal now asks you to colonize 8 worlds across the solar system; the old open-a-market-on-every-world target could not actually be completed.
Overclock no longer fits the Seller and no longer boosts sale prices.
Selling goods on a market can never pay more than buying them there costs, so no combination of administrator perks turns buy-and-resell into free money.
v0.4.3contentuifixes
A Sky Full of Science
Added
Research tree in the stars: the research panel is now a full-screen, pannable tech tree floating over the starfield, with glass tech cards, glowing circuit traces between them, and a little celebration when something unlocks.
Research queue: click any tech and its whole prerequisite path queues up, purchasing itself automatically as research points come in. The queue survives saving and loading.
Shareable world seeds: every new game gets a world seed code you can reroll, paste, or share, and the pause menu shows your current world's code with a Copy button. The same code recreates the same worlds.
Changed
Research categories now match the build tray, so the tree and the tray teach one shared map of technology, and the techs were reorganised to fit.
Returning to the Main Menu or quitting from the pause menu now asks for confirmation first.
Mysterious late-game buildings no longer show up in the build tray before they're discovered.
The tutorial now teaches researching in two clear steps: pick a tech, then confirm it in its inspector.
Fixed
The asteroid highlight no longer draws over the top bar, and clicking empty space deselects an inspected asteroid.
The empire's "Economy over time" chart no longer spills out of its card when your balance dips into debt.
The Help panel's tutorial tip no longer hides behind the very panel it describes.
A batch of backlog bugs fixed.
Balance
Station core oxygen production rebalanced, with each core type now supplying its own amount.
v0.4.2performancefixes
Full Speed Ahead
Added
The remaining buildings received their exterior lights: every structure now glows with its own light.
Changed
Building shadows now glide smoothly with the sun through the day instead of stepping.
A fresh boot splash featuring the new sun and deep-space backdrop.
Fixed
Alert badges (power, crew, oxygen, storage) always show on top now, never buried under lit windows or passing clouds.
The Warp Gate no longer raises a false no-oxygen alert.
Exterior lights fade out properly as a building's interior is revealed, instead of glowing through it.
The asteroid info panel no longer flickers.
Performance
A major optimization pass across the whole game: frame rates roughly double in most situations, from small outposts to sprawling late-game colonies.
Panning the camera around your base is dramatically smoother.
Fast-forwarding a large colony no longer drags the frame rate down.
The simulation itself runs twice as fast on big colonies, with behavior exactly as before.
v0.4.1contentuifixes
Lights On, Loads Smooth
Added
Seamless region loading: entering, switching, or loading into a region now happens behind a tip screen that warms every asset first, so you arrive with no freeze and no interior-reveal hitch.
Building lights: drills and habitats now glow with their own lights, inside and out, with soft halos and an ember when a building goes dark.
A richer deep-space backdrop with drifting solar-flare auroras.
Changed
Cargo shuttles now carry visible container crates when they're loaded.
The SSNN news ticker is a fixed height with clean one-line headlines (the full text is always in History).
A notification's "View" button now jumps to the alert's own region before framing what it points to.
When every landing pad is full, a shuttle sets down on the nearest one instead of hovering out in space.
Assorted UI polish: smaller coverage-overlay icons, a tighter building selection box, and a cleaner region view.
Fixed
Fixed a random crash that could happen while hovering certain UI.
The news ticker no longer stretches to full screen height after loading some saves.
Tutorial steps that place a second copy of a building no longer stall with an empty cursor.
A batch of backlog bugs fixed.
v0.4.0uiperformance
Sleek and Smooth
Added
Settled worlds now light up at night: city lights glow on their dark side, brightest on Earth.
A new Gameplay options page gathers language and tutorial settings in one place.
Changed
A sleek new look: the whole interface has been rebuilt in frosted glass, from the top bar and build bar to panels, menus, tables, tooltips and the system and galaxy maps, with soft light glows shining through the glass.
The empire panel got a full redesign: flush sidebar navigation, stat cards with trend lines, and cleaner, antialiased charts.
The notification tray is now a slide-down drawer with an unread badge; important events open it on their own, and the history is filterable and searchable.
Planets render with much finer pixel detail, richer terrain shades and softer coasts and clouds, and the galaxy backdrop is crisper.
Shuttles, freighters, colonists and orbits now glide smoothly at 1x speed instead of stepping.
Immigration policy moved into the empire Population page; the separate planet Colony page is gone.
The main menu puts the game's name and tagline front and center over the backdrop.
Fixed
A batch of backlog bugs fixed.
Performance
A major performance pass: framerates are up sharply everywhere, roughly half again as fast in large bases, both outside and inside, and at fast-forward speeds.
v0.3.2contentuifixes
Galactic Logistics
Added
Galactic logistics: freight routes can now cross between star systems through Warp Gates, hauling goods for a Warp Coil per trip.
Planets holding a Warp Gate or Ascension Spire are now marked in the solar-system view.
The current region (or system) name now shows in the top bar.
Changed
The Warp Gate is now a standalone structure that needs no power, air, crew, or airlocks, and only one can be built per system (the Ascension Spire, one per game).
Logistics reworked: create a route in one step, pick any colonized region across systems as an endpoint ("Sol: Earth"), cargo shows resource names, and removing a route now asks for confirmation.
The relic panel names the Lab upgrade each relic needs, and analysis upgrades and research now carry their relic's name.
The warp-trail tracker shows found relics in orange and analysed ones in green.
Smoother building visuals: colonists blend behind the fading roof as you zoom in, feature shadows are softer, the interior reveal is cleaner, and exteriors read better at a distance.
Fixed
Freight routes saved in one star system no longer jump to another when you reload.
The Warp Gate panel no longer shows a stray oxygen meter.
A batch of backlog bugs fixed (production-balance labels, 2x1 building proportions, and more).
The Earth Charter now ends with a final step: repay your founding debt to win full independence.
Future delivery contracts show the premium they pay over the market price, and always offer a contract for every goods tier you can produce.
Surveyed regions show their resource estimate on the solar-system map, and the relic panel gains a Codex shortcut.
Changed
Redesigned event banner under the top bar: a solid, colour-coded bar with a progress meter that also warns you about incoming deadlines (a tribute due soon, a delivery contract closing).
Bottom-bar alerts now point to the exact tab that needs you.
Solar-system region panels are all one uniform width.
Placing a building deselects the tool afterward (hold Shift to keep placing); low-power buildings are now clearly flagged.
Fixed
You can now plan freighter routes while paused.
Alien relics in other regions are reachable now, and older saves automatically re-place a relic that was stranded out of range.
Station cores no longer overlap large planets (Saturn), and you can build in regions where asteroids crowd the core's landing pads (Neptune).
The Warp Coil recipe unlocks properly once you decode the precursor gate tech.
The demolish confirmation window is centred.
A batch of backlog bugs fixed.
Balance
Gentler building upkeep with a grace period before spare-part shortages bite, slower colonist leveling, and tribute deadlines that lengthen as the demands get harder.
v0.3.0contentuibalance
Building upkeep, a new Codex & a fresh coat of paint
Added
A new Codex category in the Empire panel.
Building maintenance: buildings now use spare parts to keep running, supplied by a new spare-part factory.
New Megastructures build category for the warp gate, space elevator, and ascension spire.
A searchable, filterable SSNN news archive.
Changed
Sweeping art and interface refresh: modernized HUD, ware and building icons, framed panels, redesigned building interiors, and a new build menu.
UI/UX improvements to how the game's lore is presented and uncovered.
The Power build category is now Utilities (power and life support), and Erase has its own button on the build dock.
Power and oxygen readouts now show Used / Available.
Research cards redesigned with a clearer unlock button and locked / affordable states.
Buildings under construction now show only the build animation.
Updated the tutorial to cover the new mechanics.
Scroll down on the solar-system map to zoom out to the galaxy.
Fixed
Shuttles always land on a landing pad now, never in the middle of a building.
Smoother cursor while in erase mode.
A batch of backlog bugs fixed (stretched market icons, building placement overlaps, and more).
Balance
Ore distribution has been rebalanced within regions.
Softer building upkeep, and adjusted station and mine supply range.
v0.2.3contentbalancefixes
Surveyor anomalies, map panels & a balancing pass
Added
Region Surveyor anomalies: a completed remote survey flags an "abnormal signal" when a region hides an alien artefact, with a news alert.
A game menu button in the top bar, next to Help, on the region, solar-system, and galaxy views.
"Generating" meters in the building panel show a station core, reactor, or Life Support's live power and oxygen output.
Changed
Redesigned the solar-system and galaxy side panels into cleaner cards: a status badge, key stats, and the Station Core materials shown with resource icons when colonizing.
Colonizing a new region now also spends the Station Core's build materials, on top of the cash fee.
The Asteroid Belt is now open space: no central planet, and a denser field of smaller asteroids to mine.
Clearer building upgrade labels, larger alien artefacts on the map, and full station names across the menus.
Resource-balancing pass across ore yields, refined goods, and market prices.
Fixed
Fixed a crash when closing the radial build menu.
A region's last station core can no longer be demolished, so a colony can't be stranded.
A batch of backlog bugs fixed (overlapping asteroids, population counts, paused-map readouts, and more).
v0.2.2uicontentbalance
UI overhaul, future contracts & more stores
Added
Future delivery contracts: agree to sell a bulk quantity at a locked price, delivered within a maturity window.
Area-of-effect oxygen and energy: producers supply a radius around them.
Sunward is now on the Epic Games Store and itch.io.
Changed
A sweeping interface overhaul: a shared panel shell with a consistent depth language, redesigned Empire, Planet and Logistics panels, an angular HUD banner with inset stat tiles, and a polished radial build menu.
The market panel is merged into the Planet panel.
The build UI is now the radial menu.
Fixed
The tutorial re-aligned with the redesigned UI, plus a batch of backlog bugs.
Balance
Resource and research balancing passes.
v0.2.1contentuifixes
Display options & Space Elevator overhaul
Added
Display options: window mode, a resolution picker, smarter auto-scale, and a font-size accessibility setting.
A Charter tribute scenario.
Changed
Space Elevator overhaul.
Oxygen is now required everywhere, and freight can carry multiple resources per run.
Integrated building interiors and exteriors, elevator parts, and shadow art.
Fixed
Colonist behaviour fixes and a batch of backlog bugs.
v0.2.0contentui
Region Surveyor & alien artifacts
Added
The Region Surveyor: a building that scouts another region's raw ores and their concentration.
Alien artifacts with a paced discovery hook: scan to find one, send a probe to identify it, then decode it at a Lab.
Steam stats and stat-driven achievements.
Changed
The build tray became a collapsible drawer grouped by tier.
Modules are inset so the airlock corridors between them read clearly, with smoother sprites when zoomed.
A new game icon.
v0.1.2contentbalancefixes
Colonization, logistics & balance
Added
Colonize new regions: a fresh region starts empty and is settled by colonists relocated from an established colony.
Changed
Smarter logistics: shuttles no longer loop when no depot will take their cargo, and sellers keep exporting surplus above a keep target.
Housing shortfalls now drag crew morale instead of sitting at 100%.
Habitats show oxygen as a labeled bar and dim with a red symbol when unpressurized.
A global game-speed dial to slow the whole game down.
Fixed
Asteroid clumps never overlap or touch, in any region.
Balance
Tier-gated ores: the Earth belt is basics-only, so advanced ores need exploration.
Weight-based storage: each ware carries its own inventory cost.
Crew consumer-goods expectations scale with colony complexity.
v0.1.1uiperformance
Steam-ready & a big polish pass
Added
Steam integration: achievements and a release pipeline.
Changed
The build tray shows each building's resource, energy and manpower cost up front.
The Empire panel folds in Contracts and Objectives, and lists regions as collapsibles.
Clearer airlocks and station interiors, with the roof fading in and out instead of snapping.
Animated zoom transitions between the region, system-map and galaxy views.
Resource mentions across the panels now show an icon before the name.
Fixed
A batch of tutorial, save-slot and panel fixes.
Performance
Batched structure rendering to cut draw calls by around 78%, smoothing FPS on large stations.
v0.1.0content
Sunward — initial release
Added
Mine the asteroid belt, refine ore into goods, and sell them at the planet market.
Build a modular space station from cores, drills, refineries, sellers, habitats, life support and power.
Grow a colony: house, feed, pay and supply your crew as the station expands.
The Space Elevator, a planet-anchored trade wonder.
An in-game tutorial with inline keyboard-key hints, and procedural building art.
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