This week on the regular playtest, we reviewed a bunch of smaller but important things.

We did some animation changes on weapons and tools. Right now the motion is a bit too pronounced when you look around – it feels like the weapon or tool is lagging behind the crosshair. So that’s something we’ll be addressing and tuning down.

Asteroid rings are already in our internal build of the game. From a distance, you see them as a kind of foggy ring. As you get closer, the fog disappears and you start seeing individual asteroids. There’s one big ring around Verdure, and it’s also visible directly from the planet’s surface, which adds a nice large-scale geographic element to the world.

The loot system is already in. During FTUE, contracts, or encounters, you’ll be able to find loot here and there. Datapads are in as well – you can find them and read short snippets of background lore.

The killing field around Delfos is in too. When you get too close, you start seeing dust and fire-like cloudy particles all around you – even inside interiors. This danger goes through obstacles, so if you don’t escape in time, it will kill you and destroy your ship. It’s meant to feel unavoidable and hostile.

Speed particles are being improved. They look like a star field that fades in once you cross the safe speed (72 km/h), and they really help with the sense of speed and motion.

Customizable controls are in – you can rebind keys. I’m not 100% sure yet whether this covers absolutely all use cases players care about, or more like 90%, but we’ll ship it and then collect the feedback. We are also adding a separate Tools Volume settings – so you can make your mining experience as quiet (or as loud) as you wish.

Automated turrets are in. If you set them up correctly, they start shooting enemy grids, and suddenly it already feels much more like a real game. One thing that’s not done yet: the collision shape for the turret. Right now you can place them extremely close to each other, and it looks… funny. That will be fixed.

Trading blocks are in, so you can buy and sell items. Block actions via the toolbar are in progress. We already saw programmers demo it – pressing numeric keys to turn on lights, open doors, etc. Still being wired up properly, but it’s clearly coming together.

We’re also improving mission scripting in the FTUE (first-time user experience, roughly the first 1–2 hours). The goal is to avoid situations where the game tells you to do something you can’t actually progress – for example, “bring 1000 iron to a cargo container” when the container already has it, but the mission logic doesn’t register it. These kinds of dead-ends should not happen anymore.

Mission scripting in a sandbox game with a fully destructible environment is… hard 😃

One last edge case we’re trying to avoid is when a player visits a mission area early, unknowingly messes it up, and later comes back when the mission actually needs it – but now it’s impossible to complete because key grids are missing. One possible solution is to spawn almost invisible safe zones around such areas, which you’d only notice when very close, and which would prevent changes. That’s our last-resort, nuclear option. We’ll try everything else first.

I’ve also been looking at our planned GPS expansion, which is a good example of how VS2 really served as a foundation. VS2 gave us the base systems, and now we’re going back and making each of them deeper and more feature complete. GPS is one of those systems that you don’t always notice at first, but once you rely on it, every small improvement matters.

Right now, the team is working on new GPS features. I really like how practical these changes are. You can for example add a GPS marker directly from your current position, paste markers from the clipboard, and organize everything into GPS groups.

We’re also working on a WIP indication for newly unlocked blocks. The idea is simple – when you get access to a new block, the game should clearly tell you that something new is available. I personally find this important for feedback and progression. You immediately know that your actions unlocked something, instead of discovering it much later by accident. The visuals for this are still work in progress, but the underlying logic is already there.

You might remember that some time ago I mentioned our early cloud experiments[blog.marekrosa.org]. Since then, we’ve been pushing this area further, especially while working on new planetary visuals. As we add more worlds to the game, it becomes clear that clouds are not just decoration – they are a powerful tool for shaping mood, scale, and overall atmosphere.

Lately, we’ve been experimenting with a different approach to planet visuals, including the idea of permanent fog. I find this especially interesting for planets that are meant to feel hostile, mysterious, or oppressive. A constant layer of fog changes how you navigate, how far you can see, and how safe you feel at any given moment.

Our cloud system gives the team a lot of control. We can tweak cloud height, density, color, and layering, and combine them in ways that dramatically change the character of a planet. Subtle adjustments already make a big difference. A low, dense fog can make the surface feel claustrophobic and dangerous, while higher, broken cloud layers can emphasize scale and openness. I really enjoy seeing how the same terrain can feel completely different just by changing the atmosphere around it.

This is still very much an experimental area, but it’s exciting to see how far we can push planet identity using clouds and fog alone.

Question to you: What visuals are most important to you for creating a strong planet atmosphere and mood?

Full Blog Post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2026/01/mareks-dev-diary-january-29-2026/


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Did you know planet Verdure has a moon? Its name is Palatine. The strange similarities between our Earth in the Solar System and Verdure in the Almagest system continue even here. Palatine looks surprisingly close to our own Moon, with its barren surface, crater patterns, and quiet, airless horizon.

Maybe that is just a coincidence. The universe is full of circular rocky bodies without an atmosphere, shaped by billions of years of impacts and erosion. But still… the resemblance is hard to ignore.

Seeing Verdure and Palatine together will add another layer of familiarity to the Almagest system, almost like looking at a distant echo of home. And at the same time, it opens up new possibilities for exploration, contracts, and storytelling.

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