News

• Warp gates have holders. A Warp Gate belongs to the owner of its colony; a Nocturne gate belongs to the civilization with the oldest colony in its system that has the new Gate Attunement research. Only the holder and its allies can jump.
• Nocturne gates now need a colony in their system and Gate Attunement. Xeno-archaeology alone no longer opens them.
• Taking a colony takes its gate.
• Move orders route through gates: fly to a gate, jump, fly on, when that is faster. The move button shows the route.
• Destroy gate: after winning a siege, you can destroy the colony's Warp Gate. Nocturne gates cannot be destroyed.
• Gates are drawn on the map when zoomed into a system.
• Intercept: with Gravimetric Tracking, send an armed fleet after a tracked foreign fleet in flight and fight it between the stars. A jump cannot be caught; the target's owner is warned only if their sensors see your fleet coming.
• Bots seek out and settle the rare worlds their research needs.
• Fleets list: each fleet shows its home port beside where it is.
• Abandon colony is now an icon at the bottom of the Buildings tab.
• Battles no longer end in a stalemate after a single round of misses. A fight goes on until one side is gone, or 20 rounds in a row hurt nobody.
• Battle reports say what decided a win: numbers, firepower, or no losses.

• Refit: turn ships into another design of the same hull at your shipyard, paying only for the modules it adds. Open Refit on the fleet.
• Carrier complements: a carrier design chooses the craft it launches with, optionally two types (the second at 25, 50 or 75 percent), in the Shipyard's Outfit editor. Replacements keep the split; a fleet can change its own in its hangar row.

• Shipyard rally point: every ship a yard finishes sails on to another system you hold. Set it at the top of the Shipyard tab.
• Factory and shipyard auto are now switches: pause and resume a stock floor or a Hold without re-typing it.
• A fleet that founded a colony with an escort is renamed after the ships it still has.

Worlds now fall to sieges. Win the orbit of an enemy colony and your fleet bombards its defences hour by hour; when the last battery falls, your troops land. Orbital stations rise over your own worlds to hold the line, and a new siege report follows every conquest from the first shot to the landing.

• Sieges: hold an enemy colony's orbit and your fleet bombards its batteries every hour. Troops land once no battery is left; a colony without batteries can be invaded at once.
• Siege report: a conquest track (orbit, siege, landing, taken) and a timeline of every bombardment. Open it from the star, the colony or Reports.
• Invade in orbit before the siege is won arms the landing: the troops land by themselves when the last battery falls. Transports in orbit are in the bombardment and are hit first.
• Orbital stations grow tiers you can see on the map: Defense Platform, Shipyard Annex, Depot, Sensor Tier. A destroyed Defense Platform takes the whole station with it.
• Home ports: each fleet is supplied by the system that built it. Systems have a ship capacity set by their shipyards and annex.
• Existing fleets are based at your home system. If it is over capacity, you keep every ship, but it builds no new ones. To build again: base fleets at another shipyard system (Base here, on the fleet), build at another shipyard, or raise the Shipyard level.
• Blockades also stop freight routes, cargo and the supply of fleets based there.
• A last world can fall like any other. Losing it, or choosing Restart in Settings, starts you again on the same account.
• Abandon a colony you no longer want.
• Taking a colony gives you the stock held there.
• Ships of your own designs keep their design after a battle.

• Server improvements: the galaxy updates with less work as it grows.
• Unloading a freighter no longer leaves a trace of cargo aboard.
• A captured colony's hangar keeps building craft for its new owner.

• Command center: every system you hold in one table, with stock, net rates, goods, queues, ships and blockers. Sort by any column; select a row to go there. Opens from the gauge button in the top bar.
• Research: "Ready at" names the system holding the materials; select it to go there.
• Phone: the map key is in the Overlays menu.

• A freight route can carry goods back on the return leg. Pick them under Return when you set the route.

• Research materials show the stock of the selected system, named in brackets. Select another colony to see its stock.
• Unloading into full storage says so. The cargo stays aboard.
• Splitting freighters off a fleet keeps their cargo with them.
• Fleet cargo shows whole numbers.

This is a massive combat update, built to make battles more strategic and more interesting. Every gun now fires its own shots, and shields, armor and countermeasures each answer a different kind of weapon, so what you put on a ship decides what it beats. Damage carries from one fight to the next, fighters and carriers join the line, every hull can be built in more than one design, and the battle report tells you why a fight went the way it did. Balance will move over the coming weeks as the galaxy tries it.

• A battle runs until one side has no ships left. Each round every gun fires in order of initiative, quickest first, and shots land on the other side's weakest ships first.
• Shields, armor, countermeasures, evasion and tracking decide what each shot does. Ballistic, beam and missile weapons behave differently. New modules: Missile Rack, Countermeasure Turret, Flak Battery, Railgun, Armor-Piercing Rounds, Rapid-Fire Mounts, Fire-Control Uplink, Shield Capacitors, hangars.
• Damage stays. A surviving ship keeps its remaining hull and spent missile salvos into the next battle. Repair at your own shipyard: most damaged first, at half the missing share of the price and build time. Magazines refill there at no cost.
• Every hull has a stock design that never changes. Fit modules and save to make a named design, up to three per hull beside stock, each with its own modules. Every shipyard builds any of them. Changing a design refits its ships; stock ships stay as they are.
• Fighters, interceptors and bombers live in hangars. A Carrier launches with 12 fighters; Fighter Bay and Expanded Hangar add room. Craft fire before any ship, fighters and interceptors engage enemy craft first, bombers go for ships. Lost craft are replaced at your shipyard.
• Craft designs have one pod and one aux slot: Beam Pod, Heavy Cannon, Agility Thrusters, Reinforced Frame.
• The Hangar building (Strike Craft) refills one fighter at a time and its craft defend the system. Colony batteries fire one shot per Defense Grid level, and a colony shield pool absorbs damage before the hull.
• Battle reports list each side's tallies, hull left, craft, and what decided the fight. The fleet panel shows hull and damaged counts and the hangar with its refill design.
• Hull stats and prices retuned across the line; the rules page has the numbers. The Gunship has two weapon slots and a drive slot; the Destroyer has two weapon slots, a drive, a sensor and an aux slot.
• Bots research strike craft, build counters to what they meet, repair worn fleets and replace lost craft.
• Ship art: the Carrier has a flight deck and its fighters fly as a swarm beside it; the Gunship, Cruiser, Freighter and Heavy Freighter are reworked.
• Resource tier hovers state the rule once. Artifact spelling.
• The tech tree's bottom rows can be reached while its guide note is open.
• Ballistics gates guns and gun hulls only. Composite Armor and Planetary Invasion need War Doctrine alone; Targeting Computers and Missile Guidance need War Doctrine and Wide-Band Sensors.
• A fleet is named after its most numerous hull until you rename it. A merge or a split renames a game-given name to match the ships; a name you chose stays.
• The fleets list has an Idle button beside the class buttons: parked fleets with no orders, on their own or within a class, such as idle freighters.

• A civilization's home world cannot be invaded during its first 7 days, unless it has declared war, attacked or invaded anyone. The Invade button shows the protection and the time left.
• Colonize is offered on a lava, barren or ice world at 0% habitability once you have Habitat Domes. When a world cannot be settled, the button stays and says why.
• Megastructures requires Fusion Power and is a Tier 4 technology.

• The phone top bar no longer cuts off the first resource count. Counts of ten thousand and more read as 12k.
• A fleet rerouted in flight keeps its place on the map. A course change ordered inside a warp tunnel is refused and changes nothing. Deliver and Invade ordered in flight turn the fleet at once.
• After 14 days without an order (30 with an email linked), ships away from your colonies are lost and your routes and survey protocols stop. Ships at your colonies stay.

• Scrap: a fleet parked at your shipyard can dismantle ships for half their base price. It takes time and cannot be cancelled.
• The shipyard shows each ship's upkeep.
• An ally ping needs a second tap, so a stray tap no longer pings everyone.
• A peace or alliance proposal can be declined, with no war and no reputation cost. The same proposal cannot be repeated for a day.
• The sector grid's letters and numbers sit on the grid itself, so they move with it instead of sliding around the screen as you pan.

• Settings are now a window with tabs: Account, Visuals, Audio, Guide, Feedback, Community.
• Phone: reworked layout. Settings and the map overlays are in the top bar, Reports has its own tab, and the More menu is gone.
• Audio: separate volume for music and effects. Music can be turned off by itself.
• Unexplored stars are easier to see on the map. Settings, Visuals sets their brightness.
• Matching page icons on desktop and phone.

• The net energy and organics rate in the top bar and the colony panel includes the fleet's fuel and rations. The hover lists all three terms.
• New civilizations: Fleets, Research, Reports and Diplomacy open from the start. Pages the guide has not reached yet are dimmed, and their hover says so.
• A building or ship you cannot afford says what is short on its row, not only in a hover. Research with no Research Lab says so.
• Telemetry about an ally's fleet heading for your system is no longer shown in red, and no longer sounds the alarm. It reads "your ally".
• Fleets: ships are listed by class (Warships, Transports, Freight, Colony, Scouts), and a row of class buttons filters the list.

• Zooming into systems and planets is smooth, on desktop and phones.
• Phone: tapping a fleet, colony or place link closes the panel and shows it on the map.
• Phone: taps no longer leave a tooltip on screen. Hold a button to read it.
• Alliance menus, the map key and the @ name list stay inside their panel.

• Planetary Invasion needs Ballistics only, no material bill. Troop Transports cost plain resources and build at any shipyard.
• Shortfalls read have/need per material everywhere. The shipyard marks the part your design's modules add; Queue three shows the bill for three; Outfit shows the full refit bill across your live ships.
• Powering a building down asks for a second click. Powering up stays one click.

• Two civilizations at war never share a star quietly. A war declared over shared orbits, a ship launched under an enemy's guns, a colony founded beside one, a fleet regrouped beside one, or fleets left behind by a capture all fight at once.
• Attack here works at the star your fleet is already at.
• Peace calls off any landing still under way between the two. A landing against a civilization that is gone is called off with a report.
• Blockades are reported when they start and when they lift.

Orders and feedback

• Every accepted order shows a brief confirmation; a refused one shows why and fades. A double click never sends an order twice.
• Invade and Colonize show a countdown once ordered; repeating an order never restarts it. Attack here asks for a second click.
• A sent alliance invite reads as pending. Leave, disband, promote and expel sit behind a small menu.

Reports and diplomacy

• Hostile reports read red: battles, landings, fleets set on course for your systems, wars declared on you. They also appear as toasts.
• Reports and messages show how long ago. A report in the map-side feed jumps to its star when clicked.
• Diplomacy: each section header shows an amber marker with the number of items waiting on you.

Invasion

• Planetary Invasion is an early Tier 3 tech: Ballistics and Factory I, common materials, Troop Transports at shipyard level 2. Two Next steps walk through it.

Bots

• They keep their power grids running, stop over-building labs, spread their probes out, and grow navies with their size, doubling on a war footing. Their freighters no longer jam at a full depot.

Map and panels

• The star panel names every warp gate's owner; ancient gates are unclaimed and must be scanned before use.
• Industry: recipes are coloured green (runs now), yellow (short of an input), grey (locked).
• Sector letters and numbers stay on the grid's edge. The glow after a jump sits on the planet.

Other

• More music: 38 tracks.
• Rules: how the galaxy works. Also under Settings.
• Deep Night is on X: @DeepNightGame.

• Pioneer mark: civilizations from the Brackeys Game Jam with a linked email carry a ✦.
• New colonies start with a Mine, a Solar Array and a Habitat. Existing colonies without a Mine received one.
• An abandoned home world can be taken after its owner has been away 14 days.
• Reports: only unread rows are highlighted; clicking a row marks it read.
• Sector grid letters and numbers stay at the edges of the screen.
• Ships face along their lane, and a parked ship faces its next destination.
• Number fields no longer keep a leading zero.
• Battle reports: a colony battery exchange with no losses is a stalemate.
• Political map names no longer overlap; the left rail no longer covers the selection panel.
• Lost blueprints are named Nocturne alloy and Nocturne hull frames and show what they change.
• Deep Night has a Discord: join it from Settings in the game or from deepnight.gg.

• A call to arms you sent can be withdrawn while it is open. Your ally is told it no longer stands and nothing is recorded against anyone.
• The call button asks for a second click before sending, so a misclick never puts an obligation in front of an ally.
• An alliance invite can be withdrawn while it is pending; the seat frees at once.
• Diplomacy folds: Civilizations, Known politics and Trade offers each collapse under their header, remembered on your device.
• The shipyard lists hulls in tier order.

• Found an alliance with a name, tag and colour. Invite civilizations you have met; founder, officer and member roles; leave, expel, disband.
• Every member is allied with every other member: shared vision, gate rights, calls to arms.
• An alliance room in the Diplomacy panel, with unread badges and @mentions.
• The political map draws blocs in the alliance colour, with one label per bloc when zoomed out.
• AI civilizations answer alliance invites by temperament.
• The map now shows what happened: a battle flares at its star and leaves an ember for a minute, a finished scan rings the star, fleets draw their lane as they leave and ring their star as they arrive, a new colony blooms in its owner's colour, and ally pings read as beacons. Four new sounds, used sparingly: a scan finishing, a battle, an ally's ping, and queued work completing.
• Click any fleet you can see, yours or not: who owns it, your standing with them, its ships and where it is, with a button into Diplomacy.
• Selecting a star names every civilization with a claim there, observed now or last seen when, and the fleets last seen there, each with Diplomacy and locate.
• Fixes: fleet upkeep moves to your first remaining colony if your home falls; an attack order never engages an ally, and with an enemy present it leaves neutral bystanders alone; a call to arms lapses if you have since allied with the enemy; sensor rings and territory sit exactly on their stars; the overlays menu is always in the top bar, with every overlay off until you turn it on.

• The sighting log: where and when you last saw each civilization's fleets and colonies, with dashed last-seen markers on the map and "Last seen" lines in Diplomacy.
• Map pings: select a star and ping your allies with a tag (Rally / Attack / Danger / Look). The star pulses on every ally's map.
• An Alliance panel at the top of Diplomacy: every ally with trust and last seen, calls to arms with a countdown and who answered, recent pings, the allies channel.
• Fleet upkeep: ships draw fuel and rations from your home system after buildings are served. A shortfall lowers readiness (fleets fight weaker); it never destroys ships. The home-system tooltips show the bill.
• AI civilizations hunt from memory and answer ally pings. A fallen AI civilization is replaced by a new one, so the galaxy stays populated.
• The diplomacy actions row folds away and stays folded on this device.

Seeing the galaxy

• Political map overlay: known space as bordered regions with civilization names.
• Minimap with the current view outlined; click or drag to move.
• Sector grid (A1 to J10); sectors named in panels and linkable in chat.
• Sensor coverage overlay: colony rings in green, sensor-fitted fleets in blue.
• Deep zoom with high-resolution planets and stars.
• Ship art: 3D-modelled hulls rendered from 16 headings, civilization-coloured, sized to scale.
• Two new hulls: Gunship (tier 1 brawler) and Destroyer (line warship between frigate and cruiser).

Finding things

• Every cost or requirement is a locate chip: hover lists known sources, click shows them.
• Star names and sector codes in chat, messages, events and toasts are links to the map.
• Share a location from any selection into any chat with one click.
• Tier badges on research, hulls, buildings and blueprints; research lists ordered by tier.

Talking

• @mentions in the allies channel and direct messages, with autocomplete and unread badges.
• Location tags in messages.

Onboarding

• A 16-step course with progressive disclosure: panels light up as you reach them.
• Show me walks the camera, opens the panel and spotlights the control.
• Return visit: after hours away with unread reports, Reports opens on what changed.

Economy and balance

• The vanilla rule: every hull and building below the apex builds from common resources. Rares boost yields and power upgrades; only exotics are true gates.
• Fuel cells, reactor fuel and crystal lenses have a commons-only recipe.
• AI civilizations reach the mid game: better recipe choice and factory discipline.

Fixes

• Rare Extractor row lists deposits on every body in the system.
• Building descriptions quote real output rates.
• A tech started from an idle lab reads as running in the list.
• Every hover and description rewritten as plain rule text.

Deep Night launched publicly through the Brackeys Game Jam on itch.io. Every civilization founded in that galaxy is tagged as a pioneer: the Pioneer mark and the launch reward arrive with a later release and carry into the galaxy that follows the beta.