Version 0.154 brings the first part of Orbit+, the mode for everyone who has already cracked the Core.
Loot that matters
Destroy the Core in Orbit and you unlock Orbit+. There, guardians, the Core, bandit positions, good contracts and elites drop items. Each has a rarity from Standard to Legendary and up to three properties: more damage, faster fire, crit chance, damage against guardians, more hull, faster shield recharge, speed, ore and more. Legendaries carry a name of their own.
Nine slots and a cargo hold
Weapon core, reactor, hull, drive, shield system, mining, targeting and two sensor slots. Whatever you find goes into your cargo hold first. It is stored when you dock, when you are recalled and at the end of a flight. Die before that and the cargo is gone. What you have equipped stays.
Five danger levels
Each level makes enemies tougher and harder hitting, and in return the loot gets better. Legendaries only drop on level 5. You unlock the next level by destroying the Core on your highest one so far.
Smoother, especially on laptops
The game was wasting processing time in three places. That is fixed, and dense fights now run at clearly more frames per second. Also new is automatic resolution: if the GPU can’t reach 60 frames on a Retina display, the game renders a little smaller until it runs smoothly. Options → Graphics can show the frame rate.
All details are in the patch notes.