Changelog

Version: 0.4.11
Date: 2026-10-10
  Features:
    - Replace five finite field-boost levels with three finite levels and infinite research from level four; preserve completed legacy boosts.
    - Double both pack count and unit time for finite upgrades; infinite upgrades double pack count at 480 seconds per unit.
    - Remove darkening icon tints and add the vanilla speed badge.
    - Add a fluoroplastic seal-cartridge loop: working-fluid processing returns spent housings, refurbished with fresh liners and agricultural membranes on Aquilo.
    - Use fluoroplastic in cryogenic field chambers and unlock centrifuges through orbital structures, removing the direct uranium-processing prerequisite.
    - Add staged orbital engineering from 1000-pack space research through three planetary branches, cryogenic integration and promethium drive activation.
    - Add eleven intermediate items and recipes using existing orbital artwork; preserve researched progression on existing saves.
  Bugfixes:
    - Reconcile the active connection during tier transitions and preserve direction-aware travelled distance.
    - Preserve existing asteroids and chunks across tier changes; stop new spawns on protected ordinary lanes and intercept new canonical shattered-route asteroids at creation.
    - Correct navigation speed units, restore tier limits and respect navigation ceilings.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a lua syntax error in remote interfaces implementation causing a crash on startup.

Version: 0.4.10
Date: 2026-10-10
  Features:
    - Added remote interfaces for navigation_capability and navigation_limit to fully support dynamic-travel-distance mod.

Version: 0.4.9
Date: 2026-10-10
  Bugfixes:
    - Added debounce to space platform state check to prevent the active tier from resetting to 0 when crossing continuous waypoints on the schedule.

Version: 0.4.8
Date: 2026-10-10
  Features:
    - Added the deep-space promethium curve (setting leave-ecliptic-deep-space-promethium, on by default). It rewrites the spawn points of huge-promethium-asteroid on solar-system-edge-shattered-planet as a piecewise linear curve: {0,0} {0.90,0} {0.95,0.05} {0.97,0.175} {0.99,0.30} {1.00,1.00}.
    - The peak is not entered by hand. It is solved backwards so that the curve integral equals the vanilla integral times the configured share of the total. The default total=100 therefore keeps the whole route's promethium exactly equal to vanilla and only changes how it is distributed. The solved peak is about 30x vanilla, which leaves the very end of the route at roughly 97 percent huge promethium asteroids.
    - New startup setting leave-ecliptic-deep-space-promethium-total (percent of the vanilla total, default 100). The data-stage log prints both integrals, the solved peak and the resulting end-of-route mix.
    - Assuming an equal base spawn chance per unit distance, the expected share of promethium inside the last 10 percent of the trip is about 8.5 / 15.3 / 32.2 / 44.1 percent, so the final 1 percent supplies about 44 percent of it. That is a concentration of the same total, not a reduction of it.
    - The curve is applied before the TIERS loop, so the generated off-plane lanes inherit it automatically.
  Changes:
    - Added leave-ecliptic-activator-yield (default 60). It scales only the final activator output. One promethium asteroid chunk used to yield 50,000 activator, about 57.5 seconds of flight for three tier-3 thrusters; at the default 60 percent it yields 30,000, about 34.5 seconds. Dispersant, holmium additive, ammonia and separator cores all become proportionally more expensive per unit of activator.
    - Scaling the last step rather than the leaching yield avoids the 10-unit batch staircase, where 50 and 40 percent leaching give exactly the same result.
  Bugfixes:
    - switch_lane now converts the travelled distance by kilometres instead of preserving the fraction. The kilometres were already computed but never used, so keeping the fraction made the flown distance jump whenever the lane length changed: 1.25 to 1.50 added 20 percent out of nowhere, 1.50 to 1.25 lost 17 percent. Using km / new_length matches what the engine itself does.
    - Fixed a crash (attempt to index field 'surface' (a nil value)) in prepare_schedule when a new space platform is created. The on_space_platform_changed_state event fires before the platform surface exists; platform.surface is now checked for nil before use.
  Notes:
    - The curve only takes effect on tier 1. Tier 2 keeps chunks only, which zeroes the huge promethium asteroids, and tier 3 zeroes everything. That is the pre-existing tier behaviour and was not changed. Letting promethium through on higher tiers would require an exception in protect().

Version: 0.4.6
Date: 2026-10-10
  Bugfixes:
    - Added missing base localization keys for Deflection Field Boost in English and Chinese, fixing Unknown key errors in all five technology titles.
    - Each technology level now explicitly uses its own description, showing the +100 km/s bonus per level and +500 km/s maximum cumulative bonus.
  Changes:
    - Added one promethium science pack per research unit to all five Deflection Field Boost levels.
    - Level I now requires the promethium science pack technology; subsequent levels retain their sequential prerequisites.
    - Research costs remain 5000 / 10000 / 20000 / 40000 / 80000 units, at 60 seconds per unit.
    - Retained the shattered-planet navigation fixes from 0.4.4 and the harmless tier-2 chunk supplementation from 0.4.5.

Version: 0.4.5
Date: 2026-10-10
  Changes:
    - Tier 2 on the canonical shattered-planet route supplements harmless collectible asteroid chunks, at most one per 120 ticks per platform, while moving and not paused.
    - Supplementation stops when at least 12 chunks already exist. Existing natural chunks count toward the limit.
    - Chunk weights: metallic 30%, carbonic 30%, oxide 30%, promethium 10%. Spawn near collector fronts on empty-space tiles; without collectors, try the region ahead of the hub.
    - Tier 1 remains unchanged; tier 3 and above still clear all chunks. No connection or schedule changes in this release.

Version: 0.4.4
Date: 2026-10-10
  Bugfixes:
    - Navigation thrusters can accelerate from tier zero to the first escape-speed threshold.
    - All lane-switch entry points refuse offplane connections to shattered planet, including the debug command.
    - Shattered planet keeps the canonical connection and applies asteroid cleanup per platform: tier 2 preserves chunks; tier 3 also removes chunks.
  Changes:
    - For platforms with navigation thrusters, empty shattered-planet fly conditions default to continuous flight. The mod inserts an always-false cargo condition (iron plate < 0); select another destination to turn back or replace this condition with your own return condition.
    - Existing nonempty fly conditions, schedule groups and interrupts are preserved. Shattered-planet route length remains the vanilla length.

Version: 0.4.3
Date: 2026-10-10
  Features:
    - Tier admission is now decided by escape speed instead of fluid reserve: before changing to a higher lane the platform must actually reach that lane's escape speed, with 5 percent tolerance. If it has not, it stays on the current lane and accelerates first, and a status alert tells you which tier is waiting, the escape speed required and the current speed.
    - Escape speed per lane: 1000, 1750 and 2500 km/s, then +500 km/s for every additional thruster.
    - The five Deflection Field Boost levels are now a global speed offset that applies on every tier including tier 1, +100 km/s each. They make the platform faster, which helps it reach an escape speed, but they never take part in the admission check.
  Changes:
    - Removed the fluid reserve gates for tier admission (the old 5 / 30 / 60 percent ladder). Fluid is now purely the endurance resource: it is drained while cruising, and running dry still triggers the safe fallback and the return to the ecliptic.
    - The min-reserve startup setting is deprecated and no longer affects any decision.
    - Upgrade interpolation no longer dips below the escape speed of the target lane, so a lane change cannot stall itself.
    - English naming now uses escape wording throughout: Escape the Ecliptic, Escape thruster, Escape navigation and escape lane. Internal IDs and the mod name are unchanged, so existing saves and dependencies are unaffected.

Version: 0.4.2
Date: 2026-10-10
  Features:
    - New five level speed technology line: Deflection Field Boost I to V. Each level adds +100 km/s, so a fully researched force cruises 500 km/s faster.
    - The boost only applies on tier 2 and above. Tier 1 keeps the vanilla route speed, and tier admission is untouched: it still depends on working thrusters and fluid reserve, never on speed research.
    - Research cost doubles per level: 5000, 10000, 20000, 40000 and 80000 science, with level 1 gated behind Off-Ecliptic Navigation.
  Changes:
    - Off-Ecliptic Navigation now costs 5000 science instead of 1000.
    - The cruise alert and the status alert show the boosted speed limit, so the panel, the alert and the written target always agree.
  Bugfixes:
    - The coasting alert now names the real cause instead of always blaming the fluid: no working thruster and unresearched Off-Ecliptic Navigation get their own messages.
    - The diagnostic line now reports the technology state and whether the platform is in emergency coast, and entering emergency logs the reason.

Version: 0.4.1
Date: 2026-10-10
  Features:
    - Promethium extract now decays in two stages: fresh extract -> decayed extract -> residue.
    - Fresh and decayed extract are items with a decay timer (leave-ecliptic-promethium-spoil, default 6 minutes per stage); only fresh extract is fully efficient, decayed extract needs twice the amount for the same concentrate, residue can only be centrifuged back into stone.
    - Promethium leaching yields 50 extract per asteroid chunk and takes 10 extract per concentrate batch, so one chunk supports 50,000 activator.
    - Promethium leaching moved from the chemical plant to the orbital centrifuge.
    - The promethium leachate fluid and its barrels were removed; the extract is an item instead.
  Bugfixes:
    - Add missing unit localisation for all four industry surface conditions.
  Changes:
    - Bind planetary feedstocks to biochamber, electromagnetic plant, foundry and cryogenic plant.
    - Add Aquilo production requirement and matching machine research prerequisites.
  Balancing:
    - Refine 5000 units of either final fluid in 10 seconds instead of 25.
    - Increase feed, dispersant and concentrate batches to support high-volume logistics.
    - Circulate 20 fluoroketone per working-fluid batch instead of 50.
    - Keep continuous promethium and separator consumption unchanged.

Version: 0.4.0
Date: 2026-10-10
  Features:
    - Add cross-planet media production, orbital centrifuging and continuous promethium consumption.
    - Add two research stages, ten supplied icons, bilingual descriptions and three tips.
    - Add coolant return, separator recovery and recipe-specific barrel unlocks.
  Bugfixes:
    - Correct deflection-cost scope, reserve hysteresis and startup tier selection.
    - Charge active engines only; preserve voyage fraction when switching routes.
    - Coast, brake and return safely after loss of supply.
  Changes:
    - Grandfather researched navigation for saves upgraded from 0.3.x.
    - Require pentapod-bacteria and pressure-barrel.

Version: 0.3.0
Date: 2026-10-10
  Features:
    - Tiers: the number of working Deflection Thrusters decides the lane. 2 thrusters give an off-plane lane with collectable small chunks only, 3 or more give a lane with no asteroids at all.
    - Deflection cost: fluid burn and lane-change time scale with the gravity well along the route (dearest near planets, cheapest mid-route) and with ship mass.
    - pressure-barrel is now a required dependency, so both fluids can be barrelled and shipped to platforms.
  Changes:
    - Off-plane lanes are 1.25x (tier 2) and 1.50x (tier 3+) of the original route length.
    - Lane-change timing: 5 s up / 10 s down between tier 1 and 2, 10 s up / 15 s down from tier 2 upwards.
    - The countdown is shown inside the lane-change alert instead of in a separate alert.
    - The persistent status alert refreshes every 30 s instead of 10 s.
  Bugfixes:
    - Off-plane lanes no longer carry the vanilla asteroid field. Every planet and space location had asteroid_spawn_influence = 1, which spread its own asteroids over the whole route and overrode the per-connection definitions.
    - Asteroid scaling now writes spawn_points[].probability, which is where a connection actually stores it.
    - Logging uses helpers.write_file, as game.write_file was removed in 2.1.
    - Speed control writes platform.speed (km/tick) every tick and compensates for the drag decay, so the panel settles on the tier speed.
    - Working-thruster detection now needs both fluid boxes above 200 units and drops out below 50, plus a 3 s grace period, so a nearly empty thruster no longer counts as working.
    - Tier thresholds have 10 points of hysteresis, so a reserve sitting on the border no longer restarts the countdown in a loop.
    - Downgrades step down one tier at a time instead of jumping to zero.
  Visual:
    - Deflection Thruster renamed from Navigation Thruster, with a blue tinted icon and body.
    - Dedicated art for both fluids and a mod portal thumbnail.
    - The flame uses a custom colour-map texture (purple to deep blue to light blue) instead of tinted vanilla art.
    - Thruster corpse and fast_replaceable_group restored, so it can be swapped with the vanilla thruster in place.

Version: 0.2.0
Date: 2026-10-09
  Features:
    - Two dedicated working fluids: Deflection Working Fluid and Ecliptic Activator.
    - The nav thruster is a real thruster clone with two fluid boxes instead of a lamp placeholder.
    - Both fluids are synthesised in a cryogenic plant and shipped in barrels.
  Bugfixes:
    - Both fluids now carry fuel_value = 50kJ. Without it the thruster burned fluid but produced no thrust and the platform never departed.
  Changes:
    - fluid_usage and effectivity are decoupled, so raising consumption no longer raises thrust with it.

Version: 0.1.0
Date: 2026-10-09
  Features:
    - First version: off-plane space connections for every route, four tilt steps, a Navigation Thruster item, a cryogenic fluid chain and an Off-Ecliptic Navigation technology.