Future Starships v1.4.0 — The Nebula Update

Future Starships v1.4.0 — The Nebula Update

New

• PLASMA NEBULA map — a super-dense nebula of hot gas and plasma. Visibility drops to nothing past ~1 km, sensors are damped while the storm rages, and plasma arcs strike ships that stray too close to the glowing cores.
• Online squadrons — carriers now launch their fighter, gunship, bomber, and drone wings in multiplayer. Select a bay and fire to launch, same as offline. Full carrier-vs-carrier battles with live wings.

Fixed

• Elimination modes now only count the main ships — launched strike craft no longer inflate the ship count or block victory.
• A lone surviving player carrier now wins Free-For-All correctly even while you're flying one of its fighters.

Notes

• Multiplayer protocol updated: 1.4.0 is required to play online with 1.4.0 players. The game updates itself automatically.
• New players: download and run FutureStarships-win-Setup.exe — the game updates itself from then on.

Future Starships v1.3.0 — The Arsenal Update

The arsenal update — ten new weapons, gamepad support, and a smarter hangar.

NEW WEAPONS

• Torpedo family: Light Photon (fast-cycling swarm), Heavy Photon (slow capital-killer), Seeker (65% chance to ignore decoys and re-locks its prey), Phased Polaron (shreds shields), Swarm Missile Rack (six micro-missiles per trigger), and the Proximity Mine Rack (drop mines astern — they lie in wait).
• Energy weapons: Kinetic Railgun (armor-piercing slug), EMP Projector (jams enemy shield regen for 5s), and the self-aiming Flak Turret — the capital-ship answer to strike craft.
• Duranium Echo Array: a heavier decoy suite to counter seeker torpedoes.
• Every new weapon has its own model, icon, and sound, and all of it works in multiplayer.

XBOX CONTROLLER + STEAM DECK GROUNDWORK

• Full gamepad support: left stick flies, right stick steers the camera with aim assist on your locked target (hold LT for precision), RT fires, bumpers throttle, d-pad cycles weapons and triggers abilities. Menus are fully navigable with the stick-driven cursor.
• Press F11 (or the pad's Back button) for an input diagnostic overlay if your controller maps oddly.
• The game runs on Steam Deck via Proton (add the exe as a non-Steam game).

AIR WING (carrier pilots)

• Real strike-craft models with distinct stats, and a dedicated AIR WING screen to buy and assign fighter/gunship/bomber/drone variants to your carrier's bays.
• The Litzmann-class Gun Carrier: a hybrid capital that flies two squadrons AND keeps its guns.

QUALITY OF LIFE

• MODE and MAP are now proper drop-down menus with previews and descriptions — click what you want instead of cycling.
• Ship list: sort and filter the shipyard strip; freighters no longer clutter the pick list.
• Subtle speed streaks sell your velocity — the faster you fly, the longer they stretch.
• One consistent UI click sound.
• The updater now checks disk space before applying (no more silent failed updates).

New players: download and run FutureStarships-win-Setup.exe — the game updates itself from then on.

Future Starships v1.2.0 — The Career Update

The career update — earn it, upgrade it, take it online.

Career Mode (new!)

• CAREER ⇄ SANDBOX toggle in the hangar. Career starts you with one ship and 5,000 credits; sandbox stays all-unlocked.
• Earn XP, credits and schematics from every battle (damage dealt pays). Level 1–60.
• The store: buy ships across three tiers as you level up.
• Upgrades: per-ship HULL / ENGINE / SHIELDS / WEAPONS tracks, plus per-module upgrades for every gun, shield, engine, PD and fighter bay you own.
• Your upgrades work in online multiplayer — everyone's do, fairly — and online matches pay career rewards too.

Cloaking, sensors & paint

• Cloaking devices (corvettes/destroyers): bend light around your hull, Bird-of-Prey style. You can't fire while cloaked — decloak to attack.
• A real sensor model: sensor range, signature size and stealth per hull. Big ships are seen far away; small ships ambush.
• Paint · Livery: 8 preset liveries or your own custom color, per ship.

Carrier Battle (new mode)

• Each team fields a flagship carrier that launches fighter wings. Sink theirs, protect yours.

Multiplayer, rebuilt

• Faster: ~100ms less lag seeing other ships move; your trigger fires the instant you press it; no more position stutter on relay connections.
• Sturdier: host loss detected in seconds (was 30), a proper CONNECTING screen with cancel, clear error messages, E/R abilities now work online, and mismatched game versions are cleanly rejected at join.
• Spectator mode: when you're destroyed, watch the battle through any living ship (LMB/RMB to switch) in every mode.
• The old LAN host/join UI is gone — HOST ONLINE and FIND MATCHES cover everything.

The little things

• The hangar starbase is alive: lit portholes, blinking nav strobes, docking chase-lights, shuttle traffic.
• The shipyard docks your ship properly — clamp doors swing shut when you enter and open when you leave.
• Free-For-All winner is now judged correctly for every player online.

New players: download and run FutureStarships-win-Setup.exe — the game updates itself from then on. Installed players update automatically (delta download).

Future Starships v1.1.0

Future Starships v1.1.0 — the biggest update yet.

New game modes

• Free-For-All — no teams, no respawn. Last ship alive wins.
• Convoy Escort — protect (or hunt) freighters running for a destination zone.
• Multiplayer browser now defaults to Internet games.

Carrier fighter squadrons

• Carriers get squadron slots (fighters, bombers, gunships, drones) in place of some weapon hardpoints.
• Squadrons are a selectable weapon — fire to launch the wing.
• F1–F9 take direct control of a launched wing; T snaps you back to the carrier.
• Small craft are fast and evasive — torpedoes and phasers struggle to hit them, so fighters rule the small-ship fight.

Battlefield

• HD asteroid fields — bigger rocks, denser fields, and clusters in the midfield for real cover.
• Asteroids are destructible but tough — it takes sustained fire to crack one open.
• Real planets and starfields behind every battle.

Fleet & base

• 29+ new ships across the roster.
• Redesigned starbase hangar built around the Gangut ring station — your ship docks in the ring.

Polish

• New app/exe icon and a logo splash on launch.
• Sound throughout.

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New players: download FutureStarships-win-Setup.exe below and run it once. The game auto-updates itself from then on.

Already playing? You'll be prompted to update in-game — you only download the small delta patch, not the whole game.

Future Starships v1.0.3

Auto-update feed release. New players: download and run FutureStarships-win-Setup.exe — the game updates itself from then on.

Future Starships v1.0.2

Auto-update feed release. New players: download and run FutureStarships-win-Setup.exe — the game updates itself from then on.

Future Starships v1.0.1

Auto-update feed release. New players: download and run FutureStarships-win-Setup.exe — the game updates itself from then on.

Future Starships v1.0.0

First public build. New players: download and run FutureStarships-win-Setup.exe — the game updates itself from then on.