## v5.5.2.1 // Colonisation - The BIG update! (yes i been cooking today, lots of cawfee to be had)

v5.5.2.1 // Colonisation - The BIG update! (yes i been cooking today, lots of cawfee to be had)

Release Date: 2026-Oct-03

• New Colonisation tab on the main menu:

  • Projects: every construction project you are part of, with progress, what is still needed (grouped by category), what your linked fleet carriers and your ship already hold, who is assigned to what, and trips left in your current ship. Make a project your primary, hide it from the overlay, join or leave it, assign yourself commodities, edit its name, architect, faction and notes, or mark it complete.
  • This Site: docked at a construction site, create its project on Raven Colonial (the build type is suggested from what the site needs, and you can pick the body and the system plan it fulfils), or join the project another commander already made. Docked at your fleet carrier, link it so its cargo counts toward your projects.
  • Fleet Carriers: your linked carriers and the construction cargo aboard each, kept in step as you buy, sell and transfer.
  • System Sites: load a system's planned, building and finished sites from Raven Colonial, import its bodies, then add, edit or remove sites and save them back.
  • Journal: every construction depot your journal has seen, with what was required and delivered, even without Raven Colonial.

• New Construction Needs overlay: what a project still needs, against what your ship and carriers hold, with remaining cargo and trips. It shows at a construction site, in station services when you have projects (or at a squadron bank), and with the ship's right-hand panel. Overlay Studio sets the carrier column, carrier difference, folding covered groups, flagging nearly-done needs and the right-panel option.

• Raven Colonial in Settings > Integrations: your API key with a CHECK KEY button that confirms it belongs to this commander, a sync switch, and an option to share your ship's cargo with your team. With a key set and sync on, deliveries, depot updates, completions, fleet carrier cargo and system architects are sent as they happen. Nothing is sent without a key, with sync off, or while your journal is read at startup.

• System Planner (it replaces System Sites): Raven Colonial's own planning model, worked out as you edit, so the numbers match the website's:

  • System score, Tier 2 and Tier 3 points (with the tax on later starports), system effects (population, security, wealth, tech, standard of living, development), the economies the system will have and the 17 system unlocks.
  • Each site's economy, with a breakdown of every boost and why, its strong and weak links, and the points it costs or gives. Build types you cannot afford yet, or whose prerequisite is missing, say so.
  • Reorder sites (the first is the primary port), set the calculation cut, count planned sites or completed ones only, and switch the first-port buff and later nerf.
  • Body features, orbital and surface slots (with the website's estimate), population and its history, favourites, revisions and named saves. A system you are not the architect of opens read-only, and you can save your own named copy.
  • Start a project straight from a planned site, without docking.
  • Your systems: every system you are the architect of. Saving keeps the website's snapshot of the system up to date, as the website does.

• Station identifier fly a system and fill in its existing stations and settlements. The FSS adds stations, targeting each one sets the body it belongs to, and docking fills in its market and, for outposts, which outpost it is.

• Upload my scans: once the FSS is complete, send the system's bodies to Raven Colonial from your own scans (white dwarfs are marked as white dwarfs).

• Where to Buy: markets near any system that sell what a project, or all your projects, still need, filtered by distance, landing pad, surface ports, carriers, stock and shipyard.

• Projects: delivery statistics (cargo over time and per commander), commodities marked ready, a Discord link, deleting a project (architect only) and fleet carrier loading projects.

• Assigned: everything assigned to you across all your projects.

• Fleet Carriers: edit a carrier's cargo, rename it, refresh it, see its buy and sell orders, and find and link a carrier by name.

• Nexus: plans that span many systems, with their commanders and carriers.

• Raven Stats: Raven Colonial's totals and leaderboards.

• Construction Needs overlay: new Overlay Studio options for one HAVE column (the ship's count, or else the carriers') and for hiding the other overlays while it shows (the Navigation HUD, notifications, gravity warnings and the heartbeat stay). Two new hotkeys: refresh from Raven Colonial, and fold or unfold covered groups.

• Fixed: when you launched while docked at a construction site, the overlay stayed empty until the next event. The journal's own record of a construction site now keeps the site's name.

v5.5.1.9 // Overlay corner fix - the hard bug, found finally

v5.5.1.9 // Overlay corner fix - the hard bug, found finally

Release Date: 2026-Oct-03

• Fixed grey blocks at the corners of most overlays, and between stacked notifications, when overlay OPACITY was below 100%. Windows showed each overlay window's own grey background wherever the overlay is see-through (its cut corners, the gaps between notifications) once the window had been resized. That background is now a colour Windows treats as see-through, so the corners stay clear while the fade still works. The Navigation HUD and Jump Info, which have no see-through corners, were never affected.

v5.5.1.8 // Jump Info redesign

v5.5.1.8 // Jump Info redesign

Release Date: 2026-Oct-03

• Jump Info now looks like the Navigation HUD: the same frame and corner brackets, typeface, FSD state notice (CHARGING, WITCH SPACE, ARRIVED), star orbs, a HERE to DEST route rail, and EDSM's counts as the HUD's boxed counters.
• Fixed odd blocks in Jump Info's corners on some PCs. The panel clipped its whole window to cut its corners, and some graphics setups paint those clipped corners solid. Like the Navigation HUD, it now cuts only a decorative inner layer.
• Fixed overlay OPACITY not applying after a restart (5.5.1.7): the overlays opened at full strength until a setting was changed. The overlay Frame rate setting had the same gap and now applies at startup too.

v5.5.1.7 // Overlay transparency fix

v5.5.1.7 // Overlay transparency fix

Release Date: 2026-Oct-03

• Overlay OPACITY now fades each overlay window through Windows itself, rather than each overlay fading its own contents. It looks the same, but it no longer depends on the graphics card's browser compositing: on some PCs (one report from a Radeon RX 9070 XT) the overlays stayed at full strength whatever the setting. It also costs less to draw.

v5.5.1.6 // Overlay switches in the header, Codex flags, survey count fix

v5.5.1.6 // Overlay switches in the header, Codex flags, survey count fix
Release Date: 2026-Oct-03

• New overlay switches in the command deck header, next to your commander name, on every page:
  • OVERLAYS hides every overlay for now, and shows them again (the same as the show/hide-all hotkey). Each overlay keeps its own setting underneath.
  • One switch per overlay turns it on or off, the same as its switch in Overlay Studio, so a panel you only need now and then is one click away without a hotkey.
  • On a narrower command deck the per-overlay switches open from PANELS, so the header's readouts keep their room.
    Thanks to CMDR Nyx Evera for the idea.
• New Codex flags for Survey Operations. A filled yellow flag marks a species you've never logged in your Codex; an outline flag, one you've never logged in this galactic region. They sit beside each possible species, and on the variant you're sampling where you first logged it. A genus the DSS found, with no species predicted, is flagged only when none of its species is logged. They're built from your whole journal history, per commander, and work in any game language. Off by default: turn on Codex flags in Overlay Studio under Survey Operations. Thanks to CMDR Payden for the idea.
• Fixed a finished system survey showing one body still to go (such as 33 / 34). Mapping a planetary ring with probes logs a "bodies discovered" event, and Void Compass added that to a body count the game had already given. Now the game's own count stands once the system has been honked or fully scanned, live and when the cache is rebuilt. Honking a system that's stuck one short puts it right.

v5.5.1.5 // Jump Info overlay, overlays hide on the maps, layout mode, system discovery on the HUD

v5.5.1.5 // Jump Info overlay, overlays hide on the maps, layout mode, system discovery on the HUD

Release Date: 2026-Oct-03

• New Jump Info overlay, after SrvSurvey's jump panel. While your frame shift drive charges and through witch space, it shows the system you're jumping to:
  • its star class, and whether you can scoop it or it's a neutron star, white dwarf or black hole;
  • the jump's distance, and where it sits on your plotted route, drawn to scale with scoopable stars marked;
  • who discovered it and when, and when EDSM last updated it;
  • its traffic, bodies (Earth-like, water and ammonia worlds, terraformable, landable) and ports;
  • the region you're entering, when it's a new one.
    It asks EDSM as soon as the next system is targeted, so the facts are usually there before the jump. It follows your theme and text size, and it's on by default. Place it and choose how long it stays after you arrive in Overlay Studio (it hides on arrival by default).
• Overlays now hide while the Galaxy Map, System Map or Orrery is open, and come straight back when you close it. It's on by default: switch Hide on maps off in Overlay Studio (All overlays) to keep them showing.
• You can choose which overlays hide. Select one in Overlay Studio and switch its own Hide on maps off to keep just that overlay showing on the maps (each profile remembers its choices).
• New Layout mode in Overlay Studio (All overlays) shows every enabled overlay at once, even ones that have nothing to show yet. Each is drawn with a dashed outline, its name and its size, so you can line them all up. It turns itself off when you leave Overlay Studio.
• The Navigation HUD now shows who discovered the system you're in and when, and when EDSM last updated it, as SrvSurvey does. It shows in orange on the line under the system name, taking turns with the region every few seconds. Dates use the in-game year, such as 4 APR 3308. It comes from EDSM, one extra lookup per jump, and only for systems EDSM already knows.
• Fixed "discovered by" missing for systems you've just discovered. Void Compass asked EDSM the moment you arrived, before your own upload of the jump reached it, and EDSM's servers then kept that empty answer for a day. Now it asks again a minute later, and once more at five minutes, getting past that stored answer.
• Thanks to CMDR Nyx Evera for the ideas.

v5.5.1.4 // Overlay Studio displays fix

v5.5.1.4 // Overlay Studio displays fix

Release Date: 2026-Oct-02

• Fixed Overlay Studio showing all of your monitors as one wide display instead of one display at a time. A 5.5.1.3 change for scaled displays stopped Studio from listing the displays once the survey overlay had started.

v5.5.1.3 // Readability, scaled displays and first-run fixes

v5.5.1.3 // Readability, scaled displays and first-run fixes

Release Date: 2026-Oct-02

• Fixed a new install not picking up the commander's name. Void Compass looked only at the end of the newest journal, which missed the commander when that journal was long or when the last launch never left the main menu. It now checks back through the newest journals until it finds one.
• The first start after setup now picks up your ranks, progress, credits, ship and materials from your last session straight away, instead of waiting until you next play.
• The first start after setup also reads every journal to build your survey history, the same as Settings > Rebuild cache. It runs once in the background after setup and uploads nothing to EDSM.
• Journals are now read in date order across both of Frontier's file-name styles. Before, journals from 2021 and earlier (the old Journal.YYMMDD… names) could be taken for the newest one.
• New in Settings > Appearance > Display:
  • Text size (up to 150%) makes all of the command deck's text bigger without changing its layout.
  • Smallest text raises the small labels to at least 10–14 px and leaves the headings alone. It's the quickest fix if the fine print is hard to read.
  • Overlay text size, which used to be in Overlay Studio, sets the text size of every overlay. The overlays grow to fit it. One overlay can still have its own size in Overlay Studio.
• Command deck scale now works. It zooms the whole command deck window, as Ctrl+ does in a browser. Before, it was saved but did nothing.
• Fixed overlays on displays with Windows scaling above 100% (common on 1440p and 4K screens):
  • Overlays were cut off, and the survey overlay didn't show all of a world's biology. Overlays are now sized for each display's scaling, so everything fits.
  • Overlay Studio couldn't move an overlay to the right or bottom edge of the screen. It now uses the screen's real size and each overlay's real size.
• The survey overlay never grows past the bottom of its screen. When there isn't room it pages its lists instead.
• The survey overlay no longer disappears while a body you're near hasn't been scanned yet, or has a name the journal gives differently. It shows the whole system instead, so worlds that still have biology stay on screen.
• New overlay Frame rate setting in Overlay Studio (All overlays): Full 60, Standard 30 or Light 15. It sets how often every overlay redraws its animation. Light helps if the overlays cost you game frames. The default is Standard.
• Creating a support bundle no longer freezes Void Compass. A "bundle created" message box used to stop the journal and every overlay until it was closed, and it could sit hidden behind the game. Now the bundle is shown in Explorer and reported in the live feed.

## v5.5.1.2 // OBS overlay capture YAY ABOUT TIME MR!

v5.5.1.2 // OBS overlay capture YAY ABOUT TIME MR!

Release Date: 2026-Oct-02

• OBS can now capture the cockpit overlays one at a time. Add a Window Capture, pick the overlay (for example "Void Compass Navigation HUD") and set Capture Method to "Windows 10 (1903 and up)". Before, OBS couldn't see the overlays at all, so only a whole-display capture showed them.
• The overlays still stay off the taskbar and out of Alt-Tab.
• An overlay must be on screen when you add it in OBS. After that OBS finds it again by name, even after Void Compass restarts.
• The command deck captures the same way: Window Capture on "VOID COMPASS" with the "Windows 10 (1903 and up)" capture method.

v5.5.1.1 // First-time setup re-work a cleaner Look!

v5.5.1.1 // First-time setup re-work a cleaner Look!

Release Date: 2026-Oct-02

• Rebuilt the first-time setup into four steps on the startup galaxy: Welcome, Journal link, Cockpit and Launch.
• Journal link finds Elite's journal folder by itself and checks it as you type or browse: how many journals it holds, the dates they cover, your commander, ship and last system. You can see it is the right folder before going on.
• Cockpit sets the overlays, mouse passthrough and the adaptive deck, and now picks a theme. The whole screen previews each theme as you click it, and the deck starts in the one you choose.
• Launch sums up your choices before you commission. Settings > Recovery can run the setup again at any time.