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docs(changelog): v2026.8.2 — the prospector release #690

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99 changes: 98 additions & 1 deletion CHANGELOG.md
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Expand Up @@ -13,6 +13,18 @@ the richer, screenshot-laden versions live there. `(#123)` references the pull r

## [Unreleased]

## [2026.8.2] — 2026-08-03

The prospector release: space became worth mining. Asteroids gather in real belts you can see
on the flight chart, every mineable space rock now rolls its own size and mineral family —
water ice included — and EVA mining finally plays by planet rules: the right drill, real
hardness, and ore that never silently vanishes. The planets kept pace: star systems and worlds
carry proper names now, seas and larger lakes grew sandy beaches, and temperature turned from
a HUD number into a real survival pressure that drains your suit before it ever touches your
health. Rounding it off: a true Sandbox mode at world creation, flora that stopped growing in
identical rows, scrollbars you can actually see, and selection lists that finally speak your
language.

### ✨ Real asteroid belts (#683)

- **Asteroids now orbit in belts** (new worlds): all of a system's landable asteroids share 1–2
Expand All @@ -32,6 +44,29 @@ the richer, screenshot-laden versions live there. `(#123)` references the pull r
wear the same colour. Applies everywhere a ring is drawn (orbit view, surface sky, horizon band),
including in existing worlds (same seed → same tilt and band pattern, just richer tints).

### 🪨 Every space rock is its own rock (#687)

- Mineable mini-asteroids were identical clones — the same r=2 sphere, titanium core, iron/copper
shell. Now each rock rolls a seeded **mineral family**: stony (40 %, iron veins in rock), metallic
(25 %, the classic titanium core), **icy (20 %, hand-mineable water ice around a rocky heart)**,
carbonaceous (10 %) and rare crystalline (5 %) — mirroring the landable asteroid families.
- **Three sizes**: common pebbles (7 blocks), the classic mid rock (33) and rare boulders
(123 blocks) with a core that grows with the rock. Shoot-down loot follows family *and* size —
boulders pay out more.
- The **first rock of every field stays the classic metallic mid-size**, so each field still
guarantees one titanium core. Fully deterministic per world seed; respawned rocks keep rolling.

### ⛏️ EVA asteroid mining plays fair (#685)

- During a spacewalk, any asteroid block fell to a **single bare-hand click** — no drill, no
hardness check, titanium included — and with a full inventory the ore was silently destroyed.
EVA mining now runs the same rules as planetside: drill kind and tier gate the block, hardness
takes several timed hits, and a full inventory refuses the break (progress is kept, the block
drops on the next hit once there is room).
- Client-side it feels like planet mining too: **hold-to-mine** at drill pace, and the aim marker
warms from cyan to orange with your progress. Editing your *own* ship or station stays instant —
that's construction, not prospecting.

### ✨ Star systems & planets got real names (#678)

- **Several system-name registries** instead of one pattern: coined proper names ("Tharion"),
Expand All @@ -48,6 +83,67 @@ the richer, screenshot-laden versions live there. `(#123)` references the pull r
so existing worlds keep every waypoint and simply wake up with better names — the underlying body
layout is pinned byte-identical by a new regression test.

### 🏖️ Beaches along seas and larger lakes (#679)

- Coastlines grew **real sandy beaches**: a 1–3-block band of sand above the waterline plus a sandy
shallow-water apron, with the varied topsoil giving a genuine 2–5-block deep sand layer. A
large-scale coast mask keeps it natural — roughly half the shore is beach, alternating with bare
rocky stretches, and beach width follows the slope (flat coast → wide beach, cliff → sliver).
- **Larger lakes and deep ponds** get shore rings too; small pools, 1-wide rivers and puddles stay
as they are. Tropical shores grow the occasional palm.
- Planets can override the material via a new `beachBlock` data key (default sand); dry, airless
and lava-sea worlds keep their coasts beach-free. Applies to newly generated terrain — coastline
you have already explored keeps its current shape.

### 🌡️ Temperature is now a real survival hazard (#666–#671)

- The temperature reading stops being cosmetic: outside the suit's comfort band (−5…40 °C, with a
grace margin) the suit's climate control **drains suit energy** — the further past the band, the
faster — and only once the suit is empty does **slow exposure damage** set in (starvation-level,
never a burst kill). Tuning anchor: an ice world costs you ≈ 10 minutes unprotected, ≈ 30 with
the tier-2 insulation liner.
- **Shelter genuinely matters**: underground blends toward a steady cave temperature over ~24 blocks
of depth, a roof over your head halves the severity, an open fire warms like a campfire (capped
inside the comfort band), lava-adjacent spaces run hot and ice-walled rooms stay freezing.
- **Vacuum joined in**: on EVA and above atmosphere, a sun-tracking hull temperature (−150…+120 °C
across the day curve) feeds the same math, and the HUD shows a temperature readout on spacewalks.
- The mechanic is the first real consumer of the `EnvironmentalHazards` world rule — Creative and
Sandbox worlds stay exempt.

### 🏗️ True Sandbox mode at world creation (#662, #677)

- The new-world panel offers a third mode next to Explorer and Creative: **Sandbox** — free
crafting at every craft/build/repair site, no oxygen or hunger drain, planet enemies and bandits
off, cheats allowed, and all creative grants (blueprints, ships, starter kit) forced on. The mode
is baked into the save, so it persists without any flags.
- Fixed the launch-week playtest bug where the creative starter kit **filled the whole backpack**
and mining rejected every swing with "inventory full" (#677): the kit's materials now land in
the starter ship's cargo hold, tools in the backpack — mining works from the first minute.

### 🌿 No two plants alike (#675)

- Flora of one species used to render as identical clones on a grid. Every plant now rolls
**individual size** (a natural bell around the norm with rare outliers), a height-vs-width
squash, a slight off-grid position and its own rotation — and an 8×8 patch pattern lets meadows
form visible stands of taller and shorter growth.
- Purely visual and hash-deterministic from the world position: every client sees the same plants,
saves and protocol untouched, applies to existing worlds. Player-built shapes stay exact.

### 🖱️ Scrollbars you can see (#664)

- The in-game ship-computer menu (all 12 tabs), the Codex and the vendor trade dialog scrolled
only via mouse wheel with nothing showing that a list continues below the fold. All of them now
show a thin auto-hiding scrollbar that vanishes when a page fits.
- The vendor dialog's offer list had **no scroll region at all** — long lists clipped past the
panel. It scrolls properly now and keeps its position across a trade.

### 🌍 Selection lists speak your language (#672)

- Playing in German (or Italian), several in-game lists still showed raw English ids and enum
names. Now localized: tech-tree categories, map body kinds and statuses, mission objective
types, story-log chapter tags, the crafting "Max" button, the quality presets in Settings and
the arcade "no record yet" line.

## [2026.8.1] — 2026-08-02

The wildlife release: this one belongs to the creatures. Every world's fauna rolls from a bigger,
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1439,7 +1535,8 @@ A graphics-quality pass and a licensing/foundation cleanup.

- Initial public release.

[Unreleased]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.8.1...HEAD
[Unreleased]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.8.2...HEAD
[2026.8.2]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.8.1...v2026.8.2
[2026.8.1]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.7.24...v2026.8.1
[2026.7.24]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.7.23...v2026.7.24
[2026.7.23]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.7.22...v2026.7.23
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8 changes: 8 additions & 0 deletions data/whatsnew.json
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{
"entries": [
{
"version": "2026.8.2",
"date": "",
"title_de": "Asteroidengürtel, Sandstrände und beißende Kälte 🪐",
"title_en": "Asteroid belts, sandy beaches and biting cold 🪐",
"body_de": "Dieses Update zieht euch raus ins All — und macht das Schürfen dort endlich zu einem echten Handwerk. Asteroiden sammeln sich in richtigen Gürteln, jeder Brocken rollt seine eigene Größe und Mineralfamilie (Wassereis inklusive!), und nebenbei haben die Planeten Namen, Strände und echtes Wetter bekommen, das euch etwas angeht. 🚀\n\n**Asteroiden haben jetzt eine Adresse.** In neuen Welten verteilen sich die landbaren Asteroiden eines Systems nicht mehr kreuz und quer zwischen den Planeten, sondern teilen sich ein bis zwei echte **Gürtelbahnen** jenseits des äußersten Planeten — und die Flugkarte zeigt den Gürtel als ein durchscheinendes Band mit eigenem Label statt als Wust gestapelter Ringe. Der Flug dorthin lohnt sich: Jeder Asteroid trägt einen Cluster laser-schürfbarer Felsen, und wer *vom* Asteroiden startet, findet sich in einem dichten Feld aus neun Brocken wieder. Obendrauf rollen Planetenringe jetzt eine **Materialfamilie** — eisweiß bleibt die Regel, aber staubiges Braun, Felsgrau und ein seltenes blasses Violett mischen mit, auch in euren bestehenden Welten. 🪐\n\n**Und kein Fels gleicht mehr dem anderen.** Bisher war jeder schürfbare Weltraumbrocken derselbe Klon; jetzt würfelt jeder seine **Mineralfamilie** — steinig, metallisch, kohlig, selten kristallin, und zu 20 % **Wassereis, das ihr von Hand abbauen könnt** — und seine Größe vom Kiesel bis zum seltenen Brocken mit dreckig viel Ausbeute. Ein Titankern pro Feld bleibt garantiert. Gleichzeitig spielt das EVA-Schürfen endlich fair: Statt jeden Block mit einem einzigen Fausthieb zu lösen, gelten jetzt dieselben Regeln wie auf dem Planeten — richtiger Bohrer, echte Härte, Gedrückthalten zum Bohren, und der Zielmarker glüht mit dem Fortschritt von Cyan nach Orange. Volles Inventar? Dann bleibt der Block eben dran, statt dass das Erz sang- und klanglos verschwindet. ⛏️\n\n**Der Himmel hat Namen gelernt.** Statt einem einzigen Namensschema gibt es jetzt mehrere Register: erfundene Eigennamen („Tharion\"), Katalog-Bezeichnungen („HX-113\"), Regionsnamen („Ember Veil\") — Piratenraum klingt bedrohlich, Handelsraum geschäftig. Planeten hängen als Hierarchie dran: römische Ziffern („Tharion II\"), Exoplaneten-Buchstaben („HX-113 b\"), und besondere Welten — Ringplaneten, Zwillingswelten, eure Startwelt — tragen eigene Namen mit Biom-Geschmack: Eiswelten klingen kalt, Lavawelten hart. Alles einzigartig pro Galaxis, und **bestehende Welten wachen einfach mit besseren Namen auf** — alle Wegpunkte bleiben. 🌌\n\n**Unten am Wasser: Strände!** Meere und größere Seen bekommen echte Sandstrände — mal breit und flach, mal ein schmaler Streifen unter der Klippe, im Wechsel mit felsiger Küste, dazu ein sandiger Flachwassersaum und in den Tropen die eine oder andere Palme. Gilt für neu erkundetes Terrain; Küste, die ihr schon kennt, behält ihre Form. 🏖️\n\n**Und die Temperaturanzeige meint es jetzt ernst.** Außerhalb der Komfortzone des Anzugs arbeitet seine Klimaanlage — und **zehrt am Anzug-Akku**, je extremer, desto schneller. Erst wenn der leer ist, setzt langsamer Erschöpfungsschaden ein; ein Kältetod kommt schleichend, nie als Blitz. Schutz hilft wirklich: Untergrund pendelt sich auf Höhlentemperatur ein, ein Dach über dem Kopf halbiert die Härte, ein offenes Feuer wärmt wie ein Lagerfeuer. Im Vakuum zählt die sonnengetriebene Hüllentemperatur von −150 bis +120 °C. Als Hausnummer: Eine Eiswelt kostet euch ungeschützt etwa zehn Minuten — mit gutem Isolier-Liner das Dreifache. Kreativ- und Sandbox-Welten bleibt das alles erspart. 🌡️\n\n**Apropos Sandbox: den Modus gibt es jetzt wirklich.** Beim Weltenerstellen steht neben Explorer und Kreativ-Optionen ein echter **Sandbox-Modus**: freies Craften überall, kein Sauerstoff- und Hungerverbrauch, keine Feinde, Cheats erlaubt, alle Baupläne und Schiffe freigeschaltet — fest in der Welt gespeichert. Und der Playtest-Bug der ersten Stunde ist gefixt: Das Starterpaket stopfte den Rucksack so voll, dass man keinen einzigen Block abbauen konnte — die Materialien landen jetzt im Frachtraum des Startschiffs. 🏗️\n\n**Nebenbei:** Pflanzen wachsen nicht mehr als identische Klone im Raster — jede rollt Größe, Position und Drehung, und Wiesen bilden sichtbare Flecken aus hohem und niedrigem Bewuchs. Das Schiffscomputer-Menü, der Codex und der Händlerdialog haben endlich sichtbare Scrollbalken. Und wer auf Deutsch oder Italienisch spielt, sieht in den Auswahllisten keine englischen Roh-IDs mehr. 🌿\n\nViel Spaß beim Schürfen da draußen — und wer den ersten Wassereis-Asteroiden knackt oder die erste Strandbasis baut: Wir wollen Screenshots sehen! ✨",
"body_en": "This update pulls you out into space — and finally turns mining out there into a real craft. Asteroids gather in proper belts, every rock rolls its own size and mineral family (water ice included!), and meanwhile the planets picked up names, beaches, and weather that actually concerns you. 🚀\n\n**Asteroids have an address now.** In new worlds, a system's landable asteroids no longer scatter randomly between the planets — they share one or two real **belt orbits** beyond the outermost planet, and the flight chart draws the belt as one translucent band with its own label instead of a smear of stacked rings. Flying there pays off: every asteroid carries a cluster of ship-laser-mineable rocks, and launching *from* an asteroid drops you into a dense nine-rock field. On top of that, planetary rings now roll a **material family** — icy white stays the norm, but dusty tan, rocky grey and a rare pale violet join in, in your existing worlds too. 🪐\n\n**And no two rocks are alike anymore.** Every mineable space rock used to be the same clone; now each one rolls its **mineral family** — stony, metallic, carbonaceous, rare crystalline, and a 20 % chance of **water ice you can mine by hand** — and its size, from pebble to a rare boulder with a seriously fat payout. One titanium core per field stays guaranteed. At the same time, EVA mining finally plays fair: instead of popping any block with a single bare-hand punch, the planet rules apply — the right drill, real hardness, hold-to-mine, and the aim marker glows from cyan to orange with your progress. Inventory full? The block simply stays put instead of the ore vanishing without a trace. ⛏️\n\n**The sky learned names.** Instead of one naming scheme there are now several registries: coined proper names (\"Tharion\"), catalog designations (\"HX-113\"), region names (\"Ember Veil\") — pirate space sounds menacing, trade space busy. Planets hang off them as a hierarchy: Roman numerals (\"Tharion II\"), exoplanet letters (\"HX-113 b\"), and special worlds — ringed planets, twin worlds, your starting planet — carry proper names flavoured by their biome: ice worlds sound cold, lava worlds harsh. All unique per galaxy, and **existing worlds simply wake up with better names** — every waypoint stays. 🌌\n\n**Down by the water: beaches!** Seas and larger lakes get real sandy beaches — sometimes wide and flat, sometimes a sliver under a cliff, alternating with rocky shore, plus a sandy shallow-water apron and the occasional palm in the tropics. Applies to newly explored terrain; coastline you already know keeps its shape. 🏖️\n\n**And the temperature readout means business now.** Outside your suit's comfort zone its climate control kicks in — and **drains the suit battery**, faster the more extreme it gets. Only once that runs dry does slow exposure damage set in; freezing to death is a creeping affair, never a flash. Shelter genuinely helps: underground settles at cave temperature, a roof over your head halves the severity, an open fire warms like a campfire. In vacuum, the sun-driven hull temperature from −150 to +120 °C is what counts. As a yardstick: an ice world costs you about ten minutes unprotected — three times that with a good insulation liner. Creative and Sandbox worlds are spared all of it. 🌡️\n\n**Speaking of Sandbox: the mode is real now.** World creation offers a true **Sandbox mode** next to Explorer and the Creative options: free crafting everywhere, no oxygen or hunger drain, no enemies, cheats allowed, all blueprints and ships unlocked — baked into the world save. And the launch-hour playtest bug is fixed: the starter kit stuffed your backpack so full you couldn't mine a single block — the materials now land in your starter ship's cargo hold. 🏗️\n\n**Also:** plants no longer grow as identical clones on a grid — each one rolls its size, position and rotation, and meadows form visible patches of tall and short growth. The ship-computer menu, the Codex and the vendor dialog finally have visible scrollbars. And if you play in German or Italian, the selection lists no longer show raw English ids. 🌿\n\nHave fun prospecting out there — and whoever cracks the first water-ice asteroid or builds the first beach base: we want screenshots! ✨"
},
{
"version": "2026.8.1",
"date": "2026-08-01",
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