# 📢 Update 0.7.1-alpha — Social & Multiplayer Overhaul

**Release Date:** 11/6/2026
**Version:** 0.7.1-alpha
**Development Stage:** Alpha

## 📋 Overview

Update 0.7.1-alpha expands Orbitale's multiplayer experience with a complete friends system, customizable player profiles, lifetime statistics, and major multiplayer improvements!

Players can now find friends, send requests, view profiles, and seamlessly invite or join each other's solar systems. This update also introduces new building options, gameplay refinements, and quality-of-life improvements.

## 👥 Orbitale Friends
- Added an integrated Orbitale friends system, powered by cloud-connected social services.
- Find and add other players through their display names.
- Send and receive friend requests, even when friends are offline.
- See friends' online status and current in-game activity.
- Invite friends directly into your solar system or request to join theirs.
- Accept invitations while playing in another solar system and transition directly into your friend's world.
- Added in-game social notifications for invitations, friend requests, and other activity.
- Removed the separate Join Multiplayer button and session codes in favor of the new friends system.

## 🎨 Player Profiles
- Added clickable player profiles with customizable names and icons.
- Added profile titles, badges, and decorative borders.
- Added unlockable and special profile cosmetics.
- Profiles display player information, online activity, and lifetime statistics.
- Added player discovery and recently played suggestions.
- Added an official Developer profile designation.

## 🌐 Multiplayer Improvements
- Improved multiplayer synchronization and overall performance.
- Fixed guests remaining horizontally positioned after dying and respawning.
- Fixed disconnected players sometimes remaining visible in the world.
- Disabled collision between players in multiplayer.
- Improved the appearance and positioning of player names.
- Added other players' locations to the map.
- Tool upgrade levels are now shared between players in a solar system.
- Achievements tied to shared progression now unlock for everyone when requirements are met.
- Individual achievements, such as reaching certain depths or placing blocks, remain player-specific.

## 📊 Lifetime Statistics
- Added lifetime statistics accessible from the title screen.
- Statistics now combine progress across all solar systems.
- Existing individual solar system statistics remain available.
- Lifetime statistics can also be displayed on player profiles.
- Moved the Statistics button below Play on the title screen.

## 🎮 Discord Rich Presence
- Discord Rich Presence now runs automatically without an in-game toggle.
- Players can manage activity visibility through Discord's privacy settings.

## 🏠 Building Improvements
- Added an interaction toggle to disable the automatic background blocks placed beneath stairs.
- Added a pass-through toggle for stairs, allowing more flexible building and movement.
- Improved how flowers appear inside flower pots.
- Improved flower pot placement when positioned on tables.
- Ladders now automatically catch the player when dropping onto them from above.

## 🌵 Gameplay Changes
- Cacti now break one block at a time by default.
- The Excavation Pendant must be equipped on the axe to break an entire cactus at once.
- Restored fall damage on the Moon and Mars, scaled to each celestial body's gravity.
- Changed the default map zoom to Tile Art.

## 🔧 Additional Improvements
- Continued interface refinements and multiplayer optimizations.
- Improved consistency between shared and individual progression systems.

## ⚠️ Multiplayer Alpha Notice
Multiplayer and online social features are still in alpha and may experience bugs, latency, or synchronization issues.