Planetary Overhaul

Release Date: 11/7/2026

Version: 0.8.0-alpha

Development Stage: Alpha

📋 Overview

Update 0.8.0-alpha completely overhauls the Moon and Mars, transforming them into detailed, scientifically inspired worlds with new geological regions, materials, formations, and environments!

This update also introduces the Explorer's Codex, adjusts planetary sizes, improves movement and crafting, and brings additional interface refinements.

🌕 Lunar Overhaul

• Completely redesigned the Moon's terrain generation.
• Added distinct geological regions:
  • Lunar Highlands
  • Lunar Maria
  • Impact Basins
  • Cratered Plains
• Introduced realistic impact craters of varying sizes, including complex craters and massive impact basins.
• Added volcanic plains, rugged highlands, crater rims, and geological formations.
• Redesigned underground generation with impact fractures, geological layers, and rare lava tubes.
• Added lunar surface decorations, including boulders, rock spires, loose stones, and regolith piles.
• Introduced Lunar Regolith, Anorthosite, and Impact Breccia.
• Reused existing materials such as Basalt, Stone, Quartz, and Titanium Ore.
• Added region-specific regolith coloring to preserve geological variety.
• Improved large-scale terrain generation and natural geological transitions.

🔴 Martian Overhaul

• Completely redesigned Mars's terrain and geological generation.
• Added distinct Martian regions:
  • Northern Lowlands
  • Southern Highlands
  • Volcanic Regions
  • Canyon Regions
  • Ancient Water Regions
  • Dune Fields
• Added massive shield volcanoes inspired by Olympus Mons and the Tharsis region.
• Introduced extensive canyon systems inspired by Valles Marineris.
• Added ancient river valleys, dry lake basins, sedimentary formations, and impact craters.
• Added varied sand dunes, volcanic plains, rocky highlands, and eroded landscapes.
• Redesigned underground geology with lava tubes, fractures, and sedimentary layers.
• Expanded Martian atmospheric effects with dust storms, dust devils, and changing atmospheric conditions.
• Added Martian Regolith, Red Sand, Black Sand, Red Sandstone, and Sulfate Deposits.
• Reused existing Stone, Basalt, Clay, Gravel, Sandstone, and Iron Ore.
• Added Martian Pebbles, Boulders, Yardangs, Layered Outcrops, and Volcanic Debris.
• Improved geological transitions and terrain generation.

📏 Planetary Sizes

• Increased the Moon from 256 to 279 chunks.
• Increased Mars from 512 to 545 chunks.
• Planetary sizes now follow more accurate relative proportions.
• Existing solar systems retain their original planetary sizes to preserve saved worlds and structures.

📖 Explorer's Codex

• Added the new Explorer's Codex in Survival mode!
• Discover and catalog environments, biomes, and wildlife throughout the Solar System.
• Added dedicated sections for individual celestial bodies.
• Undiscovered entries remain hidden until encountered.
• Discovering an entry reveals its artwork and information.
• Includes Earth's existing biomes and environmental wildlife.
• Added entries for the Moon's and Mars's geological regions.
• Designed to expand with future planets, biomes, animals, and discoveries.

🌎 Discovery Tracking

• Added a Codex button to the title screen and pause menu.
• The in-game Codex tracks discoveries within the current solar system.
• The title-screen Codex combines discoveries from all solar systems.
• Lifetime discoveries remain recorded even if their original solar systems are deleted.
• Discoveries made while playing multiplayer contribute to lifetime progression.
• Codex discovery is independent of the existing achievement system.
• Styled the Codex consistently with the Achievements and Statistics interface.

🗺️ Planetary Maps

• Updated map rendering to reflect the new lunar and Martian geology.
• Large geological formations can now be observed at wider map scales.
• Preserved continuous zoom, waypoints, exploration tracking, and multiplayer player locations.

🎮 Gameplay Improvements

• Improved movement down solid stairs to reduce bouncing and uneven movement.
• Added adaptive camera zoom for low-gravity jumping.
• The camera automatically zooms out when players jump high enough that the surface would otherwise disappear from view.
• Improved visibility during exploration on the Moon, Mars, and future low-gravity destinations.

🔨 Crafting Improvements

• Combined the Smelting and Materials crafting filters into a new Resources category.
• The Resources category uses the Iron Ingot icon.
• Crafting recipes now default to sorting available recipes first.
• Recipes that cannot currently be crafted appear below.
• Existing recipe organization is preserved within each group.

🎨 Interface Improvements

• Increased the Orbitale logo size on the title screen.
• Centered the Chat Bubble and Send Message Arrow icons in their buttons.
• Continued interface consistency and quality-of-life refinements.

🔧 Technical Improvements

• Updated planetary generation for the new lunar and Martian environments.
• Consolidated planetary resources to reduce unnecessary block and inventory bloat.
• Preserved existing lunar save migrations.
• Maintained deterministic generation, finite planetary wrapping, and multiplayer compatibility.

⚠️ Alpha Development Notice

Orbitale remains in active alpha development. Planetary generation, multiplayer, and other gameplay systems will continue receiving improvements and fixes.

Back up important solar systems before updating.

Thank you for playing Orbitale! 🌎🚀