SpaceBourne 2 – Diplomacy Expansion Now Available

SpaceBourne 2 – Version 3.0.0 – Diplomacy Expansion

It's been a long time since our last update, and we want to thank you for waiting. In August we promised two things: a major bug-fix update, and a major content update right after it. While working on them, the two grew into each other — many of the fixes touch the very systems the new content rebuilt — so they arrive together in one release.

This update brings the Diplomacy Expansion from our roadmap — alliances, joint wars and trade agreements — and much more than we originally planned: a new war system with real armies and fronts, Houses that live and rebel, a Constitution whose every policy matters, an Academy for your soldiers, and dozens of fixes from your reports.

NEW: DIPLOMACY

Diplomacy has been rebuilt from the ground up

• • Briefing, Relations, Treaties, Wars, Record and Houses now each have their own page.
• • New Briefing page: your diplomatic position at a glance — your closest and coldest houses, your treaties and your diplomatic capacity.

• Relations are now alive

• • Each house's attitude drifts toward a target shaped by shared enemies, alliances, trade, bloodlines, old grudges and your own conduct — missions, trade, clearing pirates and defending stations raise it; crimes and firing on civilians lower it.
• • The new Relations page shows exactly why.
• • Houses now hold grudges, and diplomatic incidents happen between them.

Treaties

• • New Treaties screen: build agreements clause by clause — alliances, defensive pacts, trade deals, joint wars, credits, systems and stations — and see how the other house will react before you propose.
• • Every system and station you can offer shows what it is worth and what it earns per day.
• • Territory now changes hands only at the peace table.
• • Credits offered in peacetime are gifts that improve relations.
• • New: Perfidy — declaring war on a friendly house costs you standing with everyone.
• • New: Overreach — every system you take makes other houses wary.
• • After a war, a truce prevents an instant alliance with the house you just fought.

Alliances and joint wars

• • Form alliances and defensive pacts.
• • When a pact partner is attacked, its allies march — and you will always be asked whether to join.
• • Call your allies to arms, with the odds shown up front.
• • Wars can now have several houses on each side, and a house that is not leading a war can make a separate peace and leave it.

Trade

• • Trade agreements now bring daily income to both sides and cut your tariffs by 25% in their systems.
• • Trade route volume now depends on the economies it connects.
• • Convoys can be raided: a destroyed convoy damages the route, sours relations and makes the news.

Other

• • New Record page: a timeline of the galaxy's diplomacy, including what every treaty actually said — saved with your game.
• • Hover over any faction flag to see who it belongs to.

NEW: WARFARE

Real armies and real battles

• • Wars are now fought by real armies.
• • Every house fields named armies led by commanders; they march to fronts, raid, besiege, rout and rebuild — and their losses stick.
• • Battles now come in kinds — raids, sieges, fleet actions and razing — each with its own outcome.
• • Raids bring loot; war exhaustion can force a war to end.
• • Wars now have goals — conquest, tribute, breaking an alliance or retribution — and a house that loses its last system is gone from the galaxy.
• • The galaxy no longer waits: AI houses start their own wars early in a new game, and wars between AI houses now play out with their real fleets.

Wars page and history

• • New Wars page: every war in the galaxy, front by front, with score, momentum and what peace would look like today.
• • War History shows every raid and siege, and the ground that has changed hands.
• • New Wars card on the Home screen.
• • Besieged stations are marked on the system map, and your own raids are recorded on the Wars page.

Command your armies

• • Set each army to defend, attack or act on its own, order transfers between fronts, and mark enemy fronts to raid, besiege or destroy.
• • War fronts now exist in space: fly to a front, join the battle in person, and watch the battle HUD show who is winning.
• • Distant battles have been rebuilt: clear threat and under-attack alerts, reinforcements you can send or recall, and a proper result screen.
• • New tutorial for reinforcing your systems.
• • The Galaxy War is now one galaxy-wide war: every house stands with one of two sides, and there is no way out but victory.

War summary and news

• • New war summary: when a war ends, a summary lists the places that were damaged and every system and station that changed hands, in battle or at the peace table.
• • Castles now change hands together with the system they stand in.
• • All war news now comes to one tidy list on your HUD.
• • Declarations of war, peace offers, war endings and battle results appear as a banner, then settle into the list beside your ongoing battles.
• • Click a card for the details; battle cards can be minimised.

Peace

• • Houses can now ask you for peace — the offer comes with its terms.
• • Sue for peace opens the Treaties screen with the terms already filled in.
• • When a house proposes the terms itself, the screen simply shows them as its proposal — Accept or Refuse is yours.
• • Peace terms now follow a war ledger: what each side has gained and lost is weighed against the size of its own realm, so a house that took one station can no longer ask for a string of systems.
• • The Wars page shows the war's net balance beside the momentum bar, and the Treaties screen shows how far a demand is from what the war has earned.
• • Sue for peace now tells you why when it cannot be sent — no terms to offer, no war here, or the enemy is already gone.

Early game and enemy aggression

• • In the early game you start with raids: you can take stations from houses right away, and full wars open once you hold your first system.
• • An attack without a war is remembered — the house you hit will think less of you, and the news reports the raid.
• • Defensive-pact calls and joint wars wait for your first system too.
• • Enemy houses now fight to win against you: they can raid your stations for loot and besiege your systems to take them.
• • Your capital cannot be taken.

Cost of war

• • Declaring war now costs faction power, and the declaration panel shows the reputation cost before you commit.
• • Your armies are paid from the faction treasury.
• • A new war budget slider on the Economy page trades credits for faster recovery and morale — set it too low and your armies will wither.

NEW: GOVERNING YOUR FACTION

Overview and reports

• • New Faction Overview page: the state of your faction at a glance.
• • Your character's real face now appears at the top of your faction hierarchy.
• • Your citizens now include your whole army — generals, soldiers, squads, recruits and members — not just your recruits.
• • New Faction Reports page replaces the old faction log.

• Government capacity

• • Ruling more systems than you can govern lowers their income — hand systems to your Houses, or grow your faction to govern more.
• • Outposts are now your main source of faction power and extend your government capacity, at an upkeep cost.

The Constitution

• • The Constitution now plays a much bigger role: its policies shape income, stability, morale, relations, recruits and more, and the page previews tomorrow's changes before you sign.
• • New policies take effect at the start of the next day.
• • Your stance toward pirates is now more important: a lax stance invites pirate raids on your systems.
• • Captives are now processed over several days, and each path treats them its own way: Justice sets them free (improving relations with their house), Order ransoms them for credits, and Chaos puts them to work for goods.
• • Contracts completed by your soldiers pay a share into the faction treasury.
• • The Constitution's mission cut can be set up to 50%.
• • New path choice screen: see exactly what Order, Justice and Chaos do before you choose — when founding your faction and when you reform.
• • Each path's bonuses now play a bigger part in how your faction grows.

Houses

• • Houses now produce income every day and pay you tax — but tax them too hard, let them grow too strong, or drag them through a losing war, and their loyalty will fall.
• • Disloyal Houses can turn defiant: they stop paying and only defend themselves.
• • Internal Affairs shows why, and when they are likely to come back.
• • Your Houses now join every war you fight; their loyalty decides how much they commit.
• • House actions have been reworked: sending soldiers now reinforces their armies, and granting or taking back systems affects their loyalty.
• • New Internal Affairs page for managing your Houses: loyalty, taxes, armies and finances in one place.
• • Grant systems to your Houses straight from the Systems page.
• • Founding a House has been reworked.
• • New Houses page: browse every house in the galaxy — its fleet and lords, bases, castles and relations.

Economy

• • The Economy page has been rebuilt as a clear two-column ledger, and its numbers now match the Systems and Internal Affairs pages.
• • It also shows your soldiers' "Missions & freelance" income as a daily average.
• • Hover over any resource in the resource bar for a breakdown of where it comes from.
• • You can now donate personal credits to your faction treasury.
• • Faction purchases have been reworked and can no longer overdraw the treasury.

NEW: ARMY, ACADEMY & MAIL

Academy and veterans

• • New Academy: send members on pilot, infantry and rank courses, drill your serving troops for free every day, and watch veterans grow.
• • Course times are shown in in-game days.
• • Named soldiers can now fall in battle; medics improve their odds.
• • Survivors of a battle gain experience as veterans.

Army and members

• • Generals now fill their armies from your pool of members.
• • New Auto Fill button on the Army page: it places your Ready To Assign members into your squads, putting the best pilots in space and the best soldiers on the ground.
• • The large "+" box on the Army page now adds a member to your army when clicked.
• • Rebuilt Members page.
• • General orders are now more important: Research boosts research, Propaganda raises stability and support, Defend refills garrisons, and Train Soldiers speeds up drilling.
• • A general's past missions are now listed.
• • Only the first 8 unassigned members draw a salary; the rest wait as unpaid reserves.
• • A tooltip on Ready To Assign explains how unassigned members improve.

Mail and freelance contracts

• • Rebuilt Mail page with an Archive tab.
• • Members sent on freelance jobs now report back by mail.
• • New Freelance contracts: they bring no new members but pay more XP and power, and read like real job postings (LFM / LFP).
• • Freelance contracts now level up the member you send, with the gain shown before you accept.
• • Idle members are no longer sent on contracts automatically.
• • Freelance contracts in your mail now match your members: roughly one job for every two free members, at a level they can handle.
• • Idle members now keep learning on their own, slowly.
• • A member sent on a contract learns about four times as fast in the same time.

Tutorials

• • New Mail tutorial: your first freelance contract is guided step by step.
• • The faction tutorials have been rebuilt.
• • Founding your faction and preparing your first battle are now guided step by step: the screen dims and highlights exactly what to click, and explains what generals and squads are.
• • Left click moves on; hold Space to skip.

QUALITY OF LIFE

• • Added a search box to the Save/Load screen.
• • Your inventory save now keeps three rolling backups. If the file is damaged, the game restores the most recent good copy and repairs it.
• • Galaxy saves now keep backups too, and a save damaged by a crash during writing is restored at startup.
• • Added a tooltip explaining what "I Got Stuck" does.
• • Faction and diplomacy screens have a unified, cleaner look, and refresh instantly after you click.
• • Saves from earlier versions are converted automatically when you load them, with a short note explaining what was carried over.

CHANGES & BALANCE

Existing saves will notice these.

• • Faction power now scales with unit level.
• • House strengths in existing saves will change.
• • Operations now cost power based on the target station instead of a flat value.
• • Faction system upkeep now depends on each system instead of a flat amount.
• • The station construction requirement is now enforced; castles need enough dominance and take 3 in-game days to build.
• • Construction is now twice as fast.
• • Peace acceptance and the timing of peace offers have been rebalanced, and peace terms now scale with the size of each realm (see the war ledger above).
• • Wars in progress in existing saves are assessed from their history when you load.
• • Wars between AI houses that end on momentum alone no longer move territory unless ground was actually taken.
• • The "asking for terms" notice on your HUD now shows only who is asking.
• • New recruits now start at a level based on your faction instead of always at level 1.
• • Very large Stability, Support and Fame values in existing saves are capped.
• • The on-foot camera no longer bobs with the character's head while standing still.

LANGUAGES & FONTS

New languages

• • Japanese, Korean and Ukrainian are now available.

• Revised translations

• • Turkish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese have been reworked from the ground up, with consistent terminology across every screen.
• • They now also cover the new Diplomacy, War, House and Constitution screens and the Talent Tree.

• Fonts

• • Fonts have been extended so every language uses the game's own typeface.
• • Russian and Ukrainian now appear in the main UI font.
• • Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters now also show on the cockpit and HUD screens.

FIXES

Stability

• • Fixed crashes in enemy HUD markers after a ship was destroyed, and during warp or death.
• • Fixed a possible crash when closing a window while a dropdown list was open.
• • Fixed a possible crash and out-of-range values when faction relations were updated.
• • Fixed broken minimap icons and a possible minimap crash.
• • Fixed the game freezing when inspecting a capital station still under construction.
• • Fixed a black screen when entering interiors such as the Miner Guild.
• • You can now skip the end credits (Esc, or Start/B on a controller), and the game returns to the main menu when they finish.

• Getting stuck

• • "I Got Stuck" now gets you out of small enclosed spots, moving you to the nearest open ground.
• • Falling out of the world on foot now returns you to the last solid ground you stood on.

Quests

• • Fixed the sniper rifle from Molyax in "The Constructer" arriving without ammunition, and its ammo exceeding the maximum.
• • Fixed objectives in "The Molyax" being wrongly labelled as alternative, and two typos in its texts.
• • Fixed the Faction tutorial getting stuck if you recruited or assigned members early, and its lines overlapping each other.
• • Fixed Drane's portrait appearing on the player's lines in the Nelis rescue scene.
• • Fixed a misaligned dialogue option in the Molyax and Jack meeting.
• • Fixed the wrong tutorial video at the capture step of "Rise of the WRA".
• • Fixed "Parley and Knee" stalling: the duel now starts reliably and you can take off afterwards.
• • Fixed Swarm Carriers being refused for upgrades at the hangar, which blocked the ship-upgrade quest.
• • Fixed the hoverbike not being summonable during "Get onto the Hoverbike".
• • Fixed faction meetings applying the wrong choice: picking Justice or Order now plays the matching reaction and sets the policy you chose.

Combat

• • Equipping a hand weapon now loads its magazine from your reserve ammo, so the counter no longer reads zero until you reload.
• • Fixed talent tiers being learnable out of order.
• • Fixed the Soldier's deployable turret destroying itself.
• • Fixed the Pod Catcher refusing to fire after reloading, and slot 3 reading the wrong cooldown.
• • Fixed explosive torpedoes detonating right after launch.
• • Fixed drones and perks not working, and being unable to leave the ship, during system captures.

Factions & economy

• • Fixed wars between houses only ending if you happened to open the diplomacy screen.
• • Fixed empty "ghost" peace offers.
• • Fixed guild ranks climbing past their maximum; broken ranks in existing saves are repaired automatically.
• • Fixed station construction that could never finish (and blocked all other building) when a required resource had no income.
• • Fixed a second construction sometimes never finishing when two were running at once.
• • Fixed prisoners all showing the same race, the "Set Free" prisoner policy button, and the Xanthean listing a prisoner capacity it cannot use.
• • Fixed the operation target summary showing placeholder numbers instead of the station's real population, income and wealth, and its Tactic line.
• • Fixed the operation VS plate showing the wrong faction's flag when switching targets.
• • Fixed a member's Current Task not showing the order you gave them.
• • Fixed a "None Is Under Attack" notification.

Interface

• • Fixed saves named "99" (or containing "99") disappearing from the save list, and one of two saves made at the same moment going missing.
• • Fixed the news banner staying on screen after a news item, new news sometimes not showing, and misaligned text in the news ticker.
• • Fixed recruit levels being partly hidden behind portraits under Ready To Assign.
• • Fixed the ship icon on the flight HUD not opening the Ship page.
• • Fixed overlapping text in the top bar ("Security") after warping through a stargate, and long system names spilling over.
• • Fixed the raid loot counter being drawn over menus.
• • Fixed the Miners Contracts map being blank in Galaxy Web; it now shows the contract's system and opens the Galaxy Map there.
• • Fixed buildings on the tactical battle map being drawn twice in the wrong colours.
• • Fixed the item comparison window showing stats in the wrong order or missing rows.
• • Fixed the Systems table showing station status under Stargates and using outdated security colours.
• • Fixed a stray divider line in Tracking Ships.
• • Fixed long station names overflowing their box.
• • Fixed contract goal text spilling out of the Contracts card on the Home screen.
• • Fixed custom key bindings being lost after closing the menu, dying or loading a save.
• • Added a dead zone to on-foot camera look, so a stick that doesn't return exactly to centre no longer drifts the camera.
• • Fixed around 80 typos in contracts, mail, dialogue and menus

• Audio & graphics

• • Fixed saved volume settings not being applied when the game starts.
• • Fixed the prisoner "Deliver" sound ignoring the volume settings.
• • Fixed glass, window interiors and ocean water showing as a plain grey material in some places.
• • Fixed the persistent blur on 2K and 4K displays: the game was lowering render resolution and post-processing quality on its own and never restoring them.
• • Also fixed the motion blur setting having no effect at those resolutions.

Thank you for your patience and for every report you sent us — many of the fixes above come directly from them.

See you in space.