Void Drifter: Prospector

Void Drifter — What's New Silent Running & Contact * Go dark at any speed: Cutting the engines no longer slows you down — you keep your momentum and drift blind through the dark, with your sight shrunk to a fraction of its usual reach. Engines spin up and down over time, with exhaust puffs and an ignition flash * Everything you do carries: Thrust, mining, salvage, warp and the active ping all make noise. Only the loudest source counts, and it fades on a schedule you can plan around — going quiet is a real tactic now, paid for in sight and braking * Something hunts the noise: Out in the far sectors, a creature listens. It steers at the spot your last loud act came from, sweeps a widening area while you stay silent, tires itself out and eventually gives up — and if it reaches you, contact tears plating and hull. It survives a reload, so restarting is no escape * Hear it before you see it: Your proximity sensor tones faster the closer it gets, fading echoes mark where each ping came from, and the soundtrack retreats as it closes in. Up close it shows itself: a body of black jelly and light, glowing from cold violet to ember as it turns on you Ships & Progression * Slots grow with your level: A hull's hardpoints follow a clear level curve instead of competing with its stat bonuses, so the next ship is about the room it gives you. Every offer carries two visible quality tiers, one for slots and one for systems — and some slots are universal bays that take any module type at all * Sell your old hull: Any ship except your active one and your last one can be sold in the garage for half its dealer price, installed modules scrapped with it. Hull prices also came down sharply, so the Hauler reads as a goal rather than a wall, and dealers always keep at least one hull in stock Interface & Quality * Rebuilt control layout: Actions sit in the left column (NAV, PING), panels and modes in the right (SHIP, LOG, SILENT), every button carries a label, and the info panel fits into the clear band between the columns instead of hiding underneath them * Damage Control is now Plating: The vitals panel is about 40% shorter with three single-line rows, plating is drawn as stacked steel plates, and a percentage only appears below 25% — a number on screen always means act on this. Losing a plate reports how many are left; a hit with no plating left reports failing ship systems * Asteroid traits as chips: A rock's traits show as colour-coded chips that now stay on the card after the scan, so you can see why a Shielded rock scans slowly or an Anomalous one keeps its unknown slots * Clearer messages: The top banner has a fading backdrop, a sound cue and a hold time that follows the message length, a refused module move names the actual shortfall instead of a blanket warning, and the app carries new icon artwork Onboarding & Intro * A new game opens with the job: Three cards say who you are, what the work out here is, and what the long decision will be — the game finally teaches the sentence, not just the verbs * More tips where they land: The armour row explains itself the first time a plate goes and says what a hit costs, saved nav points explain their purpose the moment you fill one, and the first contact tone is explained on the spot, with the game held until you've read it Prospecting & Hazards * Traps with a name and a real fuse: Rigged asteroids carry an owner's name and burn a fuse scaled to what is still left to take, so a small trap is as tight a decision as a fat one Fixes * Ramming a pebble at warp speed no longer costs you the ship, world markers and station labels stay upright while the ship rolls, warp drives finally reduce instability on the charge-up as their stat promised, and the leftover streaming-coordinate readout is gone from the bottom of the screen We're continuing to sharpen the scan loop, ship progression and input feel based on player feedback.