V0.5.18292

 was a major update to Everspace 2 that released on April 28th, 2021, after initially being available on the experimental branch of the game starting April 23rd. It was titled the "Union: Contracts/Hinterland" update. Corresponding Kickstarter update

Developer notes
''We've just released our first big content update. It features new main and side missions, a new player ship class, a new companion, a new boss fight and many quality of life improvements, tweaks and bugfixes.''

''Note that we rely on temporary text-to-speech voices for the new missions until we've started a new recording session. These fallback dialogs can be turned off in the audio settings. Also, you can continue with your saves, but we encourage you to start a new game to enjoy all the changes we've made.''

Features

 * Added new main and side missions
 * Added new player ship class: Bomber (heavy fighter)
 * Added new companion
 * Increased level cap to 15 and added three new player perks
 * Added EMP Missiles
 * Added new Outlaw units: Bloodstar Prospector, Bloodstar Overseer, Outlaw Drone Carrier
 * Added new Bloodstar-branded equipment
 * Added resolution scaling setting
 * Added NVIDIA DLSS setting
 * Added experimental HDR support
 * Added setting for third-person camera stiffness
 * Added keybindings for cycling through on-screen enemy targets
 * Added batch actions for processing multiple items at once
 * Added overview screen for data tab
 * Added new WIP narrated cinematics
 * Added new/hint indication marker for some menu tabs and items
 * Added current conditions bar to ship menu tab
 * Added dedicated mission inventory to hold mission items instead of ship cargo

Tweaks

 * Manual saving is now possible anywhere while not in a fight or mission
 * Balancing: Slower leveling by reducing enemy XP, slightly increased enemy DPS and HP
 * Enemy levels are more varied now; enemies above player level more common
 * Slightly reduced Uncommon and Rare drop chances for low levels
 * There are now cooldowns when installing new weapons/consumables
 * Homing missiles now require a short lock-on sequence, and missiles will only home in when fired while target is on screen
 * Reduced Augmentation bonus from 30 to 20 per Augment
 * Increase ship slots on Hhomebase from 3 to 5
 * Greatly increased resulting Critical Hit Chance bonus from Precision attribute
 * HUD markers for discovered objects will now be saved and restored when entering a location / loading a save
 * Modules will now always have a Firepower, Precision or Structure bonus attribute if rarity is at least Uncommon
 * Increased heavy ship deceleration with enabled inertia dampening
 * Show additional offscreen damage indicators in HUD
 * Reworked movement for most NPC ships, resulting in a less "beeline" attack style
 * Enemies will now boost when investigating
 * NPC ships will less likely carry the battle to the location bounds
 * Reduced Outlaw Sniper Drone focus time
 * Outlaw Destroyer: Now fires missiles while weakpoints are exposed, easier to spot weakpoints that now also change color when hit, more base hitpoints, higher weakpoint damage multiplier
 * Sniper Drone will now try to keep 2km distance from player
 * Consume at least 30% of maximum ULT charge when canceling ULT
 * Faction item rewards will now have the player level when claimed
 * Challenge tasks are now tracked individually instead of the whole collection
 * Increased controller Auto-aiming strength for mines
 * Auto-aiming will now ignore friends/neutrals
 * Increased amount of damage needed for a G&B Freighter to turn hostile, but now always turn them hostile when a container was (mostly) destroyed by the player
 * Changed Speed Booster Recharge Speed from 500% to 300%, increased Recharge Delay from 1s to 2s
 * With a Cruise Booster equipped, you can now activate Cthe cruise Mode faster (1.8s → 1s) and closer to enemies (2km → 1km)
 * Increased charge duration and energy consumption of Rail Gun, slightly decreased kinetic base damage
 * Targets affected by EMP will now receive 30 seconds of EMP immunity after the effect ends
 * Energy Orbs: Now always floating towards the player, replaced effect bonus perk level with armor recharge, better spawn effect
 * Slightly decreased signal decoder and color drop chances for some enemy types
 * Added VFX to make Outlaw Armor Drones stand out more
 * Slightly increased maneuverability while webbed
 * Added RESIST and IMMUNE impact labels (e.g. EMP on freighters: Immune, EMP on fighters with EMP Resistance: Resist)
 * Reduced magnitude of bonus attribute values (Firepower, Resistance, Precision, Utility, Structure)
 * Decreased Thermo Gun kinetic damage by 33%
 * Baron Executioner: Increased kinetic damage, removed energy damage
 * Salvor Jaeger: Decreased spread, slightly increased kinetic damage / decreased energy damage
 * Show "influence" offscreen indicators for NPCs that are debuffing the player (e.g. webbed by Webber)
 * Dedicated Ssupralight music in Union system
 * Optimized sorting options and internal order of item property priorities
 * Removed unnecessary amount selection for some item transfers
 * Added small animation and highlight when selling to rebuy shop inventory
 * Added icons and quality of life improvements for perk upgrade and the investment process
 * Custom ship style slots now display the selected colors
 * Hide HUD marker for items pulled with Tractor Beam
 * Made page indicators in customization screens navigatable and clickable
 * A small indicator is displayed below the player health bars when inertia dampeners are turned off
 * Show "tracked" icon in pickup log on top of item icon when tracked for perks
 * New mesh for the Flying Dutchess trading ship
 * Freelook/orbit cam is automatically entered when activating autopilot in Ssupralight
 * Autopilot can now also be activated/deactivated with target lock binding (middle mouse button is the default)
 * Player armor, health, and shield bars now all have the same length
 * Show energy bars in a different color when carrying an energy orb to make it more obvious that energy is unlimited now
 * Reworked Thermo Gun projectile VFX
 * Reduced Energized Boost "High Pressure" mode impulse to prevent physics-related issues
 * Rigged Asteroid UI displays the currently activated and the overall amount of detonator triggers
 * Changed name and appearance of tutorial "Outlaw Ravager" to "Bloodstar Overseer" in the tutorial
 * The game is now also auto-saved when undocking from a station and having visited a menu or made any changes
 * Decreased "create new energy sphere" hold duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds
 * Show max level info message when reaching Max Level
 * Prevent save scumming in regards to ship and shop offers
 * Various UI/Menu tweaks
 * Updated Unreal Engine to 4.26, potentially fixing some low- level issues (like graphics crashes or problems with available resolutions)

Bugfixes

 * Fixed Bomb- Thrower re-enabling shield after death
 * Fixed broken state when loading a save game on Ayres Relay Station with Striker
 * Fixed player ship not being auto-repaired when leveling up while docked at a station
 * Fixed energized boost "Compressor" mode stacking
 * Fixed weapons not always facing straight during supralight
 * Fixed overlapping dialogues after finishing a job
 * Fixed finished job locations still showing on Map if they have item rewards that are unclaimed
 * Fixed Tractor Beam sound not pausing when the game is paused
 * Fixed camera view occasionally being automatically switched to third- person after using jump gate
 * Fixed playing time not properly updating after crossing the 144 hours mark or so
 * Fixed Interceptors "Power Converter" not using Boost Energy for charging weapons
 * Fixed Coil and Rail Guns having the "high-velocity" affix
 * Fixed Corrosion Injector "Mercy Kill" mode not resetting cooldown for insta-kills
 * Fixed consumable/device keys not showing changed keybindings and also automatically refresh many icons/buttons after a keybinding change
 * Fixed new high- risk area waypoint not immediately showing after using signal decoder at a location and setting waypoint via map
 * Fixed "Tag Mines" attribute of Sensor not working correctly
 * Fixed having to change joystick throttle or other axis input again after pause/resume in order to receive the current axis input
 * Fixed Missile Defense System sometimes locking up in a loop
 * Fixed that when trying to use shoulder buttons as modifiers for keybindings the options menu tab would change instead
 * Fixed that activation of Signal Decoders was were not possible if max amount has been reached and one high- risk area was just discarded
 * Fixed stat attributes not updating after upgrading an item
 * Fixed shop discounts falsely granted for non-equipment
 * Fixed previously used player ship in Hangar still casting a shadow when currently viewing another player ship
 * Fixed high-risk-location icon looking different in Ssupralight to what it looks like on the map
 * Fixed secondary weapon meshes being hidden after having switched to "1st person no cockpit view" and going back to third- person
 * Fixed dialog window being transparent after plating help message was shown
 * Fixed interact repair hold sound not stopping when moving out of interact range but still holding the interact button
 * Fixed that EMPing a mine counted as having cleared the mine although the effect wears off after some time
 * Fixed reactor repair costs not matching the mission amount
 * Fixed player mines being hostile after loading a saved game
 * Fixed minable resources HUD marker being visible after fully mining a resource and then re-entering the location later
 * Fixed multiple bugs regarding sorting of inventories
 * Fixed a problem that showed zero credits for all items in shops
 * Fixed wrong rarity displayed in resource log (HUDhud) after taking-all-items action in containers was used
 * Fixed inaccessible Distress Calls being shown on the map
 * Fixed that upgraded modules may not receive mandatory firepower, precision, or structure attribute
 * Fixed devices and ULTs becoming less powerful in higher levels