The Last Starship Alpha 16
Posted by John on 24th June 2025
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Alpha 16 is here! It doesn't seem like long since Alpha 15 was released, but the pace of updates continues. We have a brand new exterior painting tool that we think you'll absolutely love, along with new crew furniture, asteroid cracking, and lots of small changes and fixes.

Here is the video demonstrating the new features.


[h2]New Ship Painting Mode[/h2]
A new painting mode has been added to the shipeditor.
The painting mode allows you to colour the exterior of your ships.

What can be painted?
    - Hull / Habitation / Scaffolding
Paint can be applied diagonally, allowing up to 2 colours per gridcell. Scaffolding can only have 1 colour applied to it per cell.

Eyedropper tool:
While using the painting tool, if you press the shift key, you will switch to the eyedropper tool. Using the eyedropper tool, you can select any point on your ship, and the paint tool will select the paint applied at that spot.

Paint Palettes:
  • Paints are stored in a palette, and can be dynamically altered after they have been applied to your ship
  • Palettes can be exported or uploaded, for easy reuse
  • Palettes can be imported from palette or ship files
  • Arena mode will also apply a simple paint palette to each team, ensuring they have matching colours. This overwrites the standard paints, as well as the base unpainted hull colour

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Asteroid cracking
You can now crack any asteroid into smaller parts by targetting it with Cannons.
This will generate new mineral patches on the new smaller asteroids.
Nb. This only works on asteroids that once contained mineral patches.
Cannons will fire on manually targetted asteroids even when 'Battle Stations' is not enabled.
Furniture
New cosmetic furniture is available to buy from any good trading post. Crew will use this furniture to relax when they are not needed for work.
There is also a Pot Plant which takes some time to grow. It will slowly die if there are water or oxygen shortages on the ship.
Nb. The pot plant does not actually consume water or oxygen.    
  Added Table, Chair, Sofa, Small Table, Pot Plant
   
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Translation Work
- Updates to German (Thanks to Michael Wäsch)
- New translations:
    - Turkish
    - Norwegian
- Exposed 'Accent Insensitive Search' and 'Translator Search' in the Other settings.
Small Changes
  • Research for Stargate Phase 6 and 7 components are slightly cheaper
  • Research for Stargate Phase 7 is now hidden until Phase 6 is unlocked
  • Empty tanks reset their held resource when empty
  • Tiddlets will hop towards the port in Tiddlets 1
  • Removed the confusing weapon FIRE/HOLD button in the tactical screen.
  • Gatling guns will now target drones repairing hostile ships
  • Gatling guns will now automatically fire during meteor storms, without requiring 'Battle Stations'
  • Destroyed drones now leave behind a processor and some scrap metal
  • Auto-trades can now be disabled per ship from the ORDERS menu
  • The settings menu has been redesigned and categorised into Visuals / Audio / Gameplay / Other
  • A new micro tutorial helps players to activate Battle Stations mode for the first time when required
        
  • Exit saves - The game will now automatically create "exitsave.space" when you quit a game for any reason
        
  • UI Highlight bounce effect - All UI buttons now bounce slightly when highlighted.
    Nb. You can disable this effect from the settings menu
        
  • There is now a Command line tool to calculate ship stats, as requested by Zenrath.
    Run the game with the command line "--calculate-ship-stats {path to ship/folder of ships}"
    Stores results in appdata save folder.
Bug Fixes
    - Fix Andromeda Project Part 3 unlock text including Phase 6
    - Fix install jobs not being assigned on newly created ships until a reload
    - Fix DSI Part 1 not taking stargate frames from storage crates
    - Fix incorrect station name in DSI Part 2 objective
    - Fix multi-system simulation sometimes being enabled on modes other than Boldly Go
    - Fix storage crates getting stuck in dumping mode
    - Fix some mission objectives not being shown in the mission summary
    - Fix ships rescued in survival mode sometimes not having any crew
    - Fix resolution and language scrollbars not scrolling in game settings
    - Fix auto-sold items sometimes not cancelling when an auto-trade is cancelled
    - Return ability for players to decide if a ship thumbnail is exterior or interior

    - Issue #242 - Key bindings can now be edited in UI and also in keybindings.txt.
    - Issue #487 - Unable to complete distress mission
    - Issue #496 - Crash Loading a Save Game in OS X with Rescue Mission in progress.
    - Issue #518 - Disable manoeuvring thruster keyboard shortcuts when in the editor / install menu.
    - Issue #519 - Stargate vanishes after Phase 7
    - Crash when creating a storage crate if its contents no longer exist



The Last Starship

The Last Starship is the latest video game from acclaimed Indie developer and creator of Prison Architect, Introversion Software. Start with an empty starship hull and fit her out with propulsion, life-support, weapons and FTL drive, before blasting off into the galaxy to test your design against a range of procedurally generated missions. Build a massive asteroid mining operation; rescue civilians from a transport with a critical engine failure, or build an armada and pick a fight with the pirates who plague the galaxy!

The Last Starship is now available to buy on Steam, Humble Store and GOG. As an early access title, Regular updates will be released containing content drops, bug fixes and updates based on your feedback. We need your help to make our vision a reality and Introversion pledges never to charge you for any future update.






Scanner Sombre
PC, Mac

Regaining consciousness you smell the damp. Opening your eyes you see the stone walls of the chamber flickering by the light of the fire; you stumble to your feet and kick a helmet clattering across the floor. Slowly the ache in your head begins to subside and you notice the beginnings of a passage. After a few steps the darkness consumes you. Returning to the safely of the fire you see a LIDAR scanner on the floor - a trigger press results in a faint glow coming from inside the helmet. You put the helmet on, adjust the beam-width and proceed into the abyss….

View Scanner Sombre website





Prison Architect
Build and Manage A Maximum Security Prison

PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, XBOX ONE and XBOX 360

Build and manage a Maximum Security Prison. As the sun casts it’s early morning rays on a beautiful patch of countryside the clock starts ticking. You’ve got to crack on and build a holding cell to detain the job­ lot of maximum security prisoners that are trundling to your future prison on their yellow bus.

Inspired by Dungeon Keeper, Dwarf Fortress and Theme Hospital and with over 1 million players having spent time inside, Prison Architect is the world’s best lock-­em-­up.

Please note that Prison Architect has been acquired by Paradox Interactive.

Uplink
Trust is a Weakness

PC, Mac, Linux, tablets

You play an Uplink Agent who makes a living by performing jobs for major corporations. Your tasks involve hacking into rival computer systems, stealing research data, sabotaging other companies, laundering money, erasing evidence, or framing innocent people.

Darwinia
A Digital Dreamscape

PC, Mac, Linux, XBOX360

Combining fast-paced action with strategic battle planning, Darwinia features a novel and intuitive control mechanism, a graphical style ripped from 80's retro classics like Tron and Defender, and a story concerning a tribe of nomadic sprites trapped in a modern 3D world.

DEFCON
Everybody Dies

PC, Mac, Linux

Inspired by the 1983 cult classic film, Wargames, DEFCON superbly evokes the tension, paranoia and suspicion of the Cold War era, playing on the fascinating aspects of psychological gameplay that occur during strategic nuclear warfare. You play a General hidden deep within an underground bunker.

Multiwinia
Suvival of the Flattest

PC, Mac, Linux, XBOX 360

The ultimate retro-arcade multiplayer experience! Choose from a selection of six hilariously fun, action-packed game modes, set in one of the most beautiful game environs you will ever set eyes on.

About Introversion Software

Introversion Software is one of the UK's most-respected and successful independent game developers and publishers. Founded in 2001 by three university students, we have gone on to create six critically acclaimed video games including cult classics Prison Architect, Uplink, DEFCON, Darwinia, Multiwinia and Scanner Sombre.

Introversion have previously been voted one of the top 50 Best Games Companies in the world and our most successful release, Prison Architect, has enjoyed stunning critical and commercial success winning a BAFTA for best persistent game and selling over 2 Million units on PC. Prison Architect was successfully acquired by Paradox Interactive in January 2019 freeing up the team to start working on exciting new projects.

Directors:


Chris Delay

The creative force behind Introversion, Chris is the lead designer and developer of all our games and also runs the websites.

Mark Morris

Mark has oversight of all of Introversion's activities and acts as arbiter between the Creative and Sales-driven ideologies of Chris and Tom.

John Knottenbelt

Also known as "Johnny Programmer", John manages technical aspects of game development, business intelligence, public-facing and internal infrastructure.

Thomas Arundel

Tom is in charge of business development (new markets and platforms for our products), sales and licensing, and also handles the finances.

The Team:

Sam Morris

Customer Support

Alex Chapman

Legal

Alex Tutty

Legal

John Cook

Business Development

Alistair Lindsay

Audio

Press

Please contact press@introversion.co.uk for any related enquiries.