Developer Update - January 5th, 2026

Happy full revolution around the sun everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful time over the holidays and was able to get some rest. While time was taken on my part over the holidays to relax, I kept working on Stellar Navigator throughout December and have I a few things to share!

Open Beta headed to live

With the last of the critical issues out of the way and no new ones having been raised. The current beta will be moving to the live build this month. Please back up any content you currently have before the update which will happen on January 24th.

Next minor update… update

Current work has been going into the next update to Stellar Navigator which is Minor Update Two. This update includes features and updates entirely from the ideas of the community. While investigation work and future major update designs are being tackled in the background, this is an update that focuses on what the community has asked for. I want to thank everyone who has upvoted ideas, over on our Discord, which they would like to see implemented as it helps me prioritize what things the community is really pining for. Not only that, but it is also a nice break from working on the major items that are part of pushing what will be considered 1.0 out the door. While I enjoy pushing the original vision of Stellar Navigator forward, having a break from it and focusing on the cool ideas everyone has been submitting is really a breath of fresh air in many ways. In other words, I get an excuse to work on cool things that I also would like to see in Stellar Navigator because there have been many fantastic ideas presented!

So what’s in this next update?

This next update is going to include a highly sought-after feature along with two quality of life updates (QoL). Let’s start with the QoL updates.

Quality of Life

Automatic hiding of blank information entries

This update will ensure that any empty fields for planets will not be visible when in “View Mode” which effectively ridding ourselves of “Mandatory” fields. As exciting as the prospect of adding very granular information is, sometimes too much is just too much! This change should make building solar systems feel less arduous.

Customizable Galaxy Points

More customization options for points on the galaxy map have been requested to enhance the galaxy map. One being able to adjust the size of the points so that navigators may pack in star systems in denser clusters. For Minor Update Two users will have the ability to change the size of the individual points as well as colour code their star systems in the galaxy map using the new Galaxy Legend. This way systems can be grouped and categorized, constellations can be represented better, and yes it can definitely be used for highlighting faction control of star systems!

Binary+ Star Systems

This idea has been asked for multiple times and it has received the most upvotes on the ideas board. So, I am pleased to say that when Minor Update Two goes out the door, navigators will be able to create multiple Gravitational Bodies with orbiting objects for each within a single star system (E.g., Binary star systems). There is a lot of work yet to do on this feature such as GUI updates as well as polishing up the overall experience of using the new feature, but here’s a little and early sneak peek at what is coming.

As an aside, you can also see the effects of having the auto hidden empty fields within the Tool Box.

That’s all for this month and we are in for an exciting year of Stellar Navigator development! I also hope those who have opted into the open beta with the new import / export features have been enjoying the new way of sharing their systems with friends. Until next time, keep looking to the stars!