FLIGHT LOG #15 — Feriae Augusti: The Bulla Augusti is Open!!!

Greetings, pilots. Midsummer has reached the Shard!

Two thousand years ago the Romans called this holiday the Feriae Augusti — the festival of Augustus. It seemed only right to name our August expedition after it. Wherever you're reading this from, the whole Zero-G crew wishes you a warm and restful break.

We're taking one too: development pauses from August 15th to the 30th, and resumes immediately after. September is going to be a very big month, a lot of new features and content are already queued up.

The universe doesn't pause, though. The Bulla Augusti runs right through it, the new Ares Rampart outpost is open, and the Bulwark Order has something planned for next week. Plenty to do while we're away.

🏛️ Bulla Augusti — the August expedition is open

This month belongs to the pilots who carry things. Two features from the last few weeks make their expedition debut here. Synthesis missions enter the mission pool for the first time. If you mean to compete for the top Graduses & Rankings, train your pilots in the required skills now — or hire one of the pre-skilled pilots at the Ceres HQ and skip the wait entirely. And the two prizes at the end are built to be used together.

🚀 The Trucker Augustus

The heaviest hauler we've ever put in the game, a Trucker rebuilt from the frame out.

• 90 cargo — ten more than a standard Trucker
• 15,000 nuclear fuel and a 30% fuel bonus, up from 10,000 and 25%
• 11.48 max nuclear G against the Trucker's 9.56, it accelerates like a ship half its size
• 5,000 armor / 2,500 shield, it can take a hit on the way home
• Mining stat raised to 8

It's 28 metres and 100 tonnes empty. It is not subtle. It doesn't need to be.
The Trucker Augustus is a premium, non-tradeable hull. Win one and it is permanently yours (if you keep it safe) — and there will only ever be as many of them as there are pilots who earned one.

🎖️ The Featherweight

For the first time, a Pilot is an expedition reward — and this is the one. The Featherweight arrives at level 6 with 15% in both Cargo Bonus and Cargo Inertia Optimizer, the two abilities introduced in 5.4.2. The first shrinks the space your cargo occupies. The second shrinks its mass. Developed properly, each climbs toward a 50% reduction: more in the hold, and a lighter, faster, more fuel-efficient ship even when fully loaded. INT 20, WIS 20, PER 20 — and that WIS 20 is exactly the threshold for the Light Packaging ability, so the Featherweight's ceiling is as high as you're willing to train it. Now put the Featherweight aboard the Trucker Augustus. Then remember you can stack more than one pilot on a single ship. Both leave when the expedition closes. And a reminder from 5.4.3: you can only own one pilot of each type — if you're awarded one you already have, it converts automatically into 9,500 0G credits, half the Featherweight's value.

🛰️ Ares Rampart is open

A new outpost is live, and it's the one you'll want after a bad fight. The Shipyard repairs battle damage and sells better hulls than you'll find at the inner HQs. The HR office is hiring out two pilots you can't get anywhere else:

• Ironsight: "Forged for combat." Sharper aim, faster reactions, and the nerve to hold the line when the aliens close in. Engine and laser bonuses, and cheap at 3,000 0Gc.
• Broker: "Reads the market like a star chart." CHA 20 and INT 20, with trading and mission-item bonuses. For pilots who make their money at the Auction House rather than at the guns.

The outpost is run by the Bulwark Order, and they are not building a rampart out there for decoration. Next week they launch a new expedition against the aliens. We'll send a dedicated Flight Log when it goes live — get your combat ships repaired before then.

📡 Main new features since last log

Your pilot roster is now unlimited. The hard cap is gone. Hire as many pilots as you like and keep them At Ease on the bench, with up to 3 On Duty at once — 4 with the Vespucci Elite slot. Hiring cost no longer doubles with each pilot; it's priced on that pilot's actual stats, so a Rookie is cheap and a Broker isn't. To bench a pilot they must be disembarked at Grottaglie. Nothing changes for the pilots you already have. The best pilots were never at Grottaglie anyway. New small HQs have started appearing out there — Ares Rampart is one of them. Go look around. Faction reputation is live. Missions now grant standing with their faction, and some missions require a minimum reputation to unlock — paying out considerably better for it. Others can only be run a limited number of times. This is the groundwork for full mission arcs with progressive rewards, and it's why faction missions now appear at remote HQs even outside a running expedition. Check them periodically; some chains pay very well. Fuel rebalancing. Every ship's nuclear fuel tank has been increased significantly. Long trips should be faster and need far less micromanagement. Tell us how it feels. The Starbase page now uses the same Pilot Manager as every other page, Remote Mission Monitor lists start minimised, ship route visuals are fixed for multi-pilot ships, and the Dismiss button now appears for At Ease pilots.

The update is live at space.zerog.live

👉 Join the Shard

📺 YouTube channel

👾 Zero-g Discord official server

Giuseppe & the Zero-G Team
FLY FAST IN THE MIDSUMMER PILOTS!