Posted June 06, 2026 by Obsidian Star Digital
This update is a big one! I really wanted to focus on the environment itself giving the player a challenge and I think I found a way to do this without being too invasive to the current player experience. I also wanted to give the player a new level of logistics depth when it comes to power systems and habitants! There are a ton of additions, fixes, and some overhauls so let's get right into what is new in 0.2.7!
SystemBuilder has received a lot of new updates in the 0.2.0 series of updates, and this one is going to be the last one for a while, so it had to be massive! There are new system types, new suns, new details, and new events!
This is a star early in its lifecycle found in recently formed star systems, causes solar panels to be more efficient.
A star that has lost some of its power, causes solar panels to be less efficient.
A star that is almost dead, heavily causes solar panels to be less efficient.
A super-dense, rapidly spinning stellar remnant. Its intense gravitational pull causes system instability. Causes solar panels to be less efficient.
A type of rapidly rotating neutron star. Causes solar panels to be less efficient but tend to spike irregularly.
Nebula star systems are systems that have formed within a massive nebula. They look really awesome and add more potential for generation options!
Proto-Systems are young star systems. They feature proto stars and unstable system features such as increased volume of asteroid belts, rocky and molten planets, and unexpected orbits.
As mentioned before these suns are full of energy having just formed so they provide a bonus to solar panels!
For a while I have wanted to make the system map blackholes look like the one in the galaxy view and I have finally done it for SystemBuilder v10.
Now the black hole is also a hoverable and focusable object as well, just like suns.
We already have comets that come into the system and get effected by the suns gravity however now there are comets that will just be visiting and flying-by in your system at random!
Advanced power systems is the first of two new research projects added in 0.2.7. It is the first step into a much deeper power system than the one that was previously in the game.
The large solar panel is a much more efficient panel than its 1x1 predecessor however it comes at the cost of space and a need of cobalt.
The thermonuclear generator is an infinite source of energy however it must shut-down every ten minutes in order to avoid overheating.
Batteries are useful when planning a strategic power grid. They can fend out brown outs, and provide long-term power storage for colonies.
How they fill and drain are fully up to the player in our new and improved power config, which I will talk about in a bit!
This new research unlocks after researching advanced power systems and it brings a feature I have been thinking about for a while ever since I implemented trains. Players can now build complete power-grids on planet surfaces!
This new colony only module allows players to connect power lines to a colony.
Power lines allow players to connect multiple colonies and their power grids together. There are three different kinds of power lines available depending on the distance needed, as long as whatever needs to be connected is in range of the pole it will connect automatically.
The power config got a much-needed overhaul for this update, and it now gives players significantly more control over their power grids and all of the new things coming in this update.
Players have full control with how to build their power grids, if you only want one colony to focus on the power generation and you want to wire that power out to other colonies on the same surface you can do that!
The nuclear power plant will no longer be a module and will become a surface structure instead. It will require uranium in order to stay in operation. The structure can receive uranium through teleportation or train logistics routes as it also acts as an endpoint for trains like the material plant.
Power lines must be used to add this power to your grids.
The material plant now requires power and must be attached to a grid to function. Because of this advanced material processing will be unlocked after high voltage cabling is researched.
The banner creator has been in the game for a long time, and I think it is finally time to give it a solid overhaul in order to make it more intuitive and give players more options for customization!
There are a whole new slew of shapes and objects to use in order to make a banner. Players also now have the ability to export and import banners so they can be shared! Any created banners are now saved in the new banners directory in the game files.
Players will notice when they right click now whether on a surface or while having a planet/moon selected that a new context build menu opens.
This menu contains both space and ground structures.
If it has not been obvious already, I highly suggest creating a new save to experience the new research balancing changes, although all old saves are always forward compatible.