The playtest crew, under callsigns they chose. The list
The fixes that came from tester reports, credited on the line. The work orders
Seventeen tracks made with Suno. Licensed sound effects. Art rendered in code. Score · Sound · Art and code
Made by Undock. Signed by THE OPERATOR. No person is named.
The people who flew it early, the fixes they found, and the credits for the score,
the sound, the art and the code.
Crew Manifest
The people who flew it before it was ready and told me the truth about it. Nobody else on this
project is credited by name, including me. Everyone here appears under a callsign they chose
themselves. Not a real name and not a handle from somewhere else. Choosing one is the consent.
Credit on this page under your callsign for as long as the page exists. When a report of yours
produces a fix, the work order line carries your callsign, permanently. The build early, with the
rough edges still on it. And the Playtester role and the private crew channel on the
Discord. That is the whole
offer. There is no money in this yet and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
Work Orders
What changed in the builds, newest first. A fix that came from a tester report says so
on the line, with the callsign when the tester chose one. It stays there for good.
28 SEP · v10.85 to v10.113 · from the operator's own sitting
The terminal. The first dock of the game is a hack in the dock wall: the yard refuses the
frame, three override commands go in, it flips green. An open yard is claimed at the same
prompt and a rival's is taken at its window, one command at a time, shown on the prompt; a
key that does not fit is not taken. The first dock at each lost rock is its own screen, and
the rock answers in its own words before the fragment decodes.
Rockets, missiles and torpedoes are proper models with a flame at the bell and an ion
trail behind. Each leaves the tube nose first and turns onto the target on its own weave, so
a volley no longer flies stacked on one line. Each warhead hits its own way: kinetic cracks
armor, explosive burns hull, EM strips shields. EM ammo cases for all three tubes.
The RESIDENT keeps to its well. Leave the well and it drops the chase and goes back to its
patrol. A returned RESIDENT stops getting harder after return 5. Found on the bench, where
the trained pilots were dying in deep space with a returned RESIDENT on them.
The Cinder Syndicate flies its own four hulls now. The black hull that bled into every
well was a machine killed while its faction picture was still loading; the husk wears the
right body the moment the picture lands.
The refinery runs by hand: slide how many runs, press REFINE, 100 PSM a run. Its row moved
to STATION WORKS under BUILD THE HUB and the directive points there.
Every station deck fits the window. STATION WORKS, SYSTEM WORKS and FITTING ran off the
side of the window below about 1366 wide; the columns give now and nothing scrolls sideways
at any size.
The space bar is for salvage and mining only. It no longer cycles the lock; click a target
to lock it. A tap of SPACE anchors the platform kit at a world.
The drone rack: a combat drone under a quarter hull flashes RECALL on its bar, and the
click lands on the bar you see at any HUD scale. Loading a save puts every drone back where
it was flying instead of launching all of them at once.
Inside a well the radar stops at the well edge for everything; it showed contacts from the
next well over. The station decks update their numbers in place instead of flashing every
button. The PASTE card reads FULL when nothing can load a tube. Every reclaim pays a little
ore back. A directive step that waits on a build shows how long the build has left.
27 SEP · v10.62 to v10.84 · from the playtest
The lane gate tether could throw you across the screen the moment it took hold, if you had
used that gate before and left it by a jump or a dock. It cannot now, and the gate draws you
gently to its centre instead of holding a loose leash. Reported as the tether jumping you
around. (SHAM)
The engine pass. Big fights, the frame near a sun and the stutter every few seconds were
measured and fixed one cause at a time: a thousand ships cost a tenth of what they did, the
sun and every glow are pictures now, and the game makes almost nothing for the browser to
clear between frames. Reported as lag in fights and beside stars. (SHAM)
A well upgraded to draw machines never stopped drawing them. The ones it called parked
just past the edge where the count could not see them, so a big well poured for hours. The
count reaches the ring they arrive on now and a cleared well refills in seconds. Reported
after a twenty hour sitting left the well ringed with machines. (SHAM)
The phantom station that looked like a machine, shot from nowhere and took no dock and no
capture is gone from every well. Those rings are ordinary open yards now. Reported halfway
to the centre. (SHAM)
A rule break no longer cuts off on the item card. Every affix has its own row and the
rule break sits in its own band with its whole effect. ONLY UPGRADES accounts for rule
breaks now. Reported after a legendary did not show under the filter. (SHAM)
The lane gate's round picker is the only place the course is read. The pods and the
doubled line under the gate that covered the system name are gone. Reported as redundant
jump info and the system name covered by text. (SHAM)
Ore and every material read with commas like PSM. A save's time reads in your own clock,
not hours off. The lane gate log says UNCHARTED for a system you have not charted, as the
picker does. The station deck no longer jumps back to the top while you scroll it. Four from
one sheet of reports. (SHAM)
From the same sheet: the medium and heavy launchers are phasers now, a held beam with a
charge, a crack and a hum, instead of the slow single shot. (SHAM)
Not from a report, but everyone flies it: click a target to lock it, hold the left button
to fire once the lock lands, hold the right button and every loaded tube keeps firing.
22 SEP · v10.38 to v10.61 · from the playtest
Repair paste and fuel are bought apart now, each with its own slider, so 20 PSM buys 20
paste. Reported fifteen minutes in with 21 PSM, when the all or nothing restock could not be
paid at all. (SHAM)
The frame rate near a star. The star was redrawn every frame with thirty five soft glows
over most of a wide screen. It is a picture now, refreshed fifteen times a second, and the
radar stopped asking every ship in the system where it was, every frame. Reported as
occasional low frame rate and one bad lag on a wide monitor. (SHAM)
The RADAR stat reads RADAR REACH, how far the corner radar sees, not how far you can see.
Asked after the number did not match the screen. (SHAM)
The bug report carries the worst second of the last minute and what was on screen, so a
lag report can be read. Built for the two reports above. (SHAM)
The report desk gives a slow link forty seconds, has a real loading bar, and says why a
send failed in plain words while keeping your text. Reported after heavy reports timed out
and were sent twice. (Kwik)
The station menus hold still under the mouse. A price tag flickered under the cursor
while money moved. The deck no longer redraws under you. Reported with a clip. (Kwik)
ARCHIVE is the first tab in the options menu, tabs by use. (Kwik)
The scan at your capitol always finds a lost rock now, and every starting area has one
inside cruise range. Reported after the scan gave a position with nothing to find and no
idea what the game was asking. (Kwik)
From the same reports, already fixed earlier: station buttons needing several presses was
the v10.28 fix on a cached build. A hard refresh took it. (Kwik)
From the same reports, not changed on purpose: the picture of a part in the queue stays
where it is. (SHAM)
Still on the desk from the same sitting: the jump list hidden behind the current system,
the size of the drone cards, a fold jump that needed a reset, and the scan at the yard.
(SHAM)
16 SEP · v10.08 to v10.37 · from the playtest
Your cutters fetch every drop in reach on their own again. Click a drop to leave it, click
again to fetch it. Asked for after the click to fetch rule left too much drifting away.
(Kwik, LiveLongAndRide)
The build button on the hub deck lit only after the tab was closed and reopened, even with
the price met. It lights the moment the money lands. (Kwik)
The compare card on the fitting floor blinked and vanished whenever money or ore moved.
The deck waits to redraw while a card is up. (Kwik)
You can lock a hostile or rival station now. Tap SPACE to walk the lock onto its hub, then
each gun, then the hull, and your guns and launchers fire on it. Reported after a system with
an occupied yard that could not be attacked or taken. (Kwik)
A drift strike no longer drops its capital carcass out of nowhere. A live capital hull
flies in from outside the well with a pack on it, they kill it where it settles and hold the
carcass. Reported after a last capital hulk appeared right in front of the frame.
(Kwik)
Uncharted lanes and system dots on the star chart read brighter, and the M chart in flight
answers the mouse the way the station chart does. (Kwik)
Buttons on the station decks fired only sometimes. The deck no longer redraws while a
button is held down, so the press lands where it started. (Kwik)
Mining drones and your cutters work a rock from farther out so the beam can be seen, and
the beam has a voice now. Asked for in a note on reddit. (a reader on reddit)
From the same reports, not changed on purpose: the repair paste supply stays as it is.
(Kwik)
14 SEP · v9.90 · from the playtest
The frame marker on the star chart points where the frame points now, with a short heading
line ahead of it. Asked for after a deep space run with no way home. (Kwik)
Exit from the menu returns to the opening page instead of a dead SAFE TO CLOSE screen.
(Kwik)
A TEXT SIZE slider on FEEL under HUD SIZE, 80 to 160 percent, for the station decks, the
log and the menu. Asked for from a small laptop. (Kwik)
A part in the queue could wear BEATS while the side by side showed a number going down.
Mixed numbers are a SIDE now, and the compare card reads the seat the part would take.
(Kwik)
From the same reports, already in v9.70: your cutters mine every rock again. (Kwik)
11 SEP · from the playtest
A capital hulk behind a planet vanished from view while the cut still worked. Hulks now
draw over the worlds. (Kwik)
30 AUG · fourteen builds, the belts and the black hole
Asteroid belts were quietly breaking every time a save loaded. Rocks locked into rigid
marching chains, small rocks tripled in size, and far system rocks piled onto the black hole.
All traced to the save loader and fixed. Belts also shear now, so they slowly mix instead of
turning as one piece. (SHAM)
Fold cruise could set you down inside the black hole. It refuses now. GRAVITY ANOMALY
DETECTED, and you arrive on the rim of the well instead. (SHAM)
The rest of the fourteen from the bench: the browser game updates itself on launch, every
hit shows the layer it strikes, capital ships die bigger, the opening fight gets its targets
on time, the ASSEMBLY QUEUE answers hover with a full side by side, heat sinks actually
work, and gas giants lost their ghost ring for good.
30 AUG · 38 builds of player reports
A one press button that melts every common cargo module at once. Asked for plainly, built
plainly. (tester report)
The same report showed a tester fighting the station only fitting rule without knowing it
existed. The rule says itself in plain words now, and the VOLE scout became the one hull that
can fit anywhere. (tester report)
The first time your repair paste runs out, the game tells you where more comes from.
(tester report)
Saving shows a green SAVED on the slot. (SHAM)
The music no longer repeats one song when tracks fail to load. (SHAM)
Docking refusals that made no sense at hostile stations. The whole siege system was replaced.
Stations carry shields, armor and hull now. Kill the guns, break the hull, dock to take it.
(SHAM)
The long session slowdown is gone. The game only simulates the system you are in. A 199
minute report with a sinking framerate led there. (SHAM)
From the bench, the rest of the 38: a new opening where you cut your first gun out of the
wreckage, star refueling that needs motion, launchers that load themselves, a rebuilt station
tour, and wrecks that never vanish in front of you.
29 AUG · the full build drop
The UI and map flashing on and off after the intro. A visibility check silently broken for
twenty versions, confirmed by two playtest reports and fixed the same day.
DISEMBARK cut off on smaller windows. Fixed.
From the bench: the first version of station capturing, a station tour, far fewer enemy
spawns, docking four times faster, and a four slide HUD tutorial in place of twelve.
27 AUG · THE TESTERS SPOKE
The station rail scales to any window height, so DEPART is always on screen. Found by a
tester flying windowed to protect their framerate. (LiveLongAndRide)
The conservation law. No fitting action can vanish a module, ever. Traced from a report of
a point defense module that disappeared during a swap. If anything ever tries to eat a module
again, the action refuses itself and asks to be reported. (LiveLongAndRide)
A pursuit now crosses the well rim. Twenty seconds of open space before the machines break
off, instead of vanishing mid fight. (LiveLongAndRide)
Jettisoned cargo drifts twelve seconds before your own tractor reconsiders it, and the hold
carries a one press PURGE ALL JUNK. (Kwik)
On the board from the same batch: a highlighted line for the plotted course on the star
chart. (Kwik)
Also in this build, from the bench: THE WAR OF MACHINES, the fourteen track score, and
radial sound.
Every line here is written from a record made at the time the build shipped. If
a fix came from a tester, the callsign is printed next to the fix, or the words tester report where
the tester chose no callsign. Nothing is reconstructed from memory.
The Score
Seventeen tracks, made for this game and nothing else. The soundtrack was made with Suno, an AI
music tool, directed by the developer, and it ships as fixed audio files. When a track leaves the
rotation it gets said here instead of disappearing quietly.
Star Jump Atlas. The opening theme. It starts the moment the wake exists. Dead Orbit Signal. The first theme, honorably relieved, back in the rotation. Charting the Dark. The station loop, so docking has its own key. Between Wells. The LOST ROCK loop. It plays while you are docked at one. GT523. The credits track. Voidwake Ghost Frequency Deadlight Drift Drift Beacon Still Listening Gridfall I · Deep Orbit Orbital Ember Drift Gate is Green Broken Beacon Funk Star Salvage Drift Static Frame
K-77 Station Que flew for one night and came out the same night. Nine Thousand Years played the
credits first, then GT523 took its place. Said here, per the rule. It is a lonely game and it
should sound like one.
Sound
The effects library is licensed. The picking and the cutting are mine, one sound at a time out
of hundreds auditioned.
Sound effects. Ocular Sounds. Royalty free commercial licence, no attribution required,
credited by choice.
Nothing shipped raw. Every effect was levelled, trimmed to fire on the frame, stripped of
metadata and verified. No ambient bed loops anywhere in the game. The game breathes in silence
and score.
Art
Every ship, station and planet is rendered in code, with no AI images. Some renders are baked to
images ahead of time. Turrets, drones and debris come out of the same render pipeline, built for
this project.
Code
The code was written with AI tools and I would rather say that myself than have somebody find it.
The design is the part that is mine, and the build log walks through every
system and why it works the way it does.
The story comes from the developer. AI helped turn it into text and tidy it up. Nothing is
generated by AI while you play.
3D library.three.js, by
the three.js authors. An open source 3D library under the MIT License. Some of the 3D renders run on it.
Signed
SALVOR ADRIFT is made by Undock and signed by THE OPERATOR. No person is named. That is on
purpose and it is not changing.
The dedication is on the about page, where it belongs.