What went wrong

Three separate issues surfaced during beta testing this week.

1. Q-Cannon “Internal Server Error” — Saving sector % on a Level 3+ Citadel threw a 500 because the server query was missing galaxy_id when checking action budget. One line fix.
2. Fighter economy ran away — An old build got accidentally deployed, re-introducing the “fast cycle” bug where planet production ticked every 5 minutes instead of once per day. Planets produced 40–280× intended fighters. Players deployed massive sector fighter fleets with those bugged numbers.
3. Game client broke for everyone — The build that replaced the old one was baked with localhost:8787 as the API URL (a stale .env.local file). Every API call from play.tw3002.net failed with “failed to fetch.”

What changed

Bug fixes

• Q-Cannon config works again — Sector % and atmospheric % settings now save correctly on Level 3+ citadels.
• Game client rebuilt with correct API origin — play.tw3002.net now talks to api.tw3002.net again. No more “failed to fetch.”
• Version bumped to 0.8.10 across API, game client, and marketing site. (later bumped to 0.8.20 for PvP interactivity)

Economy correction

• Ship fighter counts corrected for the 4 affected accounts — capped to class maximums (Merchant 200, Scout 100, Interceptor 500).
• Planet fighter counts corrected to pro-rated fair amounts based on planet age × daily production rate.
• Sector fighter deployments recalled — All sector fighter deployments from affected accounts were zeroed because they were built from bugged production. Players were notified by email with exact numbers.
• Production schedule locked — Daily planet production now runs strictly at 8 AM UTC. The 5-minute cron is NPC-only.

New features

• Player mine count in sector header — When you have deployed limpet or armid mines in a sector, the header now shows 💣 Your mines: N alongside your fighter count.
• New guide page: Sector Entry Flow — Explains exactly what triggers when you warp (Q-Cannon → Fighters → PvP → NPCs) and what does not trigger when NPCs move on their own. Read it here.

What didn’t change

• Credits, cargo, upgrades, hull, kills, alignment, and rank — all untouched.
• No player was banned or penalized. This was an infrastructure bug on our end.

This is exactly the kind of edge-case surfacing a beta is for. Thank you to the captains who reported these issues — the game is more stable because of it.