Assuming playtesting successfully puts what’s been developed to the proof, life in Stars Reach should be a lot smoother in terms of backend matters thanks to the Cosmic Calibration update, which primarily brings on “an extensive network upgrade” that should make things both smoother and planets more rich with with flora and fauna.

A great deal of what this backend upgrade does was discussed by devs during the latest Fireside Chat livestream, where the studio pointed out that the new tech allows for 50,000 individual trees instead of 10,000, grants a longer field of view and better draw distance, and overall better performance even with the ramped-up object density. Studio founder Raph Koster remarked that the team is now able to make forests so lush that they are literally impossible to navigate.

That same livestream also provided internal build screenshots of some new graphics being developed by Playable Worlds, which are described as still stylized but with “a general facelift,” with some more details possible thanks to the new network upgrades. Current focus is on the plant props, but after that there will be efforts to update shaders and visuals for player-made props, and then a focus on creatures and character models.

As for the rest of the Cosmic Calibration patch’s features, that also brings on other general changes like better adhesion for certain minerals to make them form caves better, a couple of improved animations, lower batter cost for the paver tool, and the addition of sunrises on planets. Playable Worlds also had the studio’s finance manager and remote office manager Majick Robinson in another video to talk about her job, the game, and put together a fruit tart IRL, sure why not.