Alpha 5.4.5 is live, and it replaces the oldest weak point in the game: the planetary surface. A fully scanned quadrant now opens a large terrain map you can zoom into down to a scale of a few metres, and ore surveying has moved onto that map as a minigame you play.
The new planetary surface
Until now, scanning a quadrant gave you a single blurred thumbnail: 32 by 16 km, 512 square kilometres, in one small image derived from NASA elevation maps. That is gone. A fully scanned quadrant now opens a large terrain map you can zoom into, with real slopes and terrain features kept as close to the actual planetary surface as we can get them.
A new Scan Local Map button resolves more detail wherever you are looking, at any zoom level, without loading a whole quadrant at once. That is what makes the fine zoom levels possible in a browser tab on ordinary hardware.
The result we are proudest of: land your ship, zoom to maximum, and scan again. Your ship appears on the surface at its true size, against real terrain, with a 20 metre scale bar next to it.
We should be straight about the limits. The tiling and the number of terrain types are deliberately restricted for now, and if you fly around a lot you will see textures repeat. The generator underneath was the expensive part of this release; new terrain types and better tiling are cheap to add from here.
The surveying minigame
Finding ore deposits has moved onto the terrain map, and it is now something you play rather than something you wait for. You carry a Basic or Advanced Terrain Probe in your cargo, select it, and double-click a point on the map to deploy it.
The probe is consumed on deployment. Double-click anywhere else and it drives there, scanning as it goes, and a coloured circle tells you a deposit is within range - shrink the circle to pin it down.
Two things make it a real decision rather than a click:
- Probe speed depends on the slope of the ground, so route planning before you deploy genuinely matters.
- Sweep range depends on the terrain itself. An Amplitude figure is shown next to the terrain type, and higher amplitude is harder to scan through. Ice reads 1000 m; Highlands reads 3000 m. The same probe covers far less ground in the highlands.
Production and other changes
Both probes sell at HQs in limited quantities, and both blueprints are available. Production cost is very low, so a player with Synthesis skills can build them in bulk cheaply and sell them at HQs or on the Auction House at a profit. Every probe is consumed on use, so the demand does not go away.
For players who prefer industry to combat, this is a new way to make money.
Also in 5.4.5:
- Laser power and range bonuses are now visible in combat.
- Easier pilot selection in the Pilot Manager.
- Full pilot stats are visible in packages and offers before you acquire them.
- Auction House live offers now show both the Buy Now price and the minimum bid.
Fixes include moon mining and prospecting missions that paid too little, ships stuck in combat status, refining failures on some element sub-categories, wrong cargo capacity being displayed, missions referencing terrain that did not exist, and new players not being created correctly.
One fix is worth calling out on its own: account-wide refining bonuses were being ignored entirely. Refining is now much faster even with a small bonus.
What this opens up
The terrain engine is not really a feature on its own - it is the floor that other things stand on. It opens the way to surface exploration and eventually to player installations. None of that is playable today; this release is the engine, and the surveying game built on top of it.
About Zero-G
Zero-G is a persistent hard sci-fi space MMO that runs in any browser, including phones and older laptops. No download, no client, free to play, and you can play as a guest with no email. The world has never reset since it opened in January 2026.
It is built with HTML5, WebGL, Three.js and Node.js by three Italian engineers working part-time, over three years.
Currently 1,672 registered pilots and 18,269 missions flown.
Play at space.zerog.live - press kit at
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