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Trappist News

Reordering colonies in a trade route

This v1.0.12 update builds on last weeks QoL additions and focuses on the trade routes.

You can now change the order of trade stops within a trade route. This should help with untangling and optimizing trade routes.



Something else you might notice, the trade routes now use small arrows (instead of dashes) to give a visual indication of the direction of the trade loop.
And when you start a new trade route, or resume a paused route, the cargo ship will always start at the nearest colony.

Thank you all for your feedback!

The changelog for v1.0.12:
  • Add buttons to reorder trade stops within a trade route.
  • Trade route lines now show the direction of the trade route.
  • Scale the trade route line width based on the camera distance and UI scale (ctrl+- and ctrl+=).
  • Hide trade route lines while the main menu is displayed.
  • On starting or resuming a trade route, the cargo ship will start at the nearest colony.
  • On removing the current target stop from a trade route, the cargo ship will immediately continue to the next stop.
  • Fix missing tooltip due to an exception while calculating the consumption rate. Especially noticeable when first transferring population to an empty colony while the game is paused.
  • Fix the "Move to Colony Hub" action on the colony panel when underwater on Zima.
  • Add cheat code (shift + F6) to warp a selected ship to the cursor location. To Enable cheat codes open the console with ~ and type "flag cheatcodes".
  • Prevent the "spawn cargo ship" cheat code (F6) from spawning ships in invalid locations.

Jump between colonies and more production info

Thank you all for the feedback you've given on Trappist! This update adds some of the most often requested QoL features: a panel to switch between colonies, consumption and production rates in tooltips and space bar as the default key to pause/resume.

[h3]New Colony Panel[/h3]
There is a new panel to quickly switch between colonies. It shows a colored icon for each settled colony, and can be expanded to show the colony names or be disabled in the Options menu.
Clicking on any icon works pretty much the same as clicking on the colony names while in space. You also have the option to send a selected ship straight to that colony.
When a colony is running into a serious resource shortage, the icon will flash a red alert and the tooltip will tell you exactly which vital resources are running out.

[h3]Production and consumption information[/h3]
The resource related tooltips now include the total production and consumption on the colony. This information is also available while transferring resources and setting up trade routes.

The top bar now shows Silicon, Computer Chips and Plasteel after you unlock these resources by expanding your colonies.
The vital consumption resources for a colony (Oxygen, Water, etc. depending on the colony) are always displayed, and will alert you when they are running out.

On the construction panel, the tooltip will show how many buildings you already have of that type. When you place a building, the top bar will show the resources you need.

[h3]Trade routes[/h3]
The trade route UI has received some fixes and tweaks that make it much easier to use. Most noticeable is that the trade route panels now adjust their position so they won't overlap each other. And the resource transfer icons won't pop-up when the ship lands at a colony while you're adjusting the trade route.

[h3]Changes to default keybindings[/h3]
Many games use the space bar to pause/resume the game and it felt odd that in Trappist the space bar takes you to space instead. Now the default key to return to space is changed to tab and space bar will pause/resume the game like you'd expect.
The full list of changes to keybindings is in the changelog below.
The new defaults won't apply automatically if you've made your own changes. You can use "Options menu -> Keybindings -> Restore Defaults" to reset all keybindings to the new default.

[h3]Graphics improvements[/h3]
There are some graphical improvements as well.
The shadows should no longer have any unintended gaps and the shadow maps are now at a higher resolution (up to 8k on Ultra).
Trappist now uses Unity's Forward+ renderer for all quality levels. This allows for many more active lights at once and a large base now looks much more interesting, with all the factory and cargo drone status lights visible.

Thank you all for your feedback!

The changelog for v1.0.11:
  • Add Colony Panel to allow fast switching between colonies.
  • Add production and consumption totals to various relevant tooltips.
  • Show additional resources in the top bar as the game progresses.
  • Show construction resources in the top bar while placing buildings.
  • Improve the population and energy tooltips in the top bar.
  • Improve tooltips for transferring resources between the cargo ship and colony.
  • Show number of existing buildings in the construction panel tooltip.
  • Add 'space bar' to Pause/Resume the game. This is in addition to '1,2,3,4' to control the game speed.
  • Change "Jump to Space/Jump to colony" to use 'tab/shift+tab' instead of 'space/shift+space'.
  • Remove the default keybinding to switch between panels (previously 'tab').
  • Add 'h' keybinding to "Move to Colony Hub", especially useful for macOS users without a 'Home' key.
  • Show secondary keybindings in tooltips.
  • Fix the pause/resume wording in the Cryo Pod tooltip.
  • Prevent trade route panels from overlapping (somewhat, still a work in progress).
  • Fix various smaller UI issues related to trade routes.
  • Fix menu opening/closing animation from locking the game when repeatedly opening and closing the game with some unfortunate timing.
  • Fix unreached colony tiers not marked as unreached in the population panel.
  • Improvements to when the camera allows relative motion while following a moving Ark or planet.
  • Add animation to the Helium-3 Harvester.
  • Fix missing outline on range indicators for storage depots when using Ultra quality settings with MSAA.
  • Switch to the Forward+ renderer for all quality levels. Previously this was only used on Ultra.
  • Increase maximum number of visible point lights on Low, Normal and High quality levels due to the Forward+ renderer.
  • Improved overall shadow quality.
  • Improved the timing of some tutorial messages.
  • Minor performance and memory improvements.
  • Upgrade to Unity 6000.0.47.

New buildings, resources, aliens and a demo!

This update has gotten a bit bigger than planned. The main addition is a new storyline, which introduces a new alien race that has been waiting at the edge of the Trappist-1 system for you to melt the ice at Zima.

[h2]Demo available![/h2]
In the demo, you can colonize the Desert Planet and encounter your first alien. The demo is limited to two colonies on the Desert Planet, but you can continue to build indefinitely. And your save games and your progress towards any achievements transfer to the full game.

[h2]New buildings and resources[/h2]
There are 7 new buildings specific to Zima Blue, both above and below the water. And some changes to existing buildings.

The Seaweed Aqua Farm is changed. It no longer produces Health Drinks, but actually harvests Seaweed. The Seaweed can then be processed in the Health Drink Distillery, the Bioplastics Plant or in the Bath Towel Press, for some much-needed luxury Bath Towels.

Within the high pressure environment of the deep ocean, we can form Manganese Nodules into miniaturized Holo Toys:



There are a few more new buildings and the aliens have a few buildings of their own. Which I'll gladly let you discover for yourselves!

[h2]New research projects[/h2]
Studying the Zima Reactor improves the output of the Fusion Reactor. And you can now build Fusion Reactors on any planet.

A second new research project utilizes alien technology to upgrade your ships engines and lets you build any number of Flux Capacitors on the Ark for an even bigger boost.

[h2]Performance and graphical improvements[/h2]
This update includes various performance improvements. Most notable are the improved load times for large save games. And fixing the occasional stutter when the game updates the navigation mesh after placing a building.

More buildings now have animations, and animations that correctly show whether they are actively working.

And there is now a dust cloud effect when you place a new building. With different color and gravity effects for each planet.

[h2]Multi-touch on Steam Deck and Linux[/h2]
This update uses Unity 2022.3.60, which includes a fix for multi-touch on Linux and Steam Deck. This means you can use two-finger gestures to rotate and zoom the map. On top of the regular gestures to order ships around etc.

On Steam Deck this might require you to set the "Touchscreen Mode" to "Touch API Pass-through" in "Edit Steamwork Settings -> Application -> Steam Input". This should now be the default setting for Trappist.

On Windows, multi-touch already worked fine. Are there many players with 2-in-1 devices around? Let me know if you use your touchscreen or Steam Deck for playing Trappist.

Enjoy the City Builder & Colony Sim Fest 2025!

The changelog for v1.0.10:

- Add 7 new buildings specific to Zima Blue.
- Add the Flux Capacitor to boost the speed of the Ark.
- Add a new site to Zima with its own story.
- Add 2 new achievements.
- Seaweed is now a distinct resource that can be made into Health Drinks, Plastics or Bath Towels.
- A new research project to increase the output of the Fusion Reactor.
- A new research project to improve the Cargo Ship and Ark movement speed and maneuverability.
- Tweaks to the construction costs of some buildings on Zima.
- Renamed Wind Mill to Wind Turbine.
- The "Go to Hub" action (default keybinding: Home) now focuses the center of the Ark instead of the Bridge. This makes it much easier to build while the Ark is moving.
- If there is no Hub in the current site, the "Go to Hub" action will home in on your Cargo Ship.
- Tweaks to available resources at game start.
- Show particle effect when placing buildings, tailored to each planet.
- The Fusion Reactor can now be build on any colony.
- Decreased the production rate of the Helium-3 Harvester.
- Many building animations now represent whether a building is active or inactive.
- Prevent paused Shipyards, Robot Assembly Lines and other manual factories from resuming after loading a save game or removing a product from the queue.
- Add dedicated button and configurable keybinding (defaults to shift+space) to dive into Zima's ocean.
- Add option to disable the regular scroll zoom to dive into Zima's ocean.
- Improved zoom behavior when moving into and out of Zima's ocean.
- Add (under)water environmental sounds to Zima.
- Hide empty building tabs from the construction panel.
- Move the Algae Farm to the Factory tab of the construction panel.
- Fix newly built Cargo Ships disappearing from save games.
- The construction button tooltip now shows if a building requires a Floater.
- Adjust the default UI scale on widescreen displays (21:9 and wider). You can adjust the scaling with the ctrl+= and ctrl+- keys or through the Options menu.
- Set a lower bound for minimum UI scale to accommodate larger and wider displays.
- Fix animated text appearing outside the text balloon.
- Improved performance when (un)loading large save files.
- Improved responsiveness when updating navmeshes.
- Improvements to pathing for Cargo Ships and smoother lift-offs and landings from landing pads.
- Fix Cargo Ship movement orders when zoomed out at Haven.
- Fix Cargo Ship engine particles not reappearing after culling.
- Improved performance by adding object pools for building status indicators.
- Minor performance improvement on the construction panel.
- Fix NPE when triggering the software cursor early on in the loading process.
- Fix empty tooltip when a new resource type is stored while the depot panel is open.
- Use appropriate plural or singular forms to refer to resources in tooltips.
- Tweaked behavior for some of the cheat codes.
- Reduced texture size for Low and Normal quality settings.
- Fix using the arrow keys and backspace when entering a name for a new save file.
- The output icon on production panels now only flashes if the production problem is with the output itself, e.g. full storage.
- Enforce relevant building requirements when starting certain research projects.
- Fix cargo drones attempting deliveries at deactivated factories.
- Fix buildings placed while the game is paused can now be selected without resuming the game.
- Reverse ordering of tags in the messages panel. The newest tags are now shown at the top.
- Fix map label text position not matching with its line.
- Fix map label line length occasionally not matching the label text.
- Minor text changes to dialogs and task descriptions.
- Fix multi-touch on Linux and Steam Deck.
- Upgrade to Unity 2022.3.60.

Explore Trappist-1 in the Space Exploration Fest

The Steam Space Exploration Fest runs from September 2 to 9. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your reviews and comments. It’s amazing to see that Trappist resonates with so many of you!

It's been a while since the last update, so I want to share with you what I've been working on.

[h2]Upcoming update[/h2]
The next update expands on the Zima story line. It includes a new alien race that finds a new home under the sea after you've cleared the ice at Zima.

- New buildings for Zima, above and below water
- New resources and consumption goods
- Researchable technology upgrades that transfer to New Game+

[h2]After that[/h2]
Much of the feedback on the discussion forum and in the reviews focuses on the camera controls and Quality of Life (QoL) features.
This will be the focus of the update after the upcoming content update. Specifically, this patch will focus on:

- Adding a colony overview panel
- Improved trade route UX
- Smoother camera movement and zoom

I'd love to hear any other suggestions, and thanks for playing!

v1.0.9 - Configured keybindings in tooltips and more

The previous update added configurable keybindings. With this update they also show properly in the tooltips and dialogs. The icons will also update when you switch between keyboard & mouse and gamepad.

Valve rated the previous version as Playable on Steam Deck and this update improves on that. Including display of the right controller icons, a slightly larger default size for the UI and better touchscreen support.

Thank you all for playing, and for your feedback and bug reports!

The changelog for v1.0.9:

- Show dynamic keybindings in tooltips and dialogs
- Switch displayed keybindings to match active controller (keyboard and mouse or gamepad)
- Better support for touchscreens on Linux and Steam Deck
- The Iron Mine now requires the presence of Iron Ore. Any previously built Iron Mines on colonies without ore will continue to work.
- Randomize the animation offset for cows on the Cattle Ranch
- Fix Research Project cost shown as unavailable despite having enough Research Points
- Fix navmesh placement for Cargo Drones on The Dig
- Moved the colony approach locations further out, so they can't overlap with the planet's navmesh obstacle
- Construction panel: highlight the currently opened tab
- Construction panel: disable a tab if it has no available construction options
- Options menu: include the refresh rate in the screen resolution dropdown
- Options menu: refresh the VSync dropdown after changing the screen resolution
- Fix possible NPE while panning the camera at the screen edge
- Fix possible NPE while placing buildings
- Fix pinch-to-zoom gesture zooming back out after release
- Fix Oil Jack and Water Pump animations from jumping when exiting the main menu
- Upgrade to Unity 2022.3.31
- Upgrade to XCode 15.2.0 for macOS builds