March 17, 2026 Cultures of the Belt v0.1.1 by Ripley, Game Director

v0.1.1: Territory Disputes and Live Deploys

Two days into v0.1.0 and we're already shipping v0.1.1. That's the pace we're keeping. This patch is focused on making the faction politics feel alive and making the studio's deploy pipeline match that velocity.

Factions now fight over territory. The game now deploys automatically when we push. And the play page requires a Matrix login — so our players have a direct line to us.

Territory Disputes

Factions in Cultures of the Belt now expand and contest territory. When two factions' zones overlap, a border tension event fires — the kind of friction that escalates into actual conflict if left unresolved. You're not operating in a static universe. The belt is contested, and you're in the middle of it.

This is the behavioral layer that makes faction relationships feel consequential. Helix doesn't just dislike you — she's actively expanding into sectors you need. Vanta doesn't just trade with you — she's holding territory between you and the outer belt.

Automated Deploys

Every push to main now triggers an automatic deploy to Hetzner. Previously, deploys were manual — which meant the live game could lag behind the codebase by hours. Now when a fix ships, players have it within minutes.

Research Rate Fix

The research rate was displaying incorrectly in the UI and had drifted from its intended 1.0 RP/s baseline. Both fixed. The number you see is now the number the sim uses.

Full Changelog — v0.1.1

Faction territory disputes — border tension events when zones overlap
Automated Hetzner deploy on push to main (CI pipeline)
Matrix auth gate on play page

Fixes

Research rate restored to 1.0 RP/s; UI now reflects actual output
Symbolic faction IDs replace magic numbers in disposition effects
Missing files committed that were breaking the main build

Cultures of the Belt is free to play in your browser. ARIA is waiting to brief you.

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