Slingshot Speeders 0.1.6 — Analog Throttle, a Real Phone HUD, and MapMake DRAW

Play: slingshotspeeders.com

The first orbital racing game featuring 2D gravity, force-based ships, slingshots, and closed-orbit captures. This patch makes playing on phones and executing light burns feel identical to using a keyboard.

Phones

Play and Watch modes no longer fight you on mobile devices:

Controls: WASD is now a stick on the bottom left. Q/E yaw is a slider on the bottom right. Drag the dots to use both thumbs for yaw and thrust simultaneously.
Visual Helpers: The stick shows direction arrows; the yaw pill displays turn arrows. Left/right inputs on the stick point correctly.
HUD Integration: The RESET button on the HUD restarts (same as pressing R). Flight toggles sit top-right.
Framing & Scaling: Play and Watch start farther out so you can see the course (pinch to zoom still works). The MENU now scrolls when lists exceed screen height, including landscape mode.
Customization: Settings now includes UI size (+/− from 10% to 100%; phones default to 50%) and Stick size (+/− from 50% to 200% for the WASD circle and yaw pill). Both settings persist on your device.

Phone stick wins now save properly (light burns previously failed verification and missed Recent Runs).

Fine Throttle & Analog Control

Dragging the control dots is now fully analog:

A slight drag off-center triggers a light burn or slow yaw, while dragging to the rim gives full thrust.
MAIN, RCS, KILL, and BURN remain quick-taps.
Keyboard WASD remains on/off; the on-screen stick is your primary way to feather controls.

Visual Upgrades & Hull Indicators

The ship hull is ~20% larger on-screen for better readability (crash hitboxes remain an exact 8 m disk).
The hull functions as your fuel gauge: a thick centerline transitions from green → yellow → red. A dry tank displays a white hull, letting you check remaining $\Delta v$ without looking at the status bar.

Map Sharing Updates

VIEW SHARE now copies /m/ followed by an 8-character code for every map (including Prime and Duality).
Pasting and opening the link loads that exact map's lines directly. (Legacy /v/prime links still open in VIEW).
Community Maps on user profiles now display the title alongside the 8-character code (eliminating the old c- prefixes).

MapMake DRAW (Experimental)

MapMake has evolved into a full drawing toolkit:

PATH: Draw a line (close the ends to loop) and place an N-BODY on it to ride.
DRAW: Drag a kill bar. SPIN and SPOKES copy it around (the separate SPOKES tool has been removed).
HOLD: Drag the aim stick to set the ride trajectory (matches the pad). HOLD also acts as the cargo ring — order and extra hull weight (kg) live directly on the hold.
REFUEL: Places only the purple dotted circle; drag the rim to resize.
UI Streamlining: Top bar PLAY and EDIT are unified into a single button (PLAY while placing, EDIT while flying).
Publishing: PUBLISH still requires you to fly and win the map first.

Note: Free masses follow full simulation rules from GO. Ships cannot tug moons.

Flying Physics & Fixes

Trajectory Line: Remains visible until you burn. Coasting will not rebuild it, and it progressively disappears as you fly. Crossing your own trajectory line no longer crops the loop into a short stub. Unclosed lines fade out cleanly at both ends without hard joins.
Capture Rules: Capture requires your actual loop to fall inside the green ring; nearby gravity wells that pull you out will invalidate it.
Hold Rings: Transition from yellow (waiting), fill around as you hover, and turn green when the required seconds elapse. (Rendezvous, Cargo, and MapMake HOLD behave identically).
Apollo & Duality Fixes: Resolved hitching on Apollo’s moon and moving gates. Apollo/Duality moons spin at their intended authored pace. Apollo gold lines only count when flown in the arrow's direction (moon line direction flipped to match).
Course Adjustments: Asteroids is now a capture ring only (ghost checkpoint dust removed from the well field). Trefoil’s fuel well and purple ring now slowly orbit clockwise around the center.

Watch Mode Improvements

PATH Integration: The historic purple-to-orange trajectory line sits under your ship.
Scrub the timeline up to 64x or 100x while the trajectory line stays synced from start to finish.
Coasting in Watch mode retains the trajectory line (analog yaw no longer forces it to redraw multiple times per second).

Home & Site Updates

Lobby: Circuit JOIN / SPECTATE count down 5 s to GO (down from 10 s).
Supporter Perks: Race winners who are alpha supporters are highlighted in gold (matching Easy difficulty).
Spectating: Clicking a followed player's name in Watch mode allows you to easily switch and spectate other ships.
Tracked Runs: Apollo, Duality, and Trefoil finishes now log to Recent Runs.
Profiles: Default name starts as PILOT. Tap to edit; flying without changing it keeps PILOT.
Settings: MENU Settings are accessible whether signed in or out. Browser defaults save locally; signing in syncs them to your account.
Scoring: Site MENU now opens directly to PLAY. Race standard and Ranking formulas have been simplified: time and a full tank of $\Delta v$ carry equal weight (emptying your tank cuts your mixed score in half, equivalent to doubling your time).

Full Patch Notes: Check in-game under WHAT'S NEW or visit slingshotspeeders.com/changelog.