X Rebirth gets another big patch, goes free for the weekend on Steam

Egosoft has released a new patch for X Rebirth , taking its open-world space exploration game to version 3.5. The studio is also making all X Universe games, including Rebirth, free for the weekend on Steam , and launching the public alpha test of the Linux version of Rebirth through Steamplay.

The 3.5 update adds new generic and upkeep missions intended to simplify station management, new Onil mining ships, a "container magnet" that attracts nearby collectibles to the player's ship, easier navigation through a text search field on maps, and new FXAA graphics options.

The patch also makes improvements to station manager and station-owned ship trade behavior, responses of player-owned stations to nearby player ships being attacked, and the balance and accuracy of combat calculations when the player isn't present. There's also better support for user interface modding, the Russian localization has been completely redone, and "much more," as the saying goes. A full breakdown of the changes is up on the Egosoft forums.

This is just the most recent in a long line of patches for X Rebirth. A major 2.0 patchdropped last May, and 3.0 hit in December.

The free weekend begins today and runs through the 15th, and includes everything from X: Beyond the Frontier to X Rebirth. It's a good opportunity to see how Rebirth is doing these days—it was notoriously buggy at launch—of, if you'd prefer a more assuredly-stabled spacefaring experience, its predecessor, X3: Reunion. And if Linux is your thing, you can dig into all the details in the Linux alpha support thread.