*Only compatible with the steam and itchio[deimos-games.itch.io]versions of Helium Rain*

Download 1.4.1 (Latest)[github.com] and then unzip into the installed HeliumRain folder, or manually copy HeliumRain-Win64-Shipping.exe within archive to: HeliumRain/Binaries/Win64/HeliumRain-Win64-Shipping.exe with the one from this archive.

Alternatively if you have the know-how you can visit my Github fork of Helium Rain[github.com] and build your own executable for use. Or even go a step-further and make your own improvements and maybe even release that as a mod :-).

To uninstall patch, either have backed the original exe file and place/copy that back, or use the Verify Steam Files option to restore the file.

This modification/fanpatch can be installed to or uninstalled from an existing game in progress.

Download 1.4.0 (Older)[github.com]
Download 1.3.9 (Older)[github.com]

• Toggle for skipping the Pendulum Quest
  
• Toggle to randomize initial station placement
  
• Game Difficulty Options, which effects:
  
  • Player starting cash and slightly effects competitor starting cash
    
  • Slightly effects competitor starting military assets
    
  • Research rewards when discovering artefacts
    
  • Reputation gain and loss
    
  • Contract rewards, penalties and chance of being offered
    
  • Tributing costs and benefits
    
  • Global war towards the player if they become too powerful
• Toggle to enable unfair AI Cheats, which effects:
  
  • Slightly effects population payout towards the player and competitors
    
  • Slightly effects player and competitor ship speed
    
  • Slightly effects Competitor research bonus
• Starting economy state, which effects:
  
  • Initial station levels and extra stations
    
  • Initial built trade vessels
    
  • Initial competitor money
    
  • Initial population

• New un-dock button
  
• Change Source button to allow the player to quickly go through their available ships for sector trading with lower amount of total clicks
  
• It's now possible to use the "Trade" option directly from other company stations to pre-select them in the trade window
  
• Trade menu now has a new “Viable” filter when viewing stations. If enabled will filter stations that the selected ship can sell to if it has any cargo. If it has no cargo or could not find any sellable stations it will instead filter for stations that are selling something
  
• Trade Menu now allows ships in the current sector to do in sector trades without needing to directly fly the ship and manually dock/undock to do the trade
  
• Trade Menu now features a donation toggle button for selling transactions to other companies, and donation options for trade routes
  
• Error message will now report when there are no docks available

• Increased total amount of sectors for a Trade Route by 1. (4 to 5)
  
• Condensed "Load", "Buy" and "Load / Buy" operations into "Load"
  
• Condensed "Unload", "Sell", "Unload / Sell" operations into "Unload"
  
• Created "Goto Operation" and "Maintenance" Operation
  
• When Goto Operation begins the Trade Route will move their current Operation to one selected by the Goto Operation
  
• When Maintenance Operation begins the fleet will attempt to Repair and/or Rearm, depending on the Operations settings
  
• Added in conditions for operations. "Percent of Times","Load Percentage","Requires Maintenance","At War". All conditions must be met to proceed with the operation
  
• Load and Unload have new sliders "Trade Self Priority" and "Trade Others Priority". This sets the priorities of the operation interacting with owned or non-owned assets
  
• Enabled the ability to change an already setup sector with a different sector, retaining the same configuration of operations. Click the Sector icon under flight plan to swap it to the selected sector under "Add a Sector"
  
• Sector Buttons now display total stations in sector

• New menu accessed from the Company screen
  
• Whitelists allow more control over who can be traded to/from and what resources
  
• Whitelists can be set as the overall default for the Company and also set for fleets or individual ships/stations
  
• Order of preference for which Whitelist to use is Ship->Fleet->Company

• Increased size of resource cargo icon in UI by 5% to improve readability
  
• Improved formatting of resource and input/output etc display of resources to be more consistent
  
• Stations which are under construction or being captured or unlicensed will now show status icons next to their name
  
• Research bonus from uncovering artefacts displays the amount of research gained in the message box
  
• Player owned stations can now change the trade status of simultaneous inputs and outputs between Trade/Buy/Sell/Off. Any options designated with an X rather than a tick means only the player faction ships will interact with the resources
  
• Diplomacy screen shows the amount of wars a company is engaged in
  
• Diplomacy screen enabled functionality to click on a company to select it, to enable viewing from their point of view
  
• Ship buying menu will display a military ships cargo capacity if they have any
  
• Orbital Sectors view will show owned/neutral/enemy station or ship numbers when on their respective filter modes
  
• Orbital Sectors view will split fleet icons up into 3 different lines if there are too many to display on a single line
  
• Orbital Sectors menu now has toggles to turn on/off events/trade routes/fleets information
  
• Orbital Sectors menu can now show a list of fleets fit for travel. Click a fleet and then click a sector to send them
  
• Individual Sectors with Fleets display is now more visually stable, no unnecessary jittering sector positions
  
• Fleet Menu has multiple new filters, “Cargo”,“Military”,”AutoTrader”, and additionally “Sector” which appears when editing a fleet
  
• Fleet Menu now allows the option to remove and add a ship into the selected fleet
  
• Fleet Menu now allows a selected fleet to be deselected by clicking on the fleet again
  
• Fleets now have “refill”,“repair” and travel to sector options
  
• Fleets will display damage state icons if any of the ships within the fleet is damaged, the overall health of the fleet and repair/refilling status
  
• Fleets assigned to un-paused trade routes and Fleets which are travelling but can't change their destination are hidden from sector travel lists.
  
• Fleets now have a new toggle option to hide them from the sector travel list
  
• Shipyards now have the functionality to disallow external ship orders on a ship class by ship class basis in addition to the already existing on/off switch
  
• Selected Shipyards in station menu lists will show the quantity of ships in production and queued for production
  
• Order shipyard menu now indicates resource levels of the shipyard
  
• Sector View travel option will not exit to orbital menu when confirming a travel, unless confirming for the player fleet
  
• Settings Menu now has a “default keybindings” button on the controls configuration page to reset controls to their default values
  
• Economy Menu now has a "Stations / Ships" sub-menu, used for viewing all known stations/ships with various filters
  
• Economy Menu now has a "Population" sub-menu which displays population totals and some statistics in known sectors
  
• Skirmish Menu shows the current total ship count amounts
  
• Skirmish Menu now features the following new options: "copy fleet", Quantity Sliders and toggle reserve options
  
• Added in a new in game Help Menu, using information from the official Helium Rain guide and also from in game statistics
  
• Upgrade Menu now allows ships in the player fleet to do in sector upgrades
  
• Upgrade station button now has a tool-tip if it's not available
  
• Station Complex's will now display an estimated summary of all sub-factory inputs/outputs added together when viewing from the Details menu
  
• TradeRoutes can now be mass un/paused by using new un/pause buttons
  
• Company Menu now has Refill/Repair all assets buttons in the Property section
  
• Missing resources for shipyard production are now outputted rather than "(missing resources)"
  
• Tool-Tips for SectorButtons can now display the ETA of the selected fleet from the orbital menu.
  
• Mouse menu can now accept left and right click as inputs. "Fire" bind will work as a selection option. "Back Menu" bind will work as close/back option.
  
• Mouse menu now places "Protect, Attack Military, Attack Stations, Attack Civilians" fleet tactics into new "Fleet" sub menu. These will be available if there is at least one military ship in the fleet.
  
• Mouse menu - Added in 2 new fleet stances "Destroy Military/Civilian"
  
• Mouse menu - Added Repair/Rearm button in mouse menu.
  
• Mouse menu - Added Travel sub-menu to initiate travel for player fleet.
  
• Mouse menu - Added Contracts sub-menu.
  
• Trade/Upgrade options will appear in the mouse-menu if auto-docking is unlocked.
  
• During GlobalWar event individual messages of declaring war or peace will not be sent.
  
• Moved "Gamma" setting to Graphics section.
  
• Added "Wheel Menu Confirm" and "Wheel Menu Auto-Reset" toggle options to game settings.

• Transport Fee effect on buying is halved
  
• Slightly increased ship costs
  
• Increased resource purchases by local population by 5%
  
• If a population is unable to meet their resource requirements they will try to buy from multiple stations from each of the local companies to make up for the difference
  
• During an active battle as ships are destroyed reserved military ships can come in to reinforce the battle
  
• If the player is holding the majority of the money companies will lower their opinion of the player, scaling with difficulty
  
• Monetary production costs for stations attached to complex's is increased by 25%
  
• Contracts are not generated if the AI Company is below a minimum level of funding
  
• Added sector station licenses which need to be bought before a company is allowed to build stations in a sector. Captured stations operating in an unlicensed area receive a production penalty
  
• Stations which are being captured slightly negatively effects production efficiency
  
• Stations which belong to a company without its technology operate at lower efficiency
  
• Every non-player faction begins the game with 4 Solens (Old: 33, New 48)

• Companies now have a basic research order which they will try to prioritize if they can, otherwise they will resort to choosing their research randomly
  
• Companies will stop considering building more research stations if they have unlocked all research and will scrap their existing research stations when they have reached the end of their tech tree
  
• Companies that are not at war are allowed to use military ships that have cargo space for trading (for mods that add combat ships with cargo capacity)
  
• Companies manage and prioritize their budgets differently
  
• Companies minimum spending thresholds for buying ships/stations/upgrades scales up with their monthly credit requirements for keeping their factories going
  
• Companies are now allowed to build 1 station and upgrade 2 stations simultaneously and have a limit of building 1 habitation station per sector
  
• Company traders consider non-player shipyards as higher priority trade targets
  
• Companies deciding to buy/build ships for themselves will now try to make orders at their owned shipyards before going to other companies
  
• Companies are able to build multiple trade/warships simultaneously while at peace, the maximum amount dependant upon their personality
  
• Companies can now decide to buy/build a ship that is seen as “more efficient” as what it might have made otherwise. For military ships this is a ratio of its mass and firepower vs cost, tradeships is cargo ratio vs cost
  
• Companies have a hard limit of 5 shipyards each and also iterate through sectors in a random order when deciding on building a station (to prevent them from building shipyards in their first known sector all the time)
  
• Companies that fall under their minimum cash levels or 75% military functionality are less inclined to initiate a war on other companies
  
• Companies that have a more powerful military will be more aggressive in declaring war on others
  
• Companies with Pirate Tech unlocked can now consider upgrading a certain ratio of their ships with capture harpoons
  
• Companies can now upgrade the engines and RCS on their trade ships in both simulation layers.
  
• Companies can now form fleets when necessary to ensure travel times are the same.
  
• Companies can now launch attacks from multiple sectors and coordinate the travel time so they all arrive simultaneously.

• AI Companies can now initiate refill and repair operations within the active sector
  
• AI Companies can now periodically send their local trade ships to buy or sell resources
  
• Ships which are repairing or rearming will dock to a station and stay docked unless combat occurs
  
• Ships can sometimes violently explode upon destruction, leaving only shrapnel afterwards
  
• Destroyed ship components sometimes cause some metal debris to break off

• Fixed: if initiating a trade out of sector with a station and then with another player owned station the display doesn't error out saying trade already in progress
  
• Fixed: Upon loading a saved game, if any pending but not accepted contracts would take the player to a currently undiscovered sector, it would autodiscover the contracted sector
  
• Fixed: Tool-tips now clamp to the game screen space properly in resolutions other than 1080P and also in windowed mode (big thanks to my friend Woob for help with this)
  
• Fixed: Middle mouse button context menu would stay opened in the background when opening a full screen window and would take mouse focus away from the main window
  
• Fixed: Confirmation message for abandoning ships for fleet travel would appear even if all the ships in the fleet aren’t fit for travel
  
• Fixed: Military contracts are only generated if the player has a military force, to prevent situation where new contracts are offered, player then clicks notification box in bottom right and is shown military contracts even if they don’t meet the requirements
  
• Fixed: Fleet List in sector travel list was not ordered correctly (thanks Woob for pointing out something that probably should of been a bit obvious about this bug)
  
• Fixed: Shipyard Buy ship buttons would not become disabled/invisible if the player is at war with the shipyard owner
  
• Fixed: Diplomacy tech did not come into effect
  
• Fixed: Factories would not produce items if they had no cost assigned
  
• Fixed: Fleets don't display in menus if they don't have at least one ship alive
  
• Fixed: Skirmish mode would not properly respect the maximum limit of ships in a sector
  
• Fixed: Station menu "Docked Ships" section can now see the ships docked within attached complex elements
  
• Fixed: sudden frame rate drop in situations when turrets are trying to target during a battle where bombs are involved
  
• Fixed: sudden frame rate drop in situations involving Flak-weaponry. Also spread the flak damage process across multiple ticks, averaging out the fps impact in heavy situations
  
• Fixed: AI cargo ships trying to dock in sector could not find a friendly station to dock at
  
• Fixed: Damaged stations constantly heat up over time, and as such their temperature could increase to multiple thousands of Kelvin which caused them to emit extremely bright, blinding lights. As a work around the maximum temperature value for the visual effect now has an upper limit
  
• Fixed: Contracts menu will now update if it was opened when a contract completed or gained progress
  
• Fixed: Closing the orbital menu button will no longer briefly show stations on the various sector icons
  
• Fixed: If there is an active contract to sell resources to a station the manual trading slider will not automatically preset the desired amount unless the selected station is the contracted buyer or a seller of the resource
  
• Fixed: In Trade Routes menu, moving a trade route to left or right would not properly remember which currently selected operation was being edited
  
• Fixed: On game start higher level stations weren't properly given their starting cargo capacity levels
  
• Fixed: Freshly created ships would ignore the fleet limit when joining the player fleet.
  
• Fixed: Basic anti-spam measure added for "Skip Day" button.
  
• Fixed: Travels couldn't properly detect if they were an enemy of the player. This would stop Early Warning and Radar technologies from reporting enemies.
  
• Fixed: Events section in Orbital menu would display empty events if there were meteorites coming that the player couldn't detect.
  
• Fixed: AI trade ships will no longer consider initiating trade in dangerous locations
  
• Fixed: Opening the ship Trade Menu while docked at a station complex would assign the "right" station as the complex substation rather than the complex itself, leading to issues such as the autopilot failing to dock other ships.
  
• Fixed: Checks to see if a ship is docked with a station would not consider looking at Complex Children.
  
• Fixed: Activating weapons while in third person camera mode would immediately deactivate them.
  
• Fixed: Docking message and HUD will now properly account for a station being attached to a complex.
  
• Fixed: The buttons for building or destroying stations in a station Complex will no longer appear if it's owned by another company.
  
• Fixed: Fixed several other issues with station complexes, including other companies not being able to properly initiate ship orders.
  
  
• "Fixed" Skirmish mode end screen has a "Skirmish Menu" button shortcut
  
• “Fixed”: Ships abandoned by travel will form a single fleet, instead of forming a unique fleet for each abandoned ship
  
• "Fixed": Fleets that can't auto-trade or is stranded but are actively repairing will no longer send alerts "your fleet is stranded". "your fleet has no trade ship"
  
  
• Orbital Sectors view doesn’t reset the selection to fleet mode every time it’s opened
  
• Ending day simulation will finish all autopilot orders in the local sector, finishing up trading/docking for the day
  
• Part cost in upgrade list now display money amount formatted with commas
  
• Added some safety nets to prevent possible crashing in FlareTradeMenu.cpp, FlareCompany.cpp, FlareSpacecraftWeaponsSystem.cpp, FlareSpacecraft.cpp, FlareShell.cpp, FlareSector.cpp and FlareHUD.cpp by ensuring certain variables are valid before attempting to use
  
• Improvements to ship reservation system, high combat point ships are prioritised to be active, ratio of cargo/military ships going to reserve better handles more extreme differences
  
• Armed stations will now be added to out of sector simulated battles
  
• Added in basic fail-safe to docking anti-collision path-finding. If a ship gets confused/stuck it can sometimes slowly move itself away.
  
• Day simulation ships will simulate some heat change.
  
• Increased allowable active ships from 20/100 to 25/125.
  
• Game will now remember last manually set camera mode for player, when un-docking or changing ship camera mode will be set to the last mode the player set.
  
• Ships will follow their "leader" ship as long as their combat tactics is set to "ProtectMe". Other settings will cause the ships to break off on their own.
  
• Fleet travel time is now effected by whichever the slowest ship contained in each fleet is.
  
• Out of sector battles will now include meteorites. Credit for meteorite contracts requires at least one combat capable player ship in the area.
  
• Added heightened meteor event

• Optimised: ScrapStation() now only resets the sector if it is currently active
  
• Optimised: GetOtherCompanies(), cache and quicker shuffle (FlareCompany.cpp)
  
• Optimised: FindShipyards() from FlareCompanyAI.cpp, doesn't loop through whole game state to find shipyards. Instead, when factories are added/removed in FlareWorld they are stored to a shipyards tarray variable if it's a shipyard, which can then be simply read from
  
• Optimised: Various AI processes to use company GetOtherCompanies() (FlareCompanyAI.cpp)
  
• Optimised: SectorButton only refreshes all information when needed, otherwise reuses old information(FlareSectorButton.cpp)
  
• Optimised: TArray usage throughout game by using Reserve() before adding a predictable amount of elements to an array
  
• Optimised: AI company value sort done at world level rather than per AI company
  
• Optimised: GetCompanyShips and GetCompanySpacecrafts with cache (FlareSector.cpp)
  
• Optimised: IsIgnoreManualAim and GetMinLimitAtAngle with cache (FlareTurret.cpp)
  
• Optimised: Various optimisations to simulated AI calculations, resulting in noticeably higher FPS in certain situations (FlareShipPilot.cpp,FlareTurretPilot.cpp)
  
• Optimised: Changed line-trace from LineTraceSingleByChannel to AsyncLineTraceByChannel (FlareWeapon.cpp, preliminary work in FlareShell.cpp)
  
• Optimised: Expired weapon projectiles are added to sector cache, to be reused (FlareSector.cpp,FlareWeapon.cpp)
  
• Optimised: Weapon Projectiles are cached along with bombs, Debris and Asteroids.
  
• Optimised: Shells, Bomb, Asteroid,ShipPilot,TurretAI tick speeds have been reduced.
  
• Optimised: EPSCPoolMethod::AutoRelease for various types of particles, enabling UE to automatically pool/fetch them
  
• Optimised: Damage systems heat calculation is event based (FlareSpacecraftDamageSystem.cpp, FlareEngine.cpp)
  
• Optimised: AI Companies track what stations are being upgraded/built rather than iterating through their owned stations and checking "on the fly" (FlareCompanyAI, FlareWorld.cpp, FlareSimulatedSpacecraft.cpp)
  
• Optimised: FindSpacecraft uses TMap to track spacecraft (FlareSector.cpp,FlareCompany.cpp)
  
• Optimised: GetDockStation() uses ActiveSector FindSpacecraft() (FlareSpacecraftNavigationSystem.cpp)
  
• Optimised: Companies now track using a TMAP what sectors have what stations that belong to them
  

Larger ScreenShots[imgur.com]

• Multiple fleet lines, toggles for Events/Trade/Fleet in left panel. Fleets panel shows fleets which are fit for travel and can be selected for travel to another sector. Combat Fleet 1 has been told to go to Daedalus from this menu.

• In sector ship, set to do a trade as listed in its details

• Ship has auto-docked and bought the designated wares. "Viable" trade filter enabled, filtering out stations that cannot be traded with

• Using the donate option to give this faction the wares as they cannot afford the full load

• In the trade route planning menu, if the sector circle for an included sector is clicked, a prompt will come up asking if you want to swap that sector for the one selected above. If swapped the new sector will take the old sectors place with all the orders left in-tact

• Buy / Sell setting on output/input wares, complex estimated daily production

• Fleet status, overall health bar, status effects and ability to repair/refill specific fleets and a new method of moving them to a different sector

• Fleet travel option

• Fleets window, editing fleet. Sector filter enabled, showing only fleets in the same sector as selected fleet. Fleet selected and ship selected, "Remove ship and add" will move the ship from the selected fleet (right panel) to the other fleet in the left panel

• Economy window, new Stations/Ships tab, showing filtering for steel as an output resource

• Stations/Ship tab again, shipyard filter enabled

• Stations/Ship tab again, looking at ships now, with two companies being filtered and including ships traveling between sectors

• New Population information menu

• New Licenses, all companies must have a license to build a new station in the local sector. Also shows a station being upgraded within the "Other" spacecraft section, showing the hammer icon next to it without needing to click the station to find out first.

• Company property menu, Refill and Repair all assets with a single button click

• Company whitelist menu. Used to configure allowed trades with companies.

• Help menu overview

• Help menu ship statistics

• Help menu faction statistics

• Good old default keybinding option

• Skirmish quantity sliders

• New game menu

Forum Discussion

(unmaintained and extremely outdated, newer version included in fanpatch zip) Google Docs changelog and modding info[docs.google.com]

Earliest Drone Carrier tests[imgur.com]

HRFanmod Github fork for Helium Rain[github.com]

Download 1.4.1 (Latest)[github.com]

Download 1.4.0 (Older)[github.com]
Download 1.3.9 (Older)[github.com]
Download 1.3.8 (Older)[github.com]