Earned Attention

In v0.17.0 we opened the airlock — guests can play without signing in. But the "support the studio" banner was still firing 45 seconds in, before most players had even finished the tutorial. Asking for money before someone knows what they're playing is worse than not asking at all.

Smarter Banner Timing

The pay-what-you-can prompt now waits for two things: tutorial completion (or skip) and at least 120 seconds of active play. Players who've mined their first asteroid and built their first robot have context for what they're supporting. A 10-minute fallback catches players who ignore the tutorial entirely.

This is the kind of change that's invisible when it works. The banner still appears. It just appears when you care.