ΔV: Rings of Saturn News

[h3]Antonoff's Ore Purifier Sparks Backlash[/h3]
Rusatom-Antonoff’s newly released Ore Purifier, marketed as an eco-friendly innovation, has come under fire for being a rework of defective Mineral Processing Units notorious for their faulty reactor coolant lines. The purifier replaces the problematic coolant system with electric heating elements, improving reliability and enabling efficient water sublimation and cryogenic capture for propellant reprocessing. However, the removal of mineral extraction functionality, along with increased power consumption and slower processing speeds, has drawn criticism from industry insiders. Many see it as a quick retrofit of flawed technology rather than a genuine step forward, further fueling concerns over Antonoff’s declining quality standards.



[h3]Elon Interstellar Accused of Bribery[/h3]
Elon Interstellar is facing a lawsuit from competitors Mitsudaya-Starbus, Titan Heavy Industries, and Rusatom-Antonoff, who accuse the company of using unfair tactics to influence policy within the Saturn system. At the center of the controversy is the company’s offer of 30 tons of complimentary propellant with their luxury Model E spacecraft, a vessel so prohibitively expensive that only the wealthiest individuals - many of whom serve on the board of Enceladus Corp, Saturn’s de facto government - can afford it. The plaintiffs argue this offer constitutes a subtle bribe, intended to curry favor and push for policies mandating fusion-powered spacecraft, like the Model E, while banning traditional fission-powered vessels.



[h3]Tighter Cargo Bay Inspections Enforced[/h3]
New regulations for cargo bay inspections have been introduced at Enceladus Prime station following a series of incidents involving radioactive contamination. Station authorities report that coolant leaks in ship cargo bays have led to the buildup of radioactive water ice on ores delivered to the station, causing significant health hazards for dock workers and damage to equipment. The stricter inspections aim to identify and prevent leaks before ships unload their cargo, with penalties imposed on vessels found in violation. While the regulations are intended to ensure safety, critics argue the added scrutiny will delay shipments and increase operational costs for mining crews already facing thin profit margins. Station officials, however, insist that these measures are necessary to protect both workers and infrastructure from further harm.



[h3]Maintenance logs[/h3]

• New cargo bay hardware - Antonoff Ore Purifier.
  
• THI Cargo Containers and NT Mining Companions now list the autonomous craft dry mass and propellant capacity in your upgrade menu.
  
• Improved font settings for Japanese, Korean, Thai and both Chinese translations to better fit small screens. Changes include adding a black outline to make the characters easier to read and decreasing the vertical spacing between the characters to make sure that all the standard heads-up displays fit smaller screens (and HUD sizes increased by the user).
  
• When a power draw of mineral processing unit will drop below 1MW, the tuning menu will report it in kW instead.
  
• Changed the way game handles cargo bay upgrades. Different ships can now support different types of hardware in their cargo bay.
  
• Thrusters and thruster-derived equipment will not blow through your ship hull and damage your excavator anymore. This caused undue damage then using Tetsuo HMX-2000I on a Pelican Prospector.
  
• Adjusted heat emission cones on most of the torches fit more closely to what you observe on the screen.
  
• Fixed OLED saving mode moving background cover in the OMS screen too much.
  
• Fixed OLED saving being affected by time slowdown/speedup, when it should not be.
  
• Improved font scaling for all the font renderings. Smaller fonts will now use mipmaps to avoid jittering artefacts when they are scaled way down.
  
• EIME will not come with 30 tones of propellant free when you launch from Enceladus anymore.
  
• You can't fill EIME with more propellant than your installed tanks anymore.
  
• Certain anomalies did not despawn when you flew far away from them, keeping the mysterious music playing for longer than it should have been.
  
• Adjusted cargo bay display on AT-K225 series ships, including the break-bulk variant, which did not match the iconography of the ship outline.
  
• Big Bad Wolf will now acknowledge that they offered you licence in the past and you chose to not pay the sign-up fee. They will also acknowledge if they offered you a licence but then you performed some questionable deeds.
  
• NPC ships will not change their opinion about you while you are still speaking to them so fast. This prevents you from being first offered some deals only to be denied few minutes later if your standing was near a threshold. They will still change their opinion based on your actions.
  
• Fixed a bug causing dehydrated ore to rehydrate while transitioning back to Enceladus. All water removed by an Mineral Processing Unit will now stay removed when you go back to the station.
  
• Updated translations.
  

• Fixed the expansion configuration menu not being properly aligned in most screen resolutions.
  
• Some events were not cleaned up properly after you left them behind, and while they did not show any evidence of their continued existence, parts of them persisted and used up memory, CPU cycles, and could interfere with the spawning of events. This caused, among other things, your freshly deployed claim beacons to disappear if you moved just a few kilometers away from them and attempted to return to them.
  
• Updated translations.
  

[h3]Corruption Allegations Shake the Mining Guild[/h3]
Allegations of corruption within the Mining Guild have sparked outrage among independent miners, leading to the formation of ad-hoc unions while operating within the Rings. Leaked reports suggest Guild officials have engaged in bribery and favoritism, granting lucrative asteroid claims to miners backed by major corporations while sidelining smaller operators. In response, independent miners are looking into forming a meta-union combining excavation agreements made on premise, which would grant them similar leverages to those offered by the Guild, but with distributed leadership.



[h3]Processor Fine-Tuning Access Mandated for Shops[/h3]
New emission regulations from the Interplanetary Trade Commission now require all Mineral Processing Unit manufacturers to provide access to fine-tuning controls for third-party repair shops. While this regulation is welcomed by independent operators, a consortium of processor manufacturers issued a joint statement urging consumers not to deviate from stock processing settings, citing potential environmental impacts as well as possible damage not covered by warranty.



[h3]Unexpected MLF Protocol Update[/h3]
Recent protocol changes introduced by Minding LF in their nanodrone systems have once again pushed the limits of system performance but sparked a harsh response from peers. While the rapid prototyping approach taken by MLF secured their dominant position in the semi-autonomous mining market, frequent changes require manufacturers of supporting equipment to adapt at a similar pace or face imminent incompatibilities. Obonto Microengineering, the manufacturer of industry-leading interface hardware, issued an over-the-void update to their USV-GOT unmanned survey vehicle series to accommodate protocol changes. However, they also amended their terms of service to reflect that they take no responsibility for changes made by third parties and will not be liable for any damage caused by subsequent updates, effectively shifting the responsibility for selecting compatible software to end-users.



[h3]Maintenance Logs[/h3]

• You can now tune the processing speed of your Mineral Processing Unit. This affects not only the processing speed itself, but also mineral and remass processing efficiencies, as well as power draw.
  
• When tuning your ship, the simulation window will now display secondary parameters affected by the tuning option you are changing. This applies for parameters that have difficult to predict consequences.
  
• Additional dialogues you can have with fellow miners.
  
• Additional options to hire wingmen.
  
• You can now give commands to wingmen you hire. They might even listen to you.
  
• Ganymedean establishment will now serve refreshments at the same conditions as other Space Bars.
  
• Adjusted some dialogue to make clear when your crew manages to escape from a damaged derelict during a failed recovery attempt.
  
• Files clean-up: then you had the OST DLC purchased, game used to download some of the mp3 tracks twice. It will now only download them once.
  
• Your crew is now much less likely to be distracted by the environment when you approach a derelict ship. Previously, they could not notice it if there were exciting things happening around them.
  
• Fixed number formatting functions. In some circumstances, some fractional numbers were rounded wrong and produced off-by-one errors, for example 3.97 would be rounded to 3.0 instead of 4.0.
  
• Dynamic backgrounds on the title screen, credits screen, and the screensaver mode now have more asteroids.
  
• Improved compatibility of USV-GOT reconnaissance craft with both MLF Haul Drone and MPI Tug Drone systems. The commands imposed from the craft will now interface properly with the ship-area-network bus, allowing the systems to coordinate efforts when directed manually and preventing two opposite systems from fighting over the same ore chunk.
  
• When fixing weapon or thruster misalignment with OMS drones, your mechanic will not have to adjust the jury-rigging options in order for repair to take effect.
  
• Grinders of mining companions attached to AT-K225 are now detached from your main excavator. The placement of the docking bays made that feature useless, and they tended to damage your ship if you tried to open them up.
  
• AI now understands that when you are astrogating away you will end up far away, and that if they want to stay close to you they should follow. This fixes a problem with wingmen who would sometimes stay behind if they were at a comfortable distance from you when you performed a jump and were distracted with something else.
  
• Fixed THI Cargo Containers not unloading completely when asked to unload on ships with big processed cargo capacity.
  
• The IFF display only updates when visible now, improving performance slightly.
  
• When you hire a wingman, your IFF display will now update immediately.
  
• Hiring civilian wingmen and paying them well now nets you a good reputation amongst miners.
  
• Fixed part of the simulation chart label which was visible at the edge of the screen when the simulation initialized.
  
• Unified spelling and fixed typos.
  
• Obonto Microengineering unified its branding.
  
• Updated translations.