ΔV: Rings of Saturn News

[h3]Latent Behavioural Imperatives Found[/h3]
Once deemed a failed project due to unexpected social behaviours among the drones, the Nakamura-Titan Mining Companions are making a comeback. These refurbished autonomous mining drones were originally sidelined when they exhibited complex social interactions that hampered operational efficiency. Recent breakthroughs in adversarial neural network manipulation now permit a small-scale reassertion of their original behavioural imperatives, potentially restoring their intended capabilities.



[h3]Mitsudaya-Starbus Grinder Recall[/h3]
Mitsudaya-Starbus has launched a recall on grinder tips of their Prospector-series ships, including the widely-used Eagle Prospector. Now coated with industrial-grade diamond, the new grinder tips are designed to endure the most extreme mining conditions. Mitsudaya promises to double the lifespan of previous models, effectively addressing the durability issues highlighted in a recent class-action lawsuit.



[h3]H.475 available for Recon Craft[/h3]
The H.475 codec, recently introduced to reconnaissance crafts, now incorporates AI-driven algorithms to enhance the compression and clarity of high-dynamic range video. This development is pivotal for missions near high-glare asteroids and moonlets, ensuring detailed and artefact-free imagery that greatly aids astrogational accuracy.



[h3]Maintenance Logs[/h3]

• Improved lighting shaders. This release features a new way to process lighting on objects in the game. It should have the same performance as before, but now it will remove some noise and shimmering artefacts when you view big, detailed entities (like moonlets) with your camera zoomed out.
  
• You can issue more orders to mining companions.
  
• You can now restock the propellant on a Nakamura-Titan Mining Companion that is in your cradle arm.
  
• A new tuning setting was added to control propellant transfer to the mining companions.
  
• When your mining companion is out of propellant in an autonomous mining mode, it will ask you for instructions instead of returning to the station immediately. You'll have an option to order it to return to your cradle for resupply instead.
  
• Increased velocity of the mining companion docking protocol.
  
• You can now order your Nakamura-Titan Mining Companions to perform a cargo transfer protocol.
  
• Your Nakamura-Titan Mining Companions will now reverse the polarity of their grinder when executing the ore transfer protocol.
  
• NT Mining Companions that you ordered to return to Enceladus will not call you immediately back, inventing an excuse for why they are leaving.
  
• When you order a drone to dock to your ship, its tactical marker will disappear immediately after the docking is complete.
  
• You cannot hail mining companions that docked with you and powered down anymore.
  
• You can attempt to hail a ship or drone again that did not reply to you. Earlier, a lack of reply would lock you out from subsequent tries, even if that specific NPC had something to say later.
  
• Attempting to hail a Mining Companion just as you release it should not cause it to ignore you for 10 seconds anymore.
  
• Asteroid grinders are now better at grabbing (smaller) rocks and doing more damage. Success in grinding larger rocks still largely depends on their shape and your ability to get a good grip on them.
  
• Picking up an entity with active transponder into your cargo bay will now immediately remove it from your pilots contact list.
  
• Racing team now has a separate conversation option when their drone is not operational, and will not schedule a race nobody can win.
  
• Additional Racing Team encounter.
  
• The bearing and distance to identified contacts will now be exposed in your Pilot tab.
  
• Fixed Virtual Flight Service access in the Tuning menu when using a gamepad or keyboard. Moving downwards with MVFS selected will now put you on the first tuning item, as expected.
  
• Fixed POI descriptions overflowing the Astrogation window if you scrolled them by dragging the scrollbar with your mouse.
  
• Fixed line-of-sight in the Space Bar being rendered wrong in one of the corners if you got close enough.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused ore to vanish if your Nakamura-Titan Mining Companion left the detailed simulation range with cargo inside and then came back near your ship. In such cases, that cargo would vanish immediately after it left its cargo bay during the Cargo Transfer Protocol.
  
• The interior of the space bar now properly blocks you from astrogating away and hides your exhaust and laser flares from the visual feed.
  
• Updated translations & credits.
  

• Improved graphical performance of the OMS menu. The zoomed-in background of the OMS could be very GPU-intensive if you entered the OMS while your thrusters were firing. This release introduces simplified rendering, which should not be noticeable but dramatically (2500%) improves its performance.
  
• Pressing B on the gamepad in the Virtual Flight Service will not close the simulation anymore but fire the simulated thrusters as expected.
  
• Enhanced achievements support for Steam. Most achievements will now have a progress bar, indicating how close you are to unlocking them.
  
• Reduced the number of achievement popups when you are playing the game.
  

• A new cognitive enhancer is available at drugstores across Enceladus. It allows ship captains to retain memories of previous encounters with other ships, factions and players, making subsequent encounters with the same ships more consistent.
  
• The Enceladian Tuning crew was found to often leave the ship computer running after the initial examination of the ship. This wasted quite a lot of power and caused the performance on the Enceladus station to degrade after entering the Tuning menu until you left the station. The crew was instructed to power down any hardware they used after they finished working on it.
  
• Improved performance of the Fleet and Dealer menus.
  
• When you acquired an encounter location via dialogue near the inner or outer edge of the rings, you could find that location much closer than it was supposed to be, up to spawning just next to you as soon as you finished up the dialogue. A proper distance will be maintained now.
  
• Crew leaving damaged derelicts will turn off their autopilot.
  
• The time of travel display on the Astrogation console will now be consistent with the distance display, both showing zero when you are near a spot where you lost track of a destination.
  
• The Ganymedean base now has access to cognitive enhancers, so it will remember your personal reputation when you return to it. This shifts the balance of gaining the favour of the base itself with trade, smuggling, and other personal favours and prevents the base from only vaguely remembering both good deals they had with you, as well as your attacks on them.
  
• When you deal with the Ganymedean station, the deal will be marked as accepted once you actually accept it, not when it's first mentioned.
  
• Fixed a vertical splice visible sometimes on a prototype K44 ship's hull.
  
• Fixed a potential crash to desktop if you exited the Tuning menu with the sensor simulation running.
  
• The banding-like wave formations in the rings should now be limited to places where they are actually placed on the map.
  
• You can't extort pirates over and over again by shooting them just after you finish talking.
  
• If you deploy a B8 claim beacon and then pick it up again immediately, you will now be able to re-deploy it in another spot.
  

[h3]Runasimi releases quantum communications[/h3]
Runasimi Inc. has introduced an advanced communication system tailored to meet the demands of real-time interlunar communications. This groundbreaking system employs a sophisticated quantum data transmission method in conjunction with Runasimi’s proprietary digital signal processing algorithms. This innovative approach ensures seamless and nearly instantaneous communication over interlunar distances, setting a new standard in space communication technology.



[h3]New flexible astrogation regulatory[/h3]
Responding to the dynamic and challenging conditions of Saturn's Rings, the Enceladian Astrogation Authority has significantly relaxed its astrogation regulations. This adjustment grants astrogators the liberty to traverse the debris-strewn expanses of the Rings without the encumbrance of filing detailed flight plans. Now, spacecraft within the Rings are merely required to maintain a record of potential destination coordinates, substantially minimising administrative tasks and bolstering operational agility. This regulatory update is designed to stimulate exploration and mining activities by streamlining procedural requirements, all while upholding the essential principles of space traffic safety and accountability.



[h3]Comprehensive astrogation console update[/h3]
Minding LF's latest update to its astrogation consoles, aimed at revolutionising the way astrogators sort and select navigation targets, has been released amidst a swirl of controversy. By introducing new algorithms for easier sorting and recovery of previously lost tracking data, the update offers astrogators unparalleled flexibility and precision in mission planning. However, its launch closely following the Enceladian Astrogation Authority's new, more lenient navigation regulations has led to accusations of unfair competition, with critics suggesting Minding LF might have had prior knowledge of the regulatory changes.



[h3]Maintenance Logs[/h3]

• You can now call ships you talked with previously; most of the time, they will answer.
  
• New simulation range controls in the settings menu allow you to limit the physics simulation area and improve performance on low-end systems.
  
• New astrogation protocol. POI which you lost track of will still be selectable on your astrogation console - they are still contained in the ship logs, after all, it's just your current astrogator that has trouble finding them. You may attempt an astrogation jump to such a location, but you will arrive at the location that is the best guess of your current astrogator.
  
• Additional icons on the Astrogator console allow you to see different classes of astrogation destinations more easily.
  
• You can now label your astrogation destinations with different colours, making it easier to distinguish one moonlet from another.
  
• You can now zoom in on the Astrogation console visual map.
  
• General astrogation re-balance. Since you can now travel to expired astrogation targets, the base tracking time of your crew was lowered by 25% to account for that.
  
• Claim beacons will now return to the Enceladus Prime station automatically when your claim period expires. Previously, if you did not equip it again and travelled to exactly the same spot, you could find a defunct beacon waiting for you, just as if you just released it.
  
• Map labels on the dive target selection screen and the Astrogator panel will now keep their original size when you zoom in and out.
  
• Enhanced graphics on Enceladus stations. The station now has multiple-resolution images for all distances, so it will look more consistent when viewed at different zoom levels. Most notably, this removes subtle shimmering of the edges when the camera is zoomed away.
  
• OCP-209 HUD now has Bearing and Orientation readouts.
  
• Having your NDCI collision alert set to 10 seconds triggered a zero division, which could gradually degrade the performance of your game during dives.
  
• The settings menu will no longer overflow the Steam Deck screen when you increase the HUD size.
  
• Adjusted the layout of the Settings menu to fit additional controls.
  
• Updated translations.