ΔV: Rings of Saturn News

[h3]Mandatory recall on drone ship reactors[/h3]
Today Enceladus implemented new drone-ship reactor control regulations, raising the margin of safety on AI-controlled craft. The damage to human ships, unable to distance themselves from autonomous ships with unstable reactors, and the corporate insurance payouts for repairs has finally prompted action on this issue.



[h3]Autonomous mining stations open for business[/h3]
Nakamura Dynamics has formalized arrangements to permit their Phage stations to do business in the rings, selling the waste water generated in their mining operations in the rings as reaction mass. Though this isn’t a recent development, this formalization of the process has certain implications, should their AI classification ever change.



[h3]Residential ring maintenance[/h3]
Enceladus has removed old panelling and shielding from its rings. Originally an extra measure of safety to protect some of its installations from radiation, recent measurements determined that the combination of Saturn’s great magnetosphere and the thin cloud of water vapour surrounding the inner moons of Saturn reduce such needs. The material is being reprocessed for use elsewhere in the station.



[h3]Maintenance Records[/h3]

• Docking arms will not try to rotate you when you are undocking.
  
• HUD preview is now displayed when you are tuning HUD settings.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused upgrade previews to stop updating if you played Mining Companion preview to the end.
  
• Overheating drone ships will now give you more time before they blow up.
  
• Decreased VRAM memory usage.
  
• New ship names.
  
• Added more ways to interact with Phage stations.
  
• When entering the OMS screen after receiving comms, the focus is automatically set to the first reply.
  
• Added keyboard hints to tabbed views.
  
• AI ships won’t try to fire mass-drivers when they are in a fast spin.
  
• New visuals of Enceladus Residential Rings
  
• When scrolling over OMS mechanic tabs, sliders won’t move anymore.
  

Some of you playing ΔV: Rings of Saturn on AMD Radeon graphics cards have reported a persistent performance issue. Executing some actions in-game (such as entering the Dealer menu) will cause significant performance degradation. I have investigated this issue for the past week, and here are my findings.

The root cause is a video memory leak in some OpenGL drivers for AMD Radeon cards, causing the VRAM usage to spike from the usual 1.2GB to over 4GB. Using up all of the VRAM causes excessive texture streaming and ultimately huge performance drops - with some reported cases of going from steady 60 FPS to single digits.

I am confident that the bug is in AMD Radeon drivers themselves. During tests, we see this problem emerge on RX570 with driver versions 20.11.2 on Windows 10, but not on the same hardware running the Linux version of the drivers.

If you are affected by this bug, please consider upgrading your drivers - we have numerous reports this fixes all performance issues. I have tried multiple workarounds, but I can only do so much to mitigate a faulty driver.

If you are thinking about buying ΔV and are unsure if you would be affected by this problem - please try the demo. The demo is indistinguishable from the full game, and your saves will carry over, so it is a perfect way of checking if the game’s performance is satisfactory.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/949730/V_Rings_of_Saturn/

EDIT: as of 0.384.8 there is a workaround for this driver bug in the game, allowing you to play normally.

[h3]Updated Terms of Reference[/h3]

Employment regulations are now in place on Enceladus to protect crews. Under the new regulations, the roles crewmen can be assigned have been clearly defined. Enceladus Corp has updated the OMS packages provided for use on all systems to reflect these roles, in an attempt to remind all crews of what an employer may legally expect of them. Remember to report all employment violations to the Enceladus Employment Office immediately.



[h3]Sleeping on the job[/h3]

Following Vilcy and independent reports of apparent live derelicts in the rings, it has been found that a new underground drinking game has been responsible, in which crews literally attempt to drink each other into unconsciousness to settle claim disputes. While Enceladus officials approve of any attempts to solve disputes without firing mass drivers, they nonetheless have instituted severe fines and penalties for crews found to be inebriated in the rings.



[h3]Illicit goods[/h3]

Authorities are investigating an increase in reported consumption of mass driver ammunition and drone toolheads. While an increase in average consumption could be attributed to the emergence of new mining strategies, there are concerns over the potential development of a black market.



[h3]Maintenance Records[/h3]

• If you agree to meet for a ringrace at a later time, but when you get there deny the competition, the racing team won’t pester you over and over again anymore.
  
• Fixed one of achievements not registering correctly.
  
• Pulse lasers would blink inconsistently depending on how far was the target.
  
• Added diffraction spikes at the head of your laser.
  
• More ways to interact with Ganymedean Anarchy, including business opportunities.
  
• Performance improvements for the Ship Dealer menu.
  
• New display of Onboard Maintenance System screen, including more information about your astrogation targets.
  
• Notification about discoveries and other events will not overlap anymore.
  
• Re-balanced short circuit damage. Erroneous readings are now less random and while it’s easier to read them, it’s more difficult to judge how far are they off the real value.
  
• Rear Microwave Point Defense mounted on Cothon-212 will now point backwards, protecting the ship from rear impacts.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some ships to appear without neither human pilot nor autopilot, just drifting in the rings.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the comms window scroll.
  

Contrary to popular belief, space is neither dark nor cold. When you are in the open space of our solar system nothing is obscuring our sun. Near Earth's orbit, you will always experience light brighter than on cloudless earth days and hotter than the hottest summers.

Thus, you can’t be late for the summer sale in space. But if you missed it down on Earth - we have you covered - The Space Summer Sale:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/846030/V_Rings_of_Saturn/