ΔV: Rings of Saturn News

[h3]Articulated Recovery Manipulator[/h3]

In a surprising move, Triskelion-Armstrong released the AR-1500 series manipulator for the general public today. The sale of recovery manipulators is restricted to licenced Search and Recovery crew, so in order to obtain a sale permit the AR-1500M version has a stripped-down ship interface. Marketed as “Salvage Recovery” the AR-1500M is incapable of interfacing with ships, but shares a robust design with his older brother and is more than capable of securing and towing a derelict rivaling it’s base ship with mass.



[h3]Microseismic Jamming Exposed[/h3]

Independent investigative journalists revealed that several excavation companies housed on Enceladus were abusing the tightbeam array to jam competitors' microseismic drone systems. With offenders arrested and jamming signals gone, captains report vast increases in accuracy of their survey equipment, revealing new rich veins of minerals though the rings. Obonto Micro Engineering filed a civil suit against offenders for brand damage.

[h3]Excavators Life[/h3]

Seventh episode of “Excavators Life” is to premiere on Enceladus Entertainment Network. “A Cure” tells a story of neglect that caused permanent health damage, and a fight to overcome it.

[h3]Pest Extermination In Progress[/h3]

Enceladus Corp issued a statement warning all citizens of ongoing pest extermination procedures. Please remain in your habitats and wear softsuits at all times. List of species under extermination order:

• AR-1500 Salvage Arm now available as a high-stress mount.
  
• Introduced ore density patterns to ore across rings.
  
• Microseismic scanner now able to show ore inside large rocks.
  
• New crew agenda implemented.
  
• Maintenance drones rebalanced.
  
• New tuning options for autopilots.
  
• Fixed THICC and B8 being launched out when doing maneuvers.
  
• Crew now can ask for leave time that starts after you get back to base.
  
• Fixed a number of bugs in the conversation system.
  
• Big ships now fly more carefully and try to avoid getting close to you.
  
• High and low prices are no-longer visible on market prediction graphs.
  
• Cargo containers and B8 beacons now return with you to Enceladus.
  
• Fixed adrenaline triggering constantly for high-level pilots.
  
• Dialogue options for raising and lowering salary now list exact change.
  
• Ship thumbnails now reflect actual damage the ship has.
  
• New ships and highly damaged ships are marked on the list.
  
• Point defence will no-longer shoot at the cargo inside.
  
• Fixed SMES capacity to match values listed.
  
• Crew and crew bodies outside the ship now show up as shiny on lidar.
  
• Updated equipment descriptions.
  
• Fixed a glitch that allows unlimited money with creative equipment trades.
  

Rusatom-Antonoff issued a recall on autopilot software released in January of 2273 with popular RA-K37-TNTRL excavation craft. A miss-calibrated comfort setting could lead to excessive deceleration and power failures during initial ring insertion. If you believe your craft is affected, visit Rusatom-Antonoff dealer today.

[h3]Claim Beacons[/h3]
Triskelion-Armstrong released a new series of B8 claim beacons earlier this week. These fully autonomous drones are able to oversee the area of the rings and provide a stable and secure waypoint for the excavation industry. Beacons are equipped with class-1 artificial intelligence that handles cryptographic protocols, secure broadcasts and beacon security itself. In event of beacon failure Triskelion-Amstrong guarantees replacement on-site.



[h3]Astrogation Charts Update[/h3]
Recent ringwide scans revealed new residential and excavations stations established in the A-ring. Due to inaccuracy of telescopic surveys captains that encounter the stations are encouraged to disclose exact positions upon encounter.

[h3]Excavators Life[/h3]
Sixth episode of “Excavators Life” is to premiere on Enceladus Entertainment Network. “The Research” tells a story of a young astrogeologist on a quest to uncover why her mundane research is attracting so much unusual attention.

[h3]Autopilot OTA updates[/h3]
New OTA upgrade for autopilot software is distributed station-wide. Improved spatial awareness highly improves rotational accuracy of all ships, from small mining ships to cargo freighters. The upgrade is free of charge, and captains that took the liberty to tune their autopilot settings to overcome previous shortcomings are encouraged to revert to defaults.



[h3]New Stock[/h3]
This quarter the resupply run from Earth brought in extra hardware available for sale at your local upgrade shop. There are a total of three new torches available for retrofit at very reasonable prices. Reserve yours today!

[h3]Pest Extermination Warning[/h3]
Outside of new stock, recent resupply runs brought in new species of bugs. Following were exterminated by pest control:

• Tuning options for thrusters and torches were not respected outside of the tuning shop.
  
• Number of fixes to the conversation subsystem, including conversations not starting, conversations ending abruptly when other ships were in the area, crashes caused by talking to dead people and missing dialogue options.
  
• You could encounter a ship that you own and keep in the garage flying in the rings.
  
• Search and Rescue ships tried to pick up all ships they were friendly towards with no regard if they needed help. This led the S & R team to try and pick up your ship when you were helping them.
  
• Fixed a graphical glitch that caused the gamma slider to show psychedelic colors on Intel GPU cards.
• Gamma slider helper image was adjusted to be more useful on the bright side of the spectrum.
  
• Fixed thruster parameters for number of ships.
  
• Swapping in and out certain reaction control systems could make you lose money.
  
• Fixed display glitch of the mineral market that caused charts to cover the values.
  
• Fixed cutscene bug that could cause cargo pods and claim beacons to be shot away at sub-orbital velocities if you fast-forward through the initial animation.
  
• Actions applied by excavators now have an equal and opposite reaction.
  
• Patched microseismic scanner software won’t show minerals that are not present in ore chunks anymore.
  
• New audio system for the thrusters, removing number of audio glitches and improving overall audio of your thrusters firing.
  
• Number of math fixes to bugs that caused the game to behave slightly differently on lower framerates.
  
• Fixes to physics engine that could cause a small, fast moving object to embed inside a ship or station.
  
• New achievements to unlock.
  

[h3]Flight School[/h3]
Most prominent feature of this release is an improved tutorial. I gathered first-impression feedback and changed the tutorial based on them, to make your initial spaceflight experience smoother.

If you would like to try out the tutorial again, remember to enable it in the settings menu - and start a new game.

[h3]Constant Improvement[/h3]

• Optimized save game format. Saves are now smaller and load faster, even when they contain the same information.
  
• Changed the way mineral market loads and displays data - instead of creating entire market data when you enter Enceladus station, it loads it as needed - when you are browsing the market.
  
• Gamma correction slider will allow you to brighten or darken the screen based on your individual preference and lighting conditions.
  
• Added a separate graphics settings tab.
  
• Fixed a bug in gamepad controls that caused autopilot to go nuts - or even crash - when you touched the right control stick just the right way.
  
• Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage systems will now report their stored energy to the ship's computer.
  
• Additional dialogue options for ring-racing crew.