ΔV: Rings of Saturn News

This is a hotfix, patching up some bugs that slipped the testing of Darkest Void release:

• Upgrade and Tuning menus now again display all the ship parameters.
  
• Fixed a bug that could make the game crash if the HUD was initialized before the ship physical model was ready
  

[h3]Dark matter makes up approximately 80% of the universe[/h3]
It's just like a regular matter, but we cannot see it directly. Dark code, on the other hand, are the parts of the game that make up over 80% of the code base, and are equally invisible on the first glance. You notice it only when it's missing - or broken.

[h3]Stability and performance update[/h3]
Over last weeks I was working tirelessly adding over 300 patches to the code, correcting both reported bugs and as well as problem spots that were detected during automated testing. There is little visible on the surface, but many important modules were debugged or re-written from the scratch.

There might be still some bugs lurking in the code, but still this release should improve stability and performance for almost everyone.

[h3]Back to features[/h3]
With all these bugs out of the way I will be resuming work on adding more features and more content. There will be a community vote soon on discord.gg/dv, so if you want to influence where the game goes, pop in and look at the #votes channel.

[h3]Science hardened[/h3]
This update has a number of enhancements to make the science in the game more realistic. First and foremost - map of the rings was updated to represent more closely our current understanding of shape and composition of the rings. You'll have a number of opportunities to visit ring propellers - fist discovered in 2004 by Cassini mission - and other features of the rings.

Visual freed from Enceladus got a major overhaul and now more closely resembles an actual telescope feed that follows your ship - including visibility of multi-gigawat plumes of your ship (with proper, accurate diffraction spikes), variable zoom ratios and lightlag.

[h3]Quality-of-life improvements[/h3]

• You will now receive a clear warning if you failed to pay your wages, so you won't be surprised when your crew leaves you, and have the opportunity to procure the funds to pay them.
  
• Eagle Prospector hardpoint hotkeys were remapped to 1,2,3,4.
  

[h3]New hardware[/h3]

• You can now equip brand new K44 gimbaled toch.
  
• Nanoparticle Activated Nuclear Incinerator for these moments when you want just watch rings burn.
  

[h3]Bugs fixed[/h3]

• Fixed an afterglow of Ganymedian Anarchy station.
  
• Rescue CERF will not register multiple transponders now.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused transponder signature to disappear on the Lidar screen if it was obscured for just few seconds.
  
• Fixed number of memory leaks.
  
• There was a visual glitch in gravimetric readings that looked as "pinches".
  
• Visual feed on Eagle Prospector was off-center.
  
• Game sometimes lost track of high acceleration values from lithobraking.
  

Ever wanted to listen to the soundtrack of ΔV without playing the game? If you did - we will be hosting a special soundtrack sale soon!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127590/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Original_Soundtrack/

Don't have the game yet? It's a great opportunity to grab both with Tungsten Edition!

[h3]Quality of Life improved[/h3]
This update follows the player-voted path of improving the general player experience with the game. I turned my focus to the Enceladus Prime station, mainly the upgrade menu. With the steady addition of the new upgrades, the list was becoming too large and difficult to navigate, so I had split it into separate, foldable sections. Upgrades will now warn you that your ship is not adequately powered to install it - but it will not prevent you from buying one if you really want to.

Due to a popular request smart camera was reworked somewhat. While zoomed out all the way, the zoom-in should not be evident. It will still auto-zoom when you are excavating and will zoom out if something dangerous approaches.

[h3]Streamlined physics and AI[/h3]
With all the recent testing we done I managed to pinpoint and fine-tune the performance of many parts of the game - but the one you are most likely to notice are the physics and AI. While there are still cases when FPS drops that I need to isolate and fix, most of the time game ran perfectly smoothly in our soak tests.

I tuned the Artificial Intelligence that handles ships had a lot, as I watched it extensively while running tests.

[h3]More bugs fixed[/h3]
As usual, there are bugfixes and polishes to the game. With the help of community members, we managed to find and fix more conditions that would lead to crashes or game freezes. I used the bug fixing opportunity to patch up multiple small graphical glitches that have annoyed me for way too long. Finally, I changed how the game handles a gamepad in some menus - while they could be used with gamepad fully, it was just not convenient.