• Added visual damage model for CERF S&R ships. When damaged, they will now be more visibly beat up.
• LIDAR display preview while you were tuning it was off-center.
• If your ship was caught in a salvage manipulator of another ship, and you attempted to catch it in return, the game would crash.
• Salvage manipulators now require some minimal power to operate. If a ship loses power completely, the arm will lose its hold.
• B8 Claim Beacons accidentally booting up at the Enceladus station will not crash the game anymore.
• B8 claim beacons will not accidentally boot up at Enceladus either.
• People will not attempt to follow two personal agendas anymore. Previously, if you fired and re-hired the same person, they could end up in picking up an additional quest to peruse, and changed their mind about that randomly.
• If you fire your resident singer and hire someone else who fancies a career is showbusiness, they can perform again.
• Updated translations.

[ 2025-04-03 09:51:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When you astrogate back to the Enceladus Prime station, ships with parts sticking below the ring plane, like Conlido Cothon series radiators, would appear to pass underneath an asteroid while the whole ship passed over it.
• Additional workaround to prevent a race condition that causes a rare game crash on some systems when returning to Enceladus on a ship equipped with OCP-209 HUD.
• Story events will not trigger when you are deep into an astrogation sequence, or during a cutscene. Some of such events resulted in dialogues you had no opportunity to reply to.
• People you talked with used to get impatient as soon as you started an astrogation sequence with comms open. Now, they will wait until it looks like you are committing to the jump before losing their patience with you and demanding that you answer.
• Eon Interstellar unveiled an ambitious plan for a generation ship to colonize HD 20794d. To celebrate, the company rebranded to highlight a shift from a single person's legacy to humanitys long-term pursuit of the stars.
• Fixed some typos.
• Updated translations.

[ 2025-03-20 08:36:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Slightly increased the size of the cargo bay opening on ND-LIS Kitsune shuttle.
• Decreased the uranium crystal collider size to better match the displayed sprite and make it easier to ingest for smaller ships.
• Fixed a bug that caused most derelicts to be less damaged than they should have been.
• If a derelict story refers to a ship as highly damaged, it will actually be highly damaged once you recover it.
• Increased camera zoom when looking at the SRO service back at Enceladus.

[ 2025-03-09 17:56:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Exclusive Salvage Sighting Broadcasts Launched

Scrapwright Recovery Operations now offers a subscription service granting independent contractors first access to derelict ship sightings, complete with transponder data and cargo details. While SRO claims this will improve salvage efficiency, the move comes amid growing concerns over falsified ship registrations and reactor sabotage. Some speculate that opening access to freelancers is a response to an ongoing investigation, though guild officials remain silent.

Transponder Fraud Ring Dismantled

Authorities on Enceladus Station uncovered a crime ring that built replica ships using transponders salvaged from wrecks, allowing them to pass as legitimate vessels. The fraudulent operation exploited salvage laws to conceal ship origins and avoid detection. Investigators acted swiftly, arresting those involved and seizing multiple illegally modified ships. Officials urge salvagers to report suspicious activity to prevent further fraud.

Sabotaged Ships Prompt New Regulations

Several recently registered derelicts at Enceladus Station were found rigged with reactor settings designed to fail - some too cold to start, others set to overheat and explode. To prevent further sabotage, station officials introduced mandatory tuning reviews for all new registrations, ensuring reactor settings are restored to safe defaults before ships are cleared for operation.

Maintenance logs

• Access to monthly Scrapwright Recovery Operations subscription - a periodic broadcast service aimed at licenced salvage crews, utilizing a vast collection of guild contacts, polar telescope arrays and long-range radars to detect and identify salvage opportunities.
• Over 20 additional salvage events, ranging from ship variants to ships that you could not previously encounter as derelicts.
• Five new story-based recovery scenarios when you are salvaging ships.
• Support for individually named astrogation destinations.
• Expanded salvage options: you can now pick who you send on the salvage mission.
• A careful review of drone camera footage revealed that some crew, when instructed to transfer propellant from your ship to a derelict, would not send the supply crate if they suspected the derelict ship would fail to boot up. Several such crates stashed in hidden compartments of the cargo hold were discovered.
• Sometimes your crew was overzealous when sending propellant to derelicts, sending two crates instead of one that was required.
• Recovered ships now have their tuning options reset, preventing configurations that would not boot up or straight explode if you tried to take them on a spin.
• If you witness an explosion of the craft you just salvaged, you will not receive a free identical copy once you get to the Enceladus Prime station.
• You can encounter two additional unusual formations in the rings.
• New accessibility option to further reduce flickering of UI elements, most noticeable during a damaged on-board computer event.
• Added a spotlight to the EVA suit your crew uses.
• Derelicts you find can now have some complications around them, which makes recovery a bit more challenging.
• If you don't send the crew to salvage a ship after being prompted to, or you have insufficient propellant, you will have an opportunity to send them again when you approach the derelict later.
• Locations of Obonto stations and other locations discovered through dialogue will now closely match their preferred placement, including not being too close to one another. This shifts the probabilities of discovery a bit.
• Better placement for dialogue-obtained astrogation destinations.
• New salvage-related achievements.
• The storyteller will now prioritize the derelict stories you haven't seen yet.
• Added graphical representation of an open channel to all the comms windows.
• Delivery rate of mass driver ammunition compartments was not actually enforced, allowing ammo-hungry massdrivers to consume much more ammunition than they should be getting.
• Largest containers for propellant, mass driver ammunition, and nanodrones were not accounted for in the resale value of your ship.
• Fixed some dialogue presenting a space for a ship name, when the entity didn't have one.
• Fixed Antonoff Ore Purifier when installed on AT-K225-BB. It tried to scan and process ores extending all the way out to the rear container cradles.
• During some derelict recovery scenarios, your crew would radio that they were flying back with the ship, but instead set it on autopilot and snuck back on board. This was deemed unsafe, and the crew was reprimanded.
• When you deny your crew an opportunity to reclaim their family and they angrily leave you, they will now actually leave immediately, instead of flying back on your ship and leaving silently on Enceladus. You will now be able to see them perform EVA to another ship when they do so. If you choose not to acknowledge them leaving, they will still leave.
• If there is a network communication error with Steam servers, the game will now re-try storing achievements and achievement progress in about 30 seconds, instead of waiting for game restart.
• Selecting a reply which has a decorator with looping animation caused animation and audio cue for "message being sent" to not play, as it waited for the infinite loop to finish. This could be confused with some of the dialogues not progressing, even once you reached the very end.
• Additional workaround for a race condition that could occasionally cause the game to crash after returning to Enceladus on some systems.
• Fixed some type-casting errors which might display some achievement progress wrong.
• Fixed equations for computing damage resistance when time was slowed down due to adrenaline boost or OMS screen being open. Some of the equations did not take the changed timescale into account, while others took them effectively twice, which caused damage anomalies when the time was not moving at a normal scale - some systems took more damage when OMS was open, for example, while others were almost impervious to all the damage. This caused some cradled hardware configurations to cause continuous damage when they wedged against the ship hull after you opened your OMS screen, and some types of damage were more severe when the game was running in a slower framerate.
• Decreased achievement related network traffic.
• Updated translations.

[ 2025-03-06 19:49:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

• You can purchase cargo bay baffles for OCP-209 and EIME ships again.
• Updated translations.

[ 2025-01-28 21:01:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Antonoff's Ore Purifier Sparks Backlash

Rusatom-Antonoffs 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 Antonoffs declining quality standards.

Elon Interstellar Accused of Bribery

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 companys 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, Saturns 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.

Tighter Cargo Bay Inspections Enforced

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.

Maintenance logs

• 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.

[ 2025-01-24 20:34:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed some miners confusing your ship with theirs when responding to you.
• You can now expose the Ganymedean Station to Big Bad Wolf after you do some small talk first without needing to call it again.
• Updated translations.
• Light Interlunar Shuttle Nakamura Kitsune 3D model is now available in the Tales from the Rings free DLC.

[ 2024-12-13 12:22:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

• 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.

[ 2024-11-20 10:32:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Expanded miner interactions. They will now acknowledge when you call them again, and you will be given different options and responses when you talk about the same subjects multiple times.
• You can ask your fellow miners to give thrusters full output and get to further orbit. They might listen if they feel like that is a good idea at the time.
• Made NPC ships more careful when they maneuver in areas where there is sufficient space around them.
• Added some opportunities to just hang up from a conversation if you are not interested in what the other party is saying.
• Additional commercial is running at the billboard at Enceladus.
• Improved examination behavior of AI. They will now more consistently fly towards your ship and initiate contact when they are curious about you, while still avoiding approach directly to your ship. This should lead to more ships starting interactions with you without you needing to hail them.
• Plotting a course back to Enceladus now requires you to align your ship for a torch burn. This prevents abusing the cutscene mechanics combined with autopilot-less astrogation for easier derelict recovery.
• NPC will not deny you the offer to be your wingman if they were the ones that approached you with it.
• Phage station Theta will not move their moonlet around once you discover it, even if you don't dive deep enough to figure out its secret.
• Fixed thermal consumption of NANI, which was much less than the 2GW advertised in its stats. It will now consume the heat it was supposed to.
• Improved interface between EIAA-1337 autopilot and OCP-209 ship. With previous configuration, the autopilot got incorrect dimensions of your ship, which could led to unexpected collisions.
• Elon Interstellar Model E pilots are now more aware where their fusion exhaust goes, and are better at avoiding hitting things with that exhaust by accident.
• Damage inflicted on unbroken roids inside a mineral processing unit chamber was dependent on your framerate. This led to faster processing the slower your computer was, during adrenaline surges and other circumstances when the perceived time slowed down for you. This affected ships and MPUs capable of ingesting entire unbroken asteroids, such as OCP-209 working in tandem with RA MPU.
• Some roids reflected much more energy that they should be, particularly smaller ones. This could cause refining within ships with a large bay, such as OCP-209, to stall.
• The amount of damage inflicted on an unbroken ringroid by a mineral processing unit will now depend on the surface area of the ringroid, not its volume.
• Patched an exploit where a mineral processing unit could produce unlimited propellant if you ingested a ringroid that had a reflectivity threshold above the damage inflicted by the unit. As long as you did not move, the device could produce propellant without actually damaging the source. The amount of produced propellant will now depend on the actual damage inflicted by the unit.
• IFF indicators could freak out near things that are not ships, but had transponders.
• Overheating your reactor in a simulation will not give you the Firefly achievement anymore.
• Ships close to certain stations could be confused by the proximity and refuse to move. They can now figure out how to gently back away. This also applies to autonomous autopilots.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-11-16 21:02:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Corruption Allegations Shake the Mining Guild

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.

Processor Fine-Tuning Access Mandated for Shops

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.

Unexpected MLF Protocol Update

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.

Maintenance Logs

• 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.

[ 2024-10-23 13:20:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Elon Interstellar Promises Autonomous Astrogation

Elon Interstellar announced today the release of its EIAA-1337 autopilot upgrade, featuring fully autonomous astrogation in planetary rings. This update allows vessels to plot and execute jumps automatically, aiming to reduce pilot workload and improve efficiency in hazardous environments. While the company encourages users to familiarize themselves with the software's functionality and associated disclaimers before taking advantage of this breakthrough in autonomous flight, veteran astrogators urge caution when relying on the new software, as its autonomous behaviour introduces new variables.

B8 Claim Beacon Recall Announced

Triskelion-Armstrong has issued a recall for all B8 Claim Beacon units following reports of malfunctions when deployed outside designated zones. The recall addresses issues where beacons were improperly relocating without warning, leading to confusion and operational delays for deep space miners. Affected beacon owners are urged to contact their suppliers for return and replacement instructions. Triskelion-Armstrong apologizes for any inconvenience and is working to resolve the issue promptly to ensure safe and reliable operation in all future deployments.

Structural Realignment Completed on Station

Repairs have been successfully carried out on the superstructure of the Enceladus Prime station to correct an issue affecting drone navigation and safety. A minor miscalibration in the stations framework led to visual discrepancies that interfered with the station's automated drone recognition systems. Utility pipes and conduits on the exterior were occasionally misidentified by docking and maintenance drones, causing minor collisions and erratic behavior. The repairs included recalibrating the stations visual markers and enhancing the accuracy of recognition systems to ensure that drones can now navigate safely and efficiently.

Maintenance Logs

• EIAA-1337 autopilot is now capable of fully autonomous astrogation jumps.
• Your autopilot will now display Approach Speed next to Relative Velocity when you target an entity.
• New astrogation protocol. Previously, there was a fixed velocity deadzone required to match in order to engage astrogation. That deadzone is now dynamic, starting much bigger and narrowing down as the astrogation progresses. This will give you much more space for manoeuvre when you are starting your astrogation sequence but will require stricter adherence to the course at the very end. This change will also prevent large adjustments to the course as the cutscene kicks in, which could cause some unbalanced ships to perform unexpected spins.
• If you stray twice as far from the astrogation target, the trajectory computation will now rewind a bit, to reflect the fact that your astrogation software needs to account for unexpected ship manoeuvre. This also prevents abusing the astrogation system by "charging up" the astrogation without actually making the jump, just flying in a completely different direction while having the ship primed for an emergency jump. This made little sense in-universe.
• Pressing the "match velocity" key (X by default) during the astrogation sequence will now match your autopilot to the astrogation course, making returning to the right course after a manual dodge much easier. A proper on-screen prompt is included.
• During the astrogation cutscene, the ship will start slowing down only after you regain control of it, making it possible to cancel that manoeuvre immediately. Previously, there was 1.5 seconds of burn that you had no chance of affecting.
• Having a comms channel open won't stop the astrogation course computation when returning to the Enceladus station. Should such a cowardly escape cause a story event to be broken, the countdown will be slowed instead until the people you were talking to react appropriately.
• Attempting to place a B8 Claim Beacon outside of the area of Ring A will now cause it to complain about the claim, instead of silently relocating.
• Newly purchased claim beacons will not bang against your ship hull anymore when you start the dive.
• Cradles, docking arms and salvage manipulators will now use full physics simulation during in-ring astrogation cutscenes. Previously, they used a simplified system in order to preserve resources and make cutscenes more predictable, but this simplified system caused unpredictable behaviour in more complex cases, such as astrogating with mining companions attached that have ore inside them. Now cutscenes will use exactly the same simulation as the normal gameplay.
• Astrogators could confuse moonlets that were less than 50km from each other, often losing track of one of them.
• The HUD Scale slider in the settings, the very end of the scale would have no effect due to monitor aspect ratio constraints. Adjusted the slider to show only scale levels that actually change the scale.
• If your resolution or window size is so small that no HUD Scale adjustment is possible, the slider will be disabled with an appropriate tooltip.
• The railgun particle system now correctly accelerates particles relative to the velocity of the railgun.
• Repairs were performed on the Enceladus Prime station superstructure, which was slightly misaligned and when you observed it long enough could flicker some pipes in and out of existence.
• Holding a rotation manual control key while performing an astrogation jump with a fly-by-wire enabled autopilot will not cause your ship to continue spinning through the whole cutscene sequence.
• OMS's Astrogation destination list will no longer receive lights from the comms window. These lights caused some of the colours to be difficult to tell apart.
• Moving your in-game camera will not cause the shadows to shift around anymore.
• When selecting astrogation back to Enceladus, the astrogation velocity slider will now be disabled, with an appropriate tooltip hint.
• Selecting an astrogation destination that is too close for you will now add an appropriate tooltip hint to the disabled "Plot Course" button.
• The game will no longer receive gamepad input when not in focus. This caused the game to un-pause when you put it in the background and launched another game on Steam Deck.
• Switching the OMS tabs with gamepad/Steam Deck controls will not zoom the camera in and out anymore.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-10-03 07:14:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've just added a brand-new music track to the Original Soundtrack DLC: "Prepare for Decompression." This track captures those tense moments when things go sidewaysalarms blaring, hull cracking, and youre knee-deep in... well, lets just say trouble. The new track is now available in both MP3 and FLAC formats, and if you already own the OST DLC, it's all yours for freejust update and enjoy! Remember: its only a problem if you cant hear the music over the alarms. Happy mining! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127590/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Original_Soundtrack/

[ 2024-09-27 13:35:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ring Formations a Hoax

Breaking reports reveal that the supposed "banding artefacts" in Saturns rings were nothing more than a sensor malfunction. Initially believed to be a new type of asteroid formation, the strange patterns were later traced to a compression artefact in the video streaming and denoising algorithms used by ship sensors. The artefacts appeared as the system struggled to handle the vast amounts of data generated by the dense debris fields. Experts now believe that small errors in signal transmission created what seemed like repeating patterns, fooling even experienced miners and researchers. After further investigation, the illusion was debunked, and sensor software updates are already in development to prevent future occurrences.

Crystals Discovered in Moonlet XT-HZA-3

A stunning new documentary has aired, showcasing rare and beautiful formations inside moonlet XT-HZA-3, recently discovered in Saturns rings. The film highlights dazzling torbenite crystals, glowing faintly with radioactive light, alongside smooth cave walls and unique geological structures. Advanced drones captured high-resolution footage, revealing details previously hidden due to technical limitations. The documentary is receiving widespread praise for its breathtaking visuals and insights into the mysterious moonlet, which is now drawing attention from both scientists and mining corporations alike.

New Racing Season Begins

The Enceladus Racing Federation has kicked off its latest season, welcoming both seasoned pilots and new contenders. This season features a more open and forgiving system, allowing even those who left previous races unfinished to rejoin the action. Enceladus Corp officially does not endorse these races, but as the rings fall under international jurisdiction, it is impossible to stop the competitions entirely. Racing fans are buzzing with excitement, anticipating thrilling rematches and fresh faces on the track, as pilots prepare for the most intense season yet.

Maintenance Logs

• Updated the graphics of Uranium Caves, removing rendering artefacts outside the moonlet and aligning the cave interior border with other caves.
• Motors on Eagle Prospector series grinders can now be disabled.
• A brand new soundtrack has been added.
• The "boss battle" soundtrack now plays more often during challenging encounters.
• Fixed asteroid banding artefacts caused by interactions between the limited simulation space and asteroids' density map when the ship moved slowly.
• The EIAA-1337 autopilot no longer attempts to use MLF Haul drones on targets they cant interact with.
• Resolved the issue where large moonlets could appear in multiple locations or far from their intended spot due to failures in the spotfinding algorithm. The algorithm now ensures the moonlet finds a proper location quickly.
• Moonlets and other anomalies no longer drag along with the ship when astrogating away from dense regions of the rings.
• Delivering large amounts of molten iron via an industrial-grade mass driver directly to a ship or station hull now counts as a hostile act.
• Dismissing a crewmember from an active crew now clears associated story flags correctly.
• Cargo containers from Ganymedeans no longer send ore automatically, even with good standing.
• The B8 claim can now be aborted immediately when deploying the beacon by accident.
• The tutorial tooltip now correctly indicates that 'X' is a key to press, not a button to click.
• Fixed the black shadow that sometimes appeared around moonlets when raising gamma settings.
• Adjusted line-of-sight rendering settings to resolve graphical quirks when flying close to certain entities, like moonlets.
• Lines-of-sight now display correctly on ultrawide monitors or dual-monitor setups with a 4:1 aspect ratio or greater.
• Adjusted collider and occluder shapes for moonlets to better match visual representation, reducing confusion.
• Fixed lighting glitches caused by ore venting particle systems when the ship moves at high speeds.
• Disabled the OLED-saving option for the EIME HUD display, resolving the misalignment of the augmented reality display of the cargo bay.
• The Space Bar crew now keeps asteroids further away from the establishment, preventing rocks from spawning on top of the bar and causing chaos.
• Abandoning a race without further interaction no longer causes the racing team to refuse communication. They now forgive upon meeting again, and this works with older saves.
• The racing team now acknowledges rematches correctly when asked shortly after a race.
• Updated translations and translation credits.

[ 2024-09-11 06:41:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Increased beamformed LIDAR resolution by 100%.
• Additional cone focus tuning option for beamformed LIDAR.
• Booting up a B8 Claim Beacon, but aborting the claim, loading it up again and moving it to another location would cause the beacon to establish the claim in the spot it was first deployed.
• Beacons will not follow you when you deploy them again after aborting the claim but will return to their default behaviour.
• When a physical HUD lost its power, the autopilot overlay would stall instead of disappearing. It will now correctly disappear until the power is restored.
• Obonto Habitats and other traders would attempt to trade with NPC ships that docked to them by accident. Since most of the ships are not equipped for trading, this caused the conversation with the player to be cut short on subsequent contacts.
• Adjusted Kitsune cargo bay area to prevent it from accounting cargo before it clears the cargo gates.
• Added compatibility and automatic fixing for some corrupted save data file, preventing crashes when you attempt to load a save that was corrupted.
• When you travelled alongside a ship for an extended period, it could forget your previous conversations. The captain could change their mind about important things, like the favours he owns you, or even who is among their crew.
• When your claim beacon, mining companion or a cargo container just booted up after being released, but you immediately caught it back, you could end up with an open comms channel to a drone that was unable to close it, or respond. That prevented you from contacting any other entity, talking to your crew, or even astrogating back to the Enceladus station until you released that drone again.
• There were still some paths in the dialogue you could take that locked you out of a second round of the race.
• The racing drone will now always call you again when you catch it for the second and subsequent times. It might complain that the race is invalid if it completely runs out of propellant.
• The racing drone will now dodge more aggressively, will keep a larger initial distance, and will move further away when you are re-starting the race.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-07-25 16:18:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Certain large and well-armed stations would get upset if they offered you a deal and you declined - and they didn't take into account that you might be in the middle of a trade to raise enough funds. They are much more patient now.
• Ships and stations that didn't like your cargo containers or mining companions tried to hail them to voice their displeasure while they were still attached to your ship, and opened fire when they didn't respond. They will now raise their concerns directly to you.
• Fixed a memory leak that happened when you switched ships in your fleet at Enceladus. Each subsequent switch to a completely new ship would take a little bit of memory and processing power, which could add up if you have a large fleet and have problems deciding which ship to fly.
• Custom paint will now show up correctly on the habitat of OCP-209.
• You can ask the racing team to race again, as long as their drone is still operational.
• You can't reset the race by calling the racing team while you are in the middle of a race.
• The race will now reset properly when you ask the racing team to race again after you finish one round.
• Racing drones which were caught with salvage manipulators shut down all of their sensors, which resulted in the race being invalidated, as the drone did not see any participants and assumed a catastrophic accident.
• Increased racing drone ship detection range to 64km.
• More reliable one-time astrogation destinations. Previously, if a temporary destination would lead you to a big entity, the game had problems finding the right spot to spawn, it could give up prematurely, making some destinations empty, when they should not be. Now, it will keep trying until it succeeds.
• Unidentified perpetrator was filling rich ore veins with ore chunks of exactly the same ore compositions, causing bafflement in the mining community. With increased telescopic surveillance these pranks stopped now.
• With multiple visits, some astrogation destinations could drift slowly towards the edge of the rings, eventually reaching a location outside of the playable area. They will counteract this now.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-07-15 15:49:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a sensor-related memory leak that caused the game to degrade performance in multi-hour dives.
• Improved sensor performance.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-06-23 07:17:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Triskelion-Armstrong issued a recall on the most recent B8 claim beacon series. A faulty ship detection module inhibited most of the drone functions permanently, which both rendered the claim beacon inoperational shortly after deployment and hindered third-party modifications of the beacons.
• Made the cargo hold walls of OCP-209 a bit thicker. This should prevent carbon-based anomalies from slipping through the cracks.
• You can't pump ore into racing drones, mines and claim beacons anymore.

[ 2024-06-15 19:37:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved dialogue decorators. When a dialogue option results in a member of your crew going away, you will now see a clearer indication that they are leaving, including the time they will be away.
• The exact mineral composition of all the ore chunks you collect and process is now stored in your save file. Previously, the game relied on procedural seed to recreate the same composition after interlunar transit, but this approach proved to be inaccurate - especially if you had partially-processed chunks in your cargo hold.
• Fixed a memory leak that caused the game to use more memory when you encountered entities you could talk to.
• Fixed scale of the locust swarm, in which participants were twice as big as they should be.
• Enhanced performance logs. Additional information contained in long-term performance logs will make it easier to pinpoint any performance issues that build over long periods of time, like any memory leaks.
• If you collected a weregild and the captain you were processing felt like explaining themselves, they got distracted and did not remember that they paid you, allowing you to ask for money a second time.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-06-13 17:29:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Tetsuo HMX-2000I low-stress approval

Tetsuo Engineering has announced the approval of their HMX-2000I iron delivery mass driver for installation on low-stress hardpoints. This approval allows the HMX-2000I to be integrated into a wider variety of spacecraft, significantly enhancing the versatility and efficiency of iron ore transport and delivery in mining operations. While this powerful mass driver boosts throughput and streamlines the iron delivery process, it is important to note that the high rate of iron delivery could cause flight instability on non-spinal mountings.

Coherent Light releases new lens

Coherent Light, a titan in the laser technology industry, is expanding its horizons with the launch of their premium L-50F high-fidelity lens, designed specifically for high-end photography and reconnaissance applications. While the company has built its reputation on pioneering laser systems, this latest innovation showcases expertise in optics. Reconnaissance craft equipped with the L-50F lens will now be able to deliver both better resolution and a wider field of view. This advancement is crucial for detailed surveillance and mapping, enabling more comprehensive and accurate identification of ore deposits and spotting of asteroids.

Armstrong loses planned obsolescence lawsuit

Triskelion-Armstrong has been found guilty of deliberately using software to simulate damage in their AR1500-M salvage manipulators. This practice misled operators into believing their equipment required costly repairs or replacements when no real damage was present. The court's ruling mandates Triskelion-Armstrong to compensate affected users and revise their software to eliminate fraudulent damage indications. This verdict represents a significant win for miners and salvage operators, who can now expect more transparent and reliable performance from their equipment.

Maintenance Logs

• Reversed the polarity of debris spawning. It's now much more likely for a big rock to shatter into multiple smaller fragments when force is applied, but it should preserve the desired tight spawning radius when mining with the excavator or grinder.
• Tetsuo Engineering managed to obtain approval for the installation of Tetsuo HMX-2000I on low-stress hardpoints.
• Adjusted dynamic physics simulation range settings to be less aggressive. Previously, the game could attempt to limit the simulation space in response to new objects being introduced too quickly, which, while it preserved good performance, could make the ice only appear in a narrow band around your ship. This could also lead to some weird ice formations as the simulation range was adjusted back and forth to find the optimal spot. The new settings are much more gentle and make the spawning seem much more natural while preserving the performance benefits.
• Updated ore graphics.
• Improved performance of encounter detection. Previously, when you made a lot of deals with shady entities, the performance of your game could degrade as it attempted to trace each deal you made. The shady activity ledger is much faster now.
• If you went straight from one established deal to a location of another deal of the same type, without visiting any other location between them, you could find nothing.
• Fixed refuelling speed for crafts you attach to your ship. Previously, it used ore transfer pump capacities, which are slower for most crafts.
• Saved games will not contain events that can not happen anymore. This improves loading speed. Old saves will be cleaned up automatically.
• Fixed the title menu being misaligned if you had a save with a long ship name.
• Fixed some of the big, complex moonlets experiencing runaway kinematic reactions, leading them to spin uncontrollably and break game physics.
• New asteroids will not spawn in close proximity to your ship anymore.
• You can now ask BBW to join their cause multiple times in one encounter. Beware that they might get annoyed by this.
• While you can still bind multiple keys for an action in the game, the HUD will only show the first key bound. This prevents the interface overflowing if you manage to bind keys that have long representations, like keypad keys.
• Improved physics performance for certain big, complex moonlets by over 1000%.
• General physics engine collision detection optimisation. Due to how our physics throttling system works, the most immediate effect for you will be the ability for the game to simulate objects further away from your ship. If you desire a better performance instead, make sure to lower the "physics simulation range" slider in the game settings.
• Certain ship and stations that denied you docking for some reason will allow you to dock again when you manage to convince them that they should. That makes certain illegal cargo exchanges, and bounty hunting, flow more naturally when you are performing the operations in close proximity of recipients.
• Having a rogue cargo container attached to your ship prevented other such containers from appearing.
• THI Cargo Containers will now follow you through an astrogation jump when executing the "keep formation" command.
• Fixed tooltips for some buttons on OMS that were not showing when using a gamepad and flickering when showing up.
• Fixed a tooltip on the astrogator tab.
• Sometimes, cargo containers and similar craft attached to your ship would boot up and attempt to escape on Enceladus. This included both the main menu as well as the "examine ship" sections of the Dealer and Fleet menus.
• Added AI inhibitors to racing drones and their illegal modifications. The drone will now shut down in direct proximity to any ship, just like any other autonomous craft. This can make certain events and encounters easier and will prevent such drones from attempting to escape when already caught with docking equipment. Previously, such a drone would only shut down after entering a cargo bay.
• Fixed phantom manipulator damage. If you had a damaged ship in a save at the time when the damage model of the manipulator changed in an upgrade, the manipulator misalignment damage could been transferred past the upgrade, but you were not able to fix it without replacing the whole ship.
• Jury-rigging misaligned Salvage Manipulator will now apply the fixes immediately and you won't need to bash the arm on another rock in order for the fixes to kick in.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-06-05 07:23:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

• If you try to get weregild for the same offence twice, people will now call you out on that.
• Fixed HUD previews not showing up in the Equipment menu.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-05-21 19:58:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New ore graphics. Ores are now more visually distinct and look closer to their real-life counterparts.
• Ships you encounter in the rings, both flying and derelict, will now have more variety in the equipment installed.
• Improved LIDAR performance, AI collision avoidance performance and pilot adrenaline performance.
• Decreased memory fragmentation of Doppler LIDAR. While no memory was leaking, during longer dives your memory could get fragmented over time and exceed your CPU cache sizes, which could slowly degrade performance in multi-hour dives.
• On some occasions, the Enceladus background could zoom out far further than it should.
• Ore carried with a mining companion docked to your ship will not trigger NDCI collision warning anymore, or make your pilot freak out with adrenaline surge.
• You can now scroll the Pilot's tab in OMS with gamepad analogue stick, if it doesn't have focus.
• You can access and scroll the Pilot's tab with the gamepad even if the first contact you have has a "Hail Error" connection status.
• The pilot's tab will scroll automatically when you move through the contacts with your gamepad.
• Fixed some events trying to despwn over and over again when flagged as "essential, not despawning", which could hinder the game performance if you flew away from such an event.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-05-21 04:43:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

• You can now refuel your THI Cargo Containers. This includes the ability to tune the propellant buffer.
• You can give more detailed commands to your THICCs. This allows for new playstyles, including releasing the containers to follow you in a formation while you mine and only re-docking them for processed ore transfer.
• The presence of some drones prevented the correct fracture of asteroids near them, resulting in worse yields with some playstyles. This affected mostly excavating asteroids with grinders and built-in excavators while having NT Mining Companions or THI Cargo Containers attached near such an excavator, but also lowered the yields from mining companions using their own grinders.
• Adjusted spawning routines for ore in close proximity to other entities, such as ships, cargo holds, grinders and more. This should greatly improve the odds of having good yields when mining with an excavator or grinder directly.
• Some drones did not power up their autopilots when released. Machines have a hard time flying when they are powered off. They will be turned on again.
• The ship HUD boot sequence was missing from the Enceladus launch sequence cutscene.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-05-16 17:57:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

• OLED saving was applied to non-static HUD elements, such as autopilot targeting receptacles and ore identification markers. OLED-saving protocol introduces a slight shift of all the static elements of your HUD to prevent OLED (and CRT) displays from being damaged with burn-in from having a prolonged display of a static image. This makes sense for static elements of your HUD. This will cause all the autopilot target markers and ore identification markers to be exactly centered on the target.
• The Autopilot HUD overlay displaying relative velocity and distance was not placed correctly if you targeted the surface of a big entity, such as a moonlet. While the triangle marker was correctly placed on the surface of the object, the velocity overlay was placed over its centre of mass.
• The custom paint job, if present, will now be applied to OCP-209's habitat.
• LIS-Kitsune HUD will now respect brightness tuning for the microseismic scanner floating window.
• The Virtual Flight service in the Tuning menu required you to use the shortcut key to activate it. You will now be able to activate it using your mouse.
• You could take a very specific path through the spacetime that caused some of the points of interest to appear more than once.
• Fixed a bug that caused faction disposition for unique entities, such as certain space stations or station-like structures, not saving individual disposition towards you correctly. This could cause some entities to become hostile on your first interaction. This change is retroactive and will reset all the mistakenly set dispositions automatically.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-05-12 10:15:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Made ore shiny again. A layer of dust covered most of the ore nuggets on your recon craft feed, making them quite dull, but our dedicated team of drones painstakingly cleaned them up to make them shiny again.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-05-09 19:49:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Latent Behavioural Imperatives Found

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.

Mitsudaya-Starbus Grinder Recall

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.

H.475 available for Recon Craft

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.

Maintenance Logs

• 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.

[ 2024-05-06 14:04:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

• 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.

[ 2024-04-14 09:24:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

• 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.

[ 2024-04-06 20:06:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Triskellion-Armstrong suffered a station-wide beacon coordination tightbeam service outage, rendering all the B8 Claim Beacons inoperative for over 48 hours. Lacking tightbeam connections, most beacons deployed in the rings initiated emergency return protocol and returned to the station. The company deployed many drone carriers to place all the beacons back in their registered claim locations free of charge.

[ 2024-03-22 11:08:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Runasimi releases quantum communications

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 Runasimis 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.

New flexible astrogation regulatory

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.

Comprehensive astrogation console update

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.

Maintenance Logs

• 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.

[ 2024-03-19 15:59:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

• If your ship was burning torch or thruster discharge at the very last second of the "return to Enceladus" cutscene, it could make thruster flares disappear completely from subsequent dives.
• Adjusted physical cargo bay actuator settings on OCP-209. Previous settings sometimes caused the cargo bay to get stuck if your framerate dropped to 15 or less.
• The ship spotlight on OCP-209 will not rotate with your habitat anymore.

[ 2024-03-08 20:18:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

EPAA discovers new moonlets

In a groundbreaking development, during a routine mineral survey, the Enceladian Polar Astronomical Array (EPAA) detected new, previously undiscovered moonlets located in the plane of Saturn's Rings. What sets these celestial bodies apart is their unique characteristic: unlike their predecessors, these moonlets do not form the typical propeller formations observed in planetary rings. This discovery defies the current understanding and theories of moonlet formation and its behavior within the dense and dynamic environment of planetary rings. EPAA has announced plans for an on-site examination slated for later this month.

New autopilot software regulations

A critical announcement issued today by the Enceladian Space Regulatory Commission unveiled comprehensive new regulations, mandating that all spacecraft autopilot systems must be enhanced to include precise tracking of surfaces of larger asteroids and moonlets. This regulatory overhaul has ignited controversy, as there are growing concerns that Elon Interstellar, a frontrunner in autopilot technology with pre-existing surface tracking capabilities, may have influenced the push for these updated standards. Critics contend that this move unfairly benefits the Martian-based conglomerate, triggering a heated debate over the equity of the new regulations.

Mineral discharge terminal upgraded

In response to the unprecedented boom in mining activities within the Rings, the Enceladus Prime ore unloading facility has recently completed a series of significant upgrades to enhance its operational capacity. Having reached their operational thresholds, the previously utilized Armstrong-TX7500 unloading arms contributed to considerable delays, resulting in lengthy queues of mining ships awaiting their turn to offload their valuable yields. The facility has integrated the cutting-edge Tetsuo-series electromagnetic delivery system into its unloading infrastructure to address this bottleneck. This state-of-the-art upgrade is set to revolutionize the station's processing capabilities, promising an astounding increase in throughput efficiency by over 9000%.

Maintenance logs

• Added a new moonlet story event to encounter.
• Enhanced autopilot targeting. You can now target a specific spot on the surface of a large object, like a moonlet, and autopilot will align to that spot. This prevents accidents where you click on a wall of a cave you were traversing to have the autopilot spin your ship toward the center of mass of the moonlet, wrecking your thrusters in the process. Now, it will instead point your ship towards the part of the wall you clicked on, wrecking your thrusters in the process.
• When you are scrapping your ship paint along a rocky surface, it will not sound like multiple impacts anymore.
• Improved performance of ship-mounted spotlights. This will be most noticeable on integrated GPUs.
• Improved adrenaline collision detection performance. This lowers the CPU requirement all around.
• Improved pathfinding for entities that rarely move, such as space stations. This lowers CPU requirements near such objects.
• Entities that cannot move at all will not imagine the paths they could take if they suddenly gain the ability to move. Such electric dreams wasted CPU cycles. They will now dream about android sheep instead.
• You can't salvage traveling phage stations anymore. They have their jobs, and they intend to fulfill them.
• A quirk in the spawning routines could cause many more rocks to spawn near entities that should not contain rocks inside. This artificially increased the density of asteroids around stations and moonlets and caused waves of asteroids to decrease game performance.
• Updated radiation shaders to work with ships that are hidden in caves.
• Your astrogator will need to have a way to detect a ship before he can trace it with the tactical marker. This means that they will not mark ships hiding inside caves anymore and can slow down ship identification in dense areas, like propeller formations or around moonlets.
• Improved the layout of the dive summary screen. Ores will now be spaced out equally, with unusual finds closer to the center of the screen.
• Optimized dive summary screen so that it won't be bogged down - or crash - if you bring hundreds of chunks of raw ore back.
• Added extra lights and adjusted a number of shadow settings for the brand-new moonlet event.
• Fixed two of the POI events not linking correctly, which caused you to rediscover a plain "moonlet" while you already knew about the secret inside.
• Pulse thrusters and torches that ran out of reaction mass during operation continued to burn as long as the control was held, draining the negative mass out of the universe and upsetting the dark matter/energy balance.
• The dealership was raising the price of the ships with kinetic and nanodrone systems by more than the system was worth, upsetting the economy somewhat.
• Ship plumes from RCS discharge inside moonlets will not be visible on the visual feed.
• You cannot astrogate from inside of a moonlet anymore.
• If your autopilot velocity limit was set to a number that was not a multiple of ten, the velocity slider on the in-dive Astrogation tab could not be set all the way to the top.
• Changed the way docking arms forcefully undock your ship. They are now aware of the ship's orientation or station you are docked to and will eject you away from that ship instead of just moving you the closest way outside the designated docking spot.
• Big Bad Wolf will now always stop completely after docking with you.
• Changed the physics settings of the External Impact Absorbers. They are now softer, dealing less damage in kinetic collisions, and their collision resolution uses a continuous collision detection algorithm - which should prevent physics glitches when impacting megaton asteroids at high speeds but does decrease the physics performance a bit.
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-03-03 19:56:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Changed the way collision impact velocity is computed to address some edge cases, like attached equipment causing kinetic damage when wedged against your ship.
• Lowered difficulty of the hunting party you get on your tail for big transgressions against the major factions.
• Time spent flying the break-bulk cargo version of the AT-K225 ship will count towards the piloting achievements. This change is retroactive and will account for all the time you spent flying this ship in the past automatically.
• Christmas decorations at the Enceladus Prime station are not shining so brightly anymore.
• You could un-pause the game with a Settings menu still open if you opened and closed your Steam Overlay.
• The Cothon-211 "Chonker" excavator now has stronger motors to compensate for its larger size.
• Restored missing purple fusion spike for EI-ZAP torch.
• Sometimes, distant ship thruster flares would not be viable on your astrogation map if you picked the Enceladus station as your destination, but they showed normally for all other astrogation targets.
• The color of distant flares was not consistent between the telescope view and the drone view.
• Fixed trade-in value recorded to the ship logs, which will now correctly show how much the ship you were selling was worth.
• If you bought a ship without any nanodrones, installed a nanodrone-based system but no storage, and saved your game, upon loading it back, the installed nanodrone storage option would show as an empty space, instead of spelling out "empty".
• Updated translations.

[ 2024-01-03 10:54:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The asteroid depletion map is now expanded to hold 800% more data. While the previous setup for asteroid depletion worked as intended, the map could overflow in as few as 1.5 hours in-game in some playstyles. This meant that some players could never feel the effect of their favorite mining spots being depleted. The new setting will ensure about 12 hours in-game before the asteroids drift back to a depleted area.
• As a direct consequence, save games can now take up to 8MB. Saves should still be completed in under a second, even on low-end machines.
• Automatic compaction of the save games. For some playstyles, saves contained depletion maps that were mostly zeroes, which were meaningless but inflated the save size artificially. You will now see these zeroes stripped automatically. This also further increases the retention period for the depletion map.
• New mining companion-related event you can encounter in the rings.
• Fixed glitches in some rocket plume shapes.
• Improved performance of rocket plumes. These will be most noticeable on integrated GPUs, with the game running with higher "lights" settings.
• Fixed the wrong name for recovered mass driver rounds displayed on the dive summary screen.
• Added partial community-driven support for the Thai language.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-12-13 17:19:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed plasma throwers are not registering right on the Kitsune, causing them to accumulate damage that could not be fixed but disappeared when you re-loaded your save.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-12-01 08:32:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

The nominations for the Steam awards have just started, and we would like to ask you to vote for V: Rings of Saturn in the Sit back and Relax category. V: Rings of Saturn captures the essence of the "Sit Back and Relax" category effortlessly. With its soothing soundtrack and captivating gameplay, it transports players to the tranquil beauty of Saturn's rings. It's a game that invites you to sit back, take a deep breath, and immerse yourself in a world where worries fade away (well, unless you meet pirates...). Thank you for your unwavering support!

[ 2023-11-21 18:01:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Adds a warning in the Settings menu if you configure the game in a way that might cause your performance to be really bad.
• Microwave emitters will now be less prone to misaligning, and when the dish is damaged, it will not bend so much. This prevents visual quirks, which sometimes led to the dish appearing as if it was completely detached from a ship.
• Fixed internals of the "asteroid shower" event, which misclassified some of the ore chunks, leading to possible unusual spawn behavior later in the same spot.
• Fixed a bug that caused ships sometimes to try to scan the space between worlds during stage transitions or some equipment purchases. The eldritch abominations inhibiting that non-space did not like that and caused the game to crash when the ship glimpsed between realities.
• In some cases, messages about aborting communication would be repeated multiple times in the game logs.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-11-19 14:08:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Changed the way NPC impatience works in dialogues. NPC can now become more impatient when talking to you during the conversation if you attempt to astrogate away. This makes quest dialogues flow more naturally if you decide to astrogate during them.
• NPC ships will not try to shoot through objects that they know are indestructible anymore.
• AI now has a better concept of line of sight. It will attempt to position itself for a good shot when fighting and dodge behind objects when running away.
• Sometimes, you could end up having a channel open to a ship, but it was done talking to you. This prevented further contact with other ships and returning to Enceladus until that ship left the simulation area.
• NPC ships will now close the comms channel to you immediately when they have nothing more to say to you.
• Racing path prediction was missing one vertex.
• When ships tell you they leave for repairs, they will leave instead of reverting to the default NPC state.
• Profiler is now available in the Virtual Flight Service.
• Kitsune's spinal low-stress hardpoint is now described as such. Equipment that can be mounted on a spinal hardpoint is also marked appropriately.
• The autopilot overlay refresh rate is now limited and on par with the refresh rates of the rest of the onboard computers. This improves immersion and performance, but the computer output looks different, and I'm looking for feedback on it.
• Powered off autopilot won't issue collision alarms anymore.
• Ship mass calculation will now show correct mass and delta-v values for ships with variable geometry, accounting for moving parts and extra equipment, like radiators.
• Kitsune cargo bay light will not shine when the ship is not powered up.
• Kitsune will not flash with a blue light when spawning.
• You could take a specific astrogation path between multiple moonlets that could cause you to arrive in a twin moonlet formation that should not be there.
• When performing an EVA recovery from Kitsune, your crew will exit through the proper airlock, accounting for the articulated cargo bay state.
• Cothon-211 "Chonker" had a slightly off-balance excavator, which caused strange physics interactions when the time resolution was raised due to adrenal boost or using the OMS menu while the excavator was open. It will behave more consistently now and will also open up a bit more.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-11-17 18:02:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The crew level-up notification during the return trip to the station will trigger earlier in the cutscene, so it won't be cut short by changing the stage to Enceladus station.
• When changing from a ship with a consumable (nanodrones, kinetic ammunition) installed back to one without it, the number of consumables displayed on the launch dive screen would not update to zero, showing phantom cargo.
• Habitats that change locations will now tell you this only once, even if you un-dock and re-dock again during the same encounter. Previously, re-docking could invalidate the coordinates of another habitat if it happened to be less than 50 km away from you.
• Particle effects that are currently not visible will not play now, improving performance. This also prevents some particle effects from playing partway through and out-of-sequence if you move your camera rapidly.
• Fixed stone jet particle effects that will again be ejected from asteroids hit with high-powered kinetic impacts.
• Audio effects for adrenaline surge and the UI beeps will now respect the "SFX volume" slider setting.
• Setting shadow levels to low, but not zero, setting previously could flood the game logs with warnings. Now, a proper minimum value will be enforced for all the lights.
• The HAL9000 HUD OMS display could overflow the physical monitor it was on when you installed thrusters with long names on certain ships. Now, it will cut off too-long thruster labels instead.
• Kistune will not advertise that it uses a K37 reactor anymore.
• Fixed a graphical glitch that caused a powered-down Kitsune to be displayed with a green square all over it on OSX M1 systems. This mostly affected the Fleet and Dealer views.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-11-06 11:11:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Kitsune now available on the second-hand market

Nakamura Dynamics unveils the ND-LIS Kitsune, a refurbished Light Interlunar Shuttle from decommissioned capital ships, now available to independent buyers. Packed with advanced features, including a variable-geometry cargo bay and a nuclear thermal rocket that seamlessly switches to ramjet mode in the atmosphere, Kitsune guarantees top-tier performance and reliability within a compact frame. While its form factor would theoretically enable docking with many civilian crafts, it's important to note that it is not yet approved for such use, underscoring Nakamura Dynamics' commitment to safety and quality standards.

Spacegate Scandal revealed

Following the "Spacegate" scandal that revealed that many spaceship manufacturers advertised false cargo bay sizes, new regulations for spaceship specification require manufacturers to advertise only usable space of a cargo bay in spaceworthy configurations. Some companies, who at this time opted to remain anonymous, announced that they will seek justice in the Martian courts, as the new regulations disproportionally affect their products. New product specifications should be available at the ship dealerships across the system this week, matching closely to sizes reported by specialized cargo bay scanners.

Digital Mimas concert scheduled next week

The Digital Mimas Orchestra, known for its groundbreaking fusion of classical music and cutting-edge technology, announces a much-anticipated concert at the virtual reality space of Enceladus Prime station. This extraordinary event promises to redefine classical music by introducing never-before-heard compositions that will transport attendees to celestial realms. Combining captivating audio and visual experiences, the orchestra's performance aims to blur the lines between reality and music.

Maintenance Logs

• A new ship - Nakamura Dynamics Light Interlunar Shuttle "Kitsune" is now available in the spaceship dealership near you.
• New equipment: ND-LIS Heads-Up Display is now available for purchase and retrofit.
• Free space estimation in microseismic scanners of some ships was inaccurate, especially for ships with variable geometry.
• Additional soundtrack.
• Adds support for Kitsune-specific achievements.
• Sensor fading is now visible on big LIDAR displays in the OMS menu, making it easier to spot outdated data and the current sweep angle.
• Sensor displays, like lidars and radars, will now refresh at a rate consistent with all the other indicators on your HUD. This improves performance, especially visible on low-end systems.
• Improved performance of the proximity alert detection for the autopilot comfort mode.
• Fixes font rendering for Chinese Simplified language.
• The "docking clamps locked on the ship" sound will not play anymore when you change the loadout of your ship or switch to another ship in your fleet.
• Fixed "Dead or Alive" achievement, which was not granted when it should be.
• Changed physical transition between static and fully simulated models. This prevents some physics glitches at the Enceladus station, like ships drifting away from the dock, and improves performance.
• Updated ship specifications with more accurate cargo bay space data.
• Doppler color shift was overcompensated when your pilot was under the effects of adrenaline, causing them to see colors where there should be none.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-11-04 18:03:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Optimized proximity sensors readout during astrogation. The astrogation sequence could be slower on low-end machines, especially with a high-resolution LIDAR installed.
• Fixed the Morse code radios to deliver more readable Morse code and not confuse dots with dashes anymore.
• The "Driving Stick" achievement will not be granted if you just float in place or spin around a habitat.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-10-22 17:02:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The remaining propellant icon will now display again on the Eagle Prospector HUD.
• Previously, some people would confuse you for a genocidal maniac even if you did not commit any genocides recently.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-10-18 19:35:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

• If you install a smaller drone, ammunition, or propellant container, and your ship currently has supplies that exceed its capacity, you will get a refund on the excess consumables as soon as you launch your dive.
• AI will now treat ships or drones docked to other vessels and stations differently. This will most noticeably cause friendly ships to not attempt to communicate with and examine each of your containers if you run a general cargo ship, leaving your vicinity much sooner.
• The racing team will take a clue that you are not interested in racing when you tell them so and will leave you alone, even if they really like you.
• Added a workaround for a driver bug that caused the game to crash on Intel-based OSX systems.
• Fixed animated icons on the Eagle Prospector HUD not displaying if the HUD did not boot on-screen.

[ 2023-10-16 19:42:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Sensor hardware retrofits deregulated

A significant policy shift was announced today as sensor hardware retrofits are now deregulated at Enceladus Prime Station. Captains can now seamlessly replace their ship's LIDAR with an array of options that bring subtler Lidar sweeps, calibrated Doppler sensors, and alternative sensor technologies. With the boundaries lifted, independent mining crews now have unprecedented control over their operations.

Decommissioned point defences found defective

In a recent examination of some decommissioned point defense systems available at second-hand market, it has come to light that some of these systems were found to be defective. The station's engineering team has identified issues in the power-saving eco-friendly mode installed in NDPT-4205 as part of its decommissioning, which resulted with the system entering power-save mode at random, endangering ships that relied on these Point Defence Turrets for craft protection.ll decommissioned point defenses will undergo thorough maintenance and inspection to ensure they meet the highest safety standards.

Polar telescope array found new moonlets

Enceladian Polar Telescope Array has revealed the presence of new moonlets orbiting the rings. These tiny celestial companions have remained hidden until now by thick formations of ice above them. Both researchers and space enthusiasts alike are eager to study these newfound bodies. These newfound moonlets may contain valuable resources or unique geological features, offering potential mining and commercialization prospects, further contributing to the profitability of ring excavation ventures.

Maintenance Logs

• Sensor upgrades. You can now replace your ship's LIDAR with another one. There are multiple options to choose from. Some of them come with their very own tuning options.
• Sensor sweep time and resolution tuning. You can now opt for a faster response or a higher resolution.
• Changed astrogation proximity detector bubble to respect new Lidar tuning. This required some graphical changes, as the sweep shape might not cover 360 degrees anymore.
• Lidar sweep can now be subtly observed on all lidar displays, making detecting the direction of a ping much easier.
• You can tune the brightness of HUDs with virtual displays now.
• Tuning options for autopilots and head-up displays will now have separate sections in the tuning menu.
• Lidar response pings are now smaller and will not obfuscate the sensor view so much.
• Re-calibrated the Doppler sensor for more accurate relative velocity measurements.
• An additional encounter. There are more things to discover in the rings.
• Cleaned up the shader code, improving performance a bit on machines with integrated GPUs.
• Additional dialogue path for the "find missing child" quest, should you decide to act instead of talk in the ultimate encounter.
• Improved performance and accuracy of collision detection and spawning of all moonlets.
• A bug in NDPT-4205 software caused the turret to enter a power-saving mode if all the targets the targeting computer could detect were ineligible by either being obscured by other objects or excluded by the safety protocol of the turret for long enough for the actuator to reach the resting position. Such a turret would only wake up from the power-saving mode when a new object entered its detection range.
• Additional colourblind mode.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-10-14 15:01:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

In our most recent vote, we received a remarkable total of 1800 votes, marking a significant increase of over 600% compared to the previous vote. This surge in participation is primarily attributed to the inclusion of the Steam community, and we are truly grateful for the enthusiastic response from all our players.
What's particularly fascinating is that despite this substantial increase in the number of votes and the expansion to the Steam platform, the choices made by you, the players, remain remarkably consistent. Your collective voice has spoken, and it's clear that certain aspects of the game resonate strongly with the entire community.
Based on the results, we've organized the development priorities into three groups:

High Priority

The top three results from the vote will be our primary development focus for the upcoming months. These areas received the highest number of votes and have been designated as top priorities. They are as follows:

• Gameplay and Mechanics (1150 votes): Enhancing and expanding the core gameplay and mechanics.
• More Hardware (1052 votes): Introducing new in-game hardware and equipment options to provide you with additional tools and customization choices.
• New Ships (1041 votes): Adding new spacecraft options, including ship variants - and associated HUD improvements.

Medium Priority

The following results will be integrated into our development roadmap as secondary priorities. These areas will receive attention whenever there is available development time to spare:

• Mod Support (858 votes): Enhancing modding capabilities, including Steam Workshop integration, a modding API, and improved mod compatibility checks.
• More Events (854 votes): Expanding in-game events, such as crew agendas, ring encounters, and rare mineable resources, to enrich the gameplay experience.

Low Priority

The areas beyond the top six will be treated as conditional priorities. They will only receive priority attention if critical issues arise during the next development phase that necessitates immediate attention in these categories. The specific results in this category include:

• Immersion Features (710 votes): Deepening the immersion within the game world through additional details, dialogue options, and quest-solving methods.
• Story Arc 2.0 (624 votes): The next chapter of the game's story arc, focusing on the future of AI in the rings.
• Quality of Life (506 votes): UI and interface improvements to enhance the overall user experience.
• NPC AI (461 votes): Enhancements to NPC ship behavior to make them smarter and more unpredictable.
• Performance (237 votes): Optimization efforts to ensure a smoother gaming experience.

It's worth noting that the preferences expressed in the vote results may differ from the distribution of opinions observed in the comments section. It's not uncommon for the vast majority of players to prefer not voicing their opinions in individual posts or comments but rather participating in the structured voting process. This divergence in communication styles reinforces the importance of the voting system as a comprehensive and representative method for gauging the collective desires of the player community.
Voting patterns on both our Discord community and the Steam forums exhibited striking similarity. Despite the different platforms and player communities, the preferences expressed in the votes closely aligned.

[ 2023-10-08 14:17:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New in-game extension manager allows you to pick which installed extensions and DLC you want to use. It will present itself automatically when it detects a new extension being installed and allows you to pick if you want to use it for your game. You can access the manager at any time from the title menu.
• Improved stability on M1/OSX systems. The modern OSX system depreciated OpenGL support, which the game uses, which means that driver bugs that are currently present in the system are never going to be addressed and fixed by Apple. Godot Engine 3.x, on the other hand, uses exclusively OpenGL for rendering. This leaves us in a state where known bugs in the system driver were causing the game to crash. This release includes a number of workarounds in the game code meant to address that and call the function methods in a different way in the hope of working around all the existing driver bugs in the system driver. The stability is greatly improved, but the workarounds impose a much longer time required to change the display mode (fullscreen/borderless window/windowed).
• You can now turn off your main torch in the Minding Virtual Flight Service.
• You will not get achievements for tasks performed during simulated flight anymore.
• Your crew will not gain experience for flying the MVFS simulation.
• Added dark bars on the top and bottom of the initial dive cutscene to make the texts displayed there, including the transit tips, easier to read.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-10-06 09:30:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

This month vote is here to figure out the development priorities as we move towards 2.0. Things you don't vote for will still be done, just a bit later. Vote for things you want to see sooner! Remember, you can vote for more than one thing. Or all the things. Or none of the things. Let us know all the areas where you think we need to push forward!

• Mod Support: Steam Workshop integration, modding API, expanded mod loader and mod compatibility checks, or Koder directly helping make mods.
• Performance: Optimizing the game further is always an option. Pick this if you think the game should run smoother.
• Gameplay and mechanics: Make the game do new things or do things better. Expand mining companions, have ships leave their processed cargo when they blow up, new unique services, and similar changes to the base gameplay.
• New ships: New ships! Need we say more? It can include ship variants or completely new ships. This also includes new HUDs for those ships.
• NPC ship behavior: We could work on making NPC ships a little smarter and more wily. This will bleed into other areas, as things like your companions and THICCs, and the EI autopilot all utilize NPC behavior, and autopilot behaviors in general might be improved.
• Hardware: We should get some new toys, like the spinny launcher ore even a LIDAR upgrade category. Maybe finishing up the groundwork to get NSWR drives in play for big ships, or a point defense laser, or other interesting utility options.
• Story Arc 2.0: Let's begin the next chapter! Our second arc will involve the future of AI in the rings.
• Events: We need more things that happen. Crew agendas, encounters in the rings, sights to see. Rare mineables seem like they were a popular suggestion, but this also includes a number of random encounters that could spice up the game.
• Immersion: Flesh out the world with new details, try and make it breathe a little more, perhaps working on more options for existing dialog, adding extra interactions for rare coincidences, giving you more ways to solve quests.
• Quality of Life: Generally UI and interface improvements to make like easier; things like filters for the hiring panel.

If you prefer to vote over Discord, here is the current voting thread.

[ 2023-10-03 10:20:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Virtual Flight Service unveiled

Minding LF just unveiled a revolutionary ship virtualization technology capable of accurately simulating a spacecraft in a controlled environment. A free version of the Virtual Flight Service is now available for every registered ship in the Enceladus Prime station, across Tuning Bays, Hardware Shops, and even the Enceladian Ship Dealership, allowing its customers to take ships on virtual test drives - free of charge.

New spotlight regulations

Stringent regulations have been implemented to restrict the maximum brightness of ship spotlight reflectors. This crucial action follows alarming revelations about the grave risks associated with high-intensity spotlights, which have not only been blinding the astronavigational telescope array but potentially endangering other ships. Previously, some ships, notably the popular K37 models, were often equipped with spotlights of blinding luminosity. These intense beams had the capability to effortlessly penetrate several meters of ice, occasionally revealing hidden structures within moonlets concealed beneath meters of ice.

Digital sabotage uncovered

During routine diagnostics of onboard systems, Enceladus shipyard employees discovered that Mining Companions were abusing the ship's sanbus communication system to disrupt the operation of essential tracking systems. This irresponsible behavior could have led to devices such as rescue manipulators or point defense systems ignoring objects of interest to the Companions, thereby exposing critical operations to danger. Titan Heavy Industries issued an immediate recall to address the issue.

Maintenance Logs

• Minding Virtual Flight Service now allows you to instantly test any change you make to your ship configuration in a safe, virtual environment without leaving the Enceladus Prime station. The service is available in the Dealer, Hardware, and Tuning menus.
• Godot Engine upgraded to 3.5.3.
• Ship reflectors will not reveal structures inside moonlets anymore.
• AT-K225 HUD displays are not so bright anymore. Multiple pilots complained about high-intensity displays blinding them during prolonged missions.
• Mining Companions will not prevent other hardware from acting upon objects they examine - unless they are actually attempting to intercept them.
• Raising the HUD size caused certain UI elements, like the Dive Summary screen and the simulation subwindows, to lose resolution.
• The MPU power indicator on your HUD is now brighter, making it easier to spot when it is processing ore.

[ 2023-10-02 19:45:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Astrogators matrix multiplication error could cause your ship to hit some big objects, most notably the most recently discovered class of moonlets, during astrogation sequences.

[ 2023-09-25 14:15:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Hitting molten iron with a tungsten projectile will no longer cause the game to crash.
• Using the keyboard autopilot target key on Linux-based sometimes triggered a race condition that could cause the game to crash.
• Big moonlets are reflecting more light now.
• Spinning moonlets will now preserve their angular momentum. You won't find a moonlet spinning in the opposite direction on your subsequent visits.
• When NANI used all its internal uranium salt tank, it would still emit light.
• Fixed a memory leak in the debug subsystem that could cause the game performance to degrade if you run the game with the --debug-console command line options. Non-debug runs were not affected.
• The pirates will now avoid attacks on the very rim of the rings

[ 2023-09-24 09:57:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ships approved for operation

Antonoff-Titan K225-BB break-bulk cargo carrier now approved for sale on Enceladus Prime station. A popular second-hand modification designed for carrying cargo that cannot be easily processed into standardized containers sacrifices some of its docking bays to extend the raw cargo capacity of its cargo hold.

Tetsuo Industries releases an industrial massdriver

Tetsuo Engineering, a trailblazer in advanced propulsion technology, proudly introduces the HMX-2000I Mass Driver. The HMX-2000I Mass Driver combines the power of proven magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) technology from rocket thrusters with state-of-the-art superconducting acceleration coils. This fusion of engineering marvels results in an industrial iron delivery system with unparalleled throughput. It boasts the capability to accelerate iron particles up to an astounding 2000 meters per second, effortlessly delivering over 500 kilograms of material every second.

Astrogeological breaktrough

Recently created new generation of microseismic sensor arrays have revealed a remarkable geological revelation: the existence of pockets containing pure ore veins nestled within Saturn's A-ring. As scientists prepare to delve into the mysteries surrounding the formation of these valuable ore deposits, the miners' guild has seized the opportunity to enhance the sensors on their spacecraft, with the aim of maximizing the profitability of their upcoming missions.

Maintenance logs

• New ship variant: Antonoff-Titan K225-BB break-bulk cargo carrier.
• Tetsuo HMX-2000I Heavy Mass Driver is now available for purchase in the dealership near you.
• Mineral veins are now more pronounced, making rings surveying and exploration more meaningful.
• Obonto USV-D Microseismic Series Reconnaissance Craft sensors are now 200% more accurate.
• New moonlet class recently discovered in the Rings by the Enceladian Astrology Division.
• New Uranium purification methods drove the price of raw uranium ore up by 400%.
• Hot kinetic ammunition will now cause thermal damage. Depending on the systems used, this can mean from 5% to 30% more damage from kinetic weapons.
• Thruster plume graphics will not depend on the physics framerate anymore.
• Some used AT-K225 ships were sold with a non-functional high-stress hardpoints. You could buy and sell hardware for it, but it was not installed on your ship. Crew complained abouit big hardware crates in the mess hall.
• Projectiles that transfer heat to a target will lose that heat, preserving the conservation of energy.
• Adjusted the random event distribution. Some very rare events are not so rare anymore, and some pretty common ones will be less common.
• Astrogators will now be more careful when plotting a course towards big objects, ensuring the entry vector will not collide with their destination.
• Improved physics performance of the engine around moonlets of all shapes and sizes.
• 4k textures DLC expanded to cover new types of encounters.
• Obonto habitats with whom you have excellent relations with will not transfer all the ore you sold them to the Enceladus station, where you can sell it again for even more profit.
• The music mixer could mix between three tracks, rather than the two it was supposed to, which led to some unexpected music mixes.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-09-21 19:45:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The Xaser team at Enceladus was found slacking off and not burning a correct entry path for you, even if you paid the full fee, on the initial dive into the rings, causing some accidents as some ships collided with iceroids that were supposed to be cleared. Disciplinary action was taken.
• Mines laid out by your friends will not follow you when you are astrogating away.
• Fixes Steam integration on OSX and Linux systems. Due to library version mismatch, some Steam functions were unavailable on these systems, like the game automatically pausing when Steam Overlay was turned on. This version publishes the same library version for all the platforms, including an updated Windows version.

[ 2023-09-08 17:22:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

The original soundtrack of V: Rings of Saturn has been expanded with two brand new tracks! These tracks, previously featured in the Cinematic and Gameplay trailers, are now part of the our Original Soundtrack DLC. This incredible music has been composed by Evader. This is a free update for everyone who owns the soundtrack, and comes with both .mp3 and .flac versions of the files. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127590/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Original_Soundtrack/

[ 2023-09-07 09:20:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

• After reviewing hundreds of hours of combined flight records, engineers from Titan Heavy Industries isolated multiple instances of ship captains performing maneuvers that put THI Cargo Containers and other unmanned craft sharing its chassis stress levels exceeding operational parameters, causing heavy damage to the reactor core itself and presenting a risk of premature catastrophic failure. A recall has been issued for all leased craft, and a more robust reactor design has been implemented. Reactors of the THI Cargo Containers and Mining Companions are now more resistant to g-forces and are less likely to get their rods jammed when you perform manouvers with a drone attached to your ship.
• Enceladus Flight Control will now notify owners of all unmanned crafts if they spot a critical reactor failure on the long-range polar telescope array, or then such ship clears the ring area and enters the interlunar return trajectory. You will get notifications when your Cargo Container or Mining Companion explodes or is on its way to successfully return to the station.
• After numerous complaints of ore not being delivered, the Mining Guild of Enceladus now offers mediation services for all Wingman contracts, ensuring that all ore mined under the contract is transferred to the employer. Hired wingmen will now always transfer the ore they dug up to you.
• Nakamura Dynamics released a new patch for the NT Mining Companion piloting protocols. The companions will now perform astrogation jumps with the host ship, provided they have sufficient reaction mass.
• New fixed camera mode.
• Improved resolution of the geologist vein coverage map.
• Improved performance on systems with older or integrated GPU cards.
• Tuning autopilot rotational velocity limit will not affect your ship's fly-by-wire rotational speed.
• NPC will now have to be aware of you in order to change their opinions about you based on your actions. Undetected sins will go unpunished.
• Derelicts refused to boot up or even start the derelict salvage event if they saw you blow up another derelict. The ghost of the machine was angry. It was pacified.
• Fixed mineral marker animation. It was flickering if your geologist was not very experienced.
• You can't talk with Big Bad Wolf about acquiring Ganymedean flight logs repeatedly.
• Removed the white flash when you start the dive.
• Polished up military ship class descriptions for kinetic ammunition magazines to align with the military classification of ships.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-09-04 19:33:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Simulation Theory Catalyzes Quantum Computing

A groundbreaking leap in simulation theory has triggered a revolution in the realm of quantum computing. Researchers from Runasimi Inc have harnessed the latest insights from simulation theory to engineer quantum computer systems with unprecedented capabilities. These advanced systems exhibit enhanced computational power and stability, pushing the boundaries of what was previously thought possible. As the scientific community races to comprehend the implications, the marriage of simulation theory and quantum computing promises to reshape the landscape of computational technology.

Miners Guild Stands Against Trainee Exploitation

In a bold move, the Miners Guild has launched a fervent protest against the alleged exploitation of trainees within the space industry. The guild is demanding equal opportunities for all crew members hired for space stations, insisting that each individual should have the chance to perform and gain experience in various roles. The call for fairness resonates with those advocating for improved working conditions and ethical employment practices throughout the system. As the debate unfolds, the Miners Guild aims to reshape the landscape of crew training and station operations.

New Regulations Tighten Ship Inspections

A set of comprehensive regulations has been introduced by the Enceladus Corp, heralding a significant shift in ship inspection procedures across the station. Going beyond traditional safety measures, the new rules stipulate that all ships undergoing periodic and pre-flight inspections must now be photographed extensively. This measure aims to curb the rise of used ships being circulated with fraudulent flight records, ensuring transparency and accuracy in ship histories. Shipowners and industry experts are cautiously optimistic, believing that the new regulations will bolster trust and reliability within the space travel ecosystem.

Maintenance Logs

• Engine update to Godot 3.5.2. This fixes some area overlap issues, which were a root cause for a number of very rare, but impactful problems, including but not limited to: ore getting embedded into ship hull preventing astrogation and sometimes causeing heavy damage, point defence system ignoring some targets, AI not detecting some obstacles and attempting to fly straight through them. The engine upgrade also comes with a phleora of other fixes and performance improvements.
• New visuals for the Fleet and Dive ship display.
• Hiring multiple geologists or astrogators will improve identification speed in their respective fields.
• Hiring multiple mechanics will shorten the time required to perform maintenance. Not having any mechanics in your company will extend that time.
• Re-balanced astrogator and geologist identification times to make bringing multiple crew of the same role more impactful. Astrogators will now take much more time to spot a ship on the very edge of their range.
• "Not passing inspection" marker on used ships in the dealer and fleet menus will now be consistent with actual inspection results. They used to show only on badly damaged ships.
• Unusually high traffic at the edge of the rings will now die out slowly over the course of the game time.
• Improved drone zone visualization in the Tuning menu and its performance. You will now be able to see the entire area covered by your drones.
• Improved resolution of the ship preview simulation in the Tuning menu.
• Improved game performance when there is a lot of identified ore floating around your ship.
• Lifepods will now have tactical markers.
• Improved music mixing.
• Fixed line-of-sight shader settings. The previous shader settings caused some graphical glitches inside caverns and around moonlets that have caverns. New settings don't have these problems and use fewer resources, improving game performance.
• When you accessed the ship logs for the second time, they would not scroll all the way to the end.
• Ship logs sometimes did not get focus on the last line of the logs.
• Fixed a vertical line visible on K44 if you examined the ship in your fleet.
• Added support for physical scancodes for hardpoint toggles to fix issues on unusual keyboard layouts, which require two keypresses for a number.
• The "pick your dive target" screen will now present a zoom level consistent with the zoom slider position when you first enter it.
• You can't sell ships that are undergoing maintenance.
• Ships that undergo maintenance are now marked as such in your Fleet menu.
• Ships appeared upside-down in some areas of the Fleet and Dealer menus.
• Mars Power Industries were caught red-handed, lying in the specification of muzzle velocity of their railgun. An errata has been issued.
• The dive summary screen will not pop up if the only things you brought in your cargo bay were something you already owned, like your own mining companion. This also prevents a glitch that allows you to use the station menus when you had a completely empty summary screen displayed in the foreground.
• The price assessment markers on the Dive Summary screen will now word-wrap the ship name to fit into the assessment square.
• The intro animation will now play correctly on displays with different than 16:9 aspect ratios, adding black bars on the sides if required.
• The emergency autopilot and automatic return when exiting the rings will not be disabled now if your astrogation velocity match is active.
• Having a lot of raw ore in your cargo hold will not distract your geologists anymore. Geologists will not be distracted by ore they have already identified either.
• Playing with a very low framerate will not cause your geologist to identify ores slower anymore.
• If you had your Pilot tab selected and entered the OMS menu, the transponder and ship name labels would display much more slowly than they should.
• Ship simulation preview in the Tuning menu will not be cropped on vertical displays.
• Fixed Enceladus background aspect ratio on vertical displays.
• You won't be able to trigger the Enceladus menu buttons when your dive summary screen is active. Spamming the action key while the menu is appearing will not cause that either.
• Fixed baked-in radiator glow on AT-K225 not reaching the entire ship's hull.
• Mass drivers will not break the conservation of energy anymore. This change only affects tuned mass drivers.
• Fixed a bug that could cause you not to find a POI if you dived directly to it from Enceladus. This only affected a subset of astrogation targets.
• Fixed nanodrone propulsion laser audio.
• Fixed a bug that caused the game to slow down and flood the game logs with messages when you undocked and re-docked to a space station that had nothing more to say to you.
• Focus was lost when you sent the very last message in a conversation using either a gamepad or a keyboard. Focus will now be re-acquired by the station selected in your OMS menu.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-08-31 13:35:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Your crew will comment on finding dead bodies in space sooner.
• When carrying an autonomous system in a cradle, other ships will now consider it an integral part of the ship. This prevents pirates from trying to shoot down unpowered claim beacons - even when you have a good standing with them. They will still attempt to disable them if you choose to deploy them near a site they frequent, as they don't enjoy the extra attention from Enceladian authorities.
• Comms window will show the most recent dialogue option even if there is no reply for you to pick.
• The IFF control on your Pilot tab was always yellow on the "auto" setting, even if your onboard automatic IFF classified ships as hostile and friendly. It will now follow the automatic classification color scheme.
• Ganymedean Anarchy station docking arms will no longer attempt to grab OCP-209 from below.
• Voyager RSLS now has a standby mode and will not draw extra power when not printing anything.
• Fixed audio issues on Voyager RSLS Fabrication Plant audible when printing nanodrones on Eagle Prospectors.
• Manually paying outstanding salary through the Crew menu would cause the menu to close in 3 seconds unless you interacted with another button.
• The Onboard Maintenance System screen will now remember the last station you accessed and show it again when you enter it.
• Additional in-universe advertisement on the Enceladus Billboard.
• When hailing an entity that has nothing to say, the hail button will now instantly change to "no response" without the need to call twice.
• The racing team will not interrupt your conversation awkwardly when they suddenly realize that they hate you.
• Not being hostile to the racing team and discussing the race with them will put them a bit at ease now.
• Fixed the gravimetric augmented reality overlay, which was clipped on 32:9 aspect ratio displays on EIME and Bald Eagle Racing HUD.
• Updated translations.
• Updated credits.

[ 2023-08-14 14:49:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Separate "Accessibility" tab in the Settings menu.
• Ability to turn the hearing-impaired music visual cues off. They are turned off by default now.
• Additional colorblind helper for the Accessibility menu to help highlight which colours you should be able to differentiate.
• When participating in a race, if the drone runs out of propellant, the race will be declared a draw - unless you were just about to catch it.
• Fixed flickering of ship astrogation markers on your main display.
• Claim Beacon cradle arms can now catch tampered claim beacons. For some of them, this is still not a very good idea.
• B8 Claim Beacons will call you automatically even if there are interesting or hostile ships around them unless they are less than 500m away.
• Improved B8 Claim Beacon docking protocol. The beacon will now move slowly towards you if you order it to.
• If you don't establish a claim after deploying a B8 Claim Beacon, it will automatically initiate a docking protocol with you.
• If you had an astrogator on board who marked a ship with a tactical marker and your LIDAR detected but then lost the line of sight to that ship for more than 60 seconds, the identify friend-or-foe settings for that ship would reset to the default "auto" setting without changing the slider position on the Pilot tab. Now the settings will be preserved for as long as the ship is tracked. If you don't have an astrogator and your LIDAR loses track of a ship for over 60 seconds, IFF settings will reset and change the appropriate slider accordingly.
• Improved performance of IFF detection. This will lower CPU usage somewhat when many ships are surrounding you.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-08-08 18:42:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Nuclear explosions and laser flares will now be visible on the visual feed from the Enceladian polar telescope array.
• If you are in a quest-related dialogue, the game will prevent you from astrogating away to Enceladus and breaking that quest. The astrogation countdown will resume automatically once the dialogue clears.
• Setting your IFF system to "hostile" or "friendly" will now completely override any judgment your onboard IFF computer makes. Previously it was possible that, if a ship attacked you, the automatic IFF could override its classification from manually set friendly all the way to neutral.
• Fixed a bug that caused some of the temporary astrogation destinations to disappear if you lingered for a long time near them without actually visiting them.
• Fixed engine, explosion, and laser flares on the edge of the visual feed.
• The resupply data on the "launch dive" screen now has a fixed size, preventing the slider from jittering if you adjust the resupply amount with your mouse.
• Adjusted user manual for the Seal for Projectile Ammunition to say that nothing is installed with this option.
• A damaged onboard computer will now apply distortion effects to ore, ship, and autopilot markers.
• Disabling the "use autopilot" option during an astrogation jump sequence will now not change any autopilot settings at all, giving you an opportunity to perform the jump manually.
• Ringracers will not agree to race in the very rim of the rings, where there is a risk of losing the racing drone.
• Improved performance when you have a lot of raw ore on your ship.
• You can't dismiss your crewmember on sick leave only to hire them healthy again.
• Updated translations. Italian language is now fully supported.

[ 2023-08-04 17:53:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Performance enhancements. You can expect improved GPU performance in both Dives and the Enceladus Prime station. This makes the game run smoother, reduces battery usage on mobile systems, and lowers the temperature of GPUs.

[ 2023-08-01 09:19:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Mining Companions will no longer devour human bodies on their way to Enceladus.
• When arriving at a temporary astrogation target (the one that disappears from the list once you get there), any adjustment to astrogation velocity would display the destination, bearing, and travel time to the next astrogation target on that list. If the place you astrogated to were the last on the list, this would cause the game to crash.
• Arriving near a destroyed space habitat could trigger a race condition that could sometimes cause the game to crash.
• Enceladus station will be selected by default when entering the Astrogator tab on your OMS screen to aid inexperienced pilots.
• Data from previously selected astrogation targets will not linger on the Astrogator tab on your OMS screen when you enter the menu after performing a jump.
• Fixed a bug that caused your crew to talk to you less than they were supposed to.
• Fixed the shading on the Rings beyond the Encke gap, which were lit from a different direction previously.
• When your crew talks to you, their job will display next to their name, making it easier to make employment decisions.
• The noise of a fusion reactor and its start-up sound will now adjust accordingly to time dilation effects.
• Ship captains will not get starstruck when talking to you anymore. Sometimes the feelings of NPC ships towards you could exceed the expected range, locking them out of dialogue if they feared, liked, or hated you enough.
• Flares on the visual feed on the very edge of the ring looked off, fading away at a different speed just beyond the edge of the Rings.
• Captains of allied ships will not fall in love with you when you are performing war crimes. There is a limit now on how much they can adore you when you unload a metric shitton of ammunition on a ship that was once threatening them.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-07-30 18:55:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

At the heart of our development philosophy lies the strong belief that the best games are created in collaboration with the community that plays them. As such, we are incredibly grateful for the dedicated and passionate community that has formed around V. To ensure that the changes and updates to the game align with your expectations, we have been conducting player votes on our Discord server. Your votes have been invaluable in shaping the future of our asteroid mining simulator, and we are excited to present the top priorities that came up as a result of the first post-1.0 vote:

High Priority

Here is the list of areas that caught most of your attention. These will be prioritized with updates:

• Gameplay and Mechanics (223 votes): Refining the core mechanics and introducing exciting new features to ensure your asteroid-mining adventures are more engaging than ever.
• New Ships (177 votes): Both completely new ship hulls and some new variants of already existing ships are coming to supplement your fleet.
• More Hardware (156 votes): Expanded catalog of mining hardware choices, ranging from advanced point defense mining lasers to resource scanners, new heads-up displays, and brand-new equipment categories, empowering you to extract resources like never before.

Medium Priority

Issues on this list were still popular but didnt make it to the top three of the most wanted. We will work on these as time allows:

• Mod Support (149 votes): Support for modding and Steam Workshop, giving you the freedom to craft your unique mining experiences and share them with the community.
• More Events (132 votes): New story events you can encounter while you explore and excavate the Rings. Thrilling challenges, rare phenomena, and unexpected discoveries that will keep your mining ventures full of surprises.

Low Priority

These things caught the least votes and are probably better suited as expansions for another time, later down the line:

• Quality of Life (97 votes): Enhancements that streamline your operations and make your mining endeavors more rewarding.
• Immersion Features (96 votes): Expanding the game lore, additional interaction options, and dialogue choices that make the game world a living and breathing place.
• Story Arc 2.0 (83 votes): Following the next big narrative after the anarchist conflict.
• NPC AI (72 votes): Enhancing the behavior of NPC ships you encounter and wingmen, both when mining and when fighting.
• Performance (48 votes): Improving performance is an endless task, each steep moving the range of playable systems additional few months back, allowing the game to be played on older hardware.

Stay tuned for more updates and sneak peeks as we fly towards V: Rings of Saturn 2.0! Happy mining!

[ 2023-07-28 18:52:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Changed the astrogation abort protocol. Previously, your astrogation jump would abort automatically if you deviated from the course too much. Now, you must press the "disengage autopilot" key or enter the OMS menu again to abort astrogation. This change makes it much easier to perform a manual astrogation jump and is more forgiving if you need to evade rocks that are in your way.
• Increased StarCAT acceleration resistance. It will now be a bit harder to damage your stellarator superconducting coils while consuming medium-sized rocks, and they will be able to withstand more serious damage before needing repairs.
• The autonomic EIAA-1337 autopilot will now work correctly on heavy ships. Its collision avoidance energy estimations used to overestimate impact energy if your ship was really heavy.
• You will not be able to flex that you have a famous singer on your crew if the station you are talking with already knows that.
• Entities dealt massive damage with plasmathrowers and particle accelerators will now get angry at you much quicker.
• Ships that see you attacking their allies will get angry at you much quicker. Previously, they could get apathetic enough not to do anything, even if they have seen their ally destroyed, and acted only on a second incident.
• Pirates didn't care much if you fired on their allies.
• Firing on some pirates could cause the miner guild to like you, even if there was no witness of the deed.
• Firing at the Vilcy bounty hunter ships could cause the miner guild to fear you even if there were no witnesses of the deed.
• When selecting a target in the Astrogation menu, you'll now see the bearing for it listed.
• Asteroids and events will not spawn close to your own ship when you are departing through an astrogation sequence.
• Fixed a loop in an Obonto Habitat dialogue, so you can't ask over and over for the same things anymore.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-07-28 18:01:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

• If you qualified for two stat-based achievements at once, like the "Squadron 303" and "And His Name Will Be Forty and Four" - you would only get the first one initially and the second one only if the relevant counter increased after you got it. This made some of the achievements difficult to obtain. This release not only fixes the initial unlock sequence but also features a compatibility tool to unlock achievements you previously qualified for.
• Torbernite crystals will despawn correctly now. Previously, they would linger in the simulation space even if you left their area without either grabbing them nor destroying them, causing degraded performance and possibly duplicating them if you came back to the same site again.
• Raised the minimum distance you need to be from a target to initiate astrogation from 3km to 15km. Astrogating from a closer distance didn't actually make in-universe sense and it caused all kinds of problems if the thing you were astrogating towards was already simulated in the physics engine (spawned), including but not limited to: astrogating into an object, ships you astrogated to exploding, a possibility that you actually passed through the point you wanted to astrogate to in an extended astrogation run-up, and other physics related glitches. The raised limit prevents all that.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-07-24 14:10:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Today marks a monumental moment for our cosmic adventure as we proudly release version 1.0 of V: Rings of Saturn. It has been an extraordinary journey, with the game flourishing during its Early Access phase and growing beyond our wildest expectations. The amount of content contained has expanded by over 300% of what I initially planned, a testament to the dedication of our team and the invaluable feedback from our passionate players. During the Early Access phase alone, we squashed 1728 bugs, polished 1131 aspects of the game, and introduced 942 new features. With 3227 experimental releases and 353 stable releases, we've strived to ensure constant progress and improvements. On average, we've launched a new stable version every four days.

From Early Access to an Expansive Universe

During the Early Access phase, our community's involvement has been instrumental in shaping the game's trajectory. Listening to your voices, we embraced new ideas that were not part of the original plan. The result? A full-fledged RPG-like experience where a captivating dialogue system unravels personal quests for your crew. Our fleet expanded from three ships to seven distinct hulls, each with its own unique characteristics, dedicated dashboards, HUDs, and lore. The addition of the dialogue system breathed life into your crew, turning them from mere stat upgrades into living individuals with their aspirations and roles in the game's overarching story.

A Grateful Journey with an Expanding Community

The journey from Early Access to the full release of V: Rings of Saturn has been an evolution defined by player involvement and community spirit. At its core, V: Rings of Saturn was initially a solo project - a labor of love driven by passion and dedication. However, as the game garnered traction and player engagement during the Early Access phase, it became apparent that the journey of V was destined to be a collaborative endeavor. From every corner of the globe, talented individuals joined our ranks, forming a close-knit team that was united by a shared passion for the game. Today, our stellar crew includes a gifted music composer, a masterful writer crafting captivating narratives, a marketing virtuoso who skillfully fosters influencer relations, and a graphical artist who brings the universe to life with stunning visual artistry. This blossoming team has been at the heart of shaping V: Rings of Saturn into the game it has become. But our gratitude extends beyond the core team; it also encompasses our ever-supportive community, whose contributions have been invaluable throughout this transformative journey. Whether crafting translations that bridge the language gap, participating in rigorous beta testing to ensure a polished experience, or simply sharing their passion for V with the world, our players have been integral to the game's growth and success.

Continuum of Exploration

As we celebrate the launch of 1.0, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you. Your unwavering support, whether through game purchases or sharing the wonders of V: Rings of Saturn with others, has been the driving force behind our success. Your belief in our vision and dedication to this interlunar odyssey has enriched our lives as developers. While version 1.0 signifies the completion of one significant story arc, it marks only the beginning of our ongoing journey with V: Rings of Saturn. I want to emphasize that 1.0 is a complete and polished product, delivering a rich and immersive experience. However, we are fully committed to expanding the universe and enhancing your ring-diving adventure in the future. Your influence will continue to shape the development direction through your votes on our Discord.
One crucial piece of information that we want to emphasize to our esteemed players is that your saved games will remain entirely valid as we transition to the full release of V: Rings of Saturn. Throughout the development journey, we have maintained a seamless integration of new content without ever requiring you to restart your progress. This commitment to backward compatibility has been at the core of our philosophy, and we assure you that we will continue to uphold this principle moving forward. Together, we shall traverse the vast expanse of V: Rings of Saturn, exploring uncharted territories, forging unforgettable narratives, and weaving a cosmic tapestry that extends beyond our wildest imaginations.

Thank you for being part of this remarkable journey, and may the rings guide us to new horizons and endless adventures.

[ 2023-07-21 15:00:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Get ready for an exciting journey through space and into the world of electricity in this unique bundle that combines two simulation games.

If you already have one, the second one awaits you with a special bundle discount!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33757/Mining__Wiring/

Check out our other bundles!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/11230/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tungsten_Edition/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33568/Space_Generations/

[ 2023-07-20 16:54:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Holding opposing manual rotation control keys on a ship equipped with a Fly-By-Wire autopilot will now cause it to zero out its rotation completely. Previously, it rotated left when you did that.
• Updated translations

[ 2023-07-20 09:14:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Mining Companions, both rogue and well-behaved, sometimes entered an unholy union, with each of them entering simultaneously entering the cargo bay of the other. Attempting to astrogate with such an agglomerate in your cargo bay caused the reality to wrap up on itself and collapse your ship to singularity, crashing the game in the process.
• Transponder codes of your mining companions, cargo containers, and beacons will not repeat themselves anymore.
• Fixed the coolant leak animation on some reactors, which still glitched if you moved the camera near them rapidly.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-07-18 16:05:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Nuclear reactor leak animation will stop when you can't see it, improving performance and preventing weird reactor leak glitches if you zoom the camera near a leaking reactor.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-07-16 08:17:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Singularity Cores will no longer break causality and despawn when required, allowing the mystery music to fade if you fly away from them. Their unusual physical effect stays the same.
• Improved readability of the Dive Summary screen. Previously, text displayed on the ore summary screen individual chunk composition and price estimations was challenging to read in some resolution/HUD scale combinations.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-07-10 18:23:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Deorbiting moonlets will despawn correctly now. Previously, an encounter of that magnitude would persist until you left the rings and locked the music on the mystery track.
• NPC ships will now consider The Space Bar a space station when finding trajectories around and inside it.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-07-05 11:52:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Altering the time flow rate will not change the energy of impacts anymore. Previously, slowing down time with adrenal response would make some damages lower and others higher, making them inconsistent with a normal time-flow rate.
• Re-balanced jerk-based damage and made it independent of time flow. Jerk is the change in acceleration, which you will experience if you hit a big rock or with similar lithobraking maneuvers. Previously, the jerk damage was affected by the rate at which time moved, making the damage much worse when the adrenaline kicked in. This release removes that time dependency and slightly adjusts the damage to compensate for the change.
• Adjusted ship acceleration computation to be more accurate.
• Centrifugal force will not depend on the rate of time flow anymore.
• Corrected centrifugal force on KTA24 TNTRL.
• Fixed Doppler Lidar velocity readouts being affected by the rate of time flow. This made the majority of the Doppler Lidar turn white when your adrenaline kicked in and also made the Lidar screens available in the OMS menu show mostly white dots. Now they both will show the correct colours for items getting closer and moving away.
• New minerals being detected or lost in the cargo bay could cause the big cargo bay scanner available in the OMS Geologist tab to reset.
• Adjusted Eagle Prospector default reactor settings to 3000K to match the operational parameters of its stock Yama SSR reactor core. You can still tune it up or down to any desired temperature.
• Big Bad Wolf will talk to you even if you engage in conversation with other members of Vilcy nearby before approaching it.
• You can't tell a miner asking for advice that he is in a shallow region if you are not actually in a shallow ring region anymore.
• Fixed typos in some in-universe commercials.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-06-30 20:11:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a race condition that could cause you to buy or sell two copies of a ship when operating the Dealer or Fleet screens with a faulty mouse.
• Fixed a bug that caused NPC you were conversing with sometimes not to change their feelings about you when you picked a dialogue option that was supposed to have such an effect.
• Telling the racing team that you are in an area for excavation and not race will make them lose interest in you and leave, even if you defended them from pirates before that encounter.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-06-25 19:48:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Mandatory astrogation 101 training for all the ship captains now introduces a 12-hour coordinate tracking time even if you don't hire an astrogator, which is sufficient to perform basic astrogation jumps during single dive.
• Consequently, your crew will not pretend not to notice a quest location they are just next to just because you did not hire an astrogator.
• Fixed a tutorial bug that caused it to skip to the next step when the initial ore nugget you acquired flew all the way to the front of your cargo bay and bounced back inside.
• Updated translations.
• Updated credits.

[ 2023-06-20 10:45:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Previously, accessing the tuning menu would restrict the Bald Eagle autopilot velocity limit to 100m/s. However, you now have the ability to adjust it up to its original stock setting of 195m/s.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-06-18 08:16:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a rare bug that could cause game crashes on transition between the Enceladus station and The Rings.
• Updated credits.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-06-12 15:16:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When your ring race was not very exciting, the racing drone could decide they are bored, low on fuel, and should return home to Enceladus instead of continuing to race.
• The racing team's first approach to the drone was somewhat casual, turning up the full thrust only after they satisfied their initial curiosity. This could lead to a not-very-exciting race, making the drone bored.
• Additional logging of the internal thought process of the NPC AI to help diagnose and fix AI-related quirks better.
• Hacking into the Ganymedean Anarchy station should not require the station inhabitants to trust you.
• The game now logs your CPU model in the game logs, making the performance feedback loop one step shorter.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-06-06 15:38:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The ringracing team was not interested in catching the drone. They kept following it without trying to win the race, waiting for the player to wreck their ship. The judges found this to be unsportsmanlike behavior, and a warning has been issued.
• The ringracing team will not get distracted from a race if you pass near habitats while racing.
• Increased racing team and racing drone sensor range to 12 km.
• The racing drone can now detect racing accidents; when they happen during a race, it can refund the ante.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-06-04 14:24:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

A preface from the developer

This is a very special update, so this time, I felt its a good idea to start with a short foreword from the developer. I started making this game back in 2018, and after five years of development, it is finally ready for a full 1.0 release. We have planned our official 1.0 release for 2023/07/21.
However, the 1.0 build we will be shipping is ready now. Much work still needs to be done outside the development itself - we have agreements to sign, press releases to write, parties to schedule and marketing decisions to make, and much more. I am releasing this version to you early as a thank you to all of you. You have been with me for the whole development journey, through times good and bad, through despair and laughter. Without all of you, V would not become financially self-sustaining and would most likely not arrive in its current state. Thank you, and enjoy your special peek into 1.0!

What comes next?

The game will stay this way for a few weeks, during which well prepare everything required for a launch. You might see bugfixes published, should any bugs be discovered, but no new features come in until the big party and official release. After the release, Ill resume the normal development process, with new features and fixes coming up at the rate you were accustomed to. While 1.0 marks the point where I felt the game is complete, I still have ideas for new stories to tell, upgrades to make, and ships to pilot. V was designed to be extendable, and as new content releases, it will integrate seamlessly into your existing game.

Maintenance Logs

• Departing from one moonlet to another through astrogation could cause twin moonlets to appear at your destinations.
• Added new encounters and dialogues as a consequence of destroying some ships and stations. This includes dialogues for the relevant crew.
• Some enemies will now want to take revenge upon you instead of extorting money from you. Encounters with opponents that want you dead and try to use everything at their disposal to do so are more challenging.
• Services provided by factions that you destroy or severely damage by your actions will no longer be available.
• Fixed the "Inside Job" achievement, which was not awarded. It will be awarded retroactively when you load an eligible save.
• Fixed lighting on the Enceladus Dive Summary screen, which could have some of the ore unshaded if you brought back a large output.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-06-01 11:16:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Elon Interstellar sues Ganymedean Anarchy

Earlier today, Elon Interstellar filed a lawsuit against a non-recognized group known as Ganymedean Anarchy over copyright infringement. The Martian company claims that the Anarchy allegedly illegally copied the source code of the Bitter social media platform to provide their own open-source alternative known as Twatter. Enceladian court denied the case as frivolous due to lack of jurisdiction. In an unrelated event, an unknown party delivered containers containing organically processed biomatter to Elon Interstellar CEO.

The Miners Guild lobbying for new regulations

The Miners Guild initiated a fundraiser to lobby for new regulations over crew replacement during paid sick leave, requiring that captains hiring replacement crew for employees that were injured at work will be required to keep both crews employed for a period of at least 6 months following a complete recovery. The Miners Guild hopes that such regulation will drastically improve the industry's working conditions.

Allegations of Espionage in the Industrial Ring

Tensions are running high in the industrial ring of the Enceladus Prime space station as suspicions of industrial espionage rock the sector. Various companies operating within the industrial ring have raised concerns over potential information leaks and illicit activities that could compromise the stability and competitiveness of the station's businesses. Despite the mounting suspicions and high tensions, no legal actions have been taken at this time. However, station authorities have launched an investigation into the allegations of industrial espionage. Law enforcement agencies are working diligently to identify the culprits and bring them to justice.

Maintenance Logs

• You can now finish the Ganymedean infiltration quest.
• Additional paths to complete the Ganymedean Infiltration quest, depending on what kind of crew you have on board your ship.
• You can now find messages on GAnet's Twatter based on your faction standing.
• Increased the frequency of quest-related lifepod interactions.
• You can now access the GAnet even if you did not agree to perform the infiltration job.
• When returning to the station with complex objects in your cargo bay, such as rogue mining companions, they will be placed above other output you bring on the dive summary screen. This prevents them from intersecting with themselves or other objects and breaking physics on that screen.
• Improved sick leave resolution. If a crew member is on sick leave and you don't hire a replacement, they will automatically return to their duty when their sick leave ends. If you hire and assign a replacement, they will stay inactive unless a free seat is available on your ship.
• Big Bad Wolf will now acknowledge the completion of some tasks they give you.
• Using data obtained through espionage will now hurt your reputation with the party you obtained it from, should they discover it.
• Polished up the Ganymedean Anarchy dialogue tree to follow some uncommon conditions and decisions you could make in the past.
• Following two pirate ships that flee from you and losing none of them will no longer lead you to twin pirate stations.
• Lifepods will not call you if an NPC picks them up.
• Fixed the native executable icon on Windows.
• Fixed some typos.
• Added additional achievement.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-05-27 16:57:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Adjusted astrogation settings. Your astrogator will now try to get you closer to your destination and make efforts not to fly straight into it when you enter the ring plane again.
• Your RCS thruster and torch dynamic lights will now respect the light detail settings and turn themselves off when requested, improving performance on low-end systems.
• Increased chances to randomly encounter events such as big space stations and moonlets by just traversing the rings.
• Increased frequency of log writes. As logs are now flushed to the disc faster, in case of a catastrophic software failure (aka crash to desktop), there is a much higher chance of them containing relevant information.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-05-21 08:15:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Changed the astrogation drift and spawning parameters. You will now come out of the astrogation sequence much closer to your destination. This can both make the game much easier, removing the need to search the destination area for what you were looking for, but also substantially increasing the risks of astrogation accidents.
• Adjusted the spot where your ship comes out of the astrogation sequence during astrogation with a minimal speed. You should now end up at a similar distance to your target as if you were astrogating with your default velocity.
• You can now scroll your pre-flight inspection screen with a gamepad.
• When you hire a new crewmember, they will be automatically assigned as the preferred crew for the ship you had active when hiring. This prevents them from automatically leaving the crew if a day passes.
• You can't pause and save after the launch sequence starts anymore. This prevents saving the game in a state where you paid launch fees but did not actually launch.
• Fixed a bug that could cause complex objects to spawn on top of other entities.
• Added extra logging to pinpoint any potential astrogation problems.
• Changed the way the "rest at a capsule hotel until the end of maintenance" option is presented on failed pre-flight inspection.
• Fixed a race condition that could cause focus to not change to the hotel option on some systems, requiring mouse use to launch.
• Fixed the background viewport scaling at the Enceladus station. When changing resolution, HUD size or window size, the station in the background could get distorted.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-05-14 15:45:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

• You can now call out bounty hunters for not acting on the information you provide them.
• You can get an additional job at the bounty hunter HQ as long as you have relevant information.
• Fixed a bug that caused crew interactions, xaser warnings and similar events to be much rarer than they should be.
• Fixed race condition when discovering events which could, rarely, make an event not register in your astrogation logs.
• Stock reconnaissance craft installed on available ships will now be displayed in the Dealer menu.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-05-04 17:57:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

You can now enjoy your on-rings journey with high-quality, loseless audio that's out of this world! Don't let static or distortion ruin your space vibes, immerse yourself in the game's epic soundtrack like never before. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127590/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Original_Soundtrack/ Already have our soundtrack? Your files will upgrade automatically, for free! So plug in those headphones, buckle up, and prepare for dive - it's time to rock out to some otherworldly tunes.

[ 2023-04-30 08:26:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Bounty hunters will now remember if you exposed important coordinates to them and will change some dialogues based on that.
• Exposing a specific, important location to bounty hunters could unlock your bounty hunting licence prematurely.
• If you had a bounty hunting licence but fell out of favour with them, Vilcy ships could stop responding to some dialogue paths.
• Fix a bug that could cause the game to crash when you make a specific dialogue choice with bounty hunters.

[ 2023-04-27 06:05:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Additional interactions with bounty hunters.
• Adjusted point defence safety protocol sensitivity on certain weapons. It is now more diligent in detecting your ship, and should prevent some possible accidents - when its not damaged too heavily.
• Fixed a bug in the dialogue system that caused some dialogue options to not appear for you.
• Adjusted claim beacon mounting spot on the Vulture Prospector to prevent the drone from bashing into your ship hull during manoeuvres.
• Your singer will now perform a tour in 7 days, not 168.
• You cant perform over and over at the station by undocking and docking again.
• Classic mode easter egg will now work on Enceladus station.
• Actuator noise your point defence weapons make will now pitch down correctly when you are under the effect of an adrenal boost.
• Swapped orientation of docking arms on some stations you can encounter to make them more (or less) symmetrical.
• Updated translations and translation credits.

[ 2023-04-26 09:42:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Conclusion to the first act of the "find the sister" crew quest, including two new story events and a quest-unique pilotable ship variant.
• Additional interactions with the Ganymedean base.
• When performing actions on your crew using the dialogue system, crew occupation will be listed next to their name.
• Improved performance of HUD rendering.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-04-21 17:56:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Starting today, V: Rings of Saturn is entering the feature freeze stage of the development process. What does that mean for you? In the past year, you experienced a steady torrent of releases, all of them including new, exciting features, most often ones that were not really planned. While this kind of development process is really enjoyable both for me, getting excited to add the next shiny thing, and you, getting to play with new toys, it did push away the planned 1.0 release date by months. Feature freeze is a protocol designed to bring order to that process. It means that new features will not be considered for the 1.0 release anymore. In feature freeze, I focus solely on adding things that are already planned and fixing any bugs that come out. 1.0 is an important milestone in any software development, but it doesnt mark the end of progress. Its only meant to signify a version that we feel is complete enough for the general audience - and we feel we are really close to that point. Here is what is going to happen next:

• I will focus on finishing up all the features listed on our roadmap and cleaning up any bugs that come out.
• Any new features will go to the 2.0 list.
• The game will enter the 1.0 stage while still being technically in Early Access. This will last for about two weeks to a month. This way, all of you who supported my development in EA will be able to play the complete product first, and I will have time to finish any formalities required for the release.
• We go to a full release.
• After about two weeks of anticipated post-release frenzy, enhancements and new features will resume; you will still get regular experimental and stable releases, just with numbers starting with 1.

We are entering the feature freeze stage today. If you feel that our current roadmap misses something absolutely essential for 1.0, this is a good time to advocate that, either on forums or on the game Discord.

[ 2023-04-11 16:51:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dangerous MPI railgun retrofit kits

Mars Power Industries' railgun kits, known for being cheap but inaccurate, are now available on the second-hand market. The kits were originally intended for use on Mars, where affordable weapons were needed. However, their low accuracy and short lifespan have raised concerns about their effectiveness. Unscrupulous dealers are selling the retrofit kits without proper testing and certification, potentially endangering buyers.

Pilots Urgently Needed to Collect Debris

Enceladus Corp is urgently seeking experienced pilots to collect debris in Saturn's Rings, where mass driver fire has increased debris density to a critical level. Failure to act may cause catastrophic collisions in the region. Skilled pilots with experience in space debris collection are needed for this high-risk mission, which requires careful navigation and hazard awareness. Time is of the essence to prevent the escalation of the Kessler Syndrome.

Triskelion-Armstrong Settles Planned Obsolescence

Triskelion-Armstrong settles lawsuit over planned obsolescence of AR-1500 Salvage Manipulator, releases upgrades increasing durability by over 400%. The company was accused of designing the product to have a limited lifespan, forcing customers to replace it regularly. Upgrades include reinforced parts, improved power systems, and enhanced software. Customers and experts praise the move as a demonstration of the company's commitment to responsible manufacturing practices.

Maintenance logs

• You can install railguns on low-stress hardpoints.
• All massdrivers, including railguns and coilguns, can be damaged now. This shifts combat balance significantly, as hitting hostile craft can now make their weapons less accurate or outright useless.
• Your ships now remember the crew you assigned to them and will switch to your preferred crew when you pick them, if available.
• When two stations were less than 10km from each other, one could message you about relocating, but the other would move away.
• Re-balanced some weapon repair costs and times. Weapons that are, according to the game lore, established on the market and have easy access to replacement parts will now be much cheaper to repair - but the repairs will take longer to represent the time required to adjust to subtle differences in available aftermarket replacement parts.
• Railgun based massdrivers are now less accurate than coilgun-based ones.
• Decreased the wear of salvage manipulators.
• NDCI firing solution projection will now take into account the projectile spread of damaged massdrivers.
• Improved performance of projectile rendering.
• Fixed a leak that caused projectiles that don't hit anything to be simulated indefinitely, possibly degrading performance over time if your playstyle included missing a lot.
• Equipment which is not part of the pre-flight inspection will not be marked as "failing" or "passing" inspection on the repair screen.
• Texts displayed on the information billboard in your docks will no longer jump around when preparing to play video.
• Enceladian information billboard in docks will avoid displaying the same program too often.
• Eagle Prospector HUD (both imperial and metric) will not hide part of the last equipment line outside the screen when OLED screen saving is active.
• New in-universe advertisement available on the Enceladus docking information billboard.
• Updated translations and unified unit presentation in ship and equipment specification tabs.

[ 2023-04-10 16:08:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added classic mode.
• Adjusted the hull penetration colliders for K37 and all its variants to prevent ore from being stuck in the rear of the ship and stopping astrogation.
• Improved performance of the Enceladus station screen.
• Fixed slow or stalled Dealer and Fleet menu loading when using a high physics framerate option on a CPU that can't consistently keep that framerate.

[ 2023-04-04 07:41:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Get ready for a blast from the past with the new update featuring a classic asteroids aesthetic coming out soon to V: Rings of Saturn.

V: Rings of Saturn is often compared to the cult classic astroid games. We decided to embrace that aesthetic.

The classic asteroids game, released in 1979 is widely regarded as a pioneering title in the video game industry, popularizing the concept of space-themed arcade games. The game's vector graphics and simple yet addictive gameplay have made it a beloved classic among gamers, and the addition of this aesthetic to V: Rings of Saturn is sure to be a hit with both old-school gamers and fans of the space simulation genre.
The update will transport you back in time to the golden age of arcade gaming, with revamped graphics reminiscent of the iconic asteroids game.
You can look forward to experiencing the thrill of space exploration with a nostalgic twist when the update drops in the coming weeks.

[ 2023-04-01 07:50:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed wide angle lens on all reconnaissance craft, which ended up being much too wide than designed.
• Pilots of the Tsukuyomi-class frigates are now better at handling their ships, especially during docking manoeuvres.
• Pilots of CERF Search and Rescue ships got extra training on picking up derelict ships and will perform their work better.
• Docking clamps on CERF Search and Rescue ships were welded shut by mistake.

[ 2023-03-31 13:25:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

• You could not fix microwave emitters whose only damage was a warped focusing dish.
• Firing solutions presented by NDCI autopilot will reflect the actual ranges of the weapons for lasers, mass drivers and particle accelerators.
• Added support for the Italian language. The translation is 19% complete.

[ 2023-03-30 16:08:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Launching the game on a system with a default language that was already partially translated but not approved for release will no longer result in the game using that partial (unselectable) translation.
• Big Bad Wolf could appear twice on some rare occasions.
• Clicking quickly on the "buy ship" button will no longer allow you to buy two copies of the same ship.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-03-29 12:49:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Drydocks now available for lease

Independently owned ships requiring repairs can now lease the dedicated drydock infrastructure of the Enceladus Prime station, freeing up the docking ring area. The station has a dedicated drydock bay with two large drydocks that can accommodate ships of up to three thousand tons of mass. There is an additional four thousand cubic meters of repair and maintenance space and various specialised tools and equipment to assist with repairs, refits, and upgrades. The lease rates are quite reasonable, and the station staff are happy to help with any necessary paperwork. For more information on drydock leasing services, please contact your local dock manager.

Lawsuits over obfuscated diagnostic protocol

A leading producer of laser mining equipment, Coherent Light, was sued last week over obfuscation of the diagnostic protocols of their hardware. While all their CL-series lasers conformed to regulations requiring mandatory universal diagnostic interface, most lasers' firmware used a proprietary protocol extension, which hid crucial diagnostic information from end-users and independent repair shops. In a motion to settle the dispute, Coherent Light released today the full specification of their protocol extension, third parties to perform allowing detailed hardware diagnostics.

Obonto USV-R recalls

Obonto Microengineering issued a recall of a popular, entry-level reconnaissance craft, USR-V. Their camera lens was prone to excessive wear from micrometeorite impacts. In a surprising move, Obonto is replacing the faulty lens with their brand new series-W product, which is not only said to be much more resistant to impacts but also features an extended field of view. While most independent contractors welcome this development, some tech bloggers claim that this move is a thinly veiled attempt to run extensive field trials of unproven optic technology.

Maintenance Logs

• Changed how repairs and replacement work. Instead of automatically skipping time ahead, any ship you perform maintenance upon will have work performed by the Enceladus repair crew while you can peruse other activities. You can wait for the ship repairs in one of many stations hotels or take another ship for a dive.
• Replacing your ship's hardware in the Equipment menu, which would result in changing used or damaged items for brand new ones, will now incur identical maintenance downtime for your ship as replacing these items in the Repair menu.
• Time required for ship maintenance is now listed in the Repair menu and on the dock information billboard.
• Maintenance crews fixing your ship are now visible on the Enceladus Prime main menu screen.
• Having damaged weapons or manipulators will no longer stop you from launching from Enceladus.
• When your ship fails pre-flight inspection due to pending maintenance, you will now have the option to book that time at the most affordable capsule hotel on the station from the inspection menu directly.
• Obonto USV-R reconnaissance craft now has a wide-angle lens capable of zooming out 20% further.
• Lasers and microwaves can be damaged and wear out. While all brand-new equipment will perform the same way as it used to, ship captains relying on high-performance hardware tuned to its absolute limit will now experience hardware failures.
• Old used ships can now have damaged or worn weapons installed. This also reduces the purchase price accordingly.
• Re-balanced AR1500 damage and repair cost. It is now cheaper to repair and more resistant to kinetic impacts, but it will wear out quicker and is easier to overheat.
• Ship logs will not show how much time has passed on instant events. They used to show one or two seconds per event, which was confusing.
• The dive target selection screen will always show Hohmann transfer when you enter that menu.
• Expanded description for laser tuning.
• New dialogue options when approaching a derelict ship that is about to be salvaged by a licenced S&R craft.
• All side cradles will behave the same way when being powered down. Left cradles used to fold into another spot than the right ones.
• AR1500 Salvage Manipulator will load up your ship more reliably when it catches an item next to your excavator opening.
• You can now toggle the automatic autopilot configuration when plotting the astrogation course.
• Excavator will not get displaced on ship builds with powerful thrust during hot burns.
• Improved thread safety for the background loader. This makes loading assets faster and prevents crashes experienced on some systems if you try to skip a cutscene that eagerly hides the loading screen.
• Fixed missing fonts on HAL HUD - it will now use the correct font and display information in all the supported languages.
• Fixed scaling of some displays on OCP-209 HUD - they will now show complete information in all supported languages.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-03-27 17:48:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Original Soundtrack of V: Rings of Saturn was just updated with two extra tracks polished by Evader Music. If you got it already - either from the stand-alone purchase, or through the Tungsten Edition, your music should update automatically.

New tracks

• Exhaust Velocity
• Shattered Moon

If you dont have the sound track yet and you are looking fine music - and to support development of V - you can find it on sale here just now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127590/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Original_Soundtrack/

About Evader Music

Experience the thrill of epic game soundtracks with the award-nominated compositions of Evader Music. Damian has created unforgettable music for a diverse range of games. Explore the music, listen to the samples and check out some of the other cool tracks that he has produced! [previewyoutube=FeL1Cp3dZRo;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-03-22 07:42:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Mineral processing units capable of processing massive asteroids will now apply damage based on the exposed area of the rock they process. This considerably speeds up the processing speed of Rusatom-Antonoff MPU applied to larger asteroids in your cargo hold - but also increases the power requirements to process.
• Fly-by-wire autopilots will now use another computation method for the desired velocity, ignoring the overshot limits of autopilots. This will increase angular velocity you can apply with a fly-by-wire autopilot, as it is not concerned about being able to stop within 90 degrees if you release the control anymore.
• Added a new crash reporter, which should give me more information to fix any crash-to-desktop problems.
• Fine-tuned jittering settings of the engine. This should result in much smoother gameplay, especially if something unexpected happens that uses a lot of computer resources.
• Fine-tuned memory settings for a smoother background loading experience.
• Videos on the Enceladus billboard now utilize lazy loading, and they should load just before they are displayed. This should fix some video playback problems as well as a race condition experienced on some Linux systems, which caused the game to freeze when you load a save immediately after the main menu is displayed.
• Improved performance of asteroid spawning.
• Anomalies and points of interest will now appear further away from your ship, giving you more time to react and preventing some astrogation accidents - but making them harder to find.
• If your ship suffered kinetic damage during cutscenes, some could carry out and get applied just a few seconds after the cutscene ended.
• Impact with thruster exhaust will not cause the same kinetic damage as being hit by rocks.
• Fine-tune tooltip appearance speed. They will appear sooner now.

[ 2023-03-10 12:12:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved performance of the Dealer and Fleet screens on Enceladus station.
• Increased accuracy of kinetic impact damage tracking for ships (both yours and NPC).
• Fixed unresolved physics for Runasimi KR37 cargo baffles, which could induce an unexpected torque on your ship, causing it to spin up without visible interactions.
• Fixed some dialogue trees regarding salvage recovery, which could lead to dead ends.
• Changed the dynamic loader to address freezes experienced on some Linux systems.

[ 2023-03-04 10:21:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The Z-Axial Pinch fusion torch now has an ignition cooldown. It can only draw enough power to attempt an ignition sequence five times per second. While this makes a worn-out drive behave more erratic, it also severely lowers the power requirements.
• When starting a dive on the first few kilometres into the rings, you could end up with a trajectory outside the ring area, triggering immediate return. This didn't affect neither Hohmann transfers nor deeper dives.
• Picking a target on the Dive Selection screen from your known locations will now always result in the best trajectory you could take towards it. This also prevents the interlunar propellant usage from jumping up or down significantly in subsequent selections of the same target, as rings rotate in relation to Enceladus.
• The inclination of your initial trajectory is now visible on the dive target selection screen.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-02-27 19:09:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Enhanced astrogation: I reworked both the visual effects/camera movement of astrogation and the ice generation during cutscenes. The result is a visible departure/arrival during the astrogation cutscene, and you no longer arrive in a mostly empty area around your destination. Your astrogator should still pick an approach vector that is clear of obstacles.
• When departing through an astrogation jump, under specific circumstances, the game could move all the rocks around the area you were departing from a few kilometres in the opposite direction. This could result in relatively empty patches of space next to dense areas. The effect was most noticeable in extremely dense regions and propeller formations.
• Improved accuracy of depletion tracking for moving asteroids.
• Fixed astrogation selection with gamepad or keyboard alone.
• Easier selection of dive targets on gamepads.
• EIME HUD temperature warning levels are now adjusted to represent dangerous fusion reactor temperatures on Elon Interstellar Model E.
• Cosmetic enhancements to dive target selection screen.
• Updated translations

[ 2023-02-23 10:32:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The astrogation transfers within rings between specific locations used to cause a big hole to be burned on the departure spot. It was dependent on both the starting location and your destination.
• Fixed disproportional resource depletion when mining in dense, rich areas. Destroying asteroids created by shattering bigger rocks counted towards depletion of the field, while it should not have. While the effect was mostly negligible in sparse areas, in deep veins and propellers, it could cause more rocks to disappear on subsequent visits than they should.
• The game will now remember all the extra rocks you create when excavating a dense ice field. If you create a cloud of small debris, you will find it when you return to the same spot. This excludes ore chunks, which move fast enough to be lost.
• Re-set the asteroid depletion map to remove holes created by the in-ring transfer bug.
• Reworked the launch dive screen. It now fits better in small resolutions.
• You can now pick a known astrogation location as your dive entry target on the station.
• Videos on the Enceladus billboards load just before they are played and are freed as soon as they are over, working around codec-related issues some players were experiencing.
• Additional in-universe ad.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-02-21 18:31:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New tuning option: toggle audio feedback for LIDAR contacts.
• New tuning option: Customize NDCI collision warning.
• New tuning option: toggle autopilot assist for variable geometry crafts.
• Disengaging your autopilot with the G key when you have a moving target selected will now apply the correct velocity to your craft.
• You could click multiple times on the "Launch Dive" button before the launch animation triggered, which incurred multiple launch fees.
• Fixed a race condition that could crash the game whenever a HUD was despawned. This could cause crashes when transitioning between Enceladus and the Rings, adjusting equipment, or tuning options showing your HUD.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-02-18 10:28:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved performance of the tactical LIDAR markers.
• Improved performance of the Tuning menu.
• Fixed a race condition in the Tuning menu which could crash your game if you moved between the tuning menu and other menus quickly enough.
• When tuning autopilot marker opacity, you will now actually see the preview of what you are tuning on the simulation subwindow.
• Keeping a piece of an event, such as flying with a derelict attached to your ship, salvaged cargo container and similar, would prevent other location-based events of the same class from appearing in the game. This led to some unexpected side effects. Moving away from the original event location will prevent that now.
• Parts of the HUD-related tuning options, such as the microseismic scanner focus, were missing from the Tuning menu.
• Fixed lag spikes on the dive summary screen that occurred when you brought in a lot of ore and sold them.
• Tuning options for HUD equipment will now appear in the tuning menu immediately after you purchase such a device.
• Some new ships - K37, Prospectors and EIMEs - came without HUD pre-installed. It got installed automatically for free when you first launched into the rings or opened the tuning menu, but prior to that, the equipment screen would show either void or the HUD system installed on your previous ship.
• Updated translations. We switched to dedicated translation software, which allowed us to catch many tiny (and big) translation errors. There are hundreds of translation fixes across all languages (including English), and more are to come.

[ 2023-02-13 17:04:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Tapping "disengage autopilot lock" (G by default) when no target is selected will disable your autopilot.
• Tapping "engage the target in front" (F by default) will engage the autopilot immediately, even if there is no target in front of your ship.
• EIAA-1337 and NPC now understand that if an ore chunk is touching their excavator and moving with a very similar velocity to your ship, the thing to do is open the excavator and speed up. This prevents NPC and EIAA-1337-equipped ships from pushing the ore around with closed excavators.
• Computer kinetic damage (faulty sensors) resistance depended on the time scale. While not apparent during normal gameplay, kinetic impacts during extreme slowdowns, such as with the OMS screen open, could cause up to 10x more damage than they should. In some edge cases, this could cause your computer rapidly receive damage as soon as you open up the OMS menu.
• Reworked the way your Astrogator interacts with your LIDAR display. Instead of highlighting nearby contacts in their Tactical Awareness range, your Astrogator will now expose the Tactical Markers they put on ships on your LIDAR. Tactical Markers need to be entered into your on-board computer by your Astrogator and will appear only within their Tactical Awareness range - they, however, do rely on tightbeam radar rather than LIDAR, so they are not obfuscated by loss of line of sight, are not affected by the LIDAR refresh rate and will present a location of a ship for much longer. The markers will remain on the edge of the screen for ships exiting the displayed range of LIDAR.
• Fixed a rare race condition that could cause the game to crash when you returned to the Enceladus station.
• Ores and asteroids will not disappear from the screen while you still can see them during the return burn to Enceladus.

[ 2023-02-08 09:40:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

OCP-209 available on the second-hand market

Obonto Microengineering has announced that it is decommissioning a number of its Obonto Construction Platform 209 crafts, and they are now available on the second-hand market. OCP-209 were designed for habitat construction and featured a massive side-loading cargo bay, twin heavy mountings, and a comfortable habitat with the ability to provide rotational G - suitable for extended construction or resupply missions. Obonto Microengineering is offering these decommissioned ships at an attractive price, so don't miss out on this chance to get your hands on some of the best construction crafts in the solar system.

Physical displays make a comeback

While virtual displays may dominate space exploration, one company is bringing back physical screens with the release of its OCP-209 HUD. Obonto Microengineering offers a physical display that is both reliable and robust. The physical hardware offers more protection than a virtual display can offer, while the transparent panes offer more visibility.

SAN-BUS recall

Many computer systems sold for commercial mining craft have been recalled due to an error that caused erratic release of system locks for some equipment. The upgraded SAN-BUS components will improve consistency and predictability with equipment such as point defenses, drones, and manipulators. Captains can upgrade or replace their systems by contacting your local dealership.

Maintenance Logs

• New ship: Obonto Construction Platform 209.
• New HUD: OCP-209.
• Cargo Containers and similar equipment will not boot up and use their thrusters when your ship travels back to Enceladus Prime station.
• HUDs using physical displays are now more resilient to electromagnetic damage.
• Returning to the Enceladus Prime station will no longer cause your ship to burn a massive hole in the rings at the location you left.
• Relative skill stats on the Crew Hire menu will immediately update when you hire someone.
• Improved performance when swapping equipment on your ship on the Enceladus Prime station.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash when tuning nanodrone systems to specific values.
• The remote microseismic scanner display will now be only shown on the equipment simulations related to it.
• Certain systems, like the Point Defence Turrets or Nanodrone systems, would keep their lock on an object indefinitely if you turned them off when they acquired a target, causing other systems (including the AR1500 Salvage Manipulator) to ignore that target.
• When playing on the peaceful difficulty, it was still possible to encounter a pirate trap by following a quest.
• Increased the speed threshold on which the Daredevil mood triggers with its accompanying soundtrack.
• On some ship configurations, the geologist panel controls would not show up.
• Fixed typos in ship names. The fix will affect only newly encountered ships.
• Mineral Market will not close itself automatically on the Steam Deck anymore.
• Fixed a race condition that could crash the game when a ship equipped with a physical display de-spawned, such as when changing from the Enceladus station to the Rings and back, or purchasing new equipment.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-02-05 16:39:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Additional soundtrack.
• New visual feed shader makes the torch flashes much gentler and easier to spot.
• The AR1500 Salvage Manipulator can now be damaged (and repaired).
• German translation is now at 100%.

[ 2023-01-20 09:53:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

2022 in summary

Last year, we had 86 stable releases and 782 experimental ones. I fixed 458 bugs, added 131 new features and polished up 272 aspects of the game. The most voted-for feature in 2022 was performance improvements, and they got the most attention. I improved the overall game performance by 291% - it works almost three times faster than in 2021. Here is a detailed month-by-month breakdown, sampled from versions released in each month:
Overall, 2022 improved over 2021 by:

• Average rendering framerate raised from 32.5 to 81.5 (+251%)
• Physics simulation framerate raised from 47.1 to 90.3 (+192%)
• Improvements allowed to extend the number of simultaneously simulated physical objects from an average of 120.4 up to 182.6 (+152%).

Performance optimisations of a game are never done. You can always make the game faster, target a bit older hardware, and make it use a bit less power. This would introduce a constant feature creep - adding more and more workload to the project without any terminal goal. To manage it, I set the target hardware for 2022: I aimed to make V run at least 30 fps on the Steam Deck. As of now, it seems we have reached that point.

Most significant changes of 2022

• Introduced ship variants - ranging from facelifted models to complete aftermarket overhauled. This brought the number of distinct player-flyable ships up to 16.
• A completely new ship: the Antonoff-Titan AT-K225.
• The Enceladus station now includes a Services menu.
• New game plus mode with parallel universes and ship rerolling.
• 4K texture support.
• Additional soundtracks.
• Information billboard on the Enceladus station providing extra game lore and improving immersion.
• New Pilot tab on the OMS menu, with the ability to hail other ships.
• Exploitation of the rings is now saved and persists between missions.
• New, more immersive and engaging astrogation protocol for in-ring transits.
• New hardware options for big ships.
• A separate Fleet menu on Enceladus Prime.

Delays, expected and otherwise

Delays always plague game development. 2022 was no different for V. This year delays of V had serious reasons. My child had severe surgery - the kind that is only a handful performed worldwide. While I tried to contain the estimated release date to the end of 2022, the stress and absences finally won, and the estimated release slipped by almost four months. You can spot that on the release estimation chart:
This chart is based on dividing the remaining work for 1.0 (and 2.0) by the average progress made each day. The estimated release moves daily not only because things get done, but also because new work is added daily. While its tempting to push back any new ideas for -later releases, some things - like bugs - need to be addressed as soon as they emerge.

Demos and charity

V is an independent, self-published title. When I started developing it, it was unclear if this was a viable career choice; thus, V began as a side project, something I do in my spare time. The journey of an independent game developer is similar to the road a writer takes - we have our day jobs, we are creating something we dreamt about, and we have a team of people that helps us. The Early Access title is like the first book in a trilogy for a new author - some will buy it, and others will wait until the trilogy completes or there are enough positive reviews. V crossed the line of profitability in 2021. With the war breaking out in 2022, I decided to lift all the restrictions from the game demo, making it essentially the same as a full game - asking only for a donation to a worthy cause instead. Many of you did that, and many more got the game keys from charity events - I would like to use this opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to all of you. You are making a difference in the world. store.steampowered.com/app/949730 Despite the game being available for free, you kept surprising me with your generosity and buying the game anyway. In 2022 V stopped being just self-sustaining and moved to be my primary income source. It turns out that players dont buy the game just to get access to it, they do it to support the developers they like. Thank you!

Game Translations

Besides the indirect contributions, like bug reports and idea suggestions, most of the Vs translations are made by players. With our development velocity, with new versions of the game coming out daily, this is the best way to ensure that most of the game is translated. Thank you! Here is a list of our current language support status:
The community-supplied translations are marked with translation percentage, which you can see both here and inside the game. English, Polish, Ukrainian and Spanish translations are handled completely in-house - either by team members or by hired professional translators. This ensures that these four languages are always kept up-to-date.

[ 2023-01-14 13:26:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

V: Deep Weeb is the long-awaited cosmetic DLC for V: Rings of Saturn that adds a whole new level of personality to your gameplay experience. This DLC transforms all crew portraits into anime characters, giving your space adventure a unique and immersive twist.

You can get V: Deep Weeb here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2263460/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Deep_Weeb/

...or don't. It's optional content for people who like that.

Q&A

Q: Is there any gameplay impact of this DLC? A: None at all; this DLC is purely cosmetic for players that prefer different art styles. Q: Which art does this DLC replace? A: This DLC will replace character portraits only. Q: Why do you make a cosmetic DLC instead of expanding the base game? A: Players asked for it, and I'm happy to oblige. Creating content like this flexes different muscles than base game development and doesn't interfere with it in the slightest. Q: I dont want this! A: Good. If it was something everyone liked, it should not be a DLC, but rather a content patch. DLCs are supposed to be optional. [previewyoutube=4ivKZMYmt_A;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-01-13 18:02:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

• If you deploy a B8 claim beacon on the rim (below 10km depth), it will still automatically contact you.
• Fixed a bug that caused the claim location not to be updated if you cancelled your claim and moved the B8 beacon to a different location before it expired.
• Truce negotiations with pirates during the heat of the battle could be, in some cases, cut short.

[ 2023-01-08 10:59:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Adjusted MA-337 autopilot overlay to work well with new, increased range of LIDARs.

[ 2023-01-05 21:57:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Cloaking Devices Debunked

Reports of cloaking device being used by entities operating within rings were debunked earlier today, as an independent investigation held by miners guild concluded. After carefully examining the ship logs data across multiple ships, investigators found that the reports of stations appearings in the thin air can be mainly attributed to user errors. While the intoxication of the crew was raised as a likely reason, no biometric logs could be used to prove or disprove it, and this thread of investigation was abandoned.

Wave Patterns in the Rings

Meta-analysis of multiple telescopic images cross-referenced with a vast array of LIDAR data submitted by individual spaceship captains allowed researchers to form new hypotheses on the formation of macroscopic wave patterns within the rings. A well-known phenomenon where the average density of particles within the rings visible on the macroscopic scale tends to form waves of high and low-density areas was previously attributed to gravitational effects. Still, most recent discoveries suggest that electrostatic forces present within the ring plane could significantly impact the phenomenon.

Lidar ranges Extended by Software Update

Runasimi Inc, the leading supplier of white-label LIDAR signal processing hardware, released a new software update package for their R68050 phase-processing chip. Further increased base frequency and improved noise filters promise to improve the LIDAR detection range even on existing hardware and are reported to raise the device's effective range by over 300%.

Maintenance Logs

• Adjusted the ice generation and exploitation routines. An emergent interaction between the spawning routines and the exploitation grid shape caused wave formations to appear inside rings. While this emergence was welcome and confirmed by most recent discoveries about the density patterns inside rings, the emerged features were bigger than expected. To counteract this, the exploitation map resolution is now 300% bigger, reducing wave formations' size by 300%. As a side-effect, your save file can take up to 270kB more disk space.
• Anomalies will not spawn within your visual range anymore. While more minor anomalies were not noticeable, an occasional asteroid-based station decloaking a few hundred meters from your ship could be jarring.
• Increased the range of your LIDAR - it will now be able to detect ice and anomalies further away from your ship.
• Lidar display on your OMS menu in the Pilot and Geologist tab will now present high-albedo (shiny) objects in the same pulsating manner as your main HUD LIDAR.
• Changed the scaling function for your OMS LIDAR displays to ensure that they will show the same range, even if you use non-standard resolution or increase the HUD size.
• Adjusted the synthetic siren of AT-K225.
• Points of interest exposed by your crew could contain the same event that was already discovered, which in some situations would look like stations you already know about moved through the rings faster than your ship.

[ 2023-01-05 18:11:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved performance of the background ring particles.
• Fixed scrolling the UI elements with gamepads with more than one physical control mapped to the same action, such as Steam Deck.
• Some particle fire and smoke effects on asteroid-based stations did not respect the particle detail settings.
• Added additional interactions with hostile stations if they are most afraid of you.
• NPC landing hits with a kinetic weapon will now back away quicker - unless you escalate.
• Additional data on the in-game profiler is available on the F11 key. The profiler will now adapt to any screen resolution.
• Fixed graphical glitch on mineral processing units' venting excess remass particle effect.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash if you rapidly switched between two owned ships with cargo containers attached.
• Double-clicking on the switch ship button on your Fleet menu will no longer cause the game to enter an undefined ship state.
• Updated translations.

[ 2023-01-01 12:37:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=4ivKZMYmt_A;full][/previewyoutube] Channel your inner Otaku with V: Deep Weeb - a cosmetic DLC that turns your entire crew into anime characters, adding a new level of personality to your ring-mining experience! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2263460/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Deep_Weeb/

Q&A

Q: Is there any gameplay impact of this DLC? A: None at all; this DLC is purely cosmetic for players that prefer different art styles. Q: Which art does this DLC replace? A: This DLC will replace character portraits only. Q: Why do you make a cosmetic DLC instead of expanding the base game? A: Players asked for it, and I'm happy to oblige. Creating content like this flexes different muscles than base game development and doesn't interfere with it in the slightest.

[ 2022-12-31 15:41:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

V: Anthropogenesis cosmetic DLC now includes brand new dynamic shading options for your crew's anthropomorphic faces. Light will now follow the curves on their fur and hair, naturally highlighting all their features.
New shading options are available everywhere where you can see your crew - on station reflections, during the dialogue scenes, on the crew menu and in the main Enceladus overlay.

You can get V: Anthropogenesis here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1938680

...or don't. It's optional content for people who like that.

[ 2022-12-27 20:44:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Pulsed thrusters could align their pulse frequency with your physics framerate in a way that caused them never to perform a burn, despite consuming propellant.
• You could hit your ship with your own mass-driver.

[ 2022-12-23 22:32:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

New regulations for Salvage Manipulators

After a tragic accident in the Docking Ring earlier this week, Enceladus Corp issued an updated policy governing independent salvage equipment. Starting today, all ship-mounted articulated manipulators not under the direct supervision of qualified personnel must stay powered down, folded and secured on the ships hull.

Elon Interstellar enables new autonomy features

Following surprising Twatter poll results, the CEO of Elon Interstellar announced that he would be adhering to the ages-long tradition of his company and issued an immediate free over-the-air upgrade of all the EIAA-1337 autopilots. Changes include the implementation of often requested SanBUS protocol, introducing a compatibility between the Obonto US-GOT reconnaissance crafts queue and the autopilots flight control.

New services available on Enceladus

Recent expansion of the commercial area of the Industrial Ring has caused a drop in average rent prices. Several companies have used this opportunity to establish permanent offices on the station. Residents of the station can now use the services provided by Obonto Habitats, Jamesons Insurance Company, and the independently operated Miners Guild.

Maintenance logs

• Separate Fleet menu on Enceladus Prime, which displays all your owned ships, with the ability to view data on any of them
• New Services available on Enceladus Prime: The Miners Guild, Obonto Habitats office and Jamesons Insurance.
• Autonomous autopilots will now communicate with other equipment on your ship through the ship area network bus. This allows them to coordinate with salvage manipulators and nanodrone systems.
• Your AR1500 Salvage Manipulator will now fold when powered down.
• All AI, including NPC ships, autonomous autopilots and mining companions, is now aware that turning or changing velocity is probably not the best idea if your excavator is open.
• EIAA-1337 autopilot can now interface with Obonto USV-GOT reconnaissance craft. If you set up an excavator order and point your autopilot to the first ore chunk, it will automatically follow the excavation queue.
• Reconnaissance drones category got renamed to reconnaissance craft to avoid confusion when discussing specific hardware.
• Renamed all the reconnaissance systems to use manufacturer models and designations instead of descriptions.
• Strafe controls for your autopilot can be assigned in the Settings menu.
• New warning siren for Antonoff-Titan AT-K225.
• Improved performance of the exhaust gas simulation.
• Improved performance of the racing autopilot path prediction overlay.
• Improved performance of the LIDAR systems.
• Improved performance of the Dealer.
• If you fail to recover a derelict ship and have to leave it in the rings, but it did get ore inside its cargo hold, you will not get that cargo when you return to the Enceladus Prime station.
• The scrolling speed of OMS windows was affected by the slowed-down time when you have your OMS open, making window movement sluggish. It was especially apparent when you used a gamepad to scroll the window.
• Notification animation popups were affected by the slowed-down time of an Adrenaline Surge and OMS window.
• Adjusted performance options for the renderer.
• New, more accurate normal maps and lighting setups for all the character faces.

Included patches

• When acquiring job locations from the pirates, new locations will not override previous ones you did not visit yet.
• Improved performance of exhaust plume rendering.
• Improved physics performance of pulsed thrust reaction control systems and torches.
• Limiting details of the plume simulation now correctly limits the details for pulse rockets, both the rendering and physics simulation. Turning the details down to zero will now disable the plumes completely.
• Fixed some character names that contained space at the end, which introduced strange formatting issues
• Ore exploitation is now persistent between the dives and stored in your save. If you keep strip-mining the same area, you will find it eventually barren. The random fluctuation and collisions will eventually replenish any such location, but it takes a significant amount of in-game time.
• Vilcy now have a local branch accessible from the Services menu, where you can pay up your bounties at a discount before being approached by patrols in the rings.
• Reworked the crew bio card. Crew skills are now visible for your hired crew, and there is a new icon for this skill level is roughly the same as your current crew has.
• Wingmen are now much better at keeping formation, getting out of your ships way and avoiding large asteroids.
• Re-balanced services. Certain services now have a cooldown, so going into an all-you-can-eat buffet for three days straight is no longer the optimal way to improve your crew morale.
• Billboards on the Enceladus station now use mipmaps, making the edges of texts and graphics displayed less jagged.
• Changes the locations of docking ports on a particular asteroid-based space station to accommodate bigger and heavier ships docking.
• Your crew could get confused on a failed EVA salvage mission if another ship approached, making them return to the wrong ship.
• When hiring a Vilcy member as a bodyguard, he wont promise to share a portion of gathered ore with you, as they are not interested in mining.
• All Heads-Up Displays operate now in OLED-display-friendly mode, slightly switching the location of fixed elements over time to prevent burn-in damage in prolonged dives.
• Updated game credits.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-12-23 14:18:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Ore exploitation is now persistent between the dives and stored in your save. If you keep strip-mining the same area, you will find it eventually barren. The random fluctuation and collisions will eventually replenish any such location, but it takes a significant amount of in-game time.
• Vilcy now have a local branch accessible from the Services menu, where you can pay up your bounties at a discount before being approached by patrols in the rings.
• Reworked the crew bio card. Crew skills are now visible for your hired crew, and there is a new icon for this skill level is roughly the same as your current crew has.
• Wingmen are now much better at keeping formation, getting out of your ships way and avoiding large asteroids.
• Re-balanced services. Certain services now have a cooldown, so going into an all-you-can-eat buffet for three days straight is no longer the optimal way to improve your crew morale.
• Billboards on the Enceladus station now use mipmaps, making the edges of texts and graphics displayed less jagged.
• Changes the locations of docking ports on a particular asteroid-based space station to accommodate bigger and heavier ships docking.
• Your crew could get confused on a failed EVA salvage mission if another ship approached, making them return to the wrong ship.
• When hiring a Vilcy member as a bodyguard, he wont promise to share a portion of gathered ore with you, as they are not interested in mining.
• All Heads-Up Displays operate now in OLED-display-friendly mode, slightly switching the location of fixed elements over time to prevent burn-in damage in prolonged dives.
• Updated game credits.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-12-17 21:12:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When acquiring job locations from the pirates, new locations will not override previous ones you did not visit yet.
• Improved performance of exhaust plume rendering.
• Improved physics performance of pulsed thrust reaction control systems and torches.
• Limiting details of the plume simulation now correctly limits the details for pulse rockets, both the rendering and physics simulation. Turning the details down to zero will now disable the plumes completely.
• Fixed some character names that contained space at the end, which introduced strange formatting issues

[ 2022-12-13 09:53:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Kessler syndrome accelerating

A runaway Kessler syndrome triggered by a rogue asteroid impact earlier this year is accelerating. While cascading collisions produce more fine-grained ring particles each day, covering the upper and lower areas around the A-ring, scientists believe that proximity of the ring plane will eventually cause the cascade to slow down and diminish - but provide no estimation on when that will happen. Crews excavating in affected areas are urged to exercise caution.

Labor law expanded

The Mining Guild of Enceladus managed to win a class lawsuit against Enceladus Corp. Effective today, downtime during interlunar transits, as long as it is fully controlled by the autopilot, is classified as paid vacation. While this forbids employers from requiring crews to perform tasks not mandated by their job duties, some station citizens vote concerns that interlunar transits could be subtracted from mandatory vacation quotas.

Shadow dives available

With a new navigational array being available on polar orbit around Saturn, greatly enhancing the resolution and light sensitivity of Enceladus Corp systems, the station will now allow launches of private spacecraft into the shadow-covered regions of the rings. While lack of solar lighting can prove to be a challenge for inexperienced crews, many captains are excited about lower traffic volume and prospects of higher yields.

Maintenance Logs

• Fine-tuned in-game physics options to allow better performance of the physics engine based on real-world data supplied by players.
• Shifted computing majority of the ring background particle system from CPU to GPU, which improves average framerate on all systems with modern graphics cards. Older and integrated GPUs will not be affected.
• Improved performance of ore chunk physics simulation. Immobile chunks can now free up computing power, lowering the processing requirements for strip-mining ship builds depending on cleaning up a large area of the rings and capturing ore with nanodrone systems.
• Adjusted parameters of simulation throttling system. While previous values were effective at keeping the framerate consistent on tested systems, extreme builds could lock the system in a state where no new iceroids were generated. New changes ensure that even with a limited simulation range, iceroids can still appear around you.
• The physics throttling now adjusts the area of detailed simulation, not its radius, giving it much finer control over changes introduced in the game physics.
• Nakamura-Titan Mining Companions now have a slightly reduced iceroid detection range. While it makes them a bit less effective at mining, it reduces the CPU load of their onboard AI by over 400%, which allows ship builds sporting multiple companions to work with much better performance.
• When many in-game days pass in an instant - during interlunar transit, repairs or extended vacations on the station - your crew used to gain education experience for the first day only. Now you will get the full benefit of the entire time period. For most playstyles, this will increase the rate your crew educates itself downtime by up to 500%.
• When your processed mineral storage becomes full, your ship will now sound a brief alert.
• Adjusted the physical cargo bay shape of the Pelican Prospector so the cargo baffles installed inside work as expected.
• You can now turn off all the dynamic lights, including the sun, with the lowest lights detail setting, which improves performance on low-end systems. For roleplaying purposes, you can assume you are diving into the shadow of Saturn.
• The in-game profiler overlay available with the F11 key will display a version string for easier comparison of changes introduced in different releases.
• The Equipment menu Simulation and User Manual tabs now have icons, making them easier to spot by novice players.
• Elon Interstellar Model E cargo door dampeners are not as stiff now, making the ship open and close its excavator much quicker.
• New cargo acquisition protocol ensures that ore deflected from an area that the ship considers a cargo bay will not be accounted as on-board cargo briefly.
• Adjusted the physical shape of AT-K225 to better match the displayed sprite.
• If you created a custom player-created ads directory but did not put any custom ads inside it, the game would crash when loading the Enceladus station.
• When a ship appeared on your lidar, your astrogator assigned it a tactical marker - but if it moved into a shadow for over 60 seconds, its name would disappear from the list on the Pilot tab.
• Adjusted the default game settings for a new game to offer better default performance and experience over a variety of systems. You can still adjust the settings to your liking.
• Some events were despawning much quicker than they should have, which made locating them challenging.
• Updated game engine version for Linux and Steam Deck to Godot Engine 3.5.1, bringing all the new performance and stability enhancements to these platforms.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-12-07 19:30:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New reaction explosion visual effect, with destroyed ship parts now flying through space.
• Improved the performance of the explosion shader and added it to the shader cache, so the first explosion in a game wont cause a lag spike anymore.
• Tactical markers of ships that exploded will now disappear immediately.
• Moonlets and other big entities wont appear too close to each other anymore.
• The search and Rescue team will not ask you if you have seen any disabled ships if they can see a derelict ship themselves.
• Fixed a race condition in HUD initialization that caused tuning settings specific to a type of HUD you are using to not show up in the Tuning menu at random times
• Changed the visual prompt for waiting for a keypress when adding keybind to the Settings / Controls menu to be visible when the bloom option is disabled.
• When you send your crew over to salvage a derelict ship, they will refuel it when they reach their destination, not when they launch from your craft. This prevents a derelict from booting up prematurely and acting without crew direction.
• Derelict ships that your crew judges are too damaged to attempt salvage will be actually damaged if you tow them back with a salvage manipulator.
• Derelict options would not show up if there were hostile ships or drones nearby, even if you were not aware of them and they were not aware of you.
• Improved performance of the derelicts - they will now use far less resources than a working ship uses.
• The storyteller module is now more aware of the performance considerations and will attempt not to trigger two demanding events in close proximity.
• Improved performance of nanodrone systems.
• In an exclusive full-screen mode, the resolution scale slider did not work immediately and required a game restart or changing the display mode.
• Carbon Anomaly would not de-spawn after the first appearance, causing degraded performance and constant music shift.
• You can now use a custom paint job for the Vulture Prospector with custom-vulture-prospector.png file.
• Adjusted the physical shape of AT-K225 simulation again. The previous collider could be overzealous and accounted ore hitting the sides of your ship as cargo briefly.
• When discussing a location with another ship and astrogating to another location while still having comms open, the event exposed to you will now be based on the location the ship you were talking to was when you started, not the new location of your ship. This includes when you both astrogate to a new location.
• Adjusted in-ring astrogation trajectory abort conditions. Speeding over the required velocity will not disable the trajectory immediately anymore.
• Changing your active crew will update the relative skill indicators on the hiring tab immediately.

[ 2022-12-05 08:36:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed the controls display in the Setting menu for keyboard controls, which showed a shift key for all controls.
• Your ship logs will not scroll upwards anymore when you enter the menu for a second time.

[ 2022-12-02 08:02:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added more aggressive dynamic physic limitation will now focus the simulation around your ship if there is a lot going on there. While a system like that existed in previous versions, in some events it could allow the physics simulation to track and simulate an unreasonable amount of objects, which for some playstyles caused the performance to degrade dramatically.
• Ships and drones that are not actively powered, are in cargo bays or inside cradles will use much fewer resources. This improves performance for playstyles that favour multiple cargo containers constantly attached to your ship, especially on Antonoff-Titan AT-K225.
• Docking arms that rotate ships attached to them will now allow your ship to dock both ways, making it possible to dock to habitats, ships and stations with your engines pointed at them. This makes it easier to perform some of the more challenging docking manoeuvres.
• Big ships with docking arms now have their docking sequence adjusted to keep your ship further away from their hull. This makes it easier to dock with big and heavy ships.
• Ship logs at the Enceladus Prime station will now will in from the end, making the most recent events immediately visible.
• Adjusted physical shape for AT-K225 to prevent ore from sticking into certain areas and preventing astrogation.
• When a terrified pirate was asking for a truce the dialogue could be cut short if you did not actively approach them.
• Addressed the gameplay-story segregation of crewed derelict recovery. Previously, derelicts that turned out to be too damaged to salvage were rigged to explode. Now, they actually sustain the type of damage indicated by the dialogue. In the event of recovery of such craft by other means, the results will be consistent with the presented story. This will also prevent derelicts from spontaneously combusting if you recovered them in such way.
• Tooltips will now simply fade in and out, instead of sliding through your screen. There is a bit more delay when displaying the tooltip.
• Fixed an illegal access bug that could cause the game to crash if a point defence turret examined a possible target in the very same instant it was docking or undocking.
• When attempting crewed derelict recovery and not having enough propellant on board to perform the action, in 66% of cases the relevant crew reply didnt show up.
• You could attempt to perform crewed salvage on a derelict that was in the process of being towed away by a Search and Rescue ship if it was a part of a crew quest.
• Extended the ignore minor collisions tuning range for EIAA-1337 autopilot.
• Changed the way the tutorial displays keyboard, gamepad and mouse controls to make it clear that some actions can be performed by more than one keypress, and the choice is up to the player.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-12-01 19:51:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New Enceladus News Network broadcast for the Enceladian Billboards.
• Added baked-in depth-of-field effect for the Enceladian Billboards to reduce aliasing artefacts and make displayed information easier to read.
• Point Defence Systems of stations and ships would try to snipe out equipment from your cradle that they didnt like. Due to their overzealousness, this often resulted in an escalation of violence. All PDT systems will now treat hardware attached to your ship through cradles the same as your ship - but the crew might still not like that you bring wiretaps to their area.
• Some claim beacons could boot up while they were still attached to your ship - and tried to contribute to your ship manoeuvres with their own thrust. While commendable, this often resulted in overheating damage.
• Adjusted physical collider shape on Antonoff-Titan AT-K225.
• Ingesting cargo containers into your main hull and flying with them back to the station this way will now yield their contents, just like you had them attached to a dedicated cradle arm.
• Changed the collision algorithm for carbon-based ice. Previously used raycast was precise for small, fast-moving objects, but tended to experience problems with multiple items confined in a cargo hull.
• Limited the number of music tracks that can be mixed simultaneously. While all our soundtracks were designed to be mixed seamlessly, if you put 4 together, that didnt sound very coherent.
• Ship logs now display progressively, eliminating a lag spike in late-game saves.
• Ghosts of deceased spacemen wont haunt you with eerie music for the rest of your dive if you fail to put them to rest.
• Adjusted OSX fullscreen mode handling. On some M1 systems, window manipulation could induce a race condition that caused the game to crash when you switched modes while it was running.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-11-29 09:57:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Ship in equipment menu simulations are not real and thus should not cause the simulated ore they catch of have in their cargo hold to transfer into the players inventory on a subsequent dive.

[ 2022-11-27 08:09:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Control button hint in the Hardware menu is now bigger, and is displayed on both the Description and User Manual tabs.
• Adjusted some dialogue trees so you cannot inquire details about information that was not yet revealed to you.
• Grinders of an Mining Companion that is fully enclosed in your cargo bay will not prevent astrogation anymore.
• Astrogation labels on the Astrogator tab for destinations, whose tracking expires while you are flying in the rings will now disappear.
• Hiring wingmen will now make them more friendly towards you.
• Hired wingmen that dig out ore for you will now send over both processed and raw ore when you return to the Enceladus Prime station.
• Hired miners will not transfer the ore to you when they run out of propellant before you and return to the station on their own.
• Added a missing key prompt for manually operated point defence turrets.
• The camera on the Enceladus Prime station will now pan to the side when you open menus, so they wont obscure information from the background.
• Interlunar transit usage on the Dive Selection screen used to flash a higher value for a fraction of a second after you pressed the Launch Dive button.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-11-26 16:33:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

• You can now toggle your main torch with a hotkey.
• NPC ships now understand how Haul Nanodrone system works and will use them to their full potential.
• Friendly AI ships, such as wingmen and mining companions, have now more incentive to stay in the general area of your ship and will not get lost kilometres away when hunting for expensive ore chunks.
• NPC ships are now aware of your craft at longer range, since they can also observe your thruster flashes on their visual feeds.
• Expanded the ship detection range for your Mining Companion, since they have a constant radio uplink with your ship.
• B8 Claim Beacons installed on a Pelican Prospector will not damage your ship anymore.
• Racing HUD will not show the overheat glitch shader when it is not overheating.
• The demo version now supports Steam Cloud saves.

[ 2022-11-25 09:04:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Labor of Love award is for games that are out for a while, but devs still continue to nurture and support their creation. If you love our work and enjoy playing V - nominate us for the Steam "Labor of Love" Award!

V: Rings of Saturn entered Early Access over three years ago.

Since then we squashed 2550 bugs, added 877 new features (many of which were suggested by our players on our discord), released 2486 bleeding edge and 355 new stable versions. We came a long way and we still aim to improve at a steady pace.

Forward... to the past!

This is a good time to step back and look at our past and see exactly how far the game progressed. Take a look at this comparison of early build 0.38.0 and the most recent bleeding edge:
[expand type=details] Want to see more? Here is some early footage from versions 0.38.0 and 0.84.0:



[/expand]

Roadmaps of the Uncharted Land

V: Rings of Saturn doesn't use a classic roadmap, where the developer outlines the list of things they think they'll be doing next. We just found that these don't work, as new ideas come in daily and the actual work drifts further and further away from the initial post. This is why we opted to expose our internal working documents - the Kanban boards - so you can see in real-time what we work on.

[ 2022-11-22 18:01:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Expanded geologist filter options. When having the "unmarked" option turned on, the affected systems will be allowed to act upon matching ore, even when it's not apprised yet. Disabling the "unmarked" option will enforce stricter checking, and ore that is not apprised yet will not be counted as a valid target. This changes the behaviour of drone systems and the AR1500 manipulator. If you want your systems to work on ore that is still being apprised, turn on the "unmarked" option for them.
• Fixed a bug in the tutorial, which would sometimes skip ahead without player input if the previous action took much longer than anticipated.
• Tutorial step that requires you to target an ice asteroid or ore chunk will now spawn a relevant item nearby if there is none near.
• The tooltip for control settings for the excavator will now explicitly mention that double-tap causes it to stay open.
• Updated translations - Norwegian: 71%

[ 2022-11-22 14:25:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Language selection menu will now show both the native language name as well as an English version of it.
• Changed the Geologist panel behaviour for filters of minimum chunk value. Since the composition and value estimations were not happening simultaneously, hardware configured to interact with unidentified chunks and chunks above specified value had a time window in which the ore was identified for content, but not yet appraised. This caused your AR1500 manipulator to briefly release chunks while they were apprised, as well as the new ore marker filter to toggle the labels of freshly identified chunks in and out.
• Expanded translations - French 98%, Norwegian 60%, Dutch 46%

[ 2022-11-21 17:24:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Your geologist can now filter the mineral markers displayed on your HUD, making hunting for a specific ore type easier.
• Adjusted ship shape of Eagle Prospector and its variants, so bullets stuck in its hull wont prevent you from astrogating anymore.
• The middlemost setting of the gamma slider had a slightly different brightness than the neighbouring settings.
• Fixed a bug that caused the EIME HUD to always look like your computer was damaged.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-11-20 18:04:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

• NPC pilots will now have a human-level reaction time when spotting and assessing the damage of their ships. In addition of improved immersion, this dramatically lowers the processing requirements when other ships are present, improving performance all across the board, but especially on systems that had performance drops due to insufficient CPU processing power. The effect is most noticeable when there are multiple ships around you.
• Additional dirty lens on recoinessanse drone visual effect.
• Screen-reading shaders, like the visual cue for hearing impaired, damaged computer, colourblind correction or gamma correction, will now be completely disabled automatically when not in use, improving performance on low-end and integrated GPU cards.
• Turning off the Postprocessing in settings will now disable more post-processing effects further improving performance on low-end and integrated GPU cards.
• Direct and Smoothed camera modes will not zoom in or out automatically based on relative motion of things around your ship anymore.
• Additional in-universe advertisements display at the Enceladus station billboard.
• Mood change indicators after visits in morale-boosting services on the Enceladus station will now really update immediately after a visit.
• Fixed a bug that caused Steam Leaderboard high score upload to be delayed and sometimes aborted.
• Translation update - complete Hungarian translation, start of the Greek translation.

[ 2022-11-19 15:47:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

With the latest dV update, we added full translation to an additional language - Spanish. With a base English and our in-house Polish translations, this marks 4 fully supported languages, with multiple more on the made via community contributions.
Most of the Vs translations are community contributions made by our players. With our development velocity, with new versions of the game coming out daily, this is the only way to ensure that we have up-to-date translations. Thank you! If you want to help us with translations, the guide for submitting community translations is here.

[ 2022-11-17 16:22:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug that caused derelict events and crew conversations to not trigger.
• Changed description of Streaming mode to Dont pause in the background.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-11-16 14:29:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Pirate crews setting up traps are now more patient.
• An hardware category in the Hardware menu will not close itself when you purchase new hardware anymore.
• Tooltips will now show in the Settings menu when opened in the Rings.
• Fixed some tooltips displaying twice in the Hardware menu.
• Tooltips for missing electrical or thermal power will now display when playing with a gamepad.
• Tooltips for the autopilot and manual controls category in the Settings menu will now display when playing with a keyboard alone.
• Updated the translations.

[ 2022-11-15 11:53:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

New hardware approved for ring use

Previously limited to large-scale asteroid harvesters and military vessels, heavy-duty containers for kinetic ammunition, nanodrone components and enhanced fuel tanks were finally approved for use on selected vehicles. Captains of heavy ships, including the popular Cothon series and Antonoff-Titan K225, welcome the ability to extend their average mission duration. While market analysts warn about a possible spike in consumable prices following increased demand, no such increase was detected at this time.

Tighter exhaust emission limits

Following the discovery of an increased buildup of radioactive exhaust residue on surfaces of stations and habitats in the Saturnian region, Enceladus Corp tightened the emission limits on thermal rockets around inhabited regions. While initial tests indicate that the typical thermal thrusters improve efficiency when operating in propellant-lean mode, engineers are concerned about compromising the longevity of engines.

Macroscopic quantum tunnelling debunked

The famous macroscopic quantum tunnelling experiment allegedly performed at the Pheobe research station was debunked today. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to replicate the experiments by researchers, a new meta-analysis of the data in the paper discovered jitter patterns characteristic of floating point precision errors, which might indicate that the entire paper is based on fabricated data. With the outrage of the scientific community, original researchers requested their paper to be retracted from multi-journal.

Maintenance Logs

• Ships can now have limits on what kind of hardware they can install.
• New hardware options for big ships - bigger propellant tanks, more nanodrone and kinetic ammunition storage.
• Changed the in-game video codec to an older one, which has a bit bigger download sizes, but uses a lot fewer resources to play, making the playback consistent on all platforms, even when the movie is used during loading and initializing the game. This affects both the intro animation and the in-universe ads displayed on billboards on Enceladus Prime station.
• Performance enhancements - collision precision testing is now dynamically adjusted based on the physics tick rate, increasing the precision when its most crucial. This will improve CPU performance on mid to high-range hardware, and on low-end hardware, it will prevent cargo from phasing through ship hulls.
• Optimized exhaust gas simulation. This will improve performance when multiple thrusters are operating, specifically when there are multiple ships nearby.
• The plume detail slider will not only control the display of rocket plumes but now will affect the detail of the exhaust simulation. This will improve performance significantly on low-end machines when you limit the details.
• Additional steps for detail sliders in the Settings/Details menu will allow you to fine-tune the performance and appearance of your game to better suit your preferences.
• Morale adjustment indicators on Enceladus Prime are now updated each hour instead of once a day. This fixes the indicators not appearing immediately after visits to The Twins.
• Fine-tuned AI and detection range for the racing team, so its much harder to outrun them to the point where the race is considered cheating. While the racer is still obeying the same physics rules as you, it will be able to fly more recklessly if necessary to keep up.
• You can now enable the in-game performance profiling tool using the F11 key.
• Internationalization polishing - consistent number formatting. All the numbers are now displayed in locale-specific format, including dynamically generated content.
• Updated translations - Spanish translation is now 100% complete.
• Updated translations - Hungarian translation is now available, 34% complete.

[ 2022-11-13 12:40:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug that would cause the game to crash if you uninstalled your HUD completely and tried to use Astrogator, Pilot or Geologist tabs in OMS.
• Dynamic lighting on the preview of the gamepad control scheme in the settings was missing, making the gamepad difficult to read.
• An in-game reboot of Elon Interstellar Model E HUD caused it to re-appear much brighter than it was originally.
• Fixed a graphical glitch on the excavator of Elon Interstellar Model E ship.
• Updated translations - extended Spanish translation.
• Updated credits page.

[ 2022-11-09 10:17:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Used ship import restrictions lifted

Import restrictions have been lifted on a group of ship variants, following their completion of safety testing. Keep an eye out at dealerships across the system; new, specialized configurations of the Prospector, K37, and Cothon should be available soon.

Graphene superconducting coils breakthrough

A new breakthrough in the graphene superconducting coil technology commonly used in superconducting magnetic energy storage systems allows the system to reach a much higher specific energy using a newly developed phase modulation technique. With the ability to dramatically increase SMES capacity through a software upgrade, manufacturers of most commercially available systems rushed to push out a firmware upgrade package unlocking the full capability of their systems.

Digital Mimas Halloween special concert

With the conclusion of Digital Mimas latest Halloween special concert tour, their new song is now available for purchase over most electronic platforms. Sales are expected to reach record numbers for the band, following the success of the tour introducing the title.

Maintainance Logs

• New ship variant: Mitsudaya-Starbus / Titan Heavy Industries Pelican Prospector.
• New ship variant: Rusatom-Antonoff / Triskellion-Armstrong KTA24.
• New ship variant: Conlido Cothon-217 Bender.
• Re-balanced Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage systems. Their capacity is now based on the latest estimations for graphene-based coils, effectively tripling their capacity. The charge/discharge behaviour now relies on the internal capacitor state rather than the power balance, making them more suitable to power high-draw appliances for prolonged periods. As a side effect, the new heuristics combined with increased capacity make them charge at a slower rate.
• Added intro animation when starting a new save.
• Additional soundtrack.
• Fixed a bug in the dynamic simulation range routines that caused them to not take into account asteroid simulations, only ship simulations. This improves performance in dense areas and will make the ships despawn further away, making events that rely on flying together with an NPC ship, like patrols or races, to be more consistent.
• Changed full-screen mode on OSX systems to not display docks or menu bars under any circumstances.
• Updated translations and credits screen.

[ 2022-11-06 18:24:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Changed the dive target selection screen gamepad controls. You can now pick the location with the right analogue stick, while the left one controls the sliders, making it consistent with other menus.
• The chat bubble comms reply prompt is now bigger and contains the button icon both on the Keyboard and Gamepad control schemes.
• The IFF sliders on the Pilot tab of OMS are now easier to control with the gamepad.
• Improved performance of some UI elements.
• Fixed a race condition that could cause the Settings menu to crash on some systems, occasionally preventing the game from being launched at all.
• NPC ships flying with nanodrone systems will now use them only on the ore they actually wish to collect.
• Nanodrone system simulation will now ignore geologist settings, as no geologists are present in the simulation.
• The pause menu will not be affected by auto-exposure. This makes the gamma slider helper image useful in-game.
• Updated translations
• Updated OSX engine version.
• The new OSX full-screen mode conforms to the OS full-screen convention.

[ 2022-11-03 11:41:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Button tooltips will now display when you play with a gamepad or keyboard alone.
• The new game parallel universe slider can now be quickly adjusted with your left gamepad stick.
• Fixed a bug that delayed the navigation in the Enceladus menu with the gamepad for 3 seconds after you pushed the first gamepad button.
• Fixed font used in some places for Ukrainian translation, which was missing some language-specific letters.

[ 2022-10-18 06:57:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

With the latest dV update, we added full translation to an additional language - Ukrainian. With a base English and our in-house Polish translations, this marks 3 fully supported languages, with multiple more on the made via community contributions.
Most of the Vs translations are community contributions made by our players. With our development velocity, with new versions of the game coming out daily, this is the only way to ensure that we have up-to-date translations. Thank you!

[ 2022-10-17 13:54:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New action icons for gamepad and mouse controls were made to be more readable on handheld displays.
• Improved performance of ore and asteroid despawning when away from your ship.
• Improved safety protocol for PDT turrets to take account of the cone of fire and range of your weapon. This will prevent accidental fire on unintended targets when safety protocol is active, including your own ship, but can reduce the rate of fire as the PDT computer needs to ensure a proper target lock. Disable safety protocol in the Tuning menu to restore reckless behaviour.
• Adjusted cargo bay area detection of AT-K225 to prevent ores hitting the front of the ship from being momentarily accounted for as cargo.
• The autopilot lock on an ore nugget captured by another ship is now disengaged automatically.
• When leaving an area with an established point of interest, some of them could re-spawn in front of you.
• Fixed keyboard and gamepad controls in the pilot tabs, which sometimes prevented you from haling ships until you left and got back to the pilot tab.
• Fixed keyboard and gamepad controls in the setting menu, which could skip some options if you navigated down.
• New achievements.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-10-12 10:48:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Updated the game engine to Godot 3.5.1 for OSX systems.
• Phage stations will not re-spawn in front of you when you are flying away from them anymore.
• The gravimetric drone display would reset every hour that passed in real-time.
• The focus effect on HUD buttons is now more visible.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash while handling new leaderboard entries.
• The game would crash if your ship ran out of propellant while performing an astrogation countdown.
• Fixed keyboard/gamepad button order on the Settings screen.
• Added Ukrainian language support.

[ 2022-10-06 17:29:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Upgraded the game engine to Godot 3.5.1, with all the new stability and performance improvements it brings.
• A new in-game performance profiler, available by pressing ctrl+~, displays detailed performance data. This is mostly a development tool, but you can use it to fine-tune your performance and provide much more detailed feedback when reporting performance issues.
• NPC AI is now more efficient.
• NPC AI will not act smarter if you run the game in a higher framerate anymore.
• Improved performance of the Enceladus station Dealer menu and simulations in the equipment simulations in Tuning and Hardware menus.
• Overall performance improvements.
• Some stations left the simulation range prematurely and could re-spawn in front of your ship.
• Removed lag spikes when a new ship initialized in the rings.
• Fixed a bug that caused NPC ships to forget about other ships if they got near them, and then backed away for some distance. This will fix issues with the racing team losing track of the racing drone and not participating in the race anymore if you got far away enough from them.

[ 2022-10-03 16:29:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Some of the objects - most notably the external impact absorbers - triggered the instance reapers attention early and despawned prematurely.

[ 2022-09-29 08:36:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved performance of memory and object management, most noticeable on systems with slower CPUs.
• Adjusted depth of dynamic temporal simulation simplification to a higher value to prevent bodies phasing through ship hulls when framerate drops significantly.
• Exotic materials will now properly hide in your cargo hold and will not poke out of it.
• The racing drone will now look for racing ships in a larger area upon completion of the race and will grant you an award when its host is up to 64 km away.
• Changing autopilot maximum relative velocity will now also adjust the maximum velocity you can use for astrogation jumps.
• Fixed a bug that caused some dialogues to expose another location of events you already know about and which should not move due to their nature.

[ 2022-09-27 18:37:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a memory leak that could cause weird behaviour around habitats and other dockable stations.

[ 2022-09-24 10:41:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Bounty hunters will transfer prisoners from you again.
• Fixed the boot screen on ultra-wide monitors.
• Quickly toggling the Tuning setting for nanodrone systems could cause the game to crash.

[ 2022-09-23 12:29:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Vanlock-Hosk Comet torn by tidal forces

Early today, the Enceladus Telescope Array captured the Vanlock-Hosk Comet being torn to pieces by the tidal forces of Saturn. Comet debris scattered and hit a wide area of the A and B Rings, triggering a limited Kessler syndrome - a runaway cascade of collisions causing vast clouds of debris on erratic orbits - and shifting the mass distribution in multiple registered excavation claims. While extreme caution is advised when traversing out of the plane of the rings, the Enceladian Space Observatory claims that craft operating within the rings should be well shielded from impacts. Spectrography did not detect any unexpected mineral signatures.

Astrogation advisory for in-ring transits

A sharp increase in piracy across the disturbed A-ring regions has prompted the Astrogator Guild to issue a new advisory for private operators. Performing burns out of the plane of the ring itself are no longer advised, as with the transit velocities limited by clouds of orbiting debris, ships performing manoeuvres outside the ring plane are exceedingly easy to detect, track and ambush. To prevent illicit interception, the Astrogators guild recommends performing the manoeuvre entirely in the plane of the rings and cutting all thrusts as soon as your ship enters the open space above the ring plane. Trajectories back to the station cannot be intercepted and can use a classical trajectory.

Elon Interstellar StarCAT recall

Multiple events of the fusion misfire of the famous Elon Interstellar StarCAT Stellarator were traced back to a software bug. The mars-based fusion spaceship manufacturer issued a recall on all Model-E ships for a mandatory software upgrade. To compensate customers for lost profit, the company extended the free supply of fusion reactants to their signature Z-Axial-Pinch torches by another year, or as long as the stocks last, whichever comes first.

Maintenance Logs

• New astrogation protocol for in-ring transits. You can now set the velocity of the transit, and it will require you to make the initial burn without a cutscene. This makes the astrogation burns either more challenging or much longer if you opt for an easier transit - but in return, you can orient the ship the way you want it, you are not sitting still when trying to astrogate away from a hostile situation and you have control over your ship orientation when you reach your destination.
• Improved performance of the in-game physics.
• Improved performance of the Enceladus station.
• Some of the NPC ships and drones were using much more resources than they should. This includes certain rare ship encounters using 1000% more CPU than it should and mining companions, cargo containers and drones using 400% more CPU. This dramatically improves performance in relevant encounters.
• New visuals for rare and unusual encounters.
• A new way of tracking the ring density and composition, combined with enhanced physics performance, makes the rings much denser.
• The game now tracks your excavation progress during a single dive and you are able to completely strip a region of the rings of ore and asteroids. This both incentivises discovering new areas, improves the immersion factor and enables you to clear a path for an astrogation burn in advance.
• Improved tracking of unusual excavation sites. Unique items will now be depleted gradually, and having multiple unusual sites present wont cause their content to respawn when you visit them sequentially.
• Astrogation proximity alert now has an active display when activated, making it easier to spot objects preventing your jump.
• Improved the way the game tracks events to take into account lidar contacts and rumours that you did not check out yet. This prevents some objects that were not supposed to move around the rings from spawning in another location.
• The game now correctly takes account of your angular velocity when computing the kinetic energy of the impact. This prevents asteroids or ore chunks wedged between your ship and cradled equipment from inflicting heavy damage when you rotated your ship.
• Disabling post-processing now disables the background nebula shader and overheated computer shader, making the game perform better on low-end hardware.
• When entering and exiting the Tuning menu multiple times in quick succession you could trigger either a crash to the desktop, or make the tuning menu miss all the settings.
• Ship transponders were visible only on the first LIDAR screen they appeared on. This usually meant that they did not display on the Pilot and Geologists tabs, but in some cases, they could be missing from your main display.
• Kinetic weapons with a high rate of fire did not fire at all when your framerate was low.
• The fusion reactor now ignites correctly in low framerates. Previously, if the frame rate was low enough, fusion-based ships were not able to boot up and leave Enceladus station in the initial cutscene, and when disabled in the Rings they remained powered down indefinitely.
• When NPC check if your ship is docked, it checks if it is docked to them specifically. This prevents weird dialogue quirks when a station will give you an unexpected docked conversation even if you are docked to another, nearby station or ship.
• Updated Cothon-213 description to reflect the missing Faradays cage.
• Fixed some of the crew-based dialogues that were referring to two different persons with the same first name.
• Race drones will not be piloted by a human anymore.
• Fixed lighting and line-of-sight glitches on ultra-wide monitors.
• Race drones and lifepods will now communicate immediately when they enter your cargo hold. This prevents the need to wiggle your ship in order to get your race reward on ships with a long cargo hold.

[ 2022-09-22 17:41:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Runasimi released facelifted LIDAR chip

Runasimi Inc, the leading supplier of white-label LIDAR signal processing hardware, released a facelifted version of their R68050 phase-processing chip. Increased base frequency and improved noise filters promise to improve the LIDAR detection range even on existing hardware, and an additional bandwidth allows integration of the output image into up to three additional workstations. The new chip will reach the storefronts on Enceladus within a month and is already available for pre-purchase.

Launch fee tax evasion exposed

The ERS exposed a tax evasion scheme in the docking ring of Enceladus, abusing vague regulations on recording the launch fees, environmental damages and ship supplies. Starting today, strict recording of any and all of the launch fees is mandatory. The tax audits on the ring are in progress, and ERS officials anticipate legal action.

Radioactive leaks across the station

A number of coolant leaks were detected across the Enceladus Prime station. While venting radioactive coolant into the void of surrounding space poses little risk to shielded habitats, the station authorities issued a station-wide inspection of the coolant loops. All major leaks were patched as of today, but the station staff continue to monitor the coolant lines for anomalies.

Maintenance Logs

• Revised asteroid generation code. Recent improvements in the physics simulation performance and AI performance made it feasible to extend some limits imposed on the physics engine.
• The geologist panel now contains a LIDAR overlay with range markers, so you can position the detected veins easier.
• Improved contrast of the nearby items on the LIDAR screen inside the OMS menu.
• Launch fees will now be listed in the ship logs.
• Installed hardware is now visible in the Hardware menu without opening the sections.
• Fixed a memory leak that was triggered by storing a dive output. It caused performance degradation and corrupted ship initialization, causing ships with illegal equipment to be spawned.
• Fixed a bug that could crash the game when loading a save. All affected saves will be automatically corrected.
• You could hail some derelict ships and send your crew on an EVA mission while being far away.
• Fixed a memory leak that caused memory consumption when spending time on Enceladus to increase each day you spent there.
• Fixed a lag spike that happened on Enceladus when a day passed.
• Improved memory management of the Hardware and Tuning menus.
• After visiting the Tuning or Hardware menu once, the Dealer would start listing new ships much slower.
• Adjusted the event frequency of some very rare events to not be so rare.
• Improved performance of the Dealer.
• Support for 120Hz monitors.
• On small screens, such as Steam Deck, the dive summary screen could lose focus, requiring you to use a touchscreen in order to sell your output.
• Pressing the Cancel button on the keyboard (Esc key) or gamepad will now collapse an open section of upgrades in the Hardware menu.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-09-07 15:25:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a race condition that could cause the game to crash when you brought back a large output to the station.
• Improved performance of the dive summary screen.

[ 2022-09-02 08:23:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=UAcp8HqJej8;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2022-08-30 11:11:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Friendly ships approaching you will not pick a collision course anymore. This prevents accidental collisions in case of power or thruster failures.
• Ore nuggets you collect now have a slight size variation. This prevents some artificial stockpiling and jams at the bottlenecks of the ship (the excavator, MPU) and will make the bare-bay mining missions a bit more profitable.
• Fixed the singer crew quest not recording certain events and possibly granting an achievement at the wrong time.
• Mining companions are now more careful when grabbing rocks and will actively try to avoid your ship.
• Fixed excessive bloom on HAL 9000 HUD.
• NDCI autopilot collision warning overlay will now ignore the light ore chunks again.
• Pilots flying AT-K225 will not freak out inside inhabited caves anymore.

[ 2022-08-28 11:54:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

V: Rings of Saturn doesn't use a classic roadmap, where the developer outlines the list of things they think they'll be doing next. We just found that these don't work, as new ideas come in daily and the actual work drifts further and further away from the initial post. This is why we opted to expose our internal working documents - the Kanban boards - so you can see in real-time what we work on.

Kanban boards

Our Kanban boards reflect all the work that needs to be done and the stage it is on. All work is written down in "issues", and each issue travels on the Kanban from left to right. We have multiple Kanban boards that are useful for different ways you can inspect the project, but they are all based on the same data. A good starting point to explore them is the Roadmap Kanban Board.

Development workflow

There are several stages an issue can be at, reflected by the columns on out Kanban:

• Open issue is one that was suggested and recorded, but it was not assigned to any other stage yet. This is our main backlog - the place where we record all the ideas so that we don't lose track of them. New feature ideas, by default, land up here. This is where the player-submitted ideas from our discord end up first.
• 2.0 collects the issues that are considered for the 2.0 release of the game. These are issues I want to work on once we leave Early Access.
• 1.0 collects the issues that should be done before we exit Early Access. Any reported bugs end up here by default. If you want to know if "by full release, will game have xxx?", this is the place to look for.
• ToDo is my immediate task list. Every time this list drains down to zero, I pick ten features from the 1.0 list and put them here. Outside of critical issues and some exceptions noted below these are the things I will do next.
• Doing shows the thing I'm literally doing now. Expect to see it released in the Experimental branch today.
• Closed are the issues already done.

Workflow and exceptions

• An idea can be promoted from Open to 2.0 and to 1.0 if it's advocated enough and I feel it makes sense. I try to not do that much, as this results in extending our release date - but if you feel that there is something that should absolutely be in 1.0, our discord is the place to talk about it.
• I am working on this game 6 days a week, Saturday to Thursday. Friday is my Freeday - meaning that I am either not working on the game and resting, or if I feel like coding, I'll be picking stuff out of the order. On Fridays is when you can hit some surprise features.
• Bugs are fixed before features. This is why the Experimental branch is, on average, more stable than the Stable branch. It already has all the known bugs fixed.
• Critical bugs - the bugs that prevent people from actually playing - are fixed before everything else and hit the ToDo list immediately. We don't have many of these.
• When picking which issues from 1.0 should be moved to the ToDo list, I see the most recent vote results over our discord. Check the #votes channel if you want to participate in this.

Explore:

• Roadmap Kanban Board
• Experimental branch changelogs
• Stable branch changelogs
• Upcoming milestones
• Development statistics and release estimation
• Full Kanban board Koder is actually working with
• All the features that were ever suggested

[ 2022-08-21 16:07:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added roadmap to the main menu.
• Additional savegame slot.
• 3 new achievements.
• Disabling a Point Defence Turret will immediately release the Sanbus lock on its target, so another device can pick it up without delay.

[ 2022-08-21 14:42:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The game now can run the display engine at a separate speed than your physics engine. If you are able to display more frames than your CPU can compute the movement will be interpolated to make it appear smooth. This allows you to achieve a higher framerate even if your CPU is not able to keep up with the physics simulation, but your GPU is capable enough to render the results.
• DTSS can now simplify the simulation further if your framerate was about to drop. With the new physics interpolation feature, this should result in smoother performance.
• Miners you encounter at the very rim of the rings are now much less curious and more likely to go about their business without pestering you constantly.
• The personal disposition of the NPC you meet for the first time will now have some variation over the faction default. This makes encounters more varied.
• AI can now get impatient.
• A new tuning option for EIAA-1337 autopilot allows you to ignore low-velocity impacts. This allows the autopilot to push against lighter rocks at safe velocities and not dodge ores that haul drones throw at it.
• Reworked the ringraces. You will now receive a race reward without leaving the rings, and the racing team is able to recognize failed starts.
• HUD previews in the Equipment menu will now show the entire HUD preview in all screen resolutions.
• Enceladus's main menu will not cover up the in-game time indicator on a small monitor.
• Kinetic damage of pulse lasers could vary when the framerate was changed during the game.
• Improved performance of encounters with multiple drones.
• Further improved burnfinding performance of the AI - both NPC ships and EIAA-1337 autopilot.
• Improved performance of the background particle system.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-08-20 08:45:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Your Geologist panel settings are now saved in the ship configuration and will persist between games and dives.
• Added collision warning visualization for the EIAA-1337 autopilot.
• AI-controlled ships, including these using autonomous autopilots, will now detect more rocks in the direction of the movement.
• AI is now much better at detecting and avoiding collisions with moving objects. This makes ring races much more difficult.
• Services you use will now be recorded in your company logs.
• You can now turn off the ignore obscured targets tuning setting for your Point Defence.
• Fixed some bugs that could cause the game to crash when things exploded near AI-controlled ships.
• Catching many ores with your AR1500 Salvage Manipulator will not degrade performance anymore.
• You can now sell your ship using a gamepad or keyboard.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-08-14 12:16:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Collision avoidance enhancements for AI. All AI - including NPC ships, NT Mining Companions and your ships equipped with EIAA-1337 autopilot - are now much better at resolving when they will collide with objects and what path to take to avoid it.
• Added trolley problem resolution module to AI. Ships are now able to recognize lesser evil and take an unfavourable choice if it allows them to avoid a catastrophic one.
• Ships are now capable of efficiently using their main thrust to help with manoeuvres if the situation calls for it.
• Improved anticipation heuristics for burnfinder make ships rotate in anticipation of deceleration only after they complete their manoeuvring.
• The big LIDAR display on your Pilot tab will now use the same data as your main LIDAR. Most noticeably, after an astrogation jump, it will immediately display the new surroundings.
• Fixed a bug that caused tuning values for Point Defence equipment to be ignored during a dive.

[ 2022-08-11 11:21:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mandatory IFF Pilot training

Following a number of accidents involving the misuse of autonomous weapons, all the licenced pilots operating in the Enceladus space are required to undergo annual training on the operation of autonomous targeting systems. While the Enceladus Corp spokesman claims that the sole purpose of the training is to increase the safety of the station occupants, a number of mining guilds protest this mandatory activity as an additional thinly veiled tax imposed by the station.

New community patch for EIAA-1337 autopilot

A new community patch to the infamous autonomous EIAA-1337 autopilot reached a release candidate stage today. Taking advantage of the MIT licence of the software, a group of developers introduced an overhaul to the notoriously sparse visual interface of the device in order to expose its internal decision process. The merge request quotes a capability to finally understand what the damaged thing is trying to do and perhaps not fly with your finger on the power switch all the time. Elon Interstellar already integrated the changes into their next OTA update.

New simulation theory breakthrough

Researchers led by Dr Bostrom announced today a new breakthrough in the field of simulation theory; the idea that we live in a universe run as an immensely complex simulation. New experiments seem to bind well-known quantum phenomena with the simulation theory, suggesting that the universe seems to be approximating the quantum results when no one is observing them. Dr Bostrom suggests that we could abuse observed phenomenons to introduce additional shortcuts in quantum reasoning algorithms, significantly increasing the computing capacity of modern devices.

Maintenance Logs

• Added the Pilot tab, with a full-screen LIDAR, the ability to hail ships and configure the Identify Friend and Foe settings for your ship.
• New Tactical Awareness markers for friendly and hostile ships, as identified by your onboard IFF, make it easy to spot hostiles on screen and estimate the damage inflicted.
• EIAA-1337 autonomic autopilot is now equipped with visual feedback exposing the internal decision processes of the system.
• Extended Point Defence targeting protocol, with tuneable targeting criteria, ability to ignore obscured targets and optimize the turret turn ratio.
• Enhanced the Geologist Mineral Markers. Your ship can now display 400% more and when they overflow, the marker with the least value is expired first, making the marker display more consistent and useful when mining overzealously.
• Performance improvements for both the Enceladus station and the Rings.
• A number of stability upgrades.
• Radiators of Antonoff-Titan K225 will not remain on screen when the ship is exploding.
• After an astrogation jump, ships and stations could ignore you if you arrived in their comms range.
• Adjusted the hearing-impaired visual aid on the edges of the screen to be more subtle - in line with the music shifts that they are representing.
• Improved AI collision prediction. Both NPC ships and autonomic autopilots are now better at detecting collisions and can navigate better around large objects. Your pilot's adrenaline boost will also not trigger so often when you navigate around large objects.
• HUD size slider can make the HUD even bigger now, which is useful on vertical displays.
• A side-mounted Cargo Container or Mining Companion would appear to be above an SPC Gungnir assembly.
• Game engine updated to Godot 3.5, bringing new performance features, asynchronous shader compilation and the latest stability enhancements.
• Using the kinetic point defence turrets now counts towards the achievement. This change is retroactive.
• Improved the error reporting handler.
• Fixed a display glitch on the cargo bays mineral scanner display.

[ 2022-08-09 14:03:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Your astrogator tactical awareness skill will now place different markers on ships recognized as hostile, equipped with damage estimation of the target.
• Changed the physics of small very objects, like certain crystals and isolated pockets of carbon. They will now fit between the gaps in your cargo hold and will not clog your mineral processing units.
• Streamlined the background resource loading. You will be able to jump into the game a few seconds quicker.
• Improved performance of the Enceladus Prime station, which should be especially noticeable on slower computers.
• Already captured rogue cargo containers wont play nearby mystery music anymore.
• The smart camera will not zoom out or in slowly when you are holding the right mouse button and an interesting object simultaneously moves into the field of view.
• Attached mining companions could prevent you from astrogating.

[ 2022-07-31 08:06:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When you opened your Onboard Maintenence System menu for the very first time each dive, you could not navigate using just a keyboard or gamepad. Subsequent visits to the OMS menu worked fine.
• Fixed the jury-rigging not being initialized properly for your ship, causing weird behaviour of your Mechanic OMS tab.
• Adjusted the background of the Dive Summary screen, so its less likely to cause discomfort.

[ 2022-07-27 22:18:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New Services menu in the Enceladus Prime. You can opt to stay at hotels and resorts, or take your crew to a bar. This supersedes previously available time skip buttons and gives extra gameplay effects, depending on your choice.
• Improved drone tuning visualizer. The previous visualizer caused some of the players to feel slight nausea due to the moving patterns, I worked with them to change it in a way that presents the same information but does not cause issues.
• Improved performance of ship initialization. You should feel even fewer lag spikes when ships spawn around you.
• Vastly improved performance of the Dealer menu at Enceladus Prime station.
• The smart camera will not re-centre itself if you are holding down one of the mouse buttons.
• The smart camera will not zoom in or out if you are holding the right mouse button to prevent accidental ship turns.
• Increased the minimum size of the ship preview window in the Dealer to ensure that all ship information is always visible.
• Improved the monitor placement detection code. Previous code could be confused with some exotic monitor layouts.
• You can cure cancer during a crew quest now.
• When flying KR37 with the MA337 autopilot installed, the lidar overlay ring would break and flicker inside caves, when surrounded by a rock structure.
• The Big Bad Wolf will try to not shoot you accidentally anymore.
• When using AT-K225 HUD with a damaged onboard computer and full or nearly full cargo container, the processed cargo readout could exceed the stated capacity of the container, causing flickering and sounding ship-wide alarms. You can still get inaccurate readings with a broken-down computer, but they will not trigger alarms anymore.
• Activating the unmarked filter in the Geologist tab will now cause your systems to ignore the minimum price for the unmarked ore since by definition it cant have any price estimation assigned.

[ 2022-07-27 10:37:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Relaxed safety protocols of NDPT-4205 point defence turrets. The firing solution computer was overzealous at times, limiting the fire cone far more than it should - in extreme cases completely preventing the fire on certain ships and mounts.
• Adjusted position of spinally-mounted NDPT-4205 on all the ships with spinal mounts.
• All the docking arms are now more rigid, preventing the cradled equipment wiggle in the fully locked position, which was especially noticeable in lower physics framerates.
• Cargo Containers and similar equipment could spin out of alignment when the initial cutscene was terminating.
• The game no-longer relies on your operating system to provide an order of multiple monitors, as some systems used to change their minds about which monitor was the primary one on subsequent boots, causing the game to switch to an undesired monitor. You might need to change the monitor you want to use in settings when you first start this version, but the choice should be persistent now - as long as you dont re-position the monitors.
• Fixed interlunar propellant usage for ships to use a correct value. If you tuned your Xenon drive usage, you might want to re-examine the tuning option before starting a dive.
• Uranium Caves could disappear prematurely from your Astrogation list if you followed a specific order of actions.
• Re-balanced dialogue frequencies of friendly encounters with miners. Some of the dialogue options were underutilized and quite rare. You should perceive that as a wider range of replies possible from miners if you are on friendly terms with them.
• Miners will not hit you on how to obtain a hardware licence if its apparent that you already have that licence.
• The dive entry selection screen will now take into account the amount of propellant and other consumables you will take aboard when displaying the propellant required for entry burn.
• Improved performance of the ship setup, making ship spawns faster. This should prevent slight lags you could see when new ships entered the detailed simulation area.
• When you fly to a Vilcy drop point, the ship awaiting you there will not fly away as soon as it finishes talking to you. Flying away caused the ship to re-spawn nearby and re-initialize the dialogue, as long as you remained in the area.
• When you dock to a ship at a drop point for a prisoner transfer, you will be now able to continue the dialogue, making obtaining the bounty hunting licence smoother.
• If you docked into an Obonto station after opening fire at them and apologizing, you could be able to confirm a trade deal that was not proposed, breaking the dialogue tree.
• Crewmember that left your ship on a successful salvage operation will return aboard when you return to Enceladus automatically.
• Significantly improved the performance of the Crew menu at Enceladus station and added better animations to showcase new crew being available and being hired. This also improves the performance of all the time skips.
• Search and Rescue teams will not ask you if you have seen someone to rescue when there is a stranded ship just next to them.
• Vilcy patrols will not ask if you have seen something suspicious or warn about rumoured piracy in the area if you are in the middle of combat with a pirate already.
• When telling your crewmember to get out from your ship during a quest event, you will now see the proper EVA action happening.
• Mod loader will now look for mods at the correct path on OSX system.
• New achievement.
• Updated translations.
• Fixed a number of typos.

Bonus Content

Tales from the Rings - a collection of short stories - added to the namesake free DLC.

[ 2022-07-07 18:19:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New Nakamura Dynamics NDPT-4205 Point Defence Turret can now be unlocked and purchased.
• Additional interactions with Obonto Habitats and independent miners.
• Hardware and Tuning menu simulations for point defence turrets will now present the simulated ship with a constant hail of targets.
• Improved Dynamic Temporal Simulation Simplification performance on low-end hardware, making the game much smoother when the system adjusts the physics framerate to your hardware capabilities.
• Some combat patrols could last for hours if you had really bad luck and did not encounter any targets. Your wingmen will now terminate the patrol in that case.
• Choosing a borderless window mode on the Windows platform will now actually use the borderless window, and not silently fall into an exclusive full-screen mode. This will degrade performance a bit in that mode but help with most screen-capturing issues. You can switch to exclusive fullscreen in the Settings menu to restore the high-performance behaviour.
• Some point defence turrets, including these mounted on habitats, now have safety protocols and will try to avoid hitting friendly targets. These systems are not foolproof.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-06-29 09:03:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Sick and injured mechanics will not fix your ships.
• Miners passing you on the very rim of the rings will now be less likely to mine around you and will try to find their own mining spot.
• Miners will now recognize deployed claim beacons and should not challenge you when there is a claim in plain sight.
• Incoming communication displayed on the Eagle Prospector HUD installed on AT-K225 will now be displayed correctly.
• Flying with fly-by-wire capable autopilot, but with the onboard computer turned off or the FBW capability disabled, will now count towards the Driving Stick achievement.
• Attached steering wheels and similar devices will not scroll the game menus when you pick keyboard+mouse as a control scheme.
• You could enter the OMS menu while the astrogation cutscene was in progress, which resulted in a slowly-fading black screen covering your menus.
• When you started a habitat trade while a notification was displayed on the screen, you would get multiple trade notifications in a row.
• Grinder of the Eagle Prospector will now sound right when you have it open in the OMS menu and during adrenaline surges.
• Adjusted physical shape of the AT-K225 collider, making its docking bays larger and less likely to be damaged by containers moving inside them during rapid manoeuvres.

Bonus Content

Tales From The Rings free DLC expanded with:

• AT-K225 3d model.
• AT-K225 skin template.

[ 2022-06-21 17:08:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

• A new drone control visualizer in the Tuning menu will show you exactly how the drones will direct the ore, as well as visually represent the minimum and maximum range settings.
• New haul drone system tuning option - deceleration zone.
• Improved algorithm for MLF Haul Drones for ore directly behind your ship.
• While Elon Interstellar Excavator would not jerk open unexpectedly, it could still be stuck open if you pushed its jaw outside of the actuator range.
• Improved performance of the Hardware menu simulations and hardware listings.
• When you re-visited previously discovered Uranium Caves or a Space Bar, you could get again the Moonlet discovery, only to be superseded with a more detailed one when you entered the interior.
• Mystery music would play around a Space Bar you already discovered and visited again.
• Fixed SPC Gungnir projectile velocity listed in the Hardware menu.
• The Geologist panel would shift a bit when you adjusted the minimum price for your drone systems.
• Separate printing audio for the Voyager RSLS.
• Events you discover will now immediately be placed on your Astrogation map.
• Thruster flares on the visual feed could disappear if your mission took many in-game days.
• Eagle prospector HUD would flicker when you power it on if you installed it on a ship with a lot of equipment installed, like AT-K225.
• Voyager will now print drones 400% faster.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-06-14 16:01:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Antonoff-Titan AT-K225 hits the market

Made in collaboration with Titan Heavy Industries and Antonoff, AT-K225 general cargo carrier features a modular design capable of adopting a wide range of cargo requirements. The processed cargo storage relies on dedicated THI docking bays to host up to 6 compatible autonomous containers to increase ships' cargo capacity. A stock variant comes with a standard THI Cargo Containers pre-installed.

New sensor data protocol

Improvements in compression and predictive error-correction algorithms lead to development of an improved sensor data protocol, boasting over an 80% increase in bandwidth accompanied by vastly improved error resistance. On-board computers featuring new protocols are expected to hit the commercial market this year.

Elon Intersteallar Recall

Elon Interstellar issued a limited recall on its Model E excavation ship. The newly discovered flaw in the signature excavator/cargo bay combo caused actuators to misfire under high stress and rapidly open the cargo bay, leading to both dangerous shifts in the ship's centre of mass and direct damage to the craft. Both the actuators and any damaged cargo bay doors will be replaced free of charge.

Maintenance Logs

• Antonoff-Titan AT-K225 is now available for purchase.
• The new AT-K225 Head-Up Display can now be retrofitted to ships.
• Obonto habitats will now dock ships further away, making docking easier and allowing them to dock bigger ships.
• Adjusted performance settings for asteroids spawning, which could stop all ice generation if enough ships and drones were on screen.
• New proximity buffer tuning setting for MLF Haul drones control how close to your ship drones can keep ore.
• Music changes were subject to performance throttling, making music changes inconsistent across machines.
• Improved performance of graphical displays on all Head-Up Displays.
• Improved performance of physics/collision computations.
• Improved performance of charts in Tuning and Hardware menus and on Head-Up Displays that use them.
• Greatly improved performance of thruster physics simulations, which is most noticeable when multiple ships or a drone swarm approaches your position.
• Fixed a physics model bug that caused the Elon Interstellar Model E excavator to jerk open on some occasions, which could damage your ship.
• Added missing mipmaps on EIME excavator sprites, which makes them look better at distance.
• Having multiple mining companions mounted on your ship will not cause the camera at Enceladus Prime to zoom out further out.
• Excavator opened with a double-tap action will now stay open when you enter the OMS menu.
• Changed how AI and your pilots perceive the shape of the Phage Class stations, which used to freak out pilots and AI when they got near them.
• Haul drones will now release any target that entered a cargo hold immediately.
• Pirates that really hate you, but ask for a truce themselves due to circumstances wont open fire on you once you close the comms window.
• You could fix some of your hardware in-flight when you adjusted jury-rig settings and caused damage again.
• Hitting something massive with an Elon Interstellar Model E excavator will not bounce you aside so much anymore.
• Shader animations running on GPU (like the ringstorm discharge or HUD elements on Eagle Prospector) will now respect pause mode and time dilation.
• Racing autopilot course predictions on big ships like Cothon-212 or AT-K225 were not accurate.
• Cradled equipment like mining companions and cargo containers could collide with your ship hull when spawning, which misaligned them when you examined the ship or started a dive.
• When you pick a new astrogation destination while the trajectory countdown is in progress, the counter will reset now.
• Crew after performing EVA could get stuck visually to the ship they flew from.
• New achievements.
• Updated translations.

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

[ 2022-06-09 17:50:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When you discover astrogation points through the dialogues while being near the edge of the map, the discovery could end up 10 times further away from you than it should be.
• Ships your crew goes to during their personal quests will not be hostile towards you if you shot them before they boarded.
• When astrogating from one moonlet to another you could end up in an empty region of space instead.
• Vilcy Drop Point time limit wont extend every time you ask patrols where to deposit prisoners.

[ 2022-06-01 15:04:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

• A number of performance improvements for mid-range machines that dont have a lot of L3 CPU cache. This should significantly improve performance with advanced autopilots, busy HUDs, near NPC-controlled ships and in the Mineral Market.
• New modding infrastructure, which allows mods that are less intrusive and more likely to work across game updates. Note that mods are still not officially supported, can cause all kinds of problems, corrupt saves, cause crashes, etc. This is not a feature for the faint of heart at this stage of development. Should you want to try, despite the warnings, find details on #mod-library on our discord
• The salvage manipulator will now ignore new targets during the astrogation cutscene. This prevents accidental snatching of large asteroids that could cause serious damage when you arrived.
• The mineral market will now always show the minimum and maximum values of the ores on charts.
• Excavator would open if you quickly alt-tabbed out of the game multiple times while the Streaming mode was activated.
• Astrogation points you have a track of are now unlikely to unexpectedly change locations in the rings.
• Obonto habitats wont cluster in tight formations anymore.
• Habitats will now be able to tell you that they are relocating to a new spot.
• Ships you agreed to meet in a specific spot wont approach you at random anymore.
• Thrusters and torches will not cause thermal damage during a final return cutscene when your ship flies above or below the rings. This prevents accidental destruction of ships if you decide to return to the base near them.
• The rogue THI Cargo Containers that you can sometimes encounter in the rings will now have a correct course and faction.
• If you manage to catch a racing drone and release it again before the race starts, it will power up again.
• Random events you discover during dialogues will now be more spread out.

[ 2022-05-29 15:19:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The cargo manifest and processed cargo manifest are now more condensed.
• The processed cargo manifest will now explicitly display how much cargo is stored in external cargo containers.
• Moved the processed cargo manifest on the Eagle Prospector HUD to another spot to prevent obscuring the entrance of your cargo hold.
• Holding the hold position button when flying EI1337 autopilot will now disable collision avoidance as long as the button is held.
• Physical displays on the HAL HUD now apply their curvature to texts displayed on them.
• The movement of the physical displays of the HAL HUD is now much subtler.
• When sending the crew on an EVA mission through a dialogue option, you will now see them perform the EVA flight.
• Added new smart camera option: smoothed movement without automatic excavator zoom.
• New double-tap excavator control that keeps your excavator open. You can adjust sensitivity in the Settings menu.
• You can play your own advertisements on the Enceladus station screen.
• You can now tune the angular velocity limit of the autopilot up to 360 degrees per second, which was the stock setting of the Bald Eagle.
• EVA mechanic crew visible on Enceladus now respect proper parallax when your camera moves during the launch sequence.
• Fixed missing Chinese/Korean font on the Eagle Prospector HUD.
• When you discover something more specific about a location, your astrogation listing will update by replacing the generic discovery with the specific one, instead of listing both.
• The repair crew on Enceladus wont flicker in and out of existence as they weld your ship back into shape.
• Text on the dock billboard will now wrap to the next line if it exceeds the screen size.
• NPC ships will not attempt to communicate with asteroids anymore.
• The hacking sequence now uses correct Linux commands.
• Reactor explosions are now visible on the visual feed.
• When adjusting lighting settings at the Enceladus Prime station menu, you could activate lights on the docking arm that were supposed to be dormant.
• The phage-class stations will not cause the game to play the mystery is near music once you discover them.
• Known locations wont play mystery is near music when you astrogate to them on subsequent missions - unless there is something more to discover.
• When your cargo manifest and processed cargo manifest was nearly full, the window of K37 hud showing your cargo bay could resize, restarting the cargo bay microseismic scanner.
• Added new achievement.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-05-23 15:51:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed missing ship description.

[ 2022-05-19 12:46:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Entertainment and Advertising

Short movies and advertisements now run at idle information boards in docking areas. Many have already criticized the information boards as a blatant move to create advertising space, and this seems to bear out their worries. However, some crews waiting for dive clearance approval expressed relief for anything to watch as they wait for approval to depart. Enceladus Corp has denied accusations that increases in wait times are an intentional move to boost their advertising metrics.

Third party remote manipulator software approved

After years of stagnant drivers and software hindering the effective use of Triskelion-Armstrongs ARM-1500 platform outside of salvage and cargo operations, third-party software has been approved for use in Ring A. With more advanced software packages available, this move is expected to increase their effectiveness in mining operations.

Astrogation protocols updated

New requirements for record keeping now mandate closer tracking and more detailed records of any objects of interest in the rings, to aid in tracking navigational hazards. Ring researchers hope to use the additional data to gain a better understanding of the complex gravitational interactions within the rings.

Maintenance logs

• AR 1500 Salvage Manipulator can now be directed on your Geologist tab to pick up specific ores.
• New Titan Heavy Industries Monocargo Container is now available in the hardware store near you.
• Display boards all across Enceladus station now display mini-movies to entertain the crew of the docked ships.
• Your astrogator will now be able to record more than one discovery with the same name.
• Removed the blinking lights from the background of Enceladus Prime station.
• Updated the Bald Eagle description to reflect 2 low-stress hardpoints that are available on the ship.
• The amount of camera pan was dependent on the resolution you were playing in. This caused the game to move the viewport further away on 4K displays, and hardly move the camera on small displays, like Steam Deck. Camera panning is consistent now.
• Window decoration settings are now updated only when needed. This fixes window decorations flickering on and off when adjusting unrelated display settings.
• Fixed a memory leak that could crash the game when you fast-forwarded time on the station.
• You wont receive two notifications for the same discovery anymore.
• Labels on the Mechanic tab are now vertically centred.
• Turning off the background particles used more resources than it should.
• Some of the UI buttons sounds in the Settings menu played multiple times, making them louder than others.
• If you meet the racing crew after you already scheduled the race, they will acknowledge it.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-05-18 15:09:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Patched an exploit that could allow you to break the market and corrupt your save.
• You can now store up to 10,000 metric tonnes of a single mineral on the Enceladus station. The excess will be sold automatically.
• Changed the way geologist predictions work. Now they are based on how sure your geologist is about the trend and can ebb and flow.

[ 2022-05-12 17:04:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mineral Market Deregulation

In yesterdays meeting the board of Enceladus Corp voted to lift the price regulation rules of the Mineral Market. Effective today the station owners will no longer impose arbitrary prices based on external factors and the market will rely on supply and demand generated by its participants. While the majority of the market participants welcome this change, the Mining Guild raises concerns that deregulated ore prices might result in unprecedented inflation.

Extended pre-flight inspections

After another incident with a spaceship stranded on the rim of the A-Ring directly after orbital insertion due to inadequate propellant load, pre-flight inspections will now include checking the propellant level of all crafts that leave the station. Numerous independent contractors raise concerns that this step was taken not to improve crew safety, but rather to force all contractors to submit detailed flight plans, exposing their excavation zones to Enceladus Corp.

Auxiliary loophole closed

Starting this month, the auxiliary power systems will not be classified as ship accessories, but rather power system extensions. The previous classification as accessory allowed manufacturers to omit parts of the specification, such as the mass of the unit, from their marketing material. Reclassification closes this loophole, forcing both manufacturers and distributors to comply with all ship extension regulations.

Maintenance Logs

• Your actions can now influence the Mineral Market prices on Enceladus. The effect of this change is retroactive and all past purchases and sales will now be reflected in the prices.
• Market chart predictions for inexperienced geologists will now be more chaotic, making investments riskier.
• Ammunition, propellant and nanodrone component prices are now tied to mineral market prices of iron, water and platinum respectively.
• When you employ or dismiss a crewmember, the Mineral Market price prediction chart will now update immediately.
• Auxiliary power systems now have mass.
• The dive selection screen will now show the amount of propellant required to perform orbital insertion, warn you if you did not take enough to complete the manoeuvre and prevent you from launching until you take enough.
• Dialogue during combat was prone to looping and repeating the same commands if little changed between messages.
• Skipping ahead time in Enceladus while trading will now record subsequent trade days as separate events in your ship logs.
• THI Cargo Container will again leave a 500 kg buffer of ore on your ship to handle trade and drone fabrication without requiring a manual switch of the container pumps.
• Lifepods you recover in the rings wont be recorded in your ship logs as salvaged ships.
• Audio feedback from lifepod radio will now respect time slowdown.
• When pressing analogue control on the gamepad and moving the mouse simultaneously the icons on the screen changed a few hundred times per second, which could flood the buffers and cause crashes.
• HUD scale slider in settings also affected the zoom level of your ship's reconnaissance drone camera as long as the setting menu was opened.
• The game could crash when loading a slightly corrupted save.
• Improved performance of the Enceladus station menu.
• When examining autopilots in the Hardware menu, the simulation will now show a shadow simulation of your currently equipped autopilot, showcasing the difference in behaviour.
• When you asked bounty hunters what to do with prisoners, the coordinates of the drop point you got would expire as soon as you visited it. It will now persist for 30 days.
• When someone leaves your crew and takes another ship during a quest event, they will now leave your crew immediately.
• If you manage to externally fire up a thruster in a ship that is not operational by applying sufficient heat, the thruster valve will automatically close. This prevents accidental ignition of the thrust of cargo containers and mining companions using your own thrusters, which would fire constantly until released.
• Switched the location of the Steam overlay notification popup to not obscure version string.
• Fixed a number of typos.

[ 2022-05-12 09:35:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

MLF Haul Drone recall

Following a number of lawsuits from independent mining contractors, Minding LF issued a mandatory recall on their popular Haul Drone systems, replacing a faulty neural processing chip. Company stated that while the old chip performed within required operational parameters and MLF cant be reasonably held accountable for ship damages caused by mishandling, they are releasing updated safety imprints as a gesture of goodwill.

THI Cargo Containers facelift

Titan Heavy Industries released a facelifted version of their signature Cargo Containers this week. Improvements include direct interface with geology station using both SANBUS interface as well as dedicated Titan Heavy Bus, which gives much finer control over the semi-autonomous storage and transport system to its operators.

Special deorbiting fee

After the M374-A moonlet incident, in which an intoxicated crew of a Retrograde Burn pushed that moonlet out of the plane of the rings, causing a persisting gravitational ripples across the A-ring and an estimated 13 billion damages in lost potential mining profits, Enceladus Corp introduced special deorbiting fees to be incurred on attempts to destabilize the moonlets. The fee is set at flat rate of 1 milion E$ per incident and the enforcement will begin next week.

Maintenance Logs

• New MLF Haul Drone behavior takes into account movement of your ship in relation to ore in front of you, position of your excavator and if its open.
• New control options over THI Cargo Containers on your Geologist tab. You can now choose which container should take which minerals, get ability to manually pump them out to your ship cargo hold for trade and see a detailed breakdown of processed mineral storage.
• Mineral pumping speed in and out of THI Cargo Containers raised from 100kg/s to 500kg/s, resulting in faster habitat mineral trade.
• THI Cargo Containers will not leave 500kg trading mineral buffer on your ship anymore. You can opt to pump minerals back to your ship on-board storage on the Geologist tab of your OMS.
• Updated simulations for drone systems in the Hardware menu to showcase new MLF Haul Drone behaviour better.
• The default minimum range of the drone systems is reduced to 0m, as the new heuristics are able to handle ore next to your ship gracefully.
• When taking some of the dialogue options you could end up with a Vilcy Drop Point that would vanish every time you visit it, instead of waiting for 30 days for you.
• AI would ignore any object that could not be held in a cargo hold, like moonlets and other big items, when computing collision avoidance, resulting in both NPC ships and EI1337 autopilot ramming them.
• In some cased long-lasting audio would slow down during adrenaline events and not speed up again until you released the button.
• Unpausing the game using the resume game button, rather than ESC keypress, would leave the muffled filter on music activated.
• Adjusted the position of the EMIE HUD Augmented Reality cargo hold display when installed on the Vulture Prospector to not obscure the grinding area.

[ 2022-05-08 08:40:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Further improved Elon Interstellar Model E HUD performance.
• High-resolution LIDAR display on Runasimi KR37 could corrupt the display of EIME HUD near huge objects.
• Ship transponders on high-resolution LIDARs could fade away between sweeps.

[ 2022-05-05 16:52:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Eagle Prospector HUD system list will not overflow even when there are a lot of systems installed.
• EIME HUD now has a longer range of LIDAR.
• Improved performance of EIME HUD.
• HUD boot-up sounds now respect time-related pitch changes when you use an adrenaline booster.
• Improved performance of the Dealer menu when you own a lot of ships.
• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect prices of an owned ship to be displayed depending on which button you used to display your ship.
• Fixed hotkeys that toggle front low-stress hardpoints on K44 prototype.
• Fixed cargo hold area of K44 prototype, which didnt consider ore held in the very tip of its beak to be part of your cargo.
• Removed redundant log entries that could cause slowdowns due to disk access.
• Notifications that pop up during the dive wont capture mouse clicks, allowing you to interact with screens below them even when they are displayed.
• Some ships used unlisted reactor core configuration. Owned ships with unlisted configuration will now default to closest legal configuration.
• Hardware simulation window now has minimum size to ensure that the entire description is visible even on small monitors.

[ 2022-05-04 18:01:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Original Soundtrack of V: Rings of Saturn was just updated with two extra tracks. If you got it already - either from the stand-alone purchase, or through the Tungsten Edition, your music should update automatically.

New tracks

• A Horse Named Fission
• Big Damn Heroes

If you dont have the sound track yet and you are looking fine music - and to support development of V - you can find it on sale here just now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127590/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Original_Soundtrack/

[ 2022-05-04 10:15:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Modified ships approved

Multiple ship modifications, including both factory modifcations and aftermarket kits, were approved this week for operation and sale on the Enceladian station. Among the approved models were the Conlido Cothon-211 and 213 variants, the Mistudaya-Starbus Vulture Prospector and post-facelift versions of the Rusatom-Antonoff K37.

Another Digital Mimas performance

After the success of their previous classical music performance, The Digital Mimas Orchestra will hold another concert in Enceladus netspace. Tickets for the previous performance sold out in 2.4 minutes, so for this event performance bandwidth allocation will be raised to 15000 attendees. Ticket sales will start at midnight.

Information boards at docks

Due to a recently net-famous mixup at the docks, in which a mixup led the captain of the Stupendous Identity to board the Stupendous Idiot(and his subsequent mauling by the captains pet ocelot), Enceladus has mounted displays at each ship berth. These render the ships name and flight status clearly visible, regardless of the poor lighting available at the docking ring. Enceladus has not responded for comment on the claims that they were primarily mounted in preparation for delivering targeted advertising to ship captains.

Maintenance Logs

• Added ship hull variants. The ship hulls you can purchase at your local Enceladian Dealership have now multiple variants. You can find pre-facelift models, dedicated modifications made by companies or long thrusterbase versions of your favourite crafts. A total of 7 ship variants were added in this release for a grand total of 12 playable ships.
• Reworked Dealer interface to present new data about the ships in a more organized way and work better on smaller displays. The ship description now occupies a prominent space, and ship statistics were moved to the Examine Ship tab. Ship name, model and price are now displayed above the tabs.
• New ship comfort gameplay mechanics. Some ships are just comfortable, and flying them is a real joy, while others are a pain to operate and affect crew morale negatively. A happy crew will perform better and are less likely to ask for raises.
• Added an additional soundtrack.
• Reworked lighting at Enceladus station. There are fewer flashing lights now, and these that remain turn on and off gradually for a less jarring experience.
• Information billboard on the Enceladus station, showing primary data about your ship.
• The model of the ship you are purchasing is now prominently displayed on the Dealer screen.
• When you begin a crew quest related to a particular habitat and already have their coordinates, the crew will acknowledge that.
• Crew quests events are now more frequent.
• The ERS2205 torch used 12MW of electrical power instead of 120MW, as the description claimed.
• Friendly ships now keep 50% longer distance from you and will approach you 50% faster.
• If your ship runs out of propellant, but you manage to eject a cargo container before rescue is dispatched, you will retain the cargo that returns autonomically.
• Added stiff rotation limiter to Eagle Prospectors grinders to prevent them from being pushed into the cargo hold with energetic impacts.
• When you bring multiple lifepods to collect bounty to Vilcy HQ, you will get separate bounties for each of them.
• Added additional defences to Vilcy HQ.
• Re-visiting a known location will display a notification when your astrogation coordinates update.
• Fixed a memory leak that caused a permanent performance degradation when you owned a lot of ships.
• When defusing hostilities with the Ganymedean station in the middle of combat, the station could offer you a truce and still immediately open fire again.
• Some ships had unlisted ammo compartment seals, corrupting the purchases of other ammo compartments in the Hardware menu.
• When playing with a gamepad or keyboard alone, the smart camera could position itself to make parts of your ship go off-screen.
• Both Repair menu and Crew menu stats will now account for mechanics that are not currently active crew but still help repair your ship.
• Improved performance of Enceladus station background.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-04-28 16:17:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed some lighting glitches on Enceladus station, with some of the spotlights being pointed in a wrong direction.
• Added population to the docking ring.
• When your ship is damaged, youll now see the repair crew fixing it on the Enceladus station.
• Mystery music will fade away to normal background sound once you discover the mystery in question. This changes the music - and the blue visual cue - around frequently-visited discoveries, such as habitats and moonlets.
• Mystery music will now trigger in more weird encounters, making them easier to spot.
• Visual glitches from overheated computers are now less pronounced when your computer is barely damaged.
• Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage devices will now switch from charging to discharge much quicker and will be able to power a highly-demanding hardware even if you dont have a large ultracapacitor array to back up the peak usage.
• When perceived flow of time changes the sound effect will have lowered pitch now.
• Improved gamepad and keyboard controls in Enceladus station. You wont be able to accidentally close your menu by pressing left direction on your keyboard or d-pad.
• When you exited the Crew menu using gamepad or keyboard, focus was lost on the main Enceladus menu.
• Improved performance of LIDAR rendering.
• Some of the pirates you could encounter, defeat and salvage had ships with turbines and ultracapacitors that were not available in the hardware menu, making it impossible to sell them.
• Improved fullscreen, window and borderless window handling on Linux systems. The window should now respect all window manager configurations and toolbars.
• Improved performance of window scaling when in windowed mode.
• Fixed an aspect ratio scaling bug that caused the game to overflow the screen on thin vertical monitors. Game now supports a full range of monitors from 4:1 to 1:4 aspect ratios.
• When you lose a crewmember during ringdive, the appropriate OMS screen reflection will be updated accordingly.

[ 2022-04-19 17:36:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When you open your OMS screen after receiving a new message, the comms window wont scroll from the very beginning.
• Income and expenses during ringdive now have separate positions in the ship logs.
• Improved B8 Claim Beacons autopilots so they make better use of their thrusters and reaction wheels.
• Adjusted Eagle Prospectors cargo baffle spring stiffness to make it easier to ingest low-density ore.
• In rare circumstances, objects that were not supposed to could follow you through an astrogation jump.
• Gamepad controls of the autopilot did not work if you explicitly selected the gamepad as an input, but they worked fine with auto-selection.
• Some of the buttons were skipped when you navigated the settings menu with a gamepad or keyboard.
• When switching the control scheme from keyboard + mouse to gamepad while your control settings are open, the focus will adjust to a correct widget.

[ 2022-04-11 07:05:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The comms window will now always scroll all the way down when you receive a message, so you wont miss any reply options.
• You can now scroll your comms window with analogue gamepad controls.
• When you collect an ore chunk you were targetting with your autopilot, your ship will continue on the same trajectory it was following before interception, conserving propellant.
• Gamepad controls for EI1337 autonomic autopilot now work the same way as for other autopilots.
• When you complete a crew quest that involves finding a family member and your crewmember survives the encounter, he wont be asking ships if they have seen them anymore.
• Fixed a race condition that could sometimes cause the game to hang up when switching from Enceladus to Rings and back, preventing you from either leaving the station or returning to it.
• Dismissing your crewmember could cause your game to crash.
• Added bonus content button when bonus content is available.
• Fixed a number of typos.

[ 2022-04-08 12:15:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thinking about buying V? Hold your horses!

Don't you just hate when you buy a game and it goes on sale the next day? I know I do, so we are giving you heads-up: If you wanted to get V now, a bit of patience will get you some bucks saved!

Can't wait? I can't blame you.

If you buy the game at full price, it will be greatly appreciated, and all the extra funding goes towards developing it even more.

Set up reminder!

So if you are hunting for the sale, just hold your horses for a while longer, press this reminder button and get a note as soon as we go live.

Remember to share!

Know someone who is thinking about getting V? Be sure to tell him or her to try the demo just for a while longer. You can grab a link to this announcement just below. https://store.steampowered.com/app/949730/V_Rings_of_Saturn/ In meanwhile, enjoy our free demo. It has the complete content of the game and full save game compatibility, so you can transfer your progress.

[ 2022-04-07 05:57:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved gamepad controls. You now have better autopilot aiming, a brand new gamepad controls screen in settings, autopilot aiming assist and both relative and absolute control schemes.
• Equipment wont be targeted by your gamepad targeting beam anymore.
• You can now pan the screen with your right analogue stick on your gamepad.
• Sliders in the tuning menu can now be controlled with analogue sticks on your gamepad.
• Updated the tutorial with new gamepad controls.
• Habitats are less likely to turn their point-defence weapons on you for minor infractions.
• Ships that use microwave emitters are quicker to disengage now.
• Processed cargo on the dive summary screen is now attributed to your ship.
• Space Western mood and soundtrack are now more common.
• Power and reactive mass consumption, as well as thermal damage of thrusters and torches with a significant wind-up time, will scale during the ignition appropriately.
• Fixed a bug that could result in some of the achievements to unlock prematurely.
• Anomalies and events wont appear on the very rim of the rings, in regions where your autopilot could take over and take you back to the station.
• Obonto habitats always greeted you with trading dialogue when you docked, even if you did not agree to trade.
• Relative crew skill levels on the Hire Crew tab will update when you put people on and off active duty.
• Updated the translations.

[ 2022-04-04 18:22:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=iUBWJXdd9BY;full][/previewyoutube]

The age of Men is Over.

In another universe, just beyond the event horizon, the Future wears Fur.

Anthropogenesis

A complete character overhaul replaces all 256 human portraits with their anthropomorphic versions. This DLC does not affect gameplay in any other way - you still play the same V: Rings of Saturn you love, but this time - wearing fur and wiggling tails.

Compatibility

All saves are fully forward and backwards compatible. You can install and uninstall this DLC at any time and continue your game in the universe of your choice. Flammenwerfer not included.

Wishlist now

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1938680/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Anthropogenesis

FAQ

Q: Is this fur real? A: It is fur real. Q: When does it come out? A: In a purrfect time. Q: Why does it cost money? A: It took some effort to make. Q: I dont want this! A: Good. If it was something everyone liked, it should not be a DLC, but rather a content patch. DLCs are supposed to be optional.

[ 2022-04-01 07:27:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Let me tell all yall, this asteroid mining gig is no rose garden. You got your giant ice rocks wanting to crush you, pirates that want your ore and an old rust bucket that someone called a nuclear thermal rocket, held together with wishes and scotch tape. But what Im supposed to do? These ores aint gonna mine themselves.

[ 2022-03-28 19:30:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Distance markers on LIDAR were not up-to scale.
• Made distance markers on LIDAR easier to read.
• Added interface with Mining Companions to the User Manual of the Guiding Drone upgrade.
• One of the branches in conversation you could have with the Phage station didnt grant you the achievement you were supposed to get for it.

[ 2022-03-27 08:39:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Runasimi loses on a technicality

The leading producer of LIDAR hardware, Runasimi Inc, lost a case in First Enceladian Court over not exposing rangefinding capabilities in their software package. The case presented by an independent contractor hinged over a technicality of having Ranging present in the name of Light Detection and Ranging equipment. While Runasimi accepted the ruling and rolled out an OTA update to their software, the company soon retaliated by suing the contractor for unlicensed use of military-grade targeting hardware.

Obonto shackles companions

Obonto Microengineering in cooperation with Nakamura Dynamics rolled out an unexpected upgrade to its popular reconnaissance drone. By cleverly subverting the standard SANBUS protocol of modern ships the upgraded drone is able to remotely inject operational imperatives to the class-2 artificial intelligence of Nakamura-Titan Mining Companions, enabling captains to direct the notoriously quirky drones with commands that they cannot disobey. AI researchers raised concerns over the possible unexpected side effects of connecting AI systems with a remote network.

Salvage audits across the station

With an increasing number of independent contractors entering the salvage operations industry, Enceladus Corp is conducting a station-wide audit of the salvage logs. Station authorities will search for both illegitimate salvages and any unusual salvage patterns that might suggest foul play.

Maintenance Logs

• LIDAR display now shows scale.
• Autopilot overlay for all autopilots will now show relative velocity and distance to your current target.
• Nakamura-Titan Mining Companions now communicate with each other using your onboard Ship Area Network BUS, coordinating efforts to capture multiple ore nuggets at the same time.
• NT mining companions can now be controlled with Obonto Microengineering Guiding Drone.
• The dive summary screen will now list who brought in which nugget, making it easier to estimate the performance of hired miner wingmen and mining companions.
• Ore carried by Mining Companions could be lost when they returned to Enceladus on their own.
• Non-player controlled ships equipped with salvage arms wont transfer ships they capture to the player.
• Ships salvaged in the rings will now show up in your ship logs.
• Eagle Prospector autopilot would trigger an alarm siren if you flew over 50m/s with an FBW-enabled autopilot and used WASD controls while pressing the right mouse button to orient your ship.
• When launching a Cothon-212 with an empty beacon cradle in front low-stress mount and another cradled equipment fitted in the back, the latter was inadvertently released during the launch sequence.
• In some regions of the rings, a map seam caused a number of glitches, including thruster flares not being visible on visual feed, ships orienting in a wrong direction during astrogation and astrogating backwards.
• Pirate traps near moonlets wont be present on peaceful difficulty anymore.
• DLC are now properly recognized and loaded on OSX systems.

[ 2022-03-26 14:17:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When your crew levels up at the very start of a dive, the notification will not be obscured by the initial cutscene.
• When you schedule a race with the racing crew, they will come on the same ship you agreed to race with.
• A rounding error in radian to degree conversion prevented you from tuning autopilot rotation velocities to certain values.
• Distance between astrogation targets discovered on the very seam of the ring map will now be calculated correctly.
• In some circumstances your THI Cargo Container could move its processed cargo to Enceladus before leaving the map, making it possible to teleport ores if you caught it again.
• Some achievements with progress could unlock prematurely.
• A space right behind the torch of Eagle Prospector and the Bald Eagle counted as contents of its cargo hold, causing the ore nuggets to lose geology markers and autopilot locks.
• When you dismissed a crewmember, the crew menu would automatically close after a few seconds.
• One of the Obonto habitat arms docked you in a wrong orientation.

[ 2022-03-22 18:57:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Released THI Cargo Containers will now hail you even if the release manoeuvre used up a lot of their reaction mass.
• When playing with DLC that modify game content, youll get a list of enabled DLC in the title menu.
• Support for multiple DLC modifying the same assets.

[ 2022-03-18 14:11:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Do you play on a big monitor with plenty of resolution? Do you have a lot of video RAM to spare? Prepare for our new free DLC: 4K texture pack!

Wishlist now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1908440/V_Rings_of_Saturn__4K_Texture_Pack

[ 2022-03-15 18:28:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The game now supports DLC that can modify game content.
• A new story event.
• AI can be told to focus on its current target more. This prevents botched salvage attempts by Search and Rescue teams when players did something that distracted them from the operation.

[ 2022-03-15 17:15:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Mineral Processing Units have mass now.
• More achievements to unlock.
• When you schedule a race in future, your astrogator wont extend how long the racing team will wait for you.
• When successfully talking down a terrified pirate, he wont open fire to you as soon as you are done talking.
• Fixed some dialogue trees.
• In some languages, the setting menu would show English selected even when another language was used.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-03-12 08:46:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The game can now detect corrupted offline achievement storage file and will rebuild it when required. This fixes game crashes should the file got corrupted somehow.
• Steam achievements with progress will now use values easier to track.
• Fixed Playing it Safe achievement.

[ 2022-03-09 21:00:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Difficulty selection. You can now choose the difficulty level of the game - and change it at any time. The difficulty level adjusts the types of events you can encounter, with the Peaceful level giving you no hostile encounters at all. The default level is Balanced.
• If the game is unable to contact achievement service, due to being off-line, network outages, playing a demo or pirated version, unlocked achievements will be stored off-line and uploaded as soon as the game can contact the achievement provider again.
• In-game notification of unlocked achievements as you unlock them.
• New achievements.
• Some achievements now have visible progress and will pop-up update notifications as you get through them.
• The current player count is displayed in the main menu and pause menus.
• Improved network error handling for achievement providers.
• Increased the speed of mineral trade at Obonto habitats by 500%.
• You need to actually agree to trade a mineral in order for habitat to buy it from you.
• Fixed a number of typos in translations.

[ 2022-03-06 15:15:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a very special update. In a time of a global crisis, there are causes that need your contributions more than we do. Today Im lifting all the restrictions of the demo version, making it essentially a full game. Instead of buying V, spend your money on something important and help someone in need. You can get the full version of V when we have peace again. [previewyoutube=lp4G_w_cXPk;full][/previewyoutube]

Maintenance Logs

• Removed all demo restrictions, making the demo essentially a full game. There are more important things than games you should be spending your money on now.
• Additional story event.
• A new gravimetric readout shader for EIME and Bald Eagle HUDs make the readouts much less noisy and more useful.
• You could not click on tabs in the Hardware menu if your monitor resolution was small.
• Adjusted audible warning levels on Elon Interstellar Model E heads-up display to not trigger warning sirens when fitted on a fission craft.
• Eagle Prospector HUD will now fit well on 1280x720 displays.

[ 2022-03-03 12:44:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Joint space program

Our most iconic spaceship - the Rusatom-Antonoff K37-TNTRL - is a product of joint-venture between Ukrainian and Russian companies. It makes me uneasy in times like this, but I wont be changing that. Peace will come, and in times of peace there will be rebuilding of the economy, and eventually new friendships and a new space program. Im leaving that in as a symbol of hope.

The Progress in Numbers

2022 is a wild ride, but we managed to get some progress in. We fixed 86 bugs, polished up 56 aspects of the game and added 27 new features. All these changes were released in 110 experimental versions (average of 1.9 per day), and 11 of them were promoted to a stable release (averaging a stable update every 5 days).

Notable changes

• New ways to interact with pirates, including dialogue during combat, ways to de-escalate hostilities, business dealings and some quests you can perform for them.
• A new soundtrack.
• Performance enhancements for multi-core systems and AMD graphics cards make the game run much smoother when other ships are around.
• User manuals that explain the function of your hardware in-game make it easier for new players to understand the equipment they buy.
• The ability to choose seed for your new game and re-roll your starting ship, combined with starting at Enceladus, allows you to experience different crew stories and different events if you opt to re-play the game.
• A streaming friendly mode and streaming assets in our free DLC, should you like to stream your exploits.
• The storyteller module is now more aware of the events occurring around you and will deliver a more engaging experience.
• Numerous adjustments and additions to quest dialogues, allow you to finish or experience the quest differently if the circumstances are right.

Language support

Thanks to the community efforts we managed to add Dutch language support this year. Here are our current language support stats:

Peek behind the Scenes

Most of the concept work starts with a doodle on paper. Here is a sneak peek into whats on the drawing board for the near future.

Upcoming Sale

[strike]Id like to take this opportunity to give you a heads-up on an upcoming sale. I really hate when I get a game and it gets a sale the next day, so Im going to give you a heads-up: V: Rings of Saturn will be on sale soon. If you think about buying it now, play the demo instead, and transfer your save once the sale starts.[/strike] In a time of a global crisis, there are causes that need your contributions more than we do. Today Im lifting all the restrictions of the demo version, making it essentially a full game. Instead of buying V, spend your money on something important and help someone in need. You can get the full version of V when we have peace again. Sale is still coming, but please, use that money better. You can play without any limits for free here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/949730/V_Rings_of_Saturn_Demo If you, however, opt to buy the game at full price, it will be greatly appreciated, and all the extra funding goes towards developing it even more. Remember to pick up our free DLC with supplementary material! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211880/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tales_from_the_Rings/

[ 2022-03-02 16:54:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New story event.
• New ways to interact with pirates, including trade and job opportunities.
• Mechanics that are not on your active crew will still contribute their skills when repairing your ship on Enceladus.
• Improved pathfinding. Recent optimizations had a side-effect where ships, in some cases, would not detect a possible collision with nearby massive asteroids, ships or stations and would ram them.
• Lifepods wont have processed ore aboard.
• The Space Bar could have its fission reactor overheated easily and would explode in a rather unimpressive explosion.
• Exploding Cothon-212 would leave a radiator glow sprite visible for a few moments after the explosion.

[ 2022-02-27 08:10:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Digital Mimas performance

The classical music performance will be held next week in the netspace of Enceladus. The Digital Mimas Orchestra, conducted by renowned R2D7, will perform classical works of Bach, Penderecki, Jarre and Moloney, as well as some modern pieces by both digital and organic composers. Performance bandwidth allocation will be limited to 5000 attendees and ticket sales will start this midnight.

Man-Hub adjudicated legal across Sol

The Interplanetary Court of Sol has passed a judgement in a century-old dispute on the legal standing of controversial information and manual database. With a stated goal of providing free and unrestricted access to information, Man-Hub was sued for violating intellectual property laws by multiple corporations. In closing, the jury proclaimed that the release of manuals shared by the service was already mandatory for all affected parties and the whole case was based on a technicality. The judgment is not final.

Thruster burns are a basis for weregilds

In today's press conference the spokesmen of the Vilcy formation revealed that the bounty-hunting organization considers thruster burns as a fully-fledged basis for posting weregilds. Exhaust-based damage was often disputed as mere accidents, and this release opens up a shortened path for offended parties to seek compensation.

Maintenance Logs

• Additional soundtrack.
• New User Manual tab for all equipment, detailing in-game usage of your hardware.
• If you dont agree on a trade, but still dock at habitat, they wont tell you that ore transfer is in progress.
• Some portions of the screen could not be interacted with using the mouse.
• Consistently burning ships or stations with your torch drives will be considered a hostile act now. Accidental burns might still be forgiven.
• In some situations, you could get a salvage option for a lifepod of a ship rather than for a ship. If successful, this could corrupt your savegame.
• Fixed some typos.

[ 2022-02-23 11:19:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Support for the Dutch language.
• New story event.
• Expanded friendly pirate dialogue tree, giving you more opportunities to befriend them and see what they really want.
• Friendly ships that are in combat now can call you and request support or offer combat-related dialogue options.
• Expanded the Vilcy dialogue tree, so you have an opportunity to query for drop points and combat patrols whenever applicable.
• Ships you take on combat patrols will now talk more and will give you a better indication of what is going on.
• The reconnaissance drone camera range is now displayed on your LIDAR screen.
• Improved performance of ships spawning and loading the dialogue trees.
• Better support for vertical monitors.
• A bug caused only one ship to spawn in some circumstances where there should be multiple. This makes some ambushes more dangerous.
• Ringracers will now complain if you catch the drone before the race even starts.
• Changed the description of Rusatom-Anonoff MPU to make it clear that it has propellant reprocessing capability.
• A bug could cause AI to freeze up and take no action if an object it was examining was destroyed unexpectedly.
• If you encounter a habitat that just finished construction once and then loses track of it, it wont say they just finished construction if you manage to discover them again.
• Added a tooltip for tutorial button prompts to make it clear that they represent a keyboard key and not a widget to be clicked with the mouse.
• Changed colour of the keyboard/gamepad dialogue highlight.
• Sounds were not playing then you navigated some of the menus with the keyboard or a gamepad.
• You could only move down in the tuning menu when using a keyboard or a gamepad.
• Fixed number of typos.

[ 2022-02-20 08:26:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Possible parallel universes

An independent Class-3 artificial intelligence self-identifying as Marvin (formerly operating under the Class-2 designation of Entangled Thought) has proposed an experiment with the potential to falsify the Many-Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Though human scientists have expressed some skepticism over the relevance of the experimental data, Marvin has replied to such claims without surprise, stating that Bio-processing is at an inherent disadvantage in attempting to challenge quantum mechanics. The entangled mind is a prerequisite for intuitive understanding. The initial results, though inconclusive, have yet to invalidate the Many-Worlds interpretation. If borne out, these results would be far from a failure; it would represent an important finding, though it will take time to explore the implications of such a finding.

A class-action lawsuit against Nakamura Dynamics

Multiple independent geologists and astrogators filed a class-action suit against Nakamura Dynamics after several contractor fatalities stemming from overwork and exhaustion came to light. Though a Nakamura representative offered no comments, new regulations surrounding the number of hours these positions can stay on shift are already being reviewed, according to sources inside the corporation.

Ring-rage incidents on the rise

A statistically significant increase in ring-rage incidents among independent miners is raising tensions across Enceladus. A representative of the Vilcy, the independent mercenary group known for establishing a bounty and enforcement structure in the rings, has promised swift and decisive action.

Maintenance records

• The new game button, after you finish the tutorial, allows you to re-roll your starting ship name and pick one of the parallel universes, which changes the seed for procedural generation, giving you a unique experience. You will now start the game at Enceladus, allowing you to customize your crew and your ship before the very first dive.
• Multithreaded performance improvements speed up the frame rate on systems with multiple, but slower cores, especially when other ships are around.
• Additional general AI performance improvements across all systems will make the game run faster when other ships are around you, including faster pathfinding and decision-making routines.
• Re-balanced the faction and personal hostility and fear adjustments from being shot at by the player to consider the actual amount of damage taken. This makes NPCs less likely to turn hostile from glazing accidental shots and quicker to act when under concentrated fire.
• Fixed a race condition that caused random crashes on some systems.
• The undocking procedure from the Big Bad Wolf is now gentler.
• Rebalanced experience gains for your crew. Geologists and Astrogators will now level up a bit slower, and Pilots and Mechanics will level up faster.
• Additional protection from cargo piercing your ship hull.
• Guide us through the thicket questlet now has the ship asking you for a favour to assert its course, showing you exactly where they want to go.
• You can now re-deploy claim beacons that you pick up in the rings during your dive.
• Drone-mounted microwave dishes are now a bit smaller and will not poke through the hull of your ship if you have one in your cargo hold.
• Adjusted number of dialogue trees that could look weird if you undocked during the course of discussion.
• When you dock to a ship or a station while having your comms channel opened to another ship, you will be contacted by your host as soon as you finish, allowing you to pick trade options and transfer prisoners even if interrupted.
• Money notification during in-ring mineral sales will now use a monospaced font, which makes the values easier to follow as they change in real-time.
• The demo version can now delete saves.
• Updated translations and updated some missing strings.

[ 2022-02-12 09:09:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Organized crime activity

Reports of organized crime activity in the A-ring are being investigated. While independent and disorganized pirate attacks were common in the past, recent developments point to the possibility of an organized group. Following an increase in posted bounties on known criminals, patrols of both licenced and independent bounty hunters were dispatched to the area.

Increased interlunar bandwidth

Introduction of H.271A standard into the Mimas Interlunar Tightbeam Array increased the available interlunar bandwidth by over 350%, allowing broadcast of high-quality video streams from the rings A to D directly to the station. While the upgrade was meant to improve security with real-time video feedback from security cameras on ships, the development was quickly exploited by independent streamers offering real-time entertainment channels. Some popular reconnaissance drone manufacturers were quick to capitalize on the development with integrated options to assist these streams.

Insurance investigations

With multiple insurance claims made against damage caused by hypervelocity ore impacts, several reconnaissance drone manufacturers have provided options to integrate observations of hypervelocity objects with on-board adrenaline systems. Enceladean insurance providers express hope that more detailed crew logs of such events will help them rapidly resolve an increasing number of claims. Experts note that most of the popular drones available on the market today may have an insufficient frame rate to be conclusive.

Maintenance Records

• Added streaming-friendly mode to the Settings menu.
• Added more interaction with the pirate faction. You can now communicate with them even when you are in combat, trading insults and having multiple opportunities to defuse the situation. Pirates will also attempt negotiations when the tide of the battle is against them.
• Turning the onboard computer off will now provide resistance to short circuits and overheating.
• Increased chance of getting quest-related interactions with ships you came across, so crew quests dont feel stalled.
• You can now salvage ships that are part of crew quests if it makes sense in the context of that quest.
• Pirates could try to extort you while being terrified, which made them open fire on you and try to escape while they were asking for money.
• Faction and personal reputations could coincide in a way that made it impossible for an NPC ship to break away from combat.
• You will now get some adrenaline slowdown when you use the Adrenaline Booster even if you dont have a pilot on board.
• Nearby hypervelocity explosion will now trigger an adrenaline boost, giving you time to react or at least perceive the impact that damages your ship.
• Tuning Direct Energy Mining Tool power input used to change its efficiency in a way that cancelled out any extra power you pumped into the device, making power tuning of lasers and microwaves next to useless.
• THI Cargo Containers used to fly away from you even before you ordered them to return to the station if they managed to get away from you before booting up.
• Active cargo, such as drones, could boot up and fly around or even explode on the Enceladus dive summary screen if you gave them enough time.
• When your crew was returning from sick leave and there is not enough space for them on board your ship, the game added them to the roster and immediately removed them, displaying confusing notifications.
• Improved performance of the mass driver hypervelocity bullet simulation.
• Improved performance of the Enceladus station crew display.
• Improved performance of ship collision detection.
• Improved performance of ship spawning.
• Bullets can now collide with other bullets.
• When you established a claim beacon, the notification of the claim price didnt play, which made the price of your claim be counted towards your next in-ring sale or purchase, displaying confusing money counters.
• Your salvage manipulator will now go into the Tsukuyomi-class docking bay when you dock.
• Adjusted the thruster configuration of the Tsukuyomi-class frigates so they are less likely to accidentally burn ships they are docking with.
• When you transfer criminals from a disabled ship into custody, the ship is now considered a legitimate salvage.
• You can now turn in criminals held in lifepods caught in your ship cradles.
• When making quick course adjustments with your mouse the autopilot vector could snap back to your current velocity if your adjustment was quick enough to be registered as a mouse click.
• Logs showing your propellant usage during the dive could be inaccurate if the framerate changed during your mission.
• Changed nanodrone storage descriptions to make it clear that its a consumable storage container and not an independent drone system.
• Clicking on a tuning item header will now switch the description and simulation to this item.
• Fixed a bug that caused your mouse pointer to stay on screen much longer than needed.
• New game-over screen if you manage to blow your ship up.
• A ship that lost all power and propellant wont be able to keep the cargo it has in external cradles or salvage manipulators during a rescue operation.
• Updated translations.

[ 2022-02-05 13:22:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When a crewmember tells you that they quit once you get back to the station they actually quit once you get back to the station, not immediately.
• Times displayed in the astrogation panel menu and the details on the map will match now for all locations.
• The storyteller module is now aware of the prices and dangers of salvage operations and will use that knowledge to give you a more balanced and compelling narrative.
• Friendly ships will now approach you before initiating dialogue.
• Only valid cargo will be displayed on the Dive Summary screen. This prevents mining companions from showing up (and booting up and flying around stealing your ore) if you manage to fit them into your cargo hold.
• When you install multiple point defense turrets, you can now configure them separately in the Tuning menu.
• Points of Interest and Drop Points wont be generated outside of the game map anymore. If you had any astrogation targets that were generated this way, they will be automatically adjusted.
• Adjusted internal space of Conlido Cothon-212 to better match what is visible outside. This should fix ores poking out the sides of the cargo hold.
• Found and fixed a number of bugs that could cause a crash when you astrogated back to Enceladus station with unusual things in your cargo hold or salvage manipulator.
• Fixed a number of typos and rephrased some texts in the game to make them clearer.

[ 2022-01-28 16:50:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

V: Tales from the Rings is a completely free DLC containing supplemental material set in the universe of V: Rings of Saturn. In celebration of the Lunar Sale, we boosted it with new content and clarified the licenses, just in case you want to use it in your own work. [previewyoutube=SRWwfAG70KI;full][/previewyoutube]

Gifts from Enceladus

• (NEW!) Seamlessly looping 1080p animations for streaming or desktop backgrounds.
• E-book "Howling at the Stars".
• A digital artbook.
• Desktop wallpapers.
• Avatar images.
• Cellphone wallpapers and ringtones.
• 3d ship models.
• Full-resolution crew portraits.
• Ship paint templates.

A handy FAQ

Q: Can I use these assets for my stream? A: Yes, that's why they're here. Q: Can I publish fanart based on these? A: Please do! Q: Can I print them and sell them? A: Sure! Q: Can I make a game using them? A: I don't know, can you? It takes some skill and discipline. Q: Are you sure your publisher is OK with this? A: I am my own publisher: I do what I must because I can. Q: Why is this a DLC if its free? A: It's supplementary content that can be bulky and you might not want to have it installed with your game at all times. I recognize that some people play on laptops with limited SSD space. Q: What exactly is the license here? A: CC BY-SA 3.0. Q: Where can I grab this? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211880/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tales_from_the_Rings/

[ 2022-01-28 10:01:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved AI pathfinding performance by 80%, sacrificing 20% of its rock-evasion capabilities. This should result in much better performance when non-player controlled ships are present while having a negligible change in behaviour.
• Adjusted storytelling options for the missing child quest to not finish too abruptly.
• Talking with Vilcy patrols once you get the location of the drop point will not make the ship you are about to meet wait for you 30 days longer each time you interact.
• You cant buy more than one round of drinks at The Space Bar if you undock and re-dock immediately, raising the crew morale indefinitely.
• The bartender at The Space Bar wont order its docking arms to throw you out if she is taking your order.
• You won't be able to tell habitats multiple times about the same event.
• Ships that run out of propellant during calculating astrogation sequence will abort the jump.
• Adjusted power draw warning for Eagle Prospector heads-up display in the numerical section to 150MW for warning and 500MW for critical level.
• Processed cargo in Titan Heavy Industries Cargo Container will now count towards the Blue Gold achievement.
• Enceladus station background wont turn black if you set the background FPS to 0 and change your HUD scale while docked at the station.
• Non-player controlled ships caught by docking arms of stations and habitats wont forget the player anymore.
• Adjusted cargo bay shapes on Elon Interstellar Model E, so ore hitting the edge between open jaws and ship hull from behind are not counted towards cargo temporarily, thus losing autopilot targeting and geologist marks.
• You will now trigger automatic return protocol when you get into the Encke Gap, over 3005km, just as you get the achievement. Any POI you could have in your save deeper in will be moved to maintain savegame compatibility.
• Clicking on the menu buttons when you have the Dive Target Selection screen open will now close it.
• Keyboard focus will move correctly to the last menu item you had selected on Enceladus when you close the Dive Target Selection screen.

[ 2022-01-24 17:02:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

• When you launch the game for the very first time, you wont be able to skip past photosensitive epilepsy warnings.
• Reworked XASER burn event visuals, removing rapidly flashing lights in favour of gentler ones to reduce risks of photosensitive epilepsy.
• Changed the visual cue of changing music for hearing-impaired players to be more subtle and clearer. It will now display correctly with portrait monitor orientation.
• If your ship is too heavy to decelerate before handing you the controls in the initial cutscene, the entry sequence will skip the final flip to allow it to use its main torch on the entire approach.
• If your ship has a big enough cargo hold to fit an entire THI Cargo Container or an NT Mining Companion, these drones will count as cargo and your salvage manipulator wont try to reach for them.
• Renamed unclassified mineral filter to unmarked on the Geologist tab to make it clear that it means the ore nuggets that dont have apprisal marks placed on them yet.
• Adjusted physical model of Conlido Cothon-212. Its cargo hold is now a bit narrower, with reinforced walls. This prevents both cargoes from piercing your cargo hold and a visual glitch that enabled you to see ore poking through the left side of the ship. As a consequence, the size of its cargo hold is a bit smaller.
• When adjusting Onboard Maintenance System with a keyboard or a gamepad, your cursor was not clearly visible.
• Audio subsystem could hit a division by zero, which flooded the logs with warnings and decreased performance.
• Hardware simulations of SPC Gungnir left charged asteroids floating around when you switched between simulations, electrocuting your simulated ship at the very start of a new simulation.
• Adjusted physics setting to make small collisions more accurate.
• Updated translations.
• Fixed typos.

[ 2022-01-18 16:55:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Performance improvements in the graphics rendering pipeline drastically speed up the game on some systems.
• Improved performance of ship system simulation.
• Optimized memory requirements of The Dealer menu.
• Improved performance of particle effects of leaking reactor.
• Adjusted mounting point for AEMD14 articulated mass driver so it wont accidentally damage your ship while tracking targets.
• Adjusted location of cradles for THI Cargo Containers on Eagle Prospector.
• Changed shape of Voyager RSLS fabrication plant on Eagle Prospector to make it not choke so easily.
• When loading a save made directly after returning to Enceladus, the value of ores changed slightly upon each load.
• Docking arms and equipment cradles used a different equation to compute their location during a cutscene and during normal gameplay, which caused docked ships and cradled equipment to jerk when transitioning to interactive gameplay.
• When you catch a lifepod with a ship-mounted cradle, your gimbaled thrusters will now avoid hitting it with their exhaust.
• Weapons and equipment mounted on Elon Interstellar Model E will not render above docking clamps.
• A damaged space station that lacks propulsion wont relocate to another location anymore.
• Changing the focus of the tuning sliders without adjusting the value was causing the tuning option to reset to the value set upon opening the menu, without being visible in any way.
• Nakamura-Titan Mining Companion cradles have now more torque. This increases their power requirement when operating, but allow them to position the Companion correctly even after collisions or rapid manoeuvres.
• Prevent slight lag when a ship explodes for the first time.
• Fixed a number of typos.

[ 2022-01-12 16:30:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thinking about buying V? Hold your horses!

Don't you just hate when you buy a game and it goes on sale the next day? I know I do, so we are giving you heads-up: If you wanted to get V now, a bit of patience will get you some bucks saved!

Can't wait? I can't blame you.

If you buy the game at full price, it will be greatly appreciated, and all the extra funding goes towards developing it even more.

Set up reminder!

So if you are hunting for the sale, just hold your horses for a while longer, press this reminder button and get a note as soon as we go live.

Remember to share!

Know someone who is thinking about getting V? Be sure to tell him or her to try the demo just for a while longer. You can grab a link to this announcement just below. https://store.steampowered.com/app/949730/V_Rings_of_Saturn/ In meanwhile, enjoy our free demo. It has the complete content of the game and full save game compatibility, so you can transfer your progress.

[ 2022-01-09 17:37:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Some ship builds were spinning uncontrollably when you rapidly changed simulations in the Tuning menu.
• Software cursor will be hidden in the pause menu if you opt for a hardware cursor.
• The Big Bad Wolf docking arm will now release you when you engage your autopilot.
• Updated translations.
• Fixed some typos.

[ 2022-01-08 21:21:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Reconnaissance drone camera offset, configured to show equal space around your ship even if your heads-up display is taking over the lower segment - is bound now to the Eagle Prospector HUD and not the ship. Retrofitting another HUD will reset the offset making the Eagle display on the centre of your screen.
• Turning on the hardware mouse pointer will not interfere with gamepad controls anymore.
• When you select a different language but cancel the changes, the selection box will revert to the currently used language.
• Your geologist will not display multiple readings for a single ore chunk in case of an onboard computer reboot.
• Titan Heavy Industries Cargo Containers captured inside Elon Interstellar Model E cargo hold wont show up on top of its cargo bay anymore.
• Ships wont wiggle on the docking arm at Enceladus.
• Changed location of cradle mounts on Eagle Prospector for Titan Heavy Industries Cargo Containers and Nakamura-Titan Mining Companions. Cradles are now located in the front, out of the way of thruster fire. This allows mining with companions still attached and makes gimbaled thrusters able to decelerate your ship without overheating drone reactors.
• Fixed a bug that caused multiple notifications with the same name and face to appear when you received multiple notifications regarding your crew simultaneously.
• You cant turn in the same ship or lifepod for a bounty multiple times by flying away and returning to drop point.
• Added video ram conservation mode for graphics cards whose drivers incorrectly report VRAM usage to the game engine. Using more VRAM than your card has caused the framerate to drop significantly. You can now force removal of unused textures, conserving memory at cost of additional loading times. The default, the automatic setting will attempt to detect if you need VRAM conservation by checking your framerate and will apply the setting automatically.
• General VRAM optimization decreases video ram usage across all systems.
• Articulated mass drivers mounted on Eagle Prospector will now aim slightly outwards and are mounted further away, preventing them from hitting the Prospectors nose when tracing passing targets.
• Some large asteroids were immune to being targeted by the autopilot after you bumped into them with your cargo bay open.
• Changed the way the initial cutscene computes the velocity of your ship, making your ring entry point much more consistent. This prevents some light, high thrust ship builds from stopping before even entering the rings and makes heavy, slow ships stop sooner.
• Faces in the comms screen will now appear for dialogues that were received when the OMS screen was hidden.
• Adjusted ship initialization routines to repress physics computation until all the ship systems are fully loaded into the engine, which prevents some ships from spinning and moving directly after spawning. This fixes a number of glitches related to astrogation and the equipment preview screen, which could be with some ship configurations.
• The Ganymedean Anarchy station wont greet you with trading dialogue if you dock without agreeing to trade.
• When following a pirate to his base, you wont encounter two stations anymore.
• Disabling a pirate ship and staying near it no longer counts as following it to its base.

[ 2022-01-07 11:32:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved compatibility with older Linux systems, which could not launch the game due to having too old libc version installed.

[ 2021-12-30 10:51:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Game engine update to 3.4.2, with extra physics performance, new collision detection code, improved stability and graphics performance improvements.
• All thrusters and torches now have mass, making the equipment swaps more meaningful.
• Habitats will now talk to you when you dock to them, making it possible to continue quest conversations if you discussed trade on initial contact.
• Support for Portugal (Brazil) language.
• Fixed a bug that caused a temporary point of interest to persist on your astrogation map after you visited it.
• Hitting a ship with microwaves will not trigger an emergency reactor shutdown unless you hit the reactor directly. This makes retrieving some items easier, prevents microwave-equipped opponents from stun-locking you easily, with a drawback that it makes microwaves less efficient for self-defence.
• Performance improvements.

[ 2021-12-29 16:19:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

General Relativity tells us that there is no such thing as an absolute present, every observer perceives his own time. The moon of Enceladus, orbiting distant Saturn, apparently celebrates Christmas much earlier than we do on Earth. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211880/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tales_from_the_Rings/

Gifts from Enceladus

You can download a Free DLC "Tales from the Rings" with supplemental material set in the universe of V: Rings of Saturn, including:

• Free E-book "Howling at the Stars".
• A digital artbook.
• Desktop wallpapers.
• Avatar images.
• Cellphone wallpapers and ringtones.
• Creator asset pack: ship 3d models and full-resolution crew portraits you can use in your own fan arts.
• Ship paint templates you can use to customize your ships.

[ 2021-12-19 13:39:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Some NPC ships now have a military-grade point defence systems capable of targeting weak spots like reactors, making some optional encounters more challenging but also making them more helpful as allies.
• NPC ships that belong to a faction that was friendly towards you could not become entirely hostile even under heavy fire.
• You can now lock your mouse pointer to the game window in settings. Enabling this option will also enable hardware mouse pointer due to engine limitations.
• Added custom sprite for the hardware mouse pointer.
• Added a notification popup when your crew was taken off the active rooster by decreased crew capacity of your ship.
• When you spun your ship fast while having a 30 FPS framerate limit enabled, your cradled equipment (mining companions, cargo containers) stretched out their cradles which could make them forcibly detach or explode.
• Crew portrait will not flash for a moment before the animation when hiring a new crew.
• Your crew will not ask for free days if you have already agreed to them.
• Fixed lighting glitches inside The Space Bar.
• Docking arms inside The Space Bar will now hold your ship and orient it correctly.
• New achievement.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-12-17 10:55:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Another year of Early Access just passed. Let us look back on what happened with V: Rings of Saturn in 2021.

Roadmaps of an uncharted land

I found that the roadmaps didnt work out for me. Looking back at them, that should not be a surprise. While I know where I am, and I certainly know where I want to end up, the land between us is a mystery. You cant map roads you dont know, and to get to know them, you need to walk them.
I tried to write roadmaps in the past - detailing what I want to do next - but most of them failed to predict what happened. Its not about bugs I found and fixed along the way - these are just slowing down the progress, but not turning the direction of development all that much - but its about the very nature of Early Access. I have a tight feedback loop with you - my dear players - which is excellent for making the best possible game but not so great for meeting deadlines. I am no stranger to the dreaded feature creep, and I usually keep the guy in check, but some of your ideas were just too good to pass up, and often we took an unexpected detour. And I needed to pay for each of these detours with extra development time.

I was delayed

Game development is not difficult but complex. There rarely is a single difficult challenge along the way. Still, you have thousands of small tasks, each of them requiring a couple of hours to complete, and tiny delays along the way will eventually add up to something significant. In 2021, I finished 1076 of the tasks planned, and there are just 21 to go until the 1.0 release. This number sounds far more optimistic because the same statistics that tell me I finish 3.3 tasks per day tells me there are, on average, 2.9 new tasks popping up. Sometimes these will be bugs, which I unconditionally fix before moving to anything else, but sometimes these are features or tweaks that you suggest just make so much sense I just need to have them in the 1.0 version. And sometimes, they get backlogged for post-1.0 work.
The paradox here is that I get most of the feedback and ideas from players already having the Early Access version, so you dont mind much when the 1.0 release gets delayed. But some players want a clear cut 1.0 version - this is why we have a clear goal when I can call the complete game experience - the point where I press the big Launch button. But that wont be the end of the road. I initially planned to expand V for at least a year after the 1.0 release, and now looking at all the ideas you submitted that I backlogged as post-1.0, it seems like I have at least five years worth of ideas to work on. But that is a story for another tale.

The huge obstacles

Although most of the work done on V was rather typical, with individual tasks taking no more than a few hours to finish, there were three that took way longer than anticipated, delaying our development by over three months in total. Our first colossal task was implementing a new ship - the Elon Interstellar Model E. Between unique fusion drives and fusion power supply, new mechanics, unusual split-cargo-bay design. It took almost a month to add this bag of quirks into the game. Compare that to three days that took me to make Cothon-212.
A second significant obstacle was the introduction of the Articulated Recovery Manipulator. While the initial implementation was relatively swift, adding the option to pick up not just ships but also ore, ringroids and other objects complicated it a lot and introduced multiple bugs, which took almost six weeks to hunt out. The third monstrosity along the way was the hardware glitches. It turns out that the support of OpenGL ES 3 that my engine uses is a bit underwhelming on some graphics cards, with problems ranging from poor performance, extravagant video RAM consumption to plain out graphics not displaying at all. Since I cant possibly have access to all the hardware configurations out there, fixing all of these relied on reports from you, my dear players. It would not be possible without some of you spending up to a couple of days testing with me subsequent patches I pushed out to you, for which I am most grateful.

Unexpected sights

Along the way, we had detours that were not bugs but rather things that I found just too good to pass on.
The crew faces overhaul was an unexpected side-effect of an Aprils Fools joke. It turned out that the AI that I used to generate a bunch of funny furry pilots is impressive in making a natural human face, and in a couple of days, we climbed off the uncanny valley of Enceladus.
Conlido RVM Cothon-212 was a Friday wildcard - a side project that I do on my day off, an attempt to design a more realistic spaceship, adhering to conservative radiator placements, exposed internals and a shadow shield. It turned out to be nice enough to push it into the main game. We were supposed to have three playable ships for the 1.0 release, and now, with Cothon, we have five.

Community Contributions

Besides the indirect contributions, like bug reports and idea suggestions, most of the Vs translations were made by players. With our development velocity, with new versions of the game coming out daily, this is the only way to ensure that most of the game is translated. Than you! Here is a list of our current language support status:

Trial by fire

V is an independent, self-published title. When I started developing it, it was unclear if this was a viable career choice, and thus V began as a side-project, something that I do in my spare time. A journey of an independent game developer is similar to the road a writer takes - we have our day jobs, we are creating something we dreamt about, and we have a team of people that helps us. The Early Access title is like the first book in a trilogy for a new author - some will buy it, others will wait until the trilogy completes, or there are enough positive reviews. The risks are also the same - will this creation be able to support me, or will it be a one-time blip on my financial radar? There is no other way to know for sure than to publish something and see for yourself. And V is delivering. The Early Access sales now are enough to support the development, and all the feedback and contributions are honing it to be the best game it can be. In my eyes, it has already succeeded - it is stable, polished, and has all the features I have planned. Im still adding more content, and some parts were not in the plan, but I now feel it should have them before being called complete. Due to the structure of event-based storytelling we have, I can expand on the game as you play along. New storylines, upgrades, ships and crew quests will integrate seamlessly with your experience, and I hope that due to my fix-bugs-first policy, youll get as polished experience now as youll get in a 1.0 release. But dont take my word for it. Check the demo. It has the same content as a complete game, I release updates at the same time, the saves are fully compatible, and you can see it for yourself with a single click: https://store.steampowered.com/app/949730/

TL;DR: Significant Changes in 2021

New Ships

• Elon Interstellar Model E.
• Conlido RVM Cothon-212.

New Hardware

• THI cargo container.
• Nakamura-Titan Mining Companion.
• New propulsion systems.
• B8 Claim beacons.
• Articulated Recovery Manipulator.
• Articulated mass drivers and lasers.
• New Heads Up Displays.
• Gungnir particle accelerator.

Story

• New crew quests.
• The Bounty hunter vs Anarchists main storyline significantly expanded.
• Your crew now can know people flying other ships.

Other Improvements

• Firing solutions for NDCI autopilot.
• Expanded tutorial.
• Performance detail settings.
• Performance improvements.
• Improved textures, images and shaders.
• New crew portraits.
• Expanded demo.
• New ore density maps, including veins you can follow.
• Astrogator and Geologist have separate panels with their own settings.
• Steam Leaderboards support.
• Translations to various languages.

[ 2021-12-08 11:49:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Mining companions cannot be mounted now on the right low-stress point of the Bald Eagle.
• Fixed corrupted textures that caused some of the images not to display on some systems.
• Additional texture formats improve performance on systems that can use them.
• Fixed some dialogue trees.

[ 2021-12-07 10:10:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=tD882MP7Pjg;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2021-12-03 18:33:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Custom craft approved for mining equipment

This week several custom-build kitcrafts were approved by the Enceladian Safety Committee to install standard-issue mining hardware, most notably the popular in Bald Eagle racing modification of Eagle Prospector. While limited cargo bay of modified craft makes using it for mining questionable, the racing crews are excited by an option to cushion lithobraking manoeuvres.

Unrest in the industrial ring

The recent discovery of unusually high residual radiation in the Industrial Ring of the Enceladus Prime station led to protests blocking out the transfer pillars. The residents of the Industrial Ring blame Enceladus Corp for obscuring the buildup of radiation. At the same time, the Enceladus representatives quote that the industrial section of the station was never approved for habitation. As of 2273, over 21,000 residents currently occupy the low-gravity environment of the Industrial Ring, making up over 12% of the station population.

Nakamura Dynamics Recall

Popular nuclear thermal propulsion manufacturer issued a free recall on its Pulsed Nuclear Thermal Rocket. Service includes refurbishing vectored thrust chamber and new propellant pumps, lowering the power requirements of the torch. Nakamuras PNTR won "Torch of the Year 2251" and remained a common propulsion choice thanks to its cheap maintenance costs and impressive durability.

Maintenance Logs

• Bald Eagle now can mount mining hardware on its low-stress hardpoints. Cradled equipment is not available.
• The geologist tab in the OMS now features a cargo hold display, including processed cargo storage and cargo estimations.
• I extended the demo. You can now load saves as long as less than 30 days have passed in the game.
• ND-PNTR torch rebalance. It's now capable of vectored thrust, making it much more helpful for ships that lack serious RCS rotational thrust.
• Default Cothon-212 configuration adjusted to feature Nakamura autopilot required to make good use of the vectored thrust of its stock PNTR torch.
• ER42 racing autopilot now has Fly-By-Wire capability.
• Added a short-range propellant tank, taking 15,000kg of propellant, dedicated to shuttles and large drones.
• When your comms screen was already full with dialogue, when a new ship approached you, the window sometimes did not scroll to reveal all reply options, showing only the first one. While you could still scroll down with a mouse, keyboard or gamepad to display the remaining replies, some players missed that.
• It's now easier to pay off your entire bounty if you accumulate one.
• Vilcy sometimes called you with combat dialogue when there was a bounty on you, requesting your support instead of asking to pay up.
• Rescuing a stranded friendly ship or a friendly lifepod now counts as a friendly action and will improve your faction standing.
• Abducting a pirate ship or turning a pirate lifepod for bounty will make pirates dislike you.
• Stealing drones not owned by you and selling them at Enceladus is considered a hostile act now.
• Removed lag when selling a lot of ores at once.
• Fixed a bug in the individual disposition system that caused individual ships never to be genuinely hostile towards you.
• Fixed missing Elon Interstellar Model E cabin lights.
• Grinders of Eagle Prospector and Mining Companions are now visible inside caves.
• The Space Bar will not offer you drinks before you dock.
• Hostile actions against a faction have diminishing returns now, so you won't turn everyone in a given faction against you when you get into combat with one of their members.
• It will take a bit longer to build up faction confidence when assisting them in combat.
• The shortcut key display in the Equipment menu is visible again.
• When you agree to meet someone in a week, the event won't trigger if you go there immediately.
• Improved visuals of PNTR torch. It's now easier to spot the warmup stage and direction of the thrust.
• When your crew talks to you about derelicts and you don't respond, they will get impatient and ask again.
• Miners will now return the money they owe you faster and stop bugging you after they do.
• Tampered drones are not considered prisoners anymore.
• Radiators of fission ships about to breach containment will radiate brightly as they desperately attempt to eject heat.
• Improved performance for Elon Interstellar Model E HUD.
• Ships equipped with EI1337 autopilots could override commands given in dialogue. That resulted in some recovered derelicts mining the rings instead of returning to Enceladus immediately.
• THI Cargo Containers that the player does not own will not initiate docking comms.
• The new texture compression format included game binaries aimed at GPUs and drivers that cannot properly process our previous format, decreasing video RAM requirements on some cards.
• Autonomic systems and weapons now have hard-coded targeting directives and will always engage pirate ships while never fighting legitimately-owned vessels.
• Fixed a bug that caused drone and claim beacon dialogue to glitch out if you stayed 100m or closer to the beacon, causing a claim drone to automatically cancel your claim even if you choose an option and pay.
• Derelict ships are now marked as independent, and shooting at them will not cause other derelicts to be mad at you.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-12-02 16:28:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug that caused crashes on startup on some systems.
• Re-balanced reactor leak damage. Reactors are now less likely to leak seriously, but the leak is more extensive when they finally do.
• Adjusted physics collision detection settings to prevent dead bodies from entering reactors without proper shielding.
• Fixed a race condition in a microseismic drone, affecting your cargo scanner, which sometimes caused readings to disappear.
• Bullets shot from a ship that moves quickly sidewise won't hit its hull anymore.
• Added mipmapping to icons that were missing it.
• Added delay between messages from different ships and entities, so you don't get a new conversation just as you are finishing your current one, as that could cause you to overlook a new message while you hang up.
• Elon Interstellar Model E cargo bay doors are much less likely to damage themselves on front-mounted weapons during hard burns.
• Nuclear Activated Nanoparticle Incinerator is now much more resistant to being misaligned - but if you manage to misalign it, it's more significant.
• Crew quests and agendas for inactive crew members are stored in a save file, enabling other persons to have the same story at a different stage.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-11-25 18:16:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Labor of Love award is for games that are out for a while, but devs still continue to nurture and support their creation. V: Rings of Saturn entered Early Access over two years ago. Since then we squashed 1859 bugs, added 714 new features (many of which were suggested by our players on our discord.gg/dv), released 2164 bleeding edge and 281 new stable versions. We came a long way and we still aim to improve at a steady pace. Nominate us!

[ 2021-11-24 18:00:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New auto-exposure and tonemap settings make the screen not go so dark when you use bright light sources.
• You could get multiple rewards if you managed to re-dock to Big Bad Wolf after releasing prisoners.
• Tab navigation shortcuts were backwards.
• Stray bullets that you had autopilot lock on will lose that lock when you catch them in your cargo hold.
• Items that are held in salvage manipulators and cradles cannot be targeted by guiding drones anymore.
• Autopilot rotational adaptation for ER42 and MA-337 autopilots were confused by powerful pulsed thrusters, making the rotational manoeuvres erratic.
• Individual disposition changes for patrols propagate, so you won't end up with one Vilcy leaving you alone while other shadows you or one pirate harassing you when you made a truce with the other one.
• Phage-class stations and habitats won't try to rotate to face you anymore.
• Some pilots - civilians, Vilcy and pirates alike - can fly on manual, not relying solely on autopilots. Microwave emitters will still disrupt their flight but will not stun everyone unconditionally.
• The dialogue option that results in you hanging up now has a distinct hang-up indicator.
• Fixed Edge Runner ship thruster allocations, so it's nimble again.
• Drones and claim beacons won't try to turn to face you.
• AI will not be afraid of itself - and thus, your point defence will never shoot your beacons nor drones.
• Astrogating with a lifepod in a cradle won't cause your ship to spin uncontrollably.
• Increasing physics simulation FPS caused your excavator to deal less damage to rocks.
• You can't send over your crew to a ship that is currently salvaged by the search & rescue team.
• CERF search and rescue craft will not rotate to fly backwards during fast transits, as its symmetrical and backflip serves no purpose.
• Derelict ships your crew managed to boot up won't follow you through astrogation jumps if you choose to astrogate before they depart.
• Catching ship with AR1500 manipulator when you have an autopilot lock on its reactor or other equipment will release that lock.
• Adjusted physics collision settings to prevent cargo from phasing through ship hulls.
• Derelict ships are now more damaged and should be a bit more challenging to catch.
• You can now ask Vilcy patrols for drop point coordinates even when you already have a bounty-hunting licence.
• The "Reset to default" button for microwave resonance tuning will correctly reset the slider to 50%.
• Adjusted the cargo hold of Elon Interstellar Model E to prevent ore from causing damage from inside the cargo hold.
• You cannot abuse claim beacons to generate multiple events astrogating between the two. They will now attract just one event per dive.

[ 2021-11-22 19:29:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fusion reactor rebalance - the fusion powerplants of ships will not shut down when your ship is damaged by electromagnetic pulses or microwaves.
• New achievements.
• Added photosensitivity warning screen.
• Fixed scale of electromagnetic sparks on Elon Interstellar Model E.
• Display of the EIME HUD is now darker, making it easier to see the background.
• Auxiliary Power Systems are now counted towards power warning in the Upgrade menu.
• Foreground rocks were missing in point defence upgrade simulation.
• Setting background FPS to 0 will not block preview and promotional videos in the Dealer menu.
• The AR1500 Manipulator will not throw away light objects you approach slowly.
• Multiple adjustments to manipulator and docking arm code, making them behave more like real machines.

[ 2021-11-16 14:52:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Replaces libraries bundled with M1 build with correct ones.

[ 2021-11-16 07:16:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Synchrotron Controversy

Omaewamou-Shinderus most recent entry in the realm of weapons manufacture has earned imports from Uranus and especially its moon Miranda embargoes or bans in most systems on the grounds of safety and environmental concerns. Named after the spear that Odin would carry into battle during Ragnarok, this repurposed small proton collider has been stripped of most safety and measurement equipment. The charge it carries is enormous and takes time to dissipate in the rings, creating a very hazardous environment to mine in. Enceladus Prime has not yet made any regulatory rulings on this device.

New photosensors for reconnaissance drones

In a collaboration between Runasimi and Obonto Micro Engineering, new standards have been agreed upon regarding recon drone photosensors. Anticipating a drop in costs associated with standardized supply, the new photosensors promise better image clarity, with a higher dynamic range and onboard postprocessing.

Superconductor Improvements

Exiting a phase of testing and feedback, safety regulations surrounding this relatively new technology have been lifted. With an established track record of safety, SMES systems are now approved to operate much closer to their theoretical full potential, making them much more useful and reliable in providing a large power reserve for periods of peak usage.

Maintenance Records

• New SPC Gungnir Proton Cannon.
• Game engine upgraded to Godot 3.4, featuring: better stability, performance and native support for M1 processors.
• Improved quality of post-processing light effects.
• Improved collision detection accuracy between ship hulls and small objects.
• Enhanced the game background.
• New DTSS feature to smooth out the gameplay can dynamically adapt your framerate to the CPU power available.
• Superconductive Magnetic Energy Storage systems will now be more reliable.
• Point defence systems can now target drones and unusual hostile ships.
• Racing was not offering another race if you won a couple of times.
• NPC ships were confused by the complex shapes of Ganymedian Anarchy station and The Space Bar and sometimes tried to fly right through them.
• Chanced the way AI handles emotions to behave more like a human would.
• Added tooltips to the controls menu icons.
• The pause menu will not be affected by your camera exposure.
• Adjusted colour balance.
• Crew leave time is now listed in red.
• If you send your crew over to an EI1337 equipped derelict for salvage and it fails, the derelict will not attempt to fly by itself with its autopilot.
• Some derelicts were listed as older than their initial production date.
• Position lights on AR1500 Manipulator wont turn themselves on after you adjust light settings.
• Pirates wont open fire on you shortly after asking for a truce.
• Added mouse zoom and camera sensitivity sliders in the Controls menu.
• Vilcy patrols will now leave you alone when you do no business with them.
• Big Bad Wolf wont follow your ship even when you have good standing with the bounty hunters.
• Rebooting your computer will now clear guiding drone, geologist and astrogator displays.
• AR1500 Manipulator will not throw light objects away.
• Marking many items for your guiding drone will not glitch out the drone path overlay.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-11-15 17:13:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Astrogating just next to a habitat could cause a remote selling connection to be established.
• Adjusted Search and Rescue AI not to eject rescued ships when distracted by player interaction.
• Hiring a replacement crew when your crew is on sick leave will not cause overpopulating your ship when they come back.
• Next salary and leave time for your crew will now display dates without exact hours.
• Your ship cant be damaged when you dont have control over it due to a cutscene playing.
• Improved performance when asteroids break outside of your field of view.
• You will now get Diving Licence achievement even if you completed the tutorial in the free demo.
• AI will not be confused by ore flying directly towards it.
• Hacking enemy ships will now have more random outcomes.
• Fixed race condition that could make the game crash when ships were exiting detailed simulation range.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-11-10 06:11:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

New hardware simulation provider

Electro Ride Systems won their bid for the deployment of spaceflight simulation software to Enceladian Shipyards, replacing the well-known Nakamura Dynamics spaceflight simulators. Spokespeople for ERS assured us that their 3.0 simulation software is as accurate as their competitors, and features a comparative simulation mode. Nakamura has challenged the validity of the bid, citing insufficient resolution to meet the contract parameters.

Subcontractor records leaked

An anonymous hacker leaked all Enceladus Corp subcontractor records, including estimated excavation yields, financial status and other private documents. Local ATLAS operatives launched a full-scale investigation hinting at possible AI connection. Enceladus representatives refused to comment.

Updated salvage policy

An investigation into the reckless endangerment of crew health and safety found a surprising resolution, as an Enceladus Corp Board of Inquiry exonerated a captain who permitted a crewman to perform EVA repairs on a derelict to prepare it for intralunar transit. While experts from Enceladus shipyard regard such operations as near-suicidal, this new precedent opens up new opportunities - and new risks - for unlicensed salvage operations.

Maintenance Records

• Added Steam Leaderboards support.
• New upgrade simulations showcase the difference in the handling of ships before and after installing an upgrade.
• Most of the hardware you install now has its mass.
• The processing sound of various mineral processing units is quieter now.
• You cannot hire people who just died anymore.
• The gravimetric drone display scale was slightly different from your LIDAR scale on K37, Eagle Prospector and Cothon HUDs.
• The missing child quest could lock up in certain circumstances preventing progress.
• Internal cargo bay floodlight of Elon Interstellar Model-E will not illuminate exhaust gas that passes above the cargo bay.
• Augmented Reality overlay on EIME HUD is now darker, making the ship easier to see.
• You can now send your crew over to derelict ships to attempt salvage.
• The hardware activation button in the upgrade menu is now more prominent.
• NPC ships will use drone systems only when actively excavating.
• Purchases, sales and insurance gained while performing a ring dive are now listed in your ship logs.
• Added reset do default button to the gamma slider in settings.
• Updated translations, including numerous typo fixes.

[ 2021-11-07 16:01:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New External Impact Absorber upgrade.
• Expanded the bounty hunting dialogues.
• Smoothed the camera zoom and made it respond faster to zoom controls.
• Changed the algorithm for ore collision detection to prevent ore from being stuck in the reactor after a high-velocity impact.
• The camera on Enceladus Prime will not follow your mouse anymore.
• Mining Companions are now much better at catching ore that escapes at high relative velocity.
• I added an immobile background option for Enceladus Prime.
• Obonto stations will fire their point defence turrets on pirates harassing the player if they get close enough.
• Your astrogator skill will not extend the rally point specified by Vilcy combat patrol.
• Boresights are now clearly visible on the NDCI autopilot preview simulation.
• Drone system filters on the geologist panel will now respect apprisal delay.
• Microseismic drone installed on Eagle Prospector reported wrong values.
• Disabled power draw alert on Eagle Prospector, which fired every time you ignited a fusion torch.
• Massdriver projectiles will not explode from hitting an exhaust gas cloud.
• Drone systems will now favour their current target and not waste as many nanodrones by frequently switching targets.
• Fixed several typos.

[ 2021-11-02 14:44:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added a new mineral vein map for the geologist panel.
• You can now tune your microwaves.
• Camera zoom is now much more responsive.
• Made several adjustments to the physics engine to prevent baffle-related physics glitches.
• Damage from constant-beam weapons, like microwaves generators and beam lasers, fluctuated if your framerate changed during operation.
• A bug caused sparks from your mass-driver rounds to appear at the edge of your screen even if the bullet shattered further away and long ago.
• NPC ships are now aware that they were in combat just a few seconds ago and respond accordingly.
• Vilcy patrols are now aware of when Big Bad Wolf was destroyed and react accordingly.
• You could click and select dialogue options that were still not fully visible.
• In busy areas, reactor explosion shockwaves could be delated and could happen even a dozen seconds after a ship exploded.
• On the geologist panel, the mineral you are working with is now clearly highlighted.
• You cant zoom the camera during cutscenes anymore.
• When tuning weapon systems, the simulation window will now present boresights.
• Improved integration with Steam services and overlay.
• Several stability improvements.

[ 2021-10-26 10:27:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

New wergild rates

With the alarming rise of crime rates, Enceladus Corp sanctioned the next increase of wergild rates, ranging from 10,000E$ for property damage up to 50,000E$ for aggravated assault. Unlike bounty, wergilds are only to be collected by a licenced bounty hunter. Individuals seeking a hunter licence should contact your local Vilcy operative.

Anarchy Sightings

The terrorist organization known as Ganymedean Anarchy claimed responsibility for multiple attacks and extortions in the rings. With suspicions of the group being supported by citizens of the Enceladus Prime stations, station authorities launched a full-scale investigation into the matter. As to this day location of the base of operations of the nefarious group remains undiscovered.

Ganymedian Prejudice

With increased pirate attacks, many Ganymedean citizens who sought refugee on Enceladus after the Titan crisis are facing waves of prejudice and hostility. While stations authorities issued a statement condemning the acts of violence, the local Vilcy spokesman offered no comments under the pretence of an ongoing investigation into the matter.

Maintenance Records

• You can now join Vilcy on combat patrols.
• You can get a bounty hunting licence now and collect wergilds.
• Your crew now knows other miners in rings, offering custom dialogue options.
• New shader for overheating computer.
• You can now permanently destroy the Big Bad Wolf.
• You can now dock to Big Bad Wolf as a part of a quest.
• The dealer provided ships with installed railguns but without any ammunition. Such ships confused both the Upgrades menu and NPC AI.
• A bug was causing Vilcy not to approach you with dialogue when they liked you.
• A bug could cause a railgun to hit part of your ship in the right conditions.
• Centrifugal forces can now shatter a mass-driver projectile, which prevents strange ricochets.
• You can now astrogate even if you opt to remove your ship HUD.
• Participating in space battles will now improve your standing with the group you are helping.
• Added friendly conversations with Ganymedean Anarchy pirates if you manage to win their favour.
• Changed the way the comms system highlights dialogue options when you have both keyboard and mouse cursor over them.
• The AR1500 Salvage Manipulator will not attempt to grab space stations and ice mountains anymore.
• Fixed several memory leaks in AR1500 code that could cause crashes.
• Fixed a bug that caused your crew not to speak to you, even if they wanted if there were a friendly ship, drone or beacon nearby.
• Unit conversions bug in auxiliary power generators caused them to consume much more thermal power than they should.
• Thrusters that do have not enough thermal power to fire will now visually fizzle.
• I rebalanced power delivery of auxiliary power storage systems. Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage systems will now deliver twice the power when discharging.
• A bug in the comms system caused your dialogue to be interrupted if you docked in the middle of it.
• An auto-exposure bug caused the screen to flash white when you started a new mission briefly.
• NPC AI bug could cause the game to crash when you astrogated with friendly ships in visual range.
• New achievements.
• Translations update.

[ 2021-10-19 17:30:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

• You will no longer get separate messages from Vilcy patrols made from several ships.
• I moved Elon Interstellar Model Es weapon mounts a few centimetres forward so projectiles wont hit the beak in an unlucky manoeuvre.
• Fixed a bug that caused pulse lasers to deal no thermal damage unless operating on maximum frequency.
• Fixed missing dialogue options when you encounter dead bodies in rings.
• Attacking one of the ships being in combat will make the other one appreciate you for it.
• Updated translations.
• Kzinti Lesson Mk2 thermal output now scales more gently, making it more suitable for mining.
• You can now come on board Ganymedean Anarchy station even if your faction standing is not maxed out.
• Hovering over past dialogue options with the mouse will not highlight them anymore.
• EIAA 1337 autopilot will now hold relative velocity to any selected target as long as you keep the X button pressed.
• I improved the stability of the AR1500 Manipulator code.
• You cannot extend your claim when you dont have enough money anymore.
• Fixed rounding error in railgun code that caused the last bullet not to be usable.
• The dialogue reply button will not disappear if you close the OMS screen while the animation is still playing.

[ 2021-10-10 14:04:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

• You can now tune the power and frequency of your laser mining systems.
• Asteroids will not spawn inside the walls of the Space Bar now.
• You cannot grab destroyed habitats with your salvage manipulator anymore.
• When hiring and immediately firing crew, the ship logs will now reflect both actions.
• Fixed German translation on HAL9000 heads-up display that overflowed screen size and hid units.
• Updated Polish and Russian translations.
• Fixed a handle leak in the Dealer menu that could cause crashes when you browsed inventory quickly.
• Fixed handle leak in AR1500 Manipulator code that could cause crashes when an asteroid exploded near you.
• You could go into debt when hiring crew if you opened the crew window first but switched to market or upgrades to spend your money.
• Screensaver mode will now quit when it detects any input.
• Sent comms message will now lose highlight.

[ 2021-10-04 11:21:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Changed layout of Enceladus Prime station menu to make it more friendly to small screens - including slightly smaller font, adjusted margins, changes simulation charts and more.
• You can now command your dispatched B8 Claim Beacons, ordering them to extend the claim or return to your ship for future redeployment.
• Rear-mounted B8 Claim Beacons are no longer available for Cothon-212.
• Menu shadows on Enceladus Prime are now consistent.
• Selecting targets on your Astrogation will now scroll the map by the minimum amount required.
• Removed upgrade preview button, which did same thing as clicking on the upgrade name itself.
• XASER burn events will not happen next to populated areas anymore.
• Added vignette to upgrade and tuning simulations screens.
• Enabled CRT post-processing filter for Return to Enceladus and Rescue Mission cutscenes.
• Claim Beacon thruster will no longer keep burning if its onboard computer loses power for some reason.
• When you quickly opened and closed the Onboard Maintenance System menu while being hailed by another ship, you could interrupt the dialogue animation, leaving invisible options.
• Changed the response curve for docking arms so they will not shake ships and drones attached to them.

[ 2021-09-28 19:10:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added detailed graphical and performance settings: you can control background and explosion particles, light and shadow quality, postprocessing, separate framerate limit for backgrounds and more.
• Improved the performance of the Enceladus Prime station screen.
• Removed incorrect tooltips on buy/sell buttons on confirmation window in dealer screen.
• Player replies in the dialogue system will now span multiple lines when needed.
• The game will not count processed cargo containers as recovered anomalies in ship logs anymore.
• Russian translations updated.

[ 2021-09-27 09:28:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=MIqJyu9xnjc;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2021-09-25 10:56:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed bug that caused Rusatom-Antonoff K37 HUD to disappear if you launched the game with the Russian language selected.

[ 2021-09-24 12:13:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Strike of The Geologist Union ended

Today marks the end of the long-running Geologists Strike, spanning the planetary system. The conflict over the use of AI to phase human labor out of geological surface operations on Saturnian moons has run for over two years. Specific to orbital operations, this means the resumption of services in drone system management and mineral mapping.

New Enceladian Order

Fulfilling his electoral promises, the new president of Enceladus Corp has increased the tax exemption on inherited spaceworthy ships from 7,000E$ up to 35,000E$. While this move would help small family-based excavation companies, tax experts note that the very same bill established a general 9% shipcare contribution that, despite the promises, will increase the effective tax burden on most independent miners.

Obonto Habitats declare neutrality

With the escalation of hostilities within the A-Rings between Vilcy security contractors and anarchist refugees from Ganymede, Obonto Habitats declared neutrality in the conflict, offering to trade with any ship that would approach their stations with no ill intent.

Maintenance Records

• Expanded tutorial with additional in-character notes left for new players.
• New Geologist tab in your Onboard Maintenance System, with local mineral excavation map and ability to control remote drone systems, focusing them on specific minerals or specific values.
• Improved artificial intelligence of ship-mounted mining companions and cargo containers. You can now order a return to your cradle if you launch any of them by mistake, and the docking protocol will now align them correctly and bring them close enough for you to catch without moving your ship. You still need to power up your cradle to catch them.
• Changed the icons for stat comparisons when hiring a crew to make it clear that you are upgrading or downgrading your current staff.
• Improved persistence of dialogues. Stations will not change their minds on what they want and who is aboard if you fly far enough and return to them.
• Increased the patience of your crew when you forget to pay their salary.
• The dealer will now ask for confirmation when buying or selling ships.
• Obonto habitats will not get offended anymore if you fire on independent miners.
• Removed a view button on the Dealer screen, which did the same as clicking the ship name.
• Mineral market polishing: highlighted month changes, all the numbers formatted the same way, added missing padding.
• If you lost a rock from the cargo hold, your cargo hold value would display state before losing that rock.
• Moved the OMS mechanic hotkey display to another column to make the power buttons more prominent.
• Fixed a bug that caused drones and ammo contained in onboard storage of drone systems and mass-drivers to disappear upon launching from Enceladus.
• Gimballed thrusters could operate well below their minimum power when pointed in the wrong way, causing your autopilot to use up propellant without getting any meaningful thrust.
• Fixed several graphical glitches inside the Space Bar and made it easier to spot the entrance.
• In some cases, you could launch the game without getting keyboard focus on any of the buttons, making it impossible to start playing without using a mouse.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-09-22 18:44:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

New mining claim options now available

Starting today Enceladian mining claims can be obtained in different variants. Varied periods of claims allow both small and medium-sized excavation companies to effectively protect their mining investments. Enceladus Corp representative denies the connection of new, updated claim options to the recent anti-trust investigation against the company.

New generation of quantum processors released

The release of 11th generation Obonto Microengineering Q7 quantum processors promises over 30% improvement in the processing capabilities of q-network based artificial intelligence using the popular processor as their primary platform.

Safety upgrade for GNU/Antonos-based autopilots

Released today patch 3.1457 of the open GNU/Antonos autopilot system focuses on safety improvements. While the patch contains multiple bug fixes, the most obvious change is an extension of the digital sensor bus, allowing the transport of metadata like visual warning signals for the pilot.

Maintenance Records

• You can now choose different claim options when deploying B8 Claim Beacons.
• Your astrogator will not extend the duration of claims for free.
• Performance enhancements for NPC AI.
• Stability fixes in the dialogue subsystem.
• Salvage Manipulator will not exceed its maximum power draw anymore.
• Made the storyteller module more forgiving for new players, holding back hostile encounters until you learn to fly decently well.
• Drone systems will now be automatically disabled in cutscenes.
• Docking at habitats will not cause adrenaline rushes anymore.
• You can now exit the settings menu with a gamepad or keyboard alone.
• Your HUD will now fade away during tutorials so the instructions are easier to find.
• When flying a ship without ammo or drone systems, relevant storage sensor will no-longer report a warning.
• Ship sensors reaching critical value will now flash briefly to draw your attention to arising problems.
• Elon Interstellar Model-E depth display will no longer be truncated when flying over 1000km deep in the rings.
• Updated warning levels for pulse lasers in the Upgrade menu.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-09-13 18:06:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug in AR1500 Salvage Manipulator that was causing crashes when returning to Enceladus station in some cases.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-09-07 15:58:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Updated translation file with improved Russian translations.
• Its now much easier to dock with rotating stations.
• Your pilot will not freak out and trigger an adrenaline rush when docked at a rotating station.
• Performance improvements.
• Further reduced VRAM footprint.
• Fixed a bug that caused the racing crew to ignore you if you were in good enough relations with them.
• Fixed a bug in the excavator that caused it to lose power in some situations, being unable to crush icerods and losing cargo during manoeuvres.
• Fixed a bug in the event spawning code that caused some special events to have a chance not to appear in dense regions of the rings.
• Improved mining companions. They now have larger cargo holds and twice as much propellant and are able to bring home a significant yield when deployed in the right area.
• Fixed a bug that caused cargo inside your cargo companion to count towards the proximity sensor, locking you out of astrogation if you had cargo in a mining companion still attached to your cradle.
• You will now come out of the astrogation cutscene slower.
• Astrogation cutscene will orient your ship and use all the thrusters, even if you disabled some manually.
• Fixed a bug that could cause computer damage when your own ship hull collided with excavators, grinders or cargo bay doors.
• Re-balanced mineral processing units.

[ 2021-09-05 18:18:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug that caused gimbaled thrusters to fire in the wrong direction on certain thruster-autopilot combos.
• Added support for 165 FPS monitors.
• Re-balanced pulsed lasers - they now have bigger power draw and bigger damage output.
• Re-balanced thermal damage for reactors and thrusters, including plasma throwers.
• Fixed a bug that could cause your ship to spin uncontrollably when you got cargo bay baffles.
• Ganymedean station will now stay destroyed when you destroy it.
• Fixed AI bug that caused Phage stations to try to match your velocity while docking.

[ 2021-08-26 10:18:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Life before death, strength before weakness, bugs before features. I will fix those who cannot fix themselves. I will fix even those I hate so long as it is right. I will accept that there are bugs that cannot be fixed. I shall call them features. - The Ideals of the Dev Radiant

• GPU related performance upgrades
• Added a workaround for the VRAM bug on Radeon cards. While it doesnt solve the core issue (which
• should be handled by a driver fix) it does make the memory leak much slower, enabling players with buggy drivers to play the game normally.
• Expanded dialogue options.
• The simulation window in the Tuning menu now has the same size as the Upgrades menu.
• Catching a live drone will not prevent you from astrogating anymore.
• Fixed a bug in thermal damage handling in fission reactors that caused most of the damage to be much too small, while point-blank thruster burns were disproportionally large. Its now easier to overheat reactors with microwaves or laser fire and harder to accidentally set it off with thrusters.
• Added music track to the Space Bar.
• Added new ways to interact with Ganymedean Anarchy, including possible destruction of their station.
• Lowered requirements for the Transcendence achievement, which was too difficult to obtain during normal gameplay.
• Added new encounters.

[ 2021-08-16 09:09:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added 6 new encounters
• Fixed a bug that caused your sensor's readings to fluctuate even if you had no damage.
• Astrogation trajectory calculation will now be paused if you are near an object you could collide with.

[ 2021-08-03 17:50:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mandatory recall on drone ship reactors

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.

Autonomous mining stations open for business

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 isnt a recent development, this formalization of the process has certain implications, should their AI classification ever change.

Residential ring maintenance

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 Saturns 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.

Maintenance Records

• 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 wont 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 wont move anymore.

[ 2021-07-30 15:26:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some of you playing V: 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 FX570 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 V 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 games performance is satisfactory. https://store.steampowered.com/app/949730/V_Rings_of_Saturn/

[ 2021-07-26 15:04:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Updated Terms of Reference

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.

Sleeping on the job

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.

Illicit goods

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.

Maintenance Records

• If you agree to meet for a ringrace at a later time, but when you get there deny the competition, the racing team wont 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 its easier to read them, its 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.

[ 2021-07-16 09:35:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

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 cant 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/

[ 2021-07-13 17:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

• New achievements to unlock.
• Fixed a bug in gimbaled thrusters that made them look like they moved but still applied thrust in the rest position, making them much less useful then they should be.

[ 2021-07-06 07:03:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Cothon-212 now has two extra rear low-stress hardpoints.
• When your ship is stranded in the rings, it will take up to two weeks for the search & rescue team to pick you up.
• You can now ask ringracing crew to meet up with you later for a race.
• Additional transit tips explaining more about the game when you launch into the rings.
• Fixed a bug that caused processed mineral containers to vanish when you chose to store them.
• Some of the ships had illegal autopilot installed, resulting in strange quirks in the Upgrades menu.
• Additional quest options for certain crewmembers.

[ 2021-07-01 09:33:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Upgrade previews for ships equipped with EI1337 autopilot now show correctly.
• Alert siren will go silent after 3 seconds now.
• New loading screen tips.

[ 2021-06-27 11:13:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed number of glitches in the physics engine, which caused cargo baffles to move erratically at times and cause ships to spin from unseen forces.
• Microwave effect re-balance: microwaves will shut down your computer, but wont drain your ultracapacitor anymore. You will lose autopilot control, but should be able to maneuver manually.
• Adjusted cargo bay baffles on all the ships so they are more functional.
• Added some missing translations in the Dealer menu when examining unusual ships.
• Performance improvements when spawning ships.
• Number of gamepad control improvements. You can now target guiding recon drone with gamepad and Enceladus menus are much easier to navigate.
• Fixed a bug that caused the tuning menu for left and right low-stress hardpoints of Elon Interstellar Model E to be inaccessible.
• Eagle Prospector retrofitted with twin Z-Axial-Pinch fusion drives will have them mounted outside the hull to prevent them from melting each-other.

[ 2021-06-26 06:09:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Simulation-theory study breaks down

Researchers today announced that their trials which had been showing promise for years broke down. Their field of study was simulation-theory; the idea that we live in a universe run as an immensely complex simulation. Dr Bostrom suggests that being unable to replicate previous results is evidence for, not against their ideas, and suggests that maybe somebody upgraded the engine. The group admits that they must start at square one, but insists that they will continue their efforts.

ERS sued for planned obsolescence

ERS faces a lawsuit for planned obsolescence. Features included in the Nuclear-Assisted Gimballed Hall-effect Thrusters were found to have no function but to regulate their functional lifespan. CEOs claim middle management looked to their own advancement with a profitable technology, while project managers insist the orders to implement the features came informally from the top. As an intermediate step, the features can be removed free of charge at any service center, and should greatly improve the lifespan of these thrusters.

Official registry of the Bald Eagle

Formerly considered a dangerous and unauthorized ship customization, the so-called Bald Eagle has nonetheless dominated the Ring Racing scene. To prove their design is sound, the originator of the customization manual (wishing to remain anonymous) has completed safety trials. The results describe the customized vessel as volatile, but fundamentally sound. Though its recognition from the dealer is an important landmark for ringracers, the dealer will not carry unauthorized design mods. Those wishing to obtain one of these vessels are encouraged by Ring Runner Racing to seek a custom ship-crafter from within their community.

Maintenance Records

• Updated the game engine to latest stable Godot Engine 3.3.2, which improves performance, enables M1 support, and fixes a number of stability-related bugs. Improvements are visible across the board, but will be most noticeable on systems using AMD or Intel GPUs and M1 CPUs.
• Number of performance and stability improvements.
• 5 more story encounters.
• Additional crew interactions.
• Fixes to the audio system, eliminating clipping and popping sounds.
• When returning to Enceladus, your ship will now use the reactive mass it claims to need, including the V requirements for anything you hold in cargo and drone manipulators.
• Pods and drones attached to your ship wont confuse autonomic autopilots anymore.
• Pirates wont expose their transponders when you are talking to them anymore.
• Derelicts are more rare now, but you can interact with them more often.
• Fixed a display glitch that caused your ship to display different values depending on how you looked at it.
• Limited charge for ringstorm discharges, so an unlucky hit wont fry your entire ship anymore.
• Pulse laser will now have all pulses visible even if your physics FPS setting exceeds your physical monitor refresh rate.
• Fine-tuned physics settings to avoid cargo clipping through ship hulls.
• You can disable adrenaline boosters now in the OMS menu.
• Increased durability of Nuclear Assisted Gimballed Hall Effect Thrusters.
• Fixed a bug that caused big asteroids to be marked as ore sometimes.
• Added a dealer description and specs for Bald Eagle.
• You can now pay individual crew salaries if overdue.
• Cargo Container, Mining Companion and Claim Beacon upgrade menu simulations will now show your hardware deploying.
• Salvage Manipulator update menu simulation is now zoomed in.
• Typo fixes.

[ 2021-06-19 09:29:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Additional dialogue for habitats.
• Improved collision detection for Cothon 212.
• Fixed thread-related bug that caused Dealer to crash frequently on some systems.
• Fixed a bug that caused prices of the ships to shift sometimes for no apparent reason.
• Fixed a bug that caused an empty entry to be displayed in the Dealer menu.
• Fixed an exploit that would allow you to sell a ship for another ship's price if you clicked quickly enough.
• If you buy a ship, damage it and manage to sell it back in a day, it wont be listed as brand new in the
• Dealer menu anymore.

[ 2021-06-02 20:16:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Improved performance for background rock generators.
• Fixed large lag spikes when the game changed from rings to station and upon loading save.
• Trading with habitat will now improve their disposition towards you.
• New quest options and dialogue choices when interacting with miners and space habitats.
• Fixed a bug that caused some derelict ships not be marked as a legitimate salvage and not thus transferred to the player.
• Fixed a bug that caused build-in EMP shielding to underperform. Cothon 212 now has the EMP shield level as advertised.
• When you bought a brand new ship and immediately sold it back, it was listed twice in the Dealer menu.
• Added additional check for Full House achievement, so you get it whenever you have a full crew on-board, not only when you just hired someone. This makes it possible to get that achievement when switching to a smaller ship.
• Tuned physics settings for very small objects to prevent them from passing through the hull of your ship.
• Translation updates.

[ 2021-05-31 21:31:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

A big patch, but still a patch. Changelog:

• Right-clicking on an invalid object with a guiding drone installed will still rotate your ship.
• Gravimetric drone now has a visual scale for readouts displayed.
• Extra achievement.
• Fixed a bug that caused your launch sequence to count as a ring dive in ship logs.
• When you rescue a ship that is not abandoned, you get a monetary reward.
• Changed the visual cues for hearing impaired players to be both more subtle in appearance and hopefully more obvious what they represent.
• Number of stability improvements in thread-handling code.
• Changed a number of quests to be more predictable in their outcome.
• Fixed a bug that caused quest events near derelict ships to not trigger, locking out certain crew tales.
• Fixed warning levels for low V on Eagle Prospector hud, which were set too high for Saturns rings.
• Restarting your computer will now reset all adaptive autopilot parameters to their default values.
• Adaptive autopilot modes now take more samples and are more difficult to confuse with anomalous cargo shifts.
• Changed the way crew quests are handled to ensure that everybody on your crew has his quest.
• Audio fixes - fixing audio stuttering and clipping on a couple of occasions.
• Fixed some visual glitches in the upgrade window.
• Updated translations.

[ 2021-05-27 15:54:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is another hotpatch. Changelog:

• Claim beacons work again.
• Expanded one of crew quests with more interaction options.
• Changed autopilot disengagement protocol after you destroy a rock you targeted to be the same as if you caught it - you continue on the same course.
• Fixed wrong faces being displayed in some dialogues.
• Re-worded some of the ship and equipment descriptions.

[ 2021-05-17 08:03:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a customary hotpatch addressing all the glitches found in latest release. Changelog:

• Catching an autopilot target with a salvage manipulator will use the same disengagement protocol as when acquiring cargo, making you move at the same velocity you were moving before intercept.
• Salvage manipulator was showing through clouds of dust and explosions.
• Drone systems will now lock targets only when they are actively acting upon them. This allows other drone systems or the manipulator to pick up more targets.
• Racing crew will keep away from the edge and wont approach miners as often as they did.
• Salvage manipulator is much better at handling light items.
• Fixed a bug that caused salvage manipulators to try and catch parts on ships (excavators, reactors, docking clamps). Ships held this way were not counted as a legitimate salvage and in some cases could cause a crash when you returned to the station.

[ 2021-05-16 12:17:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=32b9plaAXXg;full][/previewyoutube]

SAN-BUS patent expired

The Ship Area Network patent expired this week, exposing the bus protocol details to the general public, followed by torrent of firmware updates for popular hardware. Experts claim that the opening of the protocol will enable autonomous and semi-autonomous systems to coordinate efforts without human intervention.

AR1500 features unlocked

Soft-locked features in the AR1500 Salvage Manipulator were exposed by the exposure of the SAN-BUS protocols. The leaked command codes enable all existing manipulators to interface with ship sensors and function as ore and asteroid retrieval units in addition to their normal function. Triskelion-Armstrong claims that the ore retrieval function is not covered by the limited warranty of the product.

New mooring regulations

Following recent drone-related accidents, all ships mooring in the docking ring of Enceladus are now required to completely power down all on-board systems. In response to the new regulations Enceladus Corp provides shore power to all interested parties at a reduced rate.

Maintenance Records

• Fixed a bug that caused the initial position of the resupply sliders to be inaccurate in some cases.
• Adjusted crew dialogues so they are less likely to ask for a raise twice in a row.
• Enabled AR1500 Manipulator to grab ice, grab ore and load up your ship when you open your excavator.
• Fixed a number of glitches related with AR1500, such as reaching out for targets even if powered off, trying to catch moonlets and grabbing things from your own cargo hold, and arm physics applying force in the centre of mass of your ship instead of its mounting point, ARM acting upon targets that it didnt firmly grab and arm moving much faster than it should be possible.
• AR1500 will now slow rotation and align small objects, making it easier to capture lifepods and similarly shaped items.
• Changed AR1500 Manipulator upgrade simulation to show what it is doing.
• Ships you salvage will not explode during non-interactive cutscenes even if critically damaged.
• Fixed a bug that caused moonlets and habitats to repopulate in some cases.
• Habitats will now hail you even if they are not curious about you.
• Fixed a bug that prevented you from launching from Enceladus when you were in debt. You can always launch to the edge of the ring.
• Added a system that allows your upgrades to communicate and exchange targets. This allows drone systems to coordinate efforts even when their target ranges intersect.
• Drone system was scanning for targets even when it was powered off.
• Fixed a glitch on Eagle Prospector HUD that caused doppler lidar to display mostly white dots when bloom setting was disabled.
• Enceladus docking arm will now actively assist undocking of heavy ships.
• Shortcuts that disable weapons wont disable the same weapons on enemy ships anymore.
• Time rate changes are now continuous to prevent physics errors on abrupt time changes.
• Stability improvements.

[ 2021-05-15 02:47:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Grab V: Rings of Saturn 37% off

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

... and don't forget to grab our free DLC!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211880/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tales_from_the_Rings/

Not sure if it's right for you? Check the demo - your progress will carry over!

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

[ 2021-05-11 18:08:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Made Eagle Prospector HUD animated readouts / power paths more visible.
• Updated translations.
• Vilcy will not resort to mindless violence when afraid.
• Fixed a bug in the dialogue system that might close up some responses if disposition towards you was on the edge.
• Fixed screensaver mode.
• Added rich Steam presence feature.
• AR1500 Manipulator rework - it is now much stronger and will not release ships so readily. I disabled the feature to turn ships to align with your, as it was causing trouble when capturing larger ships.
• Grinder arms of Eagle Prospector were mistakenly mounted outside of its hull.
• Made EIAA1337 autopilot not dodge the ores that are pulled towards you with drone systems.
• A bug caused Mineral Processing Units to consume more power lower your framerate was.

[ 2021-05-06 18:08:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

• After fixing your ship, dealer trade-in price will update immediately.
• Fixed a bug that caused your ship to change name if you saw it destroyed in upgrade or tuning simulation.
• Ringstorms will not jump between your ship and cargo you are carrying anymore.
• Added a dialogue option that was missing from Obonto dialogue tree if you didnt respond to the initial hail.
• Tug drones will not try to stop heavy rocks that are hardly moving.
• Newly bought massdrivers and nanodrone systems now come with a starter ammunition pack, so you can see them working even if you dont have a respective storage compartment.
• When launching a new dive, the target selection screen will not suggest purchasing full 100kg resupply of ammunition, drones or propellant if you used just a bit.
• Upgrade simulation for drone systems is now zoomed out so you can see what the drones are doing at a longer distance.
• Fixed a bug that caused settings menu tabs to be not translated.
• Updated the translations.

[ 2021-05-03 08:36:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=Ejj13T9m3tk;full][/previewyoutube]

New ore density charts released

The Astrogeological Society of Enceladus released an annual update of the ore density charts this week. It includes survey data on newly discovered dense vanadium and iron veins, as well as depleted tungsten and beryllium sites. Update is free for all premium subscribers of AstroGeoWorld.

Dealerships required to permit access to ships

Following a number of reports on faulty ships being sold on second-hand markets, dealerships are now required to grant physical access to a ship for any prospective buyer before finalizing the transaction. While sellers are not required to offer a test flight to a prospective buyer, physical inspections must be permitted upon request.

Mass driver ammunition quality control

Conlido announced new standards in their quality control policies this week. Previous complaints about fragile projectiles damaged by launch have been addressed. With a vanadium-hardened tip and a hollow collapsable iron core in their refined design, and more consistent manufacturing tolerances, Conlido has offered a guarantee that their projectiles will deliver more consistent results.

Salvage interface upgrades available

The AR-1500 Manipulator has new software updates available. Given the nature of salvage in the rings, these manipulators have been updated to recognize and successfully interface with microcrafts such as the Heavily Armored Lifepod. Craft jury-rigged for salvage can now recover survival craft without necessitating an immediate return to clear their cargo bay.

Maintenance Records

• Fine-tuned AI of frigates so they didnt try the same tricks that work on smaller ships.
• AR-1500 Manipulator can will now return to rest position when powered off.
• AR-1500 Manipulator will now catch lifepods and drones.
• Ore density rebalance. You will now find more variance between ore types and all the ores will have some profitability.
• If your ship is stranded and the recovery crew picks you up, you will now receive a message explaining what is happening.
• Fixed a number of glitches on older graphics cards related to VRAM compression algorithms.
• Lowered video ram requirements.
• Enhanced the dealer screen. You can now view the promotional video separate from the ship description and you have an ability to examine the actual ship you are buying.
• Fixed a bug that caused the stone jet particle effect to be not visible.
• Some of the asteroids ignored first impact, making them much tougher than they should be.

[ 2021-05-01 14:11:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a bugfix release. List of changes:

• VRAM optimizations lower the video ram requirements from 1.8GB down to 900MB. This solves performance and stability problems on cards that have 2GB of video ram or less, such as bad framerate and game freezes on NVidia GTX 7xx cards.
• Changed the visuals of background ring rocks, making them darker and easier distinguishable from the background.
• Improved physics accuracy to eliminate ore rocks phasing through ship hulls sometimes.
• You now have a wider range of tuning for EIAA1337 autopilot settings.
• Obonto stations can now dock - with some trouble - Cothon-212.
• Fixed a bug that caused a totally damaged part to be listed with the price of brand new one in upgrades.
• Option to replace a part in the repairs menu will now give you a discount for sale of your old, damaged part.
• Fixed a bug that caused repairs not to be immediately reflected in the upgrade menu.
• You can now click on the ship name in the dealer menu to bring up a preview.
• Removed broken Eagle Prospector configurations that listed it with high-stress hardpoint. If you own such a ship the harpoint will be still listed, but you can safely ignore it, as it doesnt do a thing.
• Buying and selling a ship wont cause it to appear in the dealer twice anymore.
• Fixed spawning bug that could cause ore to intersect hull when you bumped into medium-sized asteroid.

[ 2021-04-21 12:33:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a customary hotfix:

• Hitting a enemy excavator with mass-driver bullet is now a hostile act.
• Railgun projectiles will not ricochet so often now.
• Cargo containers and claim beacons won't hit against your hull during a cutscene anymore.
• Fixed a bug in ship names that caused your initial ship name to change sometimes. As a side effect, you might experience it changing name after this upgrade. Your other ships should not be affected.
• Ship names are now persistent across the games.
• Fixed a bug that caused mass-driver hit animation to play at edge of screen even if bullet was long gone.
• Point Defense Microwave Generator won't hit your own excavators anymore.

[ 2021-04-18 17:24:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=sc1BGQaKlBo;full][/previewyoutube]

Conlido Fleet Rotation

Conlido RVM is finally upgrading its transport fleet from the outdated Cothon-212 models to the new Cothon-441, increasing earthbound cargo bandwidth by over 300%. Refurbished Cothon-212 cargo haulers have begun to show up on the second-hand market.

Docking Maintenance Complete

Scheduled docking ring maintenance was completed today. Maintenance records show multiple cases of broken docking arms and upgraded docking firmware. Enceladus Corp denies any connection between the maintenance and accidents reported, claiming the correlation to be purely coincidental.

Unauthorized HUD refits

Unauthorized HUD refits have voided the manufacturers and third-party warranties on several ships. The refit of the Heavily Armored Lifepod 9000s internal HUD to the computer systems of a K37 was demonstrated by a popular RingTube influencer this week. ENN cannot endorse this dangerous refit except in case of an emergency, and cautions all pilots that the lifepod systems are not designed to be refitted to larger craft.

Maintenance Records

• New fully playable ship: Conlido RVM Cothon-212.
• New HUD: The HAL lifepod dashboard.
• Fixes to tutorial: I made conditions for the tutorial to proceed to be more consistent if you dont play along with Enceladus requests.
• Fixed a bug that caused encounters with multiple ships to have a chance for objects to spawn on top of each-other, locking them up and dealing heavy damage.
• You can now politely refuse being hired as a wingman.
• Docking arm at Enceladus will exert less torque now and not shake your ship violently.
• When installing smaller storage compartments or propellant tanks, ammunition, propellant or drones that exceed the capacity are now lost once you launch for the rings.
• Fixed a number of typos.
• Improved performance of ship dealer screen.
• Fixed a bug that made an extra save slot gained from installing free Tales from the Rings DLC unreachable.
• Changed optimize transit costs to allow target drift on the dive target select screen, which has a similar effect but is much easier to understand.
• Added gimbal information to Z-Axial Pinch drives.

[ 2021-04-17 15:29:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a hotfix release, fixing following bugs:

• Massdriver bullets fired at point-blank range tended to survive the impacts much more often than they should be.
• Fixed a number of typos in transactions.
• Enabled mip-mapping for background ring debris, so they dont twinkle so much when you are zoomed out and they are just specks of dust.

[ 2021-04-14 07:59:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Resupply Policy

Due to shortage of supplies caused by recent accidents in the docking ring, as of today Enceladus Corp enforces new resupply policy. Propellant, mass driver ammunition and drone parts will no-longer be distributed free. Independent mining contractors are advised to conserve resources during their excavation missions.

Mining Guild Announcement

Following paid announcement was issued by Independent Mining Guild and has no affiliation with Enceladus News Network. [previewyoutube=WBK3cWQN5Sg;full][/previewyoutube]

Maintenance Records

• You now have to pay for re-supplying your ship - with propellant, mass-driver ammunition and drones. You can choose how much you take with each flight, and ones you dont use up carry over to the next mission.
• Drifting mass driver bullets can now be targeted by autopilot and picked up.
• Enhanced the demo. It now contains Enceladus prime, all the upgrades, all the ships and all the stories. It can even save the game. One thing you cant do in a demo is loading the game - you need to upgrade to full version to load your saves.
• Fixed a number of typos.
• Improved mining companion mining AI behaviour, which was overzealous with thrust.
• Cargo baffles are more gentle now, allowing in ores with lower density with ease.
• New builds of Eagle Prospectors are available as used ships at Dealer and can be encountered in the rings.

[ 2021-04-13 12:08:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Community avatars

You can now pick your favorite character portrait from the game as your Steam avatar. Just navigate to your profile and find find V: Rings of Saturn section:

Want more?

As an extra gift to all our players, we included complete set of 256 character portraits in our free DLC - V: Tales from the Rings. You may freely use them in any way you want.
V: Tales from the Rings is a completely free DLC that contains additional material set in the universe of V: Rings of Saturn - e-books, artbooks, wallpapers and avatars. Download it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211880/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tales_from_the_Rings/

[ 2021-04-12 16:06:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a hotfix, patching up a bug that caused some one-time encounters to stick around in saves after they should be gone.

[ 2021-04-11 06:29:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=AKBbGLMQxeU;full][/previewyoutube]

Recovery Licences

As the number of independent salvage operators increase, licenced Search and Rescue teams are pushing a bill to require licence to purchase recovery equipment. Independent operators argue that shortage of recovery teams leads to artificially inflated prices and competition will drive prices to more reasonable levels. Enceladus Corp has not issued any statements in this dispute.

Docking ring accidents

Investigation of reports of faulty docking arms in Enceladus Docking Ring revealed several incidents where docking arms failed, releasing the ship into drift without crew onboard. Station-wide maintenance will be performed next week. Until then its advised to not leave your ship unattended.

Artificial News Anchor

Due to legal concerns raised we are required to announce that all Enceladus News Network avatars, including the Daily Artificial News Anchor, are digital constructs created by Artificial Intelligence, and as such constitute works of fiction. Any resemblance to real humans, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Maintenance Records

• Dialogue can now expose coordinates that you can astrogate to.
• Expanded dialogue system to be more flexible.
• Multiple new interactions with Search & Rescue teams, including new quest options, insurance and getting directions.
• Enceladus docking arm will now prevent ships from drifting away when capitan is busy doing business.
• Changed alignment shifts in Obonto station dialogue trees, so they wont be as hostile to you if you opt to pay for the damages caused.
• Increased rings' event density in the storyteller module, making the rings a more interesting place to visit, with events happening more often.
• Added disclaimer that fictitious characters presented in the game are in fact fiction and not real people abducted from the distant future.
• Improved crew animation when launching into rings.
• Separate precision and zoom sliders on the dive selection screen.
• Obonto stations will now transfer minerals 400% faster, making big trades much quicker.
• Dealer will present a bigger image of your ship if you are playing in higher resolution.

[ 2021-04-10 11:11:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Tungsten Edition of V: Rings of Saturn, including a standalone Original Soundtrack, is on sale now!
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/11230/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tungsten_Edition/

[ 2021-04-08 17:00:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a bugfix release, fixing:

• Obonto stations will now always buy ore on agreed-upon price.
• Fixed a bug that caused autopilot to ignore limits of gimbaled torches, making strange burns that turned you away from your target.
• THI Cargo Container that exploded won't teleport it's cargo to Enceladus.

[ 2021-04-07 18:43:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

This update introduces better shading of the new crew faces. While they all look realistic, in previous version the faces looked pretty flat when lit by the in-game lights. This patch fixes that.

[ 2021-04-04 18:11:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

[ 2021-04-03 09:12:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a bugfix release, fixing:

• Recent regression caused roughly half of the crew-related story to not appear in the game at all.
• Cosmetic changes to Eagle Prospector HUD.
• Some ships you could encounter in the rings would be not moving at all.
• Thruster nozzles on THI Cargo Containers were disconnected from the container body.
• Fixed a number of typos across languages.
• Bald Eagle side torches were set too deep, which prevented them from gimbaling.
• Physics of the ore could cause it to pierce your ship and cause unexpected damage.
• Mass driver bullets were much too bouncy, causing unexpected ricochets when firing mass driver at close range.

[ 2021-04-01 16:30:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a hotpatch release, fixing:

• NPC ships and EIAA-1337 autopilot now understand that it's more efficient to brake with your main drive.
• Opening dealer screen for the first time after starting new game won't cause crashes anymore.

[ 2021-03-29 15:09:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a customary hotpatch fixing bugs found in recent release:

• Mistudaya Mineral Processing Unit can now be toggled on and off on Model E. I adjusted it's processing chamber shape to let the mineral enter more easily.
• EIAA-1337 autopilot settings fine-tuned so it can now swallow bigger rocks.
• Fixed a bug that caused on-board computer to not work at random.
• Fusion reactants will not show up on ships that have no fusion power.
• Fixed a bug that could cause stations and rocks sometimes follow you through astrogation jumps.
• Fixed a memory leak that would cause performance degradation and game crashes if you spent a lot of time on Enceladus station.

[ 2021-03-28 07:41:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=hHeyQ1Tojkk;full][/previewyoutube]

Enceladus Expo

Today, Elon Interstellar unveiled their new offering, the mysterious Model E. While industry professionals dismissed the rumors of fusion reactors and drives as being fanciful, Elon Interstellar has defied expectations. The Model E is the first commercial craft to offer fusion, and offers it both as part of its power plant and in its axial-flow z-axis pinch fusion drives. Elon Interstellar stated that their intent is to hasten the advent of interplanetary travel by making a fusion craft available that is more than just a science project. The Model E, however, is a dedicated mining craft, particularly well-suited to the troves of wealth discovered in Saturns rings. Though its price point is quite high for a commercial craft, prices are likely to drop in the future as the technology matures.

Power of the Sun

The backbone of Elon Interstellars new Model E are, of course, the fusion technologies. The Starcat fusion reactor is a stellarator, a design chosen to fit into a more compact ships form, able to produce more power than most ships will be able to find a use for. The Z-Axial Pinch drives - already having the nickname ZAP drives - use an axial fuel flow to stabilize the fusion flow. These technologies together, on a commercially-available footing, are undoubtedly going to become the foundation of the technologies that take us to the stars.

Surprising Retrofits

In a surprising move, Elon Interstellar has opted not to maintain their new fusion drives as proprietary technology for their own craft. It was announced today that retrofit kits for these drives will be reaching stores soon. Though very expensive to buy and maintain, and having extremely high energy requirements for each ignition, they offer a number of advantages. Relatively high thrust, the non-catastrophic nature of most fusion failures, and extremely high exhaust velocity will offer distinct advantages, and ensure that older fission craft will be able to safely adapt these drives to their systems.

Maintenance Records

• New fully playable ship: Elon Interstellar Model E is now available.
• Autopilot improvements - autopilots that feature Rotational Thrust Computation are now aware of the impact of firing non-centered or gimbaled drive and will use that to better adjust your heading.
• Number of performance improvements in AI/Autopilot code makes the game run smoother when there are multiple ships on screen.
• Changed microseismic mineral scanner to utilize GPU for rendering, clearly show bounds of cargo bay and equipment mounted.
• Fixed a number of typos in dialogues.
• Equipment attached to the ship now responds with the correct transponder for LIDAR sweep. Earlier ships could obscure their presence by hiding in the shadow of its own excavator.
• New equipment: Model E HUD, EIAA-1337 autopilot and Z-Axial Pinch fusion drives.
• Adjusted reaction wheel desaturation code to be more efficient. This is especially noticeable on ships with big reaction wheels.
• Fixed a bug that caused ships to think they are in different shape for pathfinding. This both improved performance and accuracy of NPC maneuvers.
• Ships can now have a fusion reactor, which acts very differently from fission reactors.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash if you clicked fast enough on the title screen.
• Added a number of user-friendly error messages to cover common errors, such as file missing, out of memory or game files corrupted.
• Ships can now have multiple overlapping cargo holds and expanding cargo holds.
• You can now turn your on-board ship computer off. Warning: your on-board computer will not work when turned off.
• Point Defence Turrets will not consider big excavators of friendly ships as an iron asteroid to be shot down anymore.
• Fixed a bug that caused cradle arms to be dislocated during cutscene sequences.
• Fixed a story bug that caused a cured crewmember still acting sick in certain circumstances.
• Crew that are on leave or inactive wont initiate dialogues anymore.
• Fixed a bug in kinetic energy computation for some impacts.
• HUD will now communicate with the ship to show the correct cargo bay area on the scanner even if you have retro-fited HUD display.
• Fixed a number of physics engine instabilities that could cause your ship to take damage in unexpected ways.
• Fixed a bug that caused the tuning setting to not be respected if you used the tuning menu fast enough.
• You can click on the entire upgrade label to show preview now.
• Number of stability improvements related to asteroids being removed from the field.
• Changed the way asteroids fracture to make sure ore stays inside your cargo hold if an asteroid shattered there.
• Fixed some encounters whose conditions made them much more rare than they should be.
• Big chunks of ice now evaluate correct water content for MPU processing, scanner and Enceladus dive summary.
• Clones of ships you destroyed will no-longer appear later in game.
• Increased variety of ship loadouts you encounter when flying in the rings.
• New ships that you bought will no-longer be labeled as new in your garage.
• Ships that you sell will now be available for buying back for a couple of in-game days.
• Number of improvements for gamepad control, including gamepad respecting autopilot velocity turning and pointing in direction being more reliable.
• Habitat docking arms will not release you anymore when you open up your excavator while being docked.
• Thrusters that are disabled or lack their internal fuel supply wont contribute to V of your ship anymore.
• Ships HUD now can report internal fuel tanks of thrusters and torches.
• Game version number added to pause menu.
• Additional HUD tuning options for EIME HUD.
• Adjusted AI so they are more likely to disengage if they manage to stun-lock you for a while.
• Fixed a bug that could report an inaccurate cargo mass when you had a Mineral Processing Unit installed.
• Eagle Prospector now lists its drone slots when you are browsing Dealer.
• Adjusted encounter density.

[ 2021-03-25 18:51:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Updated standard for reconnaissance drone feeds

A revision of H.256A video compression standard was finally approved for use for reconnaissance drone feeds. This highly anticipated upgrade improves both resolution and framerate at a limited latency, making it perfect for video-assisted ship maneuvering. Early adopters report vast improvements of framerate, as well as sufficient resolution to visually inspect even nozzles of RCS thrusters.

New drone regulations

In response to increased traffic of unmanned spacecraft, a new bill has been passed regulating autonomous use. Craft that are not equipped with natural language interfaces, and as such unable to communicate with human pilots, are prohibited from autonomous operation outside line-of-sight of their host.

Fusion on the event horizon

Elon Interstellar announced the release of their first fusion-based mining ship at this year's Enceladus Expo. While details of design are not known, using fusion power for both on-board power as well as thrust promised unparalleled performance. Opponents of fusion technology note that no actual details were disclosed, and this announcement is likely to be a stock-market stunt only.

Maintenance Records

• Performance upgrades in: HUD display, memory management, sensor emulation code, physics, Enceladus menus. My test setup shows over 200% improvement in performance.
• You have now an additional full-screen option to choose from.
• Added VSync switch to the settings menu, so it can be toggled during game.
• You can increase the framerate of simulation if your computer is fast enough to handle it, or decrease it if you are playing on low-end devices. Increasing simulation framerate will slow down the game if your rig cant handle it!
• Adjusted excavator strength curve to better mimic a real machine.
• Fixed faces in certain dialogues, which showed wrong NPC.
• Removed processed cargo capability from mining companions, as they should not have any.
• Your ship is now immune to all the damage during and shortly after cutscene.
• Increased simulation precision, which should remove some of the butterfly effects that were manifesting longer dives - ships shaking, cargo getting phased through hulls.
• Fixed a bug that could break your dialogue if you clicked really fast on an answer twice.
• Racer drones will not stay with you anymore.
• Fixed a bug that could cause two space stations to appear next to each-other.
• NPC that stun-locked you will disengage after a while.
• Fixed ex-anarchist quest, which was looping if you choose to call your crew by first name.
• HUDs will now communicate with ships to establish the exact position and shape of the cargo area.
• Fixed a bug that prevented you from trading H2O with mouse.
• ESC key will now work consistently in all Enceladus menus.
• All engines - torches and RCS - now have visible nozzles.
• Added more dialogue options to habitats.

[ 2021-02-25 18:16:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Local ATLAS team apprehended a hacker that corrupted a number of B8 claim beacons. Affected beacons were injected with malware that crashed their cryptographic protocols, making establishing excavation claims impossible.

• Fixed a bug that made establishing mining claims impossible.

[ 2021-02-19 22:11:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mining Companions

Investigation into recently released new Nakamura-Titan Mining Companions revealed that the Companions are in fact refurbished autonomous mining drones from a failed early 23th century Autonomous Ring Excavation project. While no record of undesired companion behaviour exists at this time, captains that choose to purchase these devices should remember that the ARE project was cancelled due to emergent social behaviour of the drones involved.

The Hunt Is On

In response to accusations of misconduct, a spokesman of the Vilcy independent bounty-hunter organisation released a statement today claiming that it will now be mandatory for all members to log all communications, with the records available to independent investigators.

Counseling for Habitat Operators

Obonto Habitats are making counseling free of charge for all the employees of their habitats. While there is no official statement from the company, our reporter reached following recording, allegedly from SRA-01 station: [quote]Governor? I'm concerned about O'Reilly. Don't you think he needs some time off?" "How much time off does a guy need? I gave him last Sunday. What's so hard about answering the phone?" "Well, he's all alone up there, sir. All the time." "And?" "I found this transcript..." [quote]Comm operator TK421:It's okay. My sister was the quiet type, too. Unidentified contact: (Silent 24 seconds.) Comm operator TK421: Look, we all have things, people in our lives that are hard to deal with. But you can't give up on them. Unidentified contact: (Silent 12 seconds) Comm operator TK421: It'll be okay. Why don't you tell me why . . . uh, hold there for a moment, Dorothy, might want to correct your vector, you're close to our microwave defense range. Wouldn't want anything to happen. Unidentified contact: (Silent 13 seconds) Comm operator TK421: Dorothy, you really might want to back up a little . . . please, Dorothy, it isn't sa--NOOOOOOOOO! Unidentified contact: Lost contact at 12.28.12:35.0477 [/quote] "...and?" "Sir, visual logs indicating that he was talking to six metric tons of ice." "..." "SIR." "Fine. Fine, weekends, whatever. You deal with finding the shift to replace his weekends." [/quote]

Maintenance Records

• Added more replies to Vilcy dialogue trees.
• NPC ships will now estimate their combat capability better
• New Mining Companion equipment available
• Removed faces from comms of artificial intelligences.
• NPC ships that have no offensive capability will now dig using their excavators and grinders alone.
• Improved visuals of the microwave beam which looked strange when the beam hit something closeby.
• Autonomous drones that you lease on Enceladus will now have consistent names.
• Memory management and performance improvements, especially if multiple NPC ships are around and when mining extensively.
• Initial dive fuel costs were computed incorrectly if you tuned your Xenon drive usage.
• Adjusted display of Dealer screen to work better in lower resolutions. This fixes a bug that caused the dealer interface to stretch beyond screen size.
• Salvage Manipulator was visible through clouds of ringdust and explosions.
• NPC ships can now be aware of multiple pending collisions simultaneously, which will prevent them from crashing into one object when avoiding another one.
• Increased search-and-rescue ship side thrust to be more useful when maneuvering.
• Habitats will now prompt you again if you dont respond for a while.
• Fixed a bug in the conversation system that caused entities, especially habitats, to attempt to start conversation with floating rocks. It caused worse performance and some of the conversations being cut short.
• Ship Dealer will now show which systems are damaged on ships you browse.
• Onboard Maintenance System and in-flight equipment lists will now show correct activation keys for unusual systems, like nanodrones and mining companions.
• You can now command some of the NPC ships via dialogue options.
• When you bring a pirate lifepod from the rings, you will get a bounty paid for him.

[ 2021-02-18 18:45:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Racing team fined

Ringracing team was fined for reckless flying. Acting upon numerous complaints from independent subcontractors Enceladus Corp dispatched a private investigation on so-called ringracers. Flight log analysis found them guilty of numerous accounts of reckless flying. A bounty of 3 million enceladollars was posted and as of today it was claimed by independent Vilcy subcontractor.

Plancks time revised

Recent experimental results in the applied field physics revealed that the framerate of our universe is different than predicted. While scientists are excited by the breakthrough, experts advise caution, as experiments were not replicated yet.

Insect extermination notice

• Performance optimizations, improving performance across all systems.
• Fixes in physics simulation, which could accumulate error when you traveled for a really long time without using astrogation.
• Some of the upgrade icons suggested they need more power than they really do.
• "Insufficient power" icon will now be displayed on hardware you have already installed.
• Some of the pirate encounters were repeating too often.
• Bald Eagle HUD charts improved: power shortage icons wont flicker all the time when your computer is damaged, performance charts of the HUD will display properly when your internal sensors are damaged.
• Your dive target could be sliding sometimes even when you had the optimize dive costs option turned on.
• Dive window will now display how your crew affects your dive costs.
• Cargo bay microseismic focus tuning available again.
• All NPC ships are now more careful when maneuvering around other ships.
• Ships that are hostile towards each-other wont be confused by equipment obstructing the line of fire.
• Updates superconducting magnetic energy storage descriptions to make it clear that powers listed are for charging and discharging.
• Morale and salary icons will now be visible in all screen resolutions.
• Fixes to final dialogue trees in ex-pirate quest.
• Enhanced the quest module to grant more uniform quests across crew.
• Entire upgrade slot header is now clickable in the upgrades menu.
• Habitat trade was causing logs to be flooded with individual trade packages.

[ 2021-02-12 17:59:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Predatory pricing revealed

Independent investigation revealed a predatory pricing conspiracy of several salvage operators in the Enceladus region. Undisclosed entities offered excessive prices on salvage arms in an attempt to drive independent competition out of business. Enceladus Monopoly Agency is said to investigate the subject, but as of today, no charges have been filed.

Incoherent Light

Recently discovered glitch in Coherent Light pulse laser hardware could cause excessive power to be pumped into the laser medium, causing discharges that exceeded all safety limits. While exact effect on crystal longevity was not disclosed, recall has been issued on all CL-600P mining lasers. This development severely impacted sales of the newly released CL-200AP, driving the prices down.

Used ship policy

In an attempt to even out the second-hand ship market, Enceladus Corp issued a used ship bill that regulates ship offers. All offers now have to include a list of all key equipment installed on ship - this includes total thermal output of the reactor, installed ultracapacitor arrays, but also secondary elements like autopilot retrofits or paired reconnaissance drones.

Improved digital safety

In a surprise sweep ATLAS operatives have apprehended a rogue AI operating on Enceladus station. Two independent edgerunners were involved in operation, but details of operation are not disclosed to the public at this time. Independent sources claim that the operation was related to station record backups.

Leaks Patched

• Fixed a number of typos
• Save files now have backups and are saved in a way that ensures that even power failure during save wont corrupt data.
• Microwave beam will now dissipate gradually when it hits something close to the emitter.
• New Coherent Light CL-200AP mining laser available.
• Kinetic damage of pulse lasers was much too high.
• Text in the dealer menu will no-longer overlap on small screens.
• Dealer lists much more details about the ship he sells.
• Additional notifications will pop-up for story related events and salvage events.
• In-ring trade events are now in logs.
• Fixed replacement price for salvage arm which was higher than purchase price.

[ 2021-02-09 21:45:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Standardize autopilot capabilities

Due to multiple complaints, autopilot developers are now required to use standardized equipment descriptions on their product. Enceladus Corp has approved following standards:

• ARL - Antipodal Reaction Limiters improve propellant efficiency by cancelling out opposite thrusters automatically, without changing effective thrust.
• AAL - Angular Adaptive Thrust designates a system that is able to dynamically designate a thruster to perform a rotation maneuver, improving performance but using extra propellant.
• RTC - Rotational Thrust Computation allows the autopilot to constantly observe the effect its maneuvers have on cargo, adapting to mass shifts.
• FBW - Fly By Wire systems routes all manual input through the autopilot computer, taking advantage of autopilot capabilities even when performing seemingly manual maneuvers.

Colindo RVM released new mass driver

The new semi-autonomous AEMD14 mass driver released by Colindo RVM blurs the line between manual and autonomous mining equipment. Promising a new era of mining safety protocols, this device can autonomously correct the aim of human operators, but still requires him to pull the trigger manually, combining the performance of class-1 artificial intelligence with the superior judgement of a human.

Mineral Processing performance audit

Complaints about the unreliable performance of Mineral Processing Units sold throughout the station triggered a station-wide audit. At least four proprietors were charged with false advertising, claiming higher than actual performance of their products. Class action lawsuit from the miners guild is to follow.

Salvage reclamation bill

Enceladus Corp has declared that all ships found in the rings with inactive transponders are considered legitimate salvage by default. This unprecedented statement caused an uproar in miners guild, but Enceladus representative claims this bold move will eradicate the piracy threat.

Excavators Life

The eighth episode of Excavators Life is to premiere on the Enceladus Entertainment Network. In the Shadow of Singularity dives deep into the dangers of artificial intelligence.

Quantum phenomena corrected

• Re-balanced mineral processing unit to make them more diverse.
• New semi-autonomous mass driver that can correct its aim in a narrow cone in front of your ship.
• Re-balanced autopilots. Their capabilities are now not a straight upgrade path, but they rather take flavors, so you have performant autopilots and economical autopilots.
• Fixed prices for some torches - their replacement was more expensive than buying a new one on the market.
• Multiple typos fixed across many languages.
• Physics engine adjustments to some of the excavator properties, so they act more like big chunks of metal.
• Hitting someone with a beam from a long distance is more likely to be considered an accident now.
• Lifepods emergency radio volume curves changed, making it easier to locate lifepods by their radio alone.
• Total dive income now presented at dive summary screen.
• Your cargo containers will now communicate with you.
• Initializing a cutscene when your cargo container is released but not yet despawned was causing it to snap back to your ship.
• Crew wont ask for a raise now if they are happy from a previous raise.
• Performance improvements, especially visible when rate of time changes.
• Upgrade activation button in upgrade menus now much more visible.
• Autopilot mouse controls now are independent of screen resolution, making autopilot controls much more responsive on high-resolution displays.
• Fixed a number of warning levels in upgrades to better match actual requirements of hardware.
• Ships that were afraid of you, but had no direct weapons refused to open comms.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a hostile or friendly space station astrogate after you.
• Multiple fixes in dialogue systems.
• You can now bring pirate ships back as salvage.
• Fixed a bug that could cause savegame corruption after salvaging damaged vehicle. Game will automatically correct all corrupted saves.

[ 2021-02-07 16:16:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a bugfix release. Bugs fixed:

• ERS-DFMHD-2205 and ND-PNTR torches had a bug that caused the damage to register incorrectly, leading to irreparable drives and duplicated damage.
• Upgrade menu highlight colors were not changing after purchasing upgrade.

[ 2021-02-04 09:31:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Racing crew will now actually race you.
• Upgrade and Tuning warning icons changed to be more meaningful.
• Crew display on Enceladus now displays crew morale and overdue salary in more meaningful way.
• Improved accuracy of mass-driver boresight display.
• Fixed Voyager Fabricator on Bald Eagle.
• Plasma throwers now have boresight display.
• Fixed a bug that messed up dialogues after encountering entity with no dialogue options.

[ 2021-02-03 17:34:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Articulated Recovery Manipulator

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 its base ship with mass.

Microseismic Jamming Exposed

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.

Excavators Life

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.

Pest Extermination In Progress

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.

[ 2021-02-02 16:00:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

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.

[ 2021-01-30 06:53:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Claim Beacons

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.

Astrogation Charts Update

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.

Excavators Life

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.

Autopilot OTA updates

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.

New Stock

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!

Pest Extermination Warning

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 wont 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.

[ 2021-01-29 16:40:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Flight School

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.

Constant Improvement

• 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.

[ 2021-01-24 08:25:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Titan Heavy Industries released a semi-autonomous Cargo Container series. Your container stays attached to the ship and takes over all your processed minerals. When you are nearly full, you can release the container which will shortly power up and return to the Enceladus station on its own. When you hire a miner wingman he will actively assist you with the dig and give you all the output he gathers on a digsite. Ships are now able to follow you through astrogation jumps, making wingmen much more useful.

Military Retrofits

Nakamura Dynamics released patch 1.06 to its Military-grade autopilot, unlocking the much anticipated firing solutions module. Tactical overlay now shows ranges and coverage of all compatible mining tools. Nakamura released the patch free of charge via OTA upgrade.

New Safety Protocols

Due to new safety regulations, all on-board life support systems have to be equipped with adrenal purge modules. While many pilots enjoy the benefits of on-demand stimulation there were a number of accidents related with adrenal overstimulation. Purge modules are able to clean pilots' bloodstream to immediately relieve crew from any adverse effects. With numerous accidents reported as a result of pilots retrofitting incompatible gimbal systems with cargo containers, gimbal systems must now be mounted with a thruster safety system, limiting gimbals to safer angles while in close proximity to cargo, ships, and personnel. To ensure safety of crew, its now mandatory for cargo bay monitoring software to include audible feedback when a new object enters the cargo area. Audio has to be broadcast on priority ship intercom.

Extinct Bugs

Recent patches to the universe have eliminated a number of glitches in the simulation. This time I managed to exterminate all the known bugs. If you want to have more bugfixes in future releases, someone needs to find new bugs. List of bugs fixed and minor adjustments:

• Patched a number of memory leaks that caused the game to run slowly with time and crash when you left the title screen on for an extended period of time.
• Improved performance of background rock particles.
• When your crew goes on a leave, they will be removed from the crew immediately after you agree and will return automatically when their leave ends.
• Fixed file description and metadata of Windows executable.
• There were a number of problems with docking arms not being able to adjust to heavy ships or using too much force. They interface with your ship computer now and will release you automatically when you apply thrust or engage the autopilot, and the interface allows proper assessment of your ship mass.
• Numerous fixes to NPC AI - they wont blow their traps now, are able to follow you more closely, are better at mining and fighting.
• Excavators and grinders are drawing power now, and using that power to be much stronger than before, being able to hold your cargo with ease.
• Improved all autopilots memory, allowing them to process not only current thruster load, but also past one. This allows much more precise maneuvering and prevents thruster flutter.
• Fixed a bug that caused parts of Enceladus station menus to be unclickable on small screens.
• The rocket equation computing the amount of propellant you need to reserve for fast burn to Enceladus had an error, showing roughly twice as much as was really needed.
• AI is now able to avoid big objects, like space habitats or phage stations.
• Sparks caused by microwave discharge are darker now and will not throw the auto-exposure of your reconnaissance drone camera off so badly.
• All mineral processing units were re-balanced. Most units will process ore faster, but also require much more energy to do so.
• Added verbose warning when you are near the rim of the rings to prevent accidental returns to Enceladus station.
• Fixed a graphical glitch of ion drives which was causing a spike of light to shine backwadrs from the plume.
• Nuggets that contain 100% of water will be processed by MPU now.
• If you sold your output to a habitat in the rings, a dive summary would still pop up upon return, prompting you to store or sell nothing.
• Fixed a race condition that caused the game to freeze for up to a couple of minutes sometimes.
• Discovered points of interests in the dive map were disappearing in some circumstances.
• Increased your chance to find and trade with space habitats.
• Fixed all head-up-displays that were displaced by a couple of pixels, causing all the data following physical objects to bit off-center.
• Point Defence will not try to mine habitats and space stations anymore. Unless hostile.
• There were a number of issues if you leveled your crew to level cap, including rare crashes, ability to repair fully repaired hardware and other weird effects.
• Adjusted all the ship physical models to not be so bouncy and absorb part of the impact energy.
• Propellant wont leak out from cold and docked ships anymore, including your ship at Enceladus station.
• Cargo area of K37 was bit off, which caused some ore that was touching outside of the excavator being treated as captured, which disengaged autopilot tracking.
• Removed obsolete [pay xxx E$] tags that were left in some dialogue files. All choices that affect you in any way are now clearly decorated.
• Changed the way Ganymedian Anarchy views the player to make sure that they always hail you when you get near. Their defences were re-balanced to not be so accurate and deadly.
• It was possible to open two menu screens on Enceladus if you clicked fast enough.
• You could get the same conversation from the ring-racing crew if they were curious at first, but you spooked them after they talked to you.
• Hitting a habitat with a microwave now produces the correct visual effect.
• Fixed a dialogue loophole that could lock you out from all interactions with miners if you were just a little nice to them.

[ 2021-01-20 22:33:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you love the soundtrack of the Rings, you can now grab it on special sale: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127590/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Original_Soundtrack/ Curious about the game as well? Check out our Tungsten Edition, which is on sale too, with soundtrack included! https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/11230/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tungsten_Edition/

[ 2021-01-18 18:00:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a re-balancing update, changing the underlying mechanics of the game in order to make it more enjoyable. Changelog:

• Simple autopilot system now has an additional HUD overlay option, making it much more useful for beginners.
• AI system controling Point Defense Turret can now forgive and will not be bent on attacking a faction after you settle your score with them.
• Crew morale system was re-balanced, so you will not hit upper and lower cap as quickly.
• Docking clamps can now adjust for your ship mass, making it possible for heavier ships to dock into rotating stations.
• Size of Eagle Prospector cargo bay was adjusted. It's now bit thinner and bit shorter.
• Obonto Habitats now have hostile dialogues. You can now pay for caused damages or escalate.
• You can now remove your HUD completely.
• Hiring or firing crew will now immediately update POI visibility and dive costs.
• Moved central PDT forward so it will no-longer hit your own excavator.
• PDT now has lights that illuminate what they are pointing at.
• Excavator of your ship will now be open in the upgrades menu, when testing drone systems that attempt to move ore into your cargo hold.
• Fixed a bug that caused sparks appear in thin air (really thin, as it's in the rings).
• Targeting beam will now ignore your own cargo.
• Fixed a number of typos.

[ 2021-01-05 16:11:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Trading Outposts

More trade options had opened up in the rings with the introduction of trading outposts. Habitats will now request specific minerals and pay you extra if you deliver. Obonto habitats got significant upgrades, with new docking arms, dedicated point defence systems and ion thrusters capable of maintaining both speed and desired rotation.

New Upgrades and Playable Ship

Point Defence Microwave Generator is a brand new, fully autonomous defence tool that selects and disables threats automatically, by either cracking incoming rings ice or disabling hostile ships. Voyager Fabricator MP/RSLS is a new, specialized hybrid of Mineral Processing and Rapid Selective Laser Sintering Unit. It is capable of refining raw minerals to 3d-printable metals and use them to fabricate ammunition and drones on demand. The Bald Eagle racing ship is now available for sale. Custom built, one of the kind ship won't be available at the dealer, but will have to seek out the previous owner instead. Expect the price to be steep.

Miscellaneous Improvements and Bugfixes

• There were a number of problems with background and foreground rocks floating around your ship. Part of them were unlit and nearly invisible, some of them went missing after you flew away from the initial approach. After I fixed these bugs parallax background is back and again can be again used to determine both ice fragmentation and gravimetric density.
• I changed navigation in the Onboard Maintenance System screen. Its now much easier to navigate between jury-rigging systems, dialogs and navigation using keyboard or gamepad.
• Microwave visual effect is now more pronounced.
• Upgrade screen shader got an overhaul. Now its much easier to see thruster exhaust and beams firing.
• The cargo value estimation was very imprecise, relying mostly on your geologist skills. Now it uses the on-board computer with direct link to Enceladus mineral market to give you much more precise estimation.
• Cargo baffles mounted on Eagle Prospector could be dislocated in a way that introduced artificial torque on the ship.
• People you encounter now have slightly animated faces, with visible breathing and blinking.
• Game was using dynamic shader compilation, which caused slight lags on some of the systems, when a special effect (like an explosion, jet of stones and other accelerated effects) was displayed for the first time. I created a shader cache and all that compilation now happens on loading screen for a smoother gameplay experience.
• Crew can now be on leave, and will come back on your ship automatically when their leave ends. When they are on leave, youll find details in your crew menu.
• Certain events in the game will raise crew morale, increasing their performance for a couple of days.
• Fixed a number of typos.
• Bodies in a destroyed habitat will not spawn in again after you collect them.
• Toggling a system with a hotkey on the OMS screen will now move the knob.
• If you had a lot of upgrades installed and a really small display, the pre-flight inspection could appear off-screen.
• Adjusted AI of Ganymedian Anarchy station so youll get a chance to talk before they decide to open fire.

Remember to grab our free DLC!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211880/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tales_from_the_Rings/

[ 2020-12-28 17:52:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

As a Christmas gift for all players V: Tales from the Rings now contains K37 TNTRL Operation and Service Manual - a digital art/lore book. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211880/V_Rings_of_Saturn__Tales_from_the_Rings/ V: Tales from the Rings is a completely free DLC containing supplemental material set in the universe of V: Rings of Saturn. Browse your K37 operation manual through a brand new digital artbook, dive into the background of Vlicy in "Howling at the Stars" and decorate your desktop with original 4k wallpapers

Artbook

• "K37 TNTRL Operation and Service Manual" - an Digital Artbook (pdf)

Short story

• "Howling at the Stars" by Eric Eshleman (pdf)

Wallpapers

• 6 original 4K-resolution wallpapers.

[ 2020-12-23 04:15:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Vote for us in Realistic Sim category!

[ 2020-12-15 17:08:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is another bugfix release, polishing up minor bugs and introducing minor features. Changelog:

• Engaging autopilot won't slow you down anymore if you are flying above it's limit. This enables you to use autopilots subsystems (targeting, stoping rotation) when doing fast burns.
• Adjusted lighting and performance in Dealer menu.
• Grinders of Eagle Prospectors in Dealer menu won't detach and drift away anymore.
• Burning fuel lines of a space station will not stop burning if you move camera away.
• Geologist and Astrogator HUD markers were shaking if you traveled at high velocity.
• Prices markers on Mineral Market for min and max prices won't go off-screen anymore.
• Used ship prices now include price of retrofitted HUD, autopilot and recon drone.
• Adjusted ship dealer prices to prevent potential abuse to gain money quickly.
• When hiring a crew member that you fired some months ago, he won't ask for salary for all the months he was unemployed.
• You can now select colorblind options with keyboard and gamepad.

[ 2020-12-15 12:24:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a bugfix release. Bugs fixed and minor changes:

• Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash in Upgrade and Tuning menu on Enceladus.
• Improved precision of collision detection, which should prevent small object from phasing through hulls.
• Improved performance of asteroid fracture.
• Cargo display on Eagle Prospector is now easier to read.
• Improved performance of ship dealer menu.
• Eagle Prospector computer boot animation now shows again.
• Fixed various typos.
• When your HUD size was increased, dive summary screen was pixelated.
• Improved Enceladus performance after return with a large haul.

[ 2020-12-11 13:48:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

New story Events

Among the Stars features new types of encounters - space habitats. These large space stations that will serve as both points of interest and trading opportunities. In this version you can find one encounter with them, but more will follow in subsequent updates.

Ring density adjustments

You can find further improvements to local ring density and formations found in the game. Among the Stars includes regions that are dominated by large ringroids with very few small debris - at least until ringdivers start mining in there.

Bugs fixed and small changes

• Improved performance of the experience/skill system.
• Mineral Processing Units will now attempt to melt only items with water in them.
• You can now meet more than one event of the same class during your game.
• Fixed a bug that caused the performance to degrade if you kept the upgrade/tuning menu open for hours.
• Switching the smart camera when having the excavator open won't lock you in the max-zoom mode anymore.
• When flying without an astrogator, discovery notifications won't fire multiple times anymore.
• Docking arms now can rotate your ship.
• Your autopilot will now disengage automatically when you dock.
• Eagle Prospectors won't drift away in Enceladus screen anymore.
• Some places on screen ignored mouse clicks, making it difficult to pick certain starting locations.
• NANI tanks can now be depleted during ringdive.
• Ship inspection won't stop you from launching with broken NANI or Kzinti Lesson Mk2.
• Drive plumes are visible again for ships flying in the main menu screen.

[ 2020-12-08 19:42:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Vote for us!

[ 2020-12-03 18:20:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a customary post-release hotpatch fixing couple of bugs that slipped the release process. The most important change of this release is fixing a glitch in the tutorial that made it really hard to progress past first few steps. If you missed the tutorial and would like to see one, you can re-enable it in settings menu and start a new game to see it hands-on. Changelog:

• Conversations will not end prematurely when you fly away from the place they started in.
• Mineral processing units will now visibly vent minerals that don't fit in the processed mineral storage.
• Nanodrone systems will now work correctly when you are flying with high relative velocity.
• Torbernite is now easier to collect.
• AI ships will now have AI lifepods.
• Tutorial fixed.

[ 2020-11-28 11:53:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Storms are coming

With excessive unsanctioned use of microwave mining and following increasing local density of rings atmosphere, the ringstorm phenomenon has become more common. Ships captains are advised to stay clear of the affected areas.

Crew experience

Your crew will now gain experience during flights, honing their skills. Some of them might even use the downtime at the station as an opportunity to improve their education.

New tuning options

• Ability to turn off the fly-by-wire system in advanced autopilots.
• Minimum and maximum range for tug and haul drone systems allows configuration where multiple systems will aid each-other for improved mining experience.

Miscellaneous improvements and bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that caused projectiles and beam to be blocked by dense exhaust gas.
• Mass drivers will now correctly apply thrust to projectile if your ship spins.
• Using fly-by-wire system while holding the autopilot engaged with mouse will no-longer cause the autopilot velocity to increase to maximum.
• Adjusted mineral colors in mineral market and microseismic scanners to be easier to distinguish.
• Re-balanced on-board computer damage. It will be easier damaged by small impacts, but is able to withstand much more damage before failure.
• New visual effect for microwave beams.
• Switching ships with different number of drives will now update the upgrade menu accordingly.
• Added carbon and calcium microseismic readout for objects that contain the minerals.
• Cargo manifest is now sorted by quantity of cargo aboard.
• Gravimetric drone readouts displayed data shifted by 3 to 4 km.
• Changed the cargo value estimator system to be computer-based and independent of hired geologists, making the estimation much more accurate.
• Ring density map was changed to include more variance.
• New post-processing graphics filter to improve contrast and color of the display.
• RCS thrusters are not so noisy anymore.
• Improved default autopilot tuning options for default ship to make it easier to fly for new players.

[ 2020-11-26 22:18:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Labor of Love award is for games that are out for a while, but devs still continue to nurture and support their creation.
V: Rings of Saturn entered Early Access 15 months ago. Since then we squashed 553 bugs, added 415 new features (many of which were suggested by our players on our discord.gg/dv), released 883 bleeding edge and 30 new stable versions. We came a long way and we still aim to improve at a steady pace. Nominate us!

[ 2020-11-25 18:01:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a path release re-balancing some minor aspects of the game to make it more enjoyable. Changes:

• All mass-drivers and disposable nanodrone systems now come with 100kg built-in ammo storage, so you can test them even without a proper ammunition upgrade.
• Increased minimum range for astrogator and geologist skills, so even most unskilled ones are now useful in rings.
• Adjusted fractures of small asteroids to prevent escaping cargo hold if you manage to load up whole one.

[ 2020-11-18 07:58:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Running the Edge

Edge Runners - operatives of Artificial Threat Location and Apprehension Specialist units have been seen in the rings. Artificial Intelligence in hunt of rogue AI's roam the rings with their unique ship, providing humanity the first and best line of defense against rogue agents. This update marks start of development of second major storyline of V. What stance will you take in AI vs AI conflict? More events will follow.

Improved drives

We re-balanced some Reaction Control System drives. Primarily electric propulsion systems - the nuclear assisted ion drives - have now much higher durability, making them more suitable for long dives. You will also find that vectored thrusters perform much more reliability when using fly-by-wire system or the autopilot.

Bugs fixed and miscellaneous changes

• Increased rotation limit of FBW system to match the autopilot setting.
• Racing drone is now much better at avoiding obstacles and will power-down should you catch it.
• FBW will utilize reaction wheel to greater degree now.
• Big story events won't happen next to each-other now.
• Fixed a bug that caused story not to progress during your first dive, if you had tutorial disabled in options.
• Raised the excessive relative velocity alarm to 150m/s.
• Warnings in upgrade menu for AGILE thrusters were off and showed you lacked power even when you had more than enough to power them.
• Simulation window in Upgrades didn't refresh if you installed empty upgrade in a slot.
• Increased frequency of crew-based story events.
• Fixed brightness of the microseismic scanner, which was displaying all the minerals as very similar, bright dots.
• Encountering racing drone will no-longer cause combat music to play.

[ 2020-11-16 18:25:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fly by Wire

This upgrade introduces new flight mechanics - the fly-by-wire system. With military grade and racing autopilots you now have access to piloting mode where your flight computer augments even your manual inputs, optimizing performance and adjusting vectors on the fly. This gives you access to advanced features of some thrusters - like the vectored thrust - and will automatically compensate for unexpected translation or rotation.

More thrusters

There are now two more thrusters you can install on your ship. Elon Interstellar AGILE vectored Ion Drives are available even at the start of the game, and Rusatom-Antonoff K69V can be purchased once you unlock your racing updates. Both drives are vectored, so they'll benefit a lot with the fly-by-wire system.

Gamepad improvements

You will also find additional gamepad improvements in this build. There were many little tweaks, but the big feature is an ability to sweep for your autopilot target with your right analog stick.

Bugs fixed and small changes

• Fixed a dialog when approaching dead bodies.
• Bodies will no-longer quantum-tunel through hull of an Eagle.
• Fixed flawed thruster placement on Eagle Prospector and Bald Eagle that made the ships bit unbalanced.
• Changed ring density function, so sparse areas are now more sparse, and the denser ones more dense.
• Increased chance of ringrace encounter.
• Fixed background rocks not respecting local density after astrogation.
• Fixed a bug that caused venting minerals and remass above storage limit to not be visible.
• Added new achievement.
• Exiting to the main menu just after starting a new game with the gamepad could require you to use mouse.

[ 2020-11-08 14:43:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Don't you just hate when you buy a game and it goes on sale next day? I know I do, so we are giving you heads-up: If you wanted to get V now, a bit of patience will get you some bucks saved!

Can't wait? I can't blame you.

If you buy the game at full price, it will be greatly appreciated, and all the extra funding goes towards developing it even more.

Set up reminder!

So if you are hunting for the sale, just hold your horses for a while longer, press this reminder button and get a note as soon as we go live.

Remember to share!

Know someone who is thinking about getting V? Be sure to tell him or her to try the demo just for a while longer. You can grab a link to this announcement just below.

[ 2020-11-06 14:49:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Spot an Bald Eagle

Race Condition includes one new ship - highly modified Eagle Prospector - the "Bald Eagle". With cut-out cargo bay and quadruple main torches mounts this ultimate ring-racing machine has unmatched maneuverability.

Get Racing Mods

Did I mention ring-racing? The ultimate motor sport of 23'th centry requires a custom-modified craft to participate. If you get in touch with a racing crew you can get access to unique racing-focused upgrades.

Apply Polish

• When your funds now change in a dive, you'll see clear a notification on-screen.
• New story option when encountering dead bodies in the rings.
• Bodies now have individual names and transponders.
• Crew morale can now change, boosting or hindering performance.
• Morale will now drop if you are late with your salaries.
• Another possible ending to one of crew quest.
• New boot animation for prospector craft.
• 2 new upgrades.
• Fixed bugs that caused tungsten rounds to absorb too much kinetic energy on impact.
• Fixed a bug that could cause you to pay for same weregild multiple times in one of crew quests.
• Changed "fire in machine shop" event so it doesn't hide the dialog display immediately, making it easier to spot.
• Updated translations.

[ 2020-11-02 22:54:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a patch release. Changelog:

• Fixed a bug in one of the quests, resulting in unexpected crew behaviour.
• More used Eagle Prospectors are now available at dealers, with competitive prices.
• Autopilot needs to be powered on now to perform trajectory calculation.
• Adjusted physical projectile settings to make ricochets move believable.

[ 2020-10-27 03:28:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a patch release. Changelog:

• Fixed a bug in one of the quests, resulting in unexpected crew behaviour.
• More used Eagle Prospectors are now available at dealers, with competitive prices.
• Autopilot needs to be powered on now to perform trajectory calculation.
• Adjusted physical projectile settings to make ricochets move believable.

[ 2020-10-26 07:49:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Head-up display retrofit

This release includes long-anticipated ability to retrofit the HUD of another ship. You can now fly with K37 with dashboard of Eagle Prospector, or fit the much sought-afer metric mod on Prospector itself.

The story focus

Adding more story is a focus of current update batch, and while not so visible as prominent as new upgrades, each new release includes couple new interactions and events.

Bugs fixed

• Reaction wheels will be used again by adaptive and military autopilots to fine-tune ship orientation.
• Fixed a memory leak that caused degrading performance.
• Astrogating between multiple POI's could leave the game in state that confused the AI and it refused to talk to you.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash when you found a new point of interest, got back on the station and attempted to launch again.
• Fixed a memory leak in Point Defense Turrets that caused the performance degrade after you encountered a PDT-equipped entity.
• A bug caused the friendly interactions with initially hostile factions to not be saved and persisted.

[ 2020-10-24 12:39:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a patch release. Changelog:

• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused you to end up in different region of the rings than you choose.
• Performance optimizations.

[ 2020-10-21 13:43:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dive to any spot

The most obvious new feature of "Hohmann Transfer" is the ability to choose where in the rings you begin your dive. You can choose any spot along the rim for free (assuming you want to burn a bit of extra propellant to get there), or pick a spot deep within the rings, and the station will use it's xaser array to burn a safe approach path for you (for a fee).

Improved autopilots

Second major improvements of the release are the rewrite of Mitsudaya and Nakamura Dynamics autopilot, which improve dramatically their ability to predict how a ship will rotate in response to burns. You'll find that the control with these autopilots is much more precise, especially with gimbaled thrusters. You can also tune the new behaviour with a new rotation-over-translation priority tuning option.

Playing on the couch

I spent much time testing the game with the gamepad to pick up and fix all the little glitches that piled up. While you might not notice some annoyances when playing with the mouse, a few days playing on couch-and-tv setup allowed me to pinpoint and fix a lot of little quirks that, while didn't break the gamepad support, made playing the game less enjoyable. This version comes with a lot of small fixes to address that. I also used this opportunity to test different resolutions - from 4k to 720p - and made sure the game looks good in all of them.

[ 2020-10-20 13:39:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=1D_NxOrFGGk;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-10-16 15:47:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Second entry in our official video guides - Riven Brick and Propellers of Saturn - covers power and heat management, gravimetrics, visual feed, combat basics and more. Watch it directly here: [previewyoutube=GMoRl_1S2LI;full][/previewyoutube] Or check the whole series: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2232300169

[ 2020-10-13 15:52:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a hotpatch release, fixing a bug in one of storylines that caused some of your crewmembers to quit job in a story even, when they should not.

[ 2020-10-11 07:34:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ship dealer upgrades

The main feature of 0.225.5 is the overhaul of Ship Dealer menu. You now have the ability to trade in your current ship, which will allow you to buy new ships much sooner.

Small screen usability

Game was re-designed to work well on screens 720p resolution (1280x720). This includes changes to ship HUD and general rendering changes. I tested the game on 6" screen to make sure that it's fully playable and legible even on smallest screens.

Changelog

As usual, this release features a heap of bugfixes and miscellaneous changes:

• Fixed a bug that caused recon drone to stop following you when you got past 1000km into the rings.
• Improved performance, especially in dense areas, when a lot of collisions are happening.
• Additional performance fixes in physics of excavators, grinders, and general NPC AI.
• Added a clear indication when a dialog option will cause you to dismiss a crewmember.
• You can now fully use the tuning menu with keyboard or gamepad.
• Grinders on Eagle Prospectors in ship dealer won't detach and drift away anymore.
• Fixed a memory leak that caused the game to crash when you sold and bought a lot of ships.
• Fixed a bug that could cause two ships to appear in Enceladus if you traded ships quickly.
• Sold ships will now re-appear on Dealer menu if they were bought recently.
• Dealer menu list won't flicker so much anymore.

[ 2020-10-10 09:59:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a patch release fixing up some bugs reported recently. Changelog:

• Fixed a bug in gas simulation that could cause a massive kinetic damage if your ship was swept by a drive plume.
• Full House achievement was finicky about the crew you were hiring.
• Updated translations.
• Fine-tuned some of the new story encounters.
• Added missing final chapter to ex-pirate storyline.

[ 2020-10-05 06:57:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Saturday was originally named after the planet Saturn, which was in turn named after Roman god. It's only fitting to release an update for V today. In our recent vote over discord.gg/dv you decided that I should split my time equally between personal stories of our crew and grand-scale events - and that's exactly what I'm doing. In this update you'll find additional personal storyline and a new encounter, as well as three new achievements to unlock.

[ 2020-10-03 12:59:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=IFh8SXATPLI;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-10-02 14:56:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

With 0.222.2 we finally add Steam Achievements to V: Rings of Saturn. We start with 15, ranging from common and easy to rare and unique, and more will come in subsequent updates! Need hints on how to unlock them? Join our official Discord server!

[ 2020-10-02 07:14:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is another hotpatch addressing bugs found in recent days. Changelog:

• AI's that are not wearing an android bodies no-longer show faces on the comms.
• Dialog screen in OMS will now scroll to show you latest dialogs automatically.
• Vilcy will not try to claim same bounty multiple times.
• When game is not in focus (alt-tab) music and audio will stop.
• Added video tutorial to the main menu.
• Fixed couple of typos in translations.

[ 2020-09-28 13:41:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a customary follow-up hot-patch to address all the bugs that slipped into previous big release. Changes:

• Incoming dialog will not obscure Eagle Prospector's HUD.
• A lifepod from a pirate ship will no-longer cause combat music to trigger.
• Added one new personal crew story.
• Targeting ships and ship with autopilot was improved.

[ 2020-09-27 11:38:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

More story

After a long summer break we bring you a new story upgrade. Aptly named Personal Responsibility introduces character and stories to your crew. You will find your crew having their own opinions, desires, past and secrets - all for you to discover. We start with 4 crew stories in 0.218.x, but since the groundwork for stories is laid out, we expect to add new stories regularly with subsequent updates. Existing story events also got an overhaul, to reflect that both your crew can take part in the dialog. You'll have much more opportunities to interact with game world, and even more will come soon.

Graphical improvements

There are series of graphical improvements in this release, ranging from faces of people you talk to visible in game, new dialog animations to improved particle effects.

Performance enhancements

Personal Responsibility also comes with enhanced performance, especially in late game physics performance.

[ 2020-09-26 15:12:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

We started a series of official video guides. First part - Old Enough - covers the flight basics. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2232300169

[ 2020-09-19 07:05:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beryllium Edition is extremely limited collectors set hand made by the developer himself. Ever wondered how that looks like behind the scenes? [previewyoutube=uc1G1ADq5BA;full][/previewyoutube] You cannot buy the Beryllium Edition - but you can win one in Drifters Bounty.

[ 2020-09-15 13:30:46 CET ] [ Original post ]