0.266.12 - Space Trade

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. It’s 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 it’s 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, you’ll 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 you’ll get a chance to talk before they decide to open fire.