0.494.3 - Digital Facelift

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 captain’s pet ocelot), Enceladus has mounted displays at each ship berth. These render the ship’s 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.