0.498.6 - Little Helpers

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 can’t 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 it’s 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.