• 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.

• 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.

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.



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.



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.

• 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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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.

The vote has concluded - view results here!

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.



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.



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.

• 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.

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

• 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

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 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.



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.

• 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.