Rings of Saturn cover
Rings of Saturn screenshot
PC Steam Gog
Genre: Simulator, Indie

Rings of Saturn

0.604.0 - Hot Rods

  • 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.

0.603.6 - Tactical Retreat

  • 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.

0.602.5 - Space Construction

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.

0.599.2 - Daredevils

  • 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%.

The Retrograde Perspective

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 ΔV 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 ΔV. This year delays of ΔV 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 it’s 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


ΔV is an independent, self-published title. When I started developing it, it was unclear if this was a viable career choice; thus, ΔV 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.

ΔV 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 ΔV stopped being just self-sustaining and moved to be my primary income source. It turns out that players don’t 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 ΔV’s 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.

ΔV: Deep Weeb Is Available Now
ΔV: Deep Weeb is the long-awaited cosmetic DLC for ΔV: 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 ΔV: 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 don’t 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.

0.596.7 - Verified Claims

  • 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.

0.596.6 - Three Diamonds

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

0.596.5 - Cloaking Devices

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.

0.595.2 - Terminal Resolution

  • 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.

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