Allegations of corruption within the Mining Guild have sparked outrage among independent miners, leading to the formation of ad-hoc unions while operating within the Rings. Leaked reports suggest Guild officials have engaged in bribery and favoritism, granting lucrative asteroid claims to miners backed by major corporations while sidelining smaller operators. In response, independent miners are looking into forming a meta-union combining excavation agreements made on premise, which would grant them similar leverages to those offered by the Guild, but with distributed leadership.
Processor Fine-Tuning Access Mandated for Shops
New emission regulations from the Interplanetary Trade Commission now require all Mineral Processing Unit manufacturers to provide access to fine-tuning controls for third-party repair shops. While this regulation is welcomed by independent operators, a consortium of processor manufacturers issued a joint statement urging consumers not to deviate from stock processing settings, citing potential environmental impacts as well as possible damage not covered by warranty.
Unexpected MLF Protocol Update
Recent protocol changes introduced by Minding LF in their nanodrone systems have once again pushed the limits of system performance but sparked a harsh response from peers. While the rapid prototyping approach taken by MLF secured their dominant position in the semi-autonomous mining market, frequent changes require manufacturers of supporting equipment to adapt at a similar pace or face imminent incompatibilities. Obonto Microengineering, the manufacturer of industry-leading interface hardware, issued an over-the-void update to their USV-GOT unmanned survey vehicle series to accommodate protocol changes. However, they also amended their terms of service to reflect that they take no responsibility for changes made by third parties and will not be liable for any damage caused by subsequent updates, effectively shifting the responsibility for selecting compatible software to end-users.
Maintenance Logs
You can now tune the processing speed of your Mineral Processing Unit. This affects not only the processing speed itself, but also mineral and remass processing efficiencies, as well as power draw.
When tuning your ship, the simulation window will now display secondary parameters affected by the tuning option you are changing. This applies for parameters that have difficult to predict consequences.
Additional dialogues you can have with fellow miners.
Additional options to hire wingmen.
You can now give commands to wingmen you hire. They might even listen to you.
Ganymedean establishment will now serve refreshments at the same conditions as other Space Bars.
Adjusted some dialogue to make clear when your crew manages to escape from a damaged derelict during a failed recovery attempt.
Files clean-up: then you had the OST DLC purchased, game used to download some of the mp3 tracks twice. It will now only download them once.
Your crew is now much less likely to be distracted by the environment when you approach a derelict ship. Previously, they could not notice it if there were exciting things happening around them.
Fixed number formatting functions. In some circumstances, some fractional numbers were rounded wrong and produced off-by-one errors, for example 3.97 would be rounded to 3.0 instead of 4.0.
Dynamic backgrounds on the title screen, credits screen, and the screensaver mode now have more asteroids.
Improved compatibility of USV-GOT reconnaissance craft with both MLF Haul Drone and MPI Tug Drone systems. The commands imposed from the craft will now interface properly with the ship-area-network bus, allowing the systems to coordinate efforts when directed manually and preventing two opposite systems from fighting over the same ore chunk.
When fixing weapon or thruster misalignment with OMS drones, your mechanic will not have to adjust the jury-rigging options in order for repair to take effect.
Grinders of mining companions attached to AT-K225 are now detached from your main excavator. The placement of the docking bays made that feature useless, and they tended to damage your ship if you tried to open them up.
AI now understands that when you are astrogating away you will end up far away, and that if they want to stay close to you they should follow. This fixes a problem with wingmen who would sometimes stay behind if they were at a comfortable distance from you when you performed a jump and were distracted with something else.
Fixed THI Cargo Containers not unloading completely when asked to unload on ships with big processed cargo capacity.
The IFF display only updates when visible now, improving performance slightly.
When you hire a wingman, your IFF display will now update immediately.
Hiring civilian wingmen and paying them well now nets you a good reputation amongst miners.
Fixed part of the simulation chart label which was visible at the edge of the screen when the simulation initialized.
Unified spelling and fixed typos.
Obonto Microengineering unified its branding.
Updated translations.
1.59.7 - Virtual Diversity
Elon Interstellar Promises Autonomous Astrogation
Elon Interstellar announced today the release of its EIAA-1337 autopilot upgrade, featuring fully autonomous astrogation in planetary rings. This update allows vessels to plot and execute jumps automatically, aiming to reduce pilot workload and improve efficiency in hazardous environments. While the company encourages users to familiarize themselves with the software's functionality and associated disclaimers before taking advantage of this breakthrough in autonomous flight, veteran astrogators urge caution when relying on the new software, as its autonomous behaviour introduces new variables.
B8 Claim Beacon Recall Announced
Triskelion-Armstrong has issued a recall for all B8 Claim Beacon units following reports of malfunctions when deployed outside designated zones. The recall addresses issues where beacons were improperly relocating without warning, leading to confusion and operational delays for deep space miners. Affected beacon owners are urged to contact their suppliers for return and replacement instructions. Triskelion-Armstrong apologizes for any inconvenience and is working to resolve the issue promptly to ensure safe and reliable operation in all future deployments.
Structural Realignment Completed on Station
Repairs have been successfully carried out on the superstructure of the Enceladus Prime station to correct an issue affecting drone navigation and safety. A minor miscalibration in the station’s framework led to visual discrepancies that interfered with the station's automated drone recognition systems. Utility pipes and conduits on the exterior were occasionally misidentified by docking and maintenance drones, causing minor collisions and erratic behavior. The repairs included recalibrating the station’s visual markers and enhancing the accuracy of recognition systems to ensure that drones can now navigate safely and efficiently.
Maintenance Logs
EIAA-1337 autopilot is now capable of fully autonomous astrogation jumps.
Your autopilot will now display Approach Speed next to Relative Velocity when you target an entity.
New astrogation protocol. Previously, there was a fixed velocity deadzone required to match in order to engage astrogation. That deadzone is now dynamic, starting much bigger and narrowing down as the astrogation progresses. This will give you much more space for manoeuvre when you are starting your astrogation sequence but will require stricter adherence to the course at the very end. This change will also prevent large adjustments to the course as the cutscene kicks in, which could cause some unbalanced ships to perform unexpected spins.
If you stray twice as far from the astrogation target, the trajectory computation will now rewind a bit, to reflect the fact that your astrogation software needs to account for unexpected ship manoeuvre. This also prevents abusing the astrogation system by "charging up" the astrogation without actually making the jump, just flying in a completely different direction while having the ship primed for an emergency jump. This made little sense in-universe.
Pressing the "match velocity" key (X by default) during the astrogation sequence will now match your autopilot to the astrogation course, making returning to the right course after a manual dodge much easier. A proper on-screen prompt is included.
During the astrogation cutscene, the ship will start slowing down only after you regain control of it, making it possible to cancel that manoeuvre immediately. Previously, there was 1.5 seconds of burn that you had no chance of affecting.
Having a comms channel open won't stop the astrogation course computation when returning to the Enceladus station. Should such a cowardly escape cause a story event to be broken, the countdown will be slowed instead until the people you were talking to react appropriately.
Attempting to place a B8 Claim Beacon outside of the area of Ring A will now cause it to complain about the claim, instead of silently relocating.
Newly purchased claim beacons will not bang against your ship hull anymore when you start the dive.
Cradles, docking arms and salvage manipulators will now use full physics simulation during in-ring astrogation cutscenes. Previously, they used a simplified system in order to preserve resources and make cutscenes more predictable, but this simplified system caused unpredictable behaviour in more complex cases, such as astrogating with mining companions attached that have ore inside them. Now cutscenes will use exactly the same simulation as the normal gameplay.
Astrogators could confuse moonlets that were less than 50km from each other, often losing track of one of them.
The HUD Scale slider in the settings, the very end of the scale would have no effect due to monitor aspect ratio constraints. Adjusted the slider to show only scale levels that actually change the scale.
If your resolution or window size is so small that no HUD Scale adjustment is possible, the slider will be disabled with an appropriate tooltip.
The railgun particle system now correctly accelerates particles relative to the velocity of the railgun.
Repairs were performed on the Enceladus Prime station superstructure, which was slightly misaligned and when you observed it long enough could flicker some pipes in and out of existence.
Holding a rotation manual control key while performing an astrogation jump with a fly-by-wire enabled autopilot will not cause your ship to continue spinning through the whole cutscene sequence.
OMS's Astrogation destination list will no longer receive lights from the comms window. These lights caused some of the colours to be difficult to tell apart.
Moving your in-game camera will not cause the shadows to shift around anymore.
When selecting astrogation back to Enceladus, the astrogation velocity slider will now be disabled, with an appropriate tooltip hint.
Selecting an astrogation destination that is too close for you will now add an appropriate tooltip hint to the disabled "Plot Course" button.
The game will no longer receive gamepad input when not in focus. This caused the game to un-pause when you put it in the background and launched another game on Steam Deck.
Switching the OMS tabs with gamepad/Steam Deck controls will not zoom the camera in and out anymore.
Updated translations.
New OST Track Added: "Prepare for Decompression"!
We've just added a brand-new music track to the Original Soundtrack DLC: "Prepare for Decompression." This track captures those tense moments when things go sideways—alarms blaring, hull cracking, and you’re knee-deep in... well, let’s just say “trouble.”
The new track is now available in both MP3 and FLAC formats, and if you already own the OST DLC, it's all yours for free—just update and enjoy!
Remember: it’s only a problem if you can’t hear the music over the alarms.
Breaking reports reveal that the supposed "banding artefacts" in Saturn’s rings were nothing more than a sensor malfunction. Initially believed to be a new type of asteroid formation, the strange patterns were later traced to a compression artefact in the video streaming and denoising algorithms used by ship sensors. The artefacts appeared as the system struggled to handle the vast amounts of data generated by the dense debris fields. Experts now believe that small errors in signal transmission created what seemed like repeating patterns, fooling even experienced miners and researchers. After further investigation, the illusion was debunked, and sensor software updates are already in development to prevent future occurrences.
Crystals Discovered in Moonlet XT-HZA-3
A stunning new documentary has aired, showcasing rare and beautiful formations inside moonlet XT-HZA-3, recently discovered in Saturn’s rings. The film highlights dazzling torbenite crystals, glowing faintly with radioactive light, alongside smooth cave walls and unique geological structures. Advanced drones captured high-resolution footage, revealing details previously hidden due to technical limitations. The documentary is receiving widespread praise for its breathtaking visuals and insights into the mysterious moonlet, which is now drawing attention from both scientists and mining corporations alike.
New Racing Season Begins
The Enceladus Racing Federation has kicked off its latest season, welcoming both seasoned pilots and new contenders. This season features a more open and forgiving system, allowing even those who left previous races unfinished to rejoin the action. Enceladus Corp officially does not endorse these races, but as the rings fall under international jurisdiction, it is impossible to stop the competitions entirely. Racing fans are buzzing with excitement, anticipating thrilling rematches and fresh faces on the track, as pilots prepare for the most intense season yet.
Maintenance Logs
Updated the graphics of Uranium Caves, removing rendering artefacts outside the moonlet and aligning the cave interior border with other caves.
Motors on Eagle Prospector series grinders can now be disabled.
A brand new soundtrack has been added.
The "boss battle" soundtrack now plays more often during challenging encounters.
Fixed asteroid banding artefacts caused by interactions between the limited simulation space and asteroids' density map when the ship moved slowly.
The EIAA-1337 autopilot no longer attempts to use MLF Haul drones on targets they can’t interact with.
Resolved the issue where large moonlets could appear in multiple locations or far from their intended spot due to failures in the spotfinding algorithm. The algorithm now ensures the moonlet finds a proper location quickly.
Moonlets and other anomalies no longer drag along with the ship when astrogating away from dense regions of the rings.
Delivering large amounts of molten iron via an industrial-grade mass driver directly to a ship or station hull now counts as a hostile act.
Dismissing a crewmember from an active crew now clears associated story flags correctly.
Cargo containers from Ganymedeans no longer send ore automatically, even with good standing.
The B8 claim can now be aborted immediately when deploying the beacon by accident.
The tutorial tooltip now correctly indicates that 'X' is a key to press, not a button to click.
Fixed the black shadow that sometimes appeared around moonlets when raising gamma settings.
Adjusted line-of-sight rendering settings to resolve graphical quirks when flying close to certain entities, like moonlets.
Lines-of-sight now display correctly on ultrawide monitors or dual-monitor setups with a 4:1 aspect ratio or greater.
Adjusted collider and occluder shapes for moonlets to better match visual representation, reducing confusion.
Fixed lighting glitches caused by ore venting particle systems when the ship moves at high speeds.
Disabled the OLED-saving option for the EIME HUD display, resolving the misalignment of the augmented reality display of the cargo bay.
The Space Bar crew now keeps asteroids further away from the establishment, preventing rocks from spawning on top of the bar and causing chaos.
Abandoning a race without further interaction no longer causes the racing team to refuse communication. They now forgive upon meeting again, and this works with older saves.
The racing team now acknowledges rematches correctly when asked shortly after a race.
Updated translations and translation credits.
1.53.4 - Directed Beams
Increased beamformed LIDAR resolution by 100%.
Additional cone focus tuning option for beamformed LIDAR.
Booting up a B8 Claim Beacon, but aborting the claim, loading it up again and moving it to another location would cause the beacon to establish the claim in the spot it was first deployed.
Beacons will not follow you when you deploy them again after aborting the claim but will return to their default behaviour.
When a physical HUD lost its power, the autopilot overlay would stall instead of disappearing. It will now correctly disappear until the power is restored.
Obonto Habitats and other traders would attempt to trade with NPC ships that docked to them by accident. Since most of the ships are not equipped for trading, this caused the conversation with the player to be cut short on subsequent contacts.
Adjusted Kitsune cargo bay area to prevent it from accounting cargo before it clears the cargo gates.
Added compatibility and automatic fixing for some corrupted save data file, preventing crashes when you attempt to load a save that was corrupted.
When you travelled alongside a ship for an extended period, it could forget your previous conversations. The captain could change their mind about important things, like the favours he owns you, or even who is among their crew.
When your claim beacon, mining companion or a cargo container just booted up after being released, but you immediately caught it back, you could end up with an open comms channel to a drone that was unable to close it, or respond. That prevented you from contacting any other entity, talking to your crew, or even astrogating back to the Enceladus station until you released that drone again.
There were still some paths in the dialogue you could take that locked you out of a second round of the race.
The racing drone will now always call you again when you catch it for the second and subsequent times. It might complain that the race is invalid if it completely runs out of propellant.
The racing drone will now dodge more aggressively, will keep a larger initial distance, and will move further away when you are re-starting the race.
Updated translations.
1.52.28 - Full Throttle
Certain large and well-armed stations would get upset if they offered you a deal and you declined - and they didn't take into account that you might be in the middle of a trade to raise enough funds. They are much more patient now.
Ships and stations that didn't like your cargo containers or mining companions tried to hail them to voice their displeasure while they were still attached to your ship, and opened fire when they didn't respond. They will now raise their concerns directly to you.
Fixed a memory leak that happened when you switched ships in your fleet at Enceladus. Each subsequent switch to a completely new ship would take a little bit of memory and processing power, which could add up if you have a large fleet and have problems deciding which ship to fly.
Custom paint will now show up correctly on the habitat of OCP-209.
You can ask the racing team to race again, as long as their drone is still operational.
You can't reset the race by calling the racing team while you are in the middle of a race.
The race will now reset properly when you ask the racing team to race again after you finish one round.
Racing drones which were caught with salvage manipulators shut down all of their sensors, which resulted in the race being invalidated, as the drone did not see any participants and assumed a catastrophic accident.
Increased racing drone ship detection range to 64km.
More reliable one-time astrogation destinations. Previously, if a temporary destination would lead you to a big entity, the game had problems finding the right spot to spawn, it could give up prematurely, making some destinations empty, when they should not be. Now, it will keep trying until it succeeds.
Unidentified perpetrator was filling rich ore veins with ore chunks of exactly the same ore compositions, causing bafflement in the mining community. With increased telescopic surveillance these pranks stopped now.
With multiple visits, some astrogation destinations could drift slowly towards the edge of the rings, eventually reaching a location outside of the playable area. They will counteract this now.
Updated translations.
1.52.20 - Prolonged Exposure
Fixed a sensor-related memory leak that caused the game to degrade performance in multi-hour dives.
Improved sensor performance.
Updated translations.
1.52.19 - Dysregulation Syndrome
Triskelion-Armstrong issued a recall on the most recent B8 claim beacon series. A faulty ship detection module inhibited most of the drone functions permanently, which both rendered the claim beacon inoperational shortly after deployment and hindered third-party modifications of the beacons.
Made the cargo hold walls of OCP-209 a bit thicker. This should prevent carbon-based anomalies from slipping through the cracks.
You can't pump ore into racing drones, mines and claim beacons anymore.
1.52.17 - Finite State
Improved dialogue decorators. When a dialogue option results in a member of your crew going away, you will now see a clearer indication that they are leaving, including the time they will be away.
The exact mineral composition of all the ore chunks you collect and process is now stored in your save file. Previously, the game relied on procedural seed to recreate the same composition after interlunar transit, but this approach proved to be inaccurate - especially if you had partially-processed chunks in your cargo hold.
Fixed a memory leak that caused the game to use more memory when you encountered entities you could talk to.
Fixed scale of the locust swarm, in which participants were twice as big as they should be.
Enhanced performance logs. Additional information contained in long-term performance logs will make it easier to pinpoint any performance issues that build over long periods of time, like any memory leaks.
If you collected a weregild and the captain you were processing felt like explaining themselves, they got distracted and did not remember that they paid you, allowing you to ask for money a second time.
Updated translations.
1.52.11 - Rapid Delivery
Tetsuo HMX-2000I low-stress approval
Tetsuo Engineering has announced the approval of their HMX-2000I iron delivery mass driver for installation on low-stress hardpoints. This approval allows the HMX-2000I to be integrated into a wider variety of spacecraft, significantly enhancing the versatility and efficiency of iron ore transport and delivery in mining operations. While this powerful mass driver boosts throughput and streamlines the iron delivery process, it is important to note that the high rate of iron delivery could cause flight instability on non-spinal mountings.
Coherent Light releases new lens
Coherent Light, a titan in the laser technology industry, is expanding its horizons with the launch of their premium L-50F high-fidelity lens, designed specifically for high-end photography and reconnaissance applications. While the company has built its reputation on pioneering laser systems, this latest innovation showcases expertise in optics. Reconnaissance craft equipped with the L-50F lens will now be able to deliver both better resolution and a wider field of view. This advancement is crucial for detailed surveillance and mapping, enabling more comprehensive and accurate identification of ore deposits and spotting of asteroids.
Armstrong loses planned obsolescence lawsuit
Triskelion-Armstrong has been found guilty of deliberately using software to simulate damage in their AR1500-M salvage manipulators. This practice misled operators into believing their equipment required costly repairs or replacements when no real damage was present. The court's ruling mandates Triskelion-Armstrong to compensate affected users and revise their software to eliminate fraudulent damage indications. This verdict represents a significant win for miners and salvage operators, who can now expect more transparent and reliable performance from their equipment.
Maintenance Logs
Reversed the polarity of debris spawning. It's now much more likely for a big rock to shatter into multiple smaller fragments when force is applied, but it should preserve the desired tight spawning radius when mining with the excavator or grinder.
Tetsuo Engineering managed to obtain approval for the installation of Tetsuo HMX-2000I on low-stress hardpoints.
Adjusted dynamic physics simulation range settings to be less aggressive. Previously, the game could attempt to limit the simulation space in response to new objects being introduced too quickly, which, while it preserved good performance, could make the ice only appear in a narrow band around your ship. This could also lead to some weird ice formations as the simulation range was adjusted back and forth to find the optimal spot. The new settings are much more gentle and make the spawning seem much more natural while preserving the performance benefits.
Updated ore graphics.
Improved performance of encounter detection. Previously, when you made a lot of deals with shady entities, the performance of your game could degrade as it attempted to trace each deal you made. The shady activity ledger is much faster now.
If you went straight from one established deal to a location of another deal of the same type, without visiting any other location between them, you could find nothing.
Fixed refuelling speed for crafts you attach to your ship. Previously, it used ore transfer pump capacities, which are slower for most crafts.
Saved games will not contain events that can not happen anymore. This improves loading speed. Old saves will be cleaned up automatically.
Fixed the title menu being misaligned if you had a save with a long ship name.
Fixed some of the big, complex moonlets experiencing runaway kinematic reactions, leading them to spin uncontrollably and break game physics.
New asteroids will not spawn in close proximity to your ship anymore.
You can now ask BBW to join their cause multiple times in one encounter. Beware that they might get annoyed by this.
While you can still bind multiple keys for an action in the game, the HUD will only show the first key bound. This prevents the interface overflowing if you manage to bind keys that have long representations, like keypad keys.
Improved physics performance for certain big, complex moonlets by over 1000%.
General physics engine collision detection optimisation. Due to how our physics throttling system works, the most immediate effect for you will be the ability for the game to simulate objects further away from your ship. If you desire a better performance instead, make sure to lower the "physics simulation range" slider in the game settings.
Certain ship and stations that denied you docking for some reason will allow you to dock again when you manage to convince them that they should. That makes certain illegal cargo exchanges, and bounty hunting, flow more naturally when you are performing the operations in close proximity of recipients.
Having a rogue cargo container attached to your ship prevented other such containers from appearing.
THI Cargo Containers will now follow you through an astrogation jump when executing the "keep formation" command.
Fixed tooltips for some buttons on OMS that were not showing when using a gamepad and flickering when showing up.
Fixed a tooltip on the astrogator tab.
Sometimes, cargo containers and similar craft attached to your ship would boot up and attempt to escape on Enceladus. This included both the main menu as well as the "examine ship" sections of the Dealer and Fleet menus.
Added AI inhibitors to racing drones and their illegal modifications. The drone will now shut down in direct proximity to any ship, just like any other autonomous craft. This can make certain events and encounters easier and will prevent such drones from attempting to escape when already caught with docking equipment. Previously, such a drone would only shut down after entering a cargo bay.
Fixed phantom manipulator damage. If you had a damaged ship in a save at the time when the damage model of the manipulator changed in an upgrade, the manipulator misalignment damage could been transferred past the upgrade, but you were not able to fix it without replacing the whole ship.
Jury-rigging misaligned Salvage Manipulator will now apply the fixes immediately and you won't need to bash the arm on another rock in order for the fixes to kick in.
