We've been having some server-side performance troubles, which has resulted in the delays of the recently-announced features. We're now in the midst of re-architecting a lot of the lisp code that drives these new features, with the goal of making it all more scalable. We do have plenty of server horsepower, we just had some unforseen things spiral out of control and end up using faaar more CPU than was anticipated, or had shown up in previous testing.

Thus, the rearchitecture. On the upside, we should have the new NPC convoys in production sometime this week. On the downside, some of the more advanced features (escort missions, other stuff) are going to take some time to redo.

In other news, the UI work continues. Currently Ray is redoing the HUD elements with the new system. This isn't to say that he's improving things (only small things here and there), we're mostly just trying to reproduce the existing interfaces in the all-new UI subsystem. The station menus will be a heavier redux, but will still probably be a bit of an "evolution" as time goes on.

So, this week you can expect to see the new NPC convoys (again), this time with Reduced Breakage. The next major changes after that will be the economic and faction tweaks/fixes, which will be posted to (and heavily debated) on the Suggestions forum when we get closer to finalizing things (expect a post in the next two weeks). As always, thanks for your patience, we'll get these new features out as soon as they're solid.