This update makes the first actual changes to gameplay in several months. We've added a new ship: the TPG "Raptor" prototype vessel. We've enabled a new game feature: destroyed ships, NPC or player, now have a chance of dropping their equipped addons. The station interface will now display potential profit/loss for a given trade. Many balancing tweaks have been made, mostly small, a few larger:

The Behemoth has been reduced in top speed, to 160m/s, turbo trust to 900, and armor to 20,000. Solo traders will now need to weigh getting escorts, or making smaller cargo runs in more defensible ships.

Batteries / Powercells now all have mass. About 100kg, not a lot of variance as of yet. This will eventually become another configurable aspect of ship loadout, as more powercell types become available. Powercells also have a "cargo volume" of 3 cu, meaning that if you want to pick up a dropped powercell, you'll need something bigger than a Vulture.

The Centurion collision and visible hulls have both been slightly increased in scale. I compared them against the Vulture in Max and scaled it by "eyeball", I think it'll work fairly well. We'll all have to test further and give feedback on the messageboard.

Some of the fastest ships (IBG, RevC, Vulturius) have had their top speeds chopped back to around 220m/s.

The Advanced Gatling Turret has had its mass increased by 1000kg.

Various other small tweaks here and there, on the Corvus Marauder (turbo drain changed to 55), higher-end Neuts shoot slightly slower. Other tweaks of various types.

For those of us who have joined recently, please be aware that this is the first gameplay/balance release in awhile, but it will not be the last. If you think some aspect of the game would be better if done differently, please feel free to make a post to the Suggestions forum. Just keep it positive and constructive. We've done many, many balance releases, and inevitably someone doesn't agree with something. But this is a continuous work in progress, and we'll be doing balance releases on a regular basis again (now that we're once again updating the client), so nothing is set in stone. In the end, we're all interested in what's best for the game as a whole.

Other changes:

- show proper cargo space available when addons are in cargo
- profit/loss display for commodities. number in parentheses is unit cost; red if poss, green if profit
- TPG Raptor is available
- fixed loading screen image aspect
- selected char text/button on left is now brighter for selected char
- fixed typo in g_borderwar mission
- addons have volume for when they are in ship cargo
- batteries have mass
- p is a hotkey for the navmap when in station tab
- screenshots are saved as png instead of tga
- enemy status is removed when they or you leave the sector.
- fixed bug with nav routes; setting a route in the station and the HUD not showing which way you have to go.
- station updates itself more often to show items that missions give out

Give it a try, post feedback to the messageboard. We hope you all enjoy this update :).

-john