VO 1.8.192 includes:

- Xang Xi Self-Propelled Concussion Mine now has double the ammo (8), double the proximity radius (60m) and costs 1/10th to reload (10k per ammo).
- Turbo sound effect modified to remove slight repeating pop noise on long duration usage.
- Improved graphics for system backgrounds in Navigation interface.
- Better visual quality for compressed textures on Snapdragon devices.
- Made improvements to server stability and robustness, relating to sector startup and shutdown.

More Graphics and Asset Tweaks - The system backgrounds in the Nav interface will look a bit different to most, but the degree of resolution will only be apparent by zooming in or with a very high resolution monitor (30-inch). However, even with the maps at four times the previous resolution, they're occupying half the video memory as previously. Plus, we have long-term intentions for these higher resolution assets.

Server Side Changes Ongoing - We're still tracking and fixing some NPC related bugs, and re-working the way we handle certain types of database access. You should not be seeing any more "stuck" sectors, as we had pop up in the last week (this was an unintended side-effect of debugging the convoy problem). Please let us know if you see any problems, and use the Support Ticket system if you need to reach us more quickly.

Thanks much for your patience and support, as always; and please keep the feedback coming on the Suggestions forum.

Good progress, thanks Inc.

- Turbo sound effect modified to remove slight repeating pop noise on long duration usage.

Yay!

Edit: The system backgrounds are slick, especially when you compare them to the full universe background.

Nice. The Nav screen looks sharp

Welcome back to dev life, Devs! Thanks, cool stuff!

Aww, i liked the old system backgrounds better. Seems like the new ones have no stars!

My God, it's full of stars.

Yeah, the stars do seem more subtle. I like it more overall though. Maybe if the stars were a little bit brighter it would be even better.

Listening closely to the turbo sound with my music off, I heard kind of a scritch sound, or a creak. Like a rocking chair maybe. Better than the old clicky noise, but not perfect yet. 32 bit Linux with Alsa, if it's relevant. Ish heard it too. I think he's using Linux as well. I didn't ask around to see if it was platform dependent. 2:13 is the time for sleep, not surveys :) But yeah, it is less annoying this way, at least to me.

Also, just a note, because this has been irking me for a year or two. In the navigation screen, under 'systems', the background is utterly horrific. If and when you have time for that, it'd be nice if you could fix it.

everything looks cleaner, and I really like the graphics updates. Thanks devs!

Listening closely to the turbo sound with my music off...

I really, really hope you weren't sober for that.

raybondo or Incarnate: how do I load the new nav background images through iup? The systemxxmap.lua files don't have an extension anymore on the map image string.

<Insert redundant yet relevant snarky comment about the release>

The extension of the background images has changed to .dds.

Thanks! I can't believe I didn't think of that.

space999999: Yes, the main "Universe" background is also on the block. I just couldn't get that done along with all the system backgrounds in time for Fri.

abortretryfail: There are actually a lot *more* stars, and they're much sharper. But they're also less visible at the normal zoom-level or at remotely reasonable resolutions; so no, you don't seem them as much right now. On the other hand, there's also a clearer difference between "sector objects" (like asteroids), and purely aesthetic stars.

So... the maps use the same texture as the sector backgrounds now?

The nav-map backgrounds are rendered from Max, but yes they do use many of the same source materials as the main game backgrounds. There's no real single "texture", they all use different blends of about 7-10 textures which are composited together in various ways. Even just the stars are at least two textures plus masks that are blended in about five different combinations. It was kind of time consuming to update and "restore" them all.

If I get a chance, maybe I'll post some before/after comparison shots.

Nice, 'bout time the XX launcher became less than less than useless.

The turbo glitch sounds much more noticeable now when I am awake.