VO 1.8.196 includes:

- Arklan Guardians now have a one-in-ten chance of dropping an Avalon Torpedo launcher. They will eventually be for sale near Deneb as well, or potentially dropped by certain convoys; this is a first step.
- All platforms now default to autodock mode. This can be changed in Options -> Game Settings.
- Single-player Android tutorial now does autodock.
- Miscellaneous UI tweaks for Android version.
- Marshall only gives a list of bounties that have logged in within the past year.
- Bounties are sorted by number of bounties and then the total bounty price.
- Collector bot behaviour in Training sector have been changed to not attack unless being attacked and to not fly away as easily.
- Empty bounty news posts now say there were no bounties collected instead of being blank.

So, those who were online during the release may also have seen this:

- In non-fogged sectors, other vessels are no longer visible on the sector list beyond 15km. There is no longer "universal knowledge" of all other ships in the sector, regardless of distance. This may continue to be tweaked and adjusted, moving forward.

..unfortunately, we had to revert that change, as the issue with people in stations being invisible to those outside the station, as well as unable to see those outside the station, had not been properly resolved. So, until we're able to fix that, we have to hold off on making that change. Hopefully next week.

This isn't the perfect place to put these, but I feel like it so too bad!

This is what the sekret station that the devs recently updated assets for used to look like.

Nice work! Anyone who knows what an Avalon Torpedo is should be thrilled about this update.

WOWOWOWOW!!! Great news! Many often requested features! Grats, Inc and GS ! Outstanding, reallly!!!

Next week, contraband? Or pirate faction hosted there? ;)

iirc, it's like a sunflare, but 10 times more powerful, and only usable with cappies.

Alloh: why do you make us cry ourselves to sleep?

Again, another awesome update! Great work GS thanks!

Not quite, thesp. A very, very slow sunflare, many times as powerful.

While i am pleased that you actually held your end and put the avs back in I am puzzled at the choice of implementation as the bots that drop them are no where near where they are needed most and you seem to have been swayed by the confused grey community who doesnt need torpedoes

oh well, we'll see what happens in a couple weeks

Maybe to necessitate transporting them across multiple systems, with the intent to encourage cooperation and competition among traders, escorts, and pirates? More likely they wanted to introduce them slowly to the game, and as stated this is the first implementation with availability near Deneb planned for a future update. And no, they are really not like flares; In my mind Avalons would fall under an entirely new category of weapons.

inc, +1

AVALOOOOOOONS!

I think you are right, Phaserlight.

Given how often bombers die in Deneb, making them have to be trucked across systems pretty much makes them a non-option.

These may prove to be useful on the war convoy blockades though.

The only major problem I have with avalons themselves (ignoring, for the moment, how they are obtained) is the very high energy usage. I wouldn't mind seeing the ammo clip increased too but the energy usage would really hurt in using them in Deneb battles.

As far as damage out put goes, they do at least out-damage chaos missiles. But in order to properly deploy them against a shielded capital ship, the target has to be non-moving.

Also, are you sure it's a 1 in 10 drop rate? I've killed over a hundred Arklans and have only dropped 2...
Maybe I just have shit for luck.

maybe re instate the 15km limit for non station sectors. It's not a perfect fix, but hey, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Calciumdeposit: You just have shit luck. I got 6 of them yesterday.

I was able to hit moving Tridents with them, but only from directly in front or behind, the lead indicator for them is nearly useless. Couldn't take down the shields though, it takes all 4 from 2 launchers to do that and the energy usage makes it kind of a pain.

Couldn't take down the shields though, it takes all 4 from 2 launchers to do that and the energy usage makes it kind of a pain.

Typical, GS, typical.

"OMG bring back avalons! How are we to live without avalons?!?"

Day later:
"OMG, avalons suck. You suck!"

They don't suck, I like them. I love all anything that makes explosions.

No, they don't suck, and the game definitely needs bombs for attacking capital ships with, but these are beta weapons and it deffinitely shows (heck, just look at the explosion effect.). They need some tweaks, that's all.

I rolled Avalons back into the game completely unmodified from their original state. They are what they are, and with a process of feedback and usage by the userbase, this will hopefully result in some pertinent Suggestions threads.

We had a bunch of unforeseen server drama last week (which was thankfully invisible to the userbase), and I still managed to push out Avalons, so yeah.. kind of agreeing with Genka here.