Cross-posted from News:

VO 1.8.561 includes (last night):
- New mineable Ore: "Sammic". It is rare, has a high mass, and is available only in the Unknown System. Expect it to play a part in future Manufacturing goals.
- Cross-Galaxy Teleportation: Members of the Serco and Itani Militaries may access Missions to utilize experimental teleportation facilities located in Dau L10, Geira O4 and Eo I7. Transport is for a character only, does not move any ship or cargo, and includes a nominal fee.
- iOS gamepad configuration: Changes to button and axis definitions should now save properly.
- Fixed issue with joystick axis binds not properly updating in the Calibration menu when they are changed in the Gamepad menu.
- Improved login performance across all devices. Further improvements are coming.
- Experimental simplication of first-time character creation for Android, automatically choosing name and nation selection. Additional characters may be created with full manual control.
- Fixed issue with Self Defense notifications being sent too often.

VO 1.8.560 (last week) included:
- Automatic cargo tractor beam allows easier pickup of nearby crates. Currently defaults to "on", but may be disabled with the /cargotractor command. The cargo tractor beam only functions for "small" type ships, not capships, and has a limited range of only 8 meters. It is intended to help acclimate new players who struggle to pick up drops when starting out. Further configuration options may eventually appear, such as ability to enable or disable tractoring for particular classes of crates.

Beyond this, there has been a tremendous amount of work in the background, fixing bugs and issues and otherwise improving specific situations; as well as research into making the game more functional and accessible for everyone.

Because of the substantial changes, lately, there is an above-average risk of new Bugs (despite the lengthy testing that has gone into all of this). Please report any you find on the Bugs forum. Situations that may be exploitable can be sent in via Support Tickets, but general Bugs are best posted to the forums, where they can get feedback from more than one person.

Thanks everyone, have a great weekend and (in the US) a great holiday!

Cool update. Getting this ore solo has proved to be challenging and way more fun than just sitting there watching ore fill your cargo. Haven't had a chance to tryout the new teleportation tech. But I've been wanting this for years. Hopefully, this will get more people participating.

Woot, content! Better access to Deneb is a great idea, looking forward to seeing if the teleportation pans out.

Oh Man I used to dread going to deneb. This is a great step to get more people into deneb! Really awesome patch!

Oh my god you mean we don't have to have Deneb alts anymore?

Gamechanger.

I teleported from Dau, died and respawned at my home station in Gray. Now the only mission that is offered to me is teleporting back to Dau (not the other way). Can this be fixed (offer 2 missions for each direction)?

Well, first of all, if you're teleporting to participate in Deneb, it makes sense to home near Deneb, since you're probably going to die during battle anyway..?

But, aside from that, the only requirements of the missions are that you be a member of the respective Military, and be at-or-above Dislike in standing. There's no cooldown timer or anything.

So, the mission should have shown up for you; it's possible you needed to change sectors or some such to have the mission-list update?

The missions also don't show up next to one another in the mission list, so it can be a little bit of a hunt to find the mission, sometimes. Perhaps you just visually missed it?

Are you saying you flew back to dau and now the mission is saying it will teleport you to dau instead of gr/eo as if it still thinks you are in gr/eo?

I had something strange happen when I teleported from Dau to GR the mission said welcome to Dau when I landed in Gr.

Are you saying you flew back to dau and now the mission is saying it will teleport you to dau instead of gr/eo as if it still thinks you are in gr/eo?

Mission availability is not based on location, and because you can now see "all" missions, you will inherently see both missions taking you To and From Dau, all the time.

I think he just didn't realize this, and happened to see the opposite mission that he expected, while the other one was somewhere further down the list.

I had something strange happen when I teleported from Dau to GR the mission said welcome to Dau when I landed in Gr.

That's probably a typo on my part.

That makes sense.

Yeah I figured it was a typo or a copy/paste and forgetting to edit the text and I haven't used it again to confirm so I didn't report it.

incarnate: You are actually right, now I can see it - so not a bug, sorry. Thanks.