VO 1.8.648 includes:

- Four new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Fixed potential crash if server name lookup fails.
- Fixed potential crash when quitting the game.
- Fixed crash if a plugin attempts to redefine the dofile() function.

Not the most exciting patch, but we're working on several of the bigger goals mentioned in the "Game Development Direction" sticky post at the top of Suggestions, and we need to get some of this work done to be able to move forward on other rollouts.

As always, please let us know of any problems on Bugs, or any gameplay feedback on Suggestions. Have a great weekend, everyone!

VO 1.8.647 included (this week):

- Four new custom-made missions available in various trees.
- The /+ActivateTurrets command will now auto-fire charge-based weapons (for example, Repair Turret) when the weapon becomes fully charged.
- Added a lua GetRegisteredCommands() function to return a list of all the commands (from community, Suggestions Forum).
- Added a /showcommands command to open a menu showing all of the available commands (from community, Suggestions Forum).
- Missions that can only be taken once every 24 hours have been changed to once every 22 hours (from community, Suggestions Forum).
- All players can now dock with the capships that are a part of their hive or border skirmish mission, even if their faction standing is too low (from community, Suggestions Forum).
- Players are kicked out of the skirmish capship if they abort their skirmish mission.
- Players who become Hated with the faction of the skirmish mission are now ejected from the mission.
- Fixed potential issue when attempting to command their capship to follow immediately after entering their mission's skirmish sector.
- Improvements to internal monitoring of the server, to improve notification of rare and unusual provider outages.

VO 1.8.646 included (last week):

- Four new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Fixed issue with expired self-defense warnings being reapplied to players docking to their capship.
- Advanced Combat Training group mission now reduces the number of NPC adversaries when a player leaves the group.
- Fixed extremely limited fog radar range in Deneb G-6.
- Fixed issue with player-owned capships being destroyed with no notification in simulated skirmish sectors.
- Internal improvements to game economy analytics.

Some significant projects around advanced server development and other areas are progressing in the background. More information on that later.

VO 1.8.645 included (last week):

- Added /remove_mines command to remove your mines from the current sector without detonating them.
- Whoever does the most damage to an NPC in Border and Hive skirmishes are now awarded the kill instead of who landed the killing shot when it explodes.
- Players who registered for the Corporate Sector Run and leave the sector or log out early can now re-register in the station before the race begins.
- The Android version now handles device resolution changes during runtime ("density") instead of having to be restarted. Requires Play Store app update.

The last change may be of benefit for owners of Samsung devices, where the Samsung Game Optimizing Service is causing problems by forcing a resolution change whenever the game runs. The best solution is still to disable the Samsung service on the entire device, as it yields no actual performance benefit and seems to also cause other problems (which we're still investigating). VO, like most graphically-intensive games, renders to an offscreen buffer at a resolution pre-determined by the game, so "device resolution" already has no impact on game performance. Samsung's "optimization" service forced a device resolution change in the middle of runtime, which had a tendency to screw up the UI, as the game was not expecting that during play. More information about the fundamental issue here:

https://www.pcgamer.com/samsungs-game-optimization-service-might-be-throttling-the-performance-of-over-10000-apps/

https://www.samsung.com/levant/support/apps-services/how-can-i-change-game-optimization-settings/

VO 1.8.644 included (last week):

- Navroutes are now plotted around systems that are Hated/KoS when possible.
- Player-owned capships now try to go around systems that are Hated/KoS if possible when they are attempting to come to their owner (they will warn of expected passage through hostile territory if it is unavoidable, there being no "safe" route).
- Player-owned capships now report the next two systems they will go through if they are more than two systems away and are given the 'follow' command.
- Fixed issue with mouse capture not working sometimes on Chromebooks.

Sometimes the brief lines of the changelog fail to articulate the complexity of the underlying update. In this case, reworking the server and client-side navigational jump calculations to properly include dynamic changes in factional status was not really a "trivial thing", but one that certainly was important to do (both for capship owners, and for newer players). This is another change that came from input on the Suggestions Forum.

Someday we may offer a more elaborate way to determine your capship's "remote" route (currently limited to just the "follow" command), but hopefully this will mitigate the more-common related issues.

VO 1.8.643 includes:
- Four new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Increased group size limit to 16. Group mining benefits are still limited to 8 members.
- Group list on the HUD is limited to 8 members, with an option in Interface -> HUD Settings to show all members.
- Sort order of group members has been changed to put all players first, followed by player-owned capships, with NPCs last.

This Group Size change has been requested for a long time, but was recently revived on the Suggestions Forum by players who enjoy participating in some of the recent Game Events. Larger player groups should improve the ability to coordinate larger participation in more complex events.

For anyone interested, you can always check out the upcoming Events on the front page of the website, or also on our Discord: https://discord.gg/vendetta

Other, larger projects are rumbling along in the background, along with further investigations into bugs and issues as they are reported. Have a great weekend, everyone!

VO 1.8.642 includes:

- Four new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Added option to disable 'Turret Control Online' messages in Options -> Interface settings.
- Fixed issue with gkini.ReadString2 lua function.
- Fixed issue with gunners being able to fire turrets while +ActivateTurrets also fires the turret under certain conditions.

Beyond this, we've been making progress with some larger projects in the background; more about those later.

A recap of all the updates since late-February, with some context at the bottom:

Vendetta 1.8.641
- Four new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Fixed incorrect mission failure warning when attacking a convoy you're not escorting.
- Fixed issue with gkini.ReadString returning random data if no default value is specified and the requested value doesn't exist.

Vendetta 1.8.640
- Ten new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Taking an Escort mission and doing substantial damage to your own convoy, or draining significant energy with a PCB, will result in the Escort mission Failing and the convoy treating the player as an enemy.
- Fixed issue with RadarPrevNearestPowerup command not working properly.
- Fixed issue with mission-based NPCs not joining the group when they launch from the station.

Vendetta 1.8.639
- Fixed issue with invulnerable NPC capship turrets on Windows, Linux, Mac platforms.
- Fixed issue with player given a blank screen instead of a station menu after exploding under very high latency conditions.
- Experimental release of forcing the Windows client's minimum network MTU size to 400 bytes instead of 128.

Vendetta 1.8.638
- Six new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Fixed issue with missing lead-off indicator when an empty weapon group is active and entering a turret.
- Fixed issue with a player-owned capship becoming disabled instead of exploding when damaged by another exploding capship.

Vendetta 1.8.637
- Fixed issue with inactive access keys text description not being displayed.
- Fixed crash when the capship pilot is controlling a turret when they disable it.
- Fixed issue with the background not updating properly on Quest VR devices.
- Prototype of new game-client Lua runtime environment with enhanced performance, now available on the Quest VR platform.
- Added further analytics to help detect problems seen by players on higher latency connections.

Vendetta 1.8.636
- Four new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Added ability for in-station ship preset purchases to choose stored addons instead of purchasing them.
- Fixed issue with not being able to equip power cells to fighter ships if they have addons attached, while piloting a capship.
- Fixed issue with FOV resetting to default when viewing the ship config UI while in space.
- Prototype of new game-client Lua runtime environment with enhanced performance, now available on the macOS platform.
- Fixed occasional problem with excessive station information being displayed while jumping into a station sector.
- Fixed occasional issue with sound effects from other ships being heard while jumping into another sector.
- Added further analytics to help detect problems seen by players on higher latency connections.
- Fixed issue with spickle not working with certain data tables in plugins.

Vendetta 1.8.635
- Four new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- The /ViewToggle command now accepts an optional view mode parameter. 1 is first-person, 2 is third-person.
- Added a ViewToggle(mode) lua command to switch view modes.
- Remote capship health is now updated when being repaired.
- Fixed issue with remote capships disappearing if the owner's connection times out.
- The clearscene() and loadscene() functions no longer do anything while the player is logged in.
- Additional robustness improvements for the Lua plugin sandbox.
- Added new aggregated analytics to help us examine the player-perceived "lag" of docking, jump and similar problems.
- Improved analytics for sector and server performance analysis.

Vendetta 1.8.634
- Improving client stability through version convergence.

Vendetta 1.8.633
- Eight new custom-made missions, in various trees.
- Added /enableturret <turret> and /disableturret <turret> commands. The <turret> value can be the turret ID, turret name in double quotes such as "Lower Aft", "all", or "missiles". The commands can also accept a list of turrets separated by spaces. Disabling a turret prevents players and /+ActivateTurrets from using it.
- Fixed issue with Enduring Content not displaying the current owner and your own name in the history of owners.
- Fixed issue with dynamic economy stations refusing to accept certain ship engines when selling the ship to the station.
- Fixed issue with remote capships following their target out of the sector after being told to mine.
- Hive skirmishes should no longer appear in racetrack or conquerable station sectors.
- Experimental performance enhancements to sectors, for conditions involving large battles or extreme NPC counts.
- Giving/taking access keys now always report the same thing whether or not the character exists, to eliminate a potential player-information leak.
- Added further analytics around network performance and configurations, to help further optimize the game.

Thirty-six new custom made missions, along with a LOT of fixes, and some improvements.

We made some fairly significant game-architecture changes early this year, and with any project of this complexity, that means there are unforeseen bugs and challenges that will crop up and require fixing. So, there has been a great deal of bug-reduction going on, along with a few larger projects that are not yet released.

With luck, we're hopefully coming back around to doing some more player-facing development work in the not-too-distant future. Stay tuned!

A recap of updates since the Holidays:

Vendetta 1.8.632
- Four new custom-made missions.
- Capital Rail Cannon Turret weapon fire is now displayed on the radar as yellow blips for Windows, Linux, and Android platforms. Mac and iOS updates are forthcoming.
- Added a GetPOI() function for plugins, returning known wormhole and station locations in the local system.
- Fixed issue with Android version not saving chat to errors.log file.
- Fixed issue with users with renewed membership not being able to use the /report spybot command.
- Experimental performance enhancements to sectors, for conditions involving large battles or extreme NPC counts.

Vendetta 1.8.631.1
- Fixed isue with lua 'Error in error handling' error on Linux and Android platforms.

Vendetta 1.8.631
- Four new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Added a /selfdefensetime command to show the status of your self defense timers against other players within your radar range.
- Fixed issue with Self-Defense timers ending after 15 minutes from first attack instead of from last attack under certain conditions.
- Fixed issue with non-addons being displayed in the Addon Equip list while piloting a capship.
- Fixed issue with Turn and Strafe Left/Right analog gamepad commands becoming inverted when moved to the opposite analog stick.
- Fixed issue with SN30 Pro Bluetooth gamepad not setting up default values for the L2 and R2 buttons on Android.
- Prototype of new game-client Lua runtime environment with enhanced performance, now available on Android and Linux platforms.
- Server-side performance optimizations, relevant to large-scale battle conditions and high NPC counts.

Vendetta 1.8.630.1
- Fixed lua errors with various plugins.

Vendetta 1.8.630
- Eight new custom-made missions.
- HUD leadoff indicators now match the color of the weapon group each port is in when group coloring is enabled. If a port is in more than one group, the color of the first group it is in will be used.
- Fixed lua error when a group member destroys another ship.
- Fixed issue with plugin-generated commands doing the wrong thing after an interface reset. All commands created by plugins are now unregistered when the interface is reloaded. Plugins now have to re-register their commands.
- Fixed issue with ipairs and the # operator.
- Fixed lua error when attempting to display the Ship Buy-back menu.
- The Game.OpenWebBrowser() function now only accepts HTTP and HTTPS urls.

Vendetta 1.8.629
- Prototype of new game-client Lua runtime environment with enhanced performance, being tested first on Windows.

Vendetta 1.8.628
- Four new custom-made missions.
- Strikeforce will no longer attack their target after the TempKoS expires.
- Fixed rare issue with Strikeforce not properly leaving when they cannot find their target.
- Fixed issue with putting the player at the wrong location after taking control of their capship.
- Fixed issue with Keyboard/Mouse setting not being saved on Android devices that have both a touchscreen and gamepad connected.

Vendetta 1.8.627
- Testing of internal client architecture improvements and analytics, to aid next-generation game performance and stability.

Vendetta 1.8.626
- Four new custom-made missions.
- Repair weapons no longer reset the capship shield repair timer.
- When a player targeted with homing missiles docks to any capship to which they possess a key or own, the missiles will re-target to the capship.

Vendetta 1.8.625
- Four new custom-made missions.
- Changes to Strike Force AI, possibly mitigating usage of TempKoS to attack adversaries.
- PowerCell Blasters are now considered hostile weapons, and will trigger No Fire Zone responses and aggro NPCs.
- Added more specific absolute limits and alarms to NPC spawning, to mitigate "unforeseen" extreme runaway bug scenarios.

Vendetta 1.8.624
- Four new custom-made missions.
- Player-owned capships now have their faction standings immediately updated when the owner's faction standings change.
- Added warning and confirmation when attempting to edit the login password entry field so users don't accidentally change their one-click account password.
- Station access key selection menu is now requested to be opened a second time in the event the menu didn't open or was accidentally closed by a plugin the first time.
- Added code to attempt to repair corrupt ship presets.
- Fixed incorrect rendering of the ice refraction effect on Linux when dynamic lights are enabled.
- Fixed lua error when plugins attempt to auto-select ship presets in the Ship Buy-back menu.
- Fixed issue with not hitting storms when coming from certain directions.

Vendetta 1.8.623
- Four new custom-made missions.
- Fixed issue when a player's remote capship disappears after following a convoy NPC that goes away.
- Fixed lua error when the Faction Reset menu appears after the interface is reloaded.
- Fixed lua error when attempting to save gamepad settings but the gamepad had disconnected.

Some helpful visible updates and tweaks (including some requests from Suggestions), along with some really complex and significant developments "under the hood" in the game client, the benefits of which haven't become fully apparent yet.

These architectural changes will make a lot of the plans for next-generation gameplay more feasible; but to keep the game stable, each major change has to be rolled at one-at-a-time, on its own, well "in advance" of being used. That way we can quickly react to any unforeseen issues that didn't show up during internal testing.

Beyond this, there's also a new Pinned thread at the top of Suggestions giving some insight on the current "areas of development interest". Not a concrete plan or specific schedule, but some insight for those who are interested.

Similarly, there's a new Request For Comments thread on the Suggestions Forum, all about the "Future of Mining", discussing plans for a next-generation gameplay change for the process of prospecting and mining an updated, denser and more expanded galaxy.

That's all for now, have a great weekend everyone!

VO 1.8.622 included, this week:

- Seven new custom-made missions.
- Improved ability to dock a Behemoth into a Goliath.
- Added ability to link existing accounts to Google Sign-In on Android, provided the email address matches.
- Corrupted ship presets now report the error to the console and the server.

VO 1.8.621 included, last week:

- One new custom-made mission.
- Added 'shield' to the list of remote capship commands to report shield strength and status.
- Server-side bug fixes.

As always, on-going development is also moving forward on a number of other longer-term client and server projects, which will hopefully start emerging in the near future.

In the meantime, if you run into any bugs or issues, please post about them on the Bugs Forum. Thanks much, and Happy Holidays everyone!

A recap of tonight's release, and the last couple of months..

VO 1.8.620 includes (tonight)
- Five new custom-made missions.
- Capship owners are now notified when their remote capship's shields come back up.
- Fixed a recent bug with capship storage limits: the player's active ship and passenger ships are now correctly counted as cargo
- Added Google Sign-In support to create new accounts on the Android version. Requires Play Store App Update.
- Vote Mute suspension notifications have been changed to chat abuse reporting suspension.
- Reduced the number of CSR pre-race announcements.

VO 1.8.619 included:
- Three new custom-made missions.
- Added Auto Aim angle stat to blaster-type weapon descriptions. The angle is measured from the forward firing direction.
- Code-signing signature has been updated for Windows.

VO 1.8.618 included:
- Four new custom-made missions.
- Fixed issue with remote capship unable to mine after the owner launches after docking.
- Fixed issue with Capship Cargo list not updating when the capship is mining.

VO 1.8.617 included:
- Four new custom-made missions.
- Fixed issue with connected addons being counted as part of the capship cargo in fighter Load/Unload menu.
- Fixed issue with the currently selected ship being reset to the capship when moving cargo between a fighter and capship while piloting the capship.
- Fixed issue with addon ports disappearing when equipping or unequipping addons.

VO 1.8.616 included:
- Six new custom-made missions.
- Capship owners can now change their fighters' loadouts/cargo while still piloting their capship. Choose which ship in the 'Ship' -> "Manage" -> "Configure Ship" menu.

Some really significant updates, major improvements for capship owners, twenty-two new missions, a lot of fixes, and a ton of invisible "background" development on the server. Stay tuned for further improvements in the works!

VO 1.8.615 includes:
- Two new custom-made missions.
- Added ability to equip/unequip addons and load/unload cargo for players who are docked to their own capship and there is enough available cargo space.
- Player's remote capship location and health are now displayed directly on the HUD. The option to toggle it off is in Options -> Advanced -> Interface -> Hud Settings and is called "Show Remote Capship Info".
- Fixed server-side synchronization issue with player inventory.

There is a temporary requirement that you must un-dock and re-dock with a given fighter to be able to equip items to it within the capship.

VO 1.8.614 includes (tonight):
- Four new custom missions available in different Major Nation stations.
- Added an option in the Ship Buyback menu to prefer addons already in local storage, rather than buying them. If the addon is not in storage, it will be purchased.
- Added a 60 second tractor-beam cooldown for crates that you jettison. This means, for 60 seconds after a given crate is jettisoned from your ship, it will not be picked up by your ship's tractor-beam.
- Implemented an all-new channel 100 Discord relay, from scratch, which is now operated and maintained directly by the developers. Please report any issues on Bugs.

VO 1.8.613 included (last week):
- Four new custom missions, available in various trees.
- Fixed two additional client-side Lua bugs.
- Fixed Android crash on startup.
- Fixed issue with player-owned capships getting stuck in secondary sector instances.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

VO 1.8.612 includes:

- Three new custom missions, available in various trees.
- Fixed rare issues with NPCs getting stuck traversing sectors.
- Fixed several client-side Lua bugs.
- Server maintenance and update, further improved server performance and scalability.
- Improvements to server-side analytics, measurement of database performance.

Much of the major maintenance updates have been performed, a few will be held over until next week. We've continued to expand on the scalability of the game server, as evidenced by some of the large-battle testing from Friday night.

Please keep an eye out for any bugs, and quickly bring them to our attention on the Bugs forum. Have a great weekend!

VO 1.8.611 includes (08/26)
- Six new custom-made missions, available in various trees.
- Further improvements to the memory usage and stability of long-runtime sectors.
- Fixed issue with Keyboard/Joystick setting not being saved on Android when a gamepad is connected.
- Fixed issue with NPC capship turrets not being able to be destroyed.
- Android Play Store IAP prices for non-US currencies have been updated to the current exchange rate.
- NPC capships no longer jump out when their energy is too low.
- Fixed rare issue with AI paths going through objects.

VO 1.8.610 (08/12)
- Four new custom missions, structured in various trees.
- Improved memory utilization of core game server, beneficial to long-runtime stability.
- Fixed Android client crash, when app was backgrounded, due to render thread issue.
- Fixed Android client crash, when app was backgrounded, due to UI activation issue.

We're wrapping up a lot of crucial scalability and bug-fix work, which has occupied much of the summer, but should make the game much more robust. Next week will likely include some server maintenance, and some further scalability introductions to handle more drastic battles, events and other incursions. After that, we expect to get back to the feature development.

Please continue to keep us informed about any bugs you see appearing, via the Bugs forum. Have a great weekend, everyone.

VO 1.8.609 includes (tonight)
- Twelve new custom-made missions, available in varied trees.
- Major improvements to the sector startup process, which also help common sector-to-sector jump performance, but most importantly mitigate a scalability issue if the sector is under extreme CPU load (huge NPC count, etc).
- Additional server-side debugging and monitoring added, to further track down a few persistent issues and further enhance server stability.
- Fixed rare server-side issue that sporadically caused NPC navigational AI to not function properly, in certain sectors, for limited times.
- Fixed server-side memory allocation problem under higher load conditions (testing with 600 clients per sector).
- Migrated all server components to use jemalloc, updated server-side LuaJIT and other mechanisms.
- Fixed rare client Lua error when getting remote character information as a player is leaving a sector.
- Fixed some other unusual and rare client-side Lua error cases.

VO 1.8.608 included (July 18th):
- Twelve new custom-made missions.
- New server-side optimizations for players with extremely large and complex inventories.
- Fixed certain cases where resulting items could be "lost" from manufacturing missions.
- Fixed problem with some client CAPTCHAs appearing upside-down.