Obonto releases new long-resolution radar
A new long-range microwave radar from Obonto Microengineering, released earlier this week, is already reshaping salvage operations. Its high resolution, strong ice penetration, and Doppler capability let crews spend less time second-guessing marginal contacts, while the narrow scan cone greatly improves angular resolution at distance. That same narrow focus has drawn criticism for poor wide-area awareness. Although the LRPR was designed for ring prospecting, it has quickly found a place in salvage work, where confidently spotting disabled ships in ring thicket often matters more than a broad view.
Rushed Triskelion-Armstrong firmware
Following the unexpectedly rapid adoption of Obonto’s new LRPR in salvage operations, Triskellion-Armstrong has rushed out a feature-packed firmware update for its AR-1500M manipulators. In what many crews describe as a reactive release, the salvage industry titan added several options better suited to mining work, including new sensor integration for quick target discrimination using albedo readings alone and power-supply tuning that can make the manipulator both more capable in recovery, but also better suited for extended mining runs or low-mass target handling. Critics say the update shows signs of poor field validation, warning that aggressive high-power settings can dramatically increase wear and trigger unstable arm behavior or sudden ship jolts during demanding catches.
Minding Subscription Controversy
Minding LF’s new premium simulation subscription, which adds higher-resolution output and a simulated ring scenario, has sparked immediate community outrage, with critics accusing the company of stripping features from the free release only to sell them back in a paid tier. The backlash centers on the belief that essential training and planning tools are being deliberately limited, while defenders argue the subscription funds more advanced simulation infrastructure rather than replacing existing functionality.
Maintenance Logs
- Obonto Microengineering just released a high resolution Obonto LRPR prospecting microwave radar.
- Minding LF released a premium simulation service subscription, featuring higher resolution and a simulated ring scenario.
- You can now tune the power supply of the Triskellion-Armstrong AR-1500M series salvage manipulator, making it better suited for either prolonged dives or high-power recovery.
- New albedo filter for mineral target control will allow your system to roughly distinguish between raw ore and iceroids before geologist identification.
- New leitmotif-class soundtrack.
- You can now politely react to people telling you that you are in range of their claim beacon, even if they are lying.
- Two additional derelict recovery complications make recovery operations more interesting.
- Added a clock to your OMS screen.
- Voice acting for the intro.
- Adjusted ARM catching heuristics to prevent it from overextending and trying to reach for the things outside its range. It will now move with a very precise speed to match the incoming objects exactly and grab them just as they enter its maximum reach distance.
- Pressing the designated “accept” button on a slider will now return you to the parent control, making setting up filters more convenient on the gamepad and keyboard.
- Increased frequency of certain in-ring events.
- Added tooltip hints for the slider-based geologist filters.
- Inhabitants of the Obonto Habitats filed multiple complains about sky panels being set too bright for their comfort. While increased light output improved vegetation growth, luxurious ring-based habitats derive most of their profit from apartment renting, so the company implemented system-wide brightness adjustments. Independent pilots report that this change also reduced glare outside the habitat, which often blinded ship cameras.
- Maintenance drones manual now explicitly mentions that they will fix other ships when they are designated as friendly.
- Some braces in the Hive appearing to slide under ARM of your ship, if you entered it with one.
- The manipulator wear will not depend on your framerate anymore.
- Fixed tethering distance on the AR-1500M. Your salvage manipulator will now only grab things it can actually reach.
- Fixed focus movement on the geologist filter interface for gamepad and keyboard.
- Lidar simulation display on the Equipment screen will not obscure the description anymore.
- Fixed fonts on the gamepad settings screen.
- Racing did not want to contact you about 20% of the time they lost a race. They will be more open to rematches now.
- Installing a massdriver with an internal storage compartment will not slow down your general ammunition delivery to 100kg/s anymore. This required a very specific build to come into play.
- The Enceladus station is now better suited to host bigger and unusually equipped ships, like K44 with rear impact absorbers. The docks were moved lower and the structure up, so any outstanding protrusions won’t collide with the station anymore. This should also make it better suited to host modded ships.
- Eagle Prospectors and AT-K225 used generic alarm siren instead of ship-specific ones.
- Fixed line-of-sight leak in Atelier.
- Engine and thruster naming scheme is more consistent now. Previously, some thruster or engine models were not having “engine” or “thruster” suffix on equipment list, while other did.
- Fixed inconsistent spelling of certain hardpoints.
- Fixed a number of typos and spelling mistakes.
- Updated translations.