I've seen red circles with stations - but never with ships, I don't think?
I'll make certain to pay more attention to it all on my next dives; might just be information overload and me discarding stuff I don't know the meaning of. (And might be worth making such things more explicit when hiring crew?)

It comes up when signing up for an account.

Hello koderski and Adrian__W!

I just want to take the release of the game version 0.394.4 as an opportunity to express my gratitude for your diligence in both continuously improving your game and at the same time supporting your customers here at GOG.com!

It is highly commendable that you keep releasing your updates on GOG.com, as well in a timely manner and always publishing the corresponding detailed changelogs to this subforum!
(The thematic 'touch' on your changelogs is refreshing.)

Furthermore, I am pleased to observe how you incorporate the feedback of your customers as expressed by others and me in this very thread!

Thank you for this great experience both with your game "dV: Rings of Saturn" and with its in development process!

Kind regards,
foxgog

Some minor feedback:
I found the new tutorial to be a great improvement. All the "handwritten" notes on what everything means are a bit overwhelming (I even focused on them at the cost of paying attention to the incoming dialogue), but also very to the point. I also had the impression that the distinction between autopilot movement and manual movement was made much clearer now?

The geologist screen still felt a bit not-quite-fully-realized to me. Particularly before you've mined anything. I was uncertain if the mineral names at the top were "buttons" / "filters"? Their brightness seemed to vary when I clicked on them, but nothing happened?! And how could I give any input for the "minimum (value)" I was interested in?
Also, after mining, with lots of minerals floating around, I was kinda expecting the ability to click on a mineral there in order to "lock on". (I'm kinda assuming the screen is much more useful when you go all in on drones?)

On the layout of the mineral market: I right now have 74% price prediction accuracy, which means I get a very thin line for the immediate future. With the cost of Beryllium extending quite far left - particularly when no "1" is present in the price - it can sometimes obscure the movement of that line for an area where I want to see.

The price of minerals starting where the future price fades out works looks really good when starting with a new ship, but it might be worth moving the "current" pricepoint a bit further left for experienced crew, rather than moving the fadeout right? (I.e. instead of keeping the present in a fixed location, keep the fadeout on the right in a fixed location, and move the present as needed?)
(Could also be that just the smaller font-size from the latest update I just spotted might already help enough? *g*)

Here's my latest batch of feedback (playing 0.395.8):
* The fast-forward button is greyed out / unresponsive (I'm assuming a bug?), so I can't make effective use of my market prediction to wait a couple of days and make money that way. :(
* Really happy with the layout changes to the mineral market, as all minerals now fit on screen without scrolling for me (1050px high screen).
* Still no further progress on any of my crew's quests. I think the random function might be improved by weighting quest-related outcomes a bit more highly?
* A couple of days ago I encountered a free-floating anomaly which I first thought was a Beryllium fragment, but turned out to be an anomaly which started to fry my computer. No idea what to do with it. Grabbing it in an attempt to transport it back to Enceladus obviously did not work. Since then I've been seeing the same thing "on" hostile ships with the "Is that a civilian transponder?" dialogue, but still no clue on how to proceed. I'm wondering if I should acquire myself the EM-shielded ship as well and can then do something; wishing once again for the game to offer just a bit more of a clue. I'm assuming that these anomalies can't actually be pursued on their own (yet?) and that the EM-shielded ship wouldn't make a difference, but yeah, feeling like I'm flailing about a bit here.
* Looking at other people I could hire, I saw one which had the same portrait as a person already on my crew. That broke immersion quite strongly.
* I've been saving up for the E$ 9M Elon ship. Reached E$ 7.2M - and then encountered a derelict of that type! Could've traded it in for E$ 2.3M, but of course opted to repair it and then spend my funds on upgrading it to the max. Woooaaaw - that's gonna take some getting used to, particularly the HUD. I think I might downgrade that along with the autopilot, and maybe the super weapon, which clearly has more power than I can handle.
* At least the new Geologist screen makes sense now that I have haul drones! Maybe a message in there when you don't have drones?
* Not certain what to do with the fifth crew slot; adding a second (newbie) astrogator didn't seem to increase my stats at all, but maybe when she's gained some experience?
* There were a couple of people whose "hire" button was greyed out, which was confusing. I'm kinda assuming that's due to them being assigned quests which I'm already pursuing with my current crew - but I didn't notice a similar effect when hiring my 4th crew member.
* My game crashed after ~10 minutes of trying to get the hang of the Elon ship. Final output of dv_log_1.txt (for the time of the crash) is:
=====
[0.395.8]: [2021/10/02 19:07:40]: Drone target switched to [RigidBody2D:3985091]
[0.395.8]: [2021/10/02 19:07:45]: Expired mineral marker target [RigidBody2D:3946268]
[0.395.8]: [2021/10/02 19:07:46]: Shuffling story playlist
[0.395.8]: [2021/10/02 19:07:46]: Returning VilcyDisabler as 1
[0.395.8]: [2021/10/02 19:07:46]: Returning new transponder ETH-2643 for hash 986571929
[0.395.8]: [2021/10/02 19:07:46]: Nearby event: VilcyDisabler
[0.395.8]: [2021/10/02 19:07:46]: oddity confirmed (somehow)
[0.395.8]: [2021/10/02 19:07:46]: Preparing ship TRTL
=====
Let me know if you want the full logs or a zipfile of everything?

Okay, email with the zipfile sent. :)

First of all, thanks for offering me the game through finkleroy and the GOG community giveaway thread.

(v. 0.395.8)

The game could have some explanation about the general functioning of the ships.
After some time looking in the upgrades section, I understand that the ship has some kind of internal power plant that provides electricity to all the systems, and you need to upgrade it when the output is insufficient for all the components you want to install. But the generic newbie player won't understand that and might give up quick.
In the same way, there is also some kind of thermal limit on the ships, but I'm not sure I have figured out how it works. It seems each ship has itw own limit and there is nothing you can do about it except select components that won't produce too much heat.
Having a description of each upgrade section in addition to each separate upgrade would help better understand the ship's capabilities.

Regarding the controls, I am wondering if it could be improved (assuming I understood correctly).
Ideally, as the game is currently, the player should have 3 hands : one on the zqsd keys to control the ship, one on the mouse to select the targets for aiming through autopilot, and one the arrows keys to close on the target or brake, and maneuver.
But since I only have 2 hands, that makes it mandatory to regularly switch hands between the arrow keys and the mouse.
Maybe it could be made without the need to switch ? Or did I get it wrong ?

I installed a mechanic arm to my ship to grab the minerals and store them more easily. But the arm is handled automatically, and sometimes it chooses the wrong thing to grab. For example, sometimes, there are minerals right next to the ship, but it chooses a small asteroid instead. Worst, when the wrong object is grabbed, there is no way to let it go and choose another one instead.
This resulted in a dramatic ending minutes ago in my last game, when it grabbed another ship (which I didn't want), and there was no way to let it go. My ship was full and very heavy, so I couldn't make a harsh movement to disconnect. So I fired on the ship, I destroyed it, and... well... let's just say that it didn't exactly go as planned.

I don't know if it's working as intended, but when my ship is nearly full, I can't store anything more in it, despite the HUD saying there is still 30 m^3 left in it. Maybe it is because of the empty space between all the mineral pieces glued together ?

On the technical aspect, the game is quite demanding. My graphics card is old, but it shouldn't have so much trouble for displaying a game that doesn't have so many polygons in it. There are lots of 3D games that run better on it. For example, the game is more demanding than Far Cry 2. While this is mostly space (i.e. empty).

One last thing, but not that important : the game crashes whenever I quit it. I'm still on Windows 7, I don't know if it's related or not.

I'm curious to try other pieces of equipment / ships, but it takes a long time to gather enough money for it. Many people won't have that patience.

EDIT : I forgot one other thing about the mechanical arm : when the ship is rotating, delivering minerals with the arm fails systematically because it misses the ship's mouth a bit like this (<----- click on the link here for the correct timestamp, don't click on the video below), which is... a bit lame. :)

That's it for now.

Thanks for pointing out the mouse autopilot controls. They weren't explained in the controls screen.

More feedback.

Regarding the mechanical arm : is it possible to switch targets ? Thank you for pointing out that it is possible to desactivate it, but sometimes it just targets the wrong chunk.

Regarding the improved cargo hold (Rusatom-Antonoff & Nakamura) : sometimes, it refuels the ship, and sometimes it longer does that, the propergol container depletes itself normally despite the cargo hold melting lots of minerals.
Treated minerals are contained outside of the cargo hold, with a limit that is unclear. On some flights it seems to be 7 t, while on some other it is 15 t, and other times it seems to be 22 t. Maybe it depends on the minerals and on the presence of a separate external container.
Once the treated mineral limit is reached, the cargo hold continues to melt the minerals, but since there is no room left, it is lost. Couldn't it be contained in the cargo hold itself rather than disappear ? It is possible to disable the melting process in the journal screen, but since treated minerals are worth more, it would be better to continue the melting process.

Regarding the destination selection when leaving Encelade 1 : I tried selecting a deeper destination where there should be more interesting mineral deposits, but I didn't find much difference, while it is quite expensive to go there. In the end, I find it more beneficical to remain at the outer limit of the rings.

Regarding transport drones : there seems to be 2 kind, one that simply immobilizes the minerals, and one that drags them toward the ship. But when there are lots of minerals around, the drones constantly switch targets by themselves, which makes the process tedious and inefficient. And sometimes I even noticed that the drones briefly repulsed their target.

Regarding the microwave point defense generator (not sure if it's called like that in english, I'm playing the game in french) : it automatically targets rocks by itself, but I noticed that it totally ignores some asteroids and I don't understand why. Any rock that comes within a certain range gets a chance to be targeted, but some are totally ignored.

Regarding the Cothon-212 ship : Overall I find it a downgrade compared to the K37 TNTRL. The ship is much heavier, slower to turn and accelerate, especially when full where it becomes totally unresponsive, even with the best propellers. Having a little speed is already plain suicide with it. Besides, as it cannot have the mechanical arm, grabing the minerals is a pain in the ass. Transport drones are a must with the ship as it makes life much easier. On top of that, tt has one less crew member. The only good side is the size of the cargo hold, but filling it is very tedious. I haven't tried other ships yet, but they aren't cheap.

Regarding the mining companion : Does it just attack the rocks or does it also store the minerals in it ? If it doesn't collect, it is just an assist for fragmenting the rocks ? It seems that it follows the ship around, allowing the player to retieve it easily. But what if the player gets a bit far, and no longer sees it on the lidar screen. Is there a way to locate it in order to retrieve it ?

Regarding the autopilot : When selecting a target behnd the ship, it will rotate in order to face it. When the ship is empty, it is not much of an issue, but when it is full, the autopilot will overturn, then turn backwards too far back, then turn again and so on. The ship will oscillate around the wanted direction and take time to stabilize it. Couldn't the autopilot better handle that by taking the weight of the ship with the cargo into consideration ? I have been up to the militray autopilot, and that didn't change.

That's all for now.

Could this simply be due to you heading deeper into the rings, with the necessary reserve for returning growning as fast as you produce new propellant?

Are you flying with different ships? Different ship types have different capacity (which I think is one of the main ways in which they differentiate), and yes, the purpose of the external container is to increase this capacity (and then send it home when full to reduce your mass (and increase your delta v) and be able to go on a bit longer still filling up your hold.)

I found the geologist screen to be a huge benefit for making haul drones useful; apply a minimum value filter so there's fewer targets, and let them do their thing. Their behaviour might be counter-intuitive at first, but I've found that when they repulse ore, it's always because it was otherwise on a trajectory where it wouldn't have entered the hold, so they send it away to get it back at a more beneficial angle (just hold your course and speed steady, since they can't usefully anticipate you). Of course, when they're overwhelmed with too many targets, they don't behave so well, but that, I think, is completely intended.

It might depend on the HUD, but with the K37 TNTRL that I like the value flashes when you hit the maximum. That value is per type of mineral but the same number for all of them and is listed as "processed cargo storage" under the Dealer. One thing I wanted to mention is that it is frustrating that there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get the dealer-style listing for the current ship. So I'm not sure how to see the value for the current ship other than to see when it flashes or look for another ship that looks like yours in the dealer and see the value there.

I also wanted to mention that it is a bit confusing at first that a ship returned with the salvage arm just appears in the dealer without any note when you first get back to the station (I'm not sure if I just missed it before but in 0.411.0 I see there is a message when you start heading back to the station, although it doesn't mention the dealer).

There is a release note on 0.411.0 about drones not switching targets as often now. I'm not using them so I can't comment on how it works. Another related thing I wanted to mention is that it is frustrating when someone asks you for ore and then ends up leaving it beind. Having other ships juggle so much ore without ever picking it up is rather distracting, although possibly that is the point?

Another thing I noticed is that often the first thing that you do when arriving is to turn around and slow down automatically, and I then usually speed up again. I suggest an option (default off) to maintain some speed when arriving (maybe on the Tuning page). I'm not sure if there is a better way to indicate it but I just recently noticed after I've played maybe 20 hours that there is help available for each tuning option if you click on the slider. It really confused me before noticing that what most of the values do, now they only slightly confuse me :).

Also, when a crew member is unhappy they get an icon at the station but it is a bit confusing that there doesn't seem to be anything you could do about it at the station (other than fire them and hire someone else); even if it seems like they are due for a pay raise it doesn't seem possible to give them one until they ask.

Another oddity is that the in the tuning or upgrades pages the reactor seems to start up well above the set temperature and then slowly reduce until it hits the intended temperature. This makes it hard to see the impact of a new set temperature or upgrade.

I also didn't find the Cothon-212 or Eagle Prospector to be better ships than the K37 TNTRL, although I guess they may just have a very specialized purpose that I don't need. I'm still saving for the Model E.

I changed the keys a bit that others might find helpful (I forget the defaults): autopilot on w, q, e, s for down, and x for stop and with both a/d and left/right for manual left/right movement, with shift and end for manual change direction (on my keyboard they are on either side of the up arrow) and up/down for manual forward/back. (It took me a while to learn to right click to disengage autopilot). Then I add c to open cargo, v to the j key whatever that screen is called (it would be helpful if there were text descriptions of the controls available as well since it is hard to tell just from icons, even if only in the set key window). Then z and control for full speed (IIRC what that one does, I never actually use it) and r and alt for the heart icon (that I also rarely use, slowdown I think?). Since I have a right handed mouse this allows me to do everything I normally use without moving my left hand much, since after disengaging autopilot the autopilot controls work for manual movement (at least with a fly by wire system installed, I don't remember if that works otherwise; I haven't used the manual controls for a while).

I also mostly mine in the outer part of the rings and seem to be able to fill up quickly (I haven't used the extra cargo containters much since I'm not a great pilot and always run into stuff with them :/).

I think it was the old BBS tradewars game that had a similar station but also two other things you could do: use the restroom to see the graffiti (I guess that mostly makes sense in a multiplayer game) and a bar where you could hear rumors. While I can see the benefit of mostly keeping the focus on the rings, something to give the station a bit more character would be nice IMO (as a low priority thing sometime before release). Maybe for a fee you can get an extra nice bed and have strange dreams or something like that :).

My one other request at the moment is to eventually have a flac version of the soundtrack (at least as an extra, not necessarily in the DLC installer).

No, that happened near the outer region of the rings. Sometimes it just doesn't seem to work.

I tried the K37 and the Cothon. I'm not sure but I think I had different values with the K37. I'll have to try again.

I didn't understand what that screen was for. Thanks, I'll see how it works.

Hi Adrian__W,

Not a bug but I just downloaded all the offline installers for windows (main vgame, Free DLC, the 4 zip for extras) and scanned them with VirusTotal.
The 4 zip files (the extras) were reported completely clean,
while the Jiangmin scanner reports Trojan.Generic.gwsvd on the main & DLC files

Due to GOG restricting users with negative rep to post URLs,
I cannot provide you the VirusTotal URLS. You will need to re-construct them using this formula:
W(3times) DOT virustotal DOT com + SPECIFICPORTION
In case of trouble re-constructing them,
take a look to the attached screenshot 2FreeDLC.png for a visual guide (it has part of the URL visible).
In the worst case scenario, you will need to run the VirusTotal scanns by your own:
VirusTotal already has those SHA-512 file hashes results thanks to my scans, therefore you will get the same results

Thanks in advance !

The 2 exe file details:

Filename : setup_v_rings_of_saturn_0.416.9_(64bit)_(51366).exe
MD5 : 046D4854D626478B747C53C1B9609747
SHA1 : 1A7EC8234AAA1204230AAECA6874C87F6BF344F9
CRC32 : A9E67771
SHA-256 : 9A709035B363B9D3232388D9628E542EB72E9F7BBFDA50D1F133E9571A676AC2
SHA-512 : 0284CD5038660F1C68109AD0847D3173C4277982C0D8B50DD52EF2488CC08696D3C63EF0C9B5D13FC93D2637ABC3E61BE974869EEDDB0C 4F568B9FD9A72789D0
File Size : 322,958,944

SPECIFICPORTION:
/gui/file/9a709035b363b9d3232388d9628e542eb72e9f7bbfda50d1f133e9571a676ac2

Filename : setup_v_rings_of_saturn_-_tales_from_the_rings_0.416.9_(64bit)_(51366).exe
MD5 : 1D50A447058E6764E150BD4A8D5B3F7F
SHA1 : CDA320B4C77C8B78E75191084C86D2DE44E096A1
CRC32 : 4FD8169C
SHA-256 : B78363E7ACA9D190746E7BADC53C4CEAB73010F021CFE7A06BA82BB3511A140D
SHA-512 : 6CE742CFCF3991273CFCF3DD7BA7FA4655E8554201A1EE1BE8A77872623EB35C352469F4B3C80D8545166E074FCCAA6743D6888C7F672C 300991B5E57738F055
File Size : 47,550,600

SPECIFICPORTION:
/gui/file/b78363e7aca9d190746e7badc53c4ceab73010f021cfe7a06ba82bb3511a140d

Sorry, I forgot to include the screenshots