This release promises to bring some real depth and scope for exploration. Not to mention all the other goodness that’s packed inside (see here and here)

And for (what looks like) an exhaustive list of changes from Beta 1, check out this forum post.

My top picks from that list (based purely on my own assumptions of meaning and effect) are;

• Loans added for insurance
• System economy/meta data dynamically generated for the non-authored systems
• Tweak of the system connections to differentiate the independent jumps from those that depend on your current cargo mass
• Improved the calculations for the atmospheres and the geological activity of planets
• Geological activity is now broken down into several aspects(plate tectonics, volcanism, mountain forming and magnetic field), these values are Earth relative
• Atmospheres now have a composition included and will calculate the surface temperature of planets based on the greenhouse effect of a particular atmosphere
• Improved thread use for packet receives on server
• Fix for landing pads not rendering until you are in the station, they now start rendering if you are inside or within the entrance limits
• AI update. make it harder to flee. improve ai goto target tactic
• Updated fuel gauge to show anticipated fuel use for a hyperspace destination before jumping
• Added arrow to Coriolis schematic to indicate docking port location
• Allow GalaxyOctree to spread generation across multiple frames rather than forcing all work to complete in a single frame, to remove the big stall encountered on loading into a location
• Added audio events for radar contacts increased, hostile contacts increase, fuzzy contacts decrease and contacts with hardpoints deployed increase
• Give the cockpit GUI the ability to do different things with cargo units that are not owned by the player but are carried with permission. Crime scanners should not report cargo as stolen if it is not owned by the player but is carried with permission
• Point defence hardpoints now cannot commit crimes
• Update available jump destinations when the ship mass changes (e.g. jettisoning cargo)
• Carried cargo can now be identified as stolen,couriered or marked
• Allow for voice comms with friends outside of a session

These are just a few of a very very long list of tweaks, additions and fixes that should make beta 2 even more awesome than beta 1 was.

I’m very pleased to see that loans for insurance have been introduced. I found more than once that making a risky run without sufficient credits in reserve was horribly punitive if it didn’t quite work out. This was especially true during earlier trading expeditions but became less so as credits were amassed.

So now, I can’t wait to have some time to get my hands on the controls again and have a good rummage around in this build.

Happy Beta 2 Day everyone!