About what Raph said, maybe there could be a sol repository of information about stars.

Explorers would gather infomation about systems
. how many planets?
. How big are they?
. What is the quality of the deposits?
. Note, I wouldn't give information about who is in orbit to sol.  This'd give pirates way too much information with no effort :p

With wormholes and black holes there could be similar information about what is there; whether there are aliens, or a portal to a new system.

Captains can report this back to SOL for a reward, and players can either view this vague information, or perhaps make it a paid system, where sol will give you tips about a good mining colony if you give them some solars.

Thanks Emi.  That makes a lot more sense.

I wasn't sure I wanted to pick up the pledge I made just yet, but I obviously didn't want to lose it and have to pay more

All reports say it looks like a great update, keep up the good work emi

I think that'd definitely be worthwhile.  It'd also allow you to upgrade modules in your manufacturing bay, and then cannabilise your old modules into a single higher mark module.  It also makes sense from a narrative standpoint; I can just imagine my mad scientist engineer pointing at the guts of my old WHG and saying Eureka! before ripping it apart to combine it with another engine.

Emi, just to clarify

I've got 7 days to pick up my pledge modules, and if I don't I'll have to pay extra to get them?

And does flyby mean that when one ship has finished firing weapons, the other just fires all of its weapons with no retaliation, before boarding occurs?  The term had me a little bit confused.

Thanks for the update emi, and looking forward to the next ones!

I guess the problem would be that you only need to get a high level of reverse engineering; you could ignore all the other science trees.  Combine 2 mkL engines into a mkC, then combine those two engines into a mkCC.  Do this again and again.  All you'd need is the reverse engineering, you wouldn't have to research the rest of the tree.

That's a huge benefit for VIP as well.  That'd be a great development emi!

This should be awesome!

Thanks Emi 

I remember having a little trouble with this.  Give it another go tomorrow if it doesn't work. 
If that doesn't fix it, I'd probably just send a message out to siremi.  He's usually pretty good at dealing with any problems like that.

Hey mabus

I'm pretty new in the game too, after a long spell of being inactive.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

I guess just to make sure new players have smooth progression into the game, it would be kind of useful.  I'm currently doing interstellar runs, because they're easy and a sure profit, but the jump to doing SOS or COM is a bit intimidating when the jumps take so long, and I have no guarantee of being able to pull off a profit.

I'll get there soon when I upgrade some ships, but in the mean time it feels a bit limiting to not be able to go after the SOS misisons with any confidence.

Anyway, its just a suggestion

for Raph/matamure: maybe this could only work for the inner rings
Story wise, this could be explained by ships in the outer rings not having the communications equipment to send a message all the way back to sol, just a distress beacon.  This would allow newer captains who don't have the large cargo bays, to get their specific load outs, without interfering with the outer (high profit) rings, where captains can afford to carry some of each resource, or not take on some missions

for Sargas: We could make a commitment to each mission
This works well in tandem with limiting the information to the inner rings.  These SOS signals would be governed by some sort of code, like SOS calls in the ocean today.  If you pick up a signal and talk to the captain, you have an obligation to go out to them.  SOL could fine you for each time you fail to complete a signal.  That way, you have to take the mission, whether valuable or not.  This means people who identify their SOS signal must complete them and can't just pick the best ones, but doesn't effect people who are cruising from signal to signal in the outer rings.

I saw a request A while ago which revolved around SOS and COM missions, thought I'd bring it up again

It'd be really nice if we could see what an SOS mission required in terms of supplies, before we went after it.

especially for players who are just starting, it is quite difficult to carry enough material to be ready for all mission types.  Plus, just in terms of the story side of things, I don't think someone who could send an SOS signal, wouldn't also say, I NEED MEDICINE.  It must suck for them as well to have people drop by and then not have what they need.

Anyway, this'd be really nice to see Emi. 

I've fired up the old account for the first time in about a year, but I figure I'm pretty keen on getting out of sol and really getting into the more interesting parts of the game.

I'm thinking about finally getting out of sol, what tips do you guys have for SOS (or COM) missions?

I'm really wondering if my cargo bays are big enough to make it economical, and how much, of what, I should carry around with me on my SOS ship.

Thanks for the advice.

Just wanted to stick up for the dev team.  I've seen a lot of stuff complaining about the speed of updates on the boards, but when I had a problem in game, SirEmi helped me out and fixed it up in a couple days, politely and without complaint.

That is something that really makes a difference, and makes me a lot more likely to stick with the game through its growing pains.  Thanks man, and keep it up!