Recent Server-Side Updates:
- Further improvements in game synchronization and timing stability.
- Enhanced monitoring of network related issues.

VO 1.8.691 included:
- Added options to enable Auto-Repair and Auto-Reload on docking with stations or capships, with options for only capships. The options are located in Options -> Advanced -> Interface "Auto-repair on docking" and "Auto-reload on docking". The options are disabled by default.
- Added analytics to help improve network performance and timing synchronization.
- Added other analytics to further flag help monitor data processing and throughput capacity across multiple threads.
- Adjusted how timing is processed by the phase locked loop, server-side on the sector, to improve accuracy.

VO 1.8.690 included:
- Network changes to further improve compatibility and stability for players.
- Experimental improvements to networking within the server processes.
- Game client is now more reactive to player synchronization problems.
- Additional analytics to monitor specific network synchronization issues.

A lot of recent development has been "player-invisible", so you'll have to take our word for it that it's been quite helpful to the game. We've uncovered and addressed a lot of "transient" issues that only impact certain players under certain circumstances, or combinations of conditions. These are difficult problems to solve, they require a lot of examination to figure out what is happening, and then careful algorithm design to be adaptive to changing conditions (like, say, player packet-loss or service-provider challenges).

All of this makes the game work better for everyone, and also makes server-side validation systems more accurate.

The issues we found were unexpected (less of "problems with VO" and more like "problems with modern networks"), and delayed our plans, but the game impact has definitely been worth the development effort. We expect to get back to more visible game changes after this is wrapped up.