VO 1.8.136 includes:

- New Manufacturing Mission for the Neutron MkIII Turret
- New Manufacturing Mission for the Aeolus Light Repair Turret
- New Manufacturing Mission for the FireCracker Turret

Each manufacturing mission is located in a specific Conquerable Station (one per station). Each mission may be taken twice in a 24 hour period by any given user (to prevent trivial mass-production). The Neutron MkIII and Aeolus Repair Turret are pretty self-explanatory. The FireCracker Turret is something new.. a very high-speed, high-maneuverability missile with significant force impact and very little damage. Basically a guided "flak" round, which can provide a significant distraction to an inbound attacker, and knock them off course, but not do much damage. The weapon has a six-round capacity, for now. Like everything in the game, it is open to tweaking and balancing should any issues surface.

Next week I plan to do some re-working of bots on the development side, laying out the organization for some of the planned "Universe Redux". In the short term, I intend for there to be a great deal more diversity in bot drops, which will then play a big part in upcoming manufacturing missions at Conquerable Stations, and hopefully leading to a Playable Trident sometime in the not-too-distant future. We'll see how that all goes, but the bot cleanup on the development side is sorely needed, so I can get a better handle on where we are and how to take us where we need to go. I'm also looking for a lot more diversity in bot types, so when we start rolling out Nation Patrols and things, you may see "Veteran" or "Ace" class NPCs along with regular ones, and the like. That's aside from a wider selection of Hive, and hopefully some specialized types that crop up in certain locations at certain times, with very interesting and unique drops.

It should all make for some pretty cool stuff that I can (hopefully) do in a short period of time. I'm looking forward to it, and I hope everyone else does as well. Take care.