- Well, development has slowed up of late since we all grew up and got jobs, but it didn't stop completely thanks largely to the efforts of Serriað and Gareth. Version 2.6 is one of the biggest sets of changes since the Cryosphere was first released! Many of the changes are behind-the-scenes, but there's plenty of stuff for players to appreciate too. Many bugs have been squashed, mobiles respond to more things, many places have been decorated and expanded.
- All of our missions have had their points values rebalanced (rewards have mostly gone up) and the mission points requirements for ranks Warrant Officer 1st Class and above have changed. This may affect your rank slightly, but most people will remain at the same level. We hope the new award levels better reflect the difficulty (or ease!) of completing our missions. We now also give you some idea of the complexity, extent and danger associated with a mission in its minfo page. Explanations of the difficulty ratings can be found in info difficulty.
- The Medical mission has been given a little bit of an overhaul, and is now worth 3 mission points. If you've already done the mission, you'll be credited with the extra point (which may mean a promotion!) and no-one will have to redo the mission unless they really want to. Feel free to ask! Remember the reward for completing it is now ¢600.
- We are slowly rewriting various minimissions to make them available in various locations, so far Gareth has extended Bulb to Skinner and several parts of Eden, but many more rewrites are planned.
- Simulations generally don't strip you naked anymore... appropriate clothing/equipment will be simulated for you. Which is nice.
- The habitat on Eden has now been extensively redesigned and rebuilt. The city of New Lyon has also undergone a bit of re-engineering, and the activities of the New Southampton Mining Company are now much more obvious on Skinner. The Barane skyfarm complex has been closed to public access, however.
- There's a new commline for Warrant Officer and above, officer. Furthermore, commissioned officers of Midshipman rank and above get access to a new set of high quality equipment. Our Commanders also get a whole load of new privileges, but you'll need to complete all our missions before you find out what they are!
- We now keep track of many more things in our logs. Records of mission completion times (best and worst), deaths whilst attempting missions and number of successful completions are all visible in the output of minfo. You can also get a statement from the bank telling you where all your money went. There's also a record of you progress to tell you how quickly you've been moving towards Commander rank.
- Spacesuits are now a little more sophisticated... but only a little. The safety systems won't let you strip in a vacuum, for example. More soon!
- Fleeing from combat is no longer risk free... your opponent can stab you in the back as you escape! be extra careful. On the other hand, insurance now does a better job of compensating you for death by environmental conditions such as vacuum or fire. The compare command is a little more versatile too, letting you compare bits of armour.
- Hopefully we'll have a more frequent update cycle in the future! Much planning and work has already been done on new features and we hope to bring you things like: The return of the Backwards mission in a new and improved form, an improved version of Ionstorm, Cybernetic Implants for players, along with several new types of minimission and a more detailed and expanded universe to explore.
- This version of the Cryosphere brought to you by the number 5 and the letter L. Many, many thanks to our testers Bingo, Charli, Ellyll, Sunblaze, Picayune, Decroix, Navarre, Arianna and anyone else we may have forgotten. Read the credits and mcredits info files for a complete list of contributors.
- As principal developer, Serriað has now been promoted to the Chief of Staff rank, and is therefore the law now. Our server administrator, webmonkey-in-chief and even occasional tester Ellyll has been promoted to Commodore. Sadly, several of our other senior officers are unable to help with the MUD much these days, and have been demoted. We thank Daz, plett and Twiglet for the time they've given to the Cryosphere in the past, and hope they can help out again at some point in the future.