By our previous standards, an almost immediate update to 2.6! This is largely a maintenance release with various bugfixes and performance tweaks, but there are a few new features for you all. Amongst other things we have:

• The Combat 3 simulation is now worth a single mission point to better reflect its level of challenge. Everyone who has completed the simulation already will have been given the mission point automatically.
• Better equipment handling in simulations. You can now feel free to use any food, drink or medical gear you bring into a sim, and it will be restored to you when you end the program.
• Tracking of deaths and kills in score. The consider command is more detailed too.
• Spacesuits now have openable visors. Vacuum exposure is now significantly more dangerous, so don't try throwing yourself out of an airlock! You'll also find that in space, no-one can hear you scream. Or yell, or sing, or whatever.
• If you had a spacesuit in your inventory before the update, it is now probably broken. Take it to an admin for a refund or repair.
• You can no longer quit from hazardous locations like deserts, arctic ice caps, vacuum, infernos and so on... you'll be warned if you try, but if you use quit really you'll die and leave the game. Also, if you quit from a small spacecraft, you'll log back in at the spaceport you departed from.
• Transmogrification now affects emote and echo too. Mobiles have also stopped being able to understand the speech of gagged or transmogrified players.
• The time and timezone commands are now much more user friendly. If you have a non-UK timezone, you'll be warned if you're logging in when all us Brits are asleep and unable to chat or help.
• You can now change the meaning of single character command shortcuts like ' and : by using the shortcmd command, if you wanted.

And that's mostly all, folks. Hopefully we'll have some more missions for you next time

• 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.

• Fixed a major bug in minimissions where players would sometimes end up in the void if they were in cloned ships when the mission expired.
• Smith will now announce when a player quits.
• Numerous minor fixes and improvements.

You can now sell large objects that are in your quarters. See the new furniture removal tags available from the quartermaster.

• Boards are now much funkier. You can read any of the public boards from anywhere using the commands 'scan all' and 'message any' (which can be usually abbreviated to 'scan' and 'message'). See info boards.
• Passwords can now be reset by admins for players who are not logged in.
• The Canister mission is now more puzzling.
• As a follow-up to the last release's unification of commlines, you can now use 'smilies' and targetted says on commlines just as you can in says.
• You can now use minfo on minis as well as full missions to find out basic info about any mission before you accept it. e.g. 'minfo cargo'
• Your character will now be auto-saved every hour.
• If you're not sure which mission to try next, let the mud suggest one for you...
• The newspaper is now under new management. Buy a copy of the new issue from the Newsagent on the Cryosphere while stocks last!
• There have also been countless bug and typo fixes, as well as lots of work behind the scenes which although is not visible within the game, it is crucial for future progress and new features. So a big thanks to all who have contributed over the last few months.