ChangeLog/1.8

Note: Items in italics denote additions that were not mentioned in the official changelog.

Vendetta version 1.8.7

Overhauled bot targeting system, currently utilized in Border Skirmish, Hive Skirmish and Escort missions. Among other things, this means that players will be targeted more frequently and fighters won't focus on capships.
BS bots warp in from opposite ends now, preventing some capship tangles.
BS now includes Ragnarok bombers.

Mission logs now indicate mission outcome (completed, failed, aborted) for most missions (the rest to be done soon).
Navroute to Hive Skirmish sector set again when you undock after death (obsoleting Eonis' new plugin).
Fixed a bot-cleanup race condition that may be responsible for the appearance of hive bots in wormhole sectors.
Hive expansion tuning (eg. slower bastion spawning when there are already several).
Hive Skirmish message polishing (no more "will retreat if we lose 0 more").
New mission log objective-list mechanism (not yet utilized).

Skirmish HUD element now reflects the alternative objectives of the stronghold and bastion HS missions
Sector alignment/monitored status can now be changed on the fly. Consequently, Deneb B12 is now unaligned during BS (no more friends-are-red issue)
When a ship you kill explodes, it still rewards you for kills that result from the explosion, but will not penalize you, in the case of a friendly NPC dying in the blast.
Stronghold Queens no longer respawn instantly (there's currently a single-wide production queue requiring 2 hours per queen)
Fixed a bug that gave the Levi's shields a huge bump when the last Bastion was destroyed.
Queens and other large ships can now die in skirmishes when the sector is not-running (very low probability) - this will keep the Hive from growing quite so large.

Use GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object instead of GL_APPLE_vertex_buffer_object on MacOS 10.5 - significant speedup on some machines.
Disabled mpengine entirely (for now) - trying to track down further performance issues.

Skirmish HUD control's colors are now correctly displayed.
Skirmish HUD updates on each kill again.
Station names are now being displayed in inventory tree list.
Border Skirmish stats displayed in neat table in mission log (more uses of this to come).
Multithreaded OpenGL is disabled by default with new VO installs on Mac OS when there is only one cpu.
Plugins: Text lengths are now properly calculated when \127o is used at the end of the text. This was causing some text to word-wrap prematurely.
Cargo dropped in sectors already full of cargo will try to "combine" with a nearby cargo box of the same type; this dramatically reduces the number of cargo boxes in sectors where large battles take place and increases frame rate

WARNING: TargetLS users (and maybe others) will need to disable those plugins until they can be updated!
Casualties HUD element in Hive Skirmish missions
Group-leaving on mission end/abort fixed
Better emulation of skirmishes in non-running sectors
Tuning of Hive and NPC numbers in Skirmishes for more appropriate difficulty levels
Initial re-tuning of shield settings following the removal of the turret-multiplier-effect
More stats being kept for Border Skirmish
IUP change to better handle detaching z/h/vboxes (plugin authors see Community projects forum)

Swarm trail effects get removed when changing sectors or logging out
Misc lua interface fixes (see community projects forum tomorrow)
Mission HUD text properly left-justified again
Mission menu backgrounds back to normal
Fixed bug in handling of friendly-kills by npcs in Border and Hive Skirmish
No more N times damage to shields where N is the number of turrets within a blast area (no more soloing the levi)
Border Skirmish and Battle max-casualties changed from 1k each to 2k and 3k respectively (Battles happen at midnight GMT Sundays)
Queens in Hive Strongholds now contribute to the Levi's shield recharge rate (along with Bastion queens)
Stronghold queens don't try to defend the Levi now (until defend action works better)
Serco/Itani HAC instead of frigate1/2 in BS messages

Two new hives, centered in Metana and Rhamus
Jump point indicator icon moved out about 200m so that it doesn't disappear behind you the instant you can activate
Fixed bug where jump point indicator would be mixed up at the moment storms started/ended
Linux joystick calibration utility disabled; it didn't work at all but we will fix it!