Reported: ARIA warps to a station and docks, undocks at once, warps to the belt, locks back onto the station, warps home and docks, for ever. No mining loop, no board work, no hiring, no charter. Reproduced headless in both ARIAs — at the conn and in the terminal player — and traced to the ARIA Core patch that had been laid over 0.3.87, plus two faults 0.3.87 already had. This release carries ARIA Core and the earlier mining-loop hotfix with them fixed, so it applies to a clean 0.3.87 or over either of those zips.

The loop. Core's "avoid hostiles" order broke work off whenever a hostile contact was inside 6,000 u. The belt spawns rogue drones 4,200 u from any hull near it, so in a belt the test was always true: drop the job, run for a yard, dock, the 30 s hold already spent on the flight home, undock, fly back, drop it again. The order is now a line on the hull — contacts close AND the hull under the captain's repair line AND a yard she can reach and pay — and with a whole hull she keeps working with the guns on CASTLE, as she did before Core.

Board work. In the terminal player every "threat" drop left its contract on the books; five idle contracts lock the desk. A job broken off for the yard is now PAUSED: the contract is kept, she patches, and picks it up again if the clock allows. A contract she holds and is not flying is flown before anything new is taken. A resumed job no longer sells the ore it had already cut.

Hiring, charter, treasury, combat, drones. Core shipped those authorities withheld. Every authority now starts granted; the Core panel is where a captain takes one away. A mind saved by the Core patch drops its authority block once, since it could not tell a captain's choice from the withheld defaults.

The reserve. Core's 15,000 cr reserve was applied to everything, repairs included: a pilot with less than that could never patch a hull, buy a load or pay a hiring bonus. It now guards investments only (refits, a charter, settling crew). Repairs are never held back, cargo and hiring keep 800 cr aboard, a treasury transfer is not a purchase, and a load over the purchase ceiling is trimmed to it rather than refused after the flight to the shelf.

Two faults 0.3.87 already had.

• The signature lock breaks when the nose swings 60° off the target and takes the jump target with it. The jump key reads that target, so a leg could ask for a jump for ever — "warp unavailable, no target" — while it drifted.
• A world across the corridor ended the step ("jupiter in lane") and with it the mission. An ARIA mission now flies the dogleg itself.

Also.

• The terminal player tends the bus: comfort loads go off as the battery runs down with nothing spare, and with a flat battery she waits for charge. Before, a stood-down mission was replaced every think tick by a fresh contract that was stood down a second later, until the hull was gone.
• Wreck and pod recoveries switch the SALVAGE system on over the site and clear the hold first when it cannot take the load.
• The Core panel rebuilt its readout every frame; it now redraws on change.
• MINE's recharge pause no longer cuts in while the core is spooling.

Measured (headless, mining, 40 sky-minutes, 20,000 cr purse, three seeds):

| seed | 0.3.87 | 0.3.87 + Core | 0.3.88 | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | +36,112 · 5 done, 1 dropped | +34,220 · 5/5 · no hires, no charter | +79,138 · 10/0 | | 2 | +26,169 · 3/1 | +24,982 · 6/4 · none | +161,454 · 11/0 | | 3 | +88,531 · 8/0 | +72,309 · 8/6 · none | +79,370 · 10/0 |

Every 0.3.88 run registered a company and hired; no Core run did.

At the conn, 30 sky-minutes from the 3,100 cr start, two seeds: 0.3.87 +25,847 and +27,798; Core +5,400 and +5,400 (11–12 dockings, nothing mined); 0.3.88 +20,216 and +34,148, flying mine → dock → sell → repair → refit.

Salvage career in the terminal player, 25 sky-minutes: 0.3.87 +10,545 with 42 autopilot stand-downs and the hull lost; 0.3.88 +49,132 with none.

In headless Chromium at 412×915: the HUD's ARIA button takes the conn, she flies four mine → dock → sell loops with one break-off at 54% hull and a refit, NAV › ARIA CORE draws with every authority ticked, and unticking one withholds it and saves it.

Open. A break-off at the default 55% line can be late for a hull with a flat battery climbing out of a belt under fire: one conn run reached 18% hull before the yard and the salvage hull reached 2%. Raising the repair line in ARIA CORE moves it. Drone-cull contracts do not count the belt's own drones. ARIA does not fly the salvage rig.

Patch notes: /news/14