Hello everyone! Welcome to the thirteenth issue of Stratus Status, the official biweekly newsletter. Are you interested in recent network changes and what the community has been up to? If so, read on to get up-to-date about all things Stratus!
Development News
Since the past issue, 
ALM added a way to create banners on the website through the admin panel, replacing the previous method of hard-coding them. Operation Ares received a very large number of updates, which are as follows:
- Added complete objectives API:
- Objectives which can be completed by multiple competitors keep track of which competitor has done the most
- Objectives can have no owner to be completed by anyone
- Proximity now supports metrics for pre- and post-complete (and post-touch for touchable objectives)
- Score objectives now support relative point additions
- Kits:
- All actions that effect numbers (health, walk speed, food, etc) now support relative values
- Added player time/weather kits
- Added compass target kit
- Death messages, wool colours and team names in /join are now translated
- Added /regions to list what regions you are currently standing in
- Added portals and renewables, both follow the same syntax
- Added Quick Chat:
- Allows players to type in a number and have pre-generated messages be displayed
- Fully configurable without any dev work
- Can be forced upon players
- Revamped win calculation metrics. Ties will now be a lot less frequent and false ties should now be non-existent.
- Basic implementation of TDM and DTC
- Server now restarts after a longer period of time
- Knockback kit is no longer supported
- Double jump kit is no longer supported
- If you pick up an enemy wool, it will just disappear
- CTW uses the new win calculation system
- All TDM maps are now in adventure mode by default (define
<interactive>true</interactive> in the XML to override this)
Most of these changes were implemented before the Alpha test was conducted last Sunday, which was available to staff and players with Cirro. If you were able to play, use this thread to report any bugs you encountered. If you couldn't because your rank is lower than Cirro, don't worry! Our intention is to hold more donor tests in the near future.
New Maps
Over the past 2 weeks, the following maps have been added to the public servers:
Additionally, Punch bows have been replaced with Power 1 bows on 9.5th Law, Bastion Hill, Deepwind Redux, Fairy Tales 2: Redux, Fourchette, Golden Drought IV, Gridlock 2, Kytriak, Kytriakk, Levels, Ouroboros, PixelMix, Poise, Race for Victory 2, Ranch, Smog, Tenebrous, The 4th Law, Thunderstorm, Turf Wars, and Xion. This should mean all punch bows have been removed from all Capture the Wool maps.
We remind everyone that the map making contest is accepting submissions until 4 March. Read the full thread here.
Rotation Update
The server rotations were also updated last week which saw the addition of 35 brand new maps, 31 returning maps, and the removal of 56 other maps. The main attraction of this update though was the complete rework of the Micro rotation that now exclusively features maps which are specifically tailored for periods of low player counts. You can find the full details on this huge change in 
Jexel's thread.
Staff News
Community Spotlight
Have you ever wanted to know when your favourite maps are being played? 
unixfox has made a browser extension which can be configured to notify you when the selected maps are being played. Check out his thread!
Biweekly Question
Following the theme of Sunday's Operation Ares test, we ask: what PGM feature do you think must be kept in Operation Ares?
That's all for this time!
Thanks for reading this week's issue. See you all next time!
A full list of past issues can be found on our profile page, and if you have any feedback about Stratus Status please let us know below.
