I love this preview idea and I think it should also be featured in the next update. The only problem is that it's sooo laggy!

Are there any plans to fix the slow roll rate of atmospheric craft? Or maybe a way for us to mod it?

all bugs must be squashed

If you're wondering about black hole development, there's this photo of the SpaceEngine Reddit page. Just like he's said, not much has changed about them.

While we are at the subject, I have found a weird planet with a kind of checkered pattern.

I thought the new depth buffer was supposed to have eliminated that artefact?

Okay, patch 08.

Download SE 0.974 patch 08 (44 MB)
Mirror 1
Mirror 2

Installation instructions:
To install, extract this archive into SE 0.973 folder and replace the files. Make sure you are made a backup copy of the 0.973.
As always, don't forget to remove the cache folder.
If you have ATI Radeon and latest drivers, delete the system/atioglxx.dll file.

Known issues:
This patch did not tested on XP (sorry, Win7 update broke XP loader somehow on my computer)
Supermassive black hole system may not generate in some galaxies and star clusters
Sagittarius A* black hole located not exactly in the canter of the Milky Way galaxy
Accretion disk size, brightness and animation may be weird in some procedural systems
Ship warp effect may cause huge FPS drop and lags on weak systems (disable "Hi-quality black holes" in settings to fix that)
Various glitches with ships physics and autopilot logic are possible
Labels and ship engines looks glitchy in Oculus Rift
All localizations except Russian are out of date (of course)

Changes:
Updated exoplanets catalog (18 Oct 2015)
Camera motion mode or controlled ship is restored after closing of the Map Mode
Added ability to cancel autopilot "Warp to" and "Fly to" commands
Added switch between full and abbreviated names of constellations
Improved stability at extreme screen resolutions
New physically accurate rendering of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs with accretion disk
Animated surface of neutron stars and white dwarfs
Added ability to replace procedural supermassive black hole with catalog entry
Catalog entry for Milky Way's supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* and its stars
Catalog for some famous relativistic objects (systems with black holes and neutron stars)
Added ability to specify star mass, radius and temperature in the star script
Added Y brown dwarfs
Added ability to specify locked position of a body relative to parent body with simplified script syntax (Refplane "Static" and "Fixed")
Implemented correct orientation of extrasolar systems (RefPlane "Extrasolar" for inclination and ascending node)
Improved rendering of late M-dwarfs
Smoother solar spots
Added new atmosphere model "Pluto" (HarbingerDawn)
Atmosphere models are included in the memory manager
Added exoplanet names approved by IAU
Integrated Klud's mods for selenas and asteroids

Bugfixes:
Fixed rings blending with clouds and atmosphere
Fixed seam artefact in rings
Fixed star sprite in a barycenter
Fixed star density in Milky Way
Fixed inability to select a deepspace object as a refbody/target for a ship using GUI buttons
Fixed bug with star particle visible through black hole
Fixed various rendering bugs in the Map Mode
Fixed planet particles rendering in front of water/clouds
Fixed foreground labels rendering in front of planets
Fixed instability in hyperbolic orbits solver
Fixed bug with sun shining through ocean
Fixed camera pushing when landing on planet with Left+Right mouse drag
Fixed too many cloud layers on planets with thin atmosphere
Fixed localization change in the Chart Mode
Fixed offsetting of a landed ship when time flow is accelerated
Fixed bug with camera velocity display
Fixed bug with sudden camera rotation when collide with terrain
Fixed specular spot on Oceanias
New object selection method in Oculus Rift

*** HAPPY NEW YEAR! ***