[2022] Thermodynamics & Standardized Difficulty Settings

Thermodynamics The general speed of thermal transfer of atmospherics has been decreased, to allow players more time to experience the effects of heat moving throughout their stations. The internal atmospheres of devices and items now radiate energy down toward the planet's global atmosphere temperature. This effect is most pronounced in vacuum and is dampened when in a pressurized environment. Structures built into frames are also no longer fully insulated and will radiate heat down to the global atmosphere temperature.

We’ve listened to feedback and increased the Air Conditioner's operational temperature efficiency by roughly 20%(nearly doubling) around 600K-800K to allow it to work significantly better during the first stages of cooling the hot planets' atmospheres.



We’ve branched the radiator tech tree into Flat Panel Radiators and Convection Radiators. Convection radiators exchange heat energy with the surrounding atmosphere. The new flat panel variants of the pipe radiator and medium radiator utilize black body radiation to radiate energy in vacuums and low pressure environments.

The Heat energy convected and radiated by internal atmospheres has been added to the atmosAnalyser Cartridge so you can see how your radiators are performing in their current environment. Negative convection values imply the internal atmosphere is being heated by the surrounding cell atmosphere and negative radiation values imply it is being heated by sunlight.

These changes come with a lot of implications but make thermodynamics more intuitive, allowing players to address the challenges of heating and cooling in multiple ways. With the main changes also come a range of balancing and tweaking other parts of the game to make them work nicely together.

Difficulty Settings We’ve improved not only how you select what difficulty you want to play on but we’ve also made a load of changes to make that choice more meaningful.



You used to select your difficulty level from the settings menu from a dropdown that gave no explanation as to what each setting meant. You’re now presented with this choice when you start a new world, there’s a description of what each option means, and this choice is serialized into the save instead of being a global setting.

Note: When loading an old save that does not have a difficulty setting serialized into it you will be asked to select one before you can play.

While using Stationeers difficulty has been left mostly untouched, Easy and Normal have been tweaked a little to give you more chance of recovering from sticky situations. Likewise, when a player is offline their requirements such as nutrition and oxygen usage are decreased on Easy and Normal.

Cryotube Finally, over the last few weeks, we’ve made some changes to the Cryotube. We’ve fixed a few issues with it but have also added functionality to allow you to revive deceased Stationeers(as long as they haven’t already respawned). These changes are still a work in progress, next week you’ll see a replacement Cryotube that offers more information about what’s going on inside the tank, as well as a few other nice to haves.

With a focus on the Cryotube we had to address the awful state of the ragdoll. The ragdoll had always been a bit weird, resulting in some strange behavior. However after the network refactor it had almost completely broken. We’ve redone how unconscious characters behave, especially when you’re dragging them. Now they behave much more like a dynamic create or draggable gas canister. The end result means that you should have much more confidence to drag your fellow Stationeers to safety and revive them if need be.

Your support makes this possible
The major refactor has been a huge milestone for us and we think you can already see the tremendous success. Your support through bug reporting, suggestions, and direct involvement with our team on discord makes a tremendous difference.

If you like the progress we have made, please consider taking a moment to leave a positive review. This makes a great deal of difference to the project. We have worked hard on this project now for five years, and we feel confident the game is substantially improved from when we started. Many projects steer clear of the hard tasks, and we are proud to have taken them on.

Additionally, you can support us by purchasing the DLC we made to allow those whole like the game to support us, and in return get something a little fun to continue to use in the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2089290/Stationeers_Human_Cosmetics_Pack/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038400/Stationeers_Zrilian_Species_Pack/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038500/Stationeers_HEM_Droid_Species_Pack/


Change Log v0.2.3587.17447

• Added Solar heating data to Thermal Radiation value on Atmos Analyser. Solar heating will show as negative thermal radiation as the sun is heating the internal Atmosphere.
  
• Changed Greatly Increased the amount of solar heating received by LargeExtendableRadiator. In direct sunlight the radiator will be able to quickly heat its internal Atmosphere to around 300degress above the global temperature before thermal radiation/convection brings it into a state of equilibrium.
  
• Changed Doubled the ThermalRadiation and halved the thermal convection of LargeExtendableRadiator.
  
• Restrict difficulty setting command to host only
  
• Adding picking up human from torso instead of just limbs
  
• Cryo tube will now only revive dead players when filled with an atmosphere of super cold N2O (~80kPa at < -160C).
  
• Fixed Some edge cases where internal atmospheres of items could thermally radiate to below the Temperature of the room they are in.
  
• Fixed Internal atmospheres not using the centre position of the bounds for atmospheric calculations.
  
• Fixed Atmos analyser not showing negative values for convection (i.e. when an internal atmosphere is being heated by its surrounding atmosphere).
  
• Changed improved performance of panel small and medium panel radiators in vacuums.
  
• Changed MediumRadiator mix function: order is now Mix with Input, Radiate heat, mix with output.
  
• Changed increased large gas canister insulation value x4.
  
• Changed increase small gas canister insulation value x2.
  
• Fixed dropping human crazy offset
  
• Fixed backpack not showing on controlled human after death
  
• Fixed not being able to pick up ragdolls
  
• Fixed player popping up after dying from an unconscious state
  
• Fixed Helmet not visible when controlled player dies and you respawn with new character
  
• Fixed ragdolls slightly jittering for clients caused by interpolation fighting network position
  
• Fixed ragdolls only working in multiplayer
  
• Fixed player sliding off in random direction when unconscious
  
• Fixed error when sending messages. Message factory needed to be regenerated after last change
  
• Added popup on load world to select difficulty if the difficulty settings are not loaded correctly or non existent
  
• Increased sleeper internal volume from 20 to 800
  
• Fixed dropping error being thrown while trying to drop draggable things
  
• Fixed not being able to pick up draggables
  
• Fixed drop position of draggables
  
• Fixed small pressure atmospheres radiating too much.
  
• Clamped max radiation possible in a single tick to ensure more consistent thermal radiation.
  
• Adjusted Radiation target energy to zero out at 10 degrees.
  
• Fixed camera does not lock when you enter cryotube
  
• Removed HumanMessage (not used)
  
• Code clean up in DynamicThing.cs and Entity.cs
  
• Deprecated PipeRadiator, ItemPipeRadiator & LargePassiveRadiator.
  
• Added Kit(PipeRadiator) to Pipe Bender. This constructs the new pipe radiators.
  
• Added Pipe Radiator and Pipe Convection Radiator & liquid variants. Pipe Radiators are optimised for vacuum environments. Pipe Convection Radiators are optimised for pressurised environments.
  
• Added Kit(MediumRadiator) to PipeBender MK2. This constructs the new medium stand alone radiators.
  
• Added MediumRadiator and Medium ConvectionFactor & Liquid variants. These larger stand-alone radiator units radiate heat at the equivalent level of 10 pipe radiators. Medium Radiators are optimised for vacuum environments. Medium Convection Radiators are optimised for pressurised environments.
  
• Fixed ragdoll not being draggable
  
• Fixed entity breathing tick not being called inside sleeper or cryotube (sleeper/cryo occupants were not breathing the internal atmosphere)
  
• Fixed player damage indicator not showing if your organs are damaged but your body is not
  
• Sleeper will now mix with world atmos when opened
  
• Added new behaviour to logged out/offline players(based on difficulty) on servers that are still running. Players life functions are now 1%/10%/100% on easy/normal/stationeers respectively. This includes amount of breathing, nutrition, hydration, as well as the robots battery usage.
  
• Increased the Air Conditioner's operational temperature efficiency by roughly 20%(nearly doubling) around 600-800K to allow it to work significantly better during the first stages of cooling the hot planets' atmospheres.
  
• Fixed Potential /0 error in pipe radiation logic.
  
• Fixed Error when building new pipe-networks with tablet in hand.
  
• Added boxcollider to human when in ragdoll and removed rotation constraints
  
• Removed a a few overriding methods that weren't needed in entity to help with ragdoll issues
  
• Changed to only grabbing pelvis when any ragdoll limb is moved to slot
  
• Changed human network positions update ragdolled humans
  
• Added AddGas console Command. "AddGas [GasType] [Thing or Atmosphere ID] [QuantityMoles] [TemperatureKelvin]".
  
• Changed Renamed H2 to VOL and N2O to NOS in Atmospherics Cartridge screen.
  
• Removed Shatter Temperature Values from Stationpedia.
  
• Added Thermal Convection and Radiation Values to stationpedia for items/structures that can exchange heat with world atmospheres.
  
• Added Heat transfer information to the atmospherics tablet. It will now show the amount of energy convected and/or radiated by the device or pipe-network.
  
• Added Networking hooks to sync thermal values to clients.
  
• Ad IThermal interface for things that exchange/radiate heat.
  
• Removed OnAssignedReference Networking flag as it was being used to sync unnecessary data.
  
• Omptimized Some stationpedia string generation.
  
• Removed logging of adapter count
  
• Cleaned up game info window code after solving dedicated server issue
  
• Wrapped entire game info window class in def symbol to stop it from being compiled for dedicated server
  
• Fixed game info window causing errors on dedicated server build by removing all calls to it from dedicated server
  
• Increased Air Conditioner temperature target limits to be from -270C to 999C. Operational Temperature Limter curve still applies, and functionality has not changed.
  
• Changed Air Conditioner to activate when temperature target delta from input is greater or equal to 1. AC doesnt shoot for an exact temperature goal, to prevent flip flopping between heating and cooling in normal use cases and AC still will not pass gas unless it is pumping heat.
  
• Fixed issue with unconcious player pinging between two positions
  
• Fixed spaghetti man when ragdoll is interacted with
  
• Removed stack trace from console window print error
  
• Fixed difficulty settings not initialized correctly when starting dedicated server
  
• Added console command to change difficulty settings. If you are experiencing any strange behaviour around difficulty you can run this then save your world and it should clear up any issues
  
• Fixed issue with custom setting.xml throwing exception on first load (dedicated)
  
• Added stacktrace to error logs in console window
  
• Fix out of range exception on dedicated server in game info window
  
• Remove difficulty settings from custom world panel as they no longer have any effect
  
• Fixed respawn conditions not working correctly for custom worlds
  
• Added suit AC to waste relationship. Suits now proportionally move gas into waste, when moving energy out of the suit and into waste. Suits no longer needlessly move gas into waste when not cooling. Suit heating is still done via a heater, and will not require extra gas movement, just the standard increased power usage. IC10 Chips which try to prevent the suit from moving gas, may now prevent proper suit cooling.
  
• Clamped max possible lung damage per tick based on difficulty settings. On easy, your lungs wont die so fast opening your helmet on worlds such as venus. On stationeer there should be no noticeable difference.
  
• Reduced the amount of N2O exhaled by Zrilians. (The changes to difficulty meant that the increased N2O present when playing Zrilian was causing things to explode.
  
• Fixed H2Combustor being able to run without a valid gas output network.
  
• Added first pass of network debug window. You can access this window via the "networkdebug" command. It displays information about incoming and outgoing traffic. It is not yet complete and the data may not yet be reliable.
  
• Commented out timestamp for message send
  
• Lengthened AC temperature delta curve to cool down up to 200 degrees difference now. Increased the efficiency point at -100 from 5% to 10%, so overall efficiency of many setups is higher.
  
• Fixed plants can be eaten through the helmet when other foods can not
  
• Added ability to set difficulty button images in streaming assets
  
• Increased the base amount of gas consumed when taking a breath. This amount is scaled by the difficulty setting. Overall it should feel like your air tank is consumed more quickly. Zrilian resistance to N2O stun has been increased to compensate for the increased breathing rate
  
• Removed FragmentHandler logging
  
• Added Operation Mode state data to green info panel tooltip for all atmospherics devices.
  
• Fixed Stacker Lever not showing correct quantity of ingots in stacker.
  
• Increased fragment size
  
• Changed to better epoch time method
  
• Change to only send owner message when gamestate running
  
• Added Thermal Conductivity values to Stationpedia.
  
• Fixed Error thrown by fire tick when items are destroyed by fire.
  
• Changed Increased GasFuelGenerator ConvectionFactor from 0.01 to 0.2.
  
• Added New thermodynamics logic to pipe radiator.
  
• Commented out message timestamp ping as not to flood server log
  
• Removed timestamp from fragment handler
  
• Added better timestamp logging for messages
  
• Removed unused difficulty settings in settings menu.
  
• Difficulty tweaks - tutorials will now default to a much easier difficulty. Custom worlds will default to 'Normal' difficulty
  
• Changed Structures built into frames will now no longer be fully insulated. They will instead radiate heat to the global atmosphere temperature. This energy transfer is uni-directional (i.e cold pipes in frames will not heat up towards the global atmosphere).
  
• Fixed Pipes radiating heat inversely proportionally to the number of pipes in the network. This resulted in a PipeNetwork with 100 pipes radiating the same amount of heat as a pipe network with one pipe. Pipes will now radiate heat without regard to pipe length. The thermal radiation values of standard pipes have been reduced significantly to moderate the impact of this change on existing bases.
  
• Added timestamp to client/server messages
  
• Changed epoch time to int seconds
  
• Added temp epoch time stamp to network message
  
• Fixed difficulty button text alignment and updated descriptions
  
• Fixed hydration and nutrition rates being too fast after difficulty changes
  
• updated furnace radiationCurve.
  
• Fixed difficulty setting null ref exception on join game
  
• Added Radiation Scale curve to furnace.
  
• Added new way to select difficulty (first pass). Old saves will default to 'Normal' but can be changed in the worldsettings.xml once a new save is created.
  
• Changed Hard-suit to be more insulated. The time on Venus for the hardSuit to fill its waste-tank vent on default suit settings increases from 3 to 5 minutes.
  
• Fixed Math error in earlier commit that was preventing cold things in hot environments from convecting correctly.
  
• reverted suit radiation scale to default.
  
• Added Work in Progress Thermodynamics Rebalance.
  
• Fixed Very small amounts of very hot gas would heat up suit very fast causing instant damage/death to player.
  
• Changed Convection now takes into account the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere as well as the pressure of the internal Atmosphere.
  
• Changed Vacuum rooms are no longer fully insulating.
  
• Changed Internal atmospheres will now radiate down to the global atmosphere temperature. This effect will dampened in pressurised rooms.
  
• Changed Heat transfer rate at high Temperatures to be less aggressive.