Getting Started: Tutorials & Helper Hints

Tutorials were disabled after the phase change update due to many base breaking changes. Like with any work we do on the game, we have to judge the amount of work required vs the fun the players will have. Stationeers is notoriously a hard game to learn, and new players over the last few months haven't had anything to help them get started. We decided to try a new approach to tutorials, with a low technical overhead, to see if using a new style of guidance could help players in the first few hours of Stationeers.

The old tutorials would take weeks of work from multiple people to create each one, and then a large amount of work to update them as the game changed. This process was enormously costly, even before taking into account maintaining them.

The new system, along with the new design approach, will allow us to create a new tutorial in a very short time. We've started with three tutorials and will be rolling out new ones as they are created.

Helper Hints


Our new system to help guide players is called "Helper Hints". These exist to offer subtle guidance for what can become medium to long term projects for players. Like Stationpedia's F1 quick access, helper hints can easily be expanded and hidden by pressing F2. They can be disabled completely from the settings menu for players who don't want the guidance at all. Also, individual hints are expandable and collapsible, to reduce their visual footprint on the screen. You can also dismiss incomplete hints, in addition to un-dismissing already completed ones if you want to read the information again.

We've authored a few chains of hints that lead to player to making the basics of survival. The first hour has slightly more hints to help point players towards the key kits and devices of the game. Once the player has been introduced to a device, we believe that they'll experience the pros and cons that come along with building it, and the game will naturally progress from there. These hints should be seen as way to point you towards the game content, and not an objective quest you must do.

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Tutorials


These new tutorials are meant to teach high level concepts, while avoiding focusing on the details of individual machines. Stationeers has too many devices that are necessary to play, and its impractical to cover them all. More importantly, until a player has experienced a problem first hand, it's difficult to teach them about all the possible solutions.

The new tutorials focus on a few abstract concepts such as room construction, inventory/slots, connecting devices, and moving air. The helper hint system is utilized to give instructions to players, in a very non hand-holdy way. The tutorials are short, yet slightly free form to ensure players really understand what they must do. We've kept the number of steps in each tutorial fairly low, meaning that if you need to start over, you'll quickly get back to where you were. An experienced player can complete these in 30-60 seconds.

With these simple concepts introduced to the player we hope that during a normal play session the loadout of the lander, combined with the default helper hints, should prevent players from being stuck with no idea where to go.

Tutorial History

Stationeers went through several types of tutorials, with the first being hard coded. These were often buggy and hard to maintain because the writer had to consider everything the player might do to change the state of the world they were tracking. In stationeers, there are many different ways to accomplish the same objective. Multiple iterations of a single tutorial level with this approach took weeks of time.

The next approach to tutorials involved generic events spread across the whole game. These were also somewhat hard to maintain, and their distributed nature cluttered up the project. Large reworks, such as the multiplayer refactor, phase change, or the rocket update, all broke large sections of this approach.

Somewhat separately, the tutorials created during this time, were very polished, and pretty looking; they even came with embedded video clips. This level of polish took months of time to accomplish. Unfortunately, they failed to teach players what to expect while actually in the game. They also suffered from utilizing unrealistic bases, and designs that didn't represent normal gameplay. Your grandmother could follow the very detailed steps, and not get 'stuck', but then have no idea how to start the game once left alone on the moon with a lander.

With our newest approach, we've taken a step back, and let go of the players hand. The things we're trying to teach are far simpler than before. Bases are made from walls and frames, things need to be connected, air exists and can be moved, etc. As much as we would love to try and teach every little nuance of the UI, tips and tricks of some devices, or time saving shortcuts, new player that are initially overwhelmed just aren't ready to hear them. You have to be able to build a small base before you'll appreciate lessons about pressure regulators, or want to know the pros and cons of multidimensional solar tracking.

We'll be looking for feedback to ensure this approach of teaching works for Stationeers. Our current goal with the tutorials is to give new players a better expectation of how they might play. If the reception to this style is positive, this system also allows us to easily create more specific tutorials that cover intermediate and advanced concepts in the game, in a much straightforward and maintainable way than in the past.

- Mason 'Timberfox' Henrickson, Design Director

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Change Log v0.2.5116.23239

• Changed 'in room' objective condition to 'in cell'. Will check when a dynamic thing is in a grid cell.
  
• Fixed water purifier not showing up in the "Used in" section of the stationpedia entry for Charcoal
  
• Removed head torch from tutorial start conditions
  
• Fixed OxygenTank would some-times not spawn on brutal start in Venus. This was due to spawnDatas positionRule defaulting to None when none was specified. Changed to default to Random.
  
• Fixed new one way pipe valves having incorrect smart rotate setup.
  
• Added missing recipe for astroloy sheets to autolathe
  
• Fixed digital flip flop splitter from having quantity increment indefinitely when output is blocked
  
• Fixed one way pipe valves placement cursor was one grid too high
  
• Fixed Couldn't harvest switchgrass when a hay item was in hand.
  
• Fixed Some plant interactions didn't complete on clients (harvest action would fail when a plant of the same type was already in hand)
  
• Changed Spawn menu will always be available when playing in editor.
  
• Added Expand Attribute to WorldObjectiveData, when true objective will autoExpand when triggered.
  
• Added WorldObjectives will now collapse on completion.
  
• Added spawn points to tutorial data.
  
• Added tutorial spawn point object. Set to not spawnable for now as should only be used in tutorials.
  
• Re-enabled helper hints and tutorial menu button.
  
• Changed ExportWorld command will now put the spawndatas in a separate file. The spawnDatas will be correctly formatted.
  
• Added Serialization Code for SpawnData, ThingSpanDatas and children and ActionDatas and Children.
  
• Changed Tutorial2Starts with 50% nutrition and 75% hydration
  
• Fixed Eat and Drink HelperHint doesn't complete in Tutorial2.
  
• Added SurvivalPropertyAction and SurvivalPropertyCondition.
  
• Changed the linear rail inner corner piece to occupy a single small grid rather than 2x2x1
  
• Added a button on the LArRE dock to set it as the 'starting dock' which will set its station index to zero. Stations to the left will have negative indices and stations to the right, positive.
  
• Allowed multiple LArRE docks on the same rail.
  
• Allowed LArRE to travel backwards from the dock.
  
• Fixed some NREs when removing docks from a linear rail network
  
• Fixed infinite loop when connecting linear rails in a loop. Rails can be built in loops but larry will treat them as having a set start and end index and won't be able to move directly from the end to the start and vice-versa. This may change in future but for now is more important to avoid any possible infinite loop behaviour.
  
• Fixed Incorrect autoignition Temperature on one-way valves.
  
• Fixed Pipes placed adjacent to frames will not always radiate and convect with the world Atmosphere.
  
• Fixed Incorrectly Authored colliders on lockers.
  
• Added tablet step of tutorial2 can now be completed by looking at a pipe with the tablet.
  
• Added Expand tags to Tutorial2 objectives.
  
• Fixed All steps show at start of tutorial 2.
  
• Changed notice condition to use a LocalizedStringReference. Updated tutorial objectives for new notice condition format.
  
• Fixed ore scanner cartridge (colour) so that the colours displayed on the tablet match up with the colour of the ores when viewed with SensorLenses with the OreScanner chip
  
• Removed unused NoticeCondition.
  
• Replaced notice conditions with list of LocalizedStringReferences on objective.
  
• Updated Visual dressing of Tutorial 1.
  
• Removed old tutorial files.
  
• Changed Tutorials default to Normal difficulty.
  
• Removed Storm from tutorial1.
  
• Made a few tweaks to tutorial 1 wording
  
• Changed Structures no longer report worldchange checks on when game state is Joining.
  
• Updated Tutorial1 with WorldAtmosphere RoomIds.
  
• Added WorldAtmosphereSpawnData now Serializes RoomId and assigns it on game start (this avoids costly room regeneration step that could block the game-thread for several seconds on scenario start)
  
• Changed ExportWorld command only saves Room Atmospheres.
  
• Fixed default StartIndex on Iron wall kit was 4 (defaulted to window instead of IronwallVar1)
  
• Small changes to tutorial 1 layout from design review.
  
• Tweaked tutorial 2's text slightly and hid a few details from the auto generated text.
  
• Re-exported tutorial 2 to have the new formatting
  
• Added Completion pop-up at the end of tutorial.
  
• Added popup Action. Pop-ups can be triggered from any completed WorldObjective
  
• Changed Tutorial 1 button image
  
• Fixed a bug where one-way liquid pipe valves would deconstruct into a gas valve kit
  
• Added Summaries to Tutorial 1 and 2
  
• Updated Structure build state tooltips to display while holding Sheets as well as Tools
  
• Re-enabled HelperHints in worldSettings.
  
• Updated tutorial 2 text. Removed tablet step.
  
• Added Delay to Tutorial complete popup.
  
• Fixed the formatting of tooltips when trading where the item had child items as well
  
• Updated helper hint dismiss 'x' icon to a simpler graphic
  
• Added is powered condition check to door in tutorial 2
  
• Added handling for inner corner pieces. Inner corner pieces will override their neighbour rails arm positions as they are overlapping.
  
• Removed hard coded grid bounds for larry dock.
  
• Replaced thing names with stationpedia links in tutorial text where relevant.
  
• Set base power usage of power tools to be 5
  
• Fixed clients could not set starting dock for a linear rail network with multiple docks.
  
• Changed wreckage names to all just be "Wreckage" as some objects were producing incorrectly named wreckage pieces. Also cleaned up some pointless placeholder text descriptions for a number of Stationpedia entries
  
• Added setting to toggle the display of the Helper Hints panel
  
• Set inner and outer corner linear rails to spawnable.
  
• Updated linear rail inner corner piece placement rules. Will now only be placeable next to straight pieces.
  
• Made finishing the room step in tutorial 1 more forgiving on minimum room size.
  
• Added another hydroponics tray to tutorial 2 to make the connect the trays step less confusing.
  
• Extended Gas Condition to support pipe Networks.
  
• Fixed child conditions not being applied correctly in some cases for ThingPrefabCondition and NetworkCondition.
  
• Fixed WorldAtmosphereSpawnData was not applying serialized rooms if they were a vacuum.
  
• Added Tutorial 3 for teaching basic atmospherics interaction.
  
• Removed Find another tank step in tutorial3
  
• Fixed Spelling error in Tutorial3
  
• Updated button image for tutorial 3
  
• Added missing image for tutorial 3
  
• Minor changes to tutorial3 text
  
• Changed Tutorial3 to start with full toolbelt.
  
• Fixed some minor grammatical errors
  
• Fixed issue with Tutorial3 where the tutorial HelperHints were showing "{Thing: ItemSuitHardBackpack}"
  
• Removed Pressure Regulator step from tutorial3 and replaced with a valve.
  
• Changed Some steps in Tutorial 3 and reworked some wording.
  
• Fixed Short shadowdistance of wall lights
  
• Tweaked tutorial 3 text slightly.
  
• Fixed respawn prompt showing up for clients when falling asleep in a sleeper.
  
• Changed the minimum charge value for a selling a battery to a trader from 100% to 99%
  
• Added Time Attribute to Worldobjective. Objective will need to evaluate as true for the supplied time before it will be completed.
  
• Added CursorThingCondition.
  
• Further Text revisions to Tutorial3.
  
• Fixed Several errors in tutorial3 text.
  
• Made a few tweaks to tutorial 3 text
  
• Moved tutorial 1 and 2 objective headings to english.xml
  
• Changed HelperHints that are triggered by an objective complete condition will wait 1.5seconds before activating.
  
• Added Sounds to HelperHints.
  
• Fixed issue with traders where some food items could be sold at a quantity less than 100%
  
• Changed Moved portables connector into the corner of room in tutorial3 to make connecting easier.
  
• Fixed Incorrect Thumbnail colour on cursor for painted items when dragging from the world.
  
• Added HelperHints that have no completion conditions will complete when dismissed.
  
• Fixed Some HelperHints were not being triggered due to prefabHashes of trigger objects not being registered.
  
• Fixed Some banding on Medium shadow quality setting.
  
• Added Dismiss to Acknowledge Notices to WorldObjectives that have no completion condition.
  
• Fixed Confusing text in Plants need darkness helper hint.
  
• Fixed Duplicate text in Refill water bottle helper hint.
  
• Fixed Cooked Baked Potato helper hint would trigger as soon as a potato was planted. Now triggers when potato is harvested.
  
• Added ability for docks and bypass rails to shift arm off the main rail track.
  
• Added first pass on new LArRE docks.
  
• Reverted Changes from rev22741 and rev22742. The issue that this change was attempting to fix has been resolved at the serialization step instead of in the assignment UI.
  
• Fixed Exterior Vent and door buttons would become greyed out upon assigning interior door/vent in airlock consoles.
  
• Cleaned up larry dock code a bit and moved some linear rail shared behaviour into a base rail class.
  
• Added linear rail bypass node. When an arm is on this node, calling activate on its dock will shift it off the main rail.
  
• Moved larry dock and bypass rail into a base class for rail devices.
  
• Fixed Alternate completion condition for GrowPlantsForOxygenAndFood hint was not hidden.
  
• Fixed Unit error in PressureCondition Tooltip.
  
• Fixed parsing error in WorldObjectiveCanistersInfo HelperHint.
  
• Added AcknowledgeAndDismiss Notice to AdvancedMining HelperHint.
  
• Fixed TierTwoMachinesPart2 HelperHint would not complete in certain cases.
  
• Fixed Hid Stacker (Reversed) condition check in Stacker HelperHint tooltip.
  
• Fixed Nested ConditionCollections would not display in HelperHints.
  
• Fixed Missing pipe-meter regression in tutorial 3.
  
• Fixed HelperHint sounds play when helper hints are disabled.
  
• Improved Tutorial2EatFood text and tutorial2DragTank text for improved clarity.
  
• Fixed Tutorial1 would not complete if the final room was larger than 18grids, can now be up to 21 grids.
  
• Fixed Tutorial1PlaceDoorCondition could be completed by placing a door in the incorrect spot.
  
• Added Addition Information to Tutorial1CompleteFrame Condition.
  
• Added Can now place any type of iron wall to complete Tutorial1PlaceWall & TutorialCompleteWall Condition.
  
• Fixed ObjectiveConditionCollection did not support NetworkConditions, TraderConditions, CursorThingCondition.
  
• Fixed Sometimes new HelperHint sounds doesn't play.
  
• Tweaked timings on time conditions for tutorial3
  
• Changed name of Kit (Power Controller) to Kit (Area Power Controller)
  
• Changed Standardised Tablet cartridge names i.e. AtmosAnalyser -> Cartridge (Atmos Analyser).
  
• Changed Tutorial HelperHints will auto-dismiss on completion.
  
• Fixed a bug where dropping ore into a mining pack wouldn't merge the ore even though stacks with sufficient space were available
  
• Fixed first person helmet showing incorrectly when exiting a seat.
  
• Added Auto Expand to the helper hints. By default all helper hints will expand but this can be turned off by unchecking the option on the helper hints panel