[2022] Return of Tutorials & more Bugfixing

The last few weeks we have worked closely with the community and server providers to improve on the work of our big refactor. A key focus was to get the old tutorials working, which we have. Expect changes to this in future. Additionally we have targeted some of the worst bugs and problems reported by the community and included these as fixes. We've also taken a first pass at improving some of the more confusing aspects of Stationeers, this week it is the save system.

Changes to save files

We have made important changes to save files. Now autosaves and manual saves will be grouped together, much like other games such as Oxygen Not Included. This work helps both make the game more intuitive and supports changes needed to better run servers

Please let us know if you have any issues. For now, there are some unusual restrictions such as you cannot name a save using "autosave" or "backup". This is temporary as we are making slow and careful changes to the save system to avoid the possibility of any data loss. We will be continuing to iterate on this a great deal over the coming months.

Return of the Tutorials


The old tutorial system got quite broken during our major refactor, so they hadn't been working. Most players get the best benefit themselves, from youtube and content creators, but it was important we restore this functionality. We do note that the feedback, which is correct, is that these tutorials are not fit for purpose so expect more work on this to come.

We will continue to evolve our efforts for "first time user experience" over the coming months in consultation with the community.

Dedicated Servers as a foundation for Dedicated Communities
One of the exciting opportunities our major refactor has bought is the ability to scale Stationeers. This is what we believe sets Stationeers apart from all other similar games. Over the past five years we have worked on every element of simulation and performance, both in singleplayer and to support multiplayer, giving us the ability to really scale the game.



However, our tools to support scaling communities has been lacking. We have opened a dialogue with major game service providers to try and improve our dedicated servers across all our products, which you will continue to see from week to week in these updates.

A notable change this update is improvements to how save and load is handled - especially for dedicated servers. This should make setting up and managing a dedicated server much better. We also had a great deal of "console spam" that made it exceptionally difficult to navigate running a server. This is fixed, and much more.

Optimizations and Improvements
We have continued to fix bugs and optimize the game. A number of key improvements are in this update which you can read in the changelog below. Some of these might give quite dramatic improvements to players; dependent on the size and scale of your game world. While future updates will start to include more new content and dealing more with the survival aspects of the game a central focus of every update will continue to be performance and bugfixing.



UPCOMING: More Localization
Behind the scenes but not in this update is further localization improvements to gain better coverage for translations in the game, allowing us to provide better support to communities who speak other languages. We appreciate the hard work from our community to help us guide the game to be more playable by everyone, regardless of the language they use.

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/1038400/Stationeers_Zrilian_Species_Pack/

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

Changelog v0.2.3403.16721

• Fixed autosave not happening on thread
  
• Fixed Can't push exit session button.
  
• Fixed Game autosaves while paused.
  
• Fixed Starting a new game after exiting a game continues saving in the previous games folder.
  
• Fixed additional bugs with the tutorials
  
• Added a note when starting the first tutorial
  
• Fixed Leave Session button not working sometimes
  
• Fixed Next Tutorial button not working.
  
• Fixed Spawn atmos creative command throws error in main menu.
  
• Fixed AutoSave triggering when in main menu.
  
• Fixed Players cannot use strings "saves", "Backup" and "AutoSave" in their save name. (Temporary pending improvements to save file management).
  
• Fixed Can't use an existing save name when starting a new game.
  
• Added help logfile command for markdown
  
• Fixed up -loadlatesttest for dedicated based on new saves changes
  
• Fixed being able to save during Tutorial
  
• Fixed Deleting a Save that had the name "Backup" would delete the saves folder.
  
• Fixed Error during saving when starting a new game.
  
• Fixed Error saving in a new game when no backups exist
  
• Fixed autosave backups not be appended
  
• Fixed If a save has no backups currentWorldInfo is not set
  
• Disabled autosave in Tutorial.
  
• Fixed Tutorials won't start after save loading change.
  
• Added auto save class for single responsibility
  
• Removed old autosave logic and replaced with current save logic for consistency
  
• Added new method for handling save backup index before a save is generated
  
• Fixed Error where some backup saves got incorrect meta file.
  
• Fixed Deleting a save game throws an error and only deletes the backups.
  
• Fixed Recursive backups Directory being created when saving from a loaded backup game.
  
• Changed Pressing Save Button in game now saves to the same save session. The previous save will be backed up in the backups folder.
  
• Fixed Backups sorted in order from latest to oldest with latest at the top of this list.
  
• Changed Autosaves are now labelled in backups Window.
  
• Fixed Old autosaves are deleted from backups. session maintains 3 autosaves, manual saves are not deleted from backups.
  
• Fixed Error with load window when session has no backups.
  
• Fixed Backups not accounting for existing backup names when iterating backup number.
  
• Fixed backups list showing items from previous item.
  
• Fixed issue with loading from backups folder
  
• Added side panel on load screen showing backups
  
• Fixed Search box not working in LoadSave screen.
  
• Fixed Structures not switching to broken model when destroyed on Clients.
  
• Fixed Byte Array Read Error on clients when explosions destroy cable or pipe networks.
  
• Fixed Error thrown by book blueprint.
  
• Fixed issue with SessionSortType argument out of range errors from playerprefs
  
• Changed DamagedAllowed function to use inheritance to bring in-line with existing code-base practices.
  
• Fixed Suit not correctly updating its position for atmospherics calculations due to it being hidden in slot.
  
• Added `masterserver` command
  
• Fixed Error in Internal Atmosphere thermodynamics calculation that could cause items with internal atmospheres to radiate or be heated by the incorrect world atmosphere.
  
• Fixed issue where structures would not leave behind broken equivalent when destroyed
  
• Fixed checksum for game session is unnecessarily long
  
• Fixed issue happening when empty save name is created at new world
  
• Fixed Wreckage not spawning (introduced rev. 16675, Internal build).
  
• Fixed issue with indestructible objects taking damage
  
• Fixed backup saves window
  
• Added better highlighting feedback for load/save items
  
• Fixed Print Action not printing to screen.
  
• Added save name prompt before starting a new game
  
• Fixed Key nor Found exception thrown when using smart rotate on small light.
  
• Removed a number of unnecessary error logs.
  
• Fixed Index Out of Range Error thrown by broken structures on Load that what prevent save from loading.
  
• Fixed Spawned wreckage on load stealing Saved ReferenceIds.
  
• Fixed White and Yellow console logs printing to screen. Only red error logs print to screen now.
  
• Fixed packaging machine not working for clients
  
• Fixed bug where thing max damage was not set correctly
  
• Changed auto saving to override current save directory
  
• Removed Un-needed error log on tutorial start.
  
• Fixed NRE for checking logFile arg
  
• Fixed Stacker tooltip shows incorrect stack-size quantity on client.
  
• Fixed Error thrown by Atmospheric Debug.
  
• Optimized Atmospheric particles for clients. Clients were previously rendering atmospheric particles for distant Grids. 10-20% fps improvement when playing as a client on a larger base.
  
• Fixed Atmospherics error spam caused by edge case where a world atmosphere could be created with a volume of 0. Would result in the atmosphere having an Energy of NaN.
  
• Fixed Some World atmospheres on hot planets could have a very strong direction vector that would blow player around. This was a result of bad data serialized during the atmos bug that was fixed in the most recent hotfix.
  
• Fixed Exception thrown by battery when trying to update render state.
  
• Added Debug.Log() at console print level if `-logFile` is used (to actually log them)
  
• Added a potential catch for DoTween at our console print level
  
• Fixed DoTween logspam now only reports errors only
  
• Removed console logging if `-logFile` launch command is used.
  
• Fixed incorrect toxin levels applied in previous change
  
• Added placeholder for sending client side commands to server
  
• Fixed Fully grown plants not healing when in good growing conditions.
  
• Fixed issue where plant damage was not saving correctly
  
• Fixed plants taking damage on loading world
  
• Fixed issue where certain objects would block the sun
  
• Fixed issue where lander would sometimes collide with itself
  
• Fixed Can't fill water bottle in Hydroponics tutorial.
  
• Fixed Tutorial loading screen not working.
  
• Fixed Can play as other species in tutorials.
  
• Fixed Out of range exception thrown by AtmosphericAudioHandler.
  
• Added -noclear launch flag for dedicated server to skip clearing so you can see any errors before "ready"
  
• Added LoadLatestCommand extend LoadGameCommand so syntax is similar.
  
• Added clamp for console write buffer count. Sometimes is less than 0 and throwing exceptions
  
• Removed attempt to skip Clear() on Linux.
  
• Added ignoring Clearing console on linux dedicated until a fix is found.
  
• Fixed Tutorials. Tutorials button has been re-enabled.
  
• Added `status` command for dedicated server
  
• Added try/catch around clearing cline in console. Hopefully stopping from console being unusable when exception there is thrown
  
• Suppressed user input in console while dedicated server is loading up before ready.
  
• Added some annoying logs for the developers when they don't add help text to a command ;)
  
• Fixed Atmospheric error on clients when server sent an atmosphere with a bad Id.
  
• Fixed DiodeSlide not showing correct value on clients.
  
• Fixed Error spam from plants when damaged by bad Atmosphere.
  
• Fixed Audio bug where wind sound could get stuck on.
  
• Optimized physics tick for objects hidden in slots. bases with large active chute networks or lots of items in vending machines and closed lockers should see a 10% fps improvement.