Not Simon

We had a couple of things that didn't make it in to the last update that we wanted to get finished off before moving. These mainly centered around pain points to do with slow process cycling larger airlocks, and a few oddities of the heat exchanger.

Powered Vents We’re introducing Powered Vents as a way to get around some of the limitations of speed in our atmospheric system. These powered vents can move a lot of gas by drawing from atmospheres beyond the grid that the device is actually in, and they can output a very large amount of gas as well. This can help with pulling a vacuum or filling a room fast.

These vents have a flow rate indicator to let you easily tell if the vent is being provided with enough gas to be working at full capacity. This feature has also been added to the active vent.

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• Fixed Water filters don't filter steam.
  
• Fixed Tooltips on EvaporationChamber and CondensationChamber pipe connections.
  
• Fixed Pipe damaged/destroyed by freezing tooltip.
  
• Fixed Atmos-Analyser sometimes doesn't show the correct StateChange symbols.
  
• Changed CondensationChamber and EvaporationChamber will continue to exchange heat with the heat exchange connection when turned off.
  
• Fixed HeatExchangers not correctly applying save migration functionality.
  
• Changed Limited evaporation when Temperature of liquids has dropped below its freezing Temperature.
  
• Changed Increased the amount of damage freezing gasses and liquids cause to pipes.
  
• Fixed broken states of station batteries not rendering.

Stationeers has the bold aim of modelling many very complex systems, and trying to do so in a way that will run acceptably on most computers. For a long time we have wanted to better model phase change (movement of state between gases, liquids, and solids). This will allow us to make more interesting mechanics such as rocket fuels in future updates. The task has come with significant challenges, trying to maintain support for existing worlds and not make the game even more complex for new players than it already is. This is the first step in making our overhaul of Rockets, as it was necessary to do this work before continuing with the work on Rockets.

Description
Gasses now can phase change, when under different pressures/temperatures. Normal Atmospheric pipes break from the stress/weight of condensing liquids, so use a condenser valve to ensure liquids can drop safely into liquid pipes. You can reference a phase diagram in the Stationpedia to figure out what a gas or li... Read more

We have been working hard at our reworking of Rockets, but we have removed those changes from this build as they aren't ready, but we wanted to get out changes to the character controller and particularly fixes to the Linux Dedicated server. There is really a lot of different things in this updates so even some really good changes are glossed over outside of a brief mention in the changelog.

Camera and Character Movement For a long time players have requested fixes for the dreaded "getting stuck on corners". This update features a complete rework of the colliders and rigidbodies for controlling the character. In the test scene the character easily got stuck on things before the changes, and after the update there was zero getting stuck on things. We anticipate those frustrated with this in the past will find this much better.

We've enhanced the player's camera movement once again in an effort to further minimize stuttering. Additionally, we've made a series of refine... Read more

Our IC system somewhat loosely models MIPS "instructions". So its like a small virtual processor and you define instructions that you want to run. This update includes some new instructions, a breaking change to one set of instructions, and some feature improvements to the IC editing system. In addition or as part of these updates number bugfixes and optimizations have been added to the IC system itself as well as the editor.

Predictive Instruction Help in IC Editor If what you have typed matches an instruction, the editor will include helpful information in the background to assist you in formatting the instruction correctly.


Variable and Constant changes New IC Constants A variety of new constants can now be added to your code. These will resolve as numbers, but can remain in your script for ease of use. Think of these as "special" numbers the pro... Read more

Performance
In this update, we've focused on performance, specifically for players with large automated bases experiencing lower frame rates. Key improvements include optimizing physics and chutes, reducing physics update tick time by 50% through better caching for dynamic objects in slots, and improving server tick for bases with many chutes and chute devices.

Additional enhancements encompass streamlining the decay tick, Trading Motherboard Computer screen interface, Satellite Dish scanning logic, and the Computer screen render optimization. These performance updates aim to provide a smoother, more responsive gaming experience, particularly for players with complex bases.




Hem Droid Quality of Life Improvements
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This hotfix is for the programmable chip motherboard matching the incorrect devices to the displayed items

We will be getting back to the larger themed updates soon but for now, we’ve been focusing on two main things: Improving multiplayer through the addition of Steam P2P, and bug fixing and improvements.

Steam P2P


Why was it removed in the first place? When we prioritized the low-level changes during the multiplayer refactor, we had to temporarily remove the existing implementation of Steam P2P. Now that we've completed that work, Steam P2P has been re-enabled.

What does this mean for you? Previously, hosting a game required enabling upnp on your router or manually port forwarding, which could be difficult or impossible on some networks. However, with Steam P2P, all the tunneling is handled automatically, so you can connect to the host using your Steam ID.

If Steam P2P is not available for some reason, the game will fall back to dire... Read more

New Traders
Shuttles Shuttles come in 6 types, including small, medium, and large variants, each with normal and gas options. Shuttles can use a runway or make a vertical descent and require a landing pad of different sizes: 3x3 for small, 5x5 for medium, and 6x6 for large. Supporting the requirements of different shuttle types means you’ll get to trade with more of the visiting Traders.



Space Planes There are two types of space planes, medium and large. Unlike shuttles, space planes cannot land vertically, require a runway, and only appear on planets with an atmosphere. Due to being designed to operate in diverse atmospheres, they are able to still land during storms, unlike shuttles. Space planes also need a larger landing pad size: 7x7 for medium and 9x9 for large. A minimum runway length of 15 and 20 is required for medium and large space planes,... Read more

Trader Overhaul
The previous trader updates changed the way you contact and summon traders, and this update finally changes who the traders are, and what they trade. We've done a complete overhaul on how the traders and their wares are defined. Previously, traders and their goods and prices were programmatically generated, but this is now all hand authored. These changes were all designed with mod support in mind, and modders can create new unique traders easily.

Traders now, in general, only trade more basic items rather than fully manufactured goods. They also don't buy and sell the same things, but rather they will buy items that make thematic sense. For example, the alloy trader sells alloys but wants to buy ores. Traders will also occasionally want to sell or buy special items.


New Trader Types There are currently 5 unique traders, each buying and selling their own unique set of goods. Higher Tier versions of the traders will trade a wider variety of... Read more

2022 was a very busy year for the Stationeers team. We consolidated our Statiioneers team with our ICARUS team at the same location, allowing us to draw together our talent and experiences across both teams.

Multiplayer Our efforts last year culminated in the release of a major multiplayer refactor that solved a great deal of issues and substantially optimized the code. The game was still heavily reliant on a method of making network connections that was unreliable and not performant - so we developed that further (a variation of RakNet we call "RocketNet"). We released this late last year as well as removing DRM entirely from the game and also any requirement for the game to run on steam.

This has presented an issue for players who have difficulty making multiplayer connections due to Internal Address issuing problems, stemming from port forwarding challenges and IP exhaustion. We are currently working hard to reimplement Steam P2P to work with our new multiplayer,... Read more

• Dishes now release contacts from interrogation if the wattage requirement is no longer met, this addresses a missmatch of information between the contact UI and the interrogation popup.
  
• Fixed possible issue where contact manager could potentially crash.
  
• Added ability to read and write power setting for small and medium satellite.
  
• Fixed mismatched types for power setting when updating clients.

Trading Contact System When revisiting the trader contact mechanic, we really wanted to create an engaging system that would encourage engineering, automation and problem solving. In addition to finding traders, we’ll leverage this in the future to find destinations for your rockets, answer distress signals, and invite visitors to your station. The process of contacting contacts has been split into a few concepts.

Contacts Instead of dozens of contacts constantly spread around the sky, we’re moving to a more logic driven approach of having rules dictate when traders are available. As we transition from our older trader system, into the new one, we are providing the old traders as three separate tiers of contacts. These current contacts have increasing difficulties to contact and hang around for about 20 minutes before they leave and another one takes their place, so you’ll have to find the harder contacts if you want to check out many traders.

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Today we're doing a quick patch that brings a new low level multiplayer implementation. This change should mean that the network performance is better and connectivity should improve in some situations.
The larger issues around connecting to servers is an ongoing task that is actively being worked on.

Due to time constraints, we omitted the 3x1 hangar door from the previous update but we're taking this opportunity to add it.

Dismounting ladders had a bug caused by the changes to the movement controller and this has also been fixed.

The second trader update brings us a step closer to a more interesting, fun, and involved trading game loop. You can read about all the plans for trading in the previous blog post here.

Gas Trading


Leveraging the new modular landing pad we’ve made some big changes to how you buy gas from traders. With the new Gas Storage and Gas Connector modules you can now buy large quantities of gas from traders with ease. Traders will provide a range of gas mixes ... Read more

New Landing Pads


This new modular landing pad system is replacing the existing landing pad structure. To set up a new landing pad you will need to build a Landing Pad Center surrounded by the landing pad pieces. It needs to be at least 3x3 with a Data and Power module. There isn't currently any new functionality with the new system but you can read more about why we’ve done this and what is to come.

Hydroponics Player Feedback


We received a lot of feedback about the recent hydroponics changes, and one point that kept coming up was potatoes being too easy. While we wanted to keep an easy crop available for new players, the potatoes balance skipped out on too many mechanics. So ... Read more

This hot-fix fixes the missing plant analyzer cartridge recipe for the electronics printer and the missing plant analyzer cartridge thumbnail.

This week is all about gene manipulation. We’ve added the Genetics Stabilizer, Genetics Splicer, a new plant PDA cartridge, increased the impact of lighting conditions, as well as fixing a number of both new and historic bugs.

Genetics Stabilizer
There is now a stability value associated with each gene. Genes with a high stability value will mutate less when passed to the next generation. The Genetics Stabilizer has two modes which allow for the manipulation of these values. The first mode, stabilize, allows you to increase the stability of all the genes at the same time. The second mode, destabilize, decreases the stability of all genes, however it allows you to target a specific gene to be destabilized to a greater degree.

With proper usage of this appliance you should be able to target one or more genes to mutate at a high ra... Read more

Continuing to expand on last week's update, we've added some new features to how plants process light and made some quality of life changes to the plant tooltips. We've also focused on general big fixing.


Plant Light Changes
Sunlight and grow lights now both scale the amount of time the plant has received light for, based on their solar intensity. Sunny planets like Vulcan receive a 150% multiplier to time spent in light, while distant, cold planets like Mimas only receive 18% of the time spent in light. Plants grown solely from the sun on distant planets may become extremely stressed, and struggle to mature. Grow lights have been reduced to 80% intensity.



Fortunately, grow lights now cumulatively add light to plants in combination with the sun. Hydroponic setups with both exterior windows, and artificial lighti... Read more

In The Farming Update we've made some big changes to how plants grow, adding new challenges and rewards. These changes include slowing down the growth time, a new genetics game loop, more nuanced environmental impacts on the plants, and the introduction of perennial plants. We wanted to achieve a feeling of involvement with farming and a sense of reward for being attentive and providing the right conditions for your plants.

This update has taken longer than normal but has laid the foundations for the next few updates that will build upon these game loops and you can expect to see more content around hydroponics and food.

Increased Growth Time
Base growth times have been increased for all plants, some significantly. While potatoes remain an easy single day staple food, others, such as the Tomato and Pumpkin plants have a bas... Read more