Aug 10, 2022

Tools & Backpacks new content and rebalance together with plenty of bugfixing

Stationeers - Rocket

It's been a hectic few months for us since our major refactor as we feel like we have finally been able to hit our old stride in the project. If you look back through our weekly updates you can see how spending that period to time to redo the project has paid huge dividends. We are now able to more robustly focus on the future of the game as well as add new content.

We've been a little slow at getting new content in over the last weeks, as we have been laser focused on fixing bugs - especially some very serious ones introduced (or highlighted) by our refactoring work. What really spurs us on is seeing all those amazing youtube videos of your content, the twitch streams, and the thoughts you share here and on discord.

Balance: Tool Speed Buffs

The welding torch now is 20% faster than the arc welder. Increasing the welder's burn atmosphere to be above 3000C (by using a N2O combustion mix) will increase this speed bonus to 50%.
Players now get additive tool speed increases of 20%, and a structure placement speed increase of 20% when not wearing a spacesuit. A friendly reminder that gas welding without a suit has been known to cause respiratory issues. Lastly, all MkII tools now have a 10% speed bonus over the regular tools.

New Content: Mining Backpacks

We've added a new type of backpack to help with some of the awkwardness of long mining trips. There are two variants, the Mining Backpack and the Hard Mining Backpack. These have a large number of ore slots (24 and 28, respectively), and are available in the tools manufacturing machine alongside the existing mining belts.

Atmospherics Changes

Balanced atmospheric mixing rates no longer depend on room state, with room mixing being raised slightly, and roomless mixing being lowered more significantly. Atmospheric movement now has a greater effect on player movement.

Future Price Change

As noted when we started the project we would slowly increase the price as the project matured, but in doing so would be as transparent as possible with the community. We will be adjusting the price slightly in the coming weeks. Obviously this will only be affecting new players, not those who already purchased the game. The exact amount will vary depending on the currency, and it is possible the game may become cheaper in some territories as it has been some time since we revisited the price to ensure it was fair in different currencies.

Experiments Under way for Future Updates

We are still experimenting with some pretty big changes, some of which could have some really profoundly positive impacts on the project. These areas cover everything from new content (such as the much requested Nuclear Reactors), changes to how multiplayer connections are made (to improve connectivity with those with network troubles), new approaches to terrain (to make the game feel more visually appealing like Space Engineers or Astroneer), and more.

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.

Additionally, you can support us by purchasing the DLC we made to allow those who 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/

Changelog v0.2.3545.17252

Tool speed multipliers are now correctly used during deconstruction.
Changed mining backpacks column count to 4
MKII tools now have 10% speed bonuses
Fixed storms appearing inside
Changed the number of slots on the mining backpacks. Basic is now 24 and hard is now 28
Changed the recipes for the mining backpacks to reflect the difference in slot numbers
Added mining backpack recipes
Changed number of slots for mining backpack
removed tool slots on mining backpack
Fixed checking game version throwing exception on join when not advertising server
Fixed Error spam on server when using FireExtinguisher.
Fix for fire effects spawning an world origin.
Fixed not being able to join hosted games unless they were advertised due to a game session(only created when advertised) being required to do the password check
Updated prefabs with missing serialized property
Fixed inventory windows don't remember their positions when reloading world
Fixed inventory windows can sometimes be positioned half or fully off the screen when loading world
Fixed a few issues around starting tutorials with a non-human character selected. Disallowed character customisation in tutorials
Fixed main menu stack items not being cleared after exiting world
Fixed emote command throwing exception in single player
Added windowheight command to set the console window height
Fixed An edge case that could cause fires to spawn at world origin.
Fixed Hotspots or cold spots building up on Venus around devices. This could happen on other planets but the effect was less noticeable.
Fixed Items in slots of structures sometimes interacting with the incorrect atmosphere.
Fixed WorldAtmospheres Close to global pressure not mixing with neighbours.
Fixed exception being thrown when using 'help' command if command not found
Added first pass of mining backpack and hard mining backpack
Fixed scenarios button was throwing an error so have disabled it for the time being
Fixed issue where changing save folder name would cause autosaves to save to the old folder. New saves will now update the world_meta with the correct WorldFileName. Old saves which already have the old WorldFileName will not be changed
Balanced IsCloseToGlobal atmospheric checks in large and small air leaks on multiple planets. This allows for small air leaks, like an open door or burst pipe, to still be noticeable in world, while preventing large pressure bursts from spreading too far.
Tied atmosphere IsAlive to depend on a constant ratio of the new atmosphere creation threshold.
With a unified IsCloseToGlobal standard, made atmospheric mixing rates to no longer depend on room state, with room mixing being raised slightly, and roomless mixing being lowered more significantly.
Increased lower pressure clamp on IsCloseToGlobal, to give very low pressure environments a higher pressure to consider irrelevant.
Fixed dynamic scrubber throwing invalid grid exception
Fixed bug where navigating back with esc on main menu would lock up certain buttons
Removed Thing.CurrentGrid. (old and deprecated way of keeping track of grid-position)
Refactored a number of Grid3 localGrids to use WorldGrid.
Changed Pipe.CurrentGrids to use WorldGrids rather than vector3.
Refactored UpdateAirState() to take in a worldGrid instead of a Vector3.
Fixed exception when cleaning up chunks on exiting world
Added Atmosphere logic types for input and output pipe atmospheres. Devices that have an IC slot will be able to read atmosphere values from their input and/or output networks.
Added "debugthreads terrain" command. This will display the number of currently queued Terrain Tasks and the total number of tasks created in the current play session.
Added ability for tools to decrease structure build times.
The welding torch now is 20% faster than the arc welder. Increasing the welder's burn atmosphere to be above 3000C (by using a N2O combustion mix) will increase this speed bonus to 50%.
Players now get additive tool speed increases of 20%, and a structure placement speed increase of 20% when not wearing a spacesuit. A friendly reminder that gas welding without a suit has been known to cause respiratory issues.

Aug 3, 2022

Nitrolizer & Dedicated Server Fixes lay the groundwork for atmospheric changes

Stationeers - Rocket

As we head towards the atmospheric changes that we discussed previously there is new content we want that lays the groundwork. This week is an example of that. The Nitrolizer extends the ability to get nitrogen oxide, which you can be used to make even hotter fires.

We've also continued to work very closely with the community, both here in steam and on discord, to identify and fix serious issues both with the base game and particularly with dedicated servers. As always you will see these efforts continue front and center with each of our updates. Please do reach out to us via these channels. While we are not always able to get issues fixed immediately, we can always use your experiences to frame out how to fix them in future.

New Content: The Nitrolizer

To continue to expand the atmospheric engineering challenges in the game, we're adding the Nitrolyzer. It takes in equal parts oxygen and nitrogen, and a lot of power, to create a dirty mix of N2O. Players will have to decide how they want use this mixed output gas. They can recycle it through the Nitrolyzer at lower production efficiencies, refilter it into pure gases, or just use the mixed output directly. This allows players to more easily access the high temperature combustion provided by N2O, increasing furnace temperatures, and gas generator power amounts.

This Nitrolyzer also comes equipped with an integrated IC10 slot. Players wanting to program their way around (or into) problems will be able to slot in a chip, and easily access the Nitrolyzer and two other devices, without out having to clutter their piping with extra housings and wires. Over the coming weeks, we'll be revisiting more beloved atmospheric devices, giving them IC10 slots, updating their models, and balancing some of their behaviours.

Dedicated Server Fixes

Many fixes and improvements have been made to the dedicated server most notable are constant master server advertising while server is paused. The server now saves before pausing to ensure no data loss. You can now run server command from any connected client. This makes it much easier to access the server without using a CLI. It also helps Linux servers as the input buffer is still quite buggy in the terminal. Click for instructions on how to set it up.

Russian Language Suit Warning Voice

Following on from our work to add the German Language voice pack, we have added a Russian voice pack. Currently this will only be played while the language is set to Russian, but as noted last update we intend to add a separate setting for this in future. Our Stationeers community is an amazing global community of players, and we will continue to develop voice packs working on order of the largest users of the game.

Your support makes this possible

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/

Changelog v0.2.3525.17189

Fixed Sounds not working on H2Combustor.
Fixed Small collider on H2Combustor switch.
Fixed issue where H2 Combuster could operate on a bad atmosphere.
Fixed Electrolysis Machine producing twice as much Oxygen and Hydrogen as expected, and cut its power usage in half.
Increased H2 Combustor water conversion rate to 66% from 33%.
Normalized heat generated when producing water, to create temperature ranges similar to gas fires.
Fixed issue with the incorrect amount of water being created when combusting for water.
H2Combuster now produces a fixed 33% of water from its reaction, with the remaining amount creating traditional combustion products.
Fixed Clients can't turn on Nitrolyzer.
Fixed Clients can't set Integrated Circuit holder device assignments (beta only)
Fixed Nitrolyzer not saving device Ids.
Fixed Nitrolyzer activating when minimum conditions for processing not met.
Fixed Unable to assign devices on some logic chips when the current device was set to none.
Changes to nitrolyzer balance: pulls more gas per tick but maximum efficiency is reduced.
Added Nitrolyzer tooltip.
Fixed Invalid WorldGrid error when newly created items played impact sound. WorldGrid is now assigned when the item is registered.
Fixed converted usage of local grid to world grid in a few places for dynamic things
Fixed Logic Units show incorrect values when setting variable targets on a device (beta only).
Fixed Error spam when Nitrolyzer input2 is not connected.
Added checks around loading bad room data in saves which could cause rooms to contain the same grid multiple times
Fixed batch mode framerate limit being overridden
Added client protection to `save` command
Removed extra logMessageReceived callback append in ConsoleWindow
Fixed the frame rate being unlimited in the main menu when launching the game or returning to the main menu from a game
Added frame limit while game is paused
Added `serverrun` command for client authorised server commands
Made `save` command with no args save current world save
Added Nitrolyzer, a device which will convert oxygen and nitrogen into NO2. It has a power consumption of 20KW. The nitrolyzer is most efficient when operating on a 1:1 mix of oxygen to nitrogen. It will pull equally from its two inputs. An improper mix will result in less efficient operation and some of the power being lost as heat into the internal gas mix.
Added IC slot to the Nitrolyzer with 2 device assignments. Db is the Nitrolyzer and d0 and d1 can be assigned to any device on the Nitrolyzer's logic network. The internal mode can be set to "idle" (0) to pause production. The unit will consume 50W of power in idle mode.
Removed NetManager class double up with NetworkManager
Refactored a number of logic functions to Logicable static class.
Fixed master server ping stopping when server has paused
Added potential fix for slotted objects being offset from their slot on clients
Fixed Wireless Power Transmitters prevent clients joining game. (beta only)
Fixed New Large Radiators had default flash point and autoignition temps. Changed values to match pipe radiator.
Fixed Atmospheres with an invalid world grid will now be deregistered immediately.
Changed Definition of Invalid World Grid to (0,0,0).
Fixed Collection modified errors and energy set to NaN Atmospherics errors caused by bad room data in old saves causing atmospheres to be registered to more than one room.
Fixed Chunk de-serialisation not handling bad minable data.
Fixed weather effects/sound not persisting when active after loading game
Added non paintable color swatches.
Fixed slotted items in fridge not scaling or rotating correctly
Fixed shelf not being able to be placed
Fixed issue with -settingspath and custom savepath issues with dedicated server
Added Nitrolyser script.
Added auto save just before server auto pause
Fixed World atmospheres not cleaning up fast enough when close to global atmosphere.
Changed IsCloseToGlobal check to be relative based on GlobalAtmosphere pressure.
Changed Mix in world function to no longer flag atmospheres that have mixed as being active, it was preventing large clumps of world atmospheres from being cleaned up.
Removed debug print when moles Quantity was set to denormal or negative value.
Improved atmos analyser tablet text alignment and overlapping
Fixed build error caused by shader property id clashes
Fixed atmospheric system was not gracefully handling invalid value detection. Now invalid values are reported but handled and atmospherics continues. Sometimes very large (or very small) values can result from extremely energetic explosions or fires, so they need to be noted but gracefully cleaned up and execution continues.
Fixed client sync animators could be causing position issues.
Fixed signs not being able to be placed
Fixed join serialize and deserialize was not ordered, so objects had to wait for their parents. Now join thing data is sent ordered, so objects know their parents will exist. This optimizes, especially for large worlds, as things had to wait for their parent to exist. Additionally, it cuts down significantly on the data sent as physics data is stripped from objects that are not being physics updated. Possibly fixes desync on join where objects are at weird offsets.
Fixed StationContents were being sync'd with index of int type, unnecessary, so now being sync with byte (max is 17)

Jul 26, 2022

Playing with Fire | New fire mechanics, Multiplayer Fixes, and more

Stationeers - Rocket

This week we have begun revisiting not just core systems but gameplay ones. Fire is the first of the gameplay systems we have revisited, as we see it as one of the central systems that Stationeers have to master. Additionally, we've been working very hard to provide some key fixes. We also have also been working on with some new art for future updates, working towards exciting things like nuclear reactors, satellites, and more.

Dragging Items no longer destroys suits

Throughout most of the development dragging items has been dangerous, often resulting in a buggy experience that resulted in destruction of suits, development of leaks, even damaging the player severely. With the refactor this had become even worse, to the point where dragging crates or containers was almost impossible without risking catastrophic damage.

This has now been resolved. The issue was that while we were removing dangerous collisions with what you were (or were recently) carrying, often it wasn't what you were carrying that was damaging you - it was you being nudged by that thing into another structure. Extensive testing has been conducted, and it is now safe again to drag canisters, containers, and tanks.

Placement on both sides of walls

This is probably one of the most requested features on the project, and it's now here. You can place wall devices on both the front and back of walls. The devices will default to facing towards you, so to place something on the other side of the wall you will need to be facing that side.

New Fire Mechanics

Fire is one of the oldest features of Stationeers. This week we've changed how fast fire burns, and the conditions that allow it to burn, as well as added a new oxidizer for even more firey explosions.
Fire between volatiles and oxygen has been slowed down significantly. Now atmospheric fire is more likely to spread around, instead of instantly exploding. This also effects fires burning inside of furnaces, so being able to inject, or pump out fuel, of an active furnace is a lot more achievable. The increase of regular fuel autoignition temperatures, combined with the removal of several other pressure limitations makes using regular fuels significantly safer, readable, and, in the event of an accident, recoverable.

But for the pyromaniacs out there, we've added N2O as a new oxidizer to use, which allows volatiles to burn significantly hotter, faster, and at a lower autoignition temperature. This new high temperature fire allows you to reach hotter temperatures than ever before. Furnaces with large quantities of gas can easily be reheated, and gas generators can produce even more power, all while using a lower ratio of volatiles to combust.

We've also improved our volumetric fire effects. Density, temperature, and pressure will all drive the new particle effects, and allow you to tell the difference between a small welder accident, and a suit melting furnace explosion.

New Logic Gate Unit

A community request on the forums was made for a Logic Gate unit. This has been added. This allows you to take two inputs and perform a boolean operation on them. You could do this within our MIPS IC system, but there were no dedicated logic devices to perform them. Normal boolean operations are supported such as OR, XOR, NAND etc... Additionally, NOT has been added as a comparison operation to the Unary Math processors as well. You can build this device from the Logic I/O Kit.

In-game Help system updates

Community content continues to be one of the best ways to explore Stationeers, and given the depth of the game this is probably never going to change. However, it is vital we do a better job of providing important specific information to the player inside the game wherever we can. As such, Stationpedia has been redeveloped.

The search functions were optimized and their operation parallelized. This means that it no longer causing performance issues while searching. Additionally the search itself is much more robust. You can type a sentence and the search will look for all the words contained, in any order. You can also search for multiple fuzzy phrases by separating them using a comma. So, for example, you could search for "canister water, travel" and any items containing the words "canister" and "water", OR "travel" would be shown. The search system will also return information as soon as it finds it, and keeps searching.

We will be continuing to expand this constantly through the future, to provide as much information as we can to help you play the game.

Multiplayer Connectivity Changes & Fixes

We removed the use of external SDKs that were bound to steam from our multiplayer to ensure the game would always be playable, even if our studio and steam ceased to exist. We believe this is an important way games should be made and so have committed to, as much as possible, not relying on external systems that don't fully support cross-play. We strongly believe that it is important that people can play our games together regardless of where the game was sourced from.

However, this has meant we have had to roll many systems into the game and matching players together through the rather complex world of the internet has not been easy. We put a lot of time into trying to clean this up, working through issues the community identified here and on the forums.

There were significant problems with how we were initializing connections with your network device for some users. Many had no trouble, but we had been relying on the OS to assign us the valid network device - but this wasn't always true. Now we loop through all available network devices and look for one that can support the external connection stationeers need. Additionally, Upnp is then registered for that specific device. In some cases, these ended up being different devices.

We do still have more work to do here, so please do let us know issues you are having. We may implement steam peer-to-peer again as an option later, but we need to finish all our refactor work first as this would be a major package of work and we wouldn't want to have to redo it again.

Optimization & Stability fixes for world grids

Some pretty nasty bugs remained around our atmosphere and room registration systems. Within discord I explained a metaphor - imagine a bank where only odd numbers are allowed for bank accounts. All companies then setup there systems to assume only odd numbers are used for accounts. But it turns out, the bank doesn't actually check if account numbers are odd. Imagine a few of the bank staff have a bad day, and occasionally even number accounts get through.

This is what was happening with World Grids - important for atmospheres and rooms. Our systems weren't actually checking if the values provided fitted on the small or large grids - and problems ensued. We've take a key step with atmosphere and rooms to do this, but we suspect there will be continued work to really solidify this. However, we've already seen a much more stable situation.

We've also made sure that the system is much less tolerant of bad data. This might mean the game refuses to load a save or fails to run properly without splitting out errors. Please do let us know when this happens and send us the saves, as we can use these saves to find and fix those issues. In many cases, we can fix the issues within days and post the updates to Beta, rolling them into main on the next weeks update.

Your support makes this possible

Changelog v0.2.3499.17067

Changed Atmospheres that are being destroyed have their Direction set to zero.
Fixed DynamicThings (such as players) could have a registered world grid that was no longer the registered world atmosphere for the location. This possibly caused the hotspot and atmosphere locations what would throw players weirdly whenever they entered the square. Also optimized the atmosphere IsInvalidThing method to use cached values, reducing the overhead check for this method which could be significant.
Fixed possible null ref if a game was unnaturally paused during chunk deserialization as a client. Split methods into two parts.
Re-enabled toolbelt Foley sound
Reverted jitter fix as this had large amount of side effects that need to be fixed (This will be in the next patch, there's to many issues for it to be included in this patch)
Added network connection fallback to OS default when device check fails
Adjusted game loading screens to handle all possible display resolutions gracefully.
Fixed entity's not generating a new animation cancelation token when being revived causing an error which meant that each character could only ragdoll once
An active welder will now spark the external atmosphere while ejecting its waste gases.
Temporarily removed ToolBelt Foley until Character juddering issue resolved.
Fixed input popup/labeler stops working after clicking search button on consoles. Was previously throwing exception but will now do nothing. Search functionality to be reimplemented at a later date.
Fixed Error spam when clients are looking at dynamic hydroponics.
Fixed Toolbelt Foley sound could get stuck at Maximum volume causing very jingly movement sounds.
Fixed refresh rate not being applied when loading settings
Fixed loading screens were not showing a black background behind them.
Fixed airlocks were too vast at declaring a vacuum. Reduced their vacuum tolerance to require closer to an absolute vacuum, and they will continue to pull for 1 second longer than they have detected a vacuum. Recommend that you have one active vent per grid square for airlocks using airlock control.
Fixed issue where cable junctions would not destroy after taking their max possible damage
Fixed several cases where the welding torch could remain on, despite no combustible fuel being present.
The welding torch now performs an internal combustion on its fuel, before mixing with the external atmosphere.
Fixed Ignition sounds playing for very small atmospheric fires.
Changed Scaled the volume of ignition sounds based on the size of the atmospheric fire.
Fixed Error thrown by AtmosphericAudioHandler when multiple threads were adding stressed structures to the stressed structures collections.
Optimizations to VolumetricLights on light sources.
Fixed failed ping attempt to master server would mean server would not be advertised until manually reset using refresh command. Now will silently get a new session from master server.
Fixed able to combine road flares when they are already activated and burning. Now cannot combine road flares that are burning.
Fixed flashing motherboards for airlocks with a screwdriver was not correctly resetting their state. Now correctly flashes and clears all device elements.
Added Robot will now try and use power out of it's hands, if the robot battery slot battery is null or empty.
Fixed saving icon would sometimes be stuck on even though game was not saving
Fixed logic gate model incorrectly showed its inputs in mesh
Fixed character hair showing helmet variant on first loading character creation even if helmet is not on
Tweaked animation timings for on off switches on fabricators
Fixed chunk exception when exiting a game while chunks rendering is being changed.
Fixed loading screen scaling is breaking for some resolutions
Fixed main menu game scene background was mismatched for ultra-wide monitors.
Added back all the loading screens to the game. Moved them into packaged folders, so they aren't taking up extra space.
Fixed autolathe switch not fully rotation into position
Fixed reinstated wave emote on keypress using new system
Fixed sending atmospheres to clients during write was causing NaN exceptions. Now an atmosphere is skipped from synchronization if contains NaN data, usually during atmospheric worker changes.
Fixed both gas generators possibly creating water during their forced combustion calls.
Fixed placing wireless power transmitter causes error spam on clients.
Added network device information to the "network" command to help debug network issues.
Fixed network issues related to multiple ethernet devices. The game would attempt to bind to the first the OS gave it, Upnp would try bind to the first ipv4 it found. This meant that Upnp and the game would bind to different adapters sometimes. Now the game will assess all network devices to look for all addresses it can use. Then it goes through and attempts to bind to all those addresses. When successfully finding a network device that will commence, it will use that to register upnp. This should solve a fair number of hosting/connecting issues people are having.
Added emote command for console and an easier way of triggering emotes for future use
Added 1st pass on sounds for atmospheric fires.
Changed Reduced particle spawn rate on thing fires to prevent puffing effect when particle system reached max number of particles.
Fixed character jitter while moving (more noticeable at higher frame rates as the framerate and physics updates timings diverged)
Added our own managed LateUpdate loop in the same way as our managed Update loop and implemented it on some managers
Fixed N2O combustion not correctly adding nitrogen gas to the combustion gasses.
Fixed loading images leaving borders when scaling on ultrawidescreens
Fixed Atmospherics thread race condition error that could happen when multiple fires we're being registered or deregistered at the same time.
Refactored Stationpedia search system. Words separated with spaces are searched for in text, in any order. Phrases groups can be made using commas, for example "water canister, travel" will search for records that contain "water" and "canister" (in any order), OR any page containing "travel".
Added spawn menu filtering now will search for items using any typed word, but in any order. So you can type "canister water" or "water canister" and it will show results that contain those words.
Fixed incomplete walls/windows would seal solars and extendable radiators from storm damage. Now damage checks not just for room, but for a global atmosphere. This means that solars will have to be in a fully enclosed atmosphere or vacuum to prevent storm damage.
Added StormBegin and StormEnd commands for debug purposes to spawn or end storms. Note these will soon be locked behind an "enable cheats" system.
Added LocalIpAddress setting. Not shown in game settings currently, but can be added to setting.xml file before load. This will use this IP address with network adapters while trying to register a client/server internet connection. This is useful when having MP issues, if you have multiple devices, as stationeers may be using the wrong one.
Added animated leak/fire images for slot items.
Added console font is a monospace font, same as for AotR.
Fixed non-critical exceptions on exiting game to main menu due to old character trying to still blink after it was deleted.
Fixed loading screen images stretch for variable aspect ratios.
Added Solar Panels can be repaired using Glass Sheets, as well as duct tape. Uses between 1 and 2 sheets depending on damage amount.
Balanced breaking force for joint when "dragging" something such as a container or large gas tank. Now twice as much breaking force is required to force it to drop, which should make it easier to drag things.
Fixed dropping draggables (such as containers, and gas canisters) near structures tends to cause an extreme collision with the player, destroying their suit and yeeting them across space and time. Previous attempts to fix were removed as they did not work, as they focused on fixing collisions between the item and the player, however, the issue was collision not between the object and the player so much as the player being pushed by the dropped item into structures very quickly. Now this is handled and the collision allowed to occur, but damage not applied for it.
Minor fix of missing scripts on prefabs.
Added Stationpedia mouse locking now darkens the background and prevents you from clicking, dragging or targeting anything. This puts the stationpedia in "modal" mode so you can utilize it without worrying about affecting any backgrounds.
Fixed localized strings could insert carraige returns if poorly configured. Now titles will strip whitespace if text accidentally includes it.
Fixed color tags broken for statiopedia, affecting some stationpedia files like hash numbers for other worlds for rockets preventing copying them.
Added toggle on Stationpedia window that will keep the mouse cursor free to move while Stationpedia window is open, instead of requiring you to hold the MouseCursor (left alt) button.
Fixed input continued while console window, stationpedia, labeller, and editing windows were open. Now it is disabled at base level of key mappings.
Fixed possible null ref exception when disposing of a player character at end of session.
Added "regeneraterooms" command. This command will automatically attempt to generate rooms, it will lockup the game while doing so.
Minor fixes for some english strings with inconsistent kit names
Fixed Error that could occur when Atmospherics manager tied to clean up fires.
Removed ProcessFires function. This functionality is now handled by AtmosphericFire Register Deregister functions.
Replaced Area Power Control (APC) mesh with one that has a power symbol on it to make it more obvious that it is a power device rather than an active vent.
Added auto snapping of pipe and cable attached devices.
Fixed able to place pipe and cable attachments without a valid cable or pipe below.
Fixed able to place cable attachments on non-straight cables. Now only straight cables will allow cable attachments.
Optimized light managers handling of DaylightSensor to remove creation of coroutines.
Fixed issue with oxygen fires using double volatiles.
Added better prompt explaining what deleting a save is doing
Fixed issue with having same clientID with clones in editor
Added mesh for LogicGate device. Says "Gate Unit". This device makes boolean operations available for logic processors.
Added NOT comparison to LogicMathUnary.
Fixed human eyes staying open when unconscious.
Fixed Passive Vent (free grid placement) had inconsistent placement to Active vent (face mounted placement). Later update to include different variations for passive vent, but the current structure should be identical to active vent for placement.
Fixed updated coroutine use on particle effect spawners to use unitask
Fixed wall mounting for face mounting wouldn't allow orientation on rear side of walls. This was because facemount structures would lock their face orientation to the structure they were mounting on. Now facemount objects will use the closest face to the player regardless of wall direction.
Changed Build tooltips on unfinished structures only show when tool is in hand.
Fixed Health bar tooltip now shows when looking at damaged structures regardless of what is players active in hand.
Fixed Can't place a number of devices. (beta only, introduced rev. 16953)
Fixed highlight response when hovering over the "exit session" button
Fixed Atmospherics error where explosions could stall the game tick.
Re-enabled GameTick Exception Logging.
Added respawn condition keys to english.xml
Fixed Many items and devices being destroyed on Venus by greatly increased the energy threshold required for auto ignition.
Fixed instances where things could be on fire but not show flame particle effects.
Increased the threshold of combustion before flame FX are shown. Very small amounts of combustion will still happen but flames won't be visible.
Fixed Welding torch setting atmosphere to sparked even when turned off.
Inceased the amount of time a helmet takes to burn from 15 to 60 seconds.
Added ability to place FaceMount objects onto the rear of walls. Previously, you could only place on the front of the wall. This makes placing things on walls far more intuitive than it was before. WorldGrid changes made this much easier to implement than previously.
Added LogicGate device. This allows applying logical operations such as AND, OR, XOR, etc... to a single boolean output. Input values greater than near zero are considered true for operation purposes. Constructed from the Processor Kits. Note: model on beta still says Logic Select, to be replaced later.
Fixed Rooms able to be registered with a key that is not a large grid. Non-large grid room registrations were found in some saved games. They have now been moved from using Grid3 to WorldGrid. This likely fixes a bunch of small issues related to room registrations, and various flow on effects.
Fixed build error by removing unwanted imgui directive
Fixed removing tutorial folder issues for build server
Fixed alt dragging items would move them immediately to active hand
Fixed alt hover indicator sometimes is the wrong color
Added the ability to alt drag direct from world to slot
Fixed issue where clients were closing master server game sessions stopping them from being advertised
Refactored Atmospheric system to use a new enforced WorldGrid value, instead of generic Grid3. This fixes a number of Atmospheric issues that were caused by incorrect position values being sent to the Atmospheric system. Grid3 can be either small or large grid, but the atmospheric system expected only large grid. This should fix a number of atmospheric glitches, such as "hotspots" and burning cables when using the Autolathe on some worlds. Likely will fix a lot of other small atmospheric issues.
Added atmospheric system will throw errors (and lots of them) if invalid values are passed to it, to highlight the issues so we can fix them.
Changed Tutorial dir stripping for dedicated server to post-build process
Fixed Devices and items catching fire in hot atmospheres when atmosphere is sparked.
Fire will now use Nos as an oxidizer, in addition to oxygen.
Increased AutoIgnition of Oxygen based fuel mixes to 300DegreesC. Nos based fuel-mixes remain at 50DegreesC.
Nos Fires will introduce twice the amount of heat compared to oxygen fires, and will produce nitrogen and carbon dioxide by-products.
Fire now uses less of the available fuel in a single combustion tick.
Very hot fires will now allow more un-combusted fuel to transfer to neighbouring atmospheres, better representing fuel explosions.
Changed style of Fire Particles.
Fixed Fire particles on items and devices that are burning.
Changed Devices and items only catch fire in hot atmospheres when the atmosphere is inflamed or the Temperature is above its auto-ignition threshold.
Changed Walls will no longer catch fire.
Removed partial pressure limitations of both volatiles and oxygen for combustion.
Removed Combustion minimum pressure requirements.
Changed pressure differential damage to curve near both minimum and maximum pressures.
Walls at the pressure limit will roughly take 5x as long to fully burst, and walls at extreme pressures will burst roughly 10x faster.
Fixed fire particles now move more accurately with atmosphere flow direction.
Optimised The system that tracks burning items and atmospheres.
Removed old fire marker prefabs.
Fixed error spam when looking at some destroyed structures with a tool in hand.
Changed Inflamed value on Atmosphere is only set inside the Atmosphere.React function. Devices that cause fires should set their atmosphere to sparked.
Fixed Fire Extinguisher not working in single-player.
Fixed incorrect tooltip on names of input/output ports on Heat exchanger.
Changed Swapped location of input2 and output2 port on heat exchanger.
Changed Heat exchangers now fully passive and will move gas through the unit in the direction of pressure, Maintaining a 10Kpa differential across the input and output will prevent back-flow.
Fixed issue connecting client to server or host
Added extra info for network status command
Reverted change where I accidentally pushed removing await delay in master server ping
Fixed NRE for player cookie clone editor
Added game string for starting condition difficulties
Fixed star skybox was rotating in space map. Now an XML world element is available (RotatingSky, default TRUE) that when set to false will stop the skybox rotation.
Refactored game initialization system. Previously the game was initializing in a haphazard fashion, causing us issues with dedicated servers and errors with some clients. Now the game initialization is done in a very sequential fashion, in an atomic way so that the entire game can rely in the initialization state when they are ordered for execution.

Jul 18, 2022

Nitrogen Ice, Optimizations & Tutorial Improvements

Stationeers - Rocket

The pace of our development has been able to substantially ramp up. The refactor work to redo much of the games foundations is now paying huge rewards in terms of our ability to iterate and produce content and fixes. Additionally, the new team members we added over time are now operating at full capacity with a much more robust codebase.

Through the week and the weekend we worked with the community on discord to continue to hit off some of the more problematic bugfixes, introduce a few community requests (such as exposing more logic variables), and fix bugs. A huge thank you, as always, to our amazing community for this hard work.

Support our development with this New Cosmetic DLC pack

Many on our Discord have been asking for ways to support the project. Last year, we put together a cosmetic pack for the Human Species, but got distracted with our significant refactor. But here we go - a purely cosmetic pack for the Human species, adding hair and new faces.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2089290/Stationeers_Human_Cosmetics_Pack/?beta=0
We have added a note to all our DLC indicating their purpose. We continue to add new content (such as new worlds) without locking them behind DLC, instead opting to put packs out like this to offer ways for players to support the project.

Stationeers is quite a niche game with a limited market. Thanks to the support of the community so far, many of whom are purchasing the DLC simply to support the project, we have been able to expand our great team and delivered on a major refactor to the project. We look forward to a bright future from the base we have now established.

Localization: German Voices In Game

The German community continues to be incredibly strong for the game. We still have a long way to go with our localization, and we will continue to work hard at this. But in the meantime, we have a thank you to the German community by including our first voice pack in the game. Currently, German voice will only be used if your language is set to German as a temporary measure, in future we will allow you to set the voice pack language separate from the text language.

Additionally, we have redone the voice pack audio effects in line with community feedback to make them less "clean" sounding. As always, please let us know your thoughts about these changes and we will continue to adjust them.

Optimizations

As we work towards establishing what the "stationeers" survival experience will be, we want to make sure maximum scale is supported. We believe one of the defining characteristics of Stationeers is the sheer scale the game is able to simulate. This is possible due to extensive work to use the maximum cores on your computer, and for multiplayer provide a very efficient system to send data out to clients.

This week we include a lot more optimizations, many quite small in their own right, but together (especially with large bases) many users might notice some further improvement in their frame rates. We will continue to optimize the game more and more with every update.

Airlock Speed and Performance

One specific area players will notice is that Airlock Circuitboards now operate significantly faster. They're also more performant as well. If you have many airlocks running, you will notice improvement performance now.

Atmospheres Changes

As we head towards broader enhancements to our atmospherics system, we need to better provide resources for players to be ready.

Nitrogen Ice now spawns

This week we have nitrogen ice spawning in worlds (non hot ones). This can be used as an inert gas, which will become important as we introduce concepts such as O2/CO2 Toxicity. Additionally, it is useful to reduce the flammability of your atmosphere.

Coming Soon: O2/CO2 Toxicity

As noted above, balancing your air requirements is going to become much more important. Managing the atmosphere to balance all you need from it will gain increasing importance. You will need to start balancing the amount of O2, ensuring not too much CO2, and using inert gases (such as Nitrogen) to balance the difference.

Coming Soon: Fire Improvements

We have extensive changes coming in the next few weeks that will make fire much more of a hazard. Already in this update, a few changes introduce more sources of ignition (such as fabrication machines, microwave, etc...). A complete refactor to fire will be released in the next few weeks which will really up the danger of fire in general as well as visually enhance it a great deal. Use these next few weeks to start preparing your bases with a view of safety.

New World Preview Scenes

We've been working to improve the preview scenes for the worlds, so you'll notice some beautiful new views before you head in! Additionally, Vulcan now has a new and improved Black Hole sun to really enhance the experience. A new world is planned to be added sometime soon as well, we're thinking how we could use this new world to enhance the game further so stay tuned.

Your support makes this possible

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 v0.2.3456.16909

Fixed in game hair variant not changing correctly when wearing hats or helmets
Added Appliances (Microwave/ReagentMixer) and Fabricators (Autolathe etc...) are now ignition sources. They will also put out a small amount of extra heat when they are operating. Be careful using in environments that have volatiles etc...
Added ability to ping ui slots for tutorials
Fixed misc NREs when loading game on dedicated
Fixed CommsMotherboard exception on dedicated when joining
Fixed saving spinner being visible when you launch the game until a game is saved
Minor optimizations to logic screw audio noises.
Minor optimizations to audio, trading, and logicOnOff button.
Optimized occlusion manager handling of dynamic things.
Optimized batterycell flashing animation and helmet switch state animations.
Optimized LogicDisplay render text changes, and roadflare burning.
Optimized wheel rotation for stacker, vending machine refrigerator.
Optimizing drilling animations for the Mining Drill.
Optimized movement controller to reduce memory allocation for jumping and emotes.
Fixed mission pings not showing up for things in slots
Fixed Star settings were not being correctly applied to world. New Star class (may require a change by modded worlds) applied for the two star mappings. Also optimized the star rotation and material functionality.
Removed obsolete methods. Pointing Checkfiles to new StationSaveUtils class
Fixed NRE directory when starting new game
Added German suit voice.
Updated Audio processing on English suit voice.
Added placeholders and migration methods for new save directory structure.
Fixed broken seams between chunks. This is an exploratory fix, it may now allow seams to be better sealed. This allows chunks to make as many rebuild tasks as it likes.
Fixed normal maps too heavy for new human cosmetic pack faces
Added Large Passive Radiator. It is optimised for convective cooling/heating and will be most effective in environments with world atmosphere. The Device is fully passive and the liquid/Gas will flow throw the radiator in the direction of pressure.
Added ItemKitPassiveLargeRadiator recipe to PipeBender Tier 2 printer.
Updated Character Creation scene, using the same suit (hardsuit) for both masculine and feminine human species.
Fixed helmet added in character creation scene doesn't match the suit.
Added DLC cosmetic hair to all female and male DLC characters.
Fixed facial expression not working for one of the new faces
Optimized locker handling of making items visible/invisible when closing.
Optimized render change assignments when being made off the main thread.
Optimized off thread changes for Entities, Sensors, IC Writer Motherboard, and Logic Buttons.
Optimized Status update (blinking notifications).
Optimized player suit leak system and prepared context strings for localization.
Fixed skybox prefabs would remain in scene when returning to main menu from a game.
Updated all menu scene previews for world to be more interesting, with additional prefabs and more effects, new textures, and models.
Replaced old UI planetary main menu Vulcan scene with an improved one.
Replaced in-game Vulcan Black Hole Sun with an animated and visually improved model.
Fixed plants were decaying when planted in a tray. Credit: Neouni
Optimized item decay. Was being handled individually (!!). Now moved to a centralized tick, on the server and client, that handles decay on items. Currently being handled on the main thread but in future can be moved to a worker system. This could give significant memory and performance improvements for bases that have a lot of decayable items.
Optimized Station Batteries so their flashing image was no longer generating coroutines and causing memory churn.
Optimized Chunk Generation and item out of bounds despawning to reduce memory churn and CPU usage in cleaning up, especially when lots of chunks are being rendered at once or items are falling out of bounds.
Optimized WaitThenInteract for all interactables. Now no longer uses coroutines that was causing memory turnover and wasted CPU cycles.
Optimized WallLight shadow changes. Now no longer uses coroutines that was causing memory turnover and wasted CPU cycles. This was occuring as players walked around, so very often especially if you had a lot of lights. With large bases this will reduce some of the GC overhead for memory, helping slightly for CPU.
Removed old LogicType.Idle functionality from ArcFurnace, as it was effectively useless.
Added LogicType.Idle to ArcFurnace. While return 1 while the ArcFurnace is actively smelting, and 0 once it has finished.
Added LogicType.Idle variable to door. Will return 1 while the door is animating, false while it is not 0.
Pulled ArcFurnace tooltip strings out into GameString so they can be localized to other languages. This will be a long process where we pull out of a lot of these strings.
Optimized ArcFurnace to not use coroutines for smelting. Changed from LocalGrid to GridPosition for source of smelting gas, possibly fixing arc furnace if it is the source of heat spot bug sometimes reported on forums.
Fixed ReagentReader next mode was reversed, causing the wrong direction to be used when getting the next mode. Credit: Risu.
Fixed possibility of an invalid cast of an enum for Programmable Chips for double and int. Credit: Risu.
Added LogicType.EnvironmentEfficiency and LogicType.WorkingGasEfficiency values to be read on the StirlingEngine, at the request of Mordiaky from discord.
Added action to motherboards and circuitboards for AttackWith a screwdriver. If you use a screwdriver on a motherboard or circuitboard, you can clear the motherboard. This will attempt to delete all references on the board, helping when they get bricked due to null devices containing a reference when deleted. Options to do this on the card will be dealt with later, but this is a temporary solution.
Optimized AdvancedAirlockControl and AirlockControl to no longer use coroutines giving performance gains, especially where they are used often. Also increases the speed of the airlocks significantly. Reduces the GC can CPU usage for airlock controllers.
Added IsBusy property to Doors to allow for faster operation of airlocks and associated systems.
Fixed exceptions caused by missing cosmetics data on characters during load.
Fixed handling of null character kit resulting in halted execution during load. Now will gracefully print an error in the console and continue loading.
Added Nitrice (Ice) item and Nitrice voxel deposits. These will only appear in new worlds, as VoxelTypes are created for your save file, to preserve save functionality during balancing and changes. 'Nitrice' is a form of Solid Nitrogen found as deposits. It is an inert gas that can be useful for pressurizing atmospheres. It will become more useful once O2 and CO2 toxicity is introduced.
Fixed a variety of strings in the Stationpedia were incorrectly using color tags.
Added a lot of links in the stationpedia that were missing, to help people find information better.
Fixed missing character kits getting stripped in build
Fixed server pausing on hosted server.
Fixed head meshes not showing up in character customization
Fixed missing materials in character customization scene
Added placeholders for improving steam cloud sync for saves
Fixed port being parsed as an int32. Changed to uint16 all the way down the chain.
removed blocked.txt in favour of new banning system
Improved server banning. Now adds ID to blacklist regardless if client exists. File location now respects SaveData setting.
Fixed LargeExtendableRadiator required a mkII angle grinder to deconstruct (now any angle grinder will deconstruct it).
Added Script for Large Radiator.
Fixed issues with player cookie being used on dedicated server
Fixed character dlc missing script in player prefab again
Moved devconfig to persistent folder and out of repo
Fixed character hair choice being offset by one on loading character customisation
Fixed missing character kits for DLC
Fixed character changes reverting when opening character creation
Fixed voice notification changes not saving
Added new graphic for quick save button
Added new human DLC pack
Adjusted game string formatting for localization
Added `AutoPauseServer` setting when no clients are connected. True by default.
Added meta server game session refresh attempt after a failture happening.
Added placeholder for nonsteam clientId system.
Changed pinging meta server to every 30s. Now silently tries again if fails
Fixed Localisation error for bottle slots on powered WaterBottleFiller.
Fixed Powered WaterBottleFiller Throws error when using smart rotate.
Removed Animator Component from Powered WaterBottleFiller.
Fixed InvalidOperationException in ElectricityManager.SerialiseDeltaState() when player joins
Changed RocketBinaryWriter.Position from method to property to add setter as well.

Jul 13, 2022

Bugfixes & Stability

Stationeers - Rocket

After a massive increase in players (thank you!) it highlighted that we needed to do some more work, particularly on fixing issues with the tutorials. While we knew we wanted to upgrade them to be better, we didn't realize they struggled quite so much with the changes we made in the refactor. Additionally while fixing some bugs and making optimizations, we inadvertently made more bugs.

Improving the Survival Loops

As we start to progress towards tightening up the overall game loop there is is some homework to be done improving the survival loops. A common source of frustration has been water. The existing ice crusher did not warm the water up and a bug resulted in the water made from ice coming out at extreme temperatures. The new Ice Crusher will stop to warm up its internal atmosphere if it is too cold. Additionally, the bug is fixed and water will come out slightly above freezing.

Optimizations and Improvements

We've continue to optimize elements of the game to further increase the sizes of base that can be supported. Our small team has been closely monitoring the forums, discord, reddit, and streams looking for problems and issues that we could solve. We released a few hotfixes over the weekend to work out the worst of the issues, but took a break on Sunday to get back into it for this week.

UPCOMING: Next Steps

Continued primary focus will be stability and bug-fixing, but we will be continuing to push towards reshaping the game towards a better defined objective - and laying on a true survival loop. This will include a solid focus on the mid and late game especially around ore generation. Expanding the trading and mission system, a load of new content (Nuclear reactors!), expanding the role of Rockets (including midgame options), new worlds, and much more.

UPCOMING: Multiplayer Improvements

As part of our studio commitment to provide completely DRM software, with no reliance on external SDKs (like steam), we have had to rip out some nice functionality to ensure everyone can play the game together, no matter the source of their copy of the game (whether pirated, on a console, or from steam - we want people to be able to play together).

We will continue to work to better support multiplayer and fix associated bugs, and we do understand some miss the peer-to-peer options Steam provides. However, our studio is committed to the goal of making games that can outlast both the studio and the store you bought it from. To do that, we need to make sure the game is not reliant on steam to play.

Your support makes this possible

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 v0.2.3429.16807

Fixed weather station and tweaked vane movement
Fixed falling through the ground when closing stationpedia
Removed save buttons from menu for clients
Add early return so we don't make a game session for master server while in tutorial
Fixed erroneously sent network update causing the mining robot to be fixed in place on clients
Fixed about 20 instances, across the project, of potential unnecessary network updates beings sent
Fixed compile error from last commit
Changed Tutorial stripping for dedicated server to build server argument checks
Removed placeholder setting `DeleteHumanOnDeath`
Added actual setting `DeleteSkeletonOnDecay`
Fixed hydroponics tutorial again
Fixed powered water bottle filler slots
Added placeholder for DeleteHumanOnDeath setting
Added `deletelooseitems` command
Replaced Kit Sensor item mesh with a custom one that is optimized and looks far better.
Removed StreamingAssets/Tutorial directory from dedicated server saving 1.5GB
Added initial setup for localization improvements
Fixed exit game popup showing incorrect buttons
Added localisation game string to quick save and save as buttons in menu
Fixed error sending process message from server to client in robot
Changed dedicated server default save location from `Environment.CurrentDirectory` to `Application.dataPath` parent dir
Fixed issue where tutorial blueprints would not disappear on quit
Added new WaterBottle Filler. This is a powered device with an switch to turn it on and off. Its switch will flash an error if it cannot get water (either none, or too hot, or too cold). This provides more feedback to the user, as well as allowing users to toggle it on and off. Uses a very small amount of power.
Depreciated the old Waterbottle Filler. It will still spawn in, but deconstructing it will give the kit, which now points to the new Waterbottle filler. So existing saves should work fine, but all new fillers will be the new type.
Fixed SavePath setting not being respected in dedicated servers
Added quick save function key `F5`
Added closing pause menu instantly after save or save as
Removed save buttons from pause menu in tutorial
Fixed ice machine not outputting correctly
Changed Ice Crusher. Optimized by removing use of coroutines. Ice Crusher will now stop and heat up its internal atmosphere if it is too cold. Now also has a small tooltip window that tells you the pressure and temperature inside.
Changed Ice to Smelt at 5 degrees C, rather than 0 degrees C.
Fixed Smelted Ores/Ice that were inside a vacuum, their gas temperature was lerping towards zero. Now smelted ore/ice gas will come out at its defined temperature when being smelted into a vacuum.
Added Quick Save button in menu
Added Save Game As button in menu
Removed atmos spawn debug from shipped builds
Removed more log spam
Fixed potential null errors in tutorial steps related to character
Fixed Gas Mixing Tutorial getting stuck on open Waste Tank step (introduced Rev.16750)
Fixed Things without animators returning the incorrect Open value when reading IsOpen on the main thread.
Fixed autosave attempting to run in the tutorial
Fixed some unnecessary log span regarding auto save
Added info/info-verbose command to provide info about any IReferencable (command is: "thing [info/info-verbose] [ReferenceId])
Fixed Bug in 1st tutorial(Basic Concepts) where it could get stuck on "Wait for pressure to reach 60kpa" step due to the welder over-heating the room atmosphere to an out of bounds value in the check. Removed the temperature and molar check for this step.

Jul 7, 2022

Return of Tutorials & more Bugfixing

Stationeers - Rocket

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

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

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.