This hotfix addresses numerous atmospherics issues. There has been a wide range of atmosphere issues reported that all stemmed from the same issue. The most common, or at least the most noticeable, one was outside atmosphere contaminating rooms.

This will no longer happen but some saves may have devices with bugged atmospheres in them, this can be fixed by deconstructing the device completely and then rebuilding it.

This hotfix addresses further issues with a specific trader causing errors in multiplayer, as well as a number of other small fixes and improvements.

• Fixed food trader causing checksum error. This is a temporary fix by removing a specific problematic trade.
  
• Fixed error spam when editing prefabs if the GameManager not initialized. Have removed unused WorldGridController field on game manager which was being set when the world controller was initialized but never used.
  
• Changed Plant growthState materials to be GPU instanced.
  
• Fixed Plant planted at high altitudes would be offset inside the planter.
  
• Fixed client list not being cleared when leaving a game as a client and starting a new single player game. This would cause pause to stop working in the menu as well as make the game prepare data to send to clients unnecessarily.
  
• Fixed recipe search window layout breaking when changing search text
  
• Fixed logtoclipboard console command
  
• Fixed compass value being incorrect
  
• Changed numbers on the rocket info panel to be yellow to make them consistent with the rest of the ui and other tooltips in the game

This hotfix addresses two main issues: the new world artifacts sometimes being present in the skybox, and a checksum error related to traders, but also includes a number of other small fixes.

• Updated text on rocket info panels to be right aligned to make it consistent with other ui text in the game
  
• Reverted Changes to combining stacks of reagent-mixes as this was causing floating point errors in some cases that could cause furnace recipes to stop working.
  
• Changed moved reagent-mix Stacking changes to SpaceOre.cs. These still need to implement the new system as their contents add up to less than 1.
  
• Changed DirtyOre mined from space that is processed in the recycler will waste half of its contents.
  
• Changed the names of the space maps root nodes to be the 'planet orbit'
  
• Added Back button on NewWorldMenu now clears all preview scenes
  
• Fixed (dev) null reference when attempting to load first world selection as world data might not be loaded yet.
  
• Fixed default world selection would be the first world preset, even if it was a hidden world. Credit: Freeze.
  
• Fixed giant space person in sky when loading into a game. The main menu scene was not being cleared when loading into a game. Now forcing the main menu preview scenes to be cleared before entering a world.
  
• Fixed liquid to liquid passthrough heat exchanger has one input incorrectly configured to be a gas input
  
• Fixed MoveToWorld for dynamic things was setting the rotation to the local rotation rather than the world rotation causing things to collide with their old parent and fly off at high speed.
  
• Fixed Plant state Visualizer throws error when destroyed by fire.
  
• Fixed Error on client when furnace flame material was set from thread.
  
• Changed trader checksum string to use Invariant culture.
  
• Fixed occasional temperature low warnings when playing on Europa, due to status update occasionally assessing temperature in between radiation and suit AC step.
  
• Temporarily disabled suntime command as it is causing the game to crash
  
• Removed DepositMaterial SaveData classes.
  
• Fixed Asteroid Minable deposit composition static data was being needlessly saved preventing fixes to data propagating into save games.
  
• Added Additional data validation to MinableDepositDaata in SpaceMapData
  
• Fixed spelling error in Deposit Composition of OrbitingAsteroidFragments05 caused game to fail to save when that asteroid had been generated

This updated contains changes to data and prefabs that will break some saves. Old rockets have also been removed and will no longer be present in your saves. We have created a branch that will be frozen pre this rocket update: prerocket

Rockets are often considered a final goal in Stationeers. However, instead of designing them as an end game necessity, we’ve instead treated them as another system that weaves itself into all the other systems of the game. Rockets support building stations, and stations support building rockets.

Previously, the rockets were simple yet unforgiving. It was hard to tell what was happening, unless you already knew everything about rockets. You functionally had to build the best rocket system from the start, else your rocket was likely to be lost. Lastly, the old rockets flying were simplified down to a single number increasing and decreasing on the wall, which was ‘a bit’ of an oversimplification of space flight.

Rockets have become a new system for you to engineer. They are built from structural fuselages which house many internal parts. Fuel tanks must be manually positioned and plumbed. Similarly, placing batteries, cargo storage, pipes, wires, chute and many more devices is now a challenge for you to make decisions on. Will you choose an engine that slowly pulls its own fuel, or one that chugs more and more fuel as you pressurize your pipes toward bursting?

This is a massive update for the studio and our team, adding a ground-up rework of Rockets into the game. This not only provides fantastic new content for you to experience - but sets the stage for us to expand the game in a whole host of directions.

Times have been tough for many game studios lately and Stationeers is a very niche project. You - our players - are a very important part of our development, so please consider buying our supporter content DLC, leaving reviews, and helping spread the word about the game to people who might like it.

Despite all the challenges in the gaming industry, our studio hopes to continue to grow closer to our players, serve interesting niches and regularly update our games. While not a profitable project (our typical daily revenue including DLCs is around USD 800 gross, roughly 400 of which makes it to us), Stationeers is important to all of us in the studio. We hope that shows in the hard work we do with our updates, and we feel this one is no exception.

Not only does this update contain an entire new game around Rockets, it also contains a massive array of performance, usability, and general fixes. Our change log is so big that we can’t fit all of it in this post.

- CEO Dean Hall

This pack adds cosmetic uniforms featuring fifteen different international markings for wearing on characters in Stationeers.

Our DLC was made to provide a way for those who enjoy the project and want to further support it, and in return receive some simple new content. This content is not essential for the game. Consider purchasing this if you want to further provide support to its ongoing development.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2542990/Stationeers_International_Uniforms_Pack


Devices on the rocket can be remotely accessed through the Rocket Control Motherboard. Specifically, the motherboard gets to traverse through the new datalinks. When an uplink/downlink pair is setup, the motherboard can access devices on the rockets and the rocket devices are made available on the uplink's network. This allows planetside logic devices to see rocketside devices on the networks, so traditional logic systems can still interact with rocket devices.

The Rocket Motherboard provides a visual representation of destinations to which rockets can travel. Each world has a uniquely authored map providing different locations and resources for rockets to obtain. When a destination is set, and the rocket engine is fired, rockets progress towards their destination. Scanners can be used to unlock new static destinations through the Chart action, instance new asteroids to visit by the Discovery action, or gather more information about a mining site via the Survey action. All these UI based actions and commands can also be activated via logic on the rocket avionics device.

Rockets act as a way for players to obtain resources and gasses. But Rockets now provide a framework for us to modify other aspects of the game. While not making the first cut of features for this release, we intend to add satellite deployments which can increase the number of traders who visit, contact bespoke traders, or even microwave remote power from space. We also want to ensure that traveling to other planets get enough attention, and isn't a side note. Traveling back and forth between worlds will be possible, but will require some significant changes to our save system.

Engine selection is important, as it dictates how efficiently you use fuel and how much thrust you can produce. The Pumped Gas Engine and Pumped Liquid Engine are the two simplest engines, pulling fuel directly from pipes and tanks. The Pressure Fed Gas Engine operates on gaseous fuel, and can produce the most thrust, but the fuel must be delivered to the engine at high pressures to be better than pumped engines. The Pressure Fed Liquid Engine can be the most fuel efficient, but managing liquid fuel flow via pressure can be incredibly challenging in such a dynamic environment.


Miners and Scanners do the bulk of the work in space gameplay. Miners gather ore, and output it into chute networks for transport to Cargo Storage. Scanners are used in three ways to explore space, unlock new destinations, and gather information. Miners and Scanners have a head slot that must be occupied by a mining/scanning head, else the device will not function.


Interfacing with the rocket on the launch mount is predominantly done through umbilicals. These consist of a main umbilical device placed inside of a launch tower. The umbilical can then connect onto an umbilical socket placed in the rocket. Variants exist for power, gas, liquids, and items. To allow better accessibility to the rocket during construction we’ve added several new stairwell variants, along with extendable access bridges.


We’ve added several cosmetic variants for the rocket fuselages, so that not all rockets have to look and feel the same. We took inspiration from the Mercury Redstone and Saturn V.


We wanted to improve the accessibility of rockets, so that players who can't manually assemble a little-endian address in logic can still use rockets. The Rocket Motherboard has 3 main pages. The “Rocket” tab allows you to see and control devices, in a much more graphical way, which is important since when in space, you can't use your tablet to debug issues. The “Map” tab lets you see all of the locations you’ve explored, and see rockets moving around in space. The "Location" tab lets you see specific information about a location, if it has links to other locations, if it can spawn minable asteroids, or if it has resources to mine. It's also where you will start rocket actions, such as mining and scanning, which interact with the location.
[expand type=Click to reveal a wallpaper version of this weeks wonderful patch artwork][/expand]





As well as rockets we've also given traders a little love, including adding lights and other visual improvements and cleaning up the assets to make them more performant. There has been a specific focus on improving tooltips on the traders, and they should now provide much better information about what you are buying and selling. There are also a lot of bug fixes focused on traders.

The new traders consist of three types: a Consumable Trader, similar to a convenience store, selling items like duct tape, cereal bars, and other useful goods, a Liquid Trader, specializing in bulk quantities of liquids such as liquid nitrogen, liquid volatiles, and water, and an Appliance Trader, who sells appliances and purchases materials required for creating them.

To support new functionality, we have revised the data structure for traders. There is now much more functionality for us to make unique traders. It’s also easier than ever to make new trader mods. This does means existing trader mods will need to be rewritten.



Traders will sometimes want to buy care packages that contain a specific set of items. These care packages can be created by filling a cardboard box with the required items. Sometimes traders will pay handsomely for these key supplies and allow for a good profit to be made.



We've placed a significant emphasis on enhancing tooltips across all aspects of the game. Our goal is to display more comprehensive and accurate information, ensuring players have a better understanding of game-play and mechanics




Our old skybox was based on what was effectively a "geocentric" world. The sun of the world would follow a predictable path in the sky, with only the angle of its rotation being configurable. Additionally objects in our skyboxes, such as the Earth in our Moon world, or Jupiter in our Europa world, were static objects in the sky.

As part of other prototypes and ongoing work at the studio, we developed an excellent way to model orbital mechanics using Kepler's laws of planetary motion. All skybox objects are now configured to be based on a real simulation, with planetary movement in the sky. Currently, this is mostly cosmetic but offers massive potential in the future for us to expand on our Rocketry update. For now though, the main impact will be on the apparent movement of the world sun. Your world now has its own orbit, so your suns' apparent motion will change throughout the orbit - giving you seasons which will affect solar irradiance.

Visually the results are stunning. Europa now shows a revised Jupiter with animated clouds and all the major Jovian moons. Saturn has also had a face lift.


In line with the orbital simulation changes we have refactored how world data is stored. Previously, it could be defined as a 'template' and then used to initialize a world save. This was handy in that it allowed you to tweak a lot of settings in a save. but it also baked any bugs into your save and made synchronization and serialization in multiplayer very problematic. This was a source of a number of nasty desync bugs. So we have rationalized this together and firmed up how this works. To make a custom world you will need to make a mod. And this world data is loaded each time, not from your save but from the game data. These changes will break saves on old custom worlds.


As part of the first steps of our future work to cleanup survival and game information in general, some substantial changes have been made to how we store and display difficulty settings. As before, these are fully moddable but we have also extended what can be included and changed in a difficulty setting. When starting a new world, the screen will show you information about that world, such as the atmospherics, storms, and any other important information.

When you select a difficulty, the new world screen will clearly show you the impact of that change. You can change the difficulty after loading with the 'difficulty' console command, followed by the name of the difficulty you want to select (case sensitive).

We've simplified our approach to occlusion to make it more constant and provide a significant performance improvement. Previously, the render distance was set individually for each object, leading to inconsistencies in how objects were displayed and shadowed across the game. To address this, we've shifted to a type-based system for determining render distances for both meshes and shadows. This means that objects of similar types now follow a uniform standard for visibility and shadow casting.

This refinement has substantially improved game performance, particularly in areas with complex structures. During our tests, we noticed a marked improvement in frame rates. For instance, a test map that previously achieved 30-35 fps on medium settings now smoothly runs at a full 60 fps on high settings without any noticeable frame drops, regardless of the viewing direction. This update is a game-changer for players with extensive stations, offering a smoother and more visually consistent experience.

There were some instances where a very large number of atmospheres could be present in the world. We've made some changes around how world atmospheres equalize back to the global atmosphere meaning that if you ever see many thousands of world atmospheres they should quickly be reduced to a reasonable amount.

---

Stationeers is a small niche project. We know times are tough and our project isn't for everyone. So if you like the work we do, we would love to encourage you to spread the word, grab our supporter DLCs, and watch Stationeers content creators on places like twitch and youtube. We want to keep developing this game for many years, well beyond any early access release and to do this we need your support

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/2624/Stationeers_Complete_the_Set/

A special thanks to Freeze for the extensive testing and feedback that they provided. It was more than helpful, it was essential feedback for getting this update out.

We do not filter or redact our patch notes so these patch notes include work we are doing on the rockets that are not yet available in the game.

Change Log

Our developer friends at Geometa who make Stormworks just announced a SPACE DLC! Many on our team (including myself, perhaps especially myself even), love Stormworks and play it a lot. They're a great team and they understand the difficulties around working on games of this nature. Considering checking our their page for the DLC and giving them a wishlist! I will absolutely be trying this out when it launches on 13 October.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2383250/Stormworks_Space/

We don't have any affiliation with Geometa or Stormworks, we just love their game and consider them our close developer friends. If it looks like your kind of game, consider giving them a wishlist.

This hotfix addresses some issues with the new atmospheric mixing that was causing potential for infinite ices spawning in world atmospheres as well as atmospheres not equalizing correctly in some 2x1 rooms.

• Fixed bug where clients could accidentally exit sleepers when leaving a game
  
• Fixed a few visual issues with new bench cords
  
• Fixed unable to attach appliances to some bench variants
  
• Fixed Infinite Ice spawning in vacuums that could sometimes happen due to incorrect handling of NaN values when calculating mix ratios in MixInWorld.
  
• Fixed PureIce SpawnContents and melt Temperature not being serialized.
  
• Added IsValid check to spawngas.
  
• Fixed issue where two isolated atmospheres could remain unbalanced.

Today we’re going to go into detail about the atmospheric simulation in Stationeers. We’ll give a short walkthrough about how we identify issues, think of solutions, test and iterate until we’ve solved problems or added new features. Specifically World Atmospheres, and how they move gas throughout the game, and especially how fast vacuums form.

Of the many complex systems Stationeers models, the atmospherics simulation is the most defining. Two times per second; pumps move gas, filters split compositions, pipes check for bursting, and much much more. A lot of the gas the player interacts with comes from the world, or ends being vented there. Unfortunately, the speed to pull a vacuum in world has always been one of the largest bottlenecks for Stationeers.

6 Tile Airlock Test

100kPa to 10kPa*

10kPa to 1kPa

100Pa

10Pa

1Pa

Legacy Code

28s

18s

37s

1m32s

2m05s

Medium Room (5x5x5) Test

100kPa to 10kPa*

10kPa to 1kPa

100Pa

10Pa

1Pa

Legacy Code

10m

3m10s

6m45s

10m15s

13m45s

*The initial 100kPa to 10kPa time is solely driven by the active vent speed, and this is not summed into the proceeding columns.

These tables demonstrate the power of the active vent. 90% of the air can be pulled rather quickly, but as soon as the World Atmosphere hits the vacuum floor, removing the remaining 10% of the air can take 200%-400% more time than the original 90%.

Twice per second, every World Atmosphere in the game mixes with its neighbors. In world atmospheres, are large 2m*2m*2m cubes containing 8000 liters of gas, and do a multistep job of equalizing itself and any of its 6 neighbors every half a second. This has worked well for distributing air around in the game, but has its limitations, when one tile is being vacuumed.

Even if one tile was very low pressure compared to its neighbor, the high pressure tile would still take a tiny part of the low pressure tile for itself. In very low pressure situations, this effect was significant. So what happens if we pick a fixed value, and say tiles cant take from smaller than 80%, and also wont give to tiles bigger than 120%. Not only might this speed up vacuum mixing, but it would also allow high pressure flows, to keep low pressure gasses from mixing upstream, a bonus feature.

6 Tile Airlock Test 10kPa

1kPa

100Pa

10Pa

1Pa

Legacy Code

18s

37s

1m32s

2m05s

Attempt 1 (No upstream mixing)

6s

13s

22s

30s

Medium Room (5x5x5) Test 10kPa

1kPa

100Pa

10Pa

1Pa

Legacy Code

3m10s

6m45s

10m15s

13m45s

Attempt 1 (No upstream mixing)

2m10s

4m45s

7m15s

9m45s

In a 6 tile large airlock, the vacuum stage of cycling performance is 300% better, and in our large room its 40%. The large room doesn't see as much of a time decrease, because that amount of air is just able to keep the vent more saturated, but at 4 minutes faster, it's still a huge improvement.

However, with our over simplification of the problem, and first attempt at a solution, we’ve introduced a slight issue. Since the taking, or giving of air, isnt just the comparison of two atmospheres, but instead 6, we can find ourselves in a situation where all the higher pressure atmospheres give us a portion of their air, and we end up being higher pressure than any single one of the atmospheres. Then the next tick, the situation has reversed, and the air exclusively moves away. This mass rebounding would only happen in certain setups/configurations, but created a vortex of death when it did.



So, lets add some math to reduce the mixing amount so no single tick can make an atmosphere overshoot its neighbor’s pressure and see what happens.

6 Tile Airlock Test 10kPa

1kPa

100Pa

10Pa

1Pa

Legacy Code

18s

37s

1m32s

2m05s

Attempt 1 (No upstream mixing)

6s

13s

22s

30s

Attempt 2 (Fixed 14% mixing limit)

15s

31s

47s

1m3s

Medium Room (5x5x5) Test 10kPa

1kPa

100Pa

10Pa

1Pa

Legacy Code

3m10s

6m45s

10m15s

13m45s

Attempt 1 (No upstream mixing)

2m10s

4m45s

7m15s

9m45s

Attempt 2 (Fixed 14% mixing limit)

2m30s

5m25s

8m20s

11m15s

This fix addresses the problem while maintaining no up-pressure mixing, but directly counters our biggest desire to have vacuums pull faster.

Compromising on the first theorized ‘solution’ of eliminating backwards mixing to speed up vacuums. What if we still take large portions, but scale it based on how many neighbors, and change the 20% bigger/smaller take limits, into linear interpolations, where we just start scaling and taking/giving less, instead of taking none/all.

6 Tile Airlock Test 10kPa

100kPa to 10kPa

10kPa to 1kPa

100Pa

10Pa

1Pa

Legacy Code

28s

18s

37s

1m32s

2m05s

Attempt 3 (1/open+1)

27s

7s

15s

24s

31s

Medium Room (5x5x5) Test 10kPa

100kPa to 10kPa

10kPa to 1kPa

100Pa

10Pa

1Pa

Legacy Code

10m

3m10s

6m45s

10m15s

13m45s

Attempt 3 (1/open+1)

9m 30s

2m16s

5m

7m40s

10m10s

This third attempt nearly has the speed of our first attempt, while fixing issues with bouncing pressure waves.

So while our test case mainly focused on pulling vacuums, these changes dictate the general movement speed of gas even when in a sealed hallway. Gas leaks spreading through your base, holes exposing your atmosphere to the outside, or any other period of high pressure differential, should feel more significant, and happen quicker.

While our solution didnt fully prevent ‘up pressure’ mixing, many situations, such as accidentally opening a window on europa, now behave in a much more expected manner. Very little cold air will leak in while your nice base air blows outwards, but as soon as the wind dies down from the dropping pressure, the ice europa air will overtake the room.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this peak into just one portion of the many simulations we need to constantly run to keep your stations ticking. Revisiting core functionality can be risky as we could suddenly break everyone’s bases, but when we have clear goals, and reference points to aim for, this is the sort of careful approach we like to take.

And by the way, we recently added two new devices to the game, the powered vent, and large powered vent. These vents are allowed to traverse neighbor atmospheres when pulling a vacuum to do so even quicker. At the low pressures we’ve been talking about in the test data, they pull vacuums in a matter of seconds. But even in a fully pressurized room, they are 2x, and 4x the strength of a standard active vent, and can evacuate large amounts of gas very quickly.

6 Tile Airlock Test

100kPa to 0kPa

1 Large powered vent

8s

Medium Room (5x5x5) Test

100kPa to 0kPa

1 Large powered vent

2m40s

The counterflow heat exchnager was not ready in time to be released with the other new heat exchangers but is finally ready! By drawing down the pressure of the outputs with a pump or regulator and regulating input pressures, the temperatures of two counter flowing networks can be effectively exchanged. Balancing the throughput of both inputs is key to creating a good exchange of temperatures.


Four new powered bench variants have been added to give you more options when building your various rooms in your base and give you more variety.



[expand type=Click to reveal a wallpaper version of this weeks wonderful patch artwork][/expand]

---

Stationeers is a small niche project. We know times are tough and our project isn't for everyone. So if you like the work we do, we would love to encourage you to spread the word, grab our supporter DLCs, and watch Stationeers content creators on places like twitch and youtube. We want to keep developing this game for many years, well beyond any early access release and to do this we need your support

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/

We do not filter or redact our patch notes so these patch notes include work we are doing on the rockets that are not yet available in the game.

• Updated suit and helmet for main menu scene and character customization scene
  
• Fixed spelling errors in new heat exchanger descriptions
  
• Updated uvs and textures for hardsuit
  
• Fixed spelling mistake in character customization menu
  
• Fixed spelling mistake for heat exchanger kit
  
• Fixed fan blade direction not representing the flow of gas for the Powered Vent
  
• Fixed wall heater color not changing when turned on
  
• Added input blocker to pause menu to stop in-world screens from being interactable while paused
  
• Fixed inconsistent naming for pipes and pipe kits
  
• Fixed incorrectly sized collider on low volume pipe kits
  
• Improved behaviour of PassthroughHeatExchanger. Now implements a crossflow behaviour where-by it is possible to have the two inputs come close to swapping temperatures.
  
• Added RemoveToEqualize to AtmosphereHelper.cs This calculates the amount of gas required to Equalize input pressure with output pressure, removes it from the input and returns it for further calculations.
  
• Refactored MoveToEqualize to call RemoveToEqualise.
  
• Renamed AtmosphericsManager.TickSpeedMs to AtmosphericsManager.TickSpeedSeconds as this was what it was actually returning.
  
• Changed Heat Exchangers to show energy exchanged each tick in kJ.
  
• Fixed AtmosAnalyser only runs analysis code when held in hand of local player.
  
• Changed Moved AtmosAnalyser value generation to main thread to prevent flickering values, it now reads the cached values.
  
• Improved tooltips around spray gun fail states
  
• Added new models for small tanks. This is purely an aesthetic change. No change to functionality.
  
• Fixed wind turbines being functional inside frames
  
• Fixed issue with re-connecting after a client disconnects. The disconnected client no longer needs to restart the game before reconnecting
  
• Optimised PassthroughHeatExchanger simulation function.
  
• Fixed Gas Mixer tooltip rounds Setting wheel to whole number, now shows decimal places.
  
• Tweaked mesh for basic suit helmet
  
• Fixed insulated tanks being offset incorrectly after model update.
  
• Added bobble heads for future content
  
• Restructured Gasses Mixing in world, to allow better flow control. Gasses in world now will move towards lower pressure areas faster, with speeds to pull vacuums with normal active vents increased by 300% in best cases, and 150% in more typical large rooms. The amount of gas which 'moves' up pressure gradients has been reduced, reducing the amount of 'reverse gas spread' happening between large pressure differential world grids. Gas spreading in narrow tunnels will also see an increase in movement.
  
• reverting wind(Direction vector) calculations to previous state, to address downwards wind on pressureized planets. Atmospheres will still mix according to new mixing rules.
  
• Added prototype assets and behaviour for rocket datalink logic devices.
  
• Changed separated Data and power device dirty process for cable networks.
  
• Removed un-needed process in RecalculateDeviceListSorted Function.
  
• Removed un-necessary step in GetNextValidThing function.
  
• Fixed Null-collider in broken build-state of arc furnace.
  
• Fixed mix in world wind calculations not using a cached pressure value, causing wind coming from global atmospheres to be incorrectly strong.
  
• Fixed unusually strong wind when mining on Venus, as wind strength should now scale with volume extracted.
  
• Fixed small insulated tank blueprints
  
• changed datastructure for atmospheric mixing data caching to reduce garbage creation.
  
• Fixed face mounted structure placement placing on the wrong side of the supporting structure if the player was standing on it.
  
• Added 1st pass of rocket location data authoring system.
  
• Tweaked overalls mesh rig
  
• Added WIP placeholder launch pad pieces
  
• Refactored landing pad networks to allow for a generic modular structure and added the launchpad structure using it
  
• Improvements to Rocket Location data authoring.
  
• Added Concept of space map to rocket location data.
  
• Added Data validation and error logging to rocket data location parsing.
  
• Added Instanced classes for rocket locations.
  
• fixed issue where close to global atmospheres could flicker their neighbours into existence every other tick,due to not caching atmos state prior to attempting to mix in world, causing memory issues.
  
• A mixing atmosphere will spark its neighbours if it is ignited, which should cause more flash fires, instead of slow isolated flames in one tile.
  
• Fixed a number of devices instancing new materials every-time their anim state changed.
  
• Zrillian lungs now have a wider safe temperature range, and dont take damage between -20c to 80c, up from -10c to 50c of humans. Warnings remain unaffected, as the zrillians dont necessarily like these temperatures.
  
• Added first pass on rocket control motherboard and ui
  
• Added missing message factory changes
  
• Renamed ReferencableHelper.cs to Referencable.cs
  
• Added SpaceMap and SpaceMapNode data synchronisation to clients.
  
• Added WIP code for Rocket travel between SpaceMap nodes.
  
• Added IRocketPath and IRocketDestination Interfaces to handle leaving and returning to launch pad.
  
• Disabled prototype launch animation.
  
• Changed Mass to be a property. And implemented placeHolder mass values on rocket fuselage, pipes and inline tanks.
  
• Added Method to get starting map to SpaceMap.cs
  
• Added LaunchPadNetwork now caches its centre piece in the same way as LandingPadNetwork.
  
• Updated rocket location icon
  
• Fixed NRE from rocket.
  
• Fixed Prototype LaunchPad prefabs
  
• Added CounterFlow heat exchanger to tier two pipe bender. The counter-flow heat exchanger passes gas and liquids from the input to the corresponding output passively based on pressure differential (or volume ratio differential in the case of liquids). Matching the flow rate of both inputs will allow for around 70% efficiency of heat reclamation (this allow for the swapping of temperatures between to pipe networks. Multiple exchangers can be daisy chained together to increase the heat reclamation efficiency.
  
• Updated WorldManager source prefabs in scene.
  
• Fixed Pumps and other pipe devices changing color on load.
  
• Removed Outline effect demo scripts.
  
• Added first pass on star map ui for rockets
  
• Added rocket can now path to orbit.
  
• Changed all pipes can now be built in a fuselage
  
• Fixed Stacking PureIce would zero out the spawn contents.
  
• Added Logic variables to avionics Device.
  
• Changed a number of single-grid atmos devices to be allowed to be built in rockets.
  
• Added rocket command to print destination IDs.
  
• Added support for dynamically created and destroyed SpaceMap nodes.
  
• Changed Launch pads now generate a new node once they have a valid centre piece.
  
• Fixed An uncommon crash when running the StateChange fix on a custom world save.
  
• Added dynamic locations to map view (wip)
  
• Fixed gas being created from spray cans being created with 0 energy
  
• Reverted the ability to use a spray can to paint the object in the other hand as this behaviour is confusing and not communicated.
  
• Portable generator no longer continues providing power once the canister runs out
  
• Fixed the blueprint for the Hydroponics Station kit
  
• added missing blueprint for automated hydroponics kit
  
• Added Pathfinding algorithm so rocket can path to/from any destination on the space-map.
  
• Added Pathfinding testing command for validating authored data.
  
• Added Rocket movement logic has collection of Node-connections and can path through multiple nodes to reach target destination.
  
• Fixed Some nodes being registered twice to the space-map.
  
• Fixed some merge errors with map view
  
• Fixed modular structure networks not registering devices correctly
  
• Updated new rocket kits to be not spawnable
  
• Fixed launchpads being registered as landing pad networks
  
• Changed star map to use grid based panel for dynamic locations rather than a radial layout. The position of these can be authored in the xml to achieve a nice map layout
  
• Fixed Some devices would allow interaction even when in a locked state or when the player didn't have the correct access card.
  
• Fixed Some cases where things could be interacted with when destroyed or incomplete.
  
• Added temporary method for rocket to link to a landing pad node
  
• Fixed launch pad networks not being cleared when unloading
  
• Fixed Device Locking fix prevented airlock cycling using door interaction panel.
  
• Fixed Null reference exception on server when writing DynamicPanelData.
  
• Fixed Can't interact with slots when device locked (beta only)
  
• Fixed Settable Atmospheric devices show incorrect tooltip on setting wheel when locked.
  
• Fixed launch pads not deregistering correctly on destroy
  
• Fixed space map nodes not removing all their connections when deregistering
  
• Added 4 new bench variants
  
• Removed some temp images from rocket info canvas
  
• Fixed incorrect calling placement of base.OnDestroy in LandingPadModular.
  
• Fixed Pipe mounted LiquidDrain throws error when pipe removed.
  
• Small Clean up of DevicePipeMounted code
  
• Removed Prototype launchpad pieces from kit (LandingPadBasic)
  
• Fixed A save with a Pad Network with no saved networkId would not load.
  
• Changed UpdateThings on GameStart to run once gameState is set to running (this was the behaviour on clients, should also be behaviour on server)
  
• Moved some classes into an appropriate namespace
  
• Added temporary method to refresh rocket internals when you modify the rocket network
  
• Added rocket refresh command to help with debugging rocket behaviour
  
• Fixed rocket engines being registered multiple times in rocket network
  
• Fixed TurbineGenerator Animation and sound not synced to clients.
  
• Added Some WIP electrolysis code.
  
• Fixed Unable to turn on/off light or flush locked helmet using interactable buttons (beta only).
  
• Fixed MAX_ENERGY Constant being too low causing large tanks with too much liquid in them to have their contents deleted on load.
  
• Fixed Incorrect serialisation type for network messages for Setting and Quantity of digital chute devices.
  
• Added PlaceHolder Rocket Mining device.
  
• Added OnFishedLoad call to StructureNetwork.
  
• Fixed Rocket doesn't find launchpad on load.
  
• Added hashing of Id to spaceMap node.
  
• Implemented IRocketInternals on Chutes.
  
• Removed prototype launchpad tower base from incorrect kit

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.

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.



The direct heat exchangers have two inputs and act directly on the two input networks' atmosphere allowing you to equalize the energy between two networks in a straightforward manner. There is a large and a small version, each coming in three variants: gas + gas, gas + liquid, liquid + liquid.


We’ve revamped all the suits! The basic suit and hard suit have kept the same look but have been updated with much higher fidelity! The emergency suit has been given a complete rework to make it obviously different from the basic suit.

• Fixed safety limits being ignored on active vent.
  
• Addressed error spam from plant cartridge when trying to display the value "1000".

[expand type=Click to reveal a wallpaper version of this weeks wonderful patch artwork][/expand]

---

Stationeers is a small niche project. We know times are tough and our project isn't for everyone. So if you like the work we do, we would love to encourage you to spread the word, grab our supporter DLCs, and watch Stationeers content creators on places like twitch and youtube. We want to keep developing this game for many years, well beyond any early access release and to do this we need your support

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/

• Fixed Error spam from plant cartridge when trying to display the value "1000".
  
• Fixed Index out of range exception thrown by StringManager.
  
• Fixed Re-sizing stationpedia window displays phase-change diagram on pages where it should be hidden.
  
• Updated helmet visor materials
  
• Reenabled active vents being able to burst pipes. The concept of internal pressure limiting has been removed. Active vent was overloaded with functionality. The problems it solved can be overcome using other systems.
  
• removed internal pressure logic type as a read/write for active vent
  
• Reverted active vent changes
  
• Added a few assets to the game
  
• Fixed safety limits being ignored on active vent
  
• Moved some assets into their correct folders
  
• Renamed HeatExchanger.cs to HeatExchangerDeprecated.cs
  
• Fixed new suit shader to correctly use specular and smoothness
  
• Fixed mask texture and made specular map muted for hard suit.
  
• Fixed Mask texture on basic suit and helmet.
  
• Fixed compile error caused by a script name change
  
• Fixed duct tape stops working after repairing solar panel
  
• Reverted accidentally commented out code
  
• Added three variants(gas+gas, gas+liquid, liquid+liquid) small direct heat exchanger. Tooltip needs to be added to info panel.
  
• Refactored content management in preparation for new content
  
• Fixed Direct Heat Exchanger input connection orientation causing the pipes to be connecting from the wrong end.
  
• Added energy exchanged to tooltip to physical input panel
  
• Updated incorrectly set smoothness values for some materials
  
• Matched dark rubber parts to waist rubber part.
  
• Added passthrough heat exchanger (3 variants)
  
• Added Powered Vent. New 2x2 vent designed for larger airlocks, it is able to efficiently vacuum out small-medium sized rooms.
  
• Added FlowRate indicator to PoweredVent. will glow Orange/red when flowrate is limited by output pipe pressure or capacity.
  
• Added Kit (PoweredVent).
  
• Added IPoweredVent interface for hooking up powered-vents to Circuit boards that interact with active-vents.
  
• Moved DataDisk to using correct class.
  
• Updated Airlock, AirControl and Logic motherboards use IPoweredVent for vent device connections.
  
• Cleaned up ResetVent function calls for active vent. Was not being called from correct function.
  
• Fixed CondensationChamber had pipe tooltips flipped.
  
• Added large direct heat exchanger
  
• Fixed backpacks invisible in suit storage
  
• Removed redundant set wearable visibility call
  
• Moved some hardcoded tag strings to appropriate constants class
  
• Updated basic suit helmet material on head lamp
  
• Updated basic suit helmet material on head lamp for FPV view
  
• Fixed tooltip not syncing for clients on direct heat exchanger
  
• Removed ItemKitRoverMKI recipe from the electronics printer
  
• Added PoweredVent Large. A 3x3 variant of the PoweredVent for pulling vacuums on Large airlocks and hangers.
  
• Added Kit (PoweredVent) recipe to tier2 PipeBender.
  
• Added missing large direct heat exchangers to world manager
  
• Added missing broken states to large direct heat exchanger
  
• Fixed invisible build states on large direct heat exchanger
  
• Tweaked balance for direct and passthrough heat exchangers
  
• Tweaked heat exchanger balance
  
• Improved PoweredVent MultiGrid venting algorithm. Medium and Large PoweredVents will now draw gas from their surrounding grids in a more predictable fashion.
  
• Added Sounds to Powered Vents.
  
• Changed How powered vents move gas into the world such that they may temporarily exceed their target external pressure.
  
• Changed Medium and Large Powered vents now only pull from neighbouring grids when its local grid is close to vacuum.
  
• Fixed inputs and outputs on large and passthrough heat exchangers
  
• Updated Heat exchanger values to be in line with radiator values.
  
• Fixed large direct and passthrough heat exchanger not requiring frame support
  
• Fixed Condensation Valve Blueprint.
  
• Fixed powered vent mode switch in incorrect colour state when 1st placed.
  
• Fixed Passthrough heat exchanger construction consumes welder instead of steel sheets.
  
• Removed Old heat exchanger from kit.
  
• Changed Kit (heat exchanger) back to original values.
  
• Added Kit (SmallDirectHeatExchanger) and added recipe to pipe bender
  
• Added Kit (LargeDirectHeatExchanger) and added recipe to Tier 2 pipe bender.
  
• Changed recipe of existing Kit heat exchanger to require Invar and moved to Tier 2 pipe bender.
  
• Changed existing heat exchanger internal area to be the same as Large Direct heat exchanger.
  
• Updated UVs for basic suit mesh
  
• Fixed incorrectly named heat exchanger kit that was causing an error when populating the Stationpedia
  
• Added missing description to the heat exchangers
  
• Removed unused heat exchanger kit prefab
  
• Fixed thumbnails for large direct heat exchanger kit
  
• Removed Split Interactables from Large Direct Heat Exchanger Kit.
  
• Fixed Mixer would not throughput gas when set to 100 and other input pipe was empty.
  
• Added flow rate indicator to Active vent and added flow-rate tooltip to Active vent.
  
• Updated smoothness for new suit materials
  
• Fixed incorrect position on the powered vent blueprint
  
• Fixed PoweredVents build and broken states using incorrect material.

• 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.


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 liquid wants to be at a given temperature and pressure. Liquids are all incompressible, and don't generate pressure themselves, so any isolated liquid will boil off, and create a vapor pressure to stay stable even in liquid pipes.

Boiling a liquid takes energy, so things get colder (condensing gas, releases the same energy). If you were to use a purge valve to constantly remove the boiling off gasses from a liquid pipe, you'd notice that the liquid will keep boiling until it's cold enough to reach its freezing point. Freezing liquids in pipes will burst the pipe and create ices in world. Conversely, Pressurizing a gas can Condense it into a liquid, which will release energy, causing it to heat up, and the liquid can be tapped away with a condensation valve. Moving the liquid around, and controlling where it condenses and evaporates will let you control what should be hot, and what should be cold.

There are two structures built from the Phase Change Kit, the Evaporation Chamber and the Condensation Chamber, that can assist in helping you control phase change. They act like tanks with an input pump, pressure regulator, and heat exchanger, so that you can control the temperature of a fluid (taking the energy, or giving more energy) while trying to make it phase change. These do the same thing as building a system of pipes, pumps and heat exchangers yourself, but the cost of this more stable environment, comes at a hit to throughput, and scalability.



A specific example (with ball-parked numbers) is on Mars, where pollutants exist outside around 0c as gas. Collect Pollutants from outside, filter, and pressurize them and they will become liquid around 2000Kpa. You can then move the liquids to a place you want cold, then vent off the gas off. The pollutants will start around 0c and boiling half of them by creating a vacuum, will drop the temperature to around -20c. You now have made a basic cooler.

It starts to get more interesting when you then use the waste vented gas, to cool off the incoming liquid, and that now becomes -20c, and when it vents, the new gas is closer to -40c. There are many decisions to make, and problems to solve with phase change and there are countless systems to build, that we haven't even dreamed of.

Despite this sounding, and being, very complex, most starting out gameplay remains the same, with condensation and evaporation really only showing themselves as problems AND solutions in larger builds and on extreme worlds. On Europa, the Co2 you've been breathing out can freeze out of the air and fly around during a small accident. Gasses on Vulcan might be fine to slowly pump around, but over collect and pressurize them too much, and the liquidized fluids will burst through your stressed pipes.

Currently liquids can exist in the world and behave and mix like any other gas. They are visualized by a vapor particle effect. In the future we may explore a more liquid-like behavior in the atmospheric system and a more traditional way of visualizing them. Liquids can often end up in world after a pipe has burst. Gas pipes have a max pressure of 60Mpa, but get stress from liquids existing in them, and have had their volume reduced to 1/10th of their former value. Liquid pipes however have larger volumes, and don't take stress damage from liquids, but only support up to 6Mpa of pressure. Both pipes will rupture very quickly if liquids start to freeze in them.

We have some ideas about how to truly represent liquids in world, but we don't want to rush out solutions for this without carefully thinking them through. This is a lot of work, and we need to make sure it's performant. We will update on possible steps in future updates.

With the changes to pipe volumes, gas movement speed on pressure regulators, mixers, and filtration machines has been changed to no longer increase with pipe network volume. Instead pressure differentials increase the speed, meaning if you actively pump, or pre pressurize the inputs, these machines will let large amounts of gas through. Conversely, if you let their outputs build up to pressures higher than their inputs, they will slow down, and forced pumping will be needed to clear their output. This also means back pressure regulators now function very well as safety release valves.


A range of new, but familiar, devices have been added to help deal with the new liquid behaviors. These are mostly different types of pumps, valves, and vents to help control the flow of gasses and liquids.

The Evaporation Chamber and Condensation Chamber are integral devices for safe phase transitions between liquids and gasses. Together, these chambers can be utilized to construct a DIY air conditioner, capitalizing on the phase change properties of gasses.



Inline Tanks are basically just oversized pipes with a large volume. With the reduction of normal pipe volumes these can be used in the specific places where you may have just used a number of pipes by themselves.

The Passive Liquid Inlet will quickly remove liquids from the world into the connected pipe network while equalizing gasses between the world atmosphere and the pipe network.

The Expansion Valve allows for a one way movement of liquids from a liquid pipe into a gas pipe. This can be used to allow liquid into a gas pipe to evaporate.

Allows for the one way movement of any liquids from a gas pipe into a liquid pipe.


Pumps gas into a liquid pipe in order to raise the pressure.

Allows for the removal of gas from a liquid pipe, and behaves similarly to the back pressure regulator.

Each gas now has a solid, liquid, and gas form. Each gas has different temperatures, in relation to pressure, that define which state it will be in. You can see the relationship between temperature and pressure in the Stationpedia using the phase change diagram on the gas pages.






With so many changes around atmospherics, including changing the properties of gas mixes as well as some volume changes of devices and pipes, it was necessary to provide a tool to modify saves when they are opened. This tool will do its best effort to put everything in a stable state allowing you to safely load your games. The old default version has been shifted to “previous” so that if you need to load the game to make modifications to your saves you can do so there before loading it on the current version.


[expand type=Click to reveal a wallpaper version of this weeks wonderful patch artwork][/expand]

Stationeers is a small niche project. We know times are tough and our project isn't for everyone. So if you like the work we do, we would love to encourage you to spread the word, grab our supporter DLCs, and watch Stationeers content creators on places like twitch and youtube. We want to keep developing this game for many years, well beyond any early access release and to do this we need your support

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/