Dear Stormworkers,

This week's minor update brings a major change to the physics of Stormworks!

Over the past week and a half we have been working hard to upgrade our physics and game engine to use 64-bit precision instead of 32-bit. In short, this means that you will no longer experience any shakiness or jittering physics as you travel a significant distance from (0,0) on the map. We can now begin to introduce islands that are hundreds of kilometres away whilst maintaining the same stability.

This has been a big change, so we are anticipating some bugs. As always, please report any bugs you encounter on the Stormworks issue tracker so we can get them fixed as quickly as possible.

The new physics are important for the next major update where we will be adding a new biome distant from the green islands currently in the game. We are working hard on this major update and will announce more soon.

See below for the full changelog for this week's patch, including some rebalances and a handy new railing component.

Much Love <3

The Stormworkers Developers



v0.5.17

Fix - Fixed fluid slot port fluid connection
Fix - Improved water stream rendering for fluid jet
Fix - Fixed fluid slot port component mass
Fix - Fixed fluid jet deflector bucket rotation direction

v0.5.18

Feature - 64-bit physics upgrade (you can now travel to the edges of the world without physics becoming unstable)
Feature - Added "Railing Incline Extension" to make it easier to build railings beside stairs

Fix - Rebalanced electric motors to be more powerful but with a maximum torque output
Fix - Electric generators now limit their generation at 100rps
Fix - Gearboxes are now 95% efficient instead of 100%
Fix - Ocean plants are now disabled by default
Fix - Fixed going beyond edge of world with ocean plants enabled causing crash
Fix - Reduced jet engine afterburner fuel comsumption by x10
Fix - Increased effectiveness of jet engine afterburner
Fix - Rebalanced jet engine power production
Fix - Updated creative island crane with new railings

v0.5.19

Fix - Fixed broken multiplayer from v0.5.18
Fix - Fixed wave height near islands being too high from v0.5.18

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we have added water jet propulsion!

Connect engine power and a water supply to the new water jet component, and a powerful impeller will produce thrust from a jet of water.

The new component can be trimmed up and down to get your boat balanced just right, as well as having bucket deflectors that will divert the stream of water to the side to add powerful steering.

This comes along with a mix of other changes and fixes listed below in the patch notes.

Soon we will start to announce some of the stuff in the next major update, and we are will into planning what 2019 will bring for Stormworks!

Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below :-)

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers



v0.5.16

Feature - Added Fluid Jet component (water jet that produces thrust and has thrust vectoring)
Feature - Added Fluid Slot Port component (a larger fluid port that produces a slight downforce on the ocean surface)
Feature - Improved keybinding support for mice with more than 3 buttons

Fix - Jet exhaust light fades away as temperature decreases when switched off
Fix - Ctrl-S hotkey no longer interrupts free mode camera movement in vehicle editor
Fix - Saving and loading the game whilst grabbed by a shark will no longer cause shark to never let go
Fix - Fixed painting additive layer on mirrored paintable signs
Fix - Fixed additive on mirrored throttle levers not rendering properly
Fix - Updated creative island crane with some minor fixes and improvements, courtesy of XFury and Gardiner
Fix - Fixed "7" on digital display missing part of additive

v0.5.15

Fix - Disabled spotlight volumes for all AMD graphics as well as Vega
Fix - Close cmd.exe after cleaning backup files
Fix - Fixed game not restoring fullscreen state properly when relaunching
Fix - Fixed sending chat messages in multiplayer causing creative menu to be opened

Dear Stormworkers,

This week's minor update includes variable wheel braking, a new paintable sign component and a host of bug fixes!

We see a lot of players using the existing paintable sign to create large areas of painted detail, which in turn causes a lot of unnecessary complexity and clutter in logic mode due to all of the unused backlight nodes. A new sign has been added that has no logic nodes or additive colour data, which means you can now reduce the logic clutter, and your vehicle's overall file size. The old sign has been renamed to "Paintable Indicator" and is still available for making illuminated signs and displays.

Existing wheels have been updated to feature a number input to allow variable braking force, and we have also added a new tab to the settings screen where you will now find the options for pinning various HUD elements. This screen has new options for hiding the minimap and player names for an added level of realism.

This patch includes some stability improvements for the physics engine that should largely fix issues where some vehicles (particularly those with custom sealed doors) would start to roll uncontrollably, as well some changes to the vehicle backup system that we introduced a few patches ago (see the changelog for more details).

You can read all of this week's fixes and features in the changelog below.

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers



v0.5.12

Feature - Added paintable sign component with no backlight (existing paintable signed renamed to "Paintable Indicator")
Feature - Added new creative island crane created by XFury and Gardiner
Feature - Added variable braking to wheels
Feature - Added "General" tab to settings menu
Feature - Moved options for showing the clock and objectives on the HUD to general settings
Feature - Added options to general settings to hide the minimap and hide player names in multiplayer

Fix - Vehicle/microcontroller backups are now limited to 10 and will no longer be auto-deleted after 24 hours
(PLEASE NOTE: Players on MacOS will need to manually delete their old backup folders to clean files created by the previous system (~Library/Application Support/Stormworks/data/vehicle_backups and microprocessor_backups). For the majority of Windows users the old backup folders will be cleaned up automatically, but they can safely be deleted manually if you want to clear the space taken up by the vehicle files by removing %appdata%/Stormworks/data/vehicle_backups and microprocessor_backups)

Fix - Physics stability improvements when creating constraints between objects (fixes "crocodile death roll" with custom doors, should improve occasional issues when placing characters in seats)
Fix - Player no longer gets stuck/falls through seat when exiting seat at high speed
Fix - All logic gates are now unlocked from the start of a new career game
Fix - Disabled "press R to return to workbench" for static vehicles spawned from structure workbenches
Fix - Survivors no longer take damage when picked up at high speed
Fix - Fixed typo in small porthole description
Fix - Reduced giant prop mass from 500 to 100
Fix - Fixed spotlights having infinite distance when shining onto some surfaces
Fix - Fixed multi-tile islands not lining up properly on the map
Fix - Players who leave a multiplayer game while dead and then rejoin will be correctly respawned
Fix - Added check on game start to verify files can be written
Fix - Game will try to start in windowed mode after crashing on startup
Fix - Mechanical components no longer go floppy when they run out of electric
Fix - Disabled spotlight volumes on Vega GPUs


v0.5.13

Fix - Fixed crash when hosting a multiplayer game


v0.5.14

Fix - Fixed 1x3 hinge on existing vehicles having collision disabled when spawned
Fix - Fixed wheel brakes not working when no engine is connected to wheel
Fix - Fixed microcontroller composite switchbox having wrong icon
Fix - Fixed typo on microcontroller less-than gate output tooltip

Dear Stormworkers,

This week is a small but much requested update... new window sizes!

We have added 5 new sizes of windows including a porthole window for ships and planes.

We are busy making plans for the year ahead and can't wait to share what we are working on. Please keep sharing your thoughts and ideas with us and help shape an exciting 2019 for Stormworks!

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.5.9-11

Feature - 5 new window types
Fix - reduced lens glare effect on spotlights to fix AMD graphics issue
Fix - flow dynamics change to reduce fluid flow oscillation
Fix - stopped cleaning backup files to fix crash for some users

Dear Stormworkers,

This week's minor update brings two new components specifically designed for use with microcontrollers!

An RGB light and RGB indicator have been added. These are similar to the existing light and indicator, but instead of simply using an on/off signal to control them they read data from the composite output of a microcontroller. This means you can change their colour in real time, making it possible to build dimmable lights, warning signals that change from green to red, or even complex coloured displays.

This patch also has a few smaller quality-of-life improvements, as well as a load of bug fixes. The full changelog can be found below.

Have a merry Christmas if you're celebrating, and a great weekend otherwise!

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers


Patch Notes

v0.5.8

Feature - Added RGB light component (uses microcontroller composite data to control color)
Feature - Added RGB indicator component (uses microcontroller composite data to control color)
Feature - Added composite switchbox microcontroller component
Feature - Ease-of-use improvements for dropdown lists (up/down arrows can be used to scroll through items, enter closes list, quick-select items by typing, removed fade animation so that lists are more responsive, ctrl-c/ctrl-v will copy selected item text and paste/select item when available)
Feature - Added "override time" option to photo mode to make possible to disable time of day being frozen when unpaused
Feature - Added "roll with player" option to photo mode to control whether or not the camera tilts as the player tilts

Fix - Added bed meshes to train terminal
Fix - Fixed single blocks being autosaved in vehicle editor
Fix - Fixed backup saves not being cleaned after 24 hours
Fix - Fixed seasonal content for all holiday events rendering in the mission location editor
Fix - Fixed microcontroller 1-input function gate not reading input
Fix - Added "function" to tags of microcontroller function gates from previous patch
Fix - Fixed rudder and wing forces being scaled up/down based on the mass of the first vehicle spawned with a rudder or wing
Fix - Resolved potential crash on startup if vehicle backup folders had not yet been created
Fix - Removed some unnecessary microcontroller node state parsing
Fix - Increased ladder climbing force so that held connectors can be carried up ladders more easily
Fix - Swapped tap/hold actions when picking up connectors so that tapping now picks up and holding tethers to be consistent with picking up other movable objects
Fix - Magalls can now be picked up like other connectors
Fix - Fixed fluid filters/nozzles/cannons "eating" some fluids
Fix - Fixed more issues with sliding connector tracks/grippers connecting the wrong way on rotated tracks
Fix - Fixed z-fighting issues with additive meshes (paintable signs, buttons etc.)
Fix - Fixed symmetry plane move widget being visible in the microcontroller editor
Fix - Fixed microcontroller pulse component on to off/off to on behaviours being inverted
Fix - Fixed microcontroller voxels disappearing when rotating/flipping selection grid
Fix - Sleep menu no longer visible in photo mode when lying in a bed
Fix - Keypad input display no longer visible in photo mode
Fix - Distance sensor continues to work until it has 1% battery in advanced mode
Fix - Propellers spinning in reverse now damage the player when damage is enabled

Dear Stormworkers,

Christmas has arrived in the world of Stormworks!

The creative mode base and starter base have received some seasonal decorations, and new clothing items are available in the character editor to get you into the spirit of the season. Rain has also been replaced with snow for the duration of the holidays, and the NPCs and collectible loot found on some islands have had festive makeovers. These additions are just for fun and will disappear on the 1st of January.

This patch also bring some more additions to the growing set of logic components available for designing microcontrollers, including timers and a new type of function gate that can evaluate boolean expressions. We've seen some really useful and interesting microcontrollers on the Steam Workshop over the past few weeks and are looking forward to expanding the available tools in future updates.

See below for the full changelog for this patch.

Progress is already being made on the next major update which will be arriving early in 2019, so expect some exciting announcements in the coming month as we move into the new year!

Have a great weekend <3

The Stormworks Developers


Patch Notes

v0.5.7

Feature - Christmas season lasting until January 1st

• 2 seasonal hats and 1 new clothing item (Santa hat, antlers, Santa costume)
  
• The NPCs appear to enjoy Christmas as well...
  
• Various Christmas decorations on the creative island and starter island
  
• Rain replaced with snow
  
• Loot chests replaced with presents

Feature - Train wheels have on/off output for detecting whether or not they are slipping
Feature - Added new robotic pivot that can transfer fluid and power
Feature - Added 8 new microcontroller components

• Function gate with 1 input (for compacting arithmetic with lots of constant values)
  
• Boolean function gate with 4 inputs (similar to existing function gates but evaluates logical expressions composed of & (and), | (or), ^ (xor) and ! (not))
  
• Boolean function gate with 8 inputs
  
• Pulse (outputs a 1 tick pulse when toggled in one of 3 different modes)
  
• 4 timer components (TON, TOF, RTO, RTF - see descriptions in inventory for more detailed information)

Feature - Added properties to microcontroller Up/Down gate for setting min/max and optionally clamping to them
Feature - Added "Backups" tab to vehicle and microcontroller editor load views

• Overwritten vehicles are now backed up to "%appdata%/Stormworks/data/vehicle_backups", backups older than 24 hours will be permanently deleted
  
• Overwritten microcontrollers are now backed up to "%appdata%/Stormworks/data/microprocessor_backups", backups older than 24 hours will be permanently deleted
  
• Editor autosave interval increased from 2 to 5 minutes
  
• Autosave will be backed up when a new autosave takes its place
  
• Spawning a vehicle will back up the previous autosave

Fix - Mass calculated correctly for microcontrollers
Fix - Throttle lever backlights visible in vehicle editor
Fix - Improved large jet intake description
Fix - Gripper/track connectors now connect properly in both orientations
Fix - Bollards added at train terminals to prevent trains that are too large for the tracks from exiting the hangar
Fix - Fixed train wheels negative braking
Fix - Renamed small ladder to ladder
Fix - Microcontroller read/write large components no longer have individual channel selectors on properties but instead only modify connected channels
Fix - Overwrite mission/microcontroller/vehicle confirmation now has title in red to make it clearer at a glance that this is potentially bad
Fix - Vehicle editor no longer autosaves single blocks
Fix - Fixed duplicating values in microcontroller dropdown list component

Patch Notes

v0.5.6

Fix - Fixed issues with microcontroller state parsing causing microcontrollers to break after loading a save
Fix - Fixed starting island not being remembered as a purchased island when loading a saved game
Fix - Generators no longer produce negative electric when in reverse
Fix - Train wheel torque increased
Fix - Braking train wheels causes wheels to reduce speed by brake amount causing sparks when Braking
Fix - Multiplayer list now shows the correct peer count
Fix - Fixed connecting function gate output back into itself not producing any output with microcontroller function gates
Fix - Added "Constant" to the names of the two constant value components to make them easier to search for in the inventory
Fix - Fixed postfix evaluation bug causing ^ operator to not work correctly in function gates
Fix - Fixed disappearing logic links when copying microcontrollers with selection grid
Fix - Fixed microcontroller editor occasionally crashing immediately after clicking the clear button
Fix - Fixed microcontrollers not working correctly in multiplayer
Fix - Updated train wheels with blue editor-only arrows to show wheel forward/backward directions
Fix - Fixed displayed mass for train wheels on inventory info panel

Dear Stormworkers,

Following the major update on Wednesday, we have been hard at work responding to your suggestions and requests, with 3 small updates full of fixes and additions.

As well as these, we are adding a minor update this week - Tsunami flow dynamics and drop-down property lists for microcontrollers!

The new tsunami dynamics means that the water in the wave pushes and pulls objects with great force, lifting and carrying unsecured objects. The water flows up, forward and down, meaning you can be carried on a boat by the wave, absorbing the energy of the motion of the water.

The microcontrollers now have drop-down property lists where you can set up options for your microcontroller designs, as well as many other updates and tweaks.

Please see the full list below.

Much Love <3

The Stormworkers Developers


Patch Notes

v0.5.5

Feature - Added dropdown property component for microcontrollers (lets you specify a list of named output values for players to choose from)
Feature - Added train platforms along train line
Feature - Added fuel store to Terminal Spycakes
Feature - Added water flow simulation to tsunamis

Fix - Smoothed surface transition between ground and tracks at train terminal
Fix - Increased train slip factor from 50% force loss to 25%
Fix - Fixed returning vehicles to workbench after loading saved game placing player at the origin of the workbench's tile
Fix - Fixed id counter not being cleared when starting new microcontroller
Fix - Fixed microcontrollers with composite inputs/outputs causing other inputs/outputs to not link up correctly when spawned
Fix - Fixed crashes in microcontroller editor ocurring when loading or deleting nodes with a component selected
Fix - Microcontroller property window no longer closes when hovering a component immediately after selecting a text box
Fix - Hotbar hotkeys (0-9) work for selecting/deselecting microcontroller hotbar slots
Fix - Microcontroller schematic view is now flipped the other way up so that it matches the axes of placed microprocessors

Patch Notes

v0.5.2

Fix - Fixed microcontrollers uploaded to workshop not being tagged with "microcontroller" correctly
Fix - Fixed workshop microcontrollers not showing up in-game

v0.5.3

Fix - Fixed purchased islands becoming unpurchased after saving/loading
Fix - Increased power of train wheels by x3 and reduced power 50% when wheels are slipping/sparking
Fix - Limited some buoyancy forces to resolve "flying winch" physics issue
Fix - Possible fix for AMD cards where spotlights would expand and flood the screen
Fix - Fixed misaligned mesh at one of the train tunnel entrances
Fix - Fixed issue where loading a save would re-add all movable objects and static vehicles again

v0.5.4

Feature - Microcontroller tooltip components have some conditions for selecting when the data is visible on the tooltip
Fix - Fixed typo in microcontroller PID component where integral and proportional values were displayed the wrong way round
Fix - Fixed microcontroller equal component changing to modulo after being placed
Fix - Can now upload 6x6 microcontrollers to workshop
Fix - Plus and minus work now work for zooming camera in microcontroller editor
Fix - Fixed microcontroller internals being repeatedly duplicated in some situations (particularly when using selection grid to copy paste). If you're experiencing lag with microcontrollers, try removing and replacing them in this patch as the internals may have been duplicated exponentially)
Fix - Re-enabled TAA antialiasing option
Fix - Can now select microcontroller component without first have having to deselect