Dear Stormworkers,

Last week we release the huge new multiplayer update! Since then we have been playing with you on dedicated servers, reading your comments, issue reports, discussion on discord, watching Camodo, NJersey videos and even watching Raptor's 3 hour long stream!

It has been great fun, and really exciting to launch this next chapter of playing Stormworks together. We have been carefully listening to your comments and next Friday, we will be releasing a multiplayer minor update to address these issues.

Input Latency

In some situations, input latency can build up when players are using a fast vehicle, and the server slows down for a brief moment every now and again, for example when loading tiles. This can make it difficult to control aircraft with sensitive controls, and was a major concern for many players. We have re-written the timing code so that clients now stay very close to the timing of the server. This reduces input latency to very low values, making it possible to fly nimble aircraft with great responsiveness!

Authorised Players

Many of you are concerned about any and all players being able to join and start spawning vehicles immediately. This can cause problems where players spawn vehicles inside other vehicles, spawn flare factories, or other behavior which can negatively impact the server. Most servers have become passworded to control who can join. We are adding admin controls to authorise specific players with the ability to spawn vehicles, as well as return vehicles to workbench and the creative menu. We are also adding a setting to despawn players who have left the game. These changes will greatly ease the practicalities of running a public server.

Dedicated Server Providers

Many of you want to be able to rent servers, so we have been talking to some server companies about the support they need. We are adding new dedicated server command lines to set the working directory and IP binding when starting a server.



We also have a very long list of fixes, including some really important changes, and are adding more fixes every day.

Thank you for helping with all your thoughts and feedback, it is greatly appreciated. We can't wait to share the new updates with you next week as we continue to improve the quality of the game experience!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

It is time!!! The new multiplayer is out now!

New Smoother Multiplayer

The biggest change in experience is that now, multiplayer games no longer slow down to the speed of the slowest client. Instead, the physics is calculated on the server and sent to all clients. This means that clients run much faster and smoother, with fewer physics calculations, and games don't slow down just because 1 player has an old computer.

Faster Physics

We have also made some big optimisations to physics which are particularly effective in multiplayer. This means that servers now run much faster with lots of players spread over a large area.



Dedicated Servers

A Stormworks dedicated server tool is now available in the tools list in the Steam Library. Be sure to run the tool exe file rather than through Steam for the best experience. The dedicated server is currently for Windows, and runs in a command prompt window. No dedicated GPU is required, and otherwise, servers use the same recommended spec as the main game. CPU speed is the most important factor.

Public Server Lists

Dedicated servers are listed on the new "Internet Games" tab in the multiplayer menu. This means you can jump into public games without needing to arrange before hand, or add everyone on Steam!



Limitations

The usual limits within Stormworks do still apply - spawning huge mission vehicles that have been made via a modded version of the game will cause slow down, as will spawning large numbers of creations. In some simulation or network conditions, there can be extra input lag which makes some vehicles more suitable for multiplayer than others.

Feedback

We are really excited to hear what you think of the new multiplayer! We are aware there will be loads of new opportunities that this opens up for new features, so please let us know your ideas! We are already talking about loads of things within the development team, but want to hear your thoughts before we decide the next steps.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.10.2

Feature - Dedicated Server Build
Feature - New Multiplayer Sync
Feature - Gyro Throttle Tuning

Rework - Improved Network Compression
Rework - Huge performance boost for base-level island physics
Rework - Greatly Improved experience when picking up objects
Rework - Chat messages now appear in the Quick-Chat box; which fades out slowly
Rework - Local Voice Chat quality and logic improvements

Fix - Fixes for most major voice chat crashes and issues
Fix - Desync between mission timers and debuff ticking
Fix - Winch sound cutting out at low length
Fix - Prevented crashes from occurring due to missing geometry
Fix - Reduced client shaking issues
Fix - Glass lighting showing the horizon through opaque objects
Fix - Video only transmitting on channel 0
Fix - Error message about RAM appearing when mistakenly detecting 0GB RAM

Dear Stormworkers,

The Multiplayer Update is coming... on Thursday 13th February at 17:00 UTC!

Countdown Timer

2 weeks ago we announced that we were planning a huge multiplayer update very soon. You overwhelmingly told us that you would like dedicated servers and public server lists so that you can join games without needing to organise a big group of friends before hand.

We agree. With the multiplayer max player count being increased to 32 players, you need public server lists. We also think that dedicated servers are a great idea. The multiplayer major update will also come with the dedicated server (initially for Windows) so games can be hosted without the need to run the client or have a game license.



We are having a great time testing the game! Without the frequent slow downs, and with the improved physics performance, the multiplayer experience is so dramatically improved, and has come so far. This is a really exciting update for us, and we can't wait to share with you.

Some of our games in testing have involved competitive play, with 1 or 2 players driving off into the night in heavy weather, with a head start, and the rest of the players launching a search and detain operation with combined ground, sea and air vehicles. It's been a great framework to test the game, and have a lot of laughs together :-) There is so much more that is possible, and the most exciting part for us is seeing what interesting game modes you set up and play, using vehicles and environment mods.



Another special thank you to all the testers who continue to work hard helping us improve this new update. Thank you!

Thanks for all the support around this new update. Not long now!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we are adding the ability to increase the resolution of videos on your in game screens!

You can now have upto 4x resolution on your video feeds, making cameras much more useful and easy to use.

When we initially introduced the screens, many players asked for higher resolution. It has taken a while! But we are very pleased to be improving screens and ultimately, improving the cameras and monitor systems in game. One reason is that we have been finding the cameras to be very useful in our multiplayer testing!

LUA UI remains at the same resolution to keep compatibility with existing scripts so nothing will break.

You now have a new in game screen resolution setting in your graphics settings - be sure to set this to maximum if your PC can handle it!

This is a small update while we continue to work hard on the upcoming multiplayer update.

Grexit

Tomorrow is a historic day... Stormworks is leaving the Green Man Gaming publishing portfolio! We are taking over the publishing ourselves as an independent studio.

The reason for this is that the term of the publishing agreement has come to an end, and we have decided to self-publish like many other building games, as opposed to continue with a publisher. This is no reflection on GMG who have been a fantastic partner and we wish them all the best in the future. Special thanks to Gary, David, and Peter at GMG who have worked hard for us. Thank you.

What does this mean for Stormworks players? Not much. It goes without saying, if you purchased the game from GMG, Humble, or any of their partners, your game key continues to be valid. We are simply taking over the promotion of the game.

Please note that we are ending distribution agreements with other retailers, so from 1st Feb 2020, the only authorised distributor of Stormworks will be Steam (although we may expand this in the coming months).

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.9.28-31

Fix - 3D Mission markers not disappearing
Fix - Large Black / White square artifact when staring at flares close-up
Fix - Some editor logic tooltips not using light colour (Invisible text)
Fix - Buoyancy mesh for Keypad Button Large
Fix - Camera feed visually not disappearing completely on signal loss
Fix - Wind velocity for flare smoke
Fix - Camera feed and lua overlay transparencies fighting

v0.9.32

Feature - Added new options to increase video resolution

Dear Stormworkers,

Thank you for the response last week to the flares! We love what you have been making and how you have been using the new flares, and were blown away to see almost record concurrent users just from a minor update!

We have been working very hard this year on revising some old areas of the game code, and making some fundamental changes. The biggest area of work as been multiplayer.

The New Multiplayer!

Many of you have raised concerns about your multiplayer experience. The way the system currently works is that all players run at the speed of the slowest player - to stay in sync. This has had the unfortunate effect that if your friend has a PC far below the minimum requirements, your multiplayer game will be slowed down to their speed. If a player connects or a large creation loads in, the game also slows down for a few moments while someone catches back up.

We have reworked this system to remove these slow downs, and the results are a huge improvement. Players now run at their own speed, while the server is responsible for the physics of the vehicles, and no longer waits for clients who have slower PCs. This means all players now get the same vehicle simulation speed as the server, removing the vast majority of the lag.

We have also reworked the physics system to perform better when players are more spread out, and the server has more islands and vehicles loaded. We are seeing improvements of 20-40% increase in simulation speed in these situations.

More Players!

These improvements have meant that servers can now handle many, many more players. We have tested 12 players together playing the new multiplayer. We experienced very little overhead and we think the max player count is probably much higher. Stormworks is still bandwidth intensive and the server host does need good internet. We will carry on testing!



More Possibilities!

With smoother, faster multiplayer with more players, this is opening up a lot of possibilities for what can happen in Stormworks multiplayer games. Within the closed testing group, we have been playing cooperative, competitive, and role-play game modes, with many players coordinating helicopters and ground vehicles, to perform search operations. Playing together is a huge amount of fun, with multiplayer being much smoother and more stable.

The new multiplayer also provides a great framework to better test your vehicles, and aligns well with our current focus of building more point, more challenges, and more feedback to your vehicles, and a great way to apply and test your vehicle designs.



We are really excited to share these new changes and are looking at when we will be able to do that. There is a bit more we want to work on, but we will get these improvements to you as soon as possible!

A special thanks to all our wonderful testers who have provided so much help in improving the quality of this upcoming update.

MrNJersey who is one of our testers, has made a short video with some moments from testing.

As previously announced, we continue our work on missions and world narrative, to expand what you can do in the game, as we build more big updates to Stormworks.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we are releasing the flares that we announced last week!

The new flare launching block fires a flare when triggered from logic. There are various types of flare, with options for illumination, smoke, parachute, and projectile power.

The illumination flares produce a huge amount of light, making it brighter at night when over 1km away from the flare. The illumination flares can also be seen at a distance, making them useful for signalling and finding your friends in multiplayer.

Parachute flares catch the wind, and slow the fall of a flare as it falls through the sky.

Smoke flares produce smoke, in a similar way to the old flares you can spawn in missions.



Flares produce heat, making them a useful emergency tool in the arctic to warm players back up quickly. But please use flares responsibly, they are very hot, so don't use them too close to trees...

We have had tonnes of fun making and testing the flares, and are testing loads of cool new features at the moment. We have some really great changes on the way and can't wait to share more info about this next week in the announcement post.

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Path Notes

v0.9.25

Rework - Game temperature general system rework
Fix - Temperature falloff for heated/safe zones
Fix - Tree fires are now hot for the temperature probe
Fix - Temperature probe mesh errors
Fix - Temperature probe description updates
Fix - Deprecated components sometimes appearing in inventories
Fix - Rare CTD with multibody components
Fix - Removed "The Orb"

v0.9.26

Feature - Flare Launcher

Fix - 3D markers showing in photo mode
Fix - Editor logic tooltips font colour incorrect
Fix - Editor tooltips not showing for certain logic types
Fix - Time flickering on creative menu slider
Fix - CTD caused by speaking into a mic for an extended duration

v0.9.27

Fix - Resolved development issue

Dear Stormworkers,

Upcoming Minor Update - Flare Launchers!

This week we are announcing an upcoming minor update... flare launchers!

This is a new component block coming soon, that you can place on a vehicle. When triggered, it will launch a flare. There are multiple types of flares, with some being useful for signalling a location, illuminating an area at night, or marking a location.

We have had great fun building this feature, can't wait to share it with you in the next few weeks as a minor update.

Our current focus remains building Stormworks out as a search and rescue game, and this kind of feature marries well with this concept. This new component will be very useful, for example at night where the player needs more illumination to aid in locating people and objects, as well as the possibility for allowing survivors to launch flares in a search senario in the future.

Upcoming Major Update Feature - Game Modes!

We continue to work hard on the next major update, were we aim to push the simulation gameplay much further. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, this major update will introduce more things to do, and more things that can happen in the world.

A while ago, we also asked for your feedback regarding normal mode, which revealed very few players playing that mode.

We are planning on rethinking the game modes in Stormworks. Our plan is to replace normal mode with some creative mode tools, as well as lots of other new powerful creative tools, and completely rework career into a much clearer and better defined game mode, with much better progression and gameplay.

The New Creative and Career Modes

We have been listening to your feedback regarding the game modes, and there are 2 clear directions that players are looking for - you want more control over what you can do in creative mode, and you want a more engaging search and rescue career experience.

This major update is designed to solve these problems. Creative mode now includes many of the existing game options, with lots of new options and abilities, and the ability to toggle these options within the game, rather than setting them when starting a new game. This greatly broadens how you can play the game within creative mode. We will share more details on exactly what these new options are soon.

Career mode will now be a specific set of game settings, the way the persistent game is meant to be played. This game option will pit the player against peril and consequence, making for a more exciting and engaging simulation type game mode. We are removing some concepts from career which just didn't work - games now start with all components unlocked, as limiting components also limited the roles and things players could do at the start of the game.

We look forward to your feedback on these upcoming plans and can't wait to start sharing more on the next major update soon.

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

Happy New Year!

This week we are releasing a small but frequently requested minor update - the temperature sensor update! This component tells you the current temperature at the block, allowing you to make thermostat systems for heaters, warning systems, and more. These are useful for example making heating systems much more efficient.

Thank you to everyone who have shared your thoughts, ideas, and your vision for the upcoming missions update! It is hugely useful and we are delighted for the chance to build your concepts into the new update. It isn't too late to post your ideas in the comments to this post, and we will continue to review your suggestions as we return to the office on Monday.

We are really excited about what 2020 will bring to Stormworks. We can't wait to share more of our plans and are excited to continue announcing our progress further ahead of releases. There is still so many highly requested features and updates that will add so much to the game, and this will be the year for many of these huge and impactful changes to Stormworks.

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Path Notes

v0.9.21-24

Feature - added new temperature sensor component. Outputs the current temperature.

Dear Stormworkers,

Happy Holidays!

This week there is no minor update, and instead we are trialling discussion of our upcoming plans for Stormworks, which we plan to do every other week.

The Next Major Update

For a long time now, we have wanted to improve the career experience for Stormworks and for the next major update we want to focus on a fundamental rework of the game modes, and the narrative events that happen in game such as missions and other things to do in the world.

This involves making creative mode better, with more tools, options, and creative freedom, to customise the game rules and challenges. We will also clearly define career mode to be a single standardised set of survival based game rules with focus on vehicle operation, lasting consequence, and the risks of search and rescue.



For this to work, we need to improve events in the world around you and we are reworking the missions system to procedurally build situations and evolving narrative for the player to engage with and manage. Many of the current Stormworks missions are essentially "deliver A to B", but the missions that start to work are the ones where a situation is evolving - the forest fires, rescuing people from a burning oil rig, etc.

We want these missions to become more interesting and engaging. Perhaps an oil tanker fire can leave the player to decide if to tackle the fire or rescue the crew off the vessel. Perhaps there is a chance of explosion, damaging the vessel further and spreading fire. or creating a leak in the hull.

What else could happen? We need your help! Please share your ideas in the comments for missions and things that could happen, how they could evolve procedurally, what exciting surprises could be waiting for the player, and more! Your ideas and inspiration will be very useful over the next few weeks as we continue to build up the new missions system.



Our office is still closed for another week for the holiday break, but there will probably be a small minor update next week as usual.

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

What a response to last week's update! We knew a lot of people had been voting for the new wedges on Discord, but we didn't expect last weeks update to be quite so popular! And we cannot believe what new shapes and forms you have created on the workshop, the new vehicle shapes that you are making are amazing! Stormworks has a whole new look.

A lot of you have asked for more wedges, and it was already something we were looking at, so this week we are adding new 4x1, 4x2 and 4x4 wedges and pyramids!

These new, much shallower slopes allow lots of new shapes and forms to be made, and compliment the 2 length wedges.

The physics is starting to get very thin on the narrow end of these 4-length wedges, so it is unlikely we will be able to add longer ones, and we recommend backing any narrow end of a wedge with other blocks so it isn't too thin.

We can't wait to see what you create with these new shapes! We will be on the workshop checking out your creations!

Happy holidays :-)

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.9.20

Feature - 4x1, 4x2 and 4x4 Wedges

Rework - Disabled some GPU queries that could give a performance boost for lower end graphics cards / integrated graphics

Fix - Sawyer Islands North Harbour Trainline issues
Fix - Rare CTD when returning a vehicle to workbench
Fix - Corrected Large Radio cost from 200 -> 2500