Dear Stormworkers,

This week we want to tell you about a new feature that has been asked for a lot and continues to be a popular request - first person equipment!

Hand held items are coming to Stormworks in the next big update.

You will have a body in first person, and will be able to see this body at all times, if walking, running, swimming, or seated. This will be your body, as you designed in the character editor when starting the game.



As you know, the next big update is going to be a special one, having taken a long time to develop, and containing many big features we have already announced including game mode modding, new procedural missions, new game mode options, and now first person items, there is a huge amount of work that has been going into this next big release.

Many of the features relate to each other, and many of the minor update features you have seen over the last few months relate to the next update, as we use those new features in new ways. All will become apparent as we announce more about the next update.

What Is The Handheld Equipment?

We have previously announced hand held ropes, where you can dynamically create rope links, for tethering, mooring, refuelling, or recharging. These hand held items will be very useful, not just for operating your own vehicles, but also performing missions. These handheld items are all about allowing players to do more in the simulation, and have greater power to interact with the world.

Other handheld equipment we are announcing this week is handheld repair tools! You will be able to equip handheld welders to repair damaged blocks, and repair vehicles, to get systems back online, fix leaks, and get your vehicle moving again.

There are two types of welders - torch welding, allowing faster repairs but not being possible while submerged, and submerged style welding, which isn't as quick but is essential when damage is flooded or on the ocean floor.

These tools are about helping those in need with damaged vehicles, stopping damaged vessels from flooding, or keeping your mission moving forward even when your vehicle sustains critical damage that would previously have ended the flow of gameplay.

We are really excited to share this new equipment and talk more about other hand held items we are adding to the game.



When Will The Next Update Arrive?

With the new upcoming announcements, we are trying to be as transparent as we can be about where development is going and what is next for Stormworks. Some questions are difficult to answer because we don't know the answers yet ourselves. A release date is one of those areas where we haven't decided yet.

As you are aware, this isn't a regular major update, but is going to be especially big, and there are more features we are yet to announce, and others we are yet to add. We expect it to take months rather than weeks to get this update ready.



Please let us know about your ideas for other first person equipment you would like to see added to the game. We always love hearing your ideas and are enjoying discussing ideas and development earlier as it gives us more time to take your suggestions on board and shape development of the game.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

As promised last week, and with the feedback you gave us, we have added the detailed realtime component info in this update!

Stormworks components are no longer black boxes.

The new tooltips give info on all the logic links (except composite) on components, to give you full information on the state of any component and more info on the mechanics behind the game.

To access tooltips, hold the Page Up key or toggle the option in the game settings.



We hope this update will help with the frustrating situations where you cannot figure out why something isn't working, when just a logic link is missing, or when data is arriving with the wrong values.

We have other improvements planned to help with the ease of use and transparency and we look forward to sharing these other improvements soon.



As always, we continue hard at work on the next major update, and hope to share more info on this soon.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.10.14

Fix - CTD using | in component labels
Fix - Workbench disabled tooltip fixes

v0.10.15

Feature - Toggleable Detailed Data Labels (new general setting and new 'view detailed' keybind)
Feature - New general setting to turn off chat wake on new message
Feature - Microcontroller tooltips now show their names

Fix - Certain tooltips not appearing while seated
Fix - CTD on client peers when despawning a magall
Fix - CTD when missing a render target
Fix - Fire never lit when placed as an Env Mod object

Dear Stormworkers,

Many of you have been asking us for more information and transparency around the various components and details of how they work. It can also be a frustration when a component isn't working and you cannot easily tell why. We have been thinking about this carefully some time and are really excited to improve this area of the game.

In an upcoming minor update, we are adding a huge upgrade to component tooltips, to give players immediate in-game feedback on the internal state of components. This will make it much easier to understand how components work, what they are currently doing, and diagnose issues. This will make it much easier to build complex creations, but will also make it much easier to learn the vehicle building side of the game.



The new tooltips will show on components that have any kind of logic link. Information on all logic nodes except composite will be displayed (which contains too much info to summarise on a tooltip). This includes electrical state, fluid connections, etc.

This feature can be toggled from the options menu where players feel the information is overwhelming or not currently necessary.

We are looking forward to releasing this minor update soon and getting your feedback.



Our work continues on the next major update, which focuses on the career, simulation, and things to do in the world of Stormworks.



Do you have more minor update ideas? Please let us know using the "Request A Feature" in game button or in the discussion on this post.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we have added new emergency beacon transmitter and locator blocks!

When activated, the emergency beacon outputs a signal. This signal can be picked up by the emergency beacon locator, which outputs pulses indicating how close the emergency beacon signal is. The range of emergency beacons is huge.

We recommend connecting the output of your beacon locator to a buzzer, indicator, or light. The closer you get, the faster the pulses.



The concept of emergency beacons is going to be very useful to us as we develop the next major update. Similar to our previous minor update, we are laying the groundwork for other new upcoming features, and the uses for emergency beacons in a career update are widespread, and create interesting game play.



These new blocks are already useful and ready to use in your own missions, or multiplayer, and we wish you well on your target finding operations!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.10.13

Feature - Emergency Beacon and Emergency Beacon Locator
Feature - Added a help message for admins when un-authed player joins the game

Fix - Added missing composite node to Harness
Fix - Rope audio playing at full extension / retraction
Fix - Cost of medium winch
Fix - Time desync for mission and research display timers
Fix - +connect command line parameter not working
Fix - Added further protection from chat + mission object crashes

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we announcing a new upcoming feature - first person ropes, hoses, and cables!

In an upcoming major update, we are adding the ability to create, connect, and disconnect ropes while in the first person view. Players can connect ends of ropes to the rope hooks on vehicles.



What Does This Mean?

Players will be able to create ropes between rope points, even on different vehicles. You will be able to moor ships at harbour, tether vehicles together, strap down helicopters on helipads, and more, all from in game, on mission, and without having to use the vehicle editor.

You can also create hoses for transferring water, fuel, and other liquids, or cables for transferring data and electricity. This means refuelling your vehicles will be really straight forward.

The new system will also be compatible with the new winches! So you can even hook your ropes, cables and hoses to a winch and reel the rope in.

This system takes all the benefits and customisation of the new rope system, and makes it more interactive, powerful, and useful within the simulation.

This forms a small part of the major update we are working on, that is focused on the mission and simulation gameplay.



When Can I Get This Update?

We haven't announced the details or the release date for the new update yet. Right now we are still developing and adding features, and don't know when it will be ready. In the mean time, we have some exciting minor updates on the way!



Please let us know your thoughts on this feature and other ways we can push forward the simulation and mission gameplay!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

Our very best wishes to you in this difficult time.

After many requests, we have reworked winches to work with the new rope logic nodes.

The new winches allow you to place winches without rope, and attach the rope separately using the rope logic nodes. This adds a great deal of flexibility for setting up ropes and winching systems without having to have the other end of the winch adjacent to the winch.

Winches on existing vehicles are unchanged and will still work the way they always have.

Winches are no longer a specific type, so will accept either electric / data cable or fluid cable. The type you add specifies the type of winch.

The existing 4 sizes of winch now work with both types.

We are very pleased to rework this system because it gives players much more flexibility and control over their mechanical systems, and is more consistent with how many other parts of Stormworks is designed - to give players the most control. We look forward to the new rope and cable based systems that you come up with after this update!



Please see the patch notes below for information on the other fixes and improvements that come in this update.

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.10.12

Feature - Winches v2 (Now use rope logic)

Fix - Rope buoyancy
Fix - Clients on dedicated servers always seeing delete mission button
Fix - Blank chat message CTD
Fix - Daylight ticking while game is paused

Dear Stormworkers,

Our thoughts and wishes to everyone in this challenging and extraordinary time.

Two weeks ago we announced the upcoming game mode scripting. In this announcement, we want to discuss the practical effect of the new scripting, and some of the new features we are looking at building with it.

Our current focus is career and developing new, engaging things to do in Stormworks. First and foremost, this is a Search and Rescue game, and the new game mode scripting allows us a lot of power to develop new interactive, procedural emergencies for players to solve.

The new game mode scripting allows both us and players to build custom scripts that controls various systems within the game. For example, we are looking at new SAR missions using the system.

Within our SAR missions script, we can mark search areas for the player to search and randomly place a lost ship within that zone. If the player does not find the ship in distress within time, or if the weather becomes worse, the ship could begin to sink, fires could start, survivors could perish, and the parameters of the mission could change. All of this can be built up within the script, and could be entirely procedural so that players will never face the exact same mission twice, and will never know what is going to happen next.

And there is much more possible with the new scripting system. We are also looking at building a cargo delivery system, where we can build cargo terminals with cranes and cargo handling equipment within the environment mod system, then use the new scripting to spawn and track containers, with the required UI to tell the player where the destination is for each piece of cargo.



But by far the best aspect of this new system is that anyone can build these scripts. While we are designing the system with SAR missions in mind, there are unlimited possibilities of what can be built with these scripts, and we are aware of the power for players to build anything from their own, much improved search and rescue disasters, to whole game modifications. When you consider that you are not an average gaming community, but in fact, many of the most creative, capable, and brilliant players out there, this is very exciting indeed.



So, what stuff can you control via the new scripts?

• Multiplayer server management - get information about players, kick, ban, auth, send messages, teleport
  
• Game settings - change game settings such as damage, third person, creative options, etc.
  
• Vehicle management - get information about vehicles, spawn, despawn, teleport
  
• Mission management - manage environment mod objects, manage objects from mission locations, trigger fires, vehicle buttons, etc.
  
• NPC management - get information about survivors, spawn, despawn, set health data
  
• Map management - draw areas, markers and icons on the map with per-player control

We want to share the above information so you can tell us what we are missing! If there are script functions you think we should add, let us know in the comments or with feature requests!



We have much more planned and already in development and can't wait to share information on the other much requested features that are on the way :-)

Much love<3

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

It's happened! We have added search bars to the open dialogs and multiplayer server browser!

This is something you have been asking for, for years. Our updates rely on your ideas and requests, and this feature is no exception.

How It Works

There are new search boxes at the top of the server browser, load vehicle, and other open item dialogs.

Type in any text into the search box, and the results will be filtered down to only items containing that text. The filter is not case sensitive.

This makes it a lot easier to find the item you are looking for by name, quickly and easily, when you may have many items subscribed on the workshop.



With 50,000 of your creations now available on the workshop for download, your subscription library can get very full so this has been an increasingly important feature.

We have also made some fixes and improvements in response to issues you have reported using the bug tracker.

In the mean time, we are using the extra time saved from releasing minor updates every other week (as opposed to every week) to work on more major update features, and we have loads of exciting stuff to announce in the coming weeks.



Please do keep sharing your ideas and letting us know what you want for the game and help us shape the future of Stormworks!

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.10.10

Fix - Player list now focuses correctly
Fix - Several crashes

v0.10.11

Feature - Search bars for Server lists, Saves and Vehicles
Feature - ?save can now OPTIONALLY take a savename parameter eg. ?save my_save

Fix - Crash on despawning mission with claimed loot box
Fix - Local multiplayer games overwriting server config
Fix - Server overwriting config after encountering a parsing error
Fix - Lootboxes and flares duplicating with environment mod missions
Fix - Quick chat continuously blocking Player list
Fix - Several crashes
Fix - Player death upon loading a deceased NPC

Dear Stormworkers,

One of your most frequent requests are more tools to mod Stormworks, with more control and power over what you can do.

This week we want to announce a new upcoming feature that we have been working on:

LUA scripting for game, player, mission, and/or multiplayer management!

In a major future update, we are adding a LUA editor that allows you to create, share and download game mode scripts!

Adding the ability to create stuff is what Stormworks is all about. We are particularly excited about this one because of the wide scope to mod the game, create new gameplay and new experiences. The possibilities will be very broad and as usual, you players will surprise us with your amazing creations and ultimately surpass what we are able to do ourselves.

So, what will be possible with the new LUA game mode modding?

Create Your Own Mission Systems!

Spawn cargo at cargo terminals, track delivery and reward the player? Create complex search and rescue operations with search areas marked on the map, track delivery of survivors to any of a number of hospital facilities? Trigger fires, trigger vehicle logic and more, with many new powers to author your missions.



Create Your Own Game!

With the ability to programatically position players, spawn vehicles, and present information to the players on their UI, you can create new rule sets for games. Set up team role-play games? Track vehicles racing around a track, implement rules and reset the track to start a new race?



Server Bots!

Want to automate your multiplayer server? The LUA script can detect when players join, leave, spawn vehicles or take other actions allowing you to respond to these actions. This will allow some automated moderation, or other server side systems that you can install on your server.



This is all part of a theme that we have discussed before - expanding what you do in the simulation part of the game, including improving the search and rescue gameplay. We have not forgotten about this, and in fact, this part of the development has grown to a much larger component and much larger update that we are very excited about. This is just one part of a huge update we have planned.

Want to help? Let us know what you might like to create and what API you would need to do it!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we have released the further multiplayer improvements that we discussed last week!

Responsive Inputs

The client now has much lower delay between sending inputs to the server and the vehicle moving. This means you can fly the most agile aircraft in multiplayer without issues.

Authorised Players

Something you have been asking us for is the ability to control which players have the power to spawn vehicles, return to workbench, change time and weather, etc. This is because the ability to do these things can have significant effect on a server and other players. Now, in multiplayer, an admin must authorise a player to have the power to spawn vehicles on that server. This means public servers without passwords are now possible. This is done using simple type-in commands, see the patch notes for full details.

Server List

You can now browse Stormworks servers in the Steam server browser! Simply select the internet tab, set the filter to game:Stormworks, and it will show you the list of active servers!

Dedicated Server Providers

Dedicated server companies can now specify the user data folder and ip binding for game servers, which is a request several game server companies have made to us in the last couple of weeks.

Fixes and Improvements

We have been focused on improving the quality of the multiplayer and the game in general, and have made big improvements to a long list of issues. Thanks to everyone who helped let us know what needed improving on the issues site and using the "report bug" in-game button! Please see the patch notes for the full updates.

For server admins running servers, we hope these tools help with running your communities, but please keep letting us know how we can improve the game using the issue tracking website, with the ingame buttons. Please remember to authorise only your trusted community members who will spawn vehicles responsibly and remember to clean up vehicles before they leave the server! You can also create un-manned servers with pre-defined sets of vehicles using the missions and environment mod features.

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.10.3-v0.10.5

Fix - Mission timers being updated to 0
Fix - Crash with network compression on particularly large vehicles
Fix - Client vehicles never loading due to packet discrepancies
Fix - Crash when detecting null peers while spawning a new player
Fix - Removed various unimportant and misleading logs from dedicated server console
Fix - Server TPS varying based on machines in a state where clock accuracy is reduced
Fix - Magall crash
Fix - Magall not grabbing static physics
Fix - Dedicated server not clamping setting values correctly

v0.10.6

Fix - Mac crashes due to resource destruction order

v0.10.7

Feature - Dedicated server Authorized list
Only Authorized/Admin players can spawn vehicles and access the creative menu
Whilelisted players are automatically Authorized

Rework - Resized several ui elements, including server list and player list
Rework - Server now shows seed
Balance - Buffed Arctic Outfit temperature boost

Fix - Servers allowing only max_players -1 to join
Fix - Multiplayer shaking and sliding on vehicles
Fix - Unlock all components on dedicated server
Fix - Sleeping on dedicated servers
Fix - Vehicle rendering jitter
Fix - Nameplate rendering
Fix - Jumping issues
Fix - Players capsule not recognising that they are touching the ground
Fix - Host fps display in player list always reading 60
Fix - Player list not scrolling 100% of the time
Fix - Door sound and water particle issues
Fix - Admins being able to ban/kick other admins
Fix - Environment mod object and vehicle functionality as part of missions
Fix - Video feed sometimes persisting through connectors
Fix - Some inconsistencies with steam rich presence
Fix - Magall issues in multiplayer
Fix - Survivors not taking damage
Fix - CTD when returning a transmitting lua-video vehicle to workbench
Fix - Loading and saving now both leave '_' intact for game save names
Fix - Research timers desyncing in multiplayer
Fix - Several infrequent CTDs

Dedicated servers now appear in the Steam server browser
Dedicated servers are now sorted by Status and Number of players

Dedicated server new commands:
?add_admin <id>
?remove_admin <id>
?add_auth <id>
?remove_auth <id>

Dedicated server new settings:
despawn_on_leave <true/false>: Whether to despawn player survivors upon disconnecting from the server (Default false)

Dedicated server new command line arguments:
+server_dir <dir> : Server working and config directory, default: Same as Game directory (OS specific appdata path)
+ip_bind <ip> : Local ip bind : defaults to all local IPv4 addresses

v0.10.8

Fix - Server commands not working for local games
Fix - Auth access to mission editor

v0.10.9

Added some feedback messages for server commands

Fix - Crash caused by magall while a vehicle is loading
Fix - ?save being useable on local games
Fix - Remove mission button not sending event to server
Fix - Client side water leaks occurring through sealed doors
Fix - Auth list allowing addition of duplicate ids
Fix - Other player nameplates failing to render if they reconnect