Dear Stormworkers,

By popular request, Stormworks is now available in 64 bit!

This week we have added a new 64 bit version of Stormworks, so players with 64 bit processors can play the game in the most native form possible. This has been an overwhelmingly popular request, and we have continued to listen carefully to the communities vision for what is next with Stormworks.

Steam will automatically decide which version to launch - 32bit or 64bit - depending on which version of Windows you are running. You will see text in the bottom left showing which version is in use. Note that the MacOS version of Stormworks has always been 64bit.



What Does This Mean?

If you have 64bit Windows, Stormworks will now run as a 64bit application. This means Windows no longer has to convert the 32bit game code to 64bit code, which has a small overhead. The game may run 1% to 3% faster.

The game also has access to the new instruction sets available on 64bit processors. Stormworks doesn't really have any use for these extra instructions so this will have limited impact.



The game will also have access to more memory if it's available on your computer. This typically won't have an effect as Stormworks rarely uses above 2gb of memory. However, in some rare cases, perhaps when there is a lot of complex vehicles and structures in the scene (especially custom environment mods), this could potentially help. Because some values are now stored with 64bits of data, memory usage may increase around 10%.



Stormworks already uses 64bit physics precision, even on the 32bit version of the game, as the FPU on your 32bit processor natively does 64bit maths.

The game will of course, be running in a more native form of your operating system, which many players consider more elegant and a cleaner way of doing things. Some players have also expressed concern that Microsoft could decide to withdraw support for 32bit software in the future, and we hope this new update addresses these concerns. Stormworks is around to stay!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.10.18

Feature - Added Windows 64bit version
Fix - F11 vehicle editor now correctly exports wheels

Dear Stormworkers,

Two weeks ago, we announced first person equipment, including ropes and repair kit. Your responses were huge and many players made great suggestions on the first person equipment they would like to see in the upcoming major update. We are carefully considering all requests and have plans to implement many of the suggested items so far!

This week we can announce that first person medical equipment will be part of the next major update, as well as incapacitation, a new hospital system, healing and reviving survivors and multiplayer friends.

We are working on two new first person items - the first aid kit, and the defibrillator. The first aid kit repairs heath on yourself or others, while the defibrillator can revive players who have been incapacitated. This has a huge impact in the next major update, where new missions can be very dangerous and pose threats to the player. When a survivor is seriously injured or drowns, they become incapacitated and can be revived, giving the player more opportunities to complete the mission and turn the most serious situations around. Giving the player these medical tools brings huge impact to the search and rescue gameplay.



The new hospital system allows many hospitals to be defined in missions rather than baked into the islands and missions. This means you can rescue survivors to any hospital in the game, rather than a specific zone. Players could create hospital ship mods where you can rescue survivors to a medical vessel, or new island locations. In fact, this concept is entirely created within our new lua modding system, where we have simply created zones named "hospital" in our environment mods, and looked for such zones in our new lua mission game mode mod. Content creators have the same power as us to make their missions work any way they like. This is a really exciting change because we know the community will do really exciting things with this feature.

When the player is incapacitated, they have the option to respawn at the nearest base island station, or otherwise wait for another player to revive them. This means players can depend on each other in multiplayer and have the power to help each other out when things go wrong.



We are really excited about the way first person items change the game, and can't wait to share more news on this feature as development continues.

We also have some much-requested minor updates on the way.

Much love <3

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

Performance and optimisation is a big topic for Stormworks, but it can be very difficult to exactly measure and compare players performance when the complexity of vehicles can vary so much.

This week we introduce bench-marking to Stormworks! There is a new benchmark mode which loads up specific scenes, so that players can now easily compare and record their performance in game.

From v0.10.16, you can launch one of three benchmarks. Go to main menu > settings > graphics, and you will see the new options to launch a benchmark.



Benchmarks also log this data to a file including data on your hardware, giving you a complete report of performance for that benchmark. If you want to, you can share this data if reporting performance issues, and w e can see the exact hardware and performance that Stormworks is experiencing.

This is another useful tool in understanding and considering any performance related issues.

Stormworks is a demanding game for graphics but also CPU calculations. It's important to be able to understand where any performance bottlenecks are, and the benchmarks will report both frame rate and tick rate of the game. We think many players will find it interesting to be able to more objectively measure performance, and get exact info on how the game behaves.



We are shipping 3 benchmarks, a low demand benchmark for a typical game, a medium demand benchmark for a more complex set up with a few vehicles, perhaps comparable to a multiplayer server with a few players. and an extreme demand benchmark, intended for differentiating performance on the most powerful PCs. The final benchmark includes a huge ship, several smaller ships, some aircraft, at the Sawyer Isles.

As always, this minor update comes with other fixes and improvements. Please see the patch notes below.



Next week we have more exciting news to announce about future plans. We are continuing to work on more minor and major update features, and are really excited about what is coming.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

v0.10.16

Feature - Graphics Benchmarking
Added 3 benchmarking buttons with increasing simulation strain to the main menu graphics settings
Added +benchmark <1/2/3> command line parameter

Fix - CTD with audio when despawning a Magall
Fix - Fluid data label info

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