Dear Stormworkers,

In this weeks minor update, we introduce small missile parts!

These new parts are designed so that players are able to make 1 block sized radar tracking missiles, the missiles look better, and the process is easier than before with new built-in radar logic.

Solid rocket booster fuel sections are now available with fins, with a composite input to control X and Y fin rotation. The finned versions are the same block size as the regular solid rocket parts.

We have added a new cylindrical hardpoint part to help build 1 block sized missiles with a cylindrical section. This hardpoint component is exactly the same as the existing one and is entirely cosmetic.



We have also added a new composite output to radars - the tracking data output. This output gives the X, Y motion vector of the primary radar signal, corrected for rotation. It sounds confusing, and it is - its a similar algorithm used on many anti-air missiles such as the Sidewinder. The idea is that if our missile is heading on a collision course with a target, then the relative direction of that target will not change - if the relative direction is changing - then we must adjust the missiles course to be more similar to the target.

While it sounds complex, the good news is that it means there can be relatively little logic involved - you just need to link up the radar tracking data directly to your solid rocket fins, and adjust the fin strength. We have also included a preset example in the presets folder.

We have also added an impact threshold property to warheads, so they can incorporate an impact sensor themselves. It still needs to be armed via the on/off input, and the default value is zero, so the default behaviour is the same as before.



However, be warned! There is a new AI warship variant that is armed with a radar missile array! This warship carries 8 radar guided missiles, and they are very dangerous.

Thats why we have also added new chaff flares, a new flare type for the existing flare launcher. They explode into a cloud of glittery foil shards. Chaff flares omit a strong but short lived radar signal. When timed well they will distract and defeat incoming missiles.

As always, there are also several bug fixes and general improvements. Please see the change log below for full details.



We look forward to your thoughts and feedback on these new features, and hope you enjoy launching some homing missiles!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.3.14

Feature - 4 new missile parts with built-in fins
Feature - Missile part model refreshes
Feature - Rounded style hardpoint connector child
Feature - Warhead built-in impact sensor
Feature - Radar "missile instructions" output composite
Feature - Chaff flares
Feature - Flare launcher trigger passthrough node
Feature - New Missile support for weapons ai script (and a new boat)
Feature - AI vehicle basic avoidance raycasts
Feature - New example missile launcher

Rework - Added a 1s grace period to impact sensors to prevent triggering them on vehicle load
Rework - Radar tracking algorithm improved
Rework - Cameras are now correctly nameable

Fix - Updated radar descriptions to explain sensitivity
Fix - Remove extra physics voxel from missile radar
Fix - MC tooltips now show in seats if they have logic nodes
Fix - Robotic pivots no longer drain electric when damaged
Fix - Ski no longer requires electric
Fix - Ammo box not rendering on mesh export
Fix - Non-arctic tiles spawning in the arctic (e.g. trainline tiles) being outside the search radius when spawning env-mods (env-mods not spawning for those tiles)
Fix - Weapons AI turrets now respawn
Fix - Default AI boats placing waypoints inside the riverbanks of sawyer isles

Scripts should no longer try calling onTick before onCreate (Path nodes being built after scripts ticked caused boats to path through land after loading a save)
added setVehiclePosSafe
added resetVehicleState
onPlayerLeave should now fire for all disconnect events
Added body_index parameter to onVehicleDamaged (useful to ignore damage to sub bodies aka missiles)

Dear Stormworkers,

In this upcoming announcement, we will discuss the general plans and activities going on in the development studio and look at the bigger picture!

We are most of the way through our roadmap that we published at the start of the year, with just the natural disasters update outstanding. This major update and a couple more are in development, as well as several minor updates. We don't have any release dates yet but will let you know when we do.

Our release schedule is major updates every 12 to 16 weeks, and minor updates every 2 weeks. However, we have more recently done some "only bug fixes" minor updates which have been well received, As we focus more on quality improvements and fixes, we are considering that this type of minor update could become more common (perhaps every other minor update).



As previously discussed, we have also been working on our quality assurance procedures and we are spending longer testing updates, with clearer plans on exactly what changes need testing. The impact of this has immediately been noticeable and we continue to look for more ways we can improve the quality of updates.

Following the release of our new issue tracker, there has been another big improvement in the way we track and plan work internally. It is now so much easier for us to communicate with players and give individual support, as well as identify issues. Players have been very awesome and engaged with the new tool, and in kind, we have been doing our best to make the required improvements to the game.

The new issue tracker has helped so much, that we have been working on a 2nd phase of internal tools to help track tasks and workflow. The new task-tracker forms part of our agile workflow, and is built specifically around our new processes and should further help us track progress, communicate internally, and better control quality. In reality, this is just an internal website, but we are receiving around 1500 requests a month, and managing that volume is a challenge.

We remain committed to supporting Stormworks and are already working on many updates for the rest of the year and far into 2022. Developing Stormworks for this community of talented builders is very rewarding and few Steam developers are fortunate enough to be able to serve such an active and creative community. We value this, and are excited to continue bringing updates and improvements into the future.



Beyond Stormworks? As many players are already aware, we developed Carrier Command 2 which has been very rewarding and fun to build. We have also learned a lot from building a very different type of game from the ground up. We are not working on any other games right now, but are thinking about the future. We are very interested in modding, as are a huge number of our players, and any future game we might build should have much improved support for modding. We have been doing some research and development around this, intended for any future game engine we may create.

We will be back next week with a new and exciting minor update!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we are releasing several important bug fixes and quality improvements to Stormworks that are much needed and long overdue!

We have begun looking at some of the issues with the world and environment assets, and have been improving the in-game islands. Expect fixes where the island physics may not have been correct or geometry was out of place!



We have also been improving the content generally, including some smoothing to some of the terrain and improving the height difference between airstrip runways and the surrounding land.

There is also a long list of other important bug fixes, including multiplayer and dedicated server issues. See the change notes below for details!

As always, much credit goes to the many players who are giving feedback and reporting issues through the official issue tracker. This is very valuable thanks to the many detailed and clear reports so thank you again.



These fixes will continue to arrive! We are continuing to improve our processes and are giving ourselves more time to internally test changes to the game. This has the effect that last minutes changes are much rarer now, and so changes to the game are tested more thoroughly. This also means that there are many more fixes already implemented that are currently going though our new quality processes and will be included in future releases.



We hope these new fixes improve your experience and we look forward to your feedback!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.3.13

Feature - 2x2 Pyramid and Inverse Pyramid Windows
Feature - Addon editor load screen searchbox
Feature - Default cargo scripts improved tooltips, spawn probabilities and scaling rewards/times

Fix - Weapons Addon not saving the new menu settings across sessions
Fix - Photomode post process exposure values
Fix - Inputs not cleared when opening custom menu via keybind
Fix - Missing female crouch animation
Fix - MP clients remote control not connecting correctly
Fix - Rx range description for handheld radios/remote control
Fix - Kick players out of vehicle/character editor on death
Fix - Incorrect range description on laser distance sensor
Fix - Allow C4 placement underwater
Fix - o_id typo in addon lua example
Fix - Slightly increased client ladder auto exit box
Fix - Fix multiplayer hosts dropping client players not creating ragdoll animation
Fix - Missing parent parameter in lua docs for spawnAddonComponent
Fix - Tutorial crane and tractor no longer despawn on tutorial end
Fix - Editor multibody child blocked voxel positions
Fix - Editor multibody child bounds in component selector
Fix - Rotary / Heavy autocannon ammo not being manually placeable into belts
Fix - Coalbox sometimes rendering hot when returning to workbench
Fix - Added blue arrows to laser point sensor
Fix - Removed reserved voxels from ammo connector belts
Fix - Rocket launcher SFX looping underwater
Fix - Capture vehicle tooltip not updating for enemy controlled islands
Fix - 2 Handed items being usable on ladders
Fix - HOTAS seat not using animations
Fix - Bubble trails for projectiles fired in underwater buoyancy volumes
Fix - Increased autocannon ammo belt load time to keep up with rotary autocannon

AI vehicles now explode when sinking, over-damaged or 5 mins after they are incapacitated
AI vehicles now scale HP and explosion based on size
added spawnExplosion Lua function when DLC is enabled

Repaired various mesh issues across all islands:
Smoothed terrain and fixed clipping ocean on Sawyers island.
Train depot side has been leveled and parking physics fixed. North Harbour on Sawyers island.
Ladders added to Military base and Fishing village dock.
Holt town parking was under terrain.
Arctic lighthouse stairs physics fixed.
Floating rocks on Submarine and Airfield base.
Multiplayer base wall physics fixed.
Donkk village door now opens.
Tajin Airstrip invisible wall removed
Chemical storage physics fixed.
Refinery terrain gaps fixed.
Terminal Camodo parking fix.
Arctic Refinery terrain.
Railing and crash guard physics boxes resized.
Airport base landscape.
Camodo base landscape.
MP Island terrain smoothed.

Knowns issues:
- 1 or 2 locations required larger fixes, and this may cause some problems for old saves only at these locations.
- a small number of players have experienced poor performance near the Beginner Outpost. This may be due to older versions of the game having an issue.
Both can be fixed by starting a new game.

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we have been working hard on bug fixes and quality improvements. We have a huge bug fix update planned for next week, with the two most important fixes being promoted to a hot fix (now live).

Next week will be a particularly large bug fix update, thanks to the many players who have given very valuable information on the official issue tracker.



Thanks to all the players who have let us know about issues through the official issue tracker - most of these fixes are a direct result of your issue reports. There has also been a marked improvement in the quality of reports since last weeks Q&A video where we discussed this - thank you for this extra effort, it is often the difference between us not understanding and dismissing an issue, and being able to fix it for the next update. The clear information is helping a huge amount.

As well as these fixes, we are continuing work on the planned minor updates and major updates - we have some really cool content on the way that we are really excited to share. We discussed and gave some hints to some of the new stuff in development (such as new outfits), and previously discussed the new weapons focused parts such as small missile parts and chaffs, but there is plenty more in progress. We will announce more as the work comes together over the coming weeks and months.



Be sure to check back next week for the fixes update!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



v1.3.12 (Hotfix)

Fix - Hot but non-ignited fires no longer count as lit, consuming extinguisher particles
Fix - Handheld weapons not spawning server projectiles unless host was rendering

Dear Stormworkers,

It is currently Halloween in Stormworks!

In this weeks update, we add settings for add-on mods! When starting a new game, you can now customize the settings of your add-ons as you wish. If you make add-on mods yourself, this system is entirely lua driven and available for you to use in your own add-ons too!

When starting a game, you can click "add-on settings" to activate and deactivate your add-ons. You can sort your add-ons by active, alphabetical, or date. Clicking any add-on will show the settings in the panel on the right.



With the Weapons DLC AI add-on, we have added plenty of new customization options including 7 sliders that allow to to tweak various game difficulty aspects. This is in response to lots of player feedback on their desires to customize their experience when battling the AI.



If you haven't seen the Questions and Answers video, you can view it below! Thank you again to all the players who submitted questions. After the video we discussed formats and have plans to answer more questions next time. Thanks to MrNJersey for hosting!



As always, we look forward to your thoughts and feedback on this new update!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.3.9-10

Feature - Addon Script Main Menu Properties
Macro-like script functions that can be parsed to provide checkboxes / sliders in the New-Game Addon Selector
The default AI / Weapons scripts have been updated to include a few settings

Balance - Slightly lowered default AI spawn amounts

Fix - Only charge for ammo for player vehicles
Fix - Extinguishers can no longer hit unlit fires
Fix - Halloween red eyes now only show on sharks
Fix - Swapped mis-labelled MC timer node descriptions
Fix - Tech tree component icons now render without opening the vehicle editor
Fix - Parse the vehicle state when using setVehiclePos

Dear Stormworkers,

In this weeks update, we discuss some of our plans for the upcoming minor updates, including small missile parts, modular barrels and muzzles, chaffs, and more!

We are also releasing a quality focused patch today to address some issues that you have told us about on the issue tracker.

Thanks to everyone who submitted Q&A video questions! Question submissions are now closed and we will record the video shortly!



We are continuing to implement fixes, improvements and new features, as requested on the new official issue tracker. It is proving very useful for our development process, so thank you to all the players who have let us know about issues or shared their vision for new ideas!

Players have been asking for improvements to rockets and improved parts for creating smaller missiles. We are having fun developing improved missiles so thank you to all who have given feedback. We are planning extra radar information to help with target tracking missiles, and miniaturized fins for 1x1 solid rockets.



We are also interested in modular barrels and muzzles, to add cosmetic improvements to your modular guns, as well as some muzzle brakes. As well as being cosmetic, some muzzle types may provide a reduction in recoil.

With improved missile tracking, players will need countermeasures... chaff flares! Chaff flares will function in a similar way to regular flares, except having a strong but short lived radar signature to distract radar guided missiles.



We have many more updates planned. While these ones highlighted are weapons DLC themed, we also have many more updates in the works for the base game.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



v1.3.7

Feature - added hard cap to active flares (32)
Feature - weapons tag for workshop vehicles

Rework - mid-air rocket-rocket collisions are now ignored to prevent launchers from self destructing
Rework - radar threshold for detection is now higher for weaker radars

Fix - mirrored surface painting for sloped blocks
Fix - updated GLFW version for compatibility
Fix - rescaled radar range
Fix - update environment audio when paused
Fix - microprocessor damage now works the same as logic gate components
Fix - medium turret editor mesh
Fix - weapons script c is nil error
Fix - block mouse input bindings when map/custom menu is open

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we are adding a set of new parts - turret ring bearings! These are velocity pivots with a hole through the middle. The holes in the bearings are considered doors (for the purposes of compartments and flooding) and are connected to each other - so you can now have a rotating coupling where moving parts can remain water-tight.

The turret rings come in small, medium and large sizes.

We have a host of other changes in this update that will be important to a lot of players. These changes include reworking cannons so their shells have a much longer life and more appropriate physical behaviour, allowing for high trajectory firing.

We are also doing another Questions and Answers video soon. In these videos we go through player-submitted questions and answer as many as we can! Submit your question here! Please submit just one clear and concise question.



There is big list of other changes including important fixes and improvements. Please see the list below for the full details.

It has been another exciting week with new and incredible user-creations showing up on the workshop! We are blown away with these player designs and how quickly players have got to grips with the new parts and their creative applications.



We have loads more updates and improvements planned and are actively using the new issue tracker to communicate and deliver these changes. We are also planning on doing another poll soon to get general feedback on the future direction of updates. We are also planning several dedicated bug-fix updates in the weeks and months to come.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.3.6

Feature - 3 New Turret Rings
Rotating pivots with a large central hole; designed for tanks and other turrets.

Rework - Increase cannon and rocket projectile life significantly
Balance - Refreshed projectile physics for better indirect firing
Balance - Wind now affects large projectiles less than small projectiles

Fix - Animals HP always clamped to 100 when syncing, sharks now have 500, megalodons now have 5500
Fix - Repaired batteries capacity is now restored
Fix - Added missing description for warhead body (small)
Fix - Mass of EMP warhead
Fix - Value of small / medium warhead
Fix - Only despawn vehicles from explosions when vehicle damage is enabled
Fix - Re-Added radar effective range preview after fixing associated crashes
Fix - Radar descriptions still mentioning radians
Fix - Warheads now use the correct explosion sizes
Fix - Infinite ammo glitch when activating two autocannons simultaneously on a single ammo drum
Fix - Host lock not deactivating dlc custom menu buttons
Fix - Phalanx radar editor arrow height
Fix - CTD on game exit caused by Magalls
Fix - Water plane causing swimming inside a dry but sealed compartment
Fix - Ammo belt junctions now work correctly when pushing ammo
Fix - Weapons addon flating fires - fire dynamic objects are now teleported with their parent vehicle
Fix - Missing documentation for new items
Fix - Missile radar detection angle output
Fix - Batteries now output zero charge when damaged
Fix - Increased node search radius for internal pathfinding to prevent pathing issues near sawyer island
Fix - Crash when teleporting/despawning vehicles with C4 attached

Dear Stormworkers,

What an incredibly exciting week so far! We are absolutely blown away by the awesome player creations being shared in the #vehicle-showcase on the Discord and in the Steam workshop! It is amazing to see players having fun with the new parts!

The Search & Destroy weapons DLC has been overwhelmingly successful, with thousands of players purchasing within minutes of launch, immediately entering the global top sellers chart on Steam, thousands attending the live stream launch party, and a new record for concurrent players in game!



We have been working hard to resolve any new issues with this update, and have been releasing daily patches as we make improvements. See below for the full patch notes.

For players who are struggling to get weapons to fire, the answer is to start a new game - weapons are not turned on in saves created before the update!



Our focus has moved on from this update to quality issues and bug fixes, but we have been reading all your feedback and are considering many of the requests for new weapons ideas.

Our update schedule continues. Expect hot fixes to continue next week, and Friday updates alternating between feature updates one week, and bug fix focused updates the next.



We look forward to reading more feedback, playing with your workshop creations, and maybe even joining players for a little multiplayer! Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.3.1

Fix - random crash while holding C4 handheld equipment
Fix - C4 placement preview not appearing on surfaces very close to the player
Fix - modular engine components not outputting RPS logic value

v1.3.2

Fix - compsite outputs for laser point sensors, some other logic parts, etc

v1.3.3

Fix - wind particle rendering issue causing white flickering, particularly for MacOS users
Fix - remove impact sfx and screenshake from secondary frag projectiles to reduce audio cutoffs
Fix - resolved CTD when merging bodies

v1.3.4

Feature - added blood effect options (full, reduced, off)
Rework - radars no longer consume electric when off, rescaled electric consumption based on size
Rework - added blue editor arrows to radars
Rework - added trigger binding to controller options
Rework - weapons ai addon characters can now be killed
Rework - added fire to weapons ai addon killed units
Rework - updated radar descriptions to use turns unit
Fix - weapon drum mesh and small warhead meshes now correctly aligned
Fix - fixed crash related to radar properties menu
Fix - fixed crash when returning vehicle to workbench from the map
Fix - fixed issue where AI ships would not path correctly after loading game
Fix - fixed radars rendering with pitch angle
Fix - fixed missile radar detection orientation
Fix - changed some audio changes back to attempt fix for new macos audio issue
Fix - undeprecated sonars
Fix - fix crash related to loading in objects
Fix - fix softlock when detonating lots of C4
Fix - corrected addon documentation example for getPlayerName and getAITarget
Fix - AI ships now only spawn in ocean rather than occasionally on land
Fix - added correct surfaces to bottom of radar parts

Dear Stormworkers,

The Search & Destroy Weapons DLC is out now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1542360

In Stormworks: Search & Destroy, you can equip yourself with pistols, rifles, grenades, C4 and spear guns, build modular vehicle weapons including mini-guns, cannons, bombs and guided missiles, then battle enemy AI navy and air force across the world of Stormworks. Jump onto multiplayer and test your war machines with your friends!

This new DLC has been in development for a very long time. Thank you to the many players who have given us their feedback and called for this update, it has been great fun to build and really rewarding for us.

There is a huge list of features and changes, so be sure to check the change log below.

You can get this new DLC on the Stormworks: Search & Destroy store page.

Many of you have been making military vehicles for a long time. We are so excited to see these vehicles now begin to function as such, as well as all your new creations and interesting weapon systems!

If you are not getting the DLC - not to worry - all the parts are added into the base game as cosmetic items, so workshop items will still be cross-compatible!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers





v1.3.0

Feature - [DLC] Modular Vehicle Weapons
Feature - [DLC] Handheld Weapons
Feature - [DLC] Conquest Mode Addon
Feature - New Handle Seat
Feature - Multiplayer Optimization Pass and Networking Layer Fixes
Feature - Logic/Render Thread Optimization Pass
Feature - Addon editor Generic Graph Nodes and Links
Feature - Advanced AI Pathing using Addon Nodes and Links
Feature - Screen Shake Improvements and Settings

[DLC] Features:
Explosive and EMP Warhead Blocks
Modular Machine Guns, Cannons and Autocannons
Rocket Launchers
Modular Ammo Feeding System, Handheld Ammo Boxes and Shells
Handheld Equipment Hand Grenade and C4
Handheld Equipment SMG, Rifle, Pistol and Speargun

Ammunition Payloads:
Kinetic - Basic direct impact damage, Cheaper than other ammo types
High Explosive - Large splash radius around the impact
Fragmentation - Small splash radius, Spawns secondary projectiles
Armor Piercing - Less base damage, Penetrates through vehicle blocks based on velocity
Incendiary - Less base damage, chance to start fires on vehicle blocks

Rework - Hitbox reworks and headshots
Rework - Radars now output and input using turns instead of radians/degrees
Rework - Improved soundscape and audio filtering
Rework - Players now take damage while incapacitated, shortening the window in which they can be revived
Rework - Reloading handheld equipment with secondary fire applies to - flareguns, spearguns, pistol, smg, rifle
Balance - Radar max ranges increased 10x

Fix - Damaged rope anchors no longer continue to transfer data/electric
Fix - Increased follower tether range in MP to compensate for server side inconsistencies
Fix - Vehicle save thumbnails being very zoomed in
Fix - Jet engines no longer flood when vehicle damage is disabled
Fix - Jet engines no longer overheat when engine overheating is disabled
Fix - Infinite spawning issue in multiplayer
Fix - onVehicleUnload not being called for vehicles that are force despawned by the game
Fix - Vehicles occasionally loading outside of load range; becoming stuck
Fix - Removed 4 non-functional tiles from the addon editor
Fix - Radars missing from research group
Fix - Radar rendering issues
Fix - Greatly reduce radar random noise
Fix - Missing buoyancy surfaces on radars
Fix - Missing Pitch Angle slider on radars
Fix - MP health/incapacitated desync after respawning

The train track tiles have now been included in the Addon Editor.

Addons:

- Documentation has been refactored into several new tabs for easier browsing.

- Addon zones now have a direction indicator
- Added the trainline tileset to the available tiles.
- Improved the speed of object lookup functions.
- PathFindOcean now uses custom paths definde with the "ocean_path" tag, and a default paths playlist has been added.

- Added setAITargetVehicle(vehicle_id)
- Added setAITargetCharacter(object_id)
- Added ISLAND = getStartIsland() (ISLAND = {name, x, y, z})
- Added is_local = server.getVehicleLocal(vehicle_id)
getVehicleLocal is now used in the default scripts as protection while a vehicle is loading

- New AI Plane Pilot mode 2 - Gun Run
- New AI Heli Pilot mode 3 - Gun Run
- New Gunner AI Type - Aims and shoots at the target char/vehicle, accounting for drop/range of a linked weapon.
- New Designator AI Type - Aims a camera at the target char/vehicle, pulling the Trigger when locked on.
(Weapons/Cameras can be linked to a seat by naming them identically)

- Added several new icons to addMapObject.
- All map object icons now render their radius if the value is > 1.
- addMapObject and addMapLine now have optional rgba parameters.

- The new Weapons DLC gamemode script contains a guide to adding your own vehicles for the AI to command

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we have reworked radar to be able to detect vehicles that are outside of load range, be simpler to use, and have more realistic limitations.

The new radar parts come in 5 sizes: the smallest is just a single voxel, there are 2 medium vehicle sized units, the radar dish and the AWACS style units. The larger units are more powerful with greater ranges.



The new radar is much easier to use and produces a simple composite signal with the most recently detected contacts. The first 8 on/off channels show if a target is detected, while the number channels tell you the range, pivot and pitch angles, and time since detection for the contact.

You can set the pivot and pitch field of views to set your detection arcs, as well as your sweep mode (static, clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation, and wiper modes). You can also pitch your detector up and down.



Increasing the field of view of your radar does reduce the effective range , while narrow fields give the best range.

The most important aspect of the new radar parts is the ability to track vehicles that are outside of load range. This is vital for fighting the enemy AI air and navy (in the upcoming weapons expansion), where radar gives the player the essential ability to gather intelligence, avoid the enemy force, or engage from range.



We are really excited to hear what you think!

See you soon for the Weapons DLC launch stream on Tuesday!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.2.29

Feature - Added 5 new advanced radars
Fix - Seats remove reliance on logic node label string checking to fix logic nodes breaking when using language packs
Fix - Seat fix trigger description using equipment keybind instead of trigger keybind
Fix - Seat descriptions not specifying the composite output channels for look x & look y