Dear Stormworkers,

About 4 weeks ago and shortly after the natural disasters update, a small number of players started to report encounters with a kraken-like creature. Sometimes the claims lacked any evidence, other times there were dark screenshots in foggy storms suggesting something that could be huge tentacles.

Some stormworkers chose to believe the beast could be out there somewhere, but most dismissed the creature as a hoax, vehicle creation, modded xml or modded mesh.



And, for the next 4 weeks, the legend of the kraken lived on as only a myth. This was except for a small number of players, who remembered the megladon was released in secret, and were determined to search the oceans and prove that the kraken was real and was out there somewhere.

And finally, they have succeeded, while creating vehicles, and info to help others also search for the kraken. Several youtubers have released videos over the last few days with this new info, proving the kraken is real.



The kraken is a physics based squid-like sea creature which uses its tentacles to swim around the ocean, attack and wrap around player vehicles. It is a very unique approach to creating a kraken, and we are not aware of any other game where the creature is a complete physics based animal rather than more of an event or tenticles and mouth anchored to the sea floor.

What Are The Spawning Conditions For The Kraken?

The kraken only spawns in strong weather, at night, in deep water. The ocean must be atleast 150m deep, the sun must have set, the fog must be atleast 25%, and rain atleast 50%. The "Enable Megladon" setting must also be ticked in the creative menu.

These conditions may change in the future, and we may add a "spawn kraken" button to the creative menu in the future too.



The kraken has been huge fun to develop and test in Stormworks. We have had a lot of fun so far playing with, trying to survive, and battling it. Releasing as an easter egg and watching players react has also been awesome fun!

Development continues as normal, with a feature based minor update coming next week, and several more minor and major updates continuing development.

We look forward to your thoughts and feedback on this new creature of the sea!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

We are back with more updates and improvements to controller support!

You can now control the player character, as well as rebind all your controller settings, with a joypad or controller. We have also fixed some issues for players with complex controller setups. This means that most of the game now works with a joypad, as well as multiple controller support. The exceptions are the vehicle editor and add-on editor, which still require keyboard / mouse / touch screen.

As well as improving the game for any players using a joypad, this update dramatically improves the player experience when playing on the new Steam Deck.



We have also fixed lots of bugs and issues that players were experiencing. Please see below for the full details. The full set of controller changes can also be seen below in the patch notes.

We will return next week with an announcement, and again the week after with a frequently requested feature that has long been asked for by vehicle builders!



We look forward to your thoughts and feedback on these new changes!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.4.11

Controller support updates:
- Character controller support
- #466 Vehicle controller support
- Characters/Vehicles no longer move while in map/photo/creative menu
- B button now acts as a generic back button for all UI screens
- Creative menu day/night slider support
- Research screen controller support
- Photo-mode controller support
- Sunrise-Sunset slider support
- Back button keeps getting selected when scrolling a list
- Pad input key-binds now work for UI navigation (#6070 #6081 #6206 #6264 #6001)
- #6000 Rebinding menu can no longer be backed out of except with 'Esc'
- Photo-mode hotkey tips now display their bound keys
- Reset button now works correctly for bindings

Rework - Iceberg tiles now have more room between bergs for ships
Rework - #1553 Force non-combat AI vehicles to despawn if they sink
Rework - #5262 Catalytic converter now converts exhaust to air rather than destroying exhaust

Fix - #5871 Edge-case logic thread lockup caused by setVehiclePosSafe

Fix - #5441 Crash on vehicle despawn while interacting
Fix - #5122 Prevent vehicle fires when damage is toggled off, vehicle invulnerable flag is now checked for all damage systems
Fix - #4926 Objects removed via lua now force an update to despawn them
Fix - #3615 Make radar ignore trees
Fix - #2792 Fix setVehiclePosSafe getting stuck when targeting an area between two vehicles (occasionally caused game lockup)
Fix - #793 #728 Language workshop uploading disabled
Fix - #3924 Added buoyancy surfaces to heat exchangers

Fix - #5254 Missing collision mesh for filing cabinet
Fix - #5891 Missing Face on Fluid Hose Anchor
Fix - #4981 Floating tree cluster
Fix - #4940 Foghorn model issues
Fix - #4930 Mute sirens when damaged
Fix - Short Tornadoes

Dear Stormworkers,

Last week, we released new controller support for some of the UI screens in Stormworks. Next week, we will further extend this support to include character control and further joypad improvements.

This extended support is important for players who want to play with controllers, and also for supporting the new Steam Deck hardware which has just launched. Its a great excuse for us to improve controller support which is something we have long wanted to do.

The new character support will enable you to move around, use first person items, interact, and use seats, from your joypad.



We are also improving controller settings so that you can program your UI bindings for multiple controllers, and set your controller up to work as you want. This will also resolve some issues that players with multiple controllers / hotas / steering wheels are having.

This upcoming update will also include several important fixes and improvements, and as usual, the full list of these changes will be released in the change notes.



Next weeks update has already entered testing in our new and improved quality process, and we are already working on the subsequent minor update, which is a feature update, and a very popular player request!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week would normally be an announcement week rather than update - but instead, we are adding improved controller support for players with controllers and Steamdeck!

In this minor update, we have introduced new controller support for many of the UI menus in Stormworks, to allow players to play more of the game with a controller. We plan a further update next week to introduce character movement controller support which will make most of the game playable with controller.



However, we are not "badge hunting" and simply want to improve support for players where it makes sense. For example, the vehicle editor is most comfortable with keyboard and mouse, and we don't plan to try to introduce controller support to the vehicle editor where it would not feel comfortable.

As well as new controller support, we have also been listening to the many players asking us about multiplayer support - this week we introduce new ping displays, and sort multiplayer servers by ping. Servers also display their ticks per second value. Once in game, we then display improved player list information, with current ping, frames behind server data, and bandwidth quality indicator. Players with insufficient internet connection to the server will also be automatically dropped to avoid degraded performance for other players.



We look forward to players feedback on these new features and will continue to read and take on board player feedback as we build these fixes and improvements in the future.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes


v1.4.9

Feature - Improved Controller support for UI and menus
Feature - Internet servers now display and sort by their ping (and show current tps)
Feature - Improved player list network information (current ping, frames behind server and bandwidth quality)
Rework - Removed old network frame numbers from the scoreboard as players often confused this with ping.

Fix - Friend servers now show their DLC status
Fix - Fish sync rate being very high and causing large bandwidth usage

Fix - MacOS Audio crackling

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we release a minor update entirely focused on bug fixes and quality improvements!

This update is the latest in a campaign of quality focused minor updates, and we have more planned for the future.

The main quality improvement is a change to how we save vehicle files - this change is backwards compatible so your existing vehicle files still work the same - but vehicles will now saved with a better compressed format, meaning their size on disk is now smaller. This has several benefits to players - some players with lower spec PCs are less likely to run out of memory if they don't have much RAM, saves are generally smaller, and vehicles should spawn faster in multiplayer.



In the patch notes below, you will see a lengthy list of all the changes we have made for this update. Some of the patch notes include an #issue number which relates to the issue id from the issue tracker. We are trying to provide this extra info so players can better see what has prompted the change, as well as look at the official issue tracker to better understand the discussion around the change.

This also clearly shows what is driving bug fixes and improvements to the game - the clear and concise issue reports that players submit - so thank you to every player who submitted an issue relating to the below. We are really pleased to have made these improvements to the game, and so thank you for your help.



This week we have been made aware of some networking issues caused by the new physics based fish system. While we were unable to patch this issue for today's update we are working on a fix that we hope to deliver by next week. In the meantime we recommend that server hosts disable wildlife in general settings to prevent network slowdown. Thank you for your patience and helping us out by reporting bugs to the issue-tracker site.

While our schedule can still be subject to change, we hope to release improved controller support next week in time for the launch of Steam Deck, and a week or two after that, return with another bug focused minor update. We also have several minor update features in the works, as well as an exciting new major update.

We hope these new fixes make a positive difference to your experience playing Stormworks, and we look forward to your thoughts and feedback!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.4.7

Feature - Parsing Optimization

With an update to our parsing system, you can expect save and vehicle files to be significantly smaller in size; we managed to reduce the default mission vehicles by ~50%. We are not only hoping this will save users storage space but also reduce load times when sending vehicle data in multiplayer. You may need to re-save your vehicles.

Fix - #5064 Fix health sync requests causing ragdoll on respawn
Rework - #5381 Added addon option to disable natural disasters in default missions
Fix - #5158 Adjusted default natural disaster period from 5min to 15min
Fix - Volcanic ash now affects jet engine intakes
Fix - #2943 Increased relevance threshold for radar hits by 10x
Fix - #4395 increase detection range for cargo deliveries / cargo not delivering to large zones
Fix - #2973 Added buoyancy surfaces to motors and generators / modular engines sometimes not linking correctly
Fix - #4862 Unable to un-crouch when carrying a survivor
Fix - Initialize AI Aircraft state on vehicle load (Aircraft dropping out of the sky on load)
Rework - #1986 Solid rockets lose fuel on damage and take damage anywhere along the body of the rocket

Fix - #3763 Emp warhead now uses built-in impact threshold
Fix - #3781 Rename detonate warhead nodes to Arm
Fix - #2792 SetVehiclePosSafe not accounting for target vehicle bounds size
Fix - #4061 Muzzle break -> muzzle brake spelling error
Fix - #2165 Keypads not de-focusing when leaving their range
Fix - #4727 Arctic volcano mesh fixes
Fix - #4686 Train-line mesh issue for Donkk arctic exit and track diagonal variant
Fix - #4996 All electric parts should now be disabled by EMP blasts
Fix - #4941 Fluid cannon mass increased from 1 to 11
Fix - Impeller pump preventing flow when torque slot not connected
Fix - Ocean surface render issues
Fix - Reduce particle spawn rate for lava physics contacts
Fix - Lava emissive texture ignoring fog
Fix - #3472 Projectile splash damage not affecting MP clients (Fixed for non-dedicated servers)
Fix - #4507 Emotes broken when crouched
Fix - Minor tornado position desync for mp clients
Fix - #5091 Tornados bypass damage prevention

Fix - #4930 Siren component placement surfaces removed, added to research group
Fix - #5173 Add success returns for disaster lua functions and rework volcano spawning checks
Fix - #5172 Remove success return from guaranteed functions getWeather, getTime and cancelGerstner
Fix - #5048 Add tsunami callback for meteors and add lua param to allow meteor tsunamis
Fix - #4435 remove duplicate onVehicleDespawn() lua callback call
Fix - #4510 getAiTarget returning vehicle/char ids as numbers not integers
Fix - Creative menu button not calling onVolcano
Fix - #4580 Return params for getAiTarget
Fix - #5396 Megalodons spawned with volcanic eruption button

Balance - #4925 set fish flee speed higher than player swim speed
Balance - Increased fish scare distance
Balance - Increased fish max spawn depth

Dear Stormworkers,

Thank you so much for all the love and support around the natural disasters update! The feedback has been overwhelming and it is a joy to see so many players having fun battling the meteors, volcanos, hurricanes and whirlpools!

The update was a big success, with almost record levels of concurrent players (only beaten by the Weapons DLC!). We were also pleased with the quality of release, with very little required in terms of new issues. Our new quality assurance processes and better allowances and awareness of testing is working much better for us, which is really encouraging, as it is something we have been working on a lot the last 6 months. This was probably the major update with the least friction yet.



If you joined the launch party live stream, then you will know some info about our upcoming plans! One thing to note is that the good folk at Valve have sent us a Steam Deck, and we are working on improving general controller support as well as support for the Steam Deck. The hardware is really awesome, and we are really enjoying playing with it. You can check more info at The Steam Deck website. Its worth noting that there are joysticks, but also touch pads, touch screen and even a gyro.

We are initially planning on making some improvements to controller support, which is generally much needed anyway, but will make a big difference to Steam Deck players. Many players have been asking for improved controller support as well. These updates will hopefully start to arrive over the next few weeks.



Otherwise, we are planning a big bugfix update next week which we have been working on for a while now. The whole development team remain very interested in improving the quality of the game and review issues and discuss our plans together on a daily basis. As always, if you encounter issues or have ideas for the game, be sure to give us clear info including reproduction steps using the in-game report bug / request a feature buttons.

We look forward to hearing your feedback!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

The Natural Disasters Major Update is out now, and to celebrate, Stormworks is 30% off, in a Steam Weekend Deal!

Natural Disasters

This update includes a host of new hazards in the world of Stormworks, including active volcanos, meteor impacts, ocean whirlpools, and hurricanes. These new events can be disabled (by turning off the necessary add-ons), and can also be accessed via the creative menu. Otherwise, they spawn naturally within the world, and sometimes even as part of missions!

Keep an eye out on the map because sometimes you may receive early warning of an impending disaster, and listen for the chilling sound of warning sirens which will fire if a disaster is imminent.

New Fish System

With this update, there is an all-new fish system, with physics based fish. These fish roam the ocean, and flee from vehicles or players. There are many new species of fish, and are now biome based, so depending on where you are in the world and how deep you are below the surface, different fish will spawn.

Being physics based means the fish can be trapped, or wash up. Out of water, the fish will flip and flap in an effort to return to the water. Please do help them back to the water as they can die if they are out of the water for too long. Many boats and ships are faster than fish and should you impact a fish, listen out for a satisfying slap sound.

Patch Notes

Please see below for the full list of patch notes. This update also includes important fixes and improvements.

We continue to work hard on other fixes and improvements that players have kindly reported on the official issue tracker. The next update will be dedicated to bug fixes.

We hope you enjoy this new free update and look forward to your thoughts and feedback!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



v1.4.4

Feature - Natural Disasters
Feature - Weather System Rework
Feature - Disaster Relief Missions
Feature - Fish Wildlife System
Feature - Air Raid Siren Component

Radial Tsunamis
Meteor Strikes
Volcanic Eruptions
Tornados
Whirlpools

Fix - Crash in multiplayer when entering/exiting seats
Fix - Weapons addon tank damages itself when pitching turret
Fix - Default addon zones sometimes being mis-positioned
Rework - Mount Goldblum is now a volcano
Rework - Megalodon now have 5x more health

Additional Info:

Natural disasters can now spawn through the world, and are interlinked with the mission system.
Although rare, natural disasters will make missions more challenging and spawn more frequently as time passes.
A new save is recommended to enable the default_natural_disasters addon for the full experience.

Weather is no longer bound to the host's position:
- Custom menu sliders now display client-side local weather conditions when not overriding
- getWeather now correctly samples the target position

Fish can be enabled by toggling wildlife in general settings (moved from graphics settings); their spawnrate can be adjusted by the game host in general settings.

Volcanic ash can clog up air intakes, be careful when navigating them in vehicles.

We are expecting to make some balance changes on spawnrates, strength and other factors of natural disasters based on player feedback, the disasters may be very ferocious on launch day so keep a keen eye on the horizon!

Dear Stormworkers,

The Natural Disasters Major Update is almost here! We will be hosting a launch party stream at 16:00 on Thursday February 3rd, which is 1 hour before the launch of this new major update. We will be chatting with players and answering your questions, playing and discussing the new update! Please join us for this live stream and the big launch!



The Natural Disasters Major Update includes new volcanic eruptions, tornados, meteor strikes, whirlpools, rogue waves, radial tsunamis, and new mission content. See the previous announcement for full details on the new main features!



In the live stream, we will be discussing more in detail, as well as some of the other features, improvements and fixes that have not yet been announced in full. We have finally got that new microphone that we have been promising so audio quality should be much improved.

We look forward to talking to you at the launch party live stream!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

In this weeks minor update, we are introducing dock bollards with integrated rope connectors to Stormworks! These new rope connectors are found all over the world of Stormworks at docks and other mooring locations to easily and conveniently tie up your vessels.

This feature has been frequently requested for a very long time, with some players even having a go at making their own mods and add-ons! We decided it was time this was officially part of the game so introduce this as an official add-on that is enabled by default. All new games will start with these rope connectors in the world. However, if you wish to disable this, you can do so easily by unchecking the add-on when starting your game.



Use the first person rope items to connect dock bollards to rope connectors on your own vehicles to secure them in place.

As always, this new feature isn't the only thing in this update, so see the changelog below for all the fixes and features that are packaged in this release. We are continuing to include the issue numbers in the patch notes where we can, to make it clear which specific issues have been addressed.



After the huge response players have given to the upcoming natural disasters major update, we are more excited than ever for the big release on Feb 3rd! We are working hard on the last few issues and tasks, to get this update ready to go live.

We will be back next week to announce more, so check in then for extra details about the launch!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.3.21

Feature - Default Dock Bollards Addon

This Addon will be enabled by default when starting a new save.

Fix - #756 Fix macos audio issues with sounds not playing
Fix - #207 prevent no sleep vehicles from unloading
Fix - #4022 onPlayerUnsit now returns peer_id as expected instead of object_id
Fix - #4145 fixed missing faces on barrels for heavy autocannon
Fix - #3835 compass ball additive layer rendering
Fix - #3735 floating trees fixed on multiplayer base
Fix - #4454 auto cannon ammo drum fixed mirroring
Fix - #4446 resolve fluid slots even when off
Fix - #4313 clear network requests when disconnecting from a server
Fix - #4298 hosts now send map update lua events when closing the map
Fix - #4023 onPlayerUnsit() and onCharacterUnsit() now trigger on ladders
Fix - #3029 allow crouch animation to override jump animation to keep camera aligned with physics hitbox during crouch jump
Fix - #4453 fixed gaps in the air ram model
Fix - #4311 hole in oil refinery fixed

Added ?mclear alias for ?mclean

Dear Stormworkers,

Natural Disasters (the next major update!) is will be here soon! It will release on Thursday 3rd February 2022 at 5PM UTC.

What is in the Natural Disasters Major Update?

Players have asked for hurricanes, volcanoes, meteor strikes, whirlpools, improved tsunamis and rogue waves, so that is what we have been developing! These events are spawnable via the creative menu, as well as occurring naturally within the world, and impacting the missions system.



Volcanoes

Volcanic eruptions can occur at specific locations within the world of Stormworks. We looked carefully at the different types of real eruptions because we want to create convincing and authentic volcanic events. Volcano eruptions are divided into several stages, from smoking and increased activity, to explosive eruption, pyroclastic flow, debris, ash pollution, and more. Volcanic eruptions are terrifying and deadly.



Hurricanes

High winds can now result in twisters. These powerful wind events involve a vortex of rotating wind energy to descend from the sky, meeting a water spout or debris cloud at ground level. Wind dramatically accelerates near the hurricane, and is powerful enough to lift vehicles that get too close. The power is awesome, with the first signs that a twister may form being clouds forming a spiralling vortex in the sky.



Meteors

Meteor strikes can occasionally occur, where fields of rocks of varying size may begin falling from the sky at high velocity. Impacts can cause explosions, and if a particularly large meteor hits the ocean, the energy release can result in a new kind of radial tsunami.



Whirlpools

Huge vortices can form in the ocean, where adjacent currents can feed energy into a rotating body of water. In Stormworks, these whirlpools are kilometres across, where huge ships can easily be swallowed by the eye of the whirlpool. These swirling bodies of water create strong currents in a spiralling direction towards the center, pulling down deep below the surface.

With these new natural disasters, there also comes a host of other features such as API support, new missions, and more.

We can't wait to share this new update in just a few weeks! As always we look forward to your feedback on this news. Between now and release, we will continue finishing this update, as well as working on new minor updates, fixes and improvements.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers