Dear Stormworkers,

This week we add new gimbal control to some lights, cameras, and laser components.

These components now include a new composite input allowing their direction to be controlled with logic. This makes it easier for builders to control and aim lights, cameras and lasers, where previously players would have had to use robotic parts and complex physics systems to move small parts.



This new feature is generally useful for targeting and viewing systems, where lasers are used to scan depth or cameras are used as aiming reticules with weapons systems, allowing the player to easily manage drop and movement. Aiming lights means it is now easier to target lights with fine control, even on small builds. For cosmetic purposes, the control of lights means you can aim small spotlights such as dipped headlights or any situation where you just want to direct light in a tuned direction such as illuminating an area with a spotlight.



As well as this new feature, there are several useful fixes! Please see the patch notes below on full details.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.7.3

Feature - Gimbal controlled light, camera and laser components

Rework - #12014 Rescaled stabilized gimbal camera inputs after the deadzone to start from 0 (finer control)
Fix - #13615 Third person vehicle camera fixed yaw jitter
Fix - #16495 Fixed cooldown on MP Hangar glass door
Fix - #16724 Fog / rain changing underwater lighting colours
Fix - Fixed fog of war not correctly clearing beyond 256 tiles causing fogged regions to appear
Fix - #17263 Resolved data issue parsing composite write microcontroller modules
Fix - #17439 Fixed rotated edit grids detecting/reclaiming vehicles outside their bounds
Fix - #17857 Fixed gimbal camera laser raycast interacting with non-colliding physics

Dear Stormworkers,

This week is announcement week, with last week being a minor update, and next week also being a minor update (including new components!).

Next week will bring "gimbal" support to some components that players frequently need to rotate such as small cameras, lasers, spotlights, etc. These new parts will will allow logic to rotate their direction just one eighth of a turn, but for many players, this is very useful for creating laser scanners, tuning cameras, adding dipped headlights to vehicles, etc.



With Stormworks development, there are endless things to talk about! However, it doesn't make sense to talk about most of our most exciting stuff until later in development, once the risk of things being changed or cancelled is reduced. So, we are not ready to talk about this years major updates and DLC, but things are going great and we can release more info in the coming months.



So this week we keep it short! Catch you next week for the new components!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

It is update week! This week is focused on fixes and improvements, as we regather ourselves from the big push getting the major update ready for release 2 weeks ago!

We have some important fixes including an important fix for some multiplayer issues. Please see the notes below for full details.

In addition to fixes, we also bring some quality updates to different aspects of Stormworks. Probably the most noticeable thing is a new warning notification that will appear on vehicle spawn. This warning only shows if there was not enough fuel in workbench inventory to fill all the vehicle tanks to desired level (a parameter that is set with a slider in the fluid spawner component, and premade fluid tanks).



We've also fixed some meshes and animations for occupational outfits and moved some of them under glasses category. You may need to re-equip your welding goggles or head-mirror in wardrobe and find some weird fun combinations there.

Small Steam Train Piston component got a slight re-mesh to be less tall and create bigger visual clearance on locomotives.

For all our addon Lua experts there, we've updated our API with new setSeated function that besides characters also support dogs. Old setCharacterSeated function will work as alias so your scripts will be fine.

Last but not least, we've improved the loop transitions for many sound effects that were recently added to our Buzzer component.



It seems that there also a good news for Stormworkers with AMD graphics cards. According to comments on our issue tracker and messages on our Discord server, it seems that the latest AMD graphics driver solves issue with Lua screens. We've tested both 23.3.1 and 23.3.2 drivers and can confirm that there is no more weird geometric artefacts, black pixels or entirely black screens on in-game monitors.

Thanks to all the players giving feedback on merch and sharing their suspicions of what could be in the upcoming updates! As usual, we will release details as we complete the new features so we can be completely confident in what we are announcing! This usually means that major updates are announced 3 weeks ahead and minor updates are announced as they release.

Work continues as normal on the upcoming new minor and major updates! We are having a lot of fun and can't wait to share more info on the really exciting things we are building at the moment :-)

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.7.2

Fix - #18587 #18618 Fix client sync issues with dynamic objects causing twilight-zone(lag/damage)
Fix - Added default oil survey addon to dedicated server default config
Fix - Several new outfit animation issues
Fix - #17620 Only reset display resolution after a crash
Fix - #17617 Display warnings when missing fuels on vehicle spawn
Fix - #17617 Update fuel rod description to mention uranium ingots
Fix - #17533 Adjusted small steam train piston mesh
Fix - #17336 Fixed Example Nuclear Reactor rods not dropping if spawned with inf-power enabled
Fix - #16470 #16380 Buzzer sound effect improvements
Fix - #16463 Added creature support to lua seat functions and callbacks
Fix - #11024 Speedster mission beacon not working correctly
Fix - #17564 Add safeguards to captain teleports for ai vehicles
Fix - #17794 Amended a minor typo

Rework - Moved welding goggles and head-mirror to glasses category (you may need to re-equip your outfits)

Addon Lua:
- Added seated_peer_id to seat data for seated players
- Updated setVehiclePosSafe documentation

Dear Stormworkers,

This week is announcement week, with last week and next week being content updates.

Thank you to all the players who tried out the new Oil Drilling Major Update! It is great to see all the creative drilling rig designs and how players are engaging with the new mechanics.



For a long time now, players have got in touch from time to time asking about official merchandise. We have remained focused only on the video game software, and wanted to avoid being distracted by other stuff. However, we would quite like to wear some Stormworks merch, and it would be good to make it happen for the players who want it. It may not be too big a distraction using service like Red Bubble. Is this something that you may want? Let us know if this is something you are interested in, and if it is something that players want, then we can make it happen!



We are continuing to plan out the rest of the year. We are planning 15 more free minor updates spread across the rest of the year (one for every second week), a free major update in summer time, a new paid DLC around October, and another free major update in early 2024!



Not all of these updates are fully planned out yet, while others are deep in development! We look forward to your ideas and theories on what these updates might be :-)

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Fix - Removed default coolant from fireboxes
Fix - Removed outdated info in wellhead description

Dear Stormworkers and Roughnecks,

The Oil Drilling Major Update is live now!

This new update introduces oil drilling to the world of Stormworks.

This update includes many new components and systems to allow players to design and operate oil rigs. Oil drilling is a massive business, with many different ways to drill oil, and loads of engineering. We have simplified oil drilling from real life to work with a set of blocks, but many of the design considerations, mechanics, and logistics remain. Lets talk about what this means:



Surveying For Oil

Players can just start drilling in the hope of striking black gold, but it's probably more sensible to purchase surveys. You can discover oil fields by purchasing survey data from the existing oil sites in game. Industrial Frontier DLC owners can also drill on land at any of the pre-established oil wells on the Meier Isles that include static workbenches for creating rigs.

Establishing A Well

The new oil well component is large and heavy. When placed down level and flat, it can be activated and will lock to the ground. This can be logistically difficult when drilling in the ocean, so you may need special purpose vehicles such as submersibles to assist in positioning the well.



Feeding Rods

The new drill rods are 10m lengths of drilling pipe. They can be stored in the rod holders, picked up and fed using the rod clamps, and threaded together using the rod threading clamp. You will need to thread together a long drill chain of rods as you feed it into your well.

Drilling

Once you have your rods assembled and fed into the top of your well, it is time to start drilling! For this you need to rotate the rods (by feeding them through a rod driver), and pump drilling slurry (using the rod pivot) into the rods to work as cutting fluid.



Extracting Oil

Once you have drilled down to the depth of the oil deposit, it is time to start extracting! For this you need the well pump, a huge piston type pump that needs to be actuated mechanically. Make a pump jack or otherwise drive the piston to pump oil!

Refining

Once you have extracted your oil, you can refine it in a tall custom tank with distillation. Heat the oil using a coal burner, or the new diesel burner or electric heater to 300C and the oil will start to separate. It can be extracted using the distillation taps which will condense jet fuel or diesel depending on their height in the column.



We can't wait to see what oil industry inspired creations players come up with and hope you enjoy these new components and mechanics! And we look forward to your feedback!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.7.0

Feature - Oil Industry Major Update

Oil drilling is a new late-game activity for Stormworks, with high start up costs but a large return on investment.
Oil can be found under oil rig workbenches or under random ocean tiles (Purchase survey data from an oil company to reveal them on your map)
Once you have located an area rich in oil it's time to set up an oil rig and start drilling!

Oil Survey:
- Randomly generated ocean oil deposits
- Oil Data Vendors which sell oil deposit location information
- Oil deposit below the static oil rig base
- 4 Oil Well locations on the Meier Isles (Industrial Frontier DLC)

Attach a wellhead to the terrain above an oil deposit (These are pre-placed on the Meier Isles)
Drill Rods can be fed into the top of this component with assistance from Drill Clamps and Connectors to pick up and join the rods.
A rotary table and swivel provide rotation and slurry flow which are required for running the drill.
Once the drill is spinning and has a supply of slurry, the rods need to be physically pushed into the wellhead to advance the drill.
Drilling will saturate the slurry with mud and stone, which can be cleaned and recycled using a slurry filter and fresh water.
After the drill arrives at the oil deposit, the oil can be extracted with a Pumpjack component paired directly to a swivel. The Pumpjack requires mechanical action to draw up the oil from the well.

Oil Drilling:
- Drill Rod Storage
- Drill Clamp
- Drill Connector
- Rotary Table
- Drill Swivel
- Wellhead
- Pumpjack
- New Fluids: Slurry and Saturated Slurry
- Slurry filter

Now that you have an excess of oil you don't just have to sell!
Fractional Distillation is the process of separating crude oil into its more useful components.
Heat up oil inside a contained volume to >300 degrees and use the distillation port to tap off diesel and jet-fuel fractions.

Fractional Distillation:
- Diesel Furnace
- Electric Furnace
- Distillation Port

We have deprecated the fluid filter in this update for a much more simplified version of the component to emphasize the design challenge of fluid system building.
When we deprecate parts they remain in the game files, and a replacement version is added; this means that your old vehicles will still work as usual, but the old version of the part will no longer appear in the edit inventory.

General:
- New Fluid Filter

Fix - #1698 Improved terrain at scxeech trading yard
Rework - #16315 #15892 Resource trading addon now has surge pricing
Rework - Temperature Sensor now uses compartment temperature if placed inside a sealed volume
Rework - Radar now ignores moveable class objects
Balance - Desalinator re-balance

Addon Lua:
- Added getOilDeposits()
- Added large keypad support to setVehicleKeypad

Dear Stormworkers & Roughnecks,

The Oil Drilling Update drops next week on Thursday 16th March 2023 at 5pm UTC!



This update includes loads of new components and systems to introduce oil drilling, designing and operating rigs, and refining your own fuel.

Please see the previous announcement on details of the various component types and mechanics.



Players can design their own ocean rigs to extract off-shore oil deposits. For owners of the Industrial Frontier DLC, we are also adding several static workbenches and pre-established well heads for convenient setting up of on-shore rigs on the Meier Isles.



We are really excited to release this new update and look forward to next week on Thursday :-)

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week is a minor update week! We are adding new communication channels between add-ons and mods so that they can communicate with each other.

This is a useful new extension to the modding API to allow add-on creators to communicate between different add-ons. This means you can have add-ons that can extend each other, or otherwise just react.



We have been using this new API ourselves and now the hospital ships will travel to some missions where they can be useful. This means that you will have a floating hospital en-route to mission locations to assist in career mode.



As well as this new extension, we have implemented some fixes and improvements. Please see the patch notes below for full details.



We continue working hard on the new Oil Industry Major Update! It is almost ready and we can't wait for release.



Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.6.15

Feature - #8113 Cross script commands

This week's update features a new addon lua feature and 3 small fixes as we prepare for the release of the upcoming major update.
Cross script commands allow addon scripts to send commands to each other as if they were a player.
For this week's update we have also updated the default AI hospital boats to navigate towards emergency missions to provide closer hospital destinations for missions at sea.

Fix - #16497 #16886 #17848 Fix equipment not being dropped from characters respawning with the UI button before death
Fix - #16480 Removed non-functional clear axis button from gamepad controls
Fix - #16779 Buzzer sfx blending speed (volume near sfx start)

Addon Lua:
- Added server.command(message)
- Default ai now save their current paths
- Hospital boats navigate toward missions
- Hospital boats now wait for much longer at the end of their path

Dear Stormworkers & Roughnecks,

The Oil Drilling Update - our next major update, is due out on Thursday 16th March 2023 at 5pm UTC!

Drilling for oil is coming to Stormworks via a series of new components and systems to facilitate creating and operating rigs.

Oil drilling is very complex and there are a lot of nuances, and a variety of techniques, with differences between on-shore, off-shore, geology considerations, and generational changes. While Stormworks will simplify drilling, the principles remain, and our goal has been to encourage design with logistics and operation in mind. Lets talk about what that means:



Oil Deposits

Under the world of Stormworks there will be hundreds of oil deposits, of varying depth and size. Survey data for these deposits can be purchased from various oil sites.

The Well Head

Well heads will be a new component that form the starting point of a well. They can be established on any flat surface, above or below the ocean. They incorporate the drill head, and some plumbing, and act as the interface for the well.

Drilling Rods

Drill rods will be new 10m long physical rods that can be chained together to form longer rods. These rods can be fed into and recovered from a well.



Rod Handling

There will be various robotic parts for grabbing, handling, feeding, joining, separating, and driving rods. For example, you will need the rod threader to merge two rods together, and the driver is required to turn the rods for drilling.

Slurry

Slurry, or drilling mud, is required for drilling. Slurry must be pumped down the rods into the drill head to lubricate drilling and transport the cut stone and material away from the drill head. The slurry must be circulated and cleaned in mud scrubbers to remove the debris and keep the well drilling.

Refining

We are also adding some new parts to allow fractional distillation of oil into diesel and jet fuel!

We are really excited to launch this new update and look forward to sharing it in a few weeks. In the mean time we have next weeks minor update, and we continue work on finishing this update and many others!



We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this new update!

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

Today we release the Physics Sensor Minor Update! This includes the new physics sensor, which is a new component giving composite logical output including positional and rotational information.



This data output is particularly useful for microcontroller designers who are interested in building their own gyros and other motion control systems, which should now be much easier and practical.



This component is in response to player requests on the issue tracker and we continue to enjoy hearing your thoughts and ideas and implementing them when possible!



As well as this new component feature, we have several useful fixes and improvements! Please see the patch notes below for full details.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.6.14

Feature - Physics Sensor (#10065 #10119 #3793 #4465)

The physics sensor component combines functionality of several other sensors into a convenient single block.
The sensor outputs position, rotation, linear and angular speeds over 14 composite channels detailed on the component.

Fix - #16642 Wheel secondary physics issues for clients
Fix - #17831 Seafloor generation issue
Fix - #15856 No longer convert rescued survivors to static NPCs, instead update their display name to 'Rescued'
Fix - #13931 Ai boats/aircraft now track damage and despawn after 2 mins if above threshold
Fix - #13936 Return value of getZones not including Zone parent vehicle data
Fix - #14017 Added editor arrows for wings
Fix - #14835 Fixed teleporting under the map through very tall terrain
Fix - #13078 Rotor physics mirroring issues
Fix - #14848 Metal ore foundry mesh issues
Fix - #14851 Gold foundry mesh issues

Addon Lua:
- Added setCharacterTooltip and setCreatureTooltip for renaming non-player Characters and Animals