Dear Stormworkers,

It is minor update week! As well as a long list of fixes and improvements, there is also a new feature - release rope input for rope anchors!



You can now detach ropes using logic on a vehicle. This new on/off logic node can be triggered to release the rope connections on an anchor for ropes.

The fixes list includes some important changes, including some fluid rebalances. These rebalances are tending to be smaller and finer in magnitude as the system is generally backwards compatible in most situations. Thank you to all the players who helped by posting issues on the issue tracker!



Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.9.17

Feature - Rope anchor "release rope" logic node

Fix - #22825 Resolved door/turret-ring flow and pressure issues
Fix - #22287 Default missions tow mission spawning error without DLC
Fix - #22483 Default missions repair missions using outdated function call
Fix - #21092 Crash when attempting to carry a creature-dragged character
Fix - #20876 Fix pressVehicleButton behaviour for toggle buttons
Fix - Predators no longer attacking
Fix - #20988 Default secondary equipment binding to R (prev B)
Fix - #21069 Fix buzzer audio layer volume initialization
Fix - #21117 Prevent vehicle fire damage ignoring vehicle damage setting when enabled
Balance - #21843 #21853 Balanced heat sources (Firebox no longer kills you, heaters twice as effective, burn damage and radius balanced)
Fix - Crash which rarely occurred when creating ropes
Balance - #21952 Adjusted liquid rocket fuel consumption
Balance - #22120 #22803 Rebalanced RCS thrust and consumption and clamped flow
Fix - #22799 Antennas not highlighting when in logic placement mode
Balance - #22849 Rebalanced diesel burner consumption and max temperature
Rework - #22911 Rescaled maximum ocean pressure to 30atm

v1.9.12

Fix - fixed dedicated server crash
Fix - fixed jet engines with inf fuel
Fix - limit fluid transfer through doors based on compartment size to resolve oscillating with very small compartments
Rework - liquid fuel engine internal capacity now based on engine size to improve flow
Rework - premade engine internal capacity now based on engine size to improve flow
Rework - increased modular engine fuel manifold capacity to improve fuel flow at low pressures
Rework - water jets now convert momentum less agressively to reduce power stall
Rework - reduced backflow threshold so that backflow only occurs with low or zero flow (improves pressure inside leaking compartments)
Rework - rebalanced diesel burner to heat up slower
Rework - reduced centrifugal separator internal capacity to make flow more responsive

v1.9.10

Fix - compressed gas tanks now fill completely
Fix - water jets thrust increased to match previous level
Fix - modular engines now work correctly with inf fuel

v1.9.9

Fix - fixed fluid jet particle trails
Fix - fixed water flow for handheld hoses
Fix - fixed jet engine combustion sound effects
Rework - reduced rate of leaks due to damage x10

v1.9.8

Rework - Reworked fluid system to be much more consistent with pre-space update behaviour. Fluid system now driven by delta pressure, and liquid is partially compressible to assist with flow. This update fixes steam, and other fluid component.
Rework - Rebalanced RCS to have lower power and gas consumption
Fix - fixed exhaust and steam particles

Thanks to all the players on #experimental who helped prepare this update.

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we are releasing a minor update with many fixes including some important quality improvements. Please see below for the full list of changes.

Thanks to the many players who have asked for player testing, we are bringing back the experimental branch! This can be accessed by right clicking on Stormworks -> Properties -> Steam Betas -> select Experimental in the drop down.



Experimental won't always be active, but will be used for a few days at a time while there is something that would benefit from testing. For example, currently on ⁠experimental is the new fluid system changes that we are trialing. While it is active, the channel will be visible on Discord and the info on what is being tested will be in the pinned comments.

Please provide any feedback in the #experimental channel on Discord if you would like to help test new changes.



Regarding the changes we are making, we are still working on the fluid changes. On experimental we have made lots of progress, but we are still making improvements and hope to release the experimental improvements as a hotfix soon.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.9.6

Fix - Crash caused by some dog halloween outfits
Fix - Fixed addDamage repair particle offset
Fix - #20593 Submarine base workbench typo
Fix - #20719 Small engine colour error
Fix - #20844 Nuclear plant colission issues
Fix - #21040 Updated main menu discord invite with official link
Fix - #21190 Beret colour issues
Fix - #21241 Floating train station at Uran Wind
Fix - #22546 Crash caused by spawnVehicle on an invalid path
Fix - Vehicles disappearing due to ai script teleports

Addon Lua:

Fixed general behaviour of setVehiclePos,setGroupPos, setVehiclePosSafe, setGroupPosSafe
Added new moveVehicle, moveGroup, moveVehicleSafe, moveGroupSafe functions
Fixed several documentation issues
Updated default ai scripts to use moveVehicleSafe as it better suits their behaviour

Dear Stormworkers,

Last weeks new Space DLC and major update released! The player creations and adventures across space are incredible - from new rockets, satellites and space stations to lunar bases and rovers.

The space race is real, with many players clearly building for hundreds of hours before the new launch, in preparation to be the best prepared. Congratulations to the many players with incredible new creations on the workshop! It is really inspiring.

This week we have an additional hot fix that addresses many important issues. Please see patch notes below for a full list of fixes. These changes include some very important fixes concerning cargo missions, weight of fluids, and vanishing vehicles. We are still working on a bunch of fluid and steam issues where we are improving the system to behave more like the old version and will get these improvements released soon.



As previously discussed, there were issues in the first day or so of the update. The main issue was that there was a change to gravity that effected many existing ships. We fixed this issue within a day, but we accept that it was very concerning to many players who felt like the hundreds of hours they had invested in building these creations was at risk of being lost.

We worked very hard to get the issues resolved as quickly as possible, with a fix live within 18 hours. However, it wasn't great that players had to deal with these concerns for any amount of time.

Let's discuss how we can stop the same problem in the future:

Unit Tests

We are planning a new "unit test" system in Stormworks. Unit testing is a common technique in software to write computer programs that verify if some code produces the expected output. In Stormworks, we plan to add new "data logging" components that we can add to vehicles to record a number or on/off value. Then, when our build server creates a new release, it can run Stormworks, spawn the "unit test vehicles", and record the outputs of all these logged values, and compare them to the previous release.

This will allow us to test most vehicle behavior. Any value in the logic system can be checked. For example, we can test buoyancy by logging the height of each corner of a ship with an altitude sensor. We can also be notified as soon as something changes.



Release Checklist

Simply having a written procedure of things to check before releasing a final build will ensure that we can check at least a few common ways that players play Stormworks. With the Space update, for the last few weeks before release, all our testing was focused on stuff between the launch pad and the moon. It is so easy to lose track of the bigger context when you are looking at a specific update, but having a written procedure to follow makes it much harder to be distracted.

The kind of stuff for the checklist will probably be testing some of the most popular workshop vehicles, testing the tutorial, playing a mission in multiplayer, etc.

Steam Beta Branch

Many players have suggested player testing with a beta branch on Steam, and we will consider it. However, when we have tried this before, there was an issue where many players played 'experimental branch' because they didn't want to wait for the release date. This created huge friction with the community, because some didn't want us to actually experiment and make changes based on player feedback, while they are trying to build something with the experimental components. Which public branch players decide to use is beyond our control, but we are looking at ways in which we can get this to work better.



Limitations

Stormworks is over 100Mb of code, and contains over 600 components. There is at least 200 million ways to place 2 components next to each other. It is not possible to test everything every 2 weeks. The above can certainly avoid a lot of problems in the future, but what else do you think we should do?

Community

As with many other sandbox games, Stormworks is highly dependent on user generated content. On the Steam Workshop, our players has close to the number of creations as the huge communities of more popular sandbox games. This also incudes player-to-player help and communication that we often see on our Discord server, forums, Steam guides, public wikis, and especially video tutorials and any other videos and streams on YouTube, Twitch and Discord.

We are endlessly grateful for all these players who keeps supporting the game and other players.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers

v1.9.5

Fix - Solid rocket booster fuel amount slider now works for small nozzles
Fix - Cargo missions script fixed to function correctly
Fix - Mission vehicles sometimes teleported incorrectly which was causing other vehicles to vanish
Fix - Restored old equation for weight of fluid in a compartment
Fix - Split getVehicleData function loaded vehicle data to getVehicleComponents

v1.9.4

Rework - Updated solid rocket boosters to have previous behaviour when xml editting the fuel amount value
Rework - Updated solid rocket booster content force to have previous calculation
Rework - Solid rocket booster nozzle now contains full amount of fuel to help compatibility with some players ejection seats and similar
Fix - Fluid jets now correctly calculate if inside or outside an enclosed compartment
Fix - Pipes and containers with zero gas now have some pressure generated by elasticity of container to fix issue where sometimes fluid would not pump

v1.9.3

Fix - Fixed steam engines and fluid flow in steam and fluid parts
Fix - Fixed steam pistons
Fix - Reduced electric consumption for on/off valve
Fix - Fixed fluid jet issue
Rework - Steam boiler and condensers required again for boiling / condensing
Rework - Temperature no longer effects pressure to make pressure easier to understand

Dear Stormworkers,

Yesterday was the launch of the Space DLC!

The bad news is there were some issues. The good news is that over the last 24 hours we have released some hot fixes, and some major issues are now resolved.

Many players have asked for details. Lets discuss:

Sinking Ships

Some of the new gravity mechanics had unintended interactions with some of the physics optimizations for vehicles, which resulted in some vehicle parts weighing slightly more or less than they should. This was often an issue with larger vehicles and vehicles with many movable parts. While the change in weight was only small, this could cause ships to sit deeper in the water or tilt.

This issue is now resolved.

Jet Turbines

With the new atmosphere mechanics, the air is thinner higher up, which means less air resistance, but also means that at some height, the air is too thin for jet turbine engines to be efficient. This is intended, but was way out of balance, with engines starting to lose efficiency only a few hundred feet up.

This issue is also resolved.

Steam and Modular Engines

There are issues with steam boilers and many modular engines. This is a reasonably big issue, caused by some of the compressed gas changes.

We are currently working on this and will deliver a fix asap. Update: this is now resolved in v1.9.3

Other Issues

Of course there are other things to look at, and we will get to them, but the above are the main ones that affect many players.

Testing

Believe it or not, we actually did several months of full time testing. Some of these issues were introduced more recently when addressing other minor issues, such as the sinking ship issue. We were too focused on testing the new features and specific changes, and simply didn't expect this stuff to break. However, a lot of the problems are so wide ranging that it would have been easy to discover them and we should have.

Community Reaction

The vast majority of the community have been very supportive. To those of you who have patiently stood by for fixes, or messaged us your support, thank you, and sorry for breaking your game.

A small minority have unfortunately launched their own campaign, and within minutes of the new update launch, were recruiting to their discord, where they have organized and coordinated attacks. We have received discord raids, review bombing, abuse, and death threats. To these players, we ask you to consider your actions. We understand your frustration, but we can't respond to aggression, demands and threats.

The consequences are significant to the game, and the people who make it. It is right that we are held to account, but when it is taken too far, the damage is permanent. Stormworks continues and our focus is on the many great and wonderful players who share their criticism constructively.

Next Steps

As usual, we will get on with resolving the remaining issues. We will work through these tasks one at a time, and expect to keep publishing improvements over the coming days.

Further ahead, we are also looking at how we change the way we work to ensure the same issues don't repeat in the future.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers