Jun 14, 2022

Satisfactory - Mr. R. Cookies

Hi Pioneers!

Update 6 has arrived on Experimental. I’d like to preface this event with the fact that some of the new content released isn’t as far along in development as our previous Update releases, so consider this our most experimental Experimental yet! Nonetheless, we think you can have fun with everything here already and we need more of you playing with the incoming changes to help us see how far along they are and inform further development. As always, you can leave your feedback and any issues you encounter on our Questions Site: https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/

Overall, this Experimental period is going to be a little different. We will be pushing updates to finalise content that is released, and we might add some additional content along the line that did not make the initial release. With that in mind we are planning to have a longer Experimental period than usual, so don’t expect Update 6 to hit Early Access before the end of summer.

With that said, what is the content that is coming now? Update 6 shines with some major world updates, impactful changes to Equipment and the MAM progression, several great quality of life updates on the UI side of all things Satisfactory, a full overhaul of our creature AI system, and some under-the-hood changes of major systems. Let’s break that all down a bit more.

You might have already heard about this, but for the avoidance of doubt: There are no overclocking changes coming in Update 6. Also, be safe and back up your saves.

World

Spire Coast

This is probably the most significant single biome change that we still had in the pipeline, and now it is here: The island paradise that is the Spire Coast. We’re very excited to see what you will build in this area, constricted (and hopefully inspired) by the verticality of the spires. There are still oil nodes in the area, but their locations have changed. Other than that, we haven’t done a gameplay pass on the area yet, so you’ll have to wait for new slugs and creature placements, etc. until a later time.

We also managed to do a full visual update of the cliff wall separating the Spire Coast from the Dune Desert, so that large empty plateau is finally ready to be built on as well.

Swamp

The Swamp has received a full vegetation and atmosphere overhaul to better represent the icky vision we have for it. A place for daring pioneers to test their mettle in the future. Right now, we are happy with the vibe of the area but it will also receive a gameplay pass in the future to match the mechanics of the exploration experience with the new atmosphere.

Sky, Atmosphere & Weather

We haven’t been idle on these high impact world topics either, with a generally improved day and night sky, clouds, and the addition of rainy weather. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the new variety as a myriad of days pass on Massage-2(AB)b.

The overall changes to our atmosphere system have also been put to use with more specific tweaks of the updated areas mentioned above, as well as some of our starting areas: Dune Desert, Northern Forest and Grass Fields. We’ve adjusted the specific lighting, fog, and feel for all those places.

Equipment & MAM Progression

Hand Equipment & Ammunition

The most obvious content you might have already seen in our videos is the addition of different ammunition types for all the Pioneers ranged weaponry. It’s quite a wide range of new useful and dangerous tools, from utility options like the Pulse Nobelisk to advanced homing ammunition for the rifle. And there is a mini nuke, which honestly is a terrible idea in the best way.

We’ve also improved the UI feedback for switching through your hand slots, making it easier to identify quickly which gadget or weapon you are switching to, and we finally implement a Holster interaction to put away your current hand equipment.

MAM Progression

We integrated the new ammunition types throughout different research trees in the MAM and did some rebalancing and reshuffling in the process! On revisiting them you’ll find that costs and placement might have changed.

A major change in terms of general progression is that we’ve moved some of the most popular energy related alternate recipes to standard MAM unlocks. Now you can find both Turbo Fuel and Compacted Coal there, as they are a great addition to the general power progression of the game.

Multiple Body Equipment Slots

Update 6 introduces the ability to equip almost all existing Body Equipment at the same time. Instead of a single slot, we now have a slot each for: Head, body, back, and legs. The main progression for Body Equipment is now that you can combine them as they get unlocked and you’ll only have to switch your back Equipment between the Jetpack, Hoverpack, and Parachute depending on your preference and the situation.

Creatures

Mostly visual updates

The most major change you will be able to find here is that the Crab Hatcher got a completely new look and no longer destroys itself when spawning the Flying Crabs. While we made the Flying Crabs themselves far less annoying to deal with, you will now have to destroy the Hatcher to stop them from coming after you.

The Spitters also received a visual change, with several awesome distinct variants! There is a total of three that have adapted quite differently to their environments, as well as a minor variant of the new Forest Spitters to better camouflage in the red forests of Massage-2(AB)b. While they all currently share the same behaviour, we have plans to introduce differences in the future.

AI System Overhaul

We’ve been working on a new AI system that will allow us to introduce more variety to creature behaviour in the future. For this update we tried to largely recreate the feeling of the existing wildlife with some tweaks here and there using this new system. We are not quite there yet with all of them and, this being a full system overhaul, we are aware of some issues and expect to see more as this update goes live. This means that we are planning to still push a few updates to the creatures throughout the experimental period.

Map and more UI changes

Map & Radar Tower

The Map feature now no longer unlocks in the MAM, but during Tier 1 instead. On top of that it has received some significant upgrades with Markers that replace the Beacons, Stamps that can be used to highlight points of interest both on the Map and in world, and an updated interaction menu. It now also takes up almost the entire screen to give a better overview.

Radar Towers are still unlocked in the MAM, but they come with additional functionality. If powered they now immediately reveal a set radius on the map around them, highlight all resource nodes in said radius, and give information on exploration rewards and wildlife that can be found there. All this makes them much more useful than they have been before!

To-do List updates

This planning feature has received a major boost. The To-do List can now be accessed from any menu by clicking on the right side of the screen. It also received some visual polish, is height adjustable, and can be customised with written notes, which makes it a much more versatile tool than before. You can take personal notes only visible to yourself, as well as global notes that can be seen and edited by anyone in a multiplayer session. It’s even possible to do some light formatting! We’re very excited to see how you use this to your advantage.

Codex recipe improvements

The recipe section of the codex has significantly more information available than before. All recipes can now be expanded to show the per-minute stats of all ingredients and products. You can also simulate overclocking in there now and see how that affects the recipes requirements and output.

Technical improvements

Sublevel Saving

We’ve made a change to the save system that you hopefully won’t notice, but that is quite significant on our end. Basically, this allows us to migrate world elements that need to be saved onto streaming tiles, where previously they were always loaded. While this won’t significantly affect load or save times, it paves the way for us to add more interactable/saved game features to the world in the future without performance drawbacks.

This does mean that saves from Update 6 onwards are in no way backwards compatible, since the old save system is unable to read the new save files.

Detailed Patch Notes

EQUIPMENT

Added additional equipment slots for the Pioneer: Head, Back, and Legs
Added support for several ammunition types per weapon
- Hold R with the weapon equipped to open the selection wheel
New Nobelisks
- Gas Nobelisk: Releases a cloud of toxic gas that deals damage over time
- Cluster Nobelisk: Detonates into multiple explosions over a larger area
- Pulse Nobelisk: Generates a powerful shockwave. Double jump!
- Nuke Nobelisk: Creates a massive explosion
New Rifle Ammunitions
- Homing Rifle Ammo: Corrects projectile trajectory to hit targets more easily
- Turbo Rifle Ammo: Shoots a massive amount of bullets at an accelerating pace
New Rebars
- Stun Rebar: Can Stun creatures for a short moment
- Shatter Rebar: Highly effective at shorter range
- Explosive Rebar: Yes, even more explosions
Added holster functionality for the currently equipped Hand Slot
- Default keybinding is H
Overhauled equipment HUD to fit all those additional equipment
Added HUD feedback for scrolling through Hand Slots
Equipment tool tips have additional information such as slot type, compatible ammunition, and a damage indicator
Consumables now prioritise stacking with Hand Slots when picked up
Double clicking equipment in the inventory now equips it to the first empty slot if available and otherwise replaces the currently active equipment
Updated all weapon crosshairs
Reworked Chainsaw audio
Reworked Rifle audio
Equipment will now be coloured to the default factory colour selected in the Customiser

WORLD

Spire Coast
- Full overhaul of landscapes and cliffs
- Complete foliage overhaul
- New lighting and fog setup
Dune Desert cliff wall and plateau
- Cleaned up all cliffs on the Spire Coast side
- Landscape and foliage overhaul on the plateau
Swamp
- Major overhaul of foliage
- Reworks to lighting and fog
- Minor landscape changes
- Added new music
Added dynamic clouds and rainy weather
Updated night sky visuals
Updated lighting and fog in:
- Northern Forest
- Dune Desert
- Grass Fields
Tweaked Western Dune Forest ambient sounds

CREATURES

The AI system, navigation, and spawning have been overhauled
- Creatures now have separate visual and audio perception (and they won’t hear you crouch)
- Creatures can now panic and run when certain conditions are met
New Spitter looks
- Desert Spitters
- Aquatic Spitters
- Green and Red Forest Spitters
Crab Hatcher changes
- Full visual overhaul
- Now persists and spawns new Baby Crabs until destroyed
- Baby Crabs have more predictable behaviour
Hog changes
- Both Hogs no longer circle around the player
- Hogs now have a rear up animation before their standard charge
Stinger changes
- The Stinger leap attack now hits more reliably
- Small Stinger attacks are much harder to dodge but deal significantly less damage
Added unique loot for all aggressive wildlife
Added optional HUD indicators for aggressive wildlife (can be turned on in the options menu)

MAP

Increased the Map window size significantly
The Map is now unlocked in the Tier 1 – Field Research milestone
Added new Marker system
Added new Stamp system
- Stamps can be placed in the world by pressing ALT + RMB
Added support for Markers & Stamps to be highlighted in world
Added support for viewing, copying, and inputting map coordinates
Removed Beacon map functionality
- Beacons currently disappear when used and are automatically converted to a Map Marker
- All previously placed Beacons will automatically be converted to Map Markers

BALANCING

Minor changes to the cost of multiple MAM researches
Changed all MAM research to complete within 3 seconds
- This change does not include the Hard Drive scanning timer
Most research visibility in the MAM has been expanded, causing research to be visible earlier in the research progression
Removed Beacons from Building costs and unlock requirements
- Beacons are currently still used for the Alternative Uranium Fuel Unit recipe
New parts
- Alien Protein: Produced from the bodies of your enemies
- Organic Data Capsule: Produced from Alien Protein
- Smokeless Powder: Produced by combining Black Powder and Heavy Oil Residue
The Polyester Fabric alternative recipes is now available in the MAM Mycelia research tree
The Compacted Coal and Turbo Fuel alternative recipes are now available in the MAM Sulfur research tree
- Compacted Coal and Turbo Fuel can still be unlocked in Hard Drives
- The other alternative Turbo Fuel recipes are still only available in the Hard Drives
Moved the Blade Runner research from the Caterium to the Quartz research tree
Moved Expanded Pocket Dimension research from the Caterium to the Quartz research tree
Added an additional Hand Slot +1 unlock in the Mycelia research tree

QUALITY OF LIFE

Players can now hold E to collect foliage
Content, content, content.
AWESOME Shop unlocks with unlock prerequisites are now always visible and display their prerequisites
Added feedback to MAM research and HUB Milestones that unlock AWESOME Shop unlocks prerequisites
MAM research trees now show when they are completed
Added sound effect when collecting Power Slugs
Markers for inactive Pioneers are now hidden
Recipes in the Codex can now be expanded to show the same information that is available in buildings
Tobias attempted improving the accuracy of building guidelines

Sign settings now have a revert button instead of a save button, and save automatically on closing the settings
Added a welcome animation for the Awesome Shop when opened for the first time in a play session
Optimised the Save and Load UI
Polished Awesome Shop visuals and feedback
Updated the Lock icon in the Milestone Menu
Added a new icon used in character related unlocks such as additional Hand/Equipment Slots
Resource node icons on the compass now distinguish between occupied and unoccupied nodes
Updated the Health Bar visuals
Reorganised Workshop recipe order and categories

FACTORY

Changed Radar Tower functionality
- Shows resource node locations in radius on the map and if they are in use or not
- Indicated which exploration rewards and wildlife can be found in the radius of the tower
- Reveals the area in its radius immediately now
- Radius has been decreased
Added new Pipe buildables without Fluid Indicators
Updated Conveyor Multi Pole visuals
Updated Portable Miner visuals

OPTIMISATION

Added scalability settings in the options menu
Overhauled the Foliage System
Implemented Sublevel Saving
Optimised Splitter & Merger visuals
Optimised Conveyor rendering
Optimised Signs rendering
Optimised Freight Station loading
Parallelized fluid system

PLAYER

Pioneer health now regenerates to full over time

BUG FIXES

Stingers can no longer get stuck on the Pioneers head
Golf Cart and Portable Miner now show when there is no room in the inventory to pick them up

KNOWN ISSUES

The client building two truck stations will crash the game for said client and the session needs to be restarted before they can join again
The game will sometimes crash because of surrounding creatures
Creatures sometimes freeze and get stuck
SSR scalability doesn’t fully work
Auto detect graphic setting response settings aren’t tweaked yet
Clients don’t see revealed resource nodes on existing Radar Towers
Creatures in caves have mysteriously disappeared
Spore Flowers can’t be destroyed by explosives
There is a visual issue during the Rifle reload animation

Jun 14, 2022

Developer Diary - Norway

Europa Universalis IV - PDXRyagi

Welcome to our next Development Diary for Europa Universalis IV! Today we dive into the last starting Kingdom in Scandinavia, which has not been covered yet: Norway.

As for Denmark and Sweden, the History of Norway in the Modern Age directly depended on the fate of the Kalmar Union. After the accession of the House of Oldenburg to the Danish throne in 1448, the Danish kings increasingly centralized government, even if a Norwegian Council of State formally governed the country. In fact, Norwegian landed nobles and merchants prospered under this system, as they were effectively the middlemen between the Crown and the commoners. Although some rebellions arose, such as that of Knut Alvsson, the conflicts with the Danish crown were of much less intensity compared to Sweden. This changed with the Reformation, as Frederick I and Christian III's adherence to Protestantism sparked a revolt led by the Norwegian Church. However, it was defeated in the decade of the 1530s, so Denmark and Norway remained Tvillingerigerne (Twin Realms) until 1814.

Although Norway’s history is intertwined with that of Denmark throughout the EU4 time period, we have decided to reflect in the new mission tree for Norway the potential ambitions and challenges it would have faced had it broken free with the end of the Kalmar Union.

Keep in mind: Norway’s mission tree was created before the mission trees of the Teutonic and Livonian Order. As such, the mission tree for Norway is a lot less “what if” even though they were historically no winner either. With that being said, let’s get a look at the details of the tree.

The missions of Norway are split into three themes: gain independence from Denmark and place your own Monarch on the Danish throne, Colonization and internal missions.

Starting with the independence missions, the mission “Norwegian Allies” can be completed by having two rivals or enemies of Denmark have 100 opinion of Norway. As a reward you can request their support through the following event:

Note: Although you are asking Denmark’s rivals/enemies for support in the first three options, you still get a flat reward so the war against Denmark/Sweden will be easier to handle even if the rivals refuse to support you.

Choosing one of the the first three option will of course trigger an event for Denmark’s rivals:

“Liberty for Norway!” will restore the stability loss and get you 30 Legitimacy while “Win Our Independence!” grants you a Restoration of Union cb against Denmark, allowing you to reverse the historical roles of Denmark and Sweden.

With the mission “Norway-Denmark” you no longer require an admin tech of 20 to form Scandinavia and you get the following event when you have Denmark as your personal union:

Note: It also makes you and Denmark historical friends too if you lose this status during the Restoration of Personal Union war.

While the main missions are all about reversing the flow of history and subjugating Denmark, there is also a reference to the Scottish Sinclar clan which swore loyalty to the Norwegian crown with the mission “The Claims of Orkney”. Completing it by conquering Scotland will fire this event:

These were the conquest missions for Norway. The rest of the tree is focusing on flavor and colonization, though one of these missions is of particular importance forNorway: “Expel Danish Nobility”.

As you can see, Norway was especially badly affected by the Black Death and lost the majority of its Norwegian nobility and royalty to the plague. As such, it was easier for the Danish nobility to replace them after the Kalmar Union. This is represented by the two starting privileges of Norway which are designed to be mildly annoying to have:

Note: while these privileges are active the Norwegian AI is more inclined to accept the Danish King as their monarch during the Kalmar Succession events.

While not really too harmful, these privileges prevent you from completing the mission “Norway-Denmark” and “An Absolute Kingdom”, the latter one being a mission which will give +20 Max Absolutism and -20% Autonomy Change Cooldown permanently.

Moving on to the colonial missions, although the Norwegian ideas “The Call of our Forefathers” and “Pioneer Spirits” are not exactly accurate at capturing the spirit of Norway during the 15th century and onwards, but they at least enabled a unique play style for Norway where they are “Budget Britain”. As Sweden is busy with the affairs of Europe mostly and Denmark is focusing on trade in the Old World, it was only fitting for Norway to be more about the colonization of the New World.

The mission “Colonial Ambitions” will give you a head start on exploration as it will fire the following event for you:

Speaking of Greenland, the mission “The Colony of Greenland” will require you to send troops to Greenland in order to see what happened to the former viking colony. Historically, the last written record of the Nordic Greenlanders documents a marriage in 1408. After that there was no contact with the people living there anymore.

By placing 3 regiments of infantry in either of Greenland provinces (under the assumption that they are uncolonized that is) you can complete the mission and get the following event:

The second option is the safe option where you always get the Greenland colony while the first is a gamble. 90% of the time you will get the following event when you try to look for the lost settlement:

However, if you are lucky you get this event instead:

The rest of the colonial missions focus naturally on the colonization of North America as well as expanding a little bit into South America too. They are in general quite self-explanatory, though one mission is a little bit special. “Navigation Mastery” is actually not about colonization but about circumnavigating the world!

Now let’s take a closer look at the internal missions. There are three small branches of them: trade, development of Norway, and religion.

The trade missions on the most left side of the mission tree are about completing Burgher Agendas, construct markets and, of course, dominating the trade of the North Sea and Lübeck. Highlights here are the permanent +20% Loyalty Bonus for Burghers with the mission “Monopolize the North Sea” and the new Burgher Estate privilege “Mountain Expansion” from the mission “Please the Burghers”.

The religious missions are also branching missions for Norway just like it is the case for Sweden and Denmark. However, Norway is focusing more on expanding the Heddal Stave Church in Bratsberg and keeping a stable country.

The final branch I want to talk about is the one regarding developing Norway - which also contains two missions regarding the military identity of Norway. While Denmark uses mercenaries for their wars and Sweden has its Caroleans, it was only fair that we would also give some love to Norway too.

The mission “Restore the Leidang” is about re-establishing the medieval Leidang conscription. Although ahistorical, it is an interesting way to make the military of Norway distinguishable from Sweden and Denmark as this mission will unlock the following Nobility privilege:

“Expand the Royal Navy” will further improve your naval and marine gameplay as it gives permanently -10% Shock Damage Received for your Marines, completely nullifying their drawback, and unlocking an upgraded version of your Naval Doctrine too.

Note: Numbers and modifiers are still work in progress.

The other missions of the branch are more about actually developing Norway. “Restore the Infrastructure” will request you to develop Trondelag, Ostlandet and Vestlandet so that every owned province in these areas has 10 development. As a reward you get the following event:

Note: This event is one of the flavor events Norway already has. However, now you can trigger it on your own and don’t have to wait for it.

Over the duration of this modifier you get the chance to get the following events if you own the necessary provinces:

Note: we have decided to not touch the Vanilla Silver event. We might consider making this province into a gold province or not - depending on your feedback.

Finally, the mission “Norwegian Great Power” requires you to be one of the great powers with at least 600 development and gives the following rewards:

And that was it for the content for Norway. Before we continue with the additions to the free update, let’s talk about the Caroleans. The last Development Diary has showcased the Caroleans and we have received a lot of constructive feedback from you.

We are still not finished with the balancing of the Caroleans, but I want to share our progress with you so far so we can get an idea if we are moving into a direction the community likes to see or not.

First thing, the Allotment System government reform has been rebalanced so that it reduces your force limit.

The units themselves have received a nerf. They now deal +10% Shock Damage and have -15% Morale Damage Received instead.

Note: Background of the unit is still work in progress. We need to find the right tone of blue so it is distinguishable from Rajputs, Marines and Cawa units.

And finally the privilege “Carolean March” increases the discipline of Caroleans by 5% instead of 10%.

Now let us take a look at the changes for the government reforms, which are part of the free update.

We have been working on revamping the government reforms available to the player and for today I want to showcase what we have so far for monarchies. Keep in mind: numbers and mechanics are still work in progress and what you see here is not final.

With that being said, I will go through every single tier and show the finished reforms of each tier:

Tier 2:

Tier 3:

Note regarding Tier 4: this government tier gets shared with the Republics and Theocracies, which means most of the reforms here are available to the other governments too. The reforms of Tier 4 focus on the religious and clerical matters of your state, and as such Tier 4 has 3 Clergy reforms and 14 government reforms depending on your own religion. Here are some examples of the religious government reforms:

Note: From left to right, the reforms are available for Catholics (minus the Pope), Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.

These are the remaining Tier 4 reforms:

Tier 5 (only one new reform, the rest are Vanilla)

Tier 6 is at this point of time unchanged, but we will address these reforms and make them more interesting to select.

Tier 7 is another common tier shared with Republics and Theocracies and handles the Burghers and all the economical matters of your country.

Tier 8, which is a completely new tier for Monarchies, and the reforms for Tier 9 are still work in progress, so they will have to wait for next week’s Development Diary.

That was it for this week! For next week we will finally get to know more about this one special tag:

Until then I wish you all a nice week!