Patch notes for Update 0.5 - now live!

Hi everyone! Here are the patch notes for the latest update.

Major Features

New Desert Biome

New Hazards

• Interference - the dust and sand from the desert disrupts your navigation systems! Maps, pings and auto-lock-on systems will be deactivated, unless you can find a way to negate the interference.
• Puffballs are on the move! The desert variant has evolved to take advantage of the strong winds.
• Desert Needleberries spend most of their day buried under the sand, hiding from the sun, waiting to surprise their unsuspecting prey. When under threat, they will retreat below the sands and reappear somewhere close by.
• Sand Sharks are the name given to torpedoes buried in the sand. Get too close and it will lock on to you, attempting to track you down and explode when close enough!

Desert Sandstorms

• The desert sandstorms don’t harm your tech in any way, but you’ll barely be able to see anything! Try not to get too lost out there.

New Resources

• Fluorite: A common resource found in the desert.
• Gold: An uncommon resource found in the desert.
• Kimberlite: A rare resource found in the desert. It is said that directly fragmenting the rock itself will yield much better results.
• Oil: Rumour has it that oil can be found in the desert, somewhere, but they are likely to be highly guarded or very difficult to find.

New Tech Blocks

• Liquid Tank: This block can syphon various liquids from the world and store them. As of this update, water and acid (from corrosive pools) can be stored. Each tank can only store one type of liquid.
• Liquid Cannon: When connected directly to a Liquid Tank, this block will shoot the liquid stored inside that tank. Water will apply the ‘Wet’ status to techs, reducing their heat; Acid will apply ‘Corrosion’ to techs, increasing their damage taken.
• Heat Sink: Will reduce Tech’s overall heat, but has a hefty tech reactor cost. It is even more effective while moving, and up to 5 Heat Sinks can provide this effect.
• Water Cooled Radiator: When connected directly to a Liquid Tank that is storing water, this block will periodically consume some water to reduce both heat penalty zones by 35%. Although you can reduce the penalty zones significantly this way, you cannot completely remove it.
• Voyager Wheels: By using the provided fire group, these wheels consume tech power to give themselves extra Turbo, significantly increasing their speed.
• Hopper Axle: When connected to a wheel, provides those wheels the ability to jump.
• Nomad Cab: This cab provides beneficial modifiers to your whole tech while your reactor load is at or below 200.
• Beacon Layer: This block creates Beacons (craftable at your local Supply Fabricator), which are small devices that project a beam of light into the sky for a few minutes. They also provide immunity to Desert interference while you are near one.
• Huge Hauling Wheels: Big wheels for big Techs. They give themselves Turbo 5 when the Tech is over 8000kg.
• Large Shifted Armoured Wheels - new armoured variant.

New Structures

• Liquid Silo: For all your liquid storage needs!
• Beacon Tower: Projects a beam of light high into the sky. Handy for locating your base through the interference permeating the desert. Also provides immunity to interference while you are near one.
• Oil Extractor: Slowly extracts oil from the ground and places it in barrels - once you have found an elusive source of oil.
• Oil Generator: Power your base with the oil barrels created with the Oil Extractor.

New Faction

• Find all of the blocks mentioned above on the new desert faction techs! They are well equipped to deal with the desert; maybe they have the answers to your survival in this desolate, scorching land.
• Desert boss

Terrain Deformation tools

• We’ve reworked how Terrain Deformation works in TTW to be more focused main blocks that can be upgraded and influenced by add-ons.
  • Terrain Tool - The Terrain Tool is the main event in this set of blocks: it has the ability to modify the terrain based on an AoE cursor. Fancy!
  • Terrain Tool Tank - Debris naysayers, this one’s for you. This Tank is a specialised storage block for storing Debris to use with the Terrain Deformation tools. For the Tank to be usable, the Terrain Tool needs to be directly attached to one (or more) of the Tanks’ APs.
  • Modules - Modules are small blocks that add new functionality to the Terrain Tool.
  • Module Stacker - The Stacker is a small optional block that gives you a purpose-built housing unit for Modules. Like a backpack, for your Tech.

• The Terrain Tool comes with 3 default modules:
  • Lower - Diggy diggy hole! This module allows the Terrain Tool to subtract matter from the surface. It charges a small amount of Power when enabled, but it’s usable without any sort of add-ons.
  • Raise - Stack ‘em high! This module is enabled when the player connects the Terrain Tool to a Terrain Tool Tank, and allows you to add matter to any surface. To use it, the Terrain Tool Tank will need to first be stacked with Debris.
  • Level - Can we make a Flat Earth joke here? This module is enabled when you connect the Terrain Tool to a Terrain Tool Tank, and it allows you to point at a surface and pave the surrounding terrain to that level, lowering and raising the terrain when needed. To use it, the Terrain Tool Tank will need to be stacked with Debris.

• Currently, there are 2 additional modules:
  • Smooth - This module is enabled when your Tech has a "Smooth" Module connected to one of its APs, and it will allow you to smooth out the terrain by your cursor. To use it, the Terrain Tool Tank will need to be stacked with Debris. (TLDR; you’re gonna need some Debris for all this.)
  • Rewild - This module is enabled when your Tech has a "Rewild" Module connected to one of its APs, and it allows you. to make the terrain look more ‘natural’ again, if you’ve gone too far with your industrialisation.

• These new tools can be found in the Swamp and Arctic biome.
  
• Unfortunately, this means the old Terrain Deformation tools will have to be sunsetted as they do not work with the new system.
  

Block variants

• Similar blocks are now bundled up cosily together in sets. For example:
  • All of the 111 connector blocks are part of the same set
  • Same for all of the 211 connectors!
  • Similar-sized structure blocks are grouped into sets
  • Similar-sized wheels with different mountings are now sets

• All blocks in the same set can be quickly swapped out with one another. Hold any variant in the set then use Alt + Mousewheel (weeee) to cycle from the currently selected block variant to any of the other ones in the set.
  
• Each different block in a set will stack together when placed into any inventory.
  
• All blocks in a set now share the same recipe when crafted.
  

Advanced Splitters and Mergers

• We have finally added the Advanced Splitters and Mergers (pause for applause)
  • You can now prioritise your Splitters’ outputs and/or your Mergers’ inputs.
  • You can now filter the inputs and outputs of Advanced Splitters/Mergers based on any resource you select.
    • Only the selected resource will be permitted to be transferred down the Conduits attached to said input/output.

  
  

Minor

• We’ve worked some Art and Code magic to improve the look of the Desert Storms. This will also affect the rest of the planet.
  • Added bloom globally
  • Added exposure control globally
  • Added tint to the inner Desert Biome

• We have updated the Skins UI:
  • The pattern tool now has a button to reset back to the default projection
  • For the translation of the pattern projection, there are 2 displacement button either side of the sphere gizmo that rotate with the sphere.
  • For the translation and scaling of the pattern projection, the projection square size is fixed and the pattern translates and scales within the square

• More pages have been added to the Prospector’s Guide tutorial:
  • Headline Features
    • This page will open the first time you launch the game’s latest version, to help keep you up to date with all the new features!

  • Wind
    
  • Day & Night
    
  • Skins
    
  • Snapshots
    
  • Fusion Cores & Modules
    
  • Modifiers
    
  • Enemy Insignias
    
  
  
• We have also added some music to the pause and main menu. Sandbox? More like jukebox!
  
• We iterated on the camera offset, zoom in/out and camera pitch so the camera feels more comfortable and focuses more on the object of the interaction to help contextualise it.
  
• You can now minimise the Tech Reactor UI panel when building structures.
  

Game Balancing

• We have deprecated the following blocks as they will be replaced by the new Terrain Tools.
  • TEST_MiningCannon
  • TEST_DebrisInjector
  • TEST_LevelUp
  • TEST_LevelDown

• Arctic Temperature Adjustments
  • More consistency in temperatures throughout the Arctic
  • Colder thermal vents
  • Balance Pulse Heater with new temperatures

• Added 5 new Desert faction kill missions.
  
• Increased the health of Desert Needleberry hazards.
  

Localisation

• Added translations for the newer text strings.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed crash caused when hosting a multiplayer game, applying a skin that's unlocked by completing tasks, qitting the game then re-joining.
• The filters for Advanced Splitters and Mergers no longer shows in-development resources and blocks.
• Debris is now granted to the player when lowering terrain with the Terrain Tool.
• The Terrain Tool now displays a counter to indicate how much debris the player has.
• Concrete can now be rewilded with the Terrain Tool
• Fixed bug where if you exit build beam while in your Tech Cargo, you can't remove blocks from your Tech.
• Fixed issue with Techs not cooling down correctly when in shadows from Shade Trees.
• Fixed bug where players can only scroll through pages in the Advanced Splitter/Merger UI if they are hovering over a block/resource
• Fixed inconsistency where next/previous page controls in the Advanced Splitter/Merger UI are reversed when compared to other menus.
• Snapshot Manager filters now have their proper names.
• Alt-scrolling on a block with no variants in the Tech Cargo will no longer make the image disappear.
• The incorrectly displayed name tag above enemy Tech "Grouper" in the desert has now been removed.
• During the tutorial, the pulsing highlighter surrounding the Block Variant panel now displays properly.