This patch was a while coming, but I'm sure when you see everything we've got crammed into it you'll understand why!
Trading
The first pass of traders is complete. By using the satellite contact system we added in a previous update you're able to request that traders visit your base to exchange resources. You'll find on your uniform a new slot to store a Credit Card (can be manufactured in the Electronics Printer) that will track your credits obtained via trading. The traders have varied inventories and pricing is based off the materials used to craft items - helped by raw material costs based on the rarity of minerals on your world. You'll need a landing pad and computer with a Communications motherboard in order for them to be able to land. We'll be looking to expand the range of things you can do with these satellite contacts in the future.
Cargo Rover
The first land-based vehicle can now be manufactured via a Kit (Rover Frame) on your Fabricator. This lets you place the foundations and progress through several build-states before you get your completed Rover. They'll require batteries to run and oxygen tanks if you wish to utilize the internal atmosphere. They also have a couple of storage slots on the rear to carry around Dynamic Crates or Portable Gas Tanks which can be attached using your Wrench from nearby.
Species Packs
So as most of you following the game know, we've spent the last few months investigating several large technical refactors as detailed in previous patch notes. Instead of letting our asset backlog grow even further, the art team were tasked with creating something we could implement with minimal programmer input, outside of the already promised scope of the game, to not only gift to the various contributors that have been particularly dedicated to helping the community, but also to allow those who had asked for a way to further support the game the means to do so.
All those in Discord with the rank Community Developer or Community Contributor should now have been sent their redemption keys for one or both of the new species packs. We'll detail these more below, but while they'll be available in any game, only those with the packs will be able to actually take control as one to play with.
The Zrillian Species Pack introduces the Zrilians, who feature a startlingly similar physiology to our own - except requiring Hydrogen to breathe and exhaling Nitrous-Oxide. This makes their ideal breathing environments particularly hazardous, and any attempt to create a breathable atmosphere for both them and humans even more-so.
The Hazardous Environment Mechanical Droid or H.E.M Droid was created to venture into the most dangerous areas of space without risking human life. They don't need to breathe like we do, but need to carefully manage their power usage as they rely on batteries to function. If unable to draw sufficient power from their battery, they'll slowly lose consciousness until they pass out.
The way Stationeers is designed made these gameplay changes incredibly simple to apply. We were able to just make a copy of the existing human lungs and change the gas values it consumed. For the Droids we were able to use our existing power consumption code, but apply consciousness damage if none was available. We already had the fade to black and passing out done for humans, so got that for free!
Modding Fixes and Improvements
We did a pass several long-standing bugs around mod data loading for recipes and items, as well as made all mod data now sync from server to clients on join. This should reduce instances of issues caused by server and client having mismatched mods or mod load orders.
What else we're working on...
As always, we like to include a bit of information about what is being worked on but didn't make it this update. Work continues on the session abstraction, meaning a game lobby will be able to exist independently of the game world. This will smooth the way towards round-based play, as well as other game modes that take place across multiple worlds with the same players/inventories. We're also looking at a large optimization pass on terrain saving/loading to prevent the issue we've currently got where spawning in a lot of terrain can blow out your save size significantly. In addition to this we'll continue to evolve the Rover and trading mechanics, and start looking at expanding some systems that were put on hold so that we could focus on the recent technical refactors - like the incident and expanded scenario system. No doubt this time will also include numerous optimizations and quality of life improvements based on the feedback we receive on Discord.
Last but not least, the potential replacement for the existing tutorial is available for testing on the workshop! We're committed to improving the new player experience in the game, so as soon as we have the last few bugs squashed on this one we'll make it available to everyone.
Hotfix Version 0.2.2035.9345
- Fixed missing recipes for Satellite Dish Kit, Landing Pad Kit and Comms Motherboard.
- Fixed DLC characters not appearing for players that haven't purchased the DLC.
- Changed some of the trader names due to readability issues.
- Updated the LandingPads turned off animation.
- Fixed robot main menu characters eyes floating about. (Thanks GhostMan)
- Fixed world setting data sync and mod issue. It didn't override world setting data(SkyBoxMaterialName, TerrainPrefabName, etc) from mod or saved world.
- Updated Localized Text (Current 14th June).
Hotfix Version 0.2.2029.9331
- Fixed issue causing many object textures to appear incorrectly.
Version 0.2.2028.9326
- Added first-pass of resource trading. There is a chance one of the signals will be a trader when you first contact them if you have a powered landing pad connected to the same network as the computer with the Comms motherboard, they'll be able to request to land. Your inventory is calculated from the contents of any vending machines on the same network as the computer, and this is where goods will be delivered to. See future patch notes for more details.
- Added Rover to survival mode. Recipe for the 'Kit (Rover Frame)' can be found in the Fabricator. You'll then need to go through several build stages before it turns into a functional Rover.
- Added storage connections to the rear of the Rover. You can now load up both storage slots with either a Dynamic Crate or Dynamic Gas Canister using your wrench.
- Added credit card slot to both the Marine and Commander uniform alongside a new Slot icon addition.
- Added two logic values for Satellite Dish. Strongest Signal which is pretty self explanatory, and SignalID which is a unique ID applied to each contact.
- Added a credit card item which can be made through the Electronics printer to handle currency.
- Added a new slot to the uniform to hold your shiny new credit card.
- Added Debug Key to help capture data for bug reports. Left CTRL + G will now print out the targeted items grid coordinates to the in game console window and the games output_log.txt.
- Added World settings, modded items and recipe data now properly sync to clients when joining a server.
- Fixed Debug tool for grid locations now performs a null check and added small grid coordinates if available.
- Fixed Rover now ejects its contents if it is destroyed.
- Fixed input panel popping up on client when server accesses hash reader. (Thanks spunky)
- Fixed only the Fertilized variant of eggs was spawnable via the creative menu and appeared in the Stationpedia. [Thanks Austin]
- Fixed issue where loading mod data for some items would break their functionality elsewhere in the game, ie. when being smelted. [thanks Risu]
- Fixed null reference exception when the game tried to select a default recipe of Fabricator before fully spawned character on creating or loading a world.
- Fixed mouse not appearing upon interacting with landing pad.
- Fixed Modding recipies for the Fabricator. It didn't update screen job correctly.
- Fixed Consumable and Food mod data. It didn't update mod data properly.
- Fixed Loading issue when modified specific item in mod. It threw null exception while loading Stationpedia.
- Fixed Loading issue on dedicated server. Game data wasn't initializing properly.
- Fixed Reagents recipe bug. It didn't correctly initialize pressure and temperature values.
- Fixed Config cartridge values. It now returns 3 fractional digits.
- Fixed headlamp not using power.
- Fixed missing world data loading step for Centrifuge recipes. [thanks Risu]
- Fixed signals not being read correctly from logic reader.
- Fixed contacts spawning outside of scannable range on planets.
- Fixed credit card visual display not refreshing after purchases (Thank you for your feedback everyone!).
- Fixed SatelliteDish out of range spam.
- Fixed incorrect consumable displaying in trading interface.
- Fixed world loading failure when there are more than 5 worlds setting and fixed mining effect in Europa, where the wrong mining effect was being used.
- Fixed localized text in mods.
- Fixed broken Atmosphere when mining. It would sometimes throw an "Argument is out of range" exception and crash the atmospherics thread.
- Fixed long-standing issue preventing the proper display of bedrock textures when deep mining.
- Fixed display issue with the main menu characters eyes when idly looking around.