The summer sale is over but the weekly update run continues, with big changes this week to old systems as well as some new ones. Terrain generation got the biggest update, but changes to the ground and jetpack-based movement and gravity will also be the first thing many players notice. Additionally, a lot of back-ground systems have been improved like the settings system (including all key-binding functionality) and much more. The new world screen even has its first new addition in several months.
Attention bilingual Stationeers!
All the translations done for the game thus far have been submitted by members of the community via the #localization channel in Discord. If you would like to participate, check out the pinned post there for instructions. We had some long overdue updates for several languages this month, so a big shout-out to all those already contributing.
Character Movement
NOTE: Significant changes have been made to several aspects of the character movement system to address player's concerns and fix some underlying issues in the back-end. If you only read one thing in this update post, read this!
Previously the game used a unified system for moving the character, simply applying forces. This meant that it took some time for your character to accelerate when you pressed a button. That was fine for jetpack movement, but it was bad for general character control when walking because it meant you felt like you were walking on ice. It also made a number of players get bad motion sickness.
The dragables have also had their mass values changed, such as the crate and the tanks. This should make them more stable when dragging.
The jetpack how gets less efficient when flying higher, effectively limiting the height you can go to. You can bind keys to change the thrust values, and see the current thrust in the top right.
As with much of the game, none of these changes are final and will continue to evolve based on internal testing and user feedback.
Planetary Changes
A number of both visual and significant gameplay changes have occurred for planets. Primarily planets now have temperature curves, meaning their temperatures may be quite different at midday compared to the deep night.
Planets also have varying solar constants, that is how much of the suns energy they get, and this affects growing, solar panels, and so on. They also have varying gravity, and the sun may be offset in its pass over the horizon.
Europa
Introducing the latest addition to the Stationeers world lineup, our take on one of Jupiters many moons - Europa! It'll be the one of the toughest challenges yet, as despite an abundance of Oxygen you'll need to get shelter from the cold as soon as possible as your suit battery will be drained in no time trying to keep your suit warm.
This world, unlike the real world counterpart, has a significant atmosphere. Our world has been teraformed slightly by melting some of the ice - and produced abundant (but extremely cold) oxygen gas.
Hardsuit
The classic spacesuit has been given an overhaul as we start thinking more about tech progression in the game. The hardsuit absorbs a higher velocity when impacting, and it has significantly better insulation properties than the standard suit - a must for any of the cooler worlds.
Terrain System Refactor
We teased last week that terrain improvements were in the works. While other systems have evolved steadily through early access, one issue that was immediately apparent to new players was it felt like you were on a small island floating in space. Now, not only will the terrain generate further out from the player, but it'll also do it much faster.
Reagent Reader
One of the final pieces of the automated manufacturing puzzle has been filled by the Reagent Reader, allowing logic networks to read the full inventory of a crafting machine, or the requirements of the currently selected recipe.
Smart-Rotate
When placing pipes, cables and chutes you can now hold the Quantity Modifier keybind (default C) and use your mouse wheel to loop through rotations that will match all surrounding valid connections for the variant you're constructing.
User Interface Updates
You'll find several of the game menus have been given significant updates. The new world screen now includes some basic details about the worlds default settings. The settings menu has been reorganized and the key binding process now supports a wider range of input devices, is more intuitive and will inform you of any conflicts.
The audio settings page also now features togglable settings for each of the voice notifications as well.
We are also providing more information on the new world screen before you start your game. All of this has been designed with modding in mind, so the game would automatically pick up any modded worlds in future.
Other Improvements
We've also introduced some new visual features, such as Atmospheric Scattering and the ability to adjust Ambient Occlusion via the settings menu. The mouse interface has continued to evolve with the addition of item dragging between the world and your inventory slots as well. Significant changes to the function of the furnace and dozens of other fixes have also been included and as always, are listed below:
Version 0.1.1496.7096
- Added recipe for 'hard suit' and 'hard suit helmet' to fabricator
- Added Suit damage variation. Hardsuit absorbs far more damage on collisions than the normal suit. Uniforms also absorb damage. Players will take brute damage to their whole body after suit and uniform is destroyed
- Added height efficiency scale for jetpack. Reduces effectiveness of the jetpack at high altitudes on worlds. Does not apply in space worlds. Does not apply in rooms (so rooms built at altitudes, the jetpack will work. This is done to reduce players travelling to extreme altitudes with the jetpack.
- Added Trilight Ambient lighting settings for each world, scaled based on current solar strength. This means that nights will remain very dark, but during the day, there will be color specific ambient light in shadowed areas.
- Added Configurable Voice Notifications. You can now enable/disable individual voice notifications in the Audio settings menu. These are saved with the rest of the game settings.
- Added planet support to skyboxes. Europa now has Jupiter and the Moon has Earth.
- Added solar energy scale. Different worlds will output different levels of solar energy, affecting the efficiency of solar panels and growing plants using sunlight.
- Added planetary atmosphere changing depending on time of day. You're now able to define temperature curves in worldsettings.xml
- Added path-based localization file parsing. This means all translation files no longer have to be located in the same folder, allowing translations to be included with mods or custom scenarios.
- Added fall-back translations. Previously if the translation library for a particular language was missing an entry, that entry was replaced with an error string. It will now use the English version where the version for the current language setting is unavailable.
- Added first pass of Hardsuit & Hardsuit Helmet. Exactly the same functions as the Spacesuit for now. Second pass will have more.
- Added new world first pass, Europa.
- Refactor Terrain Generation. The majority of the terrain generation system has been significantly re-worked resulting in vastly improved generation times and generation behaviour that makes it less obvious to the player. The range around the player in which 'chunks' are generated has been extended in all directions.
- Updated the terrain shader to support secularity and set the appropriate values for each world type.
- Readded allowing both radiative and convective heat transfer at the same time.
- Refactor Character Movement. Important! Character movement when grounded has been moved from force based, to velocity based. This means that the character will no longer feel floaty when walking. When you push a direction to move, your character will move in that direction at the set speed, rather than applying a force in that direction.
- Added JetPack Stabilizer on/off, includes optional binding to turn on and off.
- Added two extra slots to JetPack.
- Added optional keybindings for Suit pressure/temperature when worn in suit slot, and jetpack thrust up/down when in Backpack slot.
- Added thrust interactables to Jetpack for changing thrust. Displays in the top status what current thrust is.
- Added real world gravity settings for worlds. Now the moon and mars are set to their real world gravity settings. Room gravity will still be applied at as earth gravity. You character will "stick" to the world somewhat when moving, so you shouldn't fly off when running around the terrain so long as you are not going too fast.
- Added Ambient Occlusion setting. This allows users to control the level of ambient occlusion provided by the game, if they are running the game on a lower-end computer they can set it lower. Previously the game has been defaulting to "ultra", the highest setting for ambient occlusion. AO helps make the flat color texturing of objects in stationeers "pop" and look much nicer.
- Added category headings to controls assignment menu to provide more clarity.
- Added HUD turning on while hovering over HUD scale, to allow you to better configure what HUD scale you want to set.
- Added save window placement on exit. Now will reload with the window state when it was saved. Also saves which is the active hand, and what slot was selected with the current highlight.
- Added support for all device button and key assignments to game controls. This will allow you to bind any buttons on your mouse to any of the controls. This includes gamepad buttons, however no axis support (yet).
- Added conflict checking to controls scheme, and a window poping up to advise players when a conflict exists. This warning will show in the main menu screen when a conflict exists. Any conflicts in the controls scheme will show in the conflict assignment window itself in red.
- Added first pass of new window based controls assignment. Now when you click a control assignment, it brings up a new window and prompts you to begin recording the new control. Second pass will include checking for duplicate assignments and prompting the player.
- Added AtmosAnalyser will report if in a room or in world, to help with debugging.
- Added hungerRate command to dedicated server RCON
- Added tooltip information to furnace indicating furnace is not hot enough to melt provided item. Also provides information that activate button can be used to melt ice that is placed inside it.
- Added first pass of mouse drag and drop from world. With mouse enabled (Left Alt), click and drag an object from the world to a slot. Currently Move, Insert, and Merge are supported. Swap is not supported yet.
- Added Drag and Drop insert functionality. Able to insert items directly into some items just by dragging over the item. For example, dragging steel sheets directly onto a backpack in the backpack slot will allow you to insert the steel sheets directly into it, without the need to open it up.
- Added Atmospheric Scattering for Mars world. This adds atmospheric scattered fog to the world, that varies with the daytime. Must be enabled in Video options. Disabled by default until performance impact assessed. Known issue: makes the sun very large.
- Added Stacker wheel can now be set to a value directly with the labeller.
- Added Road Flare will ignite Internal Atmosphere of its parent if in a slot, for example in a furnace.
- Added Reagent Reader. This logic unit is able to read the current recipe, reagent contents, and required reagents for any manufacturing device and report the quantity for that reagent. Buildable off the Logic I/O kit.
- Updated Localized translations for Spanish, French, German, Russian and Traditional Chinese.
- Tweaked Insulation and damage factors for spacesuits. The default suit is not as insulating as previous, but the new hardsuit provides excellent insulation.
- Removed helmets auto-flushing (purging their contents) when closed. Now when closed it will still have some of the current atmosphere in it, and you'll need to auto purge.
- Changed BatteryCharger placement so that it needs to be placed against a surface.
- Refactored settings system. Largely the end user will not notice many changes, possibly a little faster. Mostly this new system makes it much easier and less prone to bugs for developers to add new settings.
- Refactored control saving and loading. Solved unable to assign defaults for controls after previous refactor.
- Changed Construction Cursor to offset based on bounds of what is being created. This means small objects will be closer to the player and their grid selection will be more consistent.
- Fixed players able to change direction and velocity while flying through the air without using jetpack.
- Fixed edge case where respawning while in a loaded world caused an exception which broke the resetting of user interface.
- Fixed UV seam on the Europa's Jupiter.
- Fixed Moon not tidally locked to earth.
- Fixed Atmospheric Scattering not being correctly set in Main Menu.
- Fixed Draggable objects too easy to move around, flying off easily in low gravity environment and glitching too easy. Was caused by mass being set to same as player. These now have five times the mass of the player. This should make them more stable when run into by player.
- Fixed powered items would remain powered after their battery was removed. Now check is again correctly applied, was broken due to fixing another bug. This meands portable lights will power off when the battery is removed, as they used too and should - but were not.
- Fixed nulref when scrolling with mouse wheel (down in particular).
- Fixed new world menu kept populating worlds each time you visit it.
- Fixed missing Europa Skybox (only works on new worlds).
- Fixed new character controller not allowing proper jetpack movement in rooms, not jumping well enough in rooms, jumping too far in low gravity, and walking over objects being too strong.
- Fixed hunger rate not loading on dedicated servers.
- Fixed issue with starting conditions not being parsed correctly for scenarios.
- Fixed Moved Mouse settings from Misc to Controls settings tab.
- Added setting for toggling Lens Flares on/off. Default is on.
- Fixed nulref in inventory. Caused by premature destruction of inventory windows. Now tutorial proceeds, and inventory windows are no longer prematurely destroyed on brain assignment to body.
- Fixed world drag to inventory showing incorrect invalid icons. Now world drag is not initated incorrecly when dragging from inventory to inventory.
- Fixed chunks updating ore visualizers properly.
- Fixed error caused when UI tried to set a button as active before any buttons had been created.
- Fixed top of helmet visible after leaving a slot (chair, sleeper etc).
- Fixed Possible NullCheckException error when trying to save slot window state, preventing game save.
- Fixed more InventoryWindowManager references to stop them running on dedicated server
- Fixed With chunks not loading properly if there is only one player connected to a dedicated server.
- Fixed stacker setting causing exception when set using Logic. Now correctly allows setting via logic without breaking.
- Fixed dedicated server issue with InventoryWindowManager being called.
- Fixed missing reference of InventoryWindowManager in InventoryManager in base scene.
- Fixed nul ref when changing controls after having played a session and left back to main menu. Was caused by cleanup events being skipped. Now ensured that cleanup events occur, removing old UI windows when players leaves a session.
- Fixed thrust unusually strong when using jetpack in gravity environment.
- Fixed nulref on certain devices when loading, thanks to active vent fix.
- Fixed inability to respawn after loading a game in which you're dead.
- Fixed Active Vents losing their pipe network, typically when a network they are connected to is merging with a large network (also occurred with engines). Sometimes in a merge their current pipe input network was being nulled when removed was occurring after the add was being processed. Now only nulls if the removed network is their current one.
- Fixed Logic Motherboard Actions for Activate not able to be changed.
- Fixed Mouse Button assignment to hotkeys showing badly in the hints, such as on status indicators or slots. Now assignments can show as an image.
- Fixed invalid drag and drop results were still being actioned, allowing you to put things into slots you should not able to. Now results of drag and drop correctly enforced.
- Fixed items in hands not updating their status correctly. For example, opening a canister in your hands. Now objects in hands correctly update their status. (Credit: Carlen White via Discord).
- Fixed chatting or labelling was causing inventory actions (such as InventorySelect, F) to run. Now while chat typing or labelling, Inventory controls are disabled. Mouse control still enabled for typing but only with the mouse - not F key.
- Fixed closed inventory windows and slots can still be interacted with by pressing InventorySelect. Now when slot is hidden, cannot be interacted with.
- Fixed player status in the top right not updating while MouseControl activated. Most noticable while changing the pressure using the PressureUp interaction. Now this window runs independently and will continue to animate.
- Fixed null ref when clicking in world when using drag and drop from world but cursor hasn't cast to anything.
- Fixed Suit Storage and Pipe Connectors were not mixing, they were just meeting some pressure requirements. Now they will fully mix their atmospheres.
- Fixed running in DX9 with Volumetric Light enabled causing errors and broken rendering. Now Volumetric Lighting (and Atmospheric Scattering) are automatically disabled when running in DX9, and cannot be turned on.
- Fixed able to interact with Sorter and Vending machine export slots.
- Fixed Furnace changes for ice causing ice in hidden slots (like mining belt) to continue to melt in sun. Now no longer allow this as it was before.
- Fixed Labeller setting directly on non-logic devices was not being applied for non-host clients. Now server correctly processes non-logic setting requests from a client using a Labeller.
- Fixed Gas Canisters not updating their values. Last time only fixed it for things with showing interactables (the suit) but not for the backpack.
- Fixed jetpack not hovering properly when in gravity. Now counteracts gravity completely.
- Fixed furnace producing infinite amounts of gas. Now the ore will only be smelted into its reagents if the furnace is above its flashpoint temperature. There are still some gas exploits remaining that will be fixed later. Note: this will alter how you create ores with a brand new furnace. The ice will eventually cool down the inside of the furnace, so you will need to heat the furnace up with their the sun or another gas or an igniter to get it started.
- Fixed Ground Penetrating Radar was missing it's blueprint.
- Fixed interactions sometimes get disabled and are not able to reinitialize until removed. Now get correctly set and reinitialized.
- Fixed RAND function on Math Unary always returning the same random number for all logic units. Now each logic unit will generate its own randomized seed for each random function.
- Fixed can paint StellarAnchor kit, and paint applied to Mothership kit will be applied to structure when placed.
- Fixed could not return to game when the leave session popup shown.