Planet Changes
Both Vulcan and Europa have received visual update - with the sun on Vulcan being replaced by a supermassive black hole. Tuning your solar panels has also been made more difficult and gravity slightly increased. Europa now features bumpy, mountainous terrain, a new cloudy jupiter to fill the sky and modified atmosphere. Both of these will be available for newly created worlds, while any existing saved worlds will retain their old configuration.
Stuttering / Garbage Collection Issue
This solves a major performance problem universally experienced with the game. Now players in large bases will experience a much more stable framerate; without the stuttering that plagued them.
Of the many bugs that come and go throughout development, one has stuck around since the very early days. As your base gets larger, or even in the early stages of the game while terrain is being generated, players could experience occasional micropauses or freezes every few seconds. These would happen no matter what your framerate was and happened even on very high-spec machines. I won't get into too much detail here (a quick google search should yield a lot of resources) but due to the amount of simulation going on in the game it wasn't a simple thing to remedy.
As of this release, we've updated the game to be running on the latest version of Unity engine, which introduced an experimental feature called 'Incremental Garbage Collection'. Typically garbage collection is run once memory usage reaches a threshold. In some circumstances this threshold would be reached every few seconds, resulting in the pause or stutter that many players experienced. This new experimental feature runs garbage collection far more regularly, meaning a tradeoff of much more regular pauses at a much shorter duration. Early reports suggest this resolves stuttering for most players, and due to other engine optimizations introduced with the same update, same or improved framerates.
As mentioned above, this feature is still labelled as experimental, so we'll be closely following how it develops further and what sort of effect it is having on Stationeers.
Visual Refresh
Many of the models in the game have undergone a visual update, ranging from spraycans, to signs, to some food and plants. This takes care of many of the models that were created as prototypes, but as we spot things that could use a similar makeover they'll be replaced as well. This should have no impact on your saves as the objects are just replaced in-place.
Planetary Lander
In order to better wrangle your starting crates and canisters, your starting gear will now arrive safely bolted onto a lander. Items can be removed using the wrench (but not reattached) and the whole lander can be deconstructed using your angle grinder.
Remote Explosives
Yet another tool in the explosives arsenal, Stationeers can now manufacture plastic explosives and a remote detonator. Mines must be tagged using a remote detonator using left-click and all currently tagged mines can be detonated with right-click. ItemExplosive and ItemGrenade can be produced in the Fabricator, whereas ItemRemoteDetonator can be made in the Tools Manufacturer.
Creative Only: Mining Robot
We've added the first-pass of our Automated Independent Mechanical Entity or AIMEe. These can be set it up to use one of several behaviours and switch between them based on your own IC logic. They'll then venture out and find ores to mine and when full (or when you tell them to) return to unload their cargo into chute bins or inputs and to recharge. As this is a first-pass they will be available only in creative mode, while we get feedback on them and iron out any bugs.
Script example for controlling Mining Robot
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1864713778
Hotfix Version 0.2.2161.9871
- Updated StructureElectronicsPrinter model.
- Fixed issue where LED Displays failed to display decimal points if your OS is set to regional settings that use commas instead.
- Fixed IC code input window caret position
- Removed build states for glass doors until we can investigate rendering issue further.
- Fixed Large Tank incorrect Blueprint and Destroyed mesh.
- Fixed Security printer materials were displayed incorrectly.
- Fixed lander jumping around on network clients due to constantly colliding with attached gas canister(s).
- Fixed errors caused when auto-rotating StructureSateliteDish.
- Fixed missing recipe select button on the StructureElectronicsPrinter.
- Fixed missing blueprint for AIMEe Robot (creative only).
Hotfix Version 0.2.2158.9853
- Added Destroyed state for Small Tank.
- Added Destroyed state to Security Printer.
- Added Destroyed state for Big Tank.
- Added Destroyed state for Small Tank.
- Added Destroyed state for Iron Frames.
- Added Destroyed state for Autolathe.
- Added Destroyed state for Electronics Printer.
- Added additional damage state randomization; applied to frames and wall currently.
- Added ItemRemoteDetonator linked explosives will now persist through save/load.
- Added per-world trader weighted selection, this can be changed in the worldsettings.xml (Currently only on Vulcan).
- Changed the rate at which NpcChicken lay eggs.
- Fixed LandingPad locking issue. It wasn't updated landing pad state when loading world.
- Fixed Screen effects (such as the red damage effect) persisting on the menu if you quit a game while they're active. [Thanks Xetanai]
- Fixed errors caused when auto-rotating StructureSolarPanel, StructureAreaPowerControl and StructureSign.
- Fixed error when trying to save a blank label with the labeller.
- Fixed error where NpcChicken would sometimes lay eggs too often after loading a save.
- Fixed StructureAreaPowerControlReversed being the incorrect model.
- Fixed animation issues related to the ItemRemoteDetonator display.
- Fixed animation issues related to the StructureRecycler on/off button.
- Fixed ItemFertilizedEgg not spawning correctly.
- Fixed an index out of bounds issue related to custom traders.
- Fixed traders appearing with no inventory due to recipe lists containing items with no trade value.
- Fixed an index out of range exception occurring in atmospherics.
- Fixed broken dedicated server builds
- Fixed missing sprites for Europa.
Version 0.2.2148.9814
- Added first pass of Mining Robot, currently only available in Creative. Programmable via IC. Modes are used to set behavior of the robot. RobotMode.None = 0, RobotMode.StorageFull = 6, RobotMode.Follow = 1, RobotMode.MoveToTarget = 2, RobotMode.PathToTarget = 5, RobotMode.Roam = 3, RobotMode.Unload = 4. Note these are subject to change. Some are automatically assigned by the robot (like, StorageFull). Robots are able to unload their cargo to ChuteBins or ChuteInputs, but must be within 3 meters of them to do so. TargetX, TargetY, and TargetZ are used for navigation and can be set via IC.
- Added frost animation screen effect when in extremely cold external temperatures.
- Added build states for Composite Glass doors, same as for composite doors just requires more glass.
- Added Cartridge (GPS). Used for getting X,Y,Z world positions, which is useful when inputting destinations for the Robot via IC. Constructed at the Electronics Printer.
- Added ItemCoffeeMug. This can be created using the Fabricator.
- Added "Depart" button to trading panel. You can keep trading unless you depart trading shuttle.
- Upgraded Unity engine to 2019 and enabled experimental feature to test improvements to framerate 'stuttering' issue.
- Upgraded Europa. Updated terrain, atmospheric scattering, and a new Jupiter with animated clouds. Additionally, the atmosphere has been reduced slightly.
- Upgraded Vulcan. New atmospheric scattering, and the sun has been replaced with a supermassive black hole. Solar angle has been made significantly harder and gravity has been increased.
- Increased view distance for Dynamic Crates and Dynamic Gas Canisters.
- Increased render distance of Lander from default (30m) to 200m. (Credit: Kamuchi via Discord)
- Updated Main Menu background to be a little more attractive.
- Updated Default starting condition to begin on a lander, so all your crates are mounted safely. Kits for the portables are now included in a crate in the lander also.
- Reduced Atmospheric Scattering lense flare on mars, as it was very big.
- Updated ItemAreaPowerControl, StructureAreaPowerControl and StructureAreaPowerControlReversed models.
- Updated StructureSolarPanelDual and StructureSolarPanel models.
- Updated ItemKitSign, StructureSign1x1 and StructureSign1x2 models.
- Updated all the ItemSprayCan models.
- Updated the ItemAlienMushroom model and the models for all the ItemAlienMushroom plant growth states.
- Updated the ItemHealPill and ItemPillHeal model.
- Updated the ItemTomatoSoup model.
- Updated the Wheat item model and the models for all the Wheat plant growth states.
- Updated Energy weapon firing animations.
- Fixed ore gas duplication method using furnace. Now when an ore is smelted, but not turned into Ingots, it will come back as out ore (or slag if not a pure mix). This created object stores the quantity that had gases extracted, and will not allow gas to be extracted if attempted again. This data is transferred even when stacks are merged. All ore that is produced through a centrifuge will have no gas when smelted, no matter it's source.
- Fixed Wheat being mature on first stage.
- Fixed Battery size when in the Battery slot for the StructureAreaPowerControlReversed
- Fixed StructureSign1x1 and StructureSign1x2 not dropping a Kit on deconstruction.
- Fixed issue where SolarPanels would generate energy when the sun was not visible.
- Fixed Lava plane not being cleaned up correctly on exiting game. [Thanks Risu]
- Fixed trading contract inventory sync on dedicated server
- Fixed error related to ItemWheat not growing correctly.
- Fixed error related to eggs throwing errors.
- Fixed errors when trying to delete line 0 in the IC Code Editor.
- Fixed various text layout and parsing issues with IC code (mostly) caused by the engine upgrade. [Thanks Risu]
- Fixed error if leaving a world while a stacker wheel was animating.
- Fixed Trader types being stuck as Undefined.
- Fixed Electronic reader breaking when trying to look at Gas Canisters.
- Fixed fire lights not always being destroyed.
- Fixed energy pistol and energy rifle having the incorrect bounding boxes.
- Fixed trading contract bugs. It generated new inventory when shuttle was already landing without warning message.
- Fixed Tooltip for plant harvesting not being properly displayed on multiple lines.
- Fixed issue where source code could be loaded or imported containing invalid characters.