After a massive increase in players (thank you!) it highlighted that we needed to do some more work, particularly on fixing issues with the tutorials. While we knew we wanted to upgrade them to be better, we didn't realize they struggled quite so much with the changes we made in the refactor. Additionally while fixing some bugs and making optimizations, we inadvertently made more bugs.
In the future we will be implementing phase changes for gases and liquids, please start updating your bases so that you don't have frozen water in your pipes, as a future update will cause them to break and turn into ice
Improving the Survival Loops
As we start to progress towards tightening up the overall game loop there is is some homework to be done improving the survival loops. A common source of frustration has been water. The existing ice crusher did not warm the water up and a bug resulted in the water made from ice coming out at extreme temperatures. The new Ice Crusher will stop to warm up its internal atmosphere if it is too cold. Additionally, the bug is fixed and water will come out slightly above freezing.
Optimizations and Improvements
We've continue to optimize elements of the game to further increase the sizes of base that can be supported. Our small team has been closely monitoring the forums, discord, reddit, and streams looking for problems and issues that we could solve. We released a few hotfixes over the weekend to work out the worst of the issues, but took a break on Sunday to get back into it for this week.
UPCOMING: Next Steps
Continued primary focus will be stability and bug-fixing, but we will be continuing to push towards reshaping the game towards a better defined objective - and laying on a true survival loop. This will include a solid focus on the mid and late game especially around ore generation. Expanding the trading and mission system, a load of new content (Nuclear reactors!), expanding the role of Rockets (including midgame options), new worlds, and much more.
UPCOMING: Multiplayer Improvements
As part of our studio commitment to provide completely DRM software, with no reliance on external SDKs (like steam), we have had to rip out some nice functionality to ensure everyone can play the game together, no matter the source of their copy of the game (whether pirated, on a console, or from steam - we want people to be able to play together).
We will continue to work to better support multiplayer and fix associated bugs, and we do understand some miss the peer-to-peer options Steam provides. However, our studio is committed to the goal of making games that can outlast both the studio and the store you bought it from. To do that, we need to make sure the game is not reliant on steam to play.
Your support makes this possible
The major refactor has been a huge milestone for us and we think you can already see the tremendous success. Your support through bug reporting, suggestions, and direct involvement with our team on discord makes a tremendous difference.
If you like the progress we have made, please consider taking a moment to leave a positive review. This makes a great deal of difference to the project. We have worked hard on this project now for five years, and we feel confident the game is substantially improved from when we started. Many projects steer clear of the hard tasks, and we are proud to have taken them on.
Additionally, you can support us by purchasing the DLC we made to allow those whole like the game to support us, and in return get something a little fun to continue to use in the game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038400/Stationeers_Zrilian_Species_Pack/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038500/Stationeers_HEM_Droid_Species_Pack/
Changelog v0.2.3429.16807
- Fixed weather station and tweaked vane movement
- Fixed falling through the ground when closing stationpedia
- Removed save buttons from menu for clients
- Add early return so we don't make a game session for master server while in tutorial
- Fixed erroneously sent network update causing the mining robot to be fixed in place on clients
- Fixed about 20 instances, across the project, of potential unnecessary network updates beings sent
- Fixed compile error from last commit
- Changed Tutorial stripping for dedicated server to build server argument checks
- Removed placeholder setting `DeleteHumanOnDeath`
- Added actual setting `DeleteSkeletonOnDecay`
- Fixed hydroponics tutorial again
- Fixed powered water bottle filler slots
- Added placeholder for DeleteHumanOnDeath setting
- Added `deletelooseitems` command
- Replaced Kit Sensor item mesh with a custom one that is optimized and looks far better.
- Removed StreamingAssets/Tutorial directory from dedicated server saving 1.5GB
- Added initial setup for localization improvements
- Fixed exit game popup showing incorrect buttons
- Added localisation game string to quick save and save as buttons in menu
- Fixed error sending process message from server to client in robot
- Changed dedicated server default save location from `Environment.CurrentDirectory` to `Application.dataPath` parent dir
- Fixed issue where tutorial blueprints would not disappear on quit
- Added new WaterBottle Filler. This is a powered device with an switch to turn it on and off. Its switch will flash an error if it cannot get water (either none, or too hot, or too cold). This provides more feedback to the user, as well as allowing users to toggle it on and off. Uses a very small amount of power.
- Depreciated the old Waterbottle Filler. It will still spawn in, but deconstructing it will give the kit, which now points to the new Waterbottle filler. So existing saves should work fine, but all new fillers will be the new type.
- Fixed SavePath setting not being respected in dedicated servers
- Added quick save function key `F5`
- Added closing pause menu instantly after save or save as
- Removed save buttons from pause menu in tutorial
- Fixed ice machine not outputting correctly
- Changed Ice Crusher. Optimized by removing use of coroutines. Ice Crusher will now stop and heat up its internal atmosphere if it is too cold. Now also has a small tooltip window that tells you the pressure and temperature inside.
- Changed Ice to Smelt at 5 degrees C, rather than 0 degrees C.
- Fixed Smelted Ores/Ice that were inside a vacuum, their gas temperature was lerping towards zero. Now smelted ore/ice gas will come out at its defined temperature when being smelted into a vacuum.
- Added Quick Save button in menu
- Added Save Game As button in menu
- Removed atmos spawn debug from shipped builds
- Removed more log spam
- Fixed potential null errors in tutorial steps related to character
- Fixed Gas Mixing Tutorial getting stuck on open Waste Tank step (introduced Rev.16750)
- Fixed Things without animators returning the incorrect Open value when reading IsOpen on the main thread.
- Fixed autosave attempting to run in the tutorial
- Fixed some unnecessary log span regarding auto save
- Added info/info-verbose command to provide info about any IReferencable (command is: "thing [info/info-verbose] [ReferenceId])
- Fixed Bug in 1st tutorial(Basic Concepts) where it could get stuck on "Wait for pressure to reach 60kpa" step due to the welder over-heating the room atmosphere to an out of bounds value in the check. Removed the temperature and molar check for this step.