This week is all about gene manipulation. We’ve added the Genetics Stabilizer, Genetics Splicer, a new plant PDA cartridge, increased the impact of lighting conditions, as well as fixing a number of both new and historic bugs.
Genetics Stabilizer
There is now a stability value associated with each gene. Genes with a high stability value will mutate less when passed to the next generation. The Genetics Stabilizer has two modes which allow for the manipulation of these values. The first mode, stabilize, allows you to increase the stability of all the genes at the same time. The second mode, destabilize, decreases the stability of all genes, however it allows you to target a specific gene to be destabilized to a greater degree.
With proper usage of this appliance you should be able to target one or more genes to mutate at a high rate while freezing the state of all other genes.
Genetics Splicer
Another way to modify a plant's genes is to use the Genetics Splicer. The splicer is a simple Appliance that allows you to take a single gene from one source plant and overwrite a gene on another target plant. This is a destructive process and will result in the source plant being destroyed in the process.
Plant Analyzer PDA
The Plant Analyzer gives you more information beyond the tooltips about the current status of plants and removes some of the mystery of what goes into the growth speed of plants.
Lighting Conditions
Previously lighting was overly simplified and the light received by a plant would be limited to a single light source. Now plants can receive light from multiple sources at the same time, such as a grow light and the sun. A plant receiving more light than needed will help it achieve it’s required amount of light faster.
To bring the effect of lighting in line with the other environmental variables plants will now perish if they spend excessive amounts of time in either light or dark. Previously this would make them stop growing but would not have any permanent effect on the plant.
Multiplayer Changes in Special Test Branch
When we refactored the old multiplayer system and removed the requirement for Steam API for the game, so that the game could outlive steam (and our studio) if need be, as well as make everyone able to play the games with their friends (even if pirated) - it made our connection system very "brittle". We have come up with an entirely new connection system forked from RakNet, we call "RocketNet". This should be much more robust for establishing connections and substantially reduces memory overhead and increased server/host performance.
You can test this out in a special hidden branch of the game, unlocked with the following. Please note that there is no enabled version of the dedicated server, and this may not be as stable as stationeers main branch. User: rocketnettest Password: theremaybebugs
Steam Peer-to-Peer being implemented
As noted above, we had to remove some steam functionality as we redeveloped the core of the multiplayer. We realize how important this is to many people with more complex routing situations. We are working on Steam P2P again, and will have a working test version for you as soon as well.
Your support makes this possible
The major refactor has been a huge milestone for us and we think you can see the tremendous impact that it has had. Your support through bug reporting, suggestions, and direct involvement with our team on discord make a big 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 has 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 who 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/2089290/Stationeers_Human_Cosmetics_Pack/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038400/Stationeers_Zrilian_Species_Pack/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038500/Stationeers_HEM_Droid_Species_Pack/
Change Log
- Updated stationpedia description for plant splicer
- Updated plant splicer description on stationpedia
- Added stationpedia description for plant splicer
- Added paintable material to Plant Analyzer and Stabilizer
- Fixed missing percentage on stabilizer tooltip
- Tweaked plant stabilizer arrow position
- Updated plant stabilizer model
- Tweaked plant stabilizer and splicer tooltips
- Fixed activate button on stabilizer staying enabled when processing
- Fixed power button flashing error state incorrectly on plant analyser and stabilizer
- Fixed progress percent not syncing on client for plant stabilizer
- Fixed Some Graphics settings not being applied until the user opened the settings panel.
- Fixed Some shadow settings to be defaulted on starting the game or when selecting a new GraphicsQuality Setting.
- Plant Analyser Cartridge first pass
- Added the ability to sample loose (non slotted) plants with the plant sampler
- Removed allocating call from clear fertilizer tooltip
- Fixed emissive materials on Stabilizer
- Added Stabilizer recipe
- Fixed bug where appliances attached to benches would not have their powered state set correctly when adding and removing power cables to the network
- Cleaned up some unused code in device
- Fixed syncing problems with plant stabiliser
- Fixed powering issues with Stabiliser
- Changed processing times. Stabilise: 1 minute, Destabilise: 2 minutes
- Fixed slot scaling in Stailiser slot
- Fixed tooltips to be more consistent with previous appliances and devices
- Made plants in splicer scale to the slot size
- Fixed issue with bench on/off switch not having an effect on connected appliances' power state. This will only take effect on newly added appliances for now
- Tweaked power usage for some appliances. Lamps 1W, Packaging machine 5W, Paint mixer 5W, Plant analyser 10W, Plant splicer 100W, Plant stabiliser 100W
- Fixed some emissive materials on plant analyser
- Removed error log spamming from Astroid.cs
- Fixed NRE from unset human in cursormanager
- Changed stability to float, but sbyte for networking.
- Slowed down splicer animation
- Changed plant mutations to roll genetic variations at the extremes of possibilities when plant stability nears -1.
- Increased the genetic mutation amount that passes onto children after plants are subjected to negative parameters by 60%.
- Added plant genetic splicer. Can be used to copy a chosen gene from one plant to another. After copying the source plant will be destroyed.
- Fixed Entities positioned incorrectly in seats (regression from rev. 17908).
- Fixed Player not positioned correctly in rover and camera not locked correctly to rover position (regression from rev. 17908).
- Changed Disabled inworld interaction when sitting in rover as it was causing the collider targeting to flicker in and out. Rover buttons can still be used while seated by using mouse control (Alt Key).
- Fixed Compass not reporting correct heading when seated in rover (regression from rev. 17908).
- Fixed cancel token for processing stabilizer
- Added first pass implementation of Plant Genetic Stabilizer
- Fixed Tracker cartridge arrow not pointing in correct direction. (regression rev. 17908)
- Changed Reduced power consumption of portable beacon. It will now last 5 in-game days on a small battery.
- Fixed Other players in multiplayer looking towards local players IK target instead of their own IK target.
- Added LightTolerance and DarknessTolerance genes to stationpedia and genetics panel.
- Improved Plant Light and Darkness needs to be calculated in a real-time way rather than on a 1-day tick.
- Added Light Tolerance and Darkness Tolerance genes. Plants left in permanent light or darkness will eventually die.
- Fixed Compass not showing correct heading.
- Fixed Thrown items would sometimes collide with suit.
- Reverted mushroom recipes until the issues around them can be resolved
- Fixed Targeting ray-cast for 1st person interactions is incorrectly offset.
- Removed An instance where character physics interpolation could be disabled.
- Fixed Creative spawn not putting item in-front of player. (regression rev17908)
- Fixed Physics interpolation on players sometimes getting disabled on load.
- Fixed harvey throwing errors when planting
- Fixed harvey being able to harvest non mature plants
- Fixed plant seeds sometimes not coming back for perennials
- Fixed harvest quantity for fruit being very low after the first harvest for perennials
- Fixed Items held in hands stuttering/ghosting when rotating view.
- Improved responsiveness of mouse input. Removed smoothing functions from camera input and IK targeting.
- Fixed Stuttering movement on first person helmet.
- Removed Hands and helmet lagging player movement in first person. 1st person helmet and items in hands are now locked to player camera.
- Fixed Items in hands stuttering movement when circle-strafing.
- Changed Character Prefab, y-rotation Transform is now on a separate layer so as not to interfere with rigid-body interpolation.
- Moved Some character and camera movement code into the correct parts of the update loop (in most cases this was moving animation logic from fixed-update to late update).
- Fixed missing quantity modifier key from certain tooltips
- Revert MixInWorld changes
- Added 'direction' option to the atmos debug command
- Adjusted atmosphere mixing so that new empty atmospheres mix more slowly for the first few ticks. This should alleviate issues with mining on high pressure worlds throwing players around
- Fixed not being able to save if Save Path in settings is set to a bad path. It will now fall back to the default path and default the Settings Path.