Dear Stormworkers,
Version 1.0 is fast approaching with just 4 weeks to go before the big release (17th September 2020)!
This week we discuss what you will be able to do outside of the vehicle editor, in the world of Stormworks. As previously discussed, Version 1.0 is focused on game-play, vehicle operation, and creating a challenging and dangerous world to test your vehicles and your abilities.
When working on Version 1.0, the first element we added was server side LUA scripting. Within LUA, we can manage many different elements of the game (and are adding new functionality all the time), and we can modify and reload these scripts in game as we are testing. The effect is that it's much easier and quicker to build an idea with a much more powerful set of tools. This is what we have been building with it:
Rescue Missions
The new missions are a complete re-imagining of what missions are and how they work in Stormworks. Missions are now generated procedurally, and can appear in thousands of locations across the Stormworks world.
Land missions may begin with a notification that an aircraft is in distress with engine failure, and have activated their emergency transponder. Checking the map, you might see a huge area outlined in red, with a tooltip explaining that this is the search area for the aircraft.
Before heading out, you may want to check you have the necessary equipment. A search operation can take some time, so if the mission will run into the night you may wish to equip illumination flares, night vision goggles. Are casualties expected? Check you have a defibrillator and med kits. With this mission, a transponder locator is a very good idea and will greatly assist locating the downed aircraft.
Once locating the aircraft, you will know more about the situation at the landing site. How damaged is the aircraft? How many casualties are there? Are there fires? As you get close, the mission will update with extra information on your objectives - perhaps you need to put out fires, recover the flight recorder, or simply rescue survivors to any hospital facility (not just the specific hospital island like the old missions).
Casualties may have minor injuries requiring simple med-kit treatment, or otherwise have been incapacitated. You cannot use a defibrillator in the water, so you may need to move incapacitated survivors to safety first before attempting to revive them. This is all against the clock, as incapacitated casualties will eventually die. If you damage your own vehicle or a survivor is incapacitated during the rescue, the new first person equipment also means you have the chance to recover the situation, repair your vehicle, and revive the survivor.
This is just one possible type of mission and story that the player could encounter. Others could include towing a vessel with engine failure, fighting a fire on an oil tanker, delivering inspectors to investigate regulation violations, recovering a person overboard, or any other scenario the script can generate. Meanwhile, this is all within a world with a day-night cycle, the all new weather simulation with stronger winds. Situations may change, where fire or structural collapse could cause a vessel to start sinking.
Please let us know your thoughts on other mission types - there is still time before the big release, and plenty of time after as we continue to develop the game!
Logistical Operations
If you fancy making some money on the side, various cargo terminals are present around the map. At these locations, you will find cargo addressed to various other terminals, as well as information on rewards for delivery.
Delivering the cargo to the correct destination will result in a cash reward, and can be a great way of generating money. You can reinvest this cash in building bigger container ships, cargo handling equipment, or even logistical networks with unmanned barges. In limited fuel mode, fuel is a resource that costs money, so you will need to balance the rewards against the costs of business.
We are currently developing this as a series of container terminals, where the player can move containers around the world to develop revenue. However, this system has huge potential for expansion - simply by tagging cargo terminals with info on what type of cargo may spawn there, and what type of cargo it will accept, you can create logging logistics, working mines, and other industries.
The Workshop
The most important part of the new LUA game modding, is that it can be shared on the Steam workshop. This means all players will have access to the same tools that we do to create these new in game stories and systems, and we are very excited to see what players come up with.
The new experimental branch also allows us to get feedback from players on new LUA functionality and develop it further, while giving players information on what new functions they can start to use in upcoming releases. We expect a new phase of collaboration with players as build our own stuff, but also support you with your creations.
LUA scripts can also access vehicles, locations, and other rigging data from all mission scripts that are active, meaning players can build simple packages that interact with the existing official LUA scripts with little or no code - you could create a crashed mission location, medical ship, container terminal or other content, and simply by following the correct naming convention and tagging objects with the right names, they will be used by our script and other scripts as content. This type of extensibility makes it really easy to mix and merge workshop locations into the game in a seamless and simple way.
As I am sure you can tell, we are super excited about the upcoming release. We are working hard to get all the extra features, fixes, and finishing items into this release and are doing everything we can to make Version 1.0 as good as it can be.
We also have some great minor updates planned - check back next week for a really cool new minor update!
And remember - if you or your friends do not yet own Stormworks - the price is increasing on 17th September 2020, so be sure to get it at the current, lower price.
Much love <3,
The Stormworks Developers