Dear Stormworkers,
This week we continue to develop the career and missions in Stormworks with new towing missions!
New missions will appear where the player needs to tow ships, trucks, and other vehicles that have experienced mechanical failures. These are very different mission types that provide a very different logistical challenge.
These new mission types are less frequent but combine with the rescue missions and transport missions to extend the kind of challenges and gameplay you experience in career mode.
We have more plans for career mode, but please keep sharing your ideas and suggestions with us as we continue to develop this part of the game.
Much of this new update has already been available and tested on the experimental branch.
Today we are also launching stoichiometrics for the modular engines on the experimental branch. This new concept is a rework of the combustion mechanics and algorithms within engines. Now, air to fuel ratio, RPM, engine temperature, and compression factor all influence the output of modular engines.
The air fuel manifold is now two separate components so that flow of fuel and air can be controlled independently.
Cylinders / pistons now show a new "stoichiometric" value on their tooltip. This is related to the air to fuel ratio and engine temperature, and is a value between -1 and 1. Within these values, the air to fuel ratio is within it's combustion range and the fuel will ignite. Outside of this range the engine is either too lean (-1), or flooded and too rich to fire (1). Cold engines require a richer air to fuel mix and will fire only within a narrower range of air to fuel ratio.
Cylinders / pistons also display a new "efficiency" value, based on the stoichiometric value and the RPM. Slightly lean fuel-air mix will produce higher fuel efficiency, while slightly rich will produce maximum power output. At higher RPM, the fuel and air will have less opportunity to mix and will decrease the power efficiency.
These new mechanics mean that designing modular engines is much more involved, and creating an engine that works well is a greater challenge. At the same time, we are trying to make the mechanics more transparent with these new tooltip values, and improve the fuel efficiency algorithm. The new system is designed to be more realistic, but still gamified and balanced for compatibility with other Stormworks components.
Modular engines continue to be subject to much change, so expect more changes, improvements and rebalances in response to your feedback.
We look forward to your thoughts and feedback on the new modular engine mechanics!
As always, we are also working very hard fixing bugs and making other improvements, so please see below for the full change log.
Much love <3,
The Stormworks Developers
v1.0.20
Feature - New Tow / Transport Vehicle missions
Experimental Feature - New Modular Engine Air/Fuel Stoichiometry
(Check out the experimental branch through Steam!)
Rework - Added network event to sync fully extinguished vehicle fires
Rework - Locating a rescue mission grants 30 mins more mission time
Rework - Decreased radius of locate zone objective so it should always be in view when completed
Rework - Mission UI is rebuilt when the map is opened
Rework - Rewards for deliver objectives now scale with distance
Rework - Doubled playlist script max characters
Fix - Remote Control not working fully for MP clients
Fix - onToggleMap callback not getting called
Fix - CTD when teleporting vehicle with NPC to workbench
Fix - CTD when rescuing character to the edge of a Hospital zone
Fix - Cargo script spawn count error with odd number of spawn locations
Fix - ?save not saving in certain situations
Fix - Playlist Lua getTilePurchased() requiring tile to be loaded
Fix - Screen fade not reversing if revived with <5 seconds left
Fix - Winches not saving correctly (Weird state when reloading them)
Fix - Gimbal Cameras not saving orientation correctly
Fix - CTD from monitor render target
Fix - Internal character peer_id not updating when relogging into a server (Playlist Lua looking for wrong peer_id)
Fix - Camera clipping into emissive player outfits
Fix - Z fighting on emissive player outfits
Fix - Seasonal outfit visual issues
Fix - Seasonal main menu camera clipping into trees
Lua Documentation updates:
Added section listing built in commands
Added section for API general info
Several small fixes