Dear Stormworkers,
This week, we are adding new tools for optimizing the physics performance of your vehicles!
Performance optimization tools are something that have been frequently requested, and we have been listening carefully! Thanks to all players who let us know they were looking for better optimization!
Read more about optimizing your vehicles in Stormworks.
F2 Physics Tool
The F2 physics visualization tool is back! This is a developer tool, but we have re-added this as it can be useful to players. When pressing F2, your vehicles will render in physics display mode. Each physics shape is shown in a different color, so you can easily see how Stormworks is building the physics representation of your vehicle.
How Does Stormworks Build The Physics Shapes?
Stormworks uses our own, internally developed technology to turn hundreds of thousands of voxels into a much smaller number of convex physics shapes. This process is lossless, so the physics representation is still fully detailed and accurate.
The algorithm is sensitive to how you have built up the shapes in your vehicle, and some arrangements of blocks are much easier to simplify than others.
Physics Flooding Block
We have added a new block that will flood internal compartments within your vehicles with physics - without adding weight. This is extremely useful for flooding internal areas of your vehicles such as inaccessible areas of your ships hull. Filling these zones makes it much easier for the physics system to optimize your shapes!
Using the block is simple. Simply place the new physics flood block within the enclosed compartment, and make sure there are no wedges or pyramids within the inside of this compartment. The physics system will now have a much easier time creating simpler, faster physics for your vehicle!
Our own testing has shown that just a few minutes placing these blocks can improve physics on most vehicles by at least 20%.
We can't wait to hear what players think of these new tools and what performance gains you can find!
We are also planning another Question and Answer session! Please submit your constructive and short questions here thank you for submitting your questions! We have now recorded the video.
Please see the changelog for the usual list of fixes and improvements.
Much love <3,
The Stormworks Developers
v1.0.29
Feature - Physics Flooder Optimisation Block
Feature - Fluid Spawner spawn level property
Feature - F2 Physics Debug Mode
Rework - Scripts are now initialized before Env Mod creation rather than during
Rework - Tutorial Starter Boat Optimisation
Rework - Editor Warnings Speed Optimisation
Fix - Added a heat zone to the Beginner Island House
Fix - Editor Warnings Undo/Redo issues
Fix - Editor Warnings reloading issues
Fix - Mutex issue that possibly caused blackscreen on world load
Fix - Vehicles Twilight zoning due to secondary physics after teleporting
Fix - Crash when object is spawned without its secondary physics
Fix - Solid Rocket Nozzles and Jet Engines often failing to destroy their ghost physics fully (Occasional Crash/Lag)
Fix - Fractional component masses showing as rounded numbers in the component inventory
Fix - Removed Empty option on fluid spawners
Fix - Crash when a vehicle's ghost objects are destroyed in the Addon Editor
Fix - Intermittent crash when disconnecting a rope and despawning the vehicle
Fix - Vastly improved network efficiency for setVehicleButton and setVehicleDial
Addon Lua API Update Changes:
Functions that were directly updated and need replacing in scripts
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spawnVehicle -> spawnAddonVehicle
spawnVehicleAppData -> spawnVehicle
getLocationIndexByName -> getLocationIndex
onSpawnMissionComponent -> onSpawnAddonComponent
Functions that were combined and may need replacing in scripts
===
getPlaylistIndexCurrent() / getPlaylistIndexByName(name) -> getAddonIndex([name])
Functions that updated but still retain their previous form as an alias
===
getPlaylistPath -> getAddonPath
spawnMissionLocation -> spawnAddonLocation
spawnThisPlaylistMissionLocation -> spawnThisAddonLocation
spawnMissionComponent -> spawnAddonComponent
getPlaylistCount -> getAddonCount
getPlaylistData -> getAddonData
New Functions
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getVehicleData(vehicle_id)