Nautikin Adventures News

[h2]Video[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added CombatHelicopterBody part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterCockpit part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterLandingGearFront part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterLandingGearRear part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterMainRotor part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterRearRotor part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterRotorSensors part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterSensors part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterTail part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterTailFin part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterTurbine part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterVentralSensors part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterVentralStabilizer part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterWing part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterWingMount part
  
• Added CombatHelicopterWingRear part
  
• Added new HeavyLiftHelicopterTurbine part
  
• Added new SquareLightFixture part
  
• Added new unlock to campaign for HeavyLiftHelicopterTurbine
  
• Added combat helicopter parts to pirate loot in campaign
  
• Added glass window to standard helicopter sliding door part
  
• Added glass window to sea plane door
  
• Added distant volcanic smoke to Vulcanus
  
• Added icebergs to Congelo
  
• Added water interactions for the force from helicopter rotors
  
• Added vertical speed indicator (V-Speed) near altitude for aircraft
  
• Added ground check to altitude display
  
• Added key to center on root part in build mode
  
• Added key to center on selected part in build mode
  
• Added key bindings for new build mode keys
  
• Added some additional restrictions to performance settings for draw / billboard
  
• Fixed a bug in campaign where seek and destroy was not available until you had 2 weapons (instead of 1)
  
• Fixed a bug with pirate treasure part unlocks in campaign
  
• Fixed some unlock part item configs in campaign
  
• Fixed tooltip on closed door state ("Close" => "Closed")
  
• Fixed a bug with camera occlusion when using "Center on vessel"
  
• Fixed a bug where camera moves when adjusting gas/ballast when using "Center on vessel"
  
• Fixed a physics bug with seated Nautikins and explosion forces
  
• Fixed some potential issues that could prevent Nautikins or vessels from saving temporarily
  
• Fixed some shader issues with pilot helmet
  
• Fixed some UI displays that may show default values for a single frame when launching aircrafts
  
• Fixed a bug with re-deploying structures with seated Nautikins in multiplayer
  
• Fixed a bug where Nautikins killed in seats with stowed hand items were not restored
  
• Fixed a bug where extremely small whirlpools could spawn
  
• Fixed a bug with rain fog and distance fog
  
• Fixed a bug with island discovery and switching save file game mode
  
• Fixed a bug with runway unlock and switching save file game mode
  
• Fixed a background error with loading games with destroyed fuel pumps
  
• Updated outlines for various parts in build mode
  
• Updated outlines for various interactable parts when deployed
  
• Updated the standard main rotor part mesh
  
• Changed some helicopter flags for various helicopter parts
  
• Changed ice bullet impact effect
  
• Changed island performance setting "LOD Bias" to "Polygon reduction"
  
• Changed the object graphics settings "LOD Bias" to "Object detail"
  
• Changed some configs on beacon part to support outlines
  
• Removed some "Cosmetic" tags from jet parts that affect drag
  
• Adjusted fuel usage for rear rotors
  
• Adjusted probability of bomb part blueprint spawning in pirate loot
  
• Adjusted water behavior of sea plane / sail boat rudders
  
• Update heavy lift rotor icon
  
• Nautikins that die in fire instantly, will now light on fire (i.e. lava)
  
• Build mode will now autocorrect the mirror part position if you had moved it previously with mirror mode off but it is now on
  
• Nautikins in airtight seats will no longer get wet from rain
  
• Nautikins will no longer get wet when standing under physical cover like a roof
  
• Boundary enforcers are now aware of airship gas
  
• Improvements to launch precision with landing gear
  
• Aircraft steering will now invert for specific parts that are intentionally placed upside-down (wings, rudders, etc.)
  
• Submarine depth will now turn red when too deep
  
• Build areas will now restore crew to seats / platforms when re-deploying structures
  
• Increased the timeout required for the fire extinguish progress to disappear
  
• Distance fog will now become more intense the higher you fly
  
• Improvements to ocean height LOD
  
• Improvements to fog related weather transitions
  
• Draw/Billboard in performance settings will now snap to increments of 50
  

[h2]Notes[/h2]
Basically only rotors will trigger vessels to display as helicopters now.

The combat helicopter can lift ~10000 kg and should be made out of heavier material.

The existing rear/tail rotors were consuming almost no fuel. Now they consume an observable amount of fuel which will mainly be important if you are using many tail rotors, but will obviously consume more fuel for existing designs.

The new combat helicopter part unlockables in campaign will spawn randomly in pirate ship treasure similarly to the fixed bomb part. It will likely require raiding at least 2 pirate ships in order to get all of them.

The heavy lift main rotor part is now broken down into 2 separate parts. Previously the turbines were permanently part of the rotor, now they are a separate misc. part. The turbines do not affect the power of the rotor in game.

The "Center on vessel" uses the center of mass to calculate the camera position, it will now cache this position so that it does not update when changing the center of mass during operating (i.e. ballast, cargo, etc.).

Indirect explosions that may have launched a Nautikin will now be less powerful due to a correction of a math error related to the amount of force required based on the position of the explosion and Nautikin. However, force will now be amplified the closer the explosion.

If you are wearing the environment suit and fall into lava, you will die instantly, but not light on fire.

Icebergs used to exist in a very early version of the game as moving dynamic objects. They were removed over concerns that they were too complicated and hard to find (as well as performance heavy). Now they are back! But, there are only a few, and they don't move much. They are really just sorta there, but they may have unlockables on them later or something. They will move with sea level, but they are essentially immovable map objects. They are not visible on the map and cannot be destroyed.

If you are in the rain and then get into an airtight seat you will start to dry off. Similarly you will dry off when entering a room or something that blocks rain. This will also apply to snow. The wetness will not currently check if a given part is hidden by a roof or something. That would likely have a massive performance impact combined with unlimited configurations. The way that works may change in the future.

The visual effect of the helicopter rotor forces on the water can be subtle. Depending on what you build it will obviously not be totally accurate. The desire is to have a visual indication that there is force on the water, but without affecting the water so much that other physics such as buoyancy are disrupted.

Vertical speed (V-speed) is displayed in meters per second because the altitude is displayed in meters. If / when aviation indicators are added later it may display differently.

Altitude will now display the height above ground instead of just sea level when above the ground (and level). The value displayed will automatically switch between above sea level (ASL) and above ground level (AGL). This switch should be mostly seamless while flying level, but since the ground scan needs to look down, it will only do so relative to the proper orientation of your vessel (which can be in unlimited configurations) so that there is no performance requirement for determining where to start looking for the ground. It may switch quickly if another vessel is suddenly below you or a cliff appears. I will likely add new displays for more aviation specific indicators later, but these labels are supposed to be simple displays for quick information, adding much more information such as AGL and ASL makes the screen very busy and can be confusing/non-intuitive to those not familiar with various acronyms. So altitude regardless of ground or sea level will simply be displayed as "Altitude" at all times.

The name "LOD Bias" in general is confusing because there is another setting for non-island objects called "LOD Bias" and it is a meaningless technically term that does not describe it's function. The 2 "LOD bias" settings also happen to work in the opposite manner, so this should disambiguate the 2 and make there function more clear.

The depth UI for submarines will now turn red when the vessel is too deep and may be in danger of being destroyed / out of map bounds (Abyss). Nautikins can also suffer this fate, but they are not given a depth UI. It is best to simply keep the Nautikins out of the dark water. If some sort of depth UI is added to Nautikins later it will likely work in a similar manner, however the intent is that the Nautikins have no instruments which means they are only aware of certain things (like drowning, or being on fire for example).

When re-deploying a structure that has Nautikins standing on them or in seats, they had the potential to fall or be unseated while the vessel was being created. Now the build area will keep track of this similar to how the inventories are updated. If seat configurations change Nautikins may be moved to different seats. If the Nautikin is currently controlled by another player and standing on a platform they may not be moved. If for some reason you completely change the vessel, Nautikins will likely be placed in the wrong locations if they were standing on the structure.

Previously, sea plane / sail boat rudders did not required direct contact with the water in order to function. This allows weird behavior were it obviously should not be interacting with the water. I have added a height check for a certain distance from sea level, they can still be a little bit out of the water (right above). It is not totally ideal for them to stop working when barely out of the water (less fun) because it can be difficult for sea planes to keep the back rudder in the water, especially if it not weighted down in the back.

The new keys that allow you to center on parts only work on the rail camera settings. It will not allow you to for example move the root part out of bounds and then center on it outside the build area, it will always snap to the rail. It is more of a quick way to find what you are working with if you moved the camera away, but it will always be locked to the rail even if you are in ghost mode. "Selected" in this case refers to a part that you are adjusting with arrows active, not the part currently in your "hand" (because that always follows the mouse). By default the new keybindings will be on the numpad. There are no keybindings for centering on parts with controllers.

The new sky fog is nice because it blends the clouds and the ocean better. It also helps mask immersion breaking perspectives when looking straight down in some cases.

Vegetation draw / billboard should not really be at the same value, so this is now prevented. Draw should always be less than billboard.

There are now 170 parts in the game.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added support for demo version of the game
  
• Fixed a bug with undo stack and applying paint materials
  
• Updated buoyancy config for helicopter airfoil parts
  
• Island camera UI now scales with monitor resolution
  
• Improvements to water queries
  

[h2]Notes[/h2]
This build includes changes that enable supporting a demo version of the game. The demo version is now available for free and has it's own store page with a list of features that are not in the demo vs the full game. Future updates will likely also update the demo version of the game as needed.

I was investigating whether or not to prevent magnet lifts from being able to grab moving parts. The issue with this is that moving parts like engines or rotors can move while attached to magnets, but the magnet position will always be fixed and the movement may look weird. It doesn't actually break anything and I sorta don't want to prevent grabbing something you should obviously be able to grab because it is attached to something that can move. I may prevent these parts from moving later if it becomes an issue, but it is really only a problem for example if another player is say in a helicopter and turns the engine on while on the magnet.

[h2]Videos[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added new island
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterCockpit part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterBody part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterTail part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterTailFin part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterSideMount part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterHook part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterMechanicalBox part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterTriangleMount part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterLandingGearRear part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterLandingGearFront part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterMainRotor part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterRearRotor part
  
• Added HeavyLiftHelicopterDoor part
  
• Added StandardHelicopterSlidingDoor part
  
• Added SeaPlaneDoor part
  
• Added LadderStep part
  
• Added AircraftCrane part
  
• Added CraneRemoteControls part
  
• Added supported for complex parts being highlighted in build mod
  
• Added support for applying materials to interiors of certain parts
  
• Added some impact checks to crashing into water to make things explode at higher velocities
  
• Added interior material groups for StandardHelicopterBody
  
• Added interior material groups for SeaPlaneBody
  
• Added steel cables to runway buy shack
  
• Added support for disabling steering on non retractable landing gear with G
  
• Added camera settings to center on vessel rather than root part
  
• Added magnet lift to cranes
  
• Added read-only inventory controls to keybindings
  
• Added new part unlockables to campaign
  
• Reluctantly added a open game folder button to misc. settings
  
• Fixed some config issues with Alta
  
• Fixed a background error with clients joining rescue missions in progress.
  
• Fixed some problems with interaction / aiming animations at high speeds
  
• Fixed a bug where harpoons were not cleaned up if the vessel was recovered while firing multiple times
  
• Fixed some flags on standard helicopter main rotor
  
• Fixed a bug with snow on aircraft
  
• Fixed a bug with cable attachments to containers that were previously secured
  
• Fixed some config issues with StandardHelicopterBody
  
• Fixed cost of cranes being very cheap
  
• Fixed some shadow/lighting settings on crane lift vessel lights
  
• Fixed a bug where ropes do not attach to network parts properly
  
• Fixed a conflict with using left-shift to split stacks of items
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented max monster meat from spawning
  
• Fixed a bug where you could use quick move while dragging amounts in inventories
  
• Fixed a bug where you can drop a stack while dragging amounts in inventory
  
• Fixed a bug where items are deleted when attempting to drop amounts on full stacks
  
• Fixed a bug with dragging and tooltips at the same time
  
• Fixed a inventory bug where dropped inventory item slots would not update tooltip
  
• Fixed a inventory bug with spamming drop and quick move item at the same time
  
• Fixed a UI bug with inventory actions not being blocked by amount dialog
  
• Fixed a inventory bug where you can drop items while interacting with inventory options
  
• Fixed a bug where switching to drydock from runway and allocating crew did not clear crew allocation in runway
  
• Fixed a bug where saved anchors do not adjust slack properly
  
• Fixed a bug with beacons initializing from save files where Nautikins are in the water
  
• Fixed a bug with aerodynamics and boats with jet engines
  
• Fixed some audio warnings related to saved destroyed engines
  
• Fixed some sort of super broken collision behavior with crane collisions and physics engine
  
• Fixed a bug with crew allocation when no crew is available and crew is already allocated
  
• Blind fix for a problem where lock on aimer can get stuck if target is destroyed exactly when locking on
  
• Changed some shadow settings
  
• Changed name of DriverSeat in PlaneBody to PilotSeat for consistency
  
• Changed some default values for map lighting for development purposes
  
• Changed the way that steel cables sync in multiplayer to support carrying containers
  
• Changed the way that crane mass is calculated
  
• Changed max ropes from 64 to 16 because 64 is too much.
  
• Containers can now be secured with steel cables
  
• Inventory quick move is now left-alt instead of left-shift to avoid conflicts
  
• Waving now supports fast moving vessels
  
• Sitting now supports fast moving vessels
  
• Updated setup trade route message
  
• Updated Tug boat engine highlighting in build mode
  
• Fixed harpoon part is now considered a weapon for too many weapons warning
  
• Improvements to rotor physics
  
• Standard helicopter airfoil parts are now buoyant
  
• Improvements to error logging for mods
  
• Aircraft throttle now displays 3 digits
  
• Improvements to vessel explosions for vessels with many parts
  
• Steel cables can now secure containers to vessels
  
• Steel cables will now allow you to secure vessels or Nautikins to the map
  
• Adjusted runway
  
• Containers will now look for a more suitable parent when securing to the map or moveable parts
  
• Standard plane landing gear will now allow disabling steering with G
  
• Various refactoring to support magnet lifts
  
• Prevented some code from updating while paused in single player
  

[h2]Notes[/h2]
With every new island comes a lot of hand crafted detail. While some of the island generation process is procedural, many objects that you see must be adjusted by hand to obtain the perfect appearance and with each adjustment comes an optimization cost of roughly 30-120 mins, so that you the player don't have to look at floating rocks underwater or slow framerate with lots of seaweed.

The new delivery area is particularly challenging because it will likely require a helicopter capable of moving containers (new parts). If you are delivering many shipping containers, it may involve a larger vessel with a helicopter. In combination, it will be a complex and fun delivery.

I have been trying to fix a multiplayer bug where for example a client may be locking onto a pirate vessel that is also being attacked by another player. 99% of the time this seems to work fine, but sometimes clients can lock on right when another player destroys the pirate vessel (or some other unknown factor occurs, hence a blind fix). This was / is not something I am not able to reproduce and it seems to fix itself if you attempt to lock on again. I have now changed the way that this code is structured in hopes that this edge case will no longer be possible.

Previously helicopter rotors calculated and applied force based on the position of the rotor and torque based on the center of the vessel. Now, more accurately torque will also be applied relative to the placement of the rotor meaning that if your rotor is further back you may get more torque. These changes may also make it easier to steer at high speeds (you will still get tunneled by drag if you are going faster than the rotors can overcome with torque). This applies to both main and tail rotors. For smaller designs, like gyros they may become more sensitive to input making them more maneuverable, larger helicopters will similarly be easier turn. These forces are tied to the throttle, so if you are turning to fast you need to reduce your throttle (but not so much that you fall out of the sky!!). Part of the reason for these changes is that the new helicopter parts encourage placing rotors way further back then other designs making the need for more accuracy obvious.

For the turbine engines on the new rotor, I toned down the pitch / sound a bit because it can be a bit aggressive for gameplay. In reality it is very loud and just muffles everything, but that makes for annoying gameplay.

The heavy lift rotors can lift roughly ~20 tons. Using this rotor with lighter aircraft (less than 8000kg) will likely be too much lift. Heavy helicopters should be made out of thinner steel and some aluminum or thicker aluminum.

When impacting the water there is now a distinction between attempting to land and flying into the water at full speed, one of which will most likely result in an explosion now even with heavier vessels that may have previously been immune. Before, when landing on water the game would try to cut you some slack with the velocity of the impact so you can land easier. However, this results in being able to crash large heavy jets without exploding so now it will only give slack when it sees you are trying to land.

You cannot secure a container with a steel cable if it is already bolted/secured normally. You cannot secure / bolt a container if it is already secured with a steel cable. Securing containers with cables can only be done short distances. This prevents the changes of weird desync issue with physics. You can only attach one steel cable per container, which means no stacking with cables.

Non-retractable landing gear that can disable steering will likely not register as green vs red to indicate state. This is because the overall state is determined by whether or not landing gear is deployed, so fixed landing gear (heavy lift) will always be green.

The mounted crane uses less fuel because it is smaller and contain less moving parts. Functionally speaking, it also uses less fuel because it is likely attached to an aircraft with a pilot keeping it steady and lots of movement to accomplish the same task as normal cranes, just makes it more usable.

Remote crane controls will only connect to one crane per part. Multiple cranes will attempt to wire remote controls if available in the order they were found. The controls will function as a driver seat if there is no remote crane present.

The magnet lift will ignore the fact of whether or not your vessel contains metal. Attempting to use the magnet on vessels that are larger/heavier than your vessel can be extremely dangerous. The game will prevent you from attempting to pick something up that is 10 times heavier. But will allow something slightly heavier for things like picking up heavy boats with helicopters that you should be able to lift. Multiple magnets cannot be used to pick up the same vessel. Attaching a magnet to the current vessel will not work. A vessel currently being lifted by a magnet cannot attach the vessel currently lifting it to another magnet. It is extremely difficult to both fly a helicopter and use the magnet lift in singleplayer. It is almost certainly something that requires 2 players. If you are carrying something with the aircraft crane you need to give it slack so it can bounce around a bit, otherwise you will crash and/or explode. You may be able to pick up really heavy stuff with the aircraft crane due to the elastic nature of the cables, but this will likely result in explosions. Flying with the crane deployed is extremely dangerous in general, one wrong move and the crane can bump into the aircraft and cause an explosion. You must go slow and be very patient. If you are going faster that 10-20kts, you are probably going to explode. If you must carry something long distances, you may want to lock the magnet lift with a steel cable to the helicopter.

Containers will not move with vessels picked up by the magnet unless they are secured. This is because of the existing behavior were you can't have them on lifts. I have added a backlog item to support it.

Saved stacks of 64 ropes will self correct eventually. This will likely result in error messages related to item counts and large stacks disappearing.

Attempting to drag right after activating item dropdowns for amount, use, drop etc. will now prevent dragging. Previously this was allowed but it blocks default button behavior that allows you to cancel your click by dragging the mouse away instead of clicking, but starting the drag closed the context menu so you would not be able to make a choice to drag vs click and it would just close if you had not deliberately clicked initially. Attempting to drag other items with the context menu open will now close the context menu and require you to attempt the drag again.

Landing gear will not function completely when on Magnets because Unity does not function completely. Wheels may be reimplemented from scratch at some point because there are other limitations with landing gear because of this "wheel feature", but it is not a high priority. Bottom line is that steering will not work on magnets, but you don't really need to steer at that point anyway.

The open game folder button will only work on windows (will be disabled) because it needs to use "explorer.exe". It will do nothing if you have not saved the game. If you have not opened the vessel load dialog and/or created any vessels, no vessels will be in the vessel folder, but you can copy some in there from another save using explorer.

There are now over 150 parts in the game!

Guides will be updated soon.

Updated large pirate base workshop item.

The price of the game is now the final price it will be for release. The game is quickly nearing the end of Early Access. If all goes well it will be released sometime early next year. Months away. Keep an eye out for sales!

Looking into adding a demo version of the game.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added shift click quick move to inventories
  
• Added hot keys for build mode features to numpad
  
• Added "Reject all" button to activities
  
• Added anti-aliasing settings
  
• Added performance setting to always render underwater
  
• Added labels to rescue activity indicators
  
• Added labels to delivery activity indicators
  
• Added tooltip to part groups button
  
• Added lights to crane travel lift
  
• Added material groups to boat cranes
  
• Added crane cables and lift to design view
  
• Removed redundant transform hot keys from numpad
  
• Fixed some camera problems at high altitudes
  
• Fixed a problem with undoing cloned parts
  
• Fixed a bug with "tell bot to go here" aircraft height
  
• Fixed a bug with default bot configs
  
• Fixed a null reference from older save files and bots
  
• Fixed some minor height problems with vessels that spawn for activities
  
• Fixed a bug with bot airship elevation
  
• Fixed a bug with bot submarine elevation
  
• Fixed a bug with AI takeoff where landing gear would not retract when also using fixed landing gear
  
• Fixed a problem with underwater fog when controlling something underwater far away
  
• Fixed a bug where empty inventory slot can still have a tooltip
  
• Fixed a bug with crew allocation where vessel is not controlled with 2 drivers seats on launch
  
• Fixed a bug with crew allocation and switching views with multiple driver seats
  
• Fixed a bug with missile cameras being removed after switching views
  
• Fixed a weird tree LOD problem with some palm trees
  
• Fixed some UVs on the crane
  
• Fixed some UVs on the drydock
  
• Fixed some shadows with crane lift
  
• Fixed a bug with getting in seats while currently on a ladder
  
• Fixed a bug where AI attempts to use certain fixed weapons even though they are not supported
  
• Fixed a bug with boundary enforcer fuel sync
  
• Fixed a bug with fuel usage on clients in multiplayer
  
• Fixed a bug with refueling on clients in multiplayer
  
• Fixed a bug where fuel cables colliders were erroneously included in vessel when joining as client
  
• Fixed a bug with rain when at Spiculum
  
• Fixed some gaps on edges of Desertum
  
• Fixed some landing gear desync when 1/n landing gear is destroyed
  
• Fixed a bug with aircraft fuel that would allow engines to start after fuel tank was destroyed
  
• Fixed a bug with paint mode/UV unwrapping and vessel optimization
  
• Fixed a bug that caused errors when picking up an item while another player was standing on it on a vessel
  
• Fixed a rare bug where you can control a vessel without a crew member if assigned at the exact moment on server
  
• Fixed a bug with sand smears when moving quickly through he world
  
• Changed the way that fuel syncs in multiplayer to mitigate fuel desync
  
• Changed the way the world y-axis updates while in the sky
  
• Various refactoring for Y-axis changes
  
• Improvements to airship AI
  
• Improvements to submarine AI
  
• Bot submarines will now surface if they think they are stuck
  
• Ocean shader patches
  
• Butt physics are now disabled while seated
  
• Minor improvements to anchor physics
  
• Distance fog will now adjust for lower view distances
  
• View distance slider will now snap to increments of 1000
  
• Purchasing items with no cost will no longer trigger a notification
  
• Nautikins touching other Nautikins, which are currently on fire, will now light on fire.
  
• Resetting / initially opening the map will now center perfectly on Portus
  
• Tweaks to vessel lights to support embedded crane lights
  
• Updated crane materials on Large Pirate Base
  
• Sand trails will now clear when switching Cameras/Nautikins
  

[h2]Notes[/h2]
The new bot submarine stuck surfacing works on the same principle as if the bot thought the boat is stuck on something, it will wait a few moments before making the choice to reverse engines and attempt to return to the surface.

Nautikin butt physics is now disabled while they are seated because depending on the velocity the butt tends to stretch through the chair. This behavior is meant to show the effects of wind and what not on the Nautikin, however it will still be enabled on the belly so you will be able to see the air blowing against the Nautikin. Another reason for this is so that chairs do not need to be redesigned. These physics are already disabled for airtight seats. Butt physics will still be enabled for certain seats that do not have backs, like the steering wheel or hand motor.

You can now use hotkeys for things like mirror mode and snap to grid in build mode. Previously the defaults for these keys (numpad) were used as a second set of mappings for transform hot keys (move, stretch, scale, etc.), the aux keybindings for the transforms have also been removed. These do not apply to controllers.

Anchors have been adjusted so that they fall into the water at a more realistic speed (faster). There will still be some goofy physics when retracting, especially while moving (don't do that). I have added a backlog task to improve this, but it will be a significant amount of work that I can better spend on other things at the moment.

The purpose of the view distance fog changes is to mask the clipping of the ocean with lower view distances, there is obviously still a lower view distance when set very low (2000-10000), but it looks much better.

All anti-aliasing is done via post processing, disabling post processing will be the same as setting anti-aliasing to "None".

On earlier versions of the crane, lights were included. However, during development lights were removed to make way for other changes being made and required more work but the fixtures remained on the model. More recently, vessel lights were introduced and there is a further intent to add back a day night cycle which (which was removed for similar reasons). It is very cool to have the lights back after being removed for so long! The lights were originally intended to aid for night time operations, but they look really cool underwater and in storms too. You can also change the colors with material groups similar to the light parts. The tasks completed in this build related to the crane mostly mark the finishing touches on the crane.

Some default materials on the boat crane may look slightly different than the dock cranes due to the addition of material groups. Crane cable materials cannot be changed. You cannot build things on the lift.

Switching cameras can change the height of the shader reference for sand trails, since this is buffered on the GPU, it cannot be corrected if there is some sort of dramatic height change without correcting a punch of pixels in a very slow manner. In any case these trails are meant to fade anyway so they will now disappear instantly when switching cameras to avoid cases where that switch was made to a different depth nearby causing giant sand smears. I may improve or replace this feature in the future because it has other problems like falling behind / pixelating when other things are happening on the GPU. A similar fix was made for world movement where the depth will be retroactively cleared if over a certain threshold. Ideally these changes should eliminate giant sand smears.

At some point I will update the workshop version of the pirate base crane to match the new color scheme.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added whale
  
• Added whale meat item
  
• Added whale spawning
  
• Added crew allocation feature to build mode
  
• Added player configurable bot Nautikins
  
• Added aircraft takeoff to AI
  
• Added various bot modes
  
• Added "Tell bot to go here" waypoint feature
  
• Added bot config button to map
  
• Added Airship AI
  
• Added pirate airship to seek and destroy missions
  
• Added "Cleanup structure" option for build area interactions
  
• Added lobby player count to in game menu UI
  
• Added more nonsense messages
  
• Added dynamic seagulls
  
• Added settings for turning off whales
  
• Added settings for turning off seagulls
  
• Added fish that spawn in the ocean instead of just the shore
  
• Added Fixed Bomb part
  
• Added material group to driving wheel
  
• Changed name of "DrivingWheel1" part to "DrivingWheel"
  
• Changed the way that point blank projectile impacts are processed to prevent instant explosions in some cases
  
• Fixed a bug where crew does not refund items when recalling vessels in campaign
  
• Fixed a bug where ship AI would not reverse when Nautikins are walking around onboard
  
• Fixed some bot aiming problems on inverted aircraft
  
• Fixed a bug where two players can be the same Nautikin from the staff building
  
• Fixed a bug where you could drag the map over a modal dialog in campaign
  
• Fixed a bug where right click interaction could be used when interactions are supposed to be unavailable
  
• Fixed a bug where saved dead pirates would not cleanup until the mission had ended
  
• Fixed a problem with cleaning up pirate ships with players seated
  
• Fixed a clipping issue with first person driving wheel part
  
• Fixed an underwater rendering bug related to abyss.
  
• Fixed some pixel artifacts with compass
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed mirroring child parts that did not allow mirroring by mirroring parent in build mode
  
• Fixed a bug with bot submarine throttled turning
  
• Fixed some issues with mixed above water / underwater targeting and sharks
  
• Fixed a bug where airfoils do not setup properly when no aircraft parts are used (i.e. submarines)
  
• Fixed a bug with button states with new vessels in build mode
  
• Fixed a UI bug with workshop vessel upload wizard where dropdown does not default when changing vessel type
  
• Fixed adjustment arrows for large bow thrusters
  
• Fixed a placement issue with standard cleat part
  
• Fixed a bug with placement trigger adjustments in build mode
  
• Fixed an animation issue with sea monsters
  
• Fixed a cleanup issue with vessel explosions
  
• Fixed a occasional audio issue when hiring new Nautikins
  
• Fixed a bug with Storm mist
  
• Fixed a bug where destroyed vessels would attempt to save
  
• Fixed a bug where network parts will not move with moving parts in some cases
  
• Fixed a bug with footstep sounds on stretched parts
  
• Fixed a bug where rescue workers can spawn really far away
  
• Fixed some flickering bugs with weather transitions
  
• Fixed a bug where it was very easy to put the first person camera underground while swimming
  
• Fixed some input lag with ballast and gas tanks adjustments on clients in multiplayer
  
• Fixed a bug with airship initialization
  
• Fixed a bug with firing torpedoes when recalling
  
• Fixed a bug with ladder deformation / colliders
  
• Fixed a bug with airships on clients
  
• Fixed bug that prevented join with in progress seek and destroy
  
• Fixed a freezing bug with vessel platforms in multiplayer
  
• Fixed a bug with inconsistent fuel tank order on clients
  
• Fixed a bug with fuel usage math for multiplayer fuel tanks
  
• Fixed a cleanup bug with bot input
  
• Fixed a rare timing bug with lighting
  
• Fixed a bug with part configs that could trick UI into thinking non-submarines where submarines
  
• Fixed a bug with undo stack and cloning
  
• Fixed a bug where vessel is still controllable after driver is removed if the wheel is destroyed but the driver does not die
  
• Fixed a bug where amount dialog can get stuck open with inventory when closing
  
• Changed the way that ballast and gas sync in multiplayer
  
• Changed various UI strings related to blueprints, parts, and items
  
• Changed the way fish sync in multiplayer
  
• Changed the way that fish are managed as you move through the world
  
• Changed buoyancy for shipping containers
  
• Blind fix for some sort of timing issue that could potentially cause client objectives to not show the first time you click on an activity
  
• Vessel load icon now matches the runway vs drydock vs build area
  
• Various refactoring for mixed AI / Player vessels
  
• Updated no crew dialog message
  
• Improvements to submarine AI
  
• Build center of mass will now update for empty vessels
  
• Build area root parts can now be selected/placed without adjustments
  
• Made it easier for bots to shoot giant turtles
  
• Updated label for shark meat item from "SharkMeat" to "Shark meat"
  
• Sharks will no longer spawn with odd rotations
  
• Server tab settings will now save
  
• Projectile collisions are now more accurate
  
• Improvements to players switching control of moving vessels
  
• Explosions will now be hidden in build mode
  
• Fire lights are now hidden in build mode
  
• On fire Nautikins will no longer appear in build mode
  
• Depth of field is now off by default
  
• LOD optimizations
  
• Oxygen tanks will now work without submarine parts
  
• Island camera will no longer generate fog that can block the view of interactions during weather
  

[h2]Notes[/h2]
Crew allocation will reset when loading a different vessel. If two players attempt to allocated the same crew members while in build mode, one of the attempts will fail and that player will have to pick another crew member. Reconfiguring the order or placement of seats will cause crew allocation to change. It will not maintain allocation per seat, but crew will be moved to available seats or removed from seats that are no longer available. Ideally you should configure your crew after you are done building.

Crew allocation will prevent launching quickly after recall while being allocated with the server. ~0-2 second(s). If the requested crew members are no longer available for some reason the server will attempt to assign new crew members. This applies to bots as well. Re-allocating your entire crew after a catastrophic plane crash is convenient, but it is also a fast way to fill the map with dead Nautikins, ensure that you are cleaning them up as needed, ideally don't crash frequently, but this tends to happen when building exotic aircraft.

Bot Nautikins will not walk around, they will just control vessels and subvessels similar to pirates. They will control most deck weapons, but they will not fire all of them, for example they will not use fire monitors or harpoons. Bots that target other players will change loyalties if the vessel they are on is "captured" (controlled) by another player.

AI aircraft (mainly planes) will have a very difficult time taking off in wind. They are also a little derpy in general.

Pirates do not attack sharks which is divergent from player bots, this is because pirates want the sharks to eat you and they don't go in the water.

Crew allocation will transfer between runway / drydock when using transfer button.

If your aircraft bot is acting weird, make sure you set the pitch setting to what you would normally use for that vessel. You may have to play around with the input factor a bit depending on what you make. If your bot is still acting weird, it is because they are crazy or they are unable to fly your vessel. There may be more bot improvements in the future.

In campaign, when you hire crew from build mode, it is free (shells) as long as you return your vessel with the crew later. If the crew leaves the vessel and you return the vessel you will have to pay the hire cost as if you had hired them from the staff building. In sandbox mode this does not matter.

"Driving wheel 1" was initially named with a 1 because it was unclear how many parts of that type I would add, that is more clear now so the name is being updated because there are different types of driver seats, not just enumerated wheels.

Bot submarines need to be extremely balanced. There are some problems when turning too sharply underwater still that I may address more in the future or limit turning in some other way, the pirate submarine on the workshop is a good starting point for bots if you must have submarines. The other submarines I have made are not designed for bot usage and will likely not maneuver properly. I did add some logic to limit the rate at which submarines will dump ballast in order to rise out of the water to prevent sudden forces from flipping the submarine when turning. This does not totally fix the problem but makes it less extreme. Usually this will occur if the bot is suddenly told to do a 180 and change depth at the same time. It may be better to prevent depth changes while turning as well, the tradeoff with that will be that the bot will not rise if it is stuck, but will move with more stability, in a case like that you would likely want to take over anyway. These changes may allow pirate submarines to stay underwater for longer periods of time without accidentally surfacing due to maneuvering blunders or rapid ascent.

The build area cleanup option allows you to recall your structure/base to save on performance (or other reasons) without having to destroy the build area itself. You cannot cleanup when the base is controlled or has players on subvessels. If you cleanup the structure then save and return later, you will need to load the structure again before you can re-deploy it.

Build areas will now default the root part to selected, however moving the root part with build areas will not allow you to mirror the root.

The seagulls are physical birds that fly around, but they are hard to see and you cannot kill them. Seagulls will avoid spawning at sea and do not like weather such as rain or fog for example. Seagulls will do their best to not spawn inside your vessels.

Because fish will now spawn over the network in the ocean, the server may choose to spawn fish directly in the pov of a client. Normally these positions are cached so this cannot happen, but the server does not have any knowledge of the camera positions of controlled players.

Various changes were made to support having near unlimited fish spawning in the ocean. In general they will spawn as you move quickly through the world occasionally. If you are anchored or moving slowly they will begin to propagate around your vessel. This may be more useful for fishing purposes later, but it is currently just for environmental visuals. In general there is a distinction between the fish on the shore and the ones in the ocean. Previously, fish existed only near islands and where not subject to world adjustments so they may have changed places when you switch vessels or locations, this is now "fixed" (sorta a bug) because the fish at sea need this behavior in order to not reset as you move through the world. They may still move when you "teleport" to control something else, but that is because they don't exist when you are not there. Lots of fish! Very good.

An interesting side effect of adding fish at sea is that you can no longer immediately tell if a silhouette of a creature is a shark. This adds to the peril of the Nautikins.

Fish near the islands will always be in the same locations, fish in the ocean will be random and disappear when you are not around, and are not saved.

Fish at sea should respond to the same fish settings currently available.

Fixed bombs can only be unlocked in campaign by looting pirate ship treasure.

Fun fact, the bombs tail fin will produce drag and arc towards the ground. This makes for a spectacular missile camera view. Releasing bombs at high velocities or torque will produce proportional drag on the bomb itself, very cool.

Missiles / lock on weapons will take priority over bombs, if you want to use both you probably need to toggle the missiles off. Later there will likely be key groups for these as well.

Dropping bombs from your aircraft can be extremely dangerous. The velocity of your aircraft will directly impact the bomb and if it collides with your aircraft after it is armed, you will likely explode. Generally you want to avoid releasing while your velocity if not level. You likely don't want these on boats, unless it can fly.

Crashing an aircraft loaded with bombs will not detonate the bombs because they are not armed. If for some reason you are attempting to kamikaze a pirate ship or something you must spam arm the bombs (release / fire them) right before impact.

This is sorta unrelated to the build, but it was something I was investigating as a bug (which it sorta is, but it is "by design"). If you use launch obstruction to place a helicopter on a boat in the drydock, things normally go well despite the risks of ignoring warnings in general, this is intended behavior because the launch obstruction will attempt to find a location to place your new vessel safely once it has loaded. Problems will still occur if the vessel you are trying to place on top of is still in motion, such as a large boat that is bouncing in the water. This will likely result in the newly spawned helicopter appearing partially inside the boat because it was in a different location when it calculated an optimal placement and then continued on to generate the vessel. During the delay of creating the vessel the other boat is still moving and it will not check again later. So in general if you wish to use obstruction detection to place vessels you should simply wait until your boat stops bouncing in the water and comes to a rest or is otherwise moving very slightly.

If you had any active seek and destroy missions you may need to abort them and start new ones otherwise multiplayer might not work due to breaking changes with bots. The game will attempt to default any existing configs, but to be sure just start new ones. Default bot configs will be hostile, this is because any bot configs that did not exist in prior versions of the game were pirates. It is also possible that their brains will not be wired up exactly the same so they may do weird stuff like crash immediately or aim incorrectly.

Previously oxygen tanks would only configure if ballast tanks / submarine parts where present, they function independently so they should configure now, but they will really only be useful with airtight seats and submarine parts still.

Parts that are flagged as "Submarine parts" will still trigger the map to display them as submarines even if they do not have ballast tanks.

Guides will be updated soon, I also plan to upload the pirate airship to the workshop.