Splish, Splash, Filling a Bath | Update 26.3

Drastically increased collision fragments and framerates, overhauled planetary water distribution, plus dozens of improvements come together in Update 26.3.

[h3]Oceans Filling Like a Bathtub[/h3]
Water fills a tub from its lowest point - why not on a planet? Oceans now start at the lowest elevations and fill valleys like you would a bathtub, creating more realistic-looking continents and oceans. (Previously liquid water would “precipitate” evenly across the surface.)

[h3]Buttery Smooth Collisions & Particles Aplenty[/h3]
Major performance improvements have resulted in epic collisions with double the particles. Fragment generation is substantially more consistent across various simulation speeds. Collisions now perform much more smoothly: in many cases we’re seeing as much as triple framerate increases.

[h3]More Highlights[/h3]

Fixed the “annoying bug” that darkened customized planet surfaces
Ice & Snow, which are simulated separately, now have color options
Avast, Matey! Change an object’s Sea Level in the properties panel
Cleaned up the object property panel and added new action buttons

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

[h2]Simulation[/h2]
[h3]New [/h3]

“Stabilize Temperature” and “Stabilize Phase” are two new surface simulation functions in an object’s Property panel. Instantly set the temperature of the surface or the phase of the water (gas, liquid, or solid ice) to their steady state. This is useful to see how a planet will settle over time, rather than needing to speed up time.
Added an editable “Sea Level” property to an object’s Surface tab. Use this to raise or lower the water level on an object’s surface by “filling up” the oceans from the bottom up. This is a much more intuitive and engaging way to add water to an object’s surface than was previously possible. Previously, water was added as a uniform sheet across the entire surface.
Added a toggleable “Fusion Power” to the Simulation Settings

[h3]Improvements [/h3]

Major performance and optimization improvements to surface simulation, collision heating, n-body calculations, and fragmentation. Collisions in particular perform much more smoothly than before.
Improved the consistency of fragment generation during collisions at a variety of simulation speeds.
Light energy is now correctly conserved when scattering off the surface of objects, resulting in more realistic, less shiny surfaces.
Improved the simulation of light absorption in water, yielding darker deep water and greener shallow water
Revised default water color to be a more saturated blue, reflecting how satellite photos of Earth are often represented
Improved the water generation on random rocky planets, resulting in more planets with defined continents and oceans
Added relativistic kinetic energy to collision calculations. Only relevant at speeds near the speed of light
Revised the initial size of Earth’s ice caps

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

Fixed an issue where many fragments created during a collision would immediately re-collide with the colliding object. This now results in much higher particle count in the aftermath of collisions.
Fixed an issue that was causing a error in momentum transfer during collisions
Fixed in issue where newly created objects could adopt surface elevation information from other objects
Laser previously affected an area slightly larger than the intended size. Now the laser affects the correct area size, as designated by the visual laser tool reticle.
Venus will no longer produce volatiles after opening "Planets Between Earth & Moon" sim
Fixed an issue where objects could be heated prior to being added to the simulation
Fixed an issue where objects could still lose mass to fragmentation with “Create Fragments” turned off
Fixed an issue where the heated area on an object’s surface after a collision would jump to a different size
Fixed an issue that was causing exoplanets to generate with too much water
Fragments that were spawning slightly oversized are now corrected

[h2]User Experience[/h2]
[h3]New[/h3]

New styling of many action buttons in an object’s Property panel

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

Major improvements to saving. This should reduce the occurrence of corrupted save data, and overall improve the stability of saving and loading simulations.
Zooming on surface data maps now zooms at the cursor’s position
Snow is now correctly visually represented on top of ice
The distance at which Surface Lock enables when moving close to an object has been revised
Improved object selection logic, preventing the selection of mostly-invisible gas clouds when they are too close to the camera
Improved the colorization of objects when using non-realistic Color modes
Improved the visibility of the Laser tool reticle, and added a missing reticle on gas giants
Improved color rendering of heated gas giants
Revised styling of expanders in the Property panel
Revised styling of the scrollbar on surface data views
Reorganization of the Property panel Overview and Surface tab
Reorganization of tabs in the Open panel, notably moving My Sims to the front
Habitable zone visibility can now be toggled by the hotkey H, which is editable in the keybinds.
Removed the English-only abbreviations from non-English languages that could sometimes cause awkward translations. Cleaned up the abbreviations used in English.

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

Fixed the behavior of “Auto” selection in dropdown menus with auto-selecting options. “Auto” can now be correctly toggled on and off.
Fixed an issue where atmospheres and clouds would be incorrectly tinted darker when customizing the underlying surface colors
Fixed the sorting behavior for simulations in the Open panel
Toggle buttons added to the hotbar will no longer incorrectly switch state when loading a new simulation
Particles now move smoothly when exiting Chart mode
Fixed an issue where an unplaced object hologram could be selectable
Atlas Resolution now correctly resets to default when all settings are reset
Fixed an issue where an empty sim would report having 1 object in the Stats panel
Fixed an issue where Slowest Body wouldn’t be reported correctly in Simulation Settings
Fixed an issue where it would be possible for the mouse wheel to zoom in Universe Sandbox while using the mouse in a different application
Fixed an issue preventing Surface Lock from working during a guide
Fixed an issue where the strongest attractor in a simulation could be given an orbit parent (26.3.1)

[h2]Content[/h2]
[h3]New[/h3]

The color of ice and snow can now be customized in an object’s Appearance tab

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

Revision to Collision simulations to ensure the impact collision consistency across various simulation speeds