From The Depths News

What is up Depthians!
Exciting news – the long-awaited fire update has arrived in the stable branch! Now, alongside flamers, incendiary options for CRAM, APS, missiles, and even lasers are at your disposal.


As we dive into this blazing update, let's extend a warm welcome to four talented programmers joining our team! And before we ignite into showcasing the new features, we must express our deepest gratitude to our player base and the special community that supports us. We extend heartfelt thanks to Kap, also known as neekap, for crafting stunning new load screens, and to JustAWrench, Kev1n, Hawkins656, ApertureGaming and Lathland for presenting some epic clips that captures some fiery battles. We recognize the considerable effort involved in setting up these clips in-game, capturing angles, scenes, and the meticulous editing process.

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Rorsten will also be streaming at 2pm-5:30pm EDT to showcase and answer any questions about fire mechanics. Link to Rorstens Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/rorstenvt


On to this hot fiery update!
Fires inflict continuous damage and often pack more raw power than high-explosive rounds. They prove particularly effective against fast-moving targets above water, although their efficiency diminishes underwater. Additionally, fires weaken enemy armor, making them ripe for subsequent assaults.

You can now monitor fire activity on your or your enemy's vessel by pressing "V" while targeting and accessing the Fires tab, which displays active fires, remaining fuel, and oxidizer levels.


Utilize the debug fire tool by pressing "Z," selecting "debug fire," and then choosing a slot in your tool belt (Designer mode).


For convenience, customize the fire debug tool settings by selecting it in your tool belt and pressing the right mouse button to access further adjustments.


Flamers, being cost-effective and compact, lack effective countermeasures. However, their short range and gradual damage via fire ignition are notable drawbacks.



Furthermore, lasers now possess the ability to ignite blocks, and fire size adjustment is achievable with the Superheating Module. CRAMS now have Incendiary pellets, APS has been given Incendiary head and body modules, Missiles have also been given Incendiary modules. All except lasers can have incendiary and oxidizer adjusted.


Stay vigilant and adapt your strategies to harness the power of this fiery update!


[h3]Fires[/h3]

• Added fires. A fire is a group of cells that take damage over time. Cells below the waterline are extinguished
  
• Fire damage taken reduces the armor value of blocks, to a minimum of 1. X% total health taken as fire damage = (1-X)% armor left
  
• Fires spread when they destroy blocks, or if they have lots of fuel relative to their size
  
• Fires have 3 properties: fuel, intensity and oxidizer
  
• Fuel determines how much total damage a fire can do. The baseline is 1 fuel = 1 damage
  
• Intensity determines how much fuel/s a fire uses for every burning cell, and reduces the damage reduction of fire resistant materials. Fuel used/sec/burning cell is 1.5
• INTENSITY
  
• Oxidizer doubles the armor reduction effect of fires (50% fire damage taken reduces every block to 1 armor), and makes it possible for them to burn under water
  
• At 20 intensity 1 oxidizer is used for every 4 fuel over water, 1 oxidizer for every 2 fuel below water. Every 10 intensity increase also increases oxidizer use by 1/3 of the base
  
• Blocks have 2 new properties: fire resistance and flammability
  
• A fire with intensity below the block's fire resistance does reduced damage to that block. Damage multiplier: (INTENSITY - RESISTANCE
• 0.15) / (RESISTANCE
• 0.85), 0-1 range.
  
• Blocks with flammability above 0 add fuel to the fire for every unit of fuel used. Intensity of the fuel added is the block's fire resistance
  
• Wood has 10 resist and 80% flammability, 1 cell taking damage from a 100 fuel, 50 intensity fire: 25+60=85 fuel left, new total intensity is ~21.76
  
• Blocks generally have 10-60 fire resist, and 0-80% flammability
  
• High speed fans the flames, increasing fire damage done/fuel
  
• Big fires choke themselves out, reducing damage done/fuel. Reduction starts at 5000 total burning cells on a vehicle, minimum efficiency is 30% of the original.
  
• Added incendiary bodies to APS and missiles and incendiary pellets to CRAM. Their intensity range is 20-40, and they can also pack oxidizer
  
• APS and missile impacts ignite a fire around the explosion point
  
• Fires have an IR signature, a function of total fuel and intensity. IR guidance and AI hot point targeting can target individual fires
  
• A burning block colliding with another construct spreads the fire to it
  
• Added a tab to the V menu showing all the active fires on that vehicle/structure
  
• Added a designer-only character item for igniting fires
  
• Destroying fuel tanks ignites fires, fuel of the fire depends on the fuel level of the vehicle. Intensity is 20
  
• Destroying steam boilers and controllers creates fires, and weaker explosions. Intensity is 20, fuel is a function of the steam in the boiler chain
  
• 
  

[h3]Flamers[/h3]

• New weapon system: flamers
  
• Flamers use fuel, and ignite fires at short range. Cheap and compact for the firepower
  
• Flame speed is ~300 m/s, maximum range is ~400m
  
• 2 main block variants, both 1x1x4m beams: connection point in the back with +-35° azi and elevation range, connection point at the bottom with 360° azi and -10° to 89° elevation range
  
• Pipes connect the main blocks to tanks
  
• 3 tank types: fuel, oxidizer and catalyst. They increase fuel/oxidizer throughput and intensity
  
• Intensity without catalyst tanks is 20. 2:1 fuel:catalyst tank ratio is 30 intensity, 1:2 is 50, ...
  
• 2 tank sizes: 1x1x1 and 1x3x3. Smaller tanks are more compact and more expensive for the firepower
  
• Tanks can be chained, they can only connect to tanks of the same size and type
  
• Destroying flamer tanks ignites fires
  
• Tank lines have to be pressurized by adding compressors to their end
  
• Compressors use power, and have a variable power use
  
• Flamer pressure is the weighted average of the pressure of individual tank lines. Lower pressure means slightly lower range
  
• 
  

[h3]Lasers[/h3]

• Lasers have intensity instead of AP, and they are mitigated by fire resistance instead of armor. Damage multiplier is RESIST / INTENSITY, capped at 1
  
• Lasers ignite fires when they destroy blocks. Fuel of the fire is determined by flammability of the blocks destroyed, intensity by fire resistance
  
• Laser base damage is reduced to 50%, and smoke/shield reduction is much weaker
  
• Laser damage counts as fire damage, also reduces armor of the blocks damaged
  
• Laser fires don't add any oxidizer
  
• New laser component: superheating modulator. Can be placed on combiners, reduces base damage to a minimum of 75% and increases fuel of fires ignited to a maximum of 250%
  
• Short range combiner ranges from 100-500 to 150-600
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Wood base health up from 180 to 200
  
• Impact damage gets the same boost as explosions under water
  
• Local weapon controllers now have an alternate mode, they can control weapons up to 4 cells away in 2 directions
  
• Steam pipe durability increased
  
• Propeller hub overlay is only displayed in build mode
  
• Increased particle cannon damage output by ~4.2%
  
• Added target prioritisation options for plasma and flamer firepower
  
• APS projectiles have 20% more health
  
• APS flak damage reduced by ~11%
  
• APS flak warhead renamed to munition defense warhead, flak damage to anti-munition damage
  
• Missile interceptors do 20% reduced damage to projectiles under water
  
• Maximum turbocharger power/fuel bonus up by ~11%
  
• Limited maximum ring shield destruction energy to EFFECTIVE_AREA
• 3000 (intensity is unchanged, 6)
  

What is up Depthians!

A couple of changes and fixes for the current Alpha branch.




[h2]Changes[/h2]
[h3]AI[/h3]

• Added target prioritisation options for plasma and flamer firepower
  

[h3]Fire[/h3]

• Oxidizer-efficiency at 40 intensity compared to 20 down from 66% to 50%
  
• Projectiles with 20->40 fire intensity get 20->0% extra fuel and oxidizer. Fire damage modifier back to (INTENSITY - RESISTANCE
• 0.15) / (RESISTANCE
• 0.85)
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
[h3]APS[/h3]

• Added incendiary parameters in the shell customizer for incendiary head
  
• 
  

[h3]CRAM[/h3]

• Fixed incendiary pellets not contributing to shell health and kinetic damage
  

[h3]Fire[/h3]

• Fixed (mainly small) fires possible not spreading to the parent construct if they kill the subconstruct's root block
  
• Fixed a problem causing fires to spread back from subconstructs to possibly far away parts(around 0,0,0) of the parent
  

[h3]Flamer[/h3]

• Fixed flamer main blocks causing problems when the vehicle is destroyed
  
• Tank connection markers correctly show which direction they can send and receive connections from
  

What is up Depthians!

We are pleased to introduce Incendiary pellets for CRAMs, as well as a number of changes and fixes.

• Added incendiary pellets to CRAMs. Intensity and oxidizer content can be changed in the cannon's Q menu
  
• Removed minimum caliber needed for incendiary bodies. Turns out igniting fires is fast even at RPMs in the 1000s
  
• Added incendiary head to APS shells
  
• AI hot point targeting can target fires (could already do it in previous versions, was missing from the changelog)
  
• Small flamer tanks only get 75% fuel/catalyst/oxidizer for every material spent compared to large
  
• Cargo container health from 8100 to 15000, armor from 7 to 5, flammability from 60 to 200%, fire resistance from 10 to 20
  
• Improved performance for igniting fires
  
• Made projectiles with a strong incendiary component much more consistent in finding blocks that are close enough to ignite
  
• Various tooltip/UI fixes
  

What is up Depthians!

We hope you are all enjoying the new fire mechanics and incendiary rounds/modules.


If you do not know how to access the Alpha branch:

Right click From the Depths in your library list of games.
Properties > Betas tab, look at the Betas participation menu and select alpha_test - alpha_test

[h2]Fire changes[/h2]

• Fire burn rate increased from 1 fuel/intensity to 1.5. Fires do damage faster
  
• Fires spread when they have 10000 FUEL:CELL_COUNT ratio, instead of 7500. Fires are more localized
  
• Fires need ~11% more fuel*intensity to be considered 1 firepower. This means APS and missile damage is increased
  
• Block fire damage modifier is (INTENSITY - RESISTANCE
• 0.1) / (RESISTANCE
• 0.9). Was 0.15 and 0.85, low intensity fires are relatively stronger
  
• Heavy armor fire resistance up from 50 to 60
  
• Fixed non-heavy APS barrels having 10% flammability, down to 0%
  
• Non-armored laser optic fire resistance down from 60 to 40
  
• Fire efficiency reduction starts at 5000 total cells being on fire, and reaches 30% slower
  

[h2]Flamer changes[/h2]

• Added idle azimuth/elevation options for flamers
  
• Increased flamer fuel and oxidizer output by 25%
  
• Increased max rotation speed of flamer main parts from 60°/s to 75°/s
  
• Removed steam connection for flamer tanks. Boilers are too compact for steam connections to be interesting without making flamer steam use too high, compressors are buffed instead
  
• Flamer compressor power use depends on the amount of tanks they are connected to and the target range set for the flamer
  
• S compressors only have 75% the power-efficiency of L ones
  
• Compressor cost reduced to 50%
  
• Flamer power use is generally low, extremely low when set to lower ranges(

[h2]Other changes[/h2]

• Reduced minimum diameter needed for incendiary bodies from 195mm to 100mm
  
• APS projectiles have 20% more health
  
• Increased particle cannon damage output by ~4.2%
  
• 
  

[h2]Flamer fixes[/h2]

• Fixed not being able to remove flamer main blocks when connection highlights are on
  
• Fixed flamers possibly getting blocked by ground if the bottom of the jet touches it, instead of the top
  
• Fixed a problem possibly making flamer hits very close to the ground not registering
  
• Flamers now won't fire and display a warning when they have no fuel tanks
  
• Fixed flamer particle effects flickering when fired from high speed vehicles
  
• Fixed flamers not adding oxidizer when hitting targets beyond very short range
  

[h2]Other fixes[/h2]

• Fixed APS incendiary body tooltip not mentioning minimum diameter needed
  
• Fixed EMP resistance on scented candles
  

What is up Depthians!
This update brings fires and incendiary weapons to From the Depths!

If you do not know how to access the Alpha branch:
Right click From the Depths in your library list of games.
Properties > Betas tab, look at the Betas participation menu and select alpha_test - alpha_test

[h3]Fires[/h3]

Fires do damage over time and generally have more raw damage than HE. They are very strong against high speed vehicles outside water.
Can still work, but are less efficient against strong materials and under water.
Beyond doing damage fires also soften enemies up for other weapons: they reduce the armor of the blocks they damage.
2 small, but important balance changes worth noting:
- to compensate for being very flammable wood got a small health boost
- incendiary weapons are relatively weak against subs, so the underwater HE damage boost now also applies to all thump damage. More options for submarine hunting!

• Added fires. A fire is a group of cells that take damage over time. Cells below the waterline are extinguished
  
• Fire damage taken reduces the armor value of blocks, to a minimum of 1. X% total health taken as fire damage = (1-X)% armor left
  
• Fires spread when they destroy blocks, or if they have lots of fuel relative to their size
  
• Fires have 3 properties: fuel, intensity and oxidizer
  
• Fuel determines how much total damage a fire can do. The baseline is 1 fuel = 1 damage
  
• Intensity determines how much fuel/s a fire uses for every burning cell, and reduces the damage reduction of fire resistant materials
  
• Oxidizer doubles the armor reduction effect of fires (50% fire damage taken reduces every block to 1 armor), and makes it possible for them to burn under water
  
• At 20 intensity 1 oxidizer is used for every 4 fuel over water, 1 oxidizer for every 2 fuel below water. Every 10 intensity increase also increases oxidizer use by 1/3 of the base
  
• Blocks have 2 new properties: fire resistance and flammability
  
• A fire with intensity below the block's fire resistance does reduced damage to that block. Damage multiplier: (INTENSITY - RESISTANCE
• 0.15) / (RESISTANCE
• 0.85), 0-1 range.
  
• Blocks with flammability above 0 add fuel to the fire for every unit of fuel used. Intensity of the fuel added is the block's fire resistance
  
• Wood has 10 resist and 80% flammability, 1 cell taking damage from a 100 fuel, 50 intensity fire: 50+40=90 fuel left, new total intensity is ~32.22
  
• Blocks generally have 10-60 fire resist, and 0-80% flammability
  
• High speed fans the flames, increasing fire damage done/fuel
  
• Big fires choke themselves out, reducing damage done/fuel. Reduction starts at 3000 total burning cells on a vehicle, minimum efficiency is 30% of the original.
  
• Added incendiary bodies to APS and missiles. Their intensity range is 20-40, and they can also pack oxidizer
  
• APS and missile impacts ignite a fire around the explosion point
  
• Destroying fuel tanks ignites fires, fuel of the fire depends on the fuel level of the vehicle. Intensity is 20
  
• Fires have an IR signature, a function of total fuel and intensity. IR guidance can lock onto individual fires
  
• A burning block colliding with another construct spreads the fire to it
  
• Added a tab to the V menu showing all the active fires on that vehicle/structure
  
• Added a designer-only character item for igniting fires
  
• Wood base health up from 180 to 200
  
• Impact damage gets the same boost as explosions under water
  

[h3]Flamers[/h3]

Flamers are very cheap, compact weapons and there is no active defense that works against them.
Their main downsides are the short range and damage being done over time through the fires they ignite.

• New weapon system: flamers
  
• Flamers use fuel, and ignite fires at short range. Cheap and compact for the firepower
  
• Flame speed is ~300 m/s, maximum range is ~400m
  
• 2 main block variants, both 1x1x4m beams: connection point in the back with +-35° azi and elevation range, connection point at the bottom with 360° azi and -10° to 89° elevation range
  
• Pipes connect the main blocks to tanks
  
• 3 tank types: fuel, oxidizer and catalyst. They increase fuel/oxidizer throughput and intensity
  
• Intensity without catalyst tanks is 20. 2:1 fuel:catalyst tank ratio is 30 intensity, 1:2 is 50, ...
  
• 2 tank sizes: 1x1x1 and 1x3x3. Smaller tanks are more compact and more expensive for the firepower
  
• Tanks can be chained, they can only connect to tanks of the same size and type
  
• Destroying flamer tanks ignites fires
  
• Tank lines can be pressurized by adding compressors or steam pipe connections to their end
  
• Compressors use power, and have a fixed throughput. Compressors can maintain lower pressure in long tank lines
  
• Flamer pressure is the weighted average of the pressure of individual tank lines. Lower pressure means slightly lower range
  

[h3]Lasers[/h3]
Fires were a good opportunity to spice lasers up: they now ignite fires on destroying flammable blocks!
They also reduce armor on doing damage and instead of armor the fire resistance stats protects against them.
Raw laser damage was cut in half to compensate, and smoke reduction is much weaker now.
Overall lasers are weaker against most unprotected targets and do better against smoke.
LAMS damage output is unaffected, damage against projectiles is the same as in older versions.

• Lasers have intensity instead of AP, and they are mitigated by fire resistance instead of armor. Damage multiplier is RESIST / INTENSITY, capped at 1
  
• Lasers ignite fires when they destroy blocks. Fuel of the fire is determined by flammability of the blocks destroyed, intensity by fire resistance
  
• Laser base damage is reduced to 50%, and smoke/shield reduction is much weaker
  
• Laser damage counts as fire damage, also reduces armor of the blocks damaged
  
• Laser fires don't add any oxidizer
  
• Short range combiner ranges from 100-500 to 150-600
  

[h3]Other changes[/h3]

• Local weapon controllers now have an alternate mode, they can control weapons up to 4 cells away in 2 directions
  
• Steam pipe durability increased
  
• Propeller hub overlay is only displayed in build mode