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From The Depths News

Steam Awards 2020, Dont Forget To Vote!!

Hey Depthians!

It has been a long road developing From The Depths which has recently come out of Early Access, however that does not mean that we will slow down in releasing new features and other tweaks!

From The Depths would have not been able to reach this point without all your support throughout Early Access, and we would love to see your support once more.

Help us achieve the "Labor of Love" award by smashing that little circle above!

Thanks as always for your support from all of us at Brilliant Skies.

Merchandise Store and From The Depths trading cards

What is up Depthians!
Just a quick FYI, we now have From The Depths trading cards on Steam and we have also launched our merchandise page >HERE<, for you to add some goodies to your Christmas wishlist. We hope you like the selection of items, and if you have any suggestions in terms of merch don’t hesitate to let us know!



I can’t wait to get my hands on that epic desk mat and a cosie hoody for the cold Christmas that’s on the way xD Must not forget about nutmeg in a new mug too 😛

STABLE + BETA 3.1.1

Hey Depthians!

Some tweaks and changes to the block connection surfaces and a new block type connection strut, which comes in alloy, metal, wood and heavy armour. This will allow you to connect parts like the long side of an exhaust to the hull of your construct as well as many other blocks. We have also added a wing variant of the strut block, which also make use of - / + force like other wing parts and at the same time resolved some issues with surface drag.

Changelog.

[h2]Additions[/h2]
[h3]BLOCKS[/h3]
  • Added an optional (off by default) visual effect for the docking station

[h2]Changes[/h2]
[h3]AVATAR[/h3]
  • Rambot avatar texture update

[h3]BLOCKS[/h3]
  • Added a second connection surface for AI wireless receivers
  • Inline turbochargers now connect directly onto carbs
  • Simple laser has a connection surface UP now (as well as DOWN)
  • The large chain now has connection surfaces on the left and right side

[h3]CONNECTIONS[/h3]
  • ‘Protection’ of old blocks is no longer applied to blocks that connect on all six sides anyway- this reduces the file size of the blueprint

Stable + Beta 3.1

What is up Depthians!

What is this new disconnection check? I hear you scream

As some of you know, some blocks can only be attached by a specific side and some of the other sides you may not be able to build on/attach blocks to(red squares). We have enforced this rule with this update as we could bypass this rule by shift+click to replace a block which initially would not be able to be put in that specific location.

Let’s take this exhaust as an example



As you can see it is only connected on the T junction and the corner. It is not attached to any of the light-alloy blocks of the construct, therefore if I delete or if the T junction gets destroyed the rest of the exhaust system will fall off.

However! Do not worry about your current blueprints already saved block placement as they will not be affected and you will see a tooltip saying that the block you are looking at is protected. Only newly placed blocks will be affected as the rule and block connection logic is enforced.

It’s a common-sense thing should a floating block be able to connect to something like this exhaust?
Not unless it has a face that can be attached to something like the corner exhaust.



You can also disable the protection on your current saves by hitting V on the construct



You may see a few blocks falling off your construct if they were placed incorrectly by using shift+click to replace. For example, this receiver and munition detector will fall off.




Changelog


[h2]Additions[/h2]

[h3]Blocks[/h3]
  • Added a 3m sign post and increased the display capacity of the normal sign post


[h3]Build mode[/h3]
  • Area and block group erase now work with mirror
  • Attempting to replace a block when the new block cannot be placed now has no effect. It used to delete the old block without placing a new one.
  • Block group erase can now also delete a chunk of blocks of the same type if the selected block is not part of a multi-block system
  • Option to show build marker coordinates on HUD


[h3]Undo/Redo[/h3]
  • Undo/redo now works in multiplayer. Every player building on the same construct share one undo/redo list. Only the author of an action can undo/redo it.


[h2]Changes[/h2]

[h2]Blocks[/h2]
  • [FTD-586] Blocks from old blueprints are spared from the strict disconnection check
  • [FTD-586] Changed placeable faces of ACB, ship wheel, fire control computer, drone spawner, blueprint spawner, docking station, repair bot, respawn beacon, gauge block, AI wireless receiver, Lua box, stair, door, and a few other blocks.
  • [FTD-586] Replace, repair, and disconnection check now respect placeable faces of the blocks


[h3]Fortress[/h3]
  • In-play movement speed of a Fortress under AI / player control increased to 3m/s (from 1m/s)


[h3]Harpoons[/h3]
  • Improved the rendering of missile harpoons so you can now see a sensibly thick cable rather than a constant thickness black line


[h3]Missile[/h3]
  • Large 2x2 hatch texture replaced


[h3]Physics[/h3]
  • 'Autosynch transforms' flag has been turned off in the Unity physics engine which should improve performance particularly for vehicles that are very close together, without affecting the simulation much


[h2]Fixes[/h2]

[h3]AI[/h3]
  • Fortress manoeuvre routine will no longer try to move a fortress if it is within 3m of its waypoint, this is for performance reasons (moving large fortresses can be quite computationally expensive)


[h3]CJE[/h3]
  • Custom jets with both thrust and energy/power output do not use more materials than intended


[h3]Drones[/h3]
  • Docked motherships and drones will no longer activate their colliders immediately after spawning, they now correctly identify that they are connected by a tractor beam and don't need colliders.


[h3]LWC[/h3]
  • Fixed a threading problem possibly causing different priority LWCs/AMCCs controlling the same turret making it twitch and not fire


[h3]Missile[/h3]
  • Harpoon cable width scales width is reduced further from the camera


[h3]Performance[/h3]
  • Air pumps calculation didn't stop when vehicle is frozen. Now fixed.


[h3]Steam[/h3]
  • Fixed a problem causing steam propellers to be considered higher than intended relative to the water level
  • Fixed transmissions possibly changing direction instantly when getting a sequence of 0-opposite direction rotation requests

Stable 3.0.9

Hey Depthians!
Another round of fixes and tweaks!

Changelog


[h2]Additions[/h2]

[h3]Adventure[/h3]
  • Changed the warp gate visual effect


[h3]Autosave[/h3]
  • Added a lot of customisation for the blueprint autosave feature (in the misc tab of the options menu)


[h3]Build Mode[/h3]
  • Area and block group erase now work with mirror
  • Block group erase can now also delete a chunk of blocks of the same type if the selected block is not part of a multi-block system
  • Option to show build marker coordinates on HUD


[h3]Performance[/h3]
  • It is now possible to automatically regulate the number of particles
  • Multi-threaded the missile guidance, seeking and water level checking code
  • Multi-threaded the munition warning code
  • Removed many sources of excess 'garbage' creation (FTD should perform garbage collection less often (pause less often during play))


[h3]Steam[/h3]
  • L pistons got a second output port on the opposite side of the input, arrows not show port directions. L pistons renamed to Large serial pistons.
  • L turbines added: generators 5x5x1, bodies 5x5x2, maximum throughput 30K steam/s. Efficiency stats match M turbines with the same blade count
  • New L piston variant: parallel piston. Has an input-output pair on both sides, parallel pistons placed next to each other share their in- and outputs
  • S and M pistons now have arrows marking their in- and outputs



[h2]Changes[/h2]

[h3]APS[/h3]
  • APS shell splash size reduced
  • Muzzle flash size reduced to ~80%
  • The time it takes for barrels to reach full length after firing is capped at 0.5s


[h3]CIWS[/h3]
  • Fixed a low prio LWC and a high prio AMCC controlling the same weapon interfering with each other
  • Fixed LWC causing AMCC controlling the same weapon to ignore maximum range restriction


[h3]Laser[/h3]
  • Laser cutter armor up from 10 to 40
  • Laser cutters now damage CRAM shells


[h3]Missile[/h3]
  • Ballast tank now has the same free volume 1-turn does (so torpedos have a lower 'mandatory' part count)
  • Interceptor damage slightly up (~7.6% for S, ~11% for M)
  • Torpedo sonar and torpedo propeller health up to 50% of a reinforced body. A slight boost for torpedos since they can't use bodies well and are easy to fish for with CIWS


[h3]Steam[/h3]
  • Boilers can connect directly to pistons
  • Boilers can connect directly to turbines
  • Crank motor braking force doubled
  • L crankshaft, wheel, transmission and axis shift armour up from 20 to 40
  • L gearbox armour up from 20 to 40, health from 1200 to 2000
  • L piston and crank generator armour up from 20 to 30
  • Transmissions and propellers can connect directly to cranks and axis shift gears
  • Turbine body costs up from 10 to 20 mat/volume. Means long turbines are ~10% more expensive for 10 minutes (not counting battle damage)


[h2]Fixes[/h2]

[h3]APS[/h3]
  • Fixed an issue with cooling not being fully utilized at very high rates of fire


[h3]Pathfinding[/h3]
  • Sea/land surface pathfinding and collision avoidance bug fixes and optimisations


[h3]Steam[/h3]
  • The crank generator adds and displays the correct flat kinetic loss
  • Turbines do not keep the last minor fractions of the kinetic energy almost indefinitely


[h2]Removed[/h2]
[h3]UI[/h3]
  • Removed the 'more'/'less' complexity toggle from the inventory as the feedback has always suggested it's doing more harm than good