Starground News

[h3]Starground v0.10.1 is here! While this was originally intended to be a smaller update, it slowly progressed into having a bit more substance.[/h3]



[h2]Resource Generation[/h2]
One major change is how resources are created in the game. Before, resources were created, and eventually destroyed after their lifespan ran out. However constantly creating new ones could cause lag spikes. With the new system, resources are created once, and never again. This does a couple of things:

• Eliminates all lag spikes for any map size
  
• Removes the need to despawn resources
  
• Makes it easier for bees to mine smarter
  
• Reducing the number of multiplayer spawner and synchronizer packets
  
• Making it so resources no longer need to be saved and loaded like other buildings
  

While this can add on a few seconds to load times, it makes actually playing buttery smooth.

[h2]Christmas Decorations[/h2]

Christmas decorations are here just in time for the holidays! Decorate your base with some jolly buildings, or do some sick tricks with the skateboard.

[h2]New Research and Recipes[/h2]

Research has seen some minor changes. The resource processing research has been created, and takes some recipes and items from the new Tyria research. It also includes a new recipe for the foundry to convert wood into coal.




[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added red backgrounds to item slots that either don't have a required item, or have an incorrect item
  
• Added info to items about where they are crafted
  
• Added the ability to hover over placeholder items and get their info
  
• Added the rubber ducky
  
• Added skateboards
  
• Added a parent class for bounceable objects
  
• Added a parent class for vehicles
  
• Added christmas trees
  
• Added cookies
  
• Added candy canes
  
• Added present decorations
  
• Added the Resource Processing research
  
• Added the wood refining research
  
• Added the snowman decoration
  
• Added the "Toys" research
  
• Added an option to change the top left health bar transparency
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Changed the day indicator to include the word "Day" to avoid confusion
  
• Changed "Steam" in the multiplayer popup to "Steam™" to prevent the key from being translated
  
• Made it so boats on Tyria don't have water in the sprite or emit trails
  
• Made it so players automatically dismount their vehicle when using the starlauncher
  
• Made it so bees are smarter when mining (they will always target a different resource instead of one that's actively being mined)
  
• Changed and improved the loading sequence, so that buildings are created after the world generation
  
• Made it so that the joining game screen will always appear for both clients and hosts
  
• Increased the default resource cap from 256 to 384 (adjusted for map size still of course)
  
• Made it so beach balls float away when underwater
  
• Made it so that resources in dungeon resource rooms now respawn
  
• Changed Pinhoo's name in the credits
  
• Decreased the cost of 10 steel in solar panels to 5
  
• Moved the recipe for slag processing, depleted uranium, and nuclear waste reprocessing into the resource processing research
  
• Moved the beach ball into the toys research
  
• Made it so research buttons turn green when the research is complete
  
• Updated the translation sheet
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where electric furnaces did not consume power
  
• Fixed an issue where diadematuses spawn in the first dungeon
  
• Fixed an issue where all of the debug info was the same number
  
• Fixed an issue where fuel amount was not synced on multiplayer for recipe buildings
  
• Fixed an issue where ovens did not have a description
  
• Fixed an issue where players were on the minimap when in other regions
  
• Fixed improper calculations with minimap drawing, correcting multiple issues
  
• Fixed an issue where the maximum pressure pump size was actually 499 instead of 500
  
• Fixed an issue where you could not exit boats on Tyria
  
• Fixed depth issues with Tyria ruins
  
• Fixed an issue where traveling to another location while in a vehicle could crash the game
  
• Fixed an issue where Spore didn't have poison resistance and killed himself because of it
  
• Fixed an issue where extremely large navigation regions caused lag on the second dungeon level when Mini-Diadematuses spawned, or moonshrooms from Spore
  
• Fixed an issue where purifier buildings didn't have a description key
  
• Fixed an issue where you couldn't select the bottom-most recipe on controller (thanks juliobass87!)
  
• Fixed an issue where planets were unable to be selected properly on controller (thanks juliobass87!)
  
• Fixed an issue where underground conveyors could not directly add items into a splitter (thanks ghimki5!)
  
• Fixed an issue where movers would instantly transport items, and would visually appear to duplicate them (thanks Ryūjin!)
  
• Fixed a crash that can occur when loading a very old save with the old toolbar format
  
• Fixed an issue where terrain was sometimes incorrectly set back to water in the center of the map (thanks PhoenixRising!)
  

[h2]Optimizations[/h2]

• Improved performance of autotiling on Tyria
  
• Reduced the game's file size by 40mb by converting the nature ambience to an .ogg
  
• Massively improved the performance of resource node spawning, eliminating lagspikes and improving various other parts of the game
  

[h2]Modding[/h2]

• Moved multiple functions and variables from Global into ModAPI for use in modding
  
• Created the Vehicle and Bounceable abstract classes
  

Changes made in this update could potentially cause some issues with older mods. If you are a mod developer and have mods that took advantage of the functions in Global, now would be a good time to update that.

This quick hotfix update for Starground addresses an issue where old saves would crash on load due to a minimap issue caused by world sizes that were not the default (128x128).

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where old saves would cause crashes on load
  
• Fixed an issue where Diadematus enemies would cause large lagspikes
  

[h2]Optimizations[/h2]

• Optimized the performance of players
  
• Optimized the performance of various objects
  
• Optimized the performance of Mini-Diadematuses
  

[h3]Starground's second major update has arrived! While the last one was focused on enhancing the dungeon experience, this update is all about automation. The main focus is the new planet Tyria, which is a completely underwater zone with brand new materials.[/h3]





Tyria is the first (of hopefully many) planet additions to the game. Players can venture onto its underwater surface after reaching the final research on Veridian. Here on Tyria, there's a whole bunch of new items, resources, buildings, technologies, music, and more.

Tyria is not a regular planet, in that there are no surface landmasses. Everything is underwater, subject to deep sea pressures. The only creatures able to evolve here are inorganic, and made out of strong minerals in order to withstand the immense pressure.

Water, electricity, and fire are a bad mix, so players will need to build underwater pressurized zones. These will give players an area that they can build inside of safely.

Below is an overview of everything new, and how they work:

[h2]Pressurized Interiors[/h2]



As mentioned, Tyria is completely underwater in a high-pressure environment. This update introduces 4 new buildings to aid players in building these zones.

Pressure walls, airlocks, and interfaces are all for the exterior of your rooms. Encircling an area with these will get things ready to go.

Once you have walls put up, you can build a pressure pump, which will stabilize the internal environment and get things ready to go.

[h2]New Buildings[/h2]



The Purifier and Tesla Coil V2 are new buildings in Starground.

The purifier does a variety of tasks, including processing uranium dust into pellets, refining slag, purifying mineral water, reprocessing nuclear waste, and more!

The Tesla Coil V2 is an upgraded version of the tesla coil, with a larger radius and being completely waterproof. This is absolutely necessary for the underwater environment on Tyria, but can also be a great addition to Veridian as well.

[h2]Space Elevators[/h2]



With multiple planets that the player can build on, being able to transfer items between them in an automated way is necessary. This is where the new space elevator comes into play.

These are large heavy-duty structures that can import and export resources from planets. They've been setup with lots of customizability, including options for when to export, what region, and elevator groups. Taking 40 SE units, these buildings are only fit for a solid power network after a self-sufficient factory has been established.

[h2]New Resources[/h2]



Tyria comes with two special new resources, which include:

[h3]Cobalt[/h3]
Cobalt is a new metal that you can harvest on Tyria. Unlike copper or iron, this metal is more complicated to process. It first must be grinded into a powder, then smelted in the foundry. This is used for high-strength buildings and other cobalt-related things.

[h3]Uranium[/h3]
Uranium is another new resource found exclusively on Tyria. Uranium is good for all sorts of things, with the main things being power (more on that below), and weaponry. Uranium can be used to assemble nuclear bombs, or can be converted into depleted uranium which will be a part of more powerful weapons.

[h2]Nuclear Power[/h2]



Burners have finally been eclipsed with the addition of nuclear power. This power source is an efficient and more advanced method of powering your industry. Nuclear power consists of two main buildings:

[h3]Nuclear Reactor[/h3]

This building takes in uranium and water to produce steam (for turbines), and nuclear waste. Nuclear waste can be reprocessed into more uranium pellets, or into depleted uranium for other things.

[h3]Nuclear Turbine[/h3]

Turbines take in steam and output 30 SE units. Their byproduct is water from condensation of steam, which can be recycled back into the reactor.


[h3]That's the main content for Tyria, with everything else being more behind the scenes, and refactoring to make new content easier to add.[/h3]



Let me know if you run into any issues with v0.10 on the Steam forums, or on Discord. I can't wait to push more updates and see what's next for Starground!

[h2]Follow Along[/h2]
Want to follow the development of Starground more closely? Please consider joining the official Discord, or tuning into regular devstreams held over on Twitch.





[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added Tyria
  
• Added nuclear turbines
  
• Added nuclear reactors
  
• Added uranium ore
  
• Added uranium dust
  
• Added uranium pellets
  
• Added cobalt ore
  
• Added cobalt dust
  
• Added cobalt ingots
  
• Added recipes to grind ores in the grinder
  
• Added the Purifier building
  
• Added steam
  
• Added mineral water
  
• Added recipes to the foundry
  
• Added limitations for which buildings can be underwater
  
• Added pressure pumps
  
• Added pressure walls
  
• Added airlocks
  
• Added pressure storage interfaces
  
• Added a tag in the building menu to show whether a building is waterproof or not
  
• Added depleted uranium
  
• Added mineral water
  
• Added gemstones
  
• Added rain ripples
  
• Added new music for Tyria (thanks Ace!)
  
• Added space elevators
  
• Added Tyrian structure ruins
  
• Added V2 tesla coils
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Increased the size of the building menu to have 4 columns
  
• Moved all region info into a data table, making creating new regions and maintaining older ones much easier
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where tesla coil overlays were offset
  
• Fixed an issue where "Consumed" and "Generated" were not translated
  
• Fixed an issue where the power disconnection icon did not appear after a building on low power was disconnected from a network
  
• Fixed an issue where the CanPlaceLand tag didn't work when CanPlaceWater was true
  

[h2]Optimizations[/h2]

• Improved performance of sessions with lots of players
  

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This update addresses issues related to multiplayer and players being unable to connect to hosts properly.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where clients had trouble connecting to hosts, which involved:
  
  • Fixing an issue with player multiplayer ID assignment
    
  • Updating Steam Multiplayer Peer
    
  • Fixing invalid synchronization requests
    

This small update addresses some issues related to UI, sounds, and some multiplayer problems.

[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added ambience to the space hub
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Branched off the Sound Effects audio bus into Sound Effects World (for sounds that should be effected by environmental audio effects)
  
• Moved the location of Veridian and Enceladus to make room for a new planet (soon)
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where farm plots would not show their UI
  
• Fixed multiple UIs not bluring the background
  
• Fixed multiple depth issues with various UIs
  
• Fixed multiple issues related to multiplayer synchronization
  
• Fixed multiple issues with certain sound effects being attached to the master bus (meaning they would play even with SFX muted)