Besiege News

[h2]Besiege: The Splintered Sea is out now![/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165710/Besiege_The_Splintered_Sea/

We’re celebrating The Splintered Sea’s launch with a biggest ever sale on Besiege, 75% off!

[previewyoutube][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]The Sound Update[/h2]

Besiege’s free Sound Update is now live! This update brings a new sound system to Besiege, adds a bunch of new sound effects and brings a host of improvements & bug fixes. You can learn more about the Sound changes here and there’s a full changelog at the bottom of this post.

[h2]Besiege Supporter Edition[/h2]
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/41069/Besiege_Supporter_Edition/

The Besiege supporter edition is now available to purchase, as a way to offer additional support to Spiderling & our development of Besiege! The bundle includes a mastered album of Besiege’s soundtrack and a unique animated skin for the Source Cube, giving it the appearance of a motorized engine.

[h2]Share your creations[/h2]

We’re really excited to see all the wacky & wonderful creations you build for The Splintered Sea! Post them on Twitter with the hashtag #BuiltWithBesiege to share with us and the rest of the community. :)

[h2]Live Stream[/h2]

Our new community manager, Sam, will be doing a livestream on Twitch this evening at 18:00 BST (17:00 UTC) where you can watch him play through the new campaign levels and ask questions about the game & expansion!
Sam is relatively new to Besiege, so please be kind :)

[h2]More Information about The Splintered Sea[/h2]

If you’d like to learn more about The Splintered Sea, you can check out a series of posts we made, where we take a deeper dive into its features and some advice on building machines for water:
[h2]Feature Overview #1[/h2]

[h2]Feature Overview #2[/h2]

[h2]Feature Overview #3[/h2]
[h2]Feature Overview #4[/h2]


V1.5 - (21214) Changelog

- Fixed some performance issues with the glass build surfaces
- Ballasts now have a maximum mass of 3 instead of 2
- Fixed grabbers not being able to grab things if what they held was destroyed
- Fixed center of mass display tool being somewhat offset to what actually happens in simulation
- Replaced audio management system
- Added soft limiting audio mastering so many loud sfx don't get overly loud
- In world audio sources now respond to pitch stretching at different time scales
- New audio sliders in options menu for physics, blocks, ui, sfx
- New breaking and collision sfx on various blocks
- Collision sounds are now proportional to impact
- New cannon fire sfx
- New wheel motor sfx
- New steering hinge and block sfx
- New flamethrower sfx
- New piston sfx
- New propeller sounds
- Center of mass display orb now is red rather than blue
- Flying block actually spins as fast as the speed is set to
- Fireball model updated
- Fireball now creates a burst of firespread on collision
- Updated fire spread system a little to get a more natural spreading and to fix a couple of issues
- Better use of space and centering on thumbnails
- Fixed damage and fire consistently affecting eachother and joint health
- Changed FPS display to be a rolling average, and added optional new performance graph
- Center of mass now updates when changing block parameters like mass, and when using undo and redo of blockmapper values
- Newly placed shortening blocks now receive mass appropriate to their length
- Added ability to mirror half pipes and wood panels
- Made spikes and blades less likely to break off so they aren't weaker than a machine of wood
- Small update to the appearance of the wooden panel block
- New wooden panels will now join correctly centered
- Colliders on the halfpipe block are now properly symmetrical
- Fixed and updated how dragged blocks calculate their cylinders to avoid them looking to flip on sim start and other times
- Fixed an issue where loading certain NaN values on machines would crash the game
- Polished boulder texture a little bit
- Bomb explosion now spawn in the center of the bomb as it should
- Fixed some issues with burning visuals some parts becoming more or less darkened than they should have
- Moved torch from weapons to armor
- Optimised AI unit structure for better performance
- Grounding machine tool now tries to snap to terrain and objects underneath the machine
- Changed fog in sandbox and multiverse to make it not get denser around the immediate vicinity when looking towards the horizon to the sky
- Fixed using a camera block following a machine down beneath certain heights would make the camera not follow the machine properly,
- Fixed surface fragments looking weirdly crumbled and glitched (thought this was live but it was not)
- Fixed a bug with logic enabled camera blocks not showing the correct camera sometimes.
- AI's in multiplayer will no longer try and jump onto too tall things and kill themselfs in the attempt
- Fixed problem with grabbers and Vacuum block's not being able to grab onto new things after their currently grabbed object exploded
- Fixed a case where modify tool selection would not save an undo state correctly while not in advanced building mode
- Fixed issue with not being able to pin sharp blocks

I cannot compare my experience of writing a review for The Splintered Sea, the first paid expansion for dastardly clever physics puzzle builder Besiege, to that of a journaling sailor facing lethal storms on the horizon. Still, if we take for granted the idea that a review is only really valuable as an insight into the experience of the player: I haven’t been feeling especially great this week. That in mind: Splintered Sea is more Besiege, thoughtfully applied to its already expansive toolkit. More importantly, it's currently bringing me deep and deeply needed moments of untainted, childlike, vaguely-Orkish joy.

Read more

Hello Everyone!

There’s just one week to go until The Splintered Sea is released!
Today we’re going to talk about the “Sound Update” and the Besiege: Supporter Edition, which will both be coming alongside the expansion on May 24th.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165710/Besiege_The_Splintered_Sea/

Over 40,000 of you have wishlisted The Splintered Sea expansion now, which is absolutely amazing!!! This will massively help boost our exposure on Steam at launch!
If you haven’t already, please consider wishlisting the expansion, it makes a HUGE difference to us and every person counts!



If you’ve been hanging out in our community Discord lately, you may have heard whispers of a free update to Besiege that’s coming alongside the expansion’s release.
The main feature of this update is a new sound system we’ve implemented for Besiege, one which has enabled us to add more sounds to Besiege’s blocks & physics interactions!

At the core of this new system is audio mixing. Each type of sound (blocks, physics, etc) now has it’s own independent track, giving us & you greater control over output and consistency.



In the old system, multiple sounds playing at the same time would stack, ever increasing in volume to deafening levels that could drown out all other sounds. The new system has soft limiters in place to ensure any one track doesn’t drown out another, as well as a kind of hierarchy that ensures important sounds are prioritized over less important ones. For example, a sheep cannot drown out the sound of your flamethrower. It also means that Besiege’s music will always be audible, regardless of how many sound effects are playing.

The new system has made us far more comfortable with the idea of adding additional sound effects to the game, whereas before we were concerned with large numbers of sounds becoming deafening.

[previewyoutube]VIDEO SHOWING OFF NEW SOUNDS (Dinosaur?)[/previewyoutube]
With this update, we’ve added more than a dozen new sound effects to existing blocks and physics interactions. Among the highlights are: Wheels, Steering blocks, Steering Hinges, Spinning block, Flamethrower, Propellers, Springs, Pistons, Metal Jaw, Automation Blocks, Powered Cog, Water cannon and more.

Collision sounds are now proportional in magnitude to the velocity of an impact and all metal blocks now have a collision sound effect. Wooden blocks now have a breaking sound effect, including surface blocks. Glass surface blocks also have their own breaking sound effect and each piece that breaks off the surface block becomes its own entity, capable of triggering sounds, which creates a very satisfying shattering effect.

[previewyoutube]VIDEO OF CAR CRASH[/previewyoutube]
The new system has also enabled us to have tracks that overlay & modify other tracks like blocks, physics, etc. A practical use of this is demonstrated in The Splintered Sea’s water environments, where positioning the camera underwater changes the game’s audio to make it sound as though you’re actually underwater.
This system will also ensure that any sound effects replaced through mods will have the same effects applied to them as Besiege’s original sounds, making them consistent with the base game. Modders will also be able to use audio mixing to add new blocks and ensure they have the same style applied to them.

We’ve also given a bit of love to the old sandboxes with this update, adding new ambient sound which makes them feel less sterile, and for the expansion launch we felt compelled to replace the existing cannon sound with something more… substantial. ;)

The update will also bring a large number of improvements & bug fixes (some of which have been suggested through our community Discord) and we’ll do our best to publish a complete changelog with the launch post!



As we’ve discussed with the community, player support is what enables us to keep developing Besiege, adding new content, features, improvements & bug fixes for all to enjoy. We hope to continue working on Besiege for many years to come, but in order to do that we need your support.

With that in mind, we’ve created the Besiege Supporter Edition which will launch on May 24th alongside The Splintered Sea expansion. This bundle is for those of you who would like to contribute extra support toward Spideling and our development of Besiege.



As a thank you, purchasers of the Supporter Edition will receive a mastered album of Besiege’s soundtracks and a special animated skin for the Source Cube, giving it the appearance of a motorized engine. The Supporter Edition will be a “complete the set” bundle, meaning if you already own Besiege (or The Splintered Sea) the bundle will be discounted to reflect that.


Given that DLC is such a controversial subject these days, we’d like to put forward a disclaimer.
We have no intention of flooding Besiege with micro-sized or overpriced DLC. The Supporter Edition is not a product, but rather a way for fans of Besiege to contribute extra support for the game they love. Its content is a small token of thanks from us, for that support, and it will not be available to purchase separately.

If the Supporter Edition sounds like something you'd be interested in, we'd be grateful if you could wishlist the packs at the bottom of this post. It really helps boost Besiege's exposure on the Steam store. Thank you.

That’s all for this week folks! Less than 7 days to go for The Splintered Sea!!!!!!
We’re crazy hyped and we hope you are too!

Cheers everyone,
Von

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2959970/Besiege_Supporter_Pack
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2959930/Besiege_Original_Soundtrack/

Hello Everyone!

Today we’re going to talk about The Splintered Sea’s upcoming ocean themed campaign and sandbox.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165710/Besiege_The_Splintered_Sea/

The new campaign takes place in The Seas of Autilis, a territory occupied by seafaring people known as the Offlanders. Highly adept in the art of ship building, the Offlanders sail the sea around their islands in a variety of ships, some built for transport & trade, while others are built for war.


The Offlanders don’t just rely on floating defenses either, they also have a habit of mining their coastal waters and have built formidable defensive structures on their rocky island homes.


When it came to creating ocean environments, both for the campaign and sandbox, we wanted to make the areas beneath the surface just as interesting and interactive as those above it.
Beneath the waves you’ll find scenes featuring beautiful aquatic flora, marine life and the last remains of ancient beasts.


In addition to the campaign, The Splintered Sea also brings an ocean Sandbox level featuring several points of interest, including: A calm zone & circuit for racing high-speed craft, a powerful Galleon to fight and various ruins to explore & people to terrorize!



That's all for today, but we have also just posted an FAQ for the expansion on our Discord.

Just two more weeks until you'll be raiding settlements, drowning armies and burning fleets in The Splintered Sea! We hope you're as hyped as we are, can't wait to see what you guys get up to in this new water world!

Cheers,
Von



If you haven't already, please consider wishlisting the expansion and check out The Splintered Sea’s steam page for more information! :)

Hello Everyone!

In this week’s post we’re going to talk about building for The Splintered Sea’s water environments, explaining new mechanics you’ll need to consider and showing you some new tools to help with machine building.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165710/Besiege_The_Splintered_Sea/

Building for water presents a more complex challenge than building machines for land or maybe even those that fly. We have worked to make aquatic machine building as accessible as possible, while maintaining the complexity of physics simulation you’ve all come to expect from Besiege.
With that said, we advise you to start simple and build your understanding of The Splintered Sea’s water mechanics as you go, before attempting large & complex creations.



With the introduction of water to Besiege, every physics object in the game (including blocks) now has a “buoyancy” value attached to it. The more buoyant a block is, the more mass or other external forces are needed to sink it.

Some blocks are more buoyant than others, like wooden blocks, but we’ve also added Barrel blocks whose buoyancy can be customized to much higher values than any other block. Conversely, the Ballast block can be used to increase a machine’s overall mass, or density of mass in a specific area to help balance it. This can be particularly useful when constructing large ships.



If you want to build a machine that floats, you need to ensure it's overall buoyancy exceeds it's overall mass. To make a submarine, something designed to be underwater by default, you'll need to balance it's mass & buoyancy, making it "neutrally buoyant". This will mean you're not constantly fighting against a rising or sinking force.


Just as each machine in Besiege has a “center of mass”, the same is true of buoyancy. Balancing your “center of buoyancy” is essential to ensuring your machine doesn’t become lopsided or even capsize.

Besiege already has a handy tool that displays a machine’s “center of mass” and to aid you with building for water we’ve added a “center of buoyancy” visualization to the same tool. The closer together your centers of mass & buoyancy are, the more stable and controllable your machine is likely to be. A machine’s “center of buoyancy” is only calculated using blocks that are submerged in water, so you’ll need to lower the hull of a ship beneath the surface in order to get useful information from it, for example.



A machine’s “center of mass” is indicated by the red orb and “center of buoyancy” by the blue orb, as shown above.

We’ve also added an orange arrow to the tool that shows the machine's “center of density”. This arrow shows the part of your ship that is most likely to sink first. In the image above for example: the machine’s rear has a significantly higher density than the front, therefore the orange arrow indicates this part of the machine will dip lower in the water. To remedy this, you'd either need to reduce the density of mass at the stern or increase buoyancy there.

Generally, keeping the “center of density” near the center of your machine will ensure it performs optimally, but when making ships you may wish to center it toward the vessel’s stern. This will make the machine’s front more buoyant (relatively) and naturally cause it to rise slightly, enabling the vessel to more easily crest large waves.



Although the aforementioned tools were created to help you build machines for water, they’re only part of the picture and it’s important not to hyper-focus on them. The practices discussed in this post are not applicable to every type of machine and the tool visualizations are not always perfectly accurate. We’re dealing with incredibly complex calculations here and we hope to continue refining these tools as we get more feedback from the community.


Another feature of The Splintered Sea’s water simulation system is “Shape Dependent Drag”, which is applied to blocks that are passing through water. This creates a realistic feel to your machines by causing resistance, as it attempts to push itself through the water.


The image above was taken in our debug mode and shows areas of a machine that are causing the most drag when it moves forward. The colours show the amount of relative drag each block is causing, with red blocks creating the most drag.
Considering the shape of your machine design will be important to ensure it’s able to move through the water easily and in a controllable manner.


In this post we’ve covered the basics of building in water and some best practices that will help when designing aquatic machines. If you’re an avid machine builder and looking to broaden your engineering knowledge with concepts of greater complexity, we’d encourage further reading.
Metacentres and Center of Floatation are topics which could be of interest, there’s also this article by Subhodeep Ghosh which does a good job illustrating these concepts.



That’s all for this week’s post, but we hope it’s given you a glimpse into the exciting new machine-building frontier that is The Splintered Sea! Next week we’ll be taking a look at the expansion’s campaign levels, environments & occupants…

See you next week!
Von

If you haven't already, please consider wishlisting the expansion and check out The Splintered Sea’s steam page for more information! :)