Stationeers News

We’ve made some big decisions and big improvements which we believe set Stationeers up for a great year in 2022.

While we’ve been quiet for a while, this isn’t because we haven’t been working on Stationeers. Quite the opposite. In October last year we did a strategic review, and identified key areas of technical debt that if we took the time to redo would lead to big gains.

However, it meant we paused our monthly updates while we replaced some fundamental systems (such as networking). This decision did not come lightly but we felt it was best investment for the long-term success of Stationeers. Once we started refactoring the multiplayer we realised there was more work than anticipated, but it also created the opportunity to tackle other key systems and go more in-depth than originally planned.

While we don’t have a game update today, we can share what we’ve been working on and the results. This work will be a major milestone on our path towards Stationeers 1.0.

We are on the road to completing the biggest changes in the project since it began. This involved us rebuilding the way we handle multiplayer from scratch, adding a very efficient batched rendering approach for graphics optimization, and a massive cleanup of how memory is managed.

Stationeers was originally built using Unity’s High-Level Multiplayer API (HLAPI), a perfectly reasonable choice when the game was first made. However, as time went on and Stationeers grew beyond what we initially thought it would be, we found that the HLAPI became a bottleneck. We started to push the limits of what HLAPI could cope with. The effects of this could be seen when you had a save with a lot of things - every extra player would put a massive amount of extra load on the server, causing desync and failed connections.

In October last year we decided to stop, rethink and resolve this foundational issue. After serious deliberation of many different options we decided that, based on experiences on other RocketWerkz projects (such as Art of the Rail, which was designed for the tremendous scale like seen in games like Factorio), to build our own bespoke solution just for Stationeers.

The new system sends less data between players, will be more reliable to establish a connection and will allow larger groups to player together smoothly.

However, multiplayer was baked into how Stationeers was made from the start. This meant that even the task of removing multiplayer was already a big task. It turns out it was bigger than we originally anticipated!

Last year we successfully removed all traces of the HLAPI and had the game working again as a single-player experience. This year we’ve been busy doing the hard work of rebuilding multiplayer and the new system will be in the next game update.

Screenshot from Masoneer#5778 Vulkan Base

Since we were not pushing monthly updates we saw this as a good opportunity to do further experiments in other problem areas of the game. One of those was that Unity’s batched rendering wasn’t doing the best job for how Stationeers is structured.

A Stationeers map can have thousands or even tens of thousands of things in the game, many of which are exactly the same item repeated. When these are sent to your graphics card to be rendered, if two things are the same with the same mesh and material then we can batch them and get performance gains.

We’ve been working on our own system that focuses on the high volume items in the game such as frames, cables and pipes and have had great results.

These changes combine to double framerate on large bases!

To give you an idea of what kind of impact this work will have on Stationeers, we tested it out on community member Masoneer's large Vulkan base.

Removing the HLAPI saved 5ms from the time it takes to process each frame. This is approximately 14% of the time taken for a frame.

Removing redundant Animator components reduced the time to process a frame by about another 6.5ms (an additional nearly 20% optimization).

Additionally, the game was making significant memory allocations every game tick that would then need to be cleaned up. This is an expensive process that impacts performance in a big way. We reduced the amount of Garbage Collection from 500KB to under 1KB


You’ll get to try out these performance improvements and the new networking system in the next update (coming soon, once through testing).

Now that we have clearly defined technical boundaries we can start to define the gameplay boundaries through game design. We often discuss “what is Stationeers?” internally and “where do we want this game to go?” Over and over again these conversations ended in frustration over the uncertainty of the technical limitations. Now that uncertainty is being resolved we look forward to publishing regular updates again.

While we still don’t have an exact date for you, we’re all very excited to share this work with you and to get back to making Stationeers everything that it deserves to be.

Please note: since the last major update, loading a game with a DLC character would cause an error resulting in that character being replaced with a human without a suit. This has now been fixed and those old saves will now correctly spawn the DLC character. Now that this error has been corrected, new saves made since then with the DLC characters will not load correctly.

• Fixed scene overriding trader panel fix
  
• Fixed trading panel not displaying
  
• Fixed in game code editor not displaying after entering and leaving and then entering a new session.
  
• Fixed Error when disconnecting pipe from water bottle filler.
  
• Fixed Render distance on Heat Exchangers.
  
• Fixed Sorter Motherboard white-list dropdowns displaying behind other sorter buttons (meaning that you couldn't select those items)
  
• Fixed Removed individual wreckage items from sorter. (you can filter all wreckage items using the Wreckage type).
  
• Fixed Reduced lag on Sorter motherboard UI Interaction.
  
• Fixed Intermittent Collection Modified Exception caused by multiple omni power transmitters.
  
• Fixed dedicated server hang / crash
  
• Fixed Old saves using DLC characters (HEM Droid / Zrilian) change character to Human with no suit on load.
  
• Fixed Saving a game with a corner locker closed would cause the items inside to become permanently invisible until it was deconstructed.
  
• Fixed Intermittent Error spam caused by Omni Power Transmitter.
  
• Fixed Area Power Control adding huge amounts of heat to atmosphere.
  
• Added Small and Large Insulated Liquid Tanks. Construct them using ItemKitLiquidTankInsulated built with the PipeBender.
  
• Fixed Unable to interact with all IC Circuit holder items in the programming motherboard drop-down.
  

Down here in New Zealand, it’s been a couple of long, locked-down months, but the Stationeers team is back and bouncing out an update for you powerheads and balance boffins
Enjoy the improvements to our power system, new tech, architectural additions, furious fixes, tweaks and more, knowing that Stationeers is preparing the ground for surprises in updates soon to come ...


Try out the Omni-directional power transmitter – a wireless battery charger that uses special cells with a lower capacity than regular batteries. Even supertech has its downsides, right?



There’s a line of new doors for base building. Improve your interiors with these attractive portals, as well as a manual hatch that can operate without power, should something go wrong.



Plus we’re giving you better control over power transmission, exposing new logic and new math functions for the transmitter itself.


We’ve been tightening the bolts and polishing like crazy, removing some long-standing issues like the infamous ‘Infinite Power Exploit'.



Voltage on recursive power networks will now cause input cables on those providers to break. It’s a change that affects AreaPowerControl, StationBattery, Transformers and Wireless power transmitters and receivers. So be warned.

We’ve repaired the sensor lenses for scanning ore. They’re now working better than ever by showing you the entire ore vein and actually help you find ore instead of leading you astray. Happy mining.



We’ve fixed the vacuum room cooling bug, so devices placed in a vacuum in an enclosed room no longer radiate heat – stopping the magical deletion of heat from devices in a completely enclosed room.

That's just a little of the deep-cleaning we'ev been doing. There’s a heap more fixes and tweaks, too, but if you find a bug, you're totally invited to add a ticket to our Jira – we appreciate it massively.


There’s been balance changes to some critical systems, too, like water bottles. Previously you could fill a water bottle with boiling water or cubes of ice and then happily drink it. Now you need to ensure the water is at a reasonable temperature before filling the bottle.

The Winterspawn plant has been nerfed and re-balanced to make it have more "realistic" properties, and breathing hot air now damages your lungs instead of healing them. We just thought we should give everyone … a ‘heads up’ on that.

There’s been a range of other dial-twists, so jump in and take a look.
Happy Stationeering!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/544550/Stationeers/


[h2]Hotfix[/h2]

• Added 2x GasCanisterWater to Misc Crate for Vulcan starting conditions.
  
• Fixed Render distance on unpowered doors.
  
• Fixed Audio timing on manual hatch.
  
• Fixed bug where recipe window wont display sometimes.
  
• Fixed NullReferenceException stalling game when loading saved game.
  
• Added Wireless battery recipes to the electronics printer.
  
• Added Omni Power Transmitter recipe to the electronics printer.
  

[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added Interior Doors Kit. These new door variants can be craft in the Autolathe. They do not block atmosphere when shut and do not require power.
  
• Added Manual Hatch
  
• Added Powered sounds and constructing sounds to all power transmitters.
  
• Added sounds to Unpowered Doors and Manual Hatch.
  
• Added Position Logic variables to power Transmitters and receivers, PositionX, PositionY and PositionZ return the position of the transmitter head/dish allowing for accurate alignment calculations using trig functions.
  
• Added ATan2 function to IC ProgrammableChip functions. Returns the the angle in the Euclidean plane, given in radians, between the positive x axis and the ray that passes through (0,0).
  
• Added Wireless Logic transmitter functionality to PowerReceiver. You can now read and write logic variables to the PowerReceiver using a Logic Transmitter.
  
• Added Read-only Mode variable to Power Transmitters and Receivers. 0 = unlinked, 1 = linked.
  
• Added manual hatch thumbnail
  
• Added Additional debug information to the PowerNetworks Debug tool: Required, Potential, PowerProviders.
  
• Added time and weather debug options to console debug tab
  
• Added smooth transition when setting time of day
  
• Added battery animation charge states to Wireless battery cells.
  
• Added Omni power transmitter structure (early pass).
  
• Added new standard and large battery types (early pass).
  
• Added Omni Power transmitter kit.
  
• Added Can now read Power Generation Rate from wind turbines using logic.
  
• Added support for Vulkan graphics API (use '-force-vulkan' argument when launching the application)
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed missing thumbnail for omni power transmitter
  
• Fixed missing blueprint for omni power transmitter
  
• Fixed Setting Activate to 4 on Automated rocket would cause it to set Mode to 5.
  
• Fixed Automated Rocket could get stuck and be unresponsive to commands when game saved in while rocket in Mode 2 (travelling to new asteroid).
  
• Fixed Large numbers of wind-turbines causing other sounds to stop playing.
  
• Fixed AutomatedRocket Couplers appear missing after launching and landing Rocket.
  
• Fixed OmniPower Transmitter charging batteries in APCs when it wasn't supposed to.
  
• Fixed Sounds on Pipe Analysers.
  
• Fixed Pipe Analysers not going into error states when pipe missing.
  
• Fixed OnOff and powered lights not working correctly on LiquidPipeAnalyser.
  
• Fixed Turning on an APC that had its input and output linked to an existing network could cause crash to desktop.
  
• Fixed manual hatch animation
  
• Fixed manual hatch not letting air flow when the door is open.
  
• Fixed OmniDirectionalPowerTransmitter now draws power and changes wireless batteries correctly up to max range of 15m. (Efficiency reduces with range 0m = 75%, 15m = 25%).
  
• Fixed Smart rotate and placement on OmniPowerTransmitter.
  
• Fixed issue with -force-vulkan graphics option
  
• Fixed WirelessPowerReceiver can link with power transmitter when not aligned. Now requires alignment within 7 degrees.
  
• Fixed edge case where wireless power could become disconnected even when all conditions for connection were correct.
  
• Fixed PowerTransmitters Precision error causing wireless power devices to be unable to connect over long distances. You can now provide very fine control to rotation values of transmitters and receivers using Logic.
  
• Fixed RotatableDevice overshooting the rotation target.
  
• Fixed Rotating Power Transmitters and Receivers using wrench resulting in fractional rotation values.
  
• Fixed Error that could occur when dismantling pipes.
  
• Fixed null error when things are on fire
  
• Fixed on/off switch on volume pumps
  
• Fixed advanced composter on off button animations
  
• fixed portable composter on/off button
  
• Fixed Interior Doors being unpaintable.
  
• Fixed Interior Doors causing errors when rotating the blueprint.
  
• Fixed manual hatch being invisible
  
• Fixed on off button on advanced composter
  
• Fixed manual hatch not blocking atmos
  
• Fixed manual hatch to block faces
  
• Fixed Power Transmitters and recievers sometimes not connecting on loading game.
  
• Fixed Power Transmitters getting into a state where they would be using negative power.
  
• Fixed Power Transmitters being in error state on load.
  
• Fixed Infinite Power Exploit. Any potential on recursive power networks will now cause the power input cables of all recursive power providers to break. This change effects: AreaPowerControl, StationBattery, Transformers and Wireless power transmitters and receivers.
  
• Fixed Index out of bounds error caused by ModularRocketCouplingUnit.
  
• Fixed time being set multiple times when changing time using /settime
  
• Fixed Various Power Duplication bugs with wireless power transmitters.
  
• Fixed Wireless Power Transmitters getting stuck in error states.
  
• Fixed manual hatch not showing up in item kit door
  
• Fixed AIMEe not being set to full state correctly when full while mining.
  
• Fixed AIMEe logic resetting after mining ore.
  
• Fixed Transmitter Omni causing errors on startup.
  
• Fixed Stationpedia window is behind IC editor.
  
• Fixed temperature on escape from mars scenario
  
• Fixed advanced packaging machine power switch displaying incorrect colours when switched off and powered
  
• Fixed Wind Audio error caused when too many sounds playing at once.
  
• Fixed automated oven power switch displaying incorrect colours when switched off and powered
  
• Fixed it so that you can attempt to save again after a prior save fails
  
• Fixed Sounds not playing on WaterBottleFillerBottom.
  
• Fixed Error spam when filling up waterBottle using WaterBottleFillerBottom.
  
• Fixed Hunger/Hydration Rate can now be set in increments of 0.01;
  
• Fixed Unable to set Lock logic setting on all manufacturing machines.
  
• Fixed Pressing Esc Key to exit Settings menu hides main menu UI.
  
• Fixed Writing setting to Logic dial with Logic writer does not work and causes an error.
  
• Fixed LiquidDrain not returning kit on deconstruction.
  
• Fixed error when loading some saved instruction files in to code editor
  
• Fixed Water bottle filler reversed allowing filling of water outside of 0-100degrees C.
  
• Fixed Water bottle filler reversed not showing tooltip.
  
• Fixed error when Antialiasing is set to none
  
• Fixed Interior Door build-states requiring the in-correct resources.
  
• Fixed Window Shutter Kit having an extra empty constructible entry.
  
• Fixed Automated Oven displaying invisible on off switch.
  
• Fixed PressureRegulator and BackPressureRegulator. Both now operate at their maximum speed regardless of pipe network size. BackPressureRegulator no longer overshoots its target value.
  
• Fixed WaterBottleFiller Tooltip Error showing incorrect Temperature when input pipe is empty.
  
• Fixed no hair rendering when helmet is on
  
• Fixed hat hair not working in game
  
• Fixed hat hair and regular hair displaying at the same time in the customisation screen
  
• Fixed vacuum room cooling bug. Devices placed in a vacuum in an enclosed room will no longer radiate heat. This stops the magical deletion of heat from devices in a completely enclosed room.
  
• Fixed Breathing hot air heals burn damage to Lungs. Hot air over 50degreesC now damages lungs. (Thanks: Bti & Eearslya)
  
• Fixed NetworkAnalyser to work correctly with advanced tablet when switching active hand
  
• Fixed Pipe Bender on switch being on the in-correct initial rotation, causing it to flip while printing.
  
• Fixed Autolathe off switch being the incorrect material.
  

[h2]Other[/h2]

• Changed Wireless Cell capacity from 36,000 -> 12,000, WirelessCellLarge Capacity 36,000 -> 72,000.
  
• Changed OmniPowerTransmitter will no longer charge wireless batteries that are in a battery charger or AreaPowerController.
  
• Changed The Potential Energy that can be delivered by a wireless power transmitter now reduces with distance.
  
• Changed Water Bottles can now only be filled with water between 0-100degrees Celsius.
  
• Changed Increased speed and power consumption of LiquidDrain.
  
• Changed PipeHeater recipe to use Iron instead of Steel.
  
• Changed Moved TurboVolumePump to Tier2 printer.
  
• Changed model for advanced furnace kit
  
• Changed Plants now require their water to be between 5-60 Degrees Celsius otherwise they take damage.
  
• Changed WinterSpawn Plants only cool the air and electrolyze their water when mature.
  
• Changed WinterSpawn Plants now use thermodynamically accurate Electrolyser equation (previously was too much output fuel mix and not enough water consumed)
  
• Changed WinterSpawn Plants are less efficient outside their target Temperature range. See Temperature ranges in stationpedia.
  
• Changed IceCrusher is now insulated.
  
• Changed Scoreboard now hides when entering the main menu
  
• Tweaked Sensor Processing Unit(Ore Scanner) to display all instances of an ore in a vein rather than just one instance. This allows you to now see the shape of the vein.
  
• Optimized plant decay negatively impacting performance when lots of food present
  
• Improved performance of cycling airlock control
  
• Reduced garbage being produced by movement controller
  
• Stationpedia edits from the community (Iconoplasty, SillySMS)
  
• Removed error state on Power Transmitters when disconnected from receiver. Better surfacing of connection status and making connections easier over long distances is being investigated.
  
• Removed "ThingRenderer has no actual Renderer" warning
  

Any way you look at it, August has been a month of powerful developments. We're dropping a bunch of new methods for making and managing power, while continuing to up performance across the board. Try out the new Stirling Engine, our wireless Power Transmitters, or the thermal plants. Performance-wise, enjoy new power-ups as we extend our virtualized rendering system and a bunch of UI upgrades, and empower your gameplay with the new portable IC editor laptop.
We're powering up, so come jump in, Stationeers!



At long last, we're dropping wireless power into the game: separate out your power generation, then beam that current anywhere you want, without having to lay miles of cable.



Try creating that power using the new Stirling Engine, a closed-cycle heat-powered electric generator (an essential device for even bigger power developments to come), then managing your excess heat with the genetically manipulated Hades Flower.



For the IC crowd, there's a new portable IC editor laptop, so you can do running repairs on AIMeE in the field, and a few extra storage options, as requested by the community, just to keep things tidy.





We're continuing with our performance push, as we lay groundwork for 1.0 ... We're extending virtualized rendering to more of Stationeer's key construction items, like walls and frames, and will roll it out even further in future. Enjoy the gains, as well as a bump from upgrades to tooltips, which were set back by our recent engine upgrade - now, they're better than ever. And while we were voyaging in the land of UI, we tweaked inventory windows and slots to perform better than ever, too - with even more refinements to come.

Note: The new rendering system is better for most systems, however if you feel like your performance has taken a hit then you can disable it from the settings. This is still a work in progress and we will continue to improve it over time.





We're trialling a feature that should smooth out the appearance of terrain. So lets us know what you think. If it's popular, we will put some time in to solving a few of the technical hurdles it presents.
It's time ... to Stationeer!




Hotfix 2

• Fixed Unable to save IC script to library in In-game UI editor.
  
• Fixed Dedicated Server Error on Start.
  
• Fixed Angles of rotation on Power Transmitter and Power Receiver.
  
• Fixed Lag on opening and closing IC programming input window
  
• Fixed Hunger and nutrition page on the Stationpedia having an invalid link.
  
• Fixed Lag when opening and closing pause menu with Esc key
  
• Fixed Lag when opening and closing creative spawn menu
  
• Fixed Lag when opening and closing stationpedia
  
• Updated Thermogenic plants effectiveness and temperature ranges.
  
• Fixed attempting to place the Weather Station causing errors.
  
• Fixed name for power transmitting kit
  
• Fixed Creative Endothermic and Thermogenic names.
  
• Fixed Water bottles clogging Stackers
  
• Fixed Input bug where typing into IC editor or labeller would pass commands through to player control. (i.e typing 1 in the IC editor would open helmet panel)
  
• Fixed ITransmitable devices missing Stationpeida descriptions.
  
• Fixed Log Error Spam and very low frame-rate when the game is attempting to play hundreds of new sounds every second. (this could happen if you had a large stack of ores bumping into each-other)
  
• Fixed rotations on new lockers and existing shelf
  
• Fixed Endothermic and Thermogenic Taking damage from Volatiles in their surrounding atmosphere. They will still take damage from Pollutants (X)
  
• Removed empty element from Power Transmittable kit
  
• Fixed null error when power receiver is receiving power but not connected to a cable network
  
• Fixed unable to contact certain traders with the trading computer screen.
  
• Fixed bug where construction sounds, impact sounds and other UI sounds would stop playing.
  

Hotfix 1

• Fixed dedicated server issue
  
• Added Thermogenic plants to trader lists.
  
• Fixed Advanced Composter not processing after loading a save.
  
• Fixed buildstates of research machine being invisible
  
• Fixed client not being able to turn on power transmitter
  
• Fixed view distance of wireless power receiver
  
• Fixed On Off States on power transmitters.
  
• Increased render distance of power transmitter.
  
• Fixed power receiver buildstate requirements
  

Code

• Changed Reduced power usage of volume pumps and turbo volume pumps to be more in-line with active vents.
  
• Changed Station Battery Large to require Tier 2 electronics printer.
  
• Stationpedia community edits (BigFootMSR, Zappes, Iconoplasty, Mokmo, Risu)
  
• Changed SolarPanels and SatelliteDishes can now rotate infinitely on the Horizontal axis. They will now take the fastest path to to the target rotation.
  
• Added peace lily, Filter fern and tropical flower to trader lists.
  
• Changed Teleport keybind to Night Vision and moved it under General.
  
• Fixed Night Vision keybind not working, causing the user unable to rebind the Night Vision key.
  

Content

• Added Laptop
  
• Added Wireless Power Transmitters and receivers.
  
• Added Constructing sounds to Planter.
  
• Added first pass of virtualized rendering, currently for walls and frames. This bypasses Unity's culling and rendering system, allowing us to move culling work from CPU to GPU.
  
• Added 'allspark' server command, sets most items to powered without the need for cabling or a power source.
  
• Added experimental terrain smoothing option
  
• Added Thermogenic plants
  
• Added Stirling Engine to Electronics Printer. The Stirling Engine generates power by expanding and contracting a working gas to drive pistons which power an electrical generator. Heat the hot side by pumping high pressure hot gas into the input pipe and keep the output pipe at low pressure. Cool the cold side by keeping the surrounding atmosphere at room Temperature at a pressure of 1 atmosphere. Add a working gas by inserting a gas canister. Make sure the machine is off when adding or removing Gas canisters otherwise the working gas will leak into the surrounding atmosphere. Gases with a low molecular mass make the most efficient working gasses. More moles of working gas can result in a greater potential power output but letting pressures get too high could have suboptimal results.
  

Optimizations

• Fixed Frame-Rate Lag on creative item spawn menu.
  
• Fixed Rotating Satellite dish causing fps drops when connected to computer.
  
• Fixed UI performance optimisation for slots.
  
• Fixed Frame-time spikes when swapping active hand and picking-up/dropping items (Performance regression from Engine upgrade).
  
• Fixed 10ms frame-time spike every atmospherics tick on large bases.
  
• Fixed further performance Optimisations for tooltip.
  
• Optimized instanced rendering
  
• Added Virtualized Rendering setting.
  

Fixes

• Fixed Search input field is automatically in focus when opening search window of manufacturing machines.
  
• Fixed Polish pass on seated positions for all chairs.
  
• Fixed Food appearing very small in fridges.
  
• Fixed Insulated Pipe not working with Pipe Meters to work when on certain rotations.
  
• Fixed DLAA setting causing portrait camera to look odd.
  
• Fixed Stationeers Levitating when seated in ChairBooth middle and Flat Bench
  
• Fixed Chair placement. Chairs can now only be placed on the flat and require support.
  
• Fixed Wearing Marine Armor causing errors to appear due to not having a internal atmosphere.
  
• Fixed Rotations on Fridge Small and Big.
  
• Fixed Error spam caused by coupling unit when placing certain rocket modules.
  
• Fixed Reinforced Windows showing broken stage when they're not broken.
  
• Fixed mineables floating after exiting and entering a new world.
  
• Fixed CloseAll Button not hiding correctly when all Inventory windows closed.
  
• Fixed loading saves with walls being broken and/or placing walls would have all build states visible.
  
• Fixed pressure overflow text on AtmosAnalyser.
  
• Fixed Setting advanced furnace input/output pumps programmatically is unbounded
  
• Fixed the size of terrain manipulator thumbnail size
  
• Fixed terrain manipulator thumbnail colours
  
• Fixed gas canister oxygen exit tool
  
• Fixed inventory slot displays sometimes incorrectly highlighted
  
• Fixed ArcFurnace Duplication bug caused by putting multiple stacks of BioMass or Charcoal of sizes greater than 50 into the Arc Furnace. This would cause it to produce 500g stacks of any ore placed into it thereafter due to surplus reagent mix building up inside. Arc furnaces currently in this bugged state will now output all the reagent mix inside, run all the outputted reagent mix in a centrifuge to get individual ingredients back from it.
  
• Fixed Biomass being processed instantly by Arc furnace (causing issues at higher frame-rates) it now takes 1 second to turn 1 unit of biomass into 1 unit of charcoal.
  
• Fixed Reflection setting not enabling correctly after re-opening the Stationeers.
  
• Fixed Arc Furnace Activate is now more responsive to Logic.
  
• Fixed Arc Furnace importing ore when output is blocked.
  
• Fixed Portable Composter not processing after loading.
  
• Fixed looping exporting animation on empty arc furnaces (Thanks Mirro).
  
• Changed ArcFurnace Active Button behaviour. Smelting can now be stopped by pushing the activate button, this will open the import slot.
  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/544550/Stationeers/

It’s been a month of deep end tech work focused on upgrades, refactors and performance – laying the foundations for an improved Stationeers experience across the board towards 1.0.

After two years, we’ve upgraded the engine version to take advantage of awesome new Unity 2021 features. There’s big performance gains, too, plus rendering and network stability improvements, and a new debug console – critical groundwork for wow to come.

So we’re light on content this month, but giving some much-needed love to our codebase means our players will starting feeling the difference.

[h2]Unity 2021[/h2]

At long last, we’ve upgraded to Unity 2021, bringing a raft of new tools and opportunities, from performance and profiling to fancy blinking lights. Of course, in the short term, shifting engine version required a lot of fixes and tweaks, but we're already seeing payoffs, and it sets the stage for much more in future.

[h2]Performance[/h2]

This update sees the first of many heavy duty performance pushes going live, with adjustments to our update manager seeing up to 30% gains on large bases.

We’re also changing the way we render objects in game – consolidating materials into a single, more efficient material and reducing the number of renderers. It's a system we’ll be extending over the coming months to further boost performance.

[h2]Network upgrades[/h2]

While we were poking around, we began moving away from Unity’s deprecated networking system. Our aim: provide a much improved networking experience, stability and performance in multiplayer. As a first step, we've refactored joining and have seen serious efficiency gains.

This is a big move, and one we’re spreading over several updates - watch this space, as we extend this refactor to the live game.

[h2]Debug tools[/h2]

With a new IMGUI-based in-game console, we’ve introduced a new debug system to help you understand what’s happening under the hood. Just press '/' to jump in.
Expect lots of debug tools in coming months!




Hot Fix

• Fixed roll cover not blocking atmosphere when opened
  
• Fixed player freezing in space when using Stationpedia
  
• Fixed dead Corn no longer takes the appearance of Cardboard and now looks like dead corn.
  
• Fixed Frame-time spikes when tooltip updating (performance regression from Engine upgrade). Construction should feel smooth again.
  
• Optimised Tooltip. 50% faster than previous stable build pre-engine upgrade.
  
• Fixed Rcon and dedicated server authentication issues.
  
• Fixed Rcon crashing stationers.
  
• Fixed items being able to be thrown in to slots of the wrong type
  
• Fixed Input text box sizes in settings. Text should now sit nicely inside the boxes.
  
• Fixed an error appearing when modifying settings using the input fields.
  
• Fixed Refrigerated Vending Machine stacking issues
  
• Fixed Rocket Gas Mining module build states , It should no longer be invisible.
  
• Community Stationpedia edits (BigFootMSR, Zappes, Neoun)
  
• Fixed Unable to put circuit boards into consoles.
  
• Removed laptop recipe from electronics printer
  
• Updated .NET compatibility from v2.0 to v4.*
  
• Fixed Deconstructing planter, Planter will now return its kit when deconstructed with a tool.
  
• Fixed error (NullReferenceException) when trying to place a Steel Frame
  

Code

• Optimised FPS for large bases. Saves with 20K+ things should see a 15-20% performance improvement.
  
• Added explosive force to "halt and catch fire" command (hcf) on the advanced hardsuit.
  
• Added Setting variable to AdvancedSuit. Credit to Asleep-Kiwi-1552 on reddit, who made a weather warning IC system but had to use air settings for storing values. This should make it much easier!
  
• Replaced shader on frames to improve batching and rendering performance of differently coloured frames. This is a first pass, to be extended to other things later.
  
• Added "count" to console. e.g. "count [AllThings / Structures / DynamicThings / AnimatorThings / Pipes / Cables / Atmospheres / CableNetworks]"
  
• Changed FPS optimisations for PlayerStatus UI.
  
• Changed it so that not all items in slots cast shadows
  
• Changed Increased volume of mining
• charge countdown beep sound.
  
• Changed Allowed Horizontal Autominer to travel over small gaps in terrain.
  
• Updated Horizontal AutoMiner its lights now turn on when powered.
  
• Added ability to open window shutters using a crowbar if not powered.
  
• Added new console for debugging purposes. The debugger can be opened using the key '\'.
  
• Improved Audio on OGRE Horizontal Autominer
  
• Updated Advanced tablet, Further stability added to Advanced tablet, Turning it on and off again will fix it.
  
• FPS Optimisation for PressurePlates. Thanks Masoneer.
  
• Added the ability to force hydrate other players

Fixes

• Fixed (provisional) excess data being generated on client join to sync things. When a client was joining, the host was not generating the message to sync this to client efficiently. The approach from another game we are making (art of the rail) is very efficient, and we have begun porting this over. This takes the data we need to send and carefully packages a byte array, being very deliberate about how big each big of data needs to be. This is vastly more efficient. This data is then compressed, and sent to the client. Our testing indicates a massive difference, in many cases at 2 to 3 orders of magnitude (1000 -> 1). We have only improved a small fraction of this, as other areas can be ported to this system. It requires extensive testing, however.
  
• Fixed performance issue when looking at tablet screens
  
• Fixed lag spike when opening and closing
  
• Fixed FPS drop when opening and closing helmet.
  
• Fixed Performance bug with Composite Windows. Saves with large numbers of composite windows should notice a performance improvement. Thanks Kenny for providing a great test-case that highlighted this issue!
  
• Fixed Breathing state getting stuck in breathless mode when opening/closing helmet quickly in vacuum.
  
• Fixed performance issue with large numbers of SolarPanels causing fps drops when tracking the sun via logic or IC.
  
• Fixed inventory selection indicator not working correctly
  
• Fixed growth states on Tropical and Peace lily plants.
  
• Fixed Performance optimisation for signs.
  
• Fixed being able to scroll to hidden inventory windows
  
• Fixed visual helmet glitch after leaving a seat/bed/rover etc.
  
• Fixed OGRE not being controllable via logic after triggering it manually
  
• Fixed regression of shutter not blocking atmos
  
• Fixed window shutter not blocking building of objects correctly
  
• Fixed performance issue when tooltips are displaying
  
• Fixed custom world menu not loading and getting in to a locked game state
  
• Fixed dedicated server failing to run correctly
  
• Fixed GPU instancing not being enabled on minable materials
  
• Fixed dynamic objects still being created from kits when action was canceled before completion.
  
• Fixed circuit board being moved to the world when the glass on the console is removed.
  
• Fixed certain Foods not turning into Decayed Items when exiting the Silo.
  
• Fixed Window Shutter unable to deconstruct.
  
• Fixed Crowbar unable to open the Window Shutter when unpowered.
  
• Fixed OnOff and Powered sounds not playing on LiquidTurboVolumePump.
  
• Fixed Default setting on LiquidTurboVolumePump to 500.
  
• Fixed Soybeans. Soybeans can now be added to the microwave.
  
• Fixed Backup load menu. Worlds can now be selected and loaded from the backups list.
  
• Fixed Portable Composter deconstructing into a debug item.
  
• Fixed Composters creating Bugged fertilisers that would prevent plants from growing.
  
• Fixed a bug with rice, it can now be placed in a microwave.
  
• Fixed devices (light sensor etc) receiving light if the structure that's supposed to be blocking the light is in the same grid. Now correctly occludes the light.
  
• Fixed the Horizontal AutoMiner track's texture offsetting incorrectly given the direction it's moving in.
  
• Fixed the Horizontal AutoMiner floating too far away from terrain before it figures out it's floating.
  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/544550/Stationeers/