Stationeers News

Our second patch for the week closely follows the pattern of the first. This might otherwise be a hotfix if it weren't for the impromptu addition of another new piece of kit, the new Heavy Mining Drill! We've also replaced the model on the old one.



We've also put in a couple of overlooked aspects of the Arc Welder added in the last update, namely the recipe required to craft one.

This will (hopefully) be the last couple of urgent fixes required for the main branch until we officially release the next major features to the game, so keep an eye on the beta branch and the news page for an announcement in the next few weeks!

Added particle effect to new Arc Welder.
Added Mining Drill (Heavy). Much more effective than basic mining drill but requires advanced materials to make and uses more energy.
Replaced Mining Drill with new model that looks more consistent. Also is now paintable. Animation improved.

Fixed issue with helmet being visible in first-person view after exiting any entity slot, such as a Chair, Sleeper pod or Rover.
Fixed repeating error when attempting to smelt an item (eg. in the furnace) that has no reagent mixture defined.
Fixed Arc Welder not using power correctly. Now consumes 2kW per weld, which equates to roughly 72 full frames per large battery.
Fixed missing Mode interaction button on both old and new mining drills preventing players from selecting 'Flatten' mode.

Another little patch this week, which would typically be a hotfix post if not for the sneaky little addition of the Arc Welder. It'll take a lot of power, but is significantly less prone to exploding. You'll still have plenty of time to explode though, as the materials to craft this won't be available to you until you've been able to smelt some of the more advanced alloys.


The most impactful bug we're patching is one where eating something will result in you hearing yourself eating that thing forever, even after loading a new world - and nobody likes a loud eater. Sorry for this one, and doubly sorry it took so long to get the fix across to the main branch!


Work continues on the Rover and Trading features planned to be live on beta in the very near future, with the Rover just getting an audio pass and some tweaks on some extra features besides just personnel transport. You're able to take the Rover for a spin already if you wish, it can be spawned in creative mode. Keep in mind this is still very much in testing though, so let us know in Discord if you encounter any bugs.

Added Arc Welding tool. This is a welding tool that uses power, rather than fuel, to weld. Useful for late game. Requires advanced resources, constructed from Tool Manufactory.
Updated Localization Files (Current 14th May).
Added event so that scenario authors can trigger events based on suit temperature changes.
Added event so that scenario authors can set entity nutrition levels.

Fixed null reference exception when displaying tooltip over a structure while holding non-item thing in your hands.
Fixed Error caused when the game couldn't find a player to attach a 'harvested' sound to (in the case of Automated Hydroponics etc). [thanks Eearslya]
Fixed Error on Dedicated Server when it tries to process its own notice message due to not having the same type of chat window as clients. [thanks Eearslya]
Fixed stuck in loading screen when there is a duplicated recipe in ChemistryStation, Microwave, PaintMixer, ReagentProcessor.
Fixed incorrect interaction cursor. It displayed wrong interaction cursor when picking up an item into an empty hand.
Fixed hidden slots items [Thanks Risu]
Fixed null reference exception when reloading world mod on workshop. It didn't clear cached data.
Fixed client unable to destroy with Authoring tool fix.

Just a mini-update this week, we're back working on some big features. We'll save a big write-up of these for when they're fully released but a large portion of the implementation is already done, so don't expect they'll be too far away.


Your customized character can now be set on the options screen and will now be your default for any new worlds you create or join. The menu character will now also reflect these options.


You can now destroy draggable items, for those of you sick of excess crates and dynamic canisters cluttering up your little corner of Mars. This is as simple as just targeting them with an Angle Grinder equipped. Any objects contained within the destroyed item will appear in-world, and any gas remaining inside will be released when you cut into it - so be careful as a destroying a pressurized tank will be very dangerous.


A much-requested feature of the authoring tool was the ability to remove objects quickly and completely, without extra cleanup of loose dynamic items being required. You can now do this with the tool wielded by holding down your QuantityModifier key which is C by default.


These features are still being fully implemented and tested, but to give you a bit of an idea what to expect in our next big update - here:

Added the ability to see your customized character in the main menu screen.
Added the ability to deconstruct various portable atmospheric devices using the angle grinder.
Added the ability to delete items and structures using the authoring tool. Delete Structures with Authoring tool by holding down the QuantityModifier key (C by default).
Updated Localization Files (Current 17th April)
Improved Destruction of large dynamic items with the Angle Grinder. Now applies to all draggable things, not just atmospheric devices. Also now properly ejects the contents of all slots and atmospheres when deconstructed.

Fixed issue where chute junctions placed directly next to device inputs/outputs would not always 'connect' correctly through save/load. [thanks Risu & Zaneo]
Fixed slot numbering on Battery Charger. [thanks Austin]
Fixed interactable order caused by yesterdays slot number fix on Dynamic Crates. [thanks Rob The Dude]
Fixed issue with DynamicCrate slot ordering. [thanks Sharidan]
Fixed double brown hair issue & not being able to change hair colour without hair.
Fixed authoring tool deletion; you must now hold the modifier key to delete anything, also increased the time it takes to delete from 0.1 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
Fixed facial hair is now displayed on the main menu character.
Fixed bug preventing automatic rotation button from automatically setting values for objects with a single rotation plane that aren't face mounted.
Fixed automatic rotation on FlagSmall.
Fixed atmosphere being released when destroying gas canisters with authoring tool.
Fixed typo in description of bdseal and bdnsal [thanks Andir]
Fixed bug that set IC stack pointer value to 0 on load regardless of what it was when saved.
Fixed Inability to unwrench gas canisters from connectors.
Fixed 'InvalidCastException' when targeting certain objects.
Fixed Object fall-through-world protection. Made more reliable and now removes any forces applied on the falling object in an attempt to prevent any more 'accidents'.
Fixed sleep command on IC only working first time it was called.

Still working through the big-ticket technical backlog, but as usual we have a bunch of fixes and your requests that are worth getting into the stable branch. We're also going to endeavour to keep the 'what we're working on' section of these notes going every patch, to more clearly illustrate that what you see in these patch notes every few weeks is not the totality of what has been done since the last update.


We've added the ability to search for recipes in manufacturing machines. For the IC programmers, we've also added a sleep command. They're small things, but many of you have been very passionately requesting them so we hope you enjoy it.


The first of many audio improvements have taken place in the last couple of weeks with the addition of a new team member dedicated to audio. In addition to bringing across some audio functionality from another project at the studio, we've been able to start looking at some of the most noticeable holes in what you hear while playing the game. We'll be experimenting with a lot of the systems and sound, so give us your feedback and keep in mind that it'll be a continually evolving thing as development continues.


Work continues on the new tutorial, and we'll look at getting this up on the workshop in the next week as well as making available the documentation for authoring your own tutorials or scenarios. Once it has been thoroughly tested, we'll look at introducing it in the beta branch. As this will ideally be a brand new replacement tutorial, we need to ensure it is a bug-free and comprehensive introduction to the game before it makes it to people playing for the first time.


Some of these have been posted in past patch notes, but rather than regularly field questions about it in Discord and on Reddit, we'll try post more regular updates for works-in-progress here.

Session Abstraction
We're working on a lobby system to break up the multiplayer and the game world. This will allow players to join a game before the world is created. The next step will be the preserve this lobby/player data even while cleaning up the world, then once we support being able to transition into a new one with the same set of people then round-based play is just around the corner.

Optimization
While we're trying to leave the bulk of optimization until more of the core features are into the game, occasionally certain things stand-out as being strong candidates for optimization. We've identified a couple of these in the last week or two, so it's too soon to speculate on how impactful they'll be - keep an eye out on the beta branch patch notes.

Audio
As mentioned above, the team now has a dedicated audio tech/programmer! The focus in the immediate future will be sounds local to the character (ie. suit noises), with additional movement sounds to go with the just-added footstep ones.

• Fixed various side effects of refactoring.
  

• Fixed several missing references to NitrousOxide in tooltips etc. [Credit: Risu]
  
• Fixed issue where randomize on the Character Customization screen allowed invalid selections, which if retained would prevent save games with that character from loading correctly.
  

Another bunch of fixes this update, with a couple of quality-of-life improvements for multiplayer and cable/pipe placement - but a lot of progress on some of the slow-burn features we've been working on for a few months.


Rather than having to remove pipes and cables to add additional connections, you can now place cables/pipes on top of each other at which point they'll merge into their larger variant with more connections. No removal required! You will, however, be required to have the normal removal tool in your off-hand - so in the case of pipes, you'll need to have a pipe kit in your active hand and a wrench in the other.


Some players have issues in multiplayer with port-forwarding and connecting to Steam Matchmaking servers. You can now host a multiplayer game using Peer-to-Peer instead, joinable either directly by IP address on the server list, or by joining off your Steam friends list.


Many improvements were made to the save process, with it now running in a separate thread. This means there will be no game 'freeze' whenever an autosave happens, but it'll still be processing the save data in the background. There will be an indicator on screen to tell you that an autosave is taking place, and you'll be unable to quit the game at this time. There will also be an audible tone when an autosave begins.


A sneak peek at the items that will be coming to the beta branch in the next week or two:

Recipe List Filtering
We're adding a search box to the top of the recipe selection window on construction machines, helping you find what you're looking for a bit easier.

New Tutorial
We have a rewritten tutorial that includes previously overlooked aspects of the game, like Mining, constructing an airlock from scratch, using access control, setting up solar power, status updates and more. This included a lot of foundation work on the system used to create these, so it'll be much easier for us to make additional tutorials on subjects like smelting, hydroponics, more advanced logic automation etc.

Client/Server Recipe Synchronization
Instead of the server assuming that the client uses the same recipes, they will now be sync'd to the client when they connect. This will allow for better mod support for multiplayer games, and reduce the likelihood of issues arising when clients are using different languages to the server.

Added support for alternative custom voice collections (Status Voices)
Added FX sounds when auto-saving
Added Priority option to Existing Audio System.
Added description of lr command on ProgrammableChip.
Added Cables and Pipes will be merged when placed with any existing one in cell if deconstruct tool in offhand.
Added save path to settings. A few player have troubles to save world in "My Documents" folder. Once you change it, it can't be uploaded to steam cloud. You need to copy your save files to other pc manually.
Added Steam P2P which allows to play with your friends under NAT or VPN. There is an option in setting > Muliplay > Enable P2PHost. Once it's enabled, "Advertise Server" option is disabled. Steam P2P isn't compatible with it. You can join friend's P2P host through "Join Game" on steam overlay.

Optimized memory usage when saving world.
Improved Audio Fidelity on Helmet Open/Close.
Improved saving world performance. It indicates saving message at the bottom right corner and can't leave session while saving.
Removed ability to paint LED Light.

Fixed bug that caused arc furnace to output unpredictable substances and quantities.
Fixed missing syntax highlighting for lr and define commands on IC.
Fixed bug that prevented logic from telling the arc furnace to print when new ore of same type entered input slot.
Fixed bug that caused BatteryCellCharger to bring down power network.
Fixed Incorrect value on Max distance causing Powered Sound to Play Everywhere.
Fixed P2P connecting problem when it's already in game. It couldn't connect to P2P Host.
Fixed total thing counts in loading screen. It was always 0.
Fixed batteries in BatteryCellCharger no longer charge one at a time.
Fixed BatteryCellCharger no longer wastes power if more than one battery placed requires charging.
Fixed bug that prevented cables being placed immediately next to ChuteBin.
Fixed null referenced exceptions in Human. Dead player's head animator wasn't set for new connected player.
Fixed bug preventing cables, heavy cables and pipes from being placed in authoring mode.
Fixed LED when placed from painted ItemWallLight kit will now always be white.
Fixed couldn't set LED colour from Logic devices.
Fixed bug allowing heavy cables to be merged into normal cables and vice versa.
Fixed bug preventing painting Pipe Kit.
Fixed an issue where you were unable to continue building some structures after a certain point.
Fixed unexpected error message when player respawns after starting to decay. It respawned twice and accessed to uninitialized data.
Fixed connection problem in password P2PHost. It failed to connect to P2PHost after input password.
Fixed unable to save world when chick npc is spawned. It threw null reference exception.
Fixed bug in which ladder end wouldn't return kit on deconstruction.
Fixed unexpected error log when connect to dedicated server("Spawn scene object not found for 1"). It's side effect of Steam P2PHost.
Fixed bug that prevented placed LED from being painted.
Fixed bug preventing displaying of some Polish special characters.
Fixed null references in HydroponicsAutomated. It tried to harvest potato on game client. Automated harvest is available only on host or dedicated server.
Fixed broken Programmable ChipMotherboard when input enter before click it. It wasn't initialized properly.
Fixed wrong access to GasDisplay. It often happened when removed device from Motherboards.
Fixed wrong access to color swatch. The index was wrong and broke game logic when loading world.
Fixed broken graphics when saving world over read-only attribute files. It forces to remove read-only attributes world save files.
Fixed null reference when closing character creation panel in settings.