Stationeers News

Immediately following last weeks patch a few nasty issues surfaced as a result of the engine migration, but they've been tackled and we're able to refocus on the trading mechanic. The new UI capabilities we have thanks to the addition of the Stationpedia will be a big part of that, so keep an eye on the beta branch for the latest on our works in progress!

It's only been a few days since our last hotfix, so not a massively dramatic update this week - however there is one very important things to note.

CAUTION: Back in September a change had the unintended result of canisters no longer taking damage when over-pressurized. This update includes a fix for that.

Besides that, we got a lot of fixes in for non-critical-but-annoying bugs, some that have been around for a while. The save process has been made much more robust, with more checking done when saving to ensure things are working and better error reporting when it doesn't. It also won't overwrite files if there are any problems with the save process.

Dedicated server is still a work in progress, but some of the outstanding issues with Integrated Circuits and Atmospherics (specifically, welder gas tanks) on dedicated server have been resolved. The remaining major bug relating to vanishing items on dedicated is proving more of a challenge, so if you happen to have a reliable set of steps and a world save to reproduce this issue we'd love to hear from you on Discord!


And surely not the last! We've expanded the tutorial to include build states for machines. Expect it to be expanded further in the future to integrate the new help system.


We've implemented an entirely new in-game help system - Introducing the Stationpedia! It can be accessed using the F1 key and is a nice simple way to view game information without having to alt-tab. You can click on most objects to link through to other ones for all raw materials, gases, crafting kits, structures, their recipes and the values they have that are exposed to logic. This is definitely not an exhaustive list and we'll constantly expand on this as we (and you) think of more data to add. The window can be resized, and there's an icon in the top right corner that will let you toggle transparency.

Added game version now stored with IC Source Code to help track down issues and in case we need to do special version handling later.
Added Stationpedia, an in-game help system. Default key to access is F1 (in game only). Framework has been added along with some data, note this is subject to significant change and does not contain all the information that is planned.
Added opacity toggle and help buttons to tutorial window.
Added deconstruction information, similar to construction tooltip. When a tool is in your hand, and Extended Tooltips is enabled, you will receive information on what tool is required (if any) to deconstruct the structure you are looking at. To disable this, turn off Extended Tooltips in the settings menu. This will help when deconstructing items as it tells you what tool to use.
Added Operate and Logic modes to all doors. When set in Operate mode (0; the default) the door works normally. When set to Logic mode (1), using the doors buttons will ignore open/close requests and change the "setting" variable, depending on the open state. If the player presses the button and the door is open, the setting will be set to 0. If the door is close, the setting will be set to 1. This allows you to manually control doors using it's buttons, instead of using the doors internal operation.
Added 'Mature' logic slot type. Will return 1 if the plant growing in the tracked slot is in a growth state flagged as 'Mature', 0 if not.
Added MaxQuantity as a LogicSlotType. You can now read both the Quantity and MaxQuantity of a slot for easy Diode displays!
Added Nitrous Oxide to Silver and Lead ore output.
Added Reagent, Gas, and much more information to Stationpedia. Now detailed information is available for this. For example, the Reagent and Gas pages will tell you what objects the reagent/gas is found in.
Added Autosave support for new worlds. If you don't have a current save slot set (by saving the world manually) and your autosave timer is reached, a new save slot will be created.

Improved garbage collection during terrain generation by pooling and reusing terrain chunks through the implementation of a 'Terrain Pool Manager'.
Improved tutorial significantly. Integrated it with the Stationpedia, so that players can click on highlights to get taken to more information.
Removed Tablet from tutorial. Instead tutorial covers recipes within the Stationpedia.
Changed WaterFilter in starting equipment to a ItemKitSensor to replace the one removed a couple of days ago. Water filter no longer required due to a water canister being included with the portable hydroponics added to the starting gear several weeks back.
Changed dedicated server. ClearAllInterval now treats zero or negative values as 'don't run ClearAll automatically'.

Fixed inability to create new entries in the code library due to the code input window obscuring the text input window.
Fixed NRE on dedicated server regarding elevator shafts.
Fixed IC Operations BDNSAL, BDSEAL, BEQAL, BGEZAL, BGTZAL, BLEZAL, BLTZAL and BNEAL branching to the incorrect line. [Credit: Risu]
Fixed the 'Setting' value on CircuitHousing not persisting through save/load due to CircuitHousingSaveData being a child of StructureSaveData instead of LogicBaseSaveData. [Credit: Risu]
Fixed IC housing losing device references on load on dedicated servers.
Fixed Logic Dials visual position not being updated on load. [Credit: Risu]
Fixed Automated Hydroponics not being paintable. It can now be painted like the other hydroponics structures.
Fixed welders not working on dedicated.
Fixed changing Autosave settings while the game is running not applying any changes. Autosave can now be disabled or have the interval changed after you start your game.
Fixed bug with chunk pool could not be reused.
Fixed problem where if the save process failed for any reason, you would not be able to try save your world again until you relaunched the game. You will be notified in the console if a save fails.
Fixed problem where incomplete saves may still overwrite existing ones. Now, as it saves each file of a world save they'll be given a temp_ prefix. If all the parts save completely, they'll replace the existing save files. This does not affect the contents of the backups folder.
Fixed issue causing terrain to become corrupted if you left one world and created another without relaunching the game due to terrain chunk pooling (added to reduce garbage collection) not being cleared properly when you leave a world.
Fixed world saves would sometimes get to a point where you could no longer place doors. This was caused by Cursor objects never correctly calculating their center position (only occurred once registered). This meant that when we fixed another bug regarding placement, this old one was exposed. This meant a final check was always occurring against one grid square in the world.
Fixed problem with dragged objects not displaying their icon properly.
Fixed unable to deconstruct damaged pieces. This was because the new extended tooltip was failing for destroyed structures that were not correctly registering themselves as destroyed. Credit: Su-pa-Kitsune.
Fixed Canisters exploding from being overpressurised had been accidentally disabled. It has been re-enabled.
Fixed CircuitHousing's IsValidIndex function bounds check was incorrect. [Credit: Risu]
Fixed Index lookup in IC's always returning 0 for aliases. [Credit: Risu]
Fixed null reference caused by player brain not being created in time for terrain generation to use it for positioning.
Fixed null reference caused by failure to create global atmosphere on client in time to begin atmospheric processing. Credit: TakoMT via Steam Forums.
Fixed Password server could become stuck in the top right of the screen when trying to drag it.
Fixed ladder blueprint shows incorrect bounds.
Fixed cannot connect to password protected servers. Now password window correctly passes in values, and allows connection to server. Issue was caused by a failed input box conversion between old unity version and new, which also didn't generate any errors.
Fixed Control Chairs unable to fire engines. A Control Chair connected to engines should now be able to fire up engines again when driven. Clients will not be able to see the engine particles for the moment.
Fixed Tutorial not able to complete due to Autolathe not having materials.
Fixed Jetpack in tutorial did not start with stabilization turned on.
Fixed could access buttons on simple manufacturing machines while still building them.

We've passed a big milestone! v0.1 to v0.2 this week, given our major engine upgrade. Performance and fixes are the key of this week.

Known Issue with IC's

While not a regular section in our patch notes, we've got a major issue with IC's that is still awaiting a fix. There is an issue with some IC programs that can cause the registers and aliases to get mixed up, which can have unreliable results depending on how your program is structured.
If you are having problems with an IC program, and are unable to wait for a fix - you can resolve these issues by not using aliases and addressing registers directly. We will try get this fixed ASAP in a hotfix.

This week marks the completion of the first stage of the engine upgrade. Any major bugs caused by the switch should now be resolved, so a big thanks to everyone who was playing on the experimental branch while it was up and reported any bugs. Things should now be more-or-less back to normal, so now is probably a good time to re-iterate our patch process for all the new players who have joined us recently.



This weeks update will have a pretty significant postive impact on the game. Many users will now notice substantial framerate improvements as well as reduced stuttering. Unity 2018 will now allow us more options in the coming weeks for additional optimization and stuttering improvements as well.



Stable/Main Branch
This is the branch everyone is on by default. This is only ever updated manually, and any update on this branch will be accompanied by either a Consolidated Patch Notes post like this one. If an urgent bug shows up in the ~24 hours following a patch, we'll just update the patch note post with the details. If the fix takes longer than that we'll make a separate Hotfix Patch Notes announcement.

Beta Branch
This is where the magic happens! The build on the beta branch comes directly from our working source at the studio. If something has been committed, it'll be in the next beta branch build. An automated build happens every weekday at roughly 8AM NZST, but if we're fixing something live as we discuss it with people in Discord or in response to a Steam Community post we'll likely push an update right away. Sometimes there could be multiple updates on this branch in one day, luckily the way Steam batches changes they're pretty small.

When the beta branch does get updated, you'll see the public patch notes in the #beta-changelog channel on Discord. Some patches may not contain any public change notes though, so don't be surprised if you see a blank one! It probably just had some boring change or the addition of some new art/sounds that haven't been implemented yet.

We've slowly been increasing the "build states" for various structures in the game, to add more depth and complexity. In a sense, this helps with physical security as well in the future - removing some devices completely would require tools which you could restrict access too.

Additionally a new resource, plastic sheets, has replaced Steel and Iron sheets in some cases. These are produced from Silicon Ingots. This should ease dependency on Steel in some cases, particulary for walls. But it's going to make finding Silicon quite important.

Other balancing is occuring as well, changing the reagent quantities to create things and also how many sheets are consumed in the build state process.

• Fixed issue causing terrain to become corrupted if you left one world and created another without relaunching the game due to terrain chunk pooling (added to reduce garbage collection) not being cleared properly when you leave a world.
  
• Fixed world saves would sometimes get to a point where you could no longer place doors. This was caused by Cursor objects never correctly calculating their center position (only occurred once registered). This meant that when we fixed another bug regarding placement, this old one was exposed. This meant a final check was always occurring against one grid square in the world.
  
• Improvement chunk pooling manager for garbage collection.
  
• Fixed problem with dragging objects not displaying their icon properly.
  
• Fixed unable to deconstruct damaged pieces. This was because the new extended tooltip was failing for destroyed structures that were not correctly registering themselves as destroyed. Credit: Su-pa-Kitsune.
  
• Fixed Canisters exploding from being overpressurised had been accidentally disabled. It has been re-enabled.
  
• Fixed CircuitHousing's IsValidIndex function bounds check was incorrect. [Credit: Risu]
  
• Fixed Index lookup in IC's always returning 0 for aliases. [Credit: Risu]
  
• Added Stationpedia, an in-game help system. Default key to access is F1 (in game only). Framework has been added along with some data, note this is subject to significant change and does not contain all the information that is planned.
  
• Fixed null reference caused by player brain not being created in time for terrain generation to use it for positioning.
  
• Fixed null reference caused by failure to create global atmosphere on client in time to begin atmospheric processing. Credit: TakoMT via Steam Forums.
  

• Fixed NRE when stop server on dedicated server
  
• Fixed NRE on dedicated server
  
• Fixed Password server could become stuck in the top right of the screen when trying to drag it.
  
• Fixed ladder blueprint shows incorrect bounds.
  
• Fixed cannot connect to password protected servers. Now password window correctly passes in values, and allows connection to server. Issue was caused by a failed input box conversion between old unity version and new, which also didn't generate any errors.
  

• Fixed Control Chairs unable to fire engines. A Control Chair connected to engines should now be able to fire up engines again when driven. Clients will not be able to see the engine particles for the moment.
  
• Fixed Tutorial not able to complete due to Autolathe not having materials.
  
• Fixed Jetpack in tutorial did not start with stabilization turned on.
  
• Improvement garbage collection with terrain generation.
  
• Fixed could access buttons on simple manufacturing machines while still building them.
  

For the first time in many months, we're not doing a weekly update! Before anyone posts about the project being abandoned, let's talk though the good news about why that is!



Most importantly, and most significantly, we are making a major upgrade in the engine. We have made the game using Unity. We locked the unity version a month or so out from our initial launch which means we haven't continued to upgrade the engine since then. Why is this? Well, engine version changes can cause a lot of headaches. While they do contain lots of bugfixes (good!) they often necessitate changes in how things work (bad!).

There was also a significant change in pricing for Unity which was going to have some pretty huge ramification for the cost of our project. This is a very niche title, that's likely to run very close to only break even. We have to buy licenses for not only the people developing the game, but even our build servers! So it adds up pretty quick.

In the end, the benefits of this project being like others in our studio (which had moved to Unity 2018), and the fixes and new features of 2018, meant that we needed to upgrade. And so we have. Heightmare did the initial test, porting over and changing what was needed. Then we started migrating all the team, and our build servers. We've got all the hard parts of that working to the point some in the community are actually testing versions of the game running in the updated engine. Now we're just finishing the upgrades to our automated build and deployment system so it works with the new Unity version.

What are the results? Well, quite staggering really. Load times for a community provided large map were reduced from 5-10 minutes to seconds. There are other areas we'll have significant improvements in that will be more appreciable over time.



If you've played RimWorld, you know how well trading can factor into to these kinds of game. So we wanted to start looking at what trading could look like in Stationeers. A form of trading is also key in our inspiration, SS13, so we felt it was a necessary component before we could replicate round-based play of Stationeers as well.



The initial groundwork has been done, the models have been made, which means we can begin the implementation in the coming weeks. It will involve placing down a landing pad. Placing landing "beacons" which would guide AI aircraft in, and then placing a communications relay which allows you to talk to these traders. You need to make sure the path you set is clear, or the AI craft will crash and not want to trade.



Initially it will just be trading, once that works out, we'll look at how the mission system (already implemented) can be extended to include people coming in via these ships. Perhaps you need to escort a scientist out to a remote area, or find someone lost and then recover them to a rescue ship, and so on.







The medical system seems very basic. You get hurt, you take a pill. The reality is the system behind it is actually well fleshed out - it's just the "healing" that is simplified. You have organs, they take damage. So we want to expand this and surgery is seen as a key component.



It's a good chance for to examine: how do we get key mechanics into the game? Well, simply put - we play games! For me, SS13 in particular Paradise Station has been a surgery system I really enjoy. I play on that server as a Surgeon often; so I'm very familiar with how fun it can be. We discuss those ideas in an open forum, and often break out to a whiteboard to discuss the implementation. Then it gets captured on an internal intranet, tasks get assigned, and the work begins in earnest.



When will we see this in? Good question! The answer is really "it depends". Really what affects it most is how stable the build is, how well the engine upgrade has gone, and how bad stuttering is in the game.

Some weeks, people complain about us having new content coming when there are still bugs - assuming this new content takes people away from fixing bugs. That's seldom the case, we prioritize bugfixing over new features. New features and content get implemented because: the programmer doing it needs a break (something fun), implementing it takes a very short amount of time (variations of existing things can take only 10-30mins to implement), others are working on core aspects of the game so the programmer isn't able to do bugfixes till they're finished.

We're pretty upbeat actually! The project is in a good place, it's fun for us to add new things because we've ended up refactoring most of the really troublesome things. We are left with a few hard ones: such as stuttering and whether we completely replace Unity's networking API with our own solution. We also have big design decisions to make, some community suggested such as how much more "science" we model with things like pressure and temperature.



What is most fun, at least for me, is going into the game and adding new stuff and then seeing people play with it. And with a good foundation, we're able to do that much easier. We got some rough feedback early in the project, and updates were a lot slower. But that's just because we took on the biggest tasks first. And that's a tough part of early access, consumers aren't really ever exposed to these realities and as a developer: you can be rewarded for having a short time "more content" focus rather than a long term "better architecture" approach.

Please consider leaving a review on the project! It's really good to get feedback and review score makes a tremendous difference. Whatever review you leave but especially if it is not recommended, please leave some constructive thoughts. There is, for example, a recent negative review saying that the game doesn't run on Linux for them. We think that's a bit unfair, as the game isn't listed as supporting Linux. We see significant drops in sales based on even a few negative reviews. Some people do change their reviews, if they listed specific things and we go in and address them

So that is a pretty good overview of where we are at, and where we are heading for the next few weeks and months. Please let us know your thoughts, and get involved on the forums and discord!

This week is another pretty big one in terms of patch contents! It was meant to be a week we put the brakes on new features and go back to fix some of the long-standing bugs and address some quality of life issues. The outcome was some big wins on the performance and reliability fronts, but because Rocket can't help himself we also got a few new features! We've got some leave coming up in the coming weeks that may slow things down a little, but rest-assured there will still be steady improvements and we'll still be around in Discord to answer your questions and hear what you're doing in game.





Furnaces and Airlocks have been given additional build states. Much like how Frames are constructed, these structures require additional components after the kit is placed before they're functional. If you mouse-over the incomplete structure with the Extended Tooltip option enabled, you'll be shown what is required to progress to the next build state. They also now have to be deconstructed in phases in the same fashion. Likely tools for deconstruction of various stages are the Angle Grinder, the Crowbar, the Drill and the Wrench.






The IC system has been expanded a lot this week with the introduction of several new commands at your disposal and the ability to interface with Reagent mixes. In the example gif above, Discord user Qiler has used IC's to do their own implementation of sorting. The code is available to everyone on the Steam Workshop.

The hardsuit has now been given an IC slot, allowing you to use IC code to control its internal systems. We will likely expand this system to support things like custom alerts, and look at adding IC slots to even more devices to give you greater control over your systems.




We've introduced a new slot to the game: Glasses! This has rudely inserted itself into slot 2 on your inventory bar, so if you want to preserve your muscle memory you'll need to assign it a new key otherwise you may wish to reset the inventory slot keys to the new defaults of 1-6. Currently the only items available for this slot are some regular old Glasses (just cosmetic at this point) and the new Night Vision Goggles (NVG). They use a bit of power but let you get around at night a bit easier. Expect more options for this slot to be introduced later to display a whole raft of data visualization options.




You may notice a few strange new noises when navigating the main menu. The current sound implementation is the result of a fairly intense couple of weeks right before we went into early access, so was lacking in a few areas. We're looking to fill in some of those gaps in the near future - starting with the easy stuff like UI sounds. Currently just the main menu and some of the prompts are included, however, this will extend into the rest of the UI (settings screen, inventory slot interactions etc) in the near future. We can then start to look at some of the more complex sound additions to the game, like footsteps, impact sounds etc. Any feedback is appreciated, as always! You can alter the interface sound independently using the newest volume slider on the Audio settings screen.



Normally they wouldn't get their own heading, but there has been several significant fixes and improvements this week we'd like to highlight. Firstly, as mentioned in last week's patch notes we've acknowledged the performance issue with stuttering in the game and are trying to identify the best places to fix or improve it. This week we had several big wins in that department, with some of the worst culprits getting refactored to try make things run a little smoother. The problem definitely isn't solved, but based on the early feedback we've had from those playing on the beta branch the issue in at least the early game has been improved significantly. Work will continue in this area in the coming weeks and months.

In addition, several significant long-standing Atmospherics bugs were resolved, which you may need to be aware of going forward. A bug was identified by the prolific Risu on Discord, which caused the calculation responsible for transferring heat from pipe contents to the air surrounding said pipe and vice versa, to mix with the atmosphere at the world origin (0,0,0) rather than the atmosphere around the pipe. Now that it is fixed, you'll likely see much faster temperature transfer between pipes and the rooms they reside in - so be sure to keep an eye on that furnace output! We'll revisit the values for this after people have had some time to gauge the impact, then can look at tweaking the values or introducing something like Insulated Pipe if required.

Added build states to furnace. Now will require iron sheets and a variety of tools to construct. Note that deconstruction also requires different tools now.
Added additional build states to Airlock. Two extra build states are required to construct the Airlock, for balance reasons.
Added tooltip information for incomplete structures. If a structure is not completed, and Extended Tooltips is enabled in the settings, a tooltip will advise the player what tools they need to complete the structure.
Added Plants and Entities (such as players) will now take toxin damage from pollutants. This scales with the partial pressure of the pollutants in the atmosphere. 1 kPa PP is when they start taking damage, and when a critical toxin alert will show for the player. 0.5 kPa PP is when the caution toxins indicator will show for the player. Note this scales with partial pressure, if you have lots of toxins - you will die quickly. Lungs will, slowly, repair their toxin damage if below 50 damage. Plants will (currently) not.
Added new slot Glasses. Note: This will have a default key that will conflict with existing installs. You will need to either reset the keys to defaults or rebind.
Added Glasses. Made on Tool Manufactory. Cosmetic currently.
Added Night Vision Goggles. Powered item that goes into the new Glasses slot. NVGs allow you to see at night, reasonably well. They use a fair bit of battery.
Added Cognition voice warnings for critical and low, warns player when they are losing consciousness. Can be set on or off under audio settings.
Added first pass of menu button audio. Should cover most of the out-of-game interface, as well as some in-game parts. Settings screen & Toggle/Checkbox audio to come next.
Added a dedicated Interface Volume slider to the Audio settings page.

LOGIC Added an lR command to the programmable chip that allows reading reagent information (recipe/required/contents).
Added a ternary command 'select' to the IC. See in-game documentation for useage.
Added SGT, SLE, SGE, SEQ, SNE, SAP and SNA commands to round out the set containing SLT for programmable chip
Added PressureExternal and TemperatureExternal readable values on the Hardsuit. These could be read by an IC in the Hardsuit Processor slot.
Added IC's can now be loaded into the Hardsuit. When in the hardsuit, an IC will be processed in the same was as the IC would in a circuit housing. Device references are hardcoded, currently : db is the Hardsuit itself. d0 is the Helmet, d1 is the Backpack (possibly jetpack if word). PressureSetting and TemperatureSetting are new Logic variables that work on the Hardsuit. This would allow you to write your own IC's to control your hardsuit.
Added Hardsuit Filtration and AirRelease added as variables. These can be read and set, 0 is off and 1 is on.

Improved stuttering bug. As memory is turned over, it causes Unity to perform "garbage collection" regularly to clean things up. A number of String generation areas have now been cleaned up, and have reduced stuttering caused by the Inventory Windows, and the Player State info (top right). These two areas caused quite a lot of constant memory turnover from updating their strings. If you notice an improvement with this update, please post your results in the forums. Note that stuttering still exists for my test levels, and we will continue to improve memory turnover to reduce stuttering. One big cause of stuttering that remains is memory turnover from the tooltip, and also network messages.
Refactored atmospheric messages to raw StreamWriter instead of MessageBase to reduce garbage. Reduces stuttering caused by atmospheric updates over the network.
Replaced starting airlock kits with regular door kits, as airlocks now require steel to complete them.
Changed ICs so that if the thing causes an error is fixed it will try to resume execution.
Changed Basketball Hoop now counts anything going through it, not just basketballs. Ores work well!
Moved IC labelling of devices to be the responsibility of the device the IC is hooked into instead of the IC.
Balanced Plant damage. They now take 30% of the damage they previously took, so they will be damaged slower.
Balance second CO2 Gas Filter to player spacesuit for default starting conditions, to make initial start more balanced.
Balance altered for Breathing value rate of entities. Now use an order of magnitude more moles, and plants use/produce an order of magnitude more moles. This was because production was so low for plants that, while realistic, the values were lost in either floating precision, or the atmospheric system removed them as they were so incredibly low. This was causing plants to not produce O2.
Improvement added B[R]AP - 'branch (relative) approximate' - and B[R]NA - 'branch (relative) not approximate' - to coincide with B[R]EQ and B[R]NE but allow the player to specify a tolerance in the comparison
Added a stack and branch/jump-and-load instructions to the programmable chip. Subroutines for all!
Changed db, sp, and ra to aliases, so they don't have to be handled specially, and load them at the beginning of an algorithm run
Improvement: Tidied how the IC stored it's variables so instead of code repeating an ugly implementation several times the ugly implementation only happens once now.

Fixed Null Reference Exception Message if you had a Control Chair in your world due to missing text box on the altitude display.
Fixed If playing offline, error message when Steam attempts to connect but fails will only repeat several times before the message is supressed.
Fixed error preventing the peek operation from working correctly on IC (credit Risu)
Fixed a bug where LED displays could display numbers larger than the screen size.
Fixed controlling an active vent with an Mode Control Circuitboard shouldn't get stuck changing mode any more. [Credit: Risu / Zaneo]
Fixed Incorrect labelling of Logic Types using the Configuration Cartridge due to the list of types being sorted alphabetically but not the list of string labels.
Fixed unclickable call button on Elevators.
Fixed Incorrect spelling and odd naming conventions on some wall types.
Fixed Pipe Thermodynamics. For quite some time, heat radiation from pipes has been calculated but applied to the atmosphere located at 0,0,0 instead of the one surrounding the pipe. This fix may cause temperatures in your base to fluctuate quite a lot more than usual depending on how your pipes are situated and what they contain. A big thanks to Risu for finding this one!
Fixed a bug in which IC's that contained references to db would be in error state when loading a save game.
Fixed Incorrect StringHash on Glasses slot resulting in them being incorrectly labelled as 'Belt' in several places.
Fixed bug in IC that prevented values being loaded from devices.
Fixed Function and Variable help window lists were not sorted alphabetically.
Fixed Basketball Hoop now updates the score display when OnOff is changed.
Fixed Configuration Cartridge now properly displays all accessible logic types and their current values on devices. Grey for readable, Green for writeable.
Fixed null reference when plant is breathing in a complete vacuum.
Fixed occasional NullReferenceException with Arc Furnace when smelting, due to incorrect atmosphere object being referenced.
Fixed NullReferenceExceptions on attempting to join a second game without restarting your Stationeers client due to old objects from the previous world still being referenced on load.
Fixed unable to place airlocks/doors when an object existed at 0,0,0 in the world. This shouldn't normally have been able to occur, but could via bugs. This would prevent you being able to place airlocks till this was removed. Now this redundant check was removed, as it was a leftover from an old system. Airlocks correctly check their face neighbors during placement.
Fixed Global atmosphere state not syncing to clients, so they didn't get variation in temperatures.
Fixed Nul ref caused by Atmospheric thread cleaning up atmosphere before event had a chance to occur.
Fixed exception when ice melting in a global atmosphere or true vacuum.
Fixed Hardsuit PressureExternal reporting in Pa, when suit set in KPa. Now unified in KPa.
Fixed Arc Furnace resulting in drop in temperatures when smelting. Now the arc furnace will produce gas, which will tend to be at the temperature of the surrounding air. Previously the gas was produced at zero degrees. Note the Arc Furnace will generate heat energy now, it's not energy neutral. This means if 2000 J is needed to smelt Gold, it will produce 20000 J of heat. You could capture this heat and be net energy positive. This fix may also fix the furnace, as it involved making the methods used Thread-safe, but this was not properly tested so needs to be confirmed.
Fixed incorrect description of PEEK on the IC commands.
Fixed a bug when registers with multiple digits weren't showing up as valid in the IDE.
Fixed Bug with pipe network splitting not properly distributing atmosphere, resulting in the sum of the newly created pipe networks containing more gas than the original. [STAT-1022]
Fixed Hardsuit processor slot tied to AC power state. Now IC in processor slot will run if there is a battery, and the battery has charge. You have to remove the processor for it to stop working.
Fixed PressureSetting was not setable on the Hardsuit.
Fixed issue with recipe containing duplicates if Workshop screen was accessed due to mods reloading.
Fixed error handling if two scenarios with the same folder name are loaded.
Fixed elevator shaft bounds box during construction is comically large.
Fixed Iron Window was trying to cast a shadow and was not set as transparent, therefore hiding sun.
Fixed bug which prevented aliases above 5 being assigned aliases.
Fixed memory leak with new StringGenerator.
Fixed Automated Hydroponics missing correct blueprint was using fallback.
Fixed IDE for ICCode recognizing commands in comments when it shouldnt.
Fixed dedicated servers occasionally not loading world or crates.

So it's been a really big week for us. Often, in game dev, some weeks are slow and some weeks a lot of stuff comes through. We received a bit of feedback on discord that last week didn't have enough fixes. We made sure this week had lots of fixes! Also some new content that we have been preparing for a while.



For a long time growing plants has remained one of the areas it was completely impossible to automate. Now we have an item that will, with the future tech tree, become more of an "end game" way of growing plants.

This automated station has an Import, Export, and Growing slot. You can send custom Logic command (Plant, Harvest) to the machine with a value of 1 to get it to process itself via logic. Or you can click the buttons on the machine.



The first phase in a major atmospherics refactor has been completely. The game uses threads to help with performance. This means the game is able to do many things at the same time, without those other tasks impacting on the rest of the game.

This is a very complicated way of making a game, as these need to be carefully synchronised. Often areas of the game were accessing this "volatile" information while it was being changed, resulted in weird values. This caused significant issues; such as the dreaded "Temperature Low" often for brief seconds. This has now been fixed!

Over the coming months we will continue to introduce more changes to make the atmospherics system more robust. We're very confident that this weeks refactor will provide significant improvement in stability.



As an additional part of the atmos refactor, is the preparation for surgery in the coming weeks. We've added N2O which, in larger quantities, can cause you to go unconscious. Currently it's only available by debug spawning, but throughout the week will add more.







Filters, Unloaders and Stackers have not been able to easily be controlled via logic. Now, if you set their Mode to the appropriate value (2 for Filter, 1 for Unloader and Stacker), they will enter a "wait" mode.

In this mode, they will process a single requested operation, and then go back to waiting. You can see (or set) this state using the Output variable.

For example with the Filter, -1 is idle, 0 is left, and 1 is right. With the Stacker, -1 is idle, 0 or greater processes a single requested stack size. With the unloader, -1 is again idle, 0 unloads the slot item itself without removing anything, and 1 removes a single item from what you have loaded.

This allows you to use these items in any custom way, with the new IC's or the existing logic system. They will be able to work in lock-step with your logic systems.

The following script sets a stacker to Logic mode, with a setting of five, and processes one stack:

alias Stacker d0 # sets the screw to show stacker​
s Stacker Mode 1 # set stacker to logic mode​
s Stacker Setting 5 # stacker size will be 5`​
s Stacker Output 1 # stacker will process once

Based on excellent community feedback the IDE for editing IC code has been improved significantly, and many bugs found and fixed. Now your string based jump labels (e.g. "start:") will be colored purple, with other strings white. There are still some bugs but this will continue to be improved.





You can now share your IC Code creations on the Steam Workshop using the in-game code library. This feature has been available in beta for a couple of days, so there's already several items available. Once subscribed, they will appear in the code library from where they can be easily loaded into any Computer with a Programmable Chip Motherboard inserted.





All the basic manufacturing machines have been given a bit of a visual touch-up with recipe selection finally getting its own button. In addition, the recipe selection UI has been given an overhaul and now features more sensible sorting and thumbnails. It also now properly supports localised item names in languages that require extended fonts.



As your base gets larger, we have more stuttering. This is caused by Unity's Garbage collection occurring. We have included an update in this patch that reduces this by about 30% but it is still very noticeable.

We have some plans for this:

• We are looking at upgrading to the latest Unity version
  
• Refactoring all our code to make it more memory efficient
  
• Replacing Unity's MP system with our own that is more memory efficient