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Stormworks: Build and Rescue News

v1.6.6-7 - The Desalination Update!



Dear Stormworkers,

This week we are releasing a new desalinator component, along with the ususal fixes and improvements in this minor update.

Desalination is the process of removing salts and minerals from water. In sea water, the smallest molecules are the H2O water molecules, and marine desalinators work by pushing salt water through a very fine filter paper which only the smallest molecules can fit through.

This new Stormworks component converts sea water to fresh water.



This is just a small feature update, as we return our focus back to bug fixes and improvements. We have been very active in releasing new features recently (with the new Industrial Frontier, Zombies, etc). However, players have continued to help us identify issues that need fixing, and we have a great list of stuff that we can improve in the coming weeks and months. We plan to continue making steady progress working though any issues, as well as regularly adding minor features.

Progress here is going well and we have a lot of fixes and improvements in production, many of which will hopefully have a big impact for many players. While development continues at the same pace, we are now giving more time to testing so there is a longer lead-in time as we take care to make sure the updates are to a higher quality. These upcoming fixes are very important and we will go into more detail about our plans in a future announcement.



Please see the patch notes below for full details on all changes.

We look forward to your thoughts and feedback!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.6.6

Fix - Negative integer table indices are now supported when saving addon script data

v1.6.7

Changes that include a #NUMBER relate to fixes or features submitted by the Stormworks community via geometa.co.uk/support/stormworks which can be accessed via the 'Report Bug/Request Feature' button in-game.

Posting a submission to this tracker ensures we review your suggestion/report since we may not see reports submitted via other channels.

Feature - Desalinator (#6859 #8557 #8575)
Feature - Addon editor creature support and localization (#14990)

Fix - Repaired various train-line issues (#14877 #14942 #14976 #15064 #15275 #15300 #15350)
Fix - #15494 Custom tanks without a fluid spawner now correctly add their contents to workbench inventory on vehicle despawn
Fix - #14461 Modular starter audio sfx crash/memory leak
Fix - #11629 Sonar missile output failing when sampling multiple bodies
Fix - Tutorial DLC disabling not working as intended when hosting MP games
Fix - Improved some thread safety to avoid lockup situations
Fix - #13075 Rotor end fold/unfold raycast
Fix - #11572 Scuba outfit un-paintable
Fix - #1335 Incorrect ui highlight when re-entering map
Fix - #13462 Updated purchase dialogs to use property instead of island
Fix - #13469 Missing localization strings for bindings menu
Fix - #13591 E/Q camera controls in editor are inverted
Fix - #13689 Hand cranks now consider damping
Fix - #13731 SGK Outpost physics mesh issues
Fix - #13732 Oil refinery stairs hitbox
Fix - #14854 Nuclear plant mesh issues
Fix - Campbell lighthouse light rotation speed
Fix - several small terrain fixes for arid island
Fix - #14823 Monkey Brain typo
Fix - #14829 Sharpspoonful typo
Balance - Improved rocket fin control surfaces underwater
Balance - #13275 Rebalanced leak flow rate to compensate for leak spawning bugfix (reduced 3x)

Added a preset torpedo example
Removed the default zombies addon

Upcoming - Minor Updates & Planning Major Updates



Dear Stormworkers,

This week is upcoming announcement week, with content updates releasing last week, and also next week. Our schedule alternates every other week between game updates and upcoming announcements.

In this announcement, we discuss our plans for future updates! We are working on several minor updates, starting on some new future major update content, and looking for new ideas as we plan out development for 2023.

We are planning minor updates every 2 weeks (as usual), which will be mostly fixes and improvements, but also with some new components and features too.



These minor updates include some very frequently requested changes and improvements. The first of our audio updates will arrive before the end of the year, as well as other common requests.

However, these updates will be predominantly bug fixes and improvements, with each update having useful fixes for all players. These are well planned out and we are constantly reviewing the issue tracker and planning more work and tasks, and planning more updates.

We are also talking about major updates at the moment. No final decisions have been made yet for what the 2023 major updates will be, so now is a great time to let us know your thoughts, ideas, and requests. Drop your ideas in the comments, or if you want to go into more detail, make a feature request on the issue tracker! As always, we love to hear feedback from players, and this feedback is a big influence to the direction of the game, as has always been the case in the past! Almost all of the updates we make to the game are direct responses to requests from players.



Thank you to everyone who has already given feedback! It is appreciated. And also, thank you to everyone who has supported us by getting the game or the DLCs! Stormworks continues to be a great success on Steam. We really enjoy developing and supporting this game and its players, and we are delighted to be planning support into the future.

Much love
The Stormworks Developers

v1.6.3-5 - The Zombies and Undead Survival Update!



Dear Stormworkers,

It is Steam Scream Fest!

Today we add zombies, and animal fancy dress!

The Stormworks undead wander around aimlessly, until they hear or see the player. If they hear a sound or catch a glimpse, they may investigate and wander in your direction. If they get a better look of a player, they will break into a sprint and if they get close enough... attack! This behaviour is actually a general improvement to all predator creatures and it is now possible to avoid detection through remaining quiet and out of sight.

The dogs and farm animals are also celebrating the Halloween festival, and are wearing fancy dress!

The animals and creatures is a new system introduced in the Industrial Frontier DLC. The zombies use this system, and that is why the Industrial Frontier is required for zombies.



Zombies are very dangerous, and our survival style add-on also involves spawning loot, including guns. Because of this, our zombie add-on (the bit that spawns the zombies and loot) is only active when both DLCs are present.

And of course, Stormworks isn't actually a zombie game, so our Undead Survival add-on is only active during Halloween. However, our add-on can be modified and uploaded to the workshop if players wish, and we are sure that many creators will want to make their own zombie add-ons which could be active all year round.



This is a minor seasonal update, and just a bit of fun. We hear those players who have other priorities for the game, but this won't stop us releasing fun content for the players who want it!

While the headlines are above, this update also includes lots of important fixes and improvements that will be useful to everybody. Please see the notes below for full details.

We hope you enjoy this new update and look forward to your thoughts and feedback!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.6.3-5

Changes that include a #NUMBER relate to fixes or features submitted by the Stormworks community via geometa.co.uk/support/stormworks which can be accessed via the 'Report Bug/Request Feature' button in-game.

Posting a submission to this tracker ensures we review your suggestion/report since we may not see reports submitted via other channels.

Halloween Seasonal Event:
Feature - Stormwoofs seasonal outfits
Feature - Added several zombie creature types
Feature - Aggressive creatures advanced AI
Feature - Zombie Apocalypse Addon (#5689)
Feature - Fluid tanks improved detailed tooltips
Feature - Add Workbench for ground vehicles at North Meier Outpost (#14888)

In this spooky update along with various bugfixes we have some new additions to our regular seasonal Halloween period:

Stormwoofs will temporarily have fun Halloween themed outfits on, with each breed having their own unique costume. (Let us know your favorite!)

Zombie Apocalypse mode is a new Addon which will be enabled over the Halloween period for players with both 'Search and Destroy' and 'Industrial Frontier' DLCs enabled.
We recommend disabling the dlc weapons ai script as minimum when playing with this addon and if players wish to turn off this addon they can disable it as usual in the addon selector on the new game menu.

The zombies addon has various settings to balance the mode to your own preference, so make sure to check them out in the addon settings when creating a new world.
With Default settings Stormworks will be plagued with undead lurking across the sawyer and arid biomes, with new aggressive creature advanced AI that respond to sounds like player footsteps or gunshots.
Players can go guns blazing or opt for stealth and avoid zombie vision cones as they search buildings for randomly generated loot, breaking line of sight will cause the zombies to lose interest after a while.
Loot (and zombies) will respawn after ~5 mins of a tile being unloaded, and random loot is themed to the location (Hospitals more likely to drop medical supplies etc).

Some of the following fixes are updates to default addon content or terrain, which may not be updated/fixed on pre-existing saves.

Fix - #14827 Updated default resource storage vehicle to fix an issue with pumping air after it runs out of fuel
Fix - Repaired several trainline rail/mesh issues
Fix - #14938 Workbench not working at benzin gas station
Fix - #14989 'Invisible walls' / for-sale sign physics not despawning correctly
Fix - #14866 Weapons outfits ids have now been corrected for inventory components
Fix - #10358 Increased async network buffer size for vehicles
Fix - #13695 Weather De-sync on load/join
Fix - #12053 Winch audio persisting at max length
Fix - #13319 Disabled some developer debug logs
Fix - #12318 Fix syntax error in lua docs
Fix - #13911 Oxygen tank and parachute animation issues
Fix - #14857 Unable to use scene ladders when carrying creature
Fix - Tooltip not appearing on workbench when carrying creature
Fix - #13382 Environment slider affecting voice volume
Fix - #14297 Fix charger component not providing power to grids connected directly to output without a charge reservoir
Fix - #14854 Mesh fixes for the Nuclear Plant
Fix - #15069 Bear attack mission description appearing incorrectly
Fix - #12943 Spawned structures should now count as static
Fix - Creature attacks dealing 3x damage to clients
Balance - #14860 Rebalanced initial workbench fuel resource amounts (5000L Diesel, 2000L Jet, 100 Coal)

Lua Api:

Due to the changes to equipment IDs for weapons armor outfits players may need to update scripts with the new id values:
Dog Whistle was inserted at 73, dlc weapons outfits have been shifted up by one

Added spawnNamedAddonLocation
Added getSeasonalEvent
Added spawnEquipment
Added onCharacterPickup
Added onCreaturePickup
Added onEquipmentPickup
Added onEquipmentDrop
Aliased getCharacterData to getObjectData
Added creature_type and scale to object data

Upcoming - Zombies!



Dear Stormworkers,

Steam Scream Fest starts on Tuesday, and to mark Halloween, we are doing an update to Industrial Frontier including zombies! While it is just a bit of fun, we have been having a great time testing and can't wait to share this update on Tuesday!



Many new zombie variants will be available. These have been added as a new creature type, using the new creates system that is introduced in Industrial Frontier for the animals. We are also adding various improvements to the creatures system in next weeks update. The awareness AI is being improved with field of view, line of sight, and hearing. This means that sneaking around is now possible, where staying out of sight is important. Creatures will investigate noises like nearby footsteps or distant engines and gunshots too, even if they haven't seen a player.



To continue the fun, during Halloween, many locations will have spooky decorations as in previous years. This year, dogs and many farm animals are also joining the fun and wearing fancy dress!

The new zombie creatures will be available via the lua API to all players with the Industrial Frontier DLC. They will be permanently available so players can use them in their own add-ons.



For players who also have the Weapons DLC, we are also creating a new "Undead Survival" add-on! This is a limited time event, just for the Halloween period. Zombies will spawn across the world of Stormworks, as well as loot, often around buildings. You can disable this add-on when starting a new game if you wish. It is loads of fun and we recommend giving it a go on Tuesday!

We look forward to sharing this update on Tuesday! Catch you then,

Much love
The Stormworks Developers

Stormworks: Industry Frontier - NEW DLC OUT NOW!



Dear Stormworkers,

The Stormworks: Industrial Frontier DLC is out now!

You can view the store page here.

What is included?

The new arid mainland more than doubles the land mass in Stormworks, with 400sq km of desert, salt plains, canyons, mountains, volcano, quarries, mine, industrial sites and more.

New road and rail reaches across this new mainland, with hundreds of km of new track and tarmac. Rail routes are mostly arranged in loops, and include shunting yards, access to industrial areas, and even slope into the sea at the ship launching yard.



New mineral types include iron ore, aluminium ore, and gold rich dirt. These minerals can be reduced and refined at the separator, foundry and industrial laboratory to produce pure ingots that can be sold at the trading yard.

Wild animals and farm animals roam the new arid biome as well as the forested mainland and the arctic. Be mindful of dangerous predators such and bears and wolves. Domestic dogs can also be found around the world and can be instructed with the new dog whistle.



The new animal-attack mission type requires you to rescue survivors from wild animal attacks.

For the Steam Scream Fest starting 25th October, for a bit of fun, we will also be adding new creatures to the DLC - zombies! And we will also be adding an Undead Survival add-on (active during the Scream Fest for owners of both the Industrial Frontier and Weapons DLC).

New Updates To The Base Game

We are also releasing free updates to the base game, with a remodelling for the Sawyer Isles including new train lines, the new mining component, new coal and uranium mineral deposits, and a reworked fuel management system for career.

We can't wait to hear what you think of the new update!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers







Patch Notes

v1.6.2

Features marked with [DLC] are only available via the new Industrial Frontier DLC.
Due to reworks to the trainlines, game mechanics and default playlists we strongly encourage users to create new saves for this update.


**Feature - Sawyer Isle Trainlines**

Revamped the railways on the Sawyer isles with scenic coastal cliff and valley routes, rail-road crossings and a new large train depot.
The outbound connection has been relocated from the north to the west coast of the island, with a new route to the south which connects to the New Arid biome if the DLC is enabled.


**Feature - Mining and Refining**

New Mineral Drill vehicle component for mining coal and ore from the ground.

Updated the Dean Hall (Sawyer) and Old Arnold (Donkk) quarries with coal deposits.
Updated the Underwater caves with uranium ore deposits.
Coal gantries at the quarries have been removed.

Renamed coal ducts/funnels/hoppers to mineral ducts/funnels/hoppers and added mineral type filters.

Uranium ore can be refined into Ingots at the XFury Drilling Co. in the arctic.


**Feature - Workbench resource storage**

Tiles now have an internal inventory for Diesel, Jet Fuel, Coal and Uranium Ingots.
Information for tile inventories can be viewed on the fast travel tooltip for a base or within the workbench itself by expanding the currency button in the bottom right of the editor.

The Auto-refuel setting has been removed:
Instead of filling inventories with fuel using money the resources are directly consumed from the workbench's inventory.

A new default addon 'default_resource_storage' has been created to supersede 'default_fuel_stores':
Jet fuel and Diesel can be pumped out through the provided pumps, Coal and Uranium Ingots can be deposited via the hopper.

Uranium Ingots are now required to fuel nuclear fuel rods.


**[DLC] Feature - Arid Mega Island**

A vast 300 Square Kilometer territory featuring Salt Flats, Mesa Desert, Rocky Mountains and a Huge Volcano.
A mix of truck stops and isolated industrial facilities are scattered throughout with an emphasis on truck and train logistics.
Deliver ores to the foundry via rail or explore the abandoned nuclear facility (Bringing a hazmat suit is advised).

When the DLC is enabled the preset starting tiles (Beginner Outpost / Creative Island) will be replaced with their Arid island counterparts.


**[DLC] Feature - Animals and Stormwoofs**

Animals now spawn throughout the world of stormworks.
Chase the seals in the arctic or race wild horses on the salt flats but watch out for bears in the woods.

Stormwoofs (Dogs) are a rare spawn that can appear near bases or residential areas in the world.
Unlike other animals they can be issued commands with the new Dog Whistle component to assist you on search and rescue operations.
Stormwoofs will alert players to nearby survivors by barking in their direction.
There is a guaranteed spawn location at the North Meier Outpost and FJ Warner Docks.

Yes, you can pet the dogs! (and many other animals)

Additionally we have added a 'Bear Attack' mission complication for thematic rescue mission types


**[DLC] Feature - Metals and Metal Ore**

The Arid Biome is formed from mineral dense rock and is home to several quarries and mines, with gold ores scattered across the plateaus beneath the surface sand.

Players will find Iron, Aluminium, Uranium and Gold Dirt deposits, which require processing at specialist facilities scattered across the islands.

- Gold Dirt can be sifted for Gold Ore at the Ace Master Separator.
- Refine Uranium Ore at the Uran Wind Power Plant.
- Smelt Iron and Aluminium and Gold Ores into ingots or temper Iron Ingots with Coal to make Steel at the Empire Industries Foundry
- Purify Dirty Gold Ingots into Pure Gold Bars at the Mallamar Mineral Lab


Fixes:

Changes that include a #NUMBER relate to fixes or features submitted by the Stormworks community via geometa.co.uk/support/stormworks which can be accessed via the 'Report Bug/Request Feature' button in-game.

Posting a submission to this tracker ensures we review your suggestion/report since we may not see reports submitted via other channels.

Revert - Reverted a fix to damage parsing that was causing highly increased load times for vehicle states
Fix - Crash caused by new train wheel assembly 3x particles
Fix - Improved client catchup when under high render load
Fix - #13755 Adjusted physics triangle culling (holes in floor)
Fix - Birds maximum flight height increased
Fix - #13641 Rail junction tile with incorrect connection flag
Rework - Tile generation reworked; seeds should persist in future versions
Rework - Coal (and Minerals) ground despawn time increased to 60sec
Rework - Coal (and Minerals) now sink in water
Rework - Updated mineral duct component network events for better sync
Rework - Mission characters no longer apply their orientation (Fix NPCs facing away from player)
Rework - 'First time' new game auto-setup now disables DLC

Misc Changes:

Added links to DLC store pages on the main menu if they are not owned.

Updated some dedicated server config names to reflect their in-game counterpart.
These were added as aliases so old names will continue to work:
aggressive_animals="true"
sea_monsters="true"
infinite_resources="true"

Addon Lua:

Return false instead of error when dlc lua functions are called from non dlc save
Fixed DLCWeapons script access error
Fixed property.slider not displaying decimals
Voxel-pos support for all set/get vehicle component functions
get/setVehicleHopper can now set mineral inventory for all mineral holding components; and has an additional type parameter
Added spawnVehicleRope
Added getVehicleRopeHook
Added getTileInventory
Added setTileInventory
Added dlcArid
Added spawnCreature
Added setCreatureMoveTarget