Stormworks: Build and Rescue News

Dear Stormworkers,

We have been fixing crash issues! Thanks to all the players who submitted their crash dumps via Bugsplat, we have already solved 80-90% of crashes, with more crash fixes going live in todays hot fix.



This graph shows the crash data submitted to us, colour coded by where the game has crashed. In this data, you can see where we initially launch the crash dump reporting, and then 70% along the graph we launch v1.2.15 which fixes the main crashing issues and majority of crashes in the game.

These fixes follow several recent quality improvement updates in our recent focus in this area. While there are undoubtedly more of these updates to come, crashes are the most severe errors and it is really exciting for us to make such a significant improvement in this area.



We are also planning various lua API changes over the coming weeks and are sharing info on these changes ahead of time, after discussing with players involved in running servers and communities. Please see the change log for full details.



Recently we announced the Carrier Command 2 release date, and the VR version of the same game (including a new trailer). This game is out on 10th August which is just over a week. After this release, our announcements will turn to focus more on the upcoming Stormworks major updates, which are very exciting.



Much love
The Stormworks Developers



v1.2.15 (Hotfix)

Fix - MP client teleport crash / defer tile removal on clients
Fix - Crash when blending toward a missing animation

v1.2.16-17 (Hotfix)

Fix - addon script missing base_price in older saves
Fix - crash when overloading an MC lua script (microcontrollers will now display a tick error should they fail)
Fix - crash when accessing an invalid bird perch
Fix - crash when attempting to render mc icons
Fix - crash when ending benchmark before a frame is captured

Upcoming Future Lua API changes:

The following functions will be reworked to return a table and is_success instead of individual parameters to make them more scalable/neat:

data, is_success = getVehicleDial
data = { value = value_primary, value2 = value_secondary }

data, is_success = getVehicleTank
data = { value = current_amount, capacity = capacity }

data, is_success = getVehicleBattery
data = { charge = charge_factor }

data, is_success = getVehicleHopper
data = { value = current_amount, capacity = capacity }

data, is_success = getVehicleSign
data = { pos = { x, y, z } }

Dear Stormworkers,

This week's update is entirely focused on quality improvement and fixing bugs and crashes in Stormworks!

We are trialling the Bugsplat crash reporter to help us see information about game crashes on 64bit Stormworks. As mentioned last week, the in-built Steam crash reports sadly doesn't support 64bit - so when we introduced the 64bit version of Stormworks, we stopped getting the valuable crash data that helps us understand how stable the game is, and what is causing crashes. With the new crash reporter, players who experience crashes can submit them for us to analyse.



Our previous quality improvement update also focused on multiplayer, as was discussed in a previous Q&A video. We have continued to look at this, and have made some important fixes to multiplayer that resolves several problems that players have frequently spoken to us about. These include various ways the game desynchronizes between players in multiplayer.

We have also made various add-on and lua fixes and improvements. Thanks to all the players who have been using and given feedback on the add-on system.



We are aware that for some players, an update that doesn't contain new content is less exciting - but these updates are important and we remain committed to working our way through the issues and helping players enjoy Stormworks as best we can.

Last week we discussed a potential change to how we release updates. We have no intention of making a decision soon as we have plenty of minor updates in the pipeline, but have been reading feedback and will consider the best way our updates can serve players over the coming months. Expect new minor updates with new content soon!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.2.14

Feature - New crash dump reporting
Feature - Small physics optimizations (~10% improvement)

Fix - Clients now correctly simulate the server in the background (Cause of several desyncs)
Fix - Static vehicle secondary bodies now simulate their buoyancy
Rework - Updated various AI vehicles with new window parts
Rework - Relocated military base fast travel node
Rework - F1 Profiler logic sections reorganized
Rework - Improve protection against twilight zoning
Fix - Hardpoint connector buoyancy surfaces
Fix - Return nil when getAddonData/getLocationData/getLocationComponentData fails
Fix - Outdated function name in lua example code
Fix - setGameSetting(unlock_all_islands) should now trigger correctly
Rework - Default AI vehicles addon now supports additional seated crew, placing NPCs in seats with the same name
Fix - Test location not despawning after a save/load
Fix - Hose pressure dropping with absolute world height

Dear Stormworkers,

We recorded the Questions and Answers video! It's 50 minutes of answering player submitted questions. With over 980 questions submitted, we couldn't answer them all. However, many questions were duplicated so we answered a good portion.

Thank you to everyone who submitted questions, and to MrNJersey for hosting!



In this weeks upcoming announcement, we will discuss the general development and release plans.

We continue to work on a bunch of minor updates that we are excited about, including the missions content updates that we discussed recently, some quality assurance updates, new components, features, fixes and minor improvements.

We are also working on weapons DLC, and the natural disasters major update, as well as another frequently requested major update that is rumoured to involve a new biome! (Watch the Q&A video above for hints!).

We are also looking at a new crash reporting tool (did you know that Steam crash reports only work with 32 bit?) and the new issue tracker (apologies that it is so far behind schedule).



So, we are working on a lot, with many changes in progress, and many near completion. Our plan is to continue to close these updates out and release as minor and major updates on the usual schedule.

This has also given us chance to reflect on the update schedule for Stormworks, and the question of how minor updates fit in. We are genuinely unsure if we should continue to release minor updates every 2 weeks, or build these changes into the major updates which could become bigger, more significant mega-updates every 3 to 4 months (but with regular bug fix updates).



The benefit of changing schedule would be to be able to test minor updates more thoroughly as they become part of the bigger releases, and make major updates bigger, more exciting events.

What do you think? We are very open to player feedback and no decision is made yet.

Much love
The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week, we are adding a new connector type - the hardpoint connector!

In preparation for the weapons DLC, we are adding this new connector type to help players prepare for weapons and start the discussion around weapons standardization.



The new connector has a primary part - the grabber that would be placed on the vehicle, and the insert that would be placed on the droppable part. The two halves of this new connector have a leader-follower relationship - the vehicle is very much in control of the droppable object.

Once connected, a vehicle can choose to either "launch" or simply "release" the droppable. Launching will arm the droppable and trigger it's "launched" on/off node, to simplify the logic required in arming droppables and deployables.



There is also composite and video pass through, so you can communicate, or more specifically, program the targeting data of the droppable.

The insert connector has a property setting for declaring the type of droppable object it is. The intention is that your vehicle knows the mode of operation that your droppable item requires so it can automatically display the correct HUD or send the right kind of data to program the droppable.

Of course, these new connector parts can be used in any way you like, and are bi-directional fixed connectors which will have many new and valuable uses, as well as the usual cosmetic applications!



We can't wait to hear what you think and what players thoughts are on if and how use of this part could be standardized to promote interchangeable droppable items!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.2.12

Feature - Hardpoint Connector
The hardpoint connector allows you to attach different types or ordinance to your vehicle, and outputs a behaviour type so that the parent vehicle can dictate the logic of activating the child.

Fix - Added a 5 min cooldown for mission spawning when no valid locations detected (Lag with sawyer island career)
Fix - Crash when accessing an invalid playlist_index

Lua API Updates:
Removed script halting lua error exceptions when a function fails

getCharacterData() now returns its values in a table on success, and nil on failure
{["hp"] = hp, ["incapacitated"] = is_incapacitated, ["dead"] = is_dead, ["interactible"] = is_interactable, ["ai"] = is_ai} = server.getCharacterData(object_id)

is_in_zone, is_success = server.isInZone(m, name) now returns is_success when the zone is found
is_lit, is_success = server.getFireData(object_id)now returns is_success when the fire is found

Dear Stormworkers,

We are going to do another Q&A video!

Submit your questions over the next few days, and we will do our best to answer as many as possible in the upcoming developer Q&A video.

Please submit just one, short question by clicking here! Thank you everyone who has submitted questions! The form is now closed.



These sessions have been very useful in the last, with the 1, 2, 3, 4 previous sessions covering many players questions. Many questions have prompted new updates, changes, and improvements, and we really enjoy the transparency and communicating our plans.



These sessions are really useful for us - your questions give vital insight into the priorities of our most engaged players, and helps us stay in touch with how you are playing and what you are expecting.

We are not planning on running a poll soon, mainly because we are still implementing the major updates you asked for in the last poll, of which there are 2 or 3 in development and yet to release. Rest assured, polls will return once we are able to react to them!



We have really exciting minor and major update plans, and much is still deep in development, so please let us know your questions and we look forward to answering them soon!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers