Stormworks: Build and Rescue News

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

Dear Stormworkers,

It is windows time! This week we are adding a set of 22 new window pieces to greatly expand the currently available set. These include many frequently requested and often xml modded parts, and will make building your vehicles and your cockpits much easier, with better results!

This update is in response to the many players requests asking for it - so a huge thank you to all the players who asked for these on the issue tracker and reminded us in the Q&A sessions! You have been asking for more windows for many, many updates, and they are finally here. I think the last window update was 18 months ago - it is about time!



We have also continued to work on improvements, and this week we have fixed several multiplayer issues. These fixes include waves and other game systems sometimes going out of sync, and some situations where physics might enter a broken state (a bug we internally named as the twilight zone), and many others!

We have also improved the bandwidth usage in servers, with games requiring only a fraction of the amount of bandwidth previously required in our tests. We hope this resolves many players multiplayer issues where the cause of their MP issues was not clear / contextual, and presumably playing multiplayer with limited bandwidth. This is also a big help to servers that now require less bandwidth to host many players.

We have also improved the network sync system so that games are smoother, particularly during bad network conditions where games would have otherwise have stuttered.



Please keep in mind, if your PC, (or the PC of the person hosting the game), does not meet the minimum requirements from the store page, then the "game experience may vary". Your and the servers internet connection are also important - you do need a basic broadband connection and about 12 kB/sec up and 24 kB/sec down to join a game, (and 24 / 12 per client to host), but if your internet connection is low quality, such as mobile internet with poor signal, or a family member hogging the connection, you are going to have a bad time and this isn't something that we can fix on our end.

Overall, these multiplayer improvements are very significant and we hope this improves the multiplayer experience for many players. We are continuing to look at multiplayer issues, so if you are still experiencing issues, let us know exactly how to reproduce your issue and we will take a look!



We look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on this new update!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.2.5-6

Feature - 22 New Window components
Feature - Networking layer optimization

Greatly reduced bandwith usage.
Greatly reduced stop-start freezing when playing with poor network conditions.

Rework - Additional params for setCharacterItem allowing for data to be set up on the items.
Rework - Component prices overhaul for a better balance in career
Rework - SpawnAddonComponent no longer auto adjusts to the location's tile position when using a custom spawn position.
(See default_mission_locations script for the intended alternate method of spawning)
Rework - getTileTransform now has an optional search radius parameter
Rework - Default Cargo script optimizations
Rework - Updated millitary base fast travel spawn point
Rework - Missions spawned with mstart no longer use a minimum range
Rework - getVehiclePos voxel_pos positions have been fixed and are now optional, returning the vehicle physics center if they are not passed
Rework - Custom preset when hosting a server defaults to MP island

Fix - Random generation potentially desyncing between clients
Fix - SpawnAddonComponent overriding custom rotation
Fix - Standardized use of RPS label for power logic nodes
Fix - Grippers now have 0.5 blocks leeway on their track (1 block length tracks always disconnecting)
Fix - getCharacterVehicle not functioning correctly
Fix - onPlayerLeave should now fire for all disconnect events
Fix - Added patch to default_mission_locations script to resolve errors in old saves
Fix - Game not returning to the menu state when disconnected from a server
Fix - Added protection for players entering the same seat
Fix - Client side wheels causing vehicles to shake in some situations

Added a warning when attempting to save when there is not enough disk space.
Added "Basic" tag to various basic components.

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we discuss some of the upcoming fixes and updates that we are working on in Stormworks!

At the moment we have a lot of new stuff in progress, from fixes, reworks, minor updates and major updates. Some of these new changes are going live today in a hotfix, others in coming weeks or months.



Fixes, Minor Updates, Major Updates

As always we are working on bug fixes and minor improvements. These smaller changes or quality improvements are often released quickly after we have made and tested them, so players can benefit from an improved experience as soon as possible. At the moment, we are particularly looking at multiplayer improvements, and investigating the associated bugs and crashes. Often these bug fixes take between an hour to a day to address, while others require days of work to resolve, and is a major allocation of development time.



Minor updates in progress involve the career updates we recently announced, including the hospital ship, refueler, mission types and mission content. Other minor updates include new windows, and other new blocks to expand the types of component and functionality you can build into your Stormworks creations. Minor updates typically take a few days to come together, and usually if a feature is bigger than this, it becomes part of a major update.



Major updates include the weapons DLC, natural disasters, and other unannounced (but rumoured!) major updates. While these updates are months of work, they happen in the background at a steady rate and their various components come together over time. We are often working on multiple major updates at the same time, and while these updates release every 2 to 3 months, they have often been in development for up to a year.



Carrier Command 2

Many players have been asking for updates on CC2. Today we are adding multiplayer support to the already live Carrier Command 2 demo as the game is participating in the Steam Next Festival. For those who are interested, go check out the multiplayer and let us know what you think with the in-game feedback button :-)

We are looking forward to releasing all this discussed Stormworks content! We hope todays hotfix brings some improvements, and look forward to the minor and major updates over the rest of the year and beyond.

Much love
The Stormworks Developers




Patch Notes

v1.2.4 Hotfix

Rework - Increased HTTP request max characters from 512 -> 4096
Rework - ?mstart with no parameters now spawns a random mission
Fix - Prevent softlock during mstart when a specified mission has no available locations
Fix - Fixed multiplayer issues caused by vehicle loading

v1.2.3 (Extended Patchnotes)

Rework - Modified processing of Addon script HTTP requests
Fix - Stretched rope rendering coming away from the anchor
Fix - Addon zone dynamic loading for Env Mod locations
Fix - server.isInZone now works correctly for rotated zones