Stormworks: Build and Rescue News

Dear Stormworkers,

This week, we are adding new building fire missions, and various quality improvements to the missions system!

The new building fire missions can occur across the world of Stormworks in places where there are buildings or structures. They are similar in some ways to some of the vehicle emergency missions where vehicles can set on fire. The building fires are typically larger and can develop and spread over time. There are survivors and casualties to rescue, and reward will also be given to extinguishing fire.



A great many improvements have also been made to the missions. These changes touch many different parts of the system and are a mixture of bug fixes and needed improvements, and are mostly thanks to the many kind players who have reported these issues. Please see the full change log for details on exactly what is fixed.



This is the first stage of our improvements to missions that we discussed in last weeks announcement. We are really excited to revisit the missions systems and career, and bring some much needed improvements to this part of the game.

Much love
The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.2.3

Feature - Mission QOL and Frameworking
Feature - Building fire missions
Feature - Improved responsiveness of inventory searchbox
Feature - Improved fluid system to be more stable

Summary of mission qol changes:
Huge world load time optimization
Difficulty is now tied to no_clip instead of custom_menu so custom career players get correctly scaling missions
?mstart now has mission type and difficulty parameters
Clean up missions with ?mclean
Survivors can now spawn with strobes which activate when in the water,
Missions that are loaded no longer despawn to prevent expiry mid-mission,
Fixed several framework issues including misison objects not randomizing for each mission spawn
Mission survivors/fires now scale with difficulty
Characters and objects now display their names in game
Rewards for delivering survivors now scales with their health
Better flavor text for missions expiring
Rescaled mission spawn rate to be ~hourly
Fix missions not spawning in the first few days of career
Missions vehicle size now sacles with difficulty
Transport missions passengers also become NPCs on delivery
Transponder mission radius balancing
Bleeding survivors no longer stop bleeding if fully healed but no longer start at low health. Not all survivors now bleed.

Balance - Increased SRB thrust by ~4x
Balance - Buffed steam turbine generation
Rework - Added new inventory category for windows
Fix - Lua documentation for getTileTransform
Fix - Additive rendering for the firebox
Fix - Firebox consuming an extra coal than expected
Fix - Firebox tending to go out occasionally
Fix - Radiation detector now tracks and tests its compartment
Fix - Ocean missions always spawning at tile center
Fix - Coal funnel not reserving voxels for spawn coal physics

Lua API:

+ TILE_DATA, is_success = server.getTile(transform)
TILE_DATA =
["name"] = tile_name
["sea_floor"] = sea_floor_height
["cost"] = purchase_cost
["purchased"] = is_purchased

+ is_success = server.addDamage(vehicle_id, amount, voxel_x, voxel_y, voxel_z)

+ is_simulating, is_success = server.getObjectSimulating(object_id)

+ is_success, voxel_x, voxel_y, voxel_z = server.getVehicleSign(vehicle_id, sign_name)

~ server.setPopup(peer_id, ui_id, name, is_show, text, x, y, z, render_distance, [vehicle_parent_id], [object_parent_id])

Dear Stormworkers,

Thank you to everyone who has been playing around with the new nuclear and coal power! It is incredible to see the new creations, from the fully working Brinkfield Nuclear Power Station and enhanced resource trading add-ons to nuclear submarines and coal freighters. We have been carefully reading your feedback and reports, and will be bringing fixes and improvements soon.



If you are not already aware, there is currently a free playtest on Carrier Command 2 (another game which we are involved in developing). If interested, simply click "Request Access" on the CC2 store page!

In this announcement, we are announcing a series of improvements to the missions in Stormworks! Many of you have given great feedback on how you would like to see missions and career being improved, and we have been hard at work implementing these changes. Career continues to be an area that we are very interested in improving, and these will be some much needed upcoming changes.

Add-on Script Quality and Performance

We are adding new simple type-in commands to spawn specific missions, clean up existing missions, and other frequently requested functions. We are greatly improving the load times of the official add-ons, so games will load faster. Missions will scale in custom mode when noclip is disabled rather than when creative menu is disabled, to make it easier for players to play career with custom settings such as third person. Survivors will sometimes spawn with strobe man-overboard-beacons to make locating them at night easier. Existing missions will no longer despawn mid mission when they time out. We will be improving some of the difficulty scaling, particularly with certain mission types. Rewards for delivering survivors will scale based on their health.



Building Fires

We are working on adding a new mission type - building fires! These will be missions where there is a fire on a structure and survivors are at risk. It will be similar to crashed vehicle missions, except that the survivors are most likely within the structure and more at threat. This type of mission will be able to spawn at many locations across the game world, with many buildings rigged to set on fire.



Support Vehicles

We are working on new special AI vehicles - an aerial refueler that patrols the skies, and if you can intercept it, you can take fuel. There will also be a new hospital ship that acts as a moving hospital location where you can deliver casualties as part of the normal missions system. There is a helipad and rope connector points. This ship will be constantly moving, so be prepared to transfer casualties while underway.



New Mission Types

We are also looking at a variety of new mission types. We are considering buoy array operations where you install, remove and repair an array of ocean research buoys, underwater operations were you salvage sunken items such as lost anchors, missing persons where you are searching for an individual reported missing in a large area, man-overboard emergencies where vessels have reported a person overboard, delivering fuel, retrieving animals or objects, nuclear emergencies, and more. This is an evolving list and as always is subject to change. This also means we are looking for more feedback and suggestions, so if you have ideas for new mission types, please let us know!



These new missions updates will arrive over the next few months as some of the minor updates we have planned, along with the usual fixes and improvements that we are also working on. There will also be other minor updates such as new components and other stuff!

We are also working on the major updates discussed in a previous post! We will share more on these soon.

As always, we look forward to your feedback!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

The coal, nuclear and steam major update is out now!

The new coal system includes the new coal resource, coal handing with physical particles, hoppers, ducts, and funnels. Coal can be burnt in the new furnaces to heat water.



The new nuclear system includes fuel rods, fuel assemblies, and control rods. You can make your own reactors by arranging these new components in an enclosed space and filling with water (coolant). You can insert and remove fuel rods to renew your nuclear fuel and control the rate of reaction with control rods. You decide the size and design of your nuclear reactor, but consider the mechanics of disposal of spent fuel and maintenance!



The new steam system allows you to turn water into steam (using the boiler), turn steam pressure into mechanical energy (using the turbine) and turn steam back into water (using the condenser).

When these new energy systems work, expect long fuel life and high persistence. However, when they go wrong, expect disaster. Steam components will explode if the steam pressure gets too high, and nuclear reactors will melt down if they get too hot.



We give you new Geiger counters and hazmat suits to help deal with the dangers of radiation, but any mishandling of radioactive materials, damage to reactors, or losing control of your nuclear reaction and melting down will have severe environmental consequences. Nuclear fallout may last a long time, rendering areas of the game world dangerous to visit.



As well as these new systems, we have also re-made the fuel trading system with the new lua API. You can now buy and sell coal as well as oil and liquid fuel across many new locations in the game world. The market is dynamic and will move and adjust based on supply and demand.



We have also rebranded: Sunfire Software is now Geometa! We renamed a while back and have just got round to setting up our new website. It's still the same company and the exact same team.

There are also a series of bug fixes and improvements included in this update! See the change log for the full details.

We hope you enjoy the new content and we look forward to hearing your feedback on this new major update!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.2.1

Feature - Coal & Steam Power
Feature - Nuclear Reactors & Radiation
Feature - Resource Trading Addon*

*The new resource trading addon replaces the old fluid gantries addon, and the trading code has been moved from the game into the Lua so players can customise or add their own locations/vehicles much like our other addons.

Added Clear Radiation button to custom menu to remove fallout zones
Added a Preset Reactor and Firebox setup

Rework - Added a second port to fluid tanks for better integration into coolant loops. New behaviour only occurs when both ports are connected.
Rework - Adjusted monitor borders
Rework - Signs now render tooltips if they have a custom name
Rework - In singleplayer edit modes, damage is now paused
Rework - Removed Hazmat suit from default wardrobe
Rework - Fluid system pipe flow division better fits pipe demand

Fix - Tanks storing more than their maximum
Fix - Ocean floor triangle rendering winding backwards
Fix - Restored missing update to modular engine audio
Fix - Misnamed variable in default mission script
Fix - Increased string buffer for addon vehicle names (could not place vehicles)

Lua Changes:

+ server.setVehicleHopper(vehicle_id, hopper_name, amount)
+ coal_level, hopper_capacity, is_success = server.getVehicleHopper(vehicle_id, hopper_name)
+ d, m, y = server.getDate()

~ tank_level, **tank_capacity,** is_success = server.getVehicleTank(vehicle_id, tank_name)

+ function onButtonPress(vehicle_id, peer_id, button_name)

setVehicleTank and getVehicleTank now use Litres instead of centiLitres

Dear Stormworkers,

The Coal and Nuclear Major Update will release next week on Thursday 27th May!



Included in this major update:

Coal

• New coal resource and coal particle system
  
• Coal handling, hoppers, ducts and funnels
  
• Coal furnaces
  
• Coal trading and new fuel trading system
  

Nuclear

• Nuclear fuel rods, assemblies, control rods
  
• Nuclear fission mechanics
  
• Radiation mechanics, environmental damage, sickness
  
• Handheld Geiger counter and Geiger counter vehicle component
  

Steam

• Boilers and condensers to change water into steam and vice versa
  
• Steam turbines to convert steam pressure into mechanical torque
  

Coal engines are designed to be large and heavy, but the fuel to last a long time. These high endurance engines are best suited to ships, trains, and large land vehicles.

Nuclear reactors are designed to be larger and heavier but produce large amounts of power, and are ideal for the largest scale creations. The fuel rods have a very long lifetime, but require careful management due to the risks and dangers of radiation.



We are really excited to share this new major update next week!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This weeks update goes out in honour to all the Stormworks builders making walking vehicles!

We are adding a new "friction block" that is a sort of rubber pad that has very high friction. While it is intended for walking robots, there is actually a wide range of potential applications where you want a creation to stick to a surface rather than slide around such as feet for containers, grabbing claws, stabilizer legs, and more.

This is a highly physical and generalized block, and we expect players to find many more applications and uses for it.



We have been blown away by some of the incredible walkers produced by the community. The logic being made by the community is really impressive, and we hope this new block is a help to these creators.

This week, we also bring a series of updates, improvements and bug fixes, please see below for the full list of changes and fixes.



Next week, we plan to announce the release date for the next major update! We are really looking forward to this release, the new power sources are interesting to build, the coal handling mechanics are really fun, and the dangers of radiation add a new consequence and peril to the game.

We look forward to your thoughts and feedback in the comments!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers



Patch Notes

v1.1.25-26

Feature - Friction Pad component - attempts to grip nearby surfaces

Rework - Re-Added default elevators
Rework - Updated monitor meshes
Fix - Multibody sleep activation for child components
Fix - Addon editor main bar "edit location" button not working for enironment mods
Fix - Hide data tooltip for signs on default detail
Fix - Tutorial boat transponder locator broken. Renamed emergency beacon to transponder.
Fix - Crash when spawning addon zones
Fix - getTilePurchased() returning additional broken data
Fix - Transponders on character belts overwriting each other
Fix - Linear tracks breaking when flipped in y axis
Fix - Lua documentation issues
Fix - tree fire and rustle sfx not updating when dragging the pause menu slider
Fix - Addon zone dynamic loading
Fix - Addon zone parenting