Stormworks: Build and Rescue News

Dear Stormworkers,

Major Update #7 - The Performance Optimisation Update is now live!

This major update is on the new Experimental branch of Stormworks. See the above gif to see how to activate it! If you can't see the branch, restart Steam.

This update redesigns the Stormworks game engine, so that rendering, logic and physics are all calculated separately and at the same time, rather than one after another. This means that the game may run faster and render smoother.

We hope to improve the performance for many players with this update. Performance improvement will vary depending on the specifications of your PC and the number and size of vehicles you have loaded in game. It can range from minor improvement, to 250% improvement. Rendering and simulation will now run at independent speeds, rather than being locked to the same speed.

We expect players with either Intel graphics, older computers, or AMD graphics to see the greatest increase in performance. Please note that it isn't magic, and if you have a particularly slow and below min spec machine, or have spawned large and complex vehicles, the physics will still slow down the simulation.

This is a huge re-write of much of the game engine, so we are expecting issues. Let us know about any issues using the Report buttons in game and we will fix as soon as possible.

Please see the full change log below!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers

Patch Notes

v0.8.1

Feature - Engine redesign to share simulation and rendering workload between multiple threads

Dear Stormworkers,

For the last couple of months, we have been hard at work improving the frames per second of Stormworks. This has involved re-engineering many parts of the engine, and re-writing parts of the game.

The time is almost here to share these performance improvements! This Wednesday at 16:30 UTC, we will be launching this major update.

What level of performance improvement should I expect?

This depends. In some situations on some hardware, the performance can be the same, in other situations the game can run 250% faster.

Most players will notice a significant improvement.

The best improvements will occur for situations with heavy physics such as large ships, for computers with slower CPU, and for computers with AMD graphics.

What has changed to make the game run faster?

We have split up the core work load of the game into 3 chunks, and placed each chunk on it's own thread. Physics, logic, and rendering now run in parallel rather than in sequence.

Ocean simulation, some vehicle calculations, loading vehicles, and loading islands already ran in parallel.

These changes are part of our mission to improve the quality in Stormworks and tighten up several areas we have marked for improvement.

We really look forward to sharing these with you! See you on Discord this Wednesday for the usual update hype, voice chat shenanigans, Sheepdog's singing and more!

Much love
The Stormworks Developers

Dear Stormworkers,

This week's minor update includes 3 new control fins!

Small, medium and large control fins have been added to expand the available set of rudders and control surfaces. The design of these fins makes them well-suited for fitting to the sides of a variety of vehicle types, including rockets, planes and submarines!

As always, see below for the full changelog, and let us know of any bugs or feature requests on the Stormworks issue tracker website which can be accessed in-game from the main menu and pause menu.

We're excited about the progress of the performance and optimisation update and are getting some promising results. We look forward to sharing this update with you, and the full extent of the changes that have been made, in the coming weeks.

Much Love
The Stormworks Developers




v0.7.20

Feature - Added 3 control fins (small, medium, large)
Feature - Added equipment swapping by interacting with an outfit inventory while already wearing an outfit

Fix - Rebalanced mass of passenger and pilot seats
Fix - Fixed infinite generators with starter motors and connectors
Fix - Connectors consume more electricity when applying a larger attraction impulse
Fix - Flashlight state is saved/loaded correctly
Fix - Fixed custom day/night cycles not saving/loading correctly
Fix - Fixed fans not applying force in correct direction when mirrored
Fix - Fixed being able to toggle buttons using logic input when broken
Fix - Added short period of invincibility after respawning to prevent death loops
Fix - Solid rockets now work underwater
Fix - Improved rudder shaking issues at high speeds
Fix - Fixed placement issues with some multibody components
Fix - Corrected multiple spelling and formatting mistakes

Dear Stormworkers,

This week we have expanded on last week's solid rocket booster update...

Three larger sizes of booster have been added for creating large missiles and rockets. We have also split the boosters into separate nozzle and fuel parts. This should remove some of the logic clutter that last week's booster component was causing for longer rockets. If you've used last week's component in your vehicle, you will need to update it to have a nozzle on the end.

This is a small patch as most of our effort is currently focused on the next major update, however there are still some small fixes and improvements. See below for the full changelog.

Much love
The Stormworks Developers




v0.7.19

Feature - Added medium, large and huge solid rocket boosters
Feature - Solid rocket boosters now have separate component for extending fuel to reduce logic nodes
Feature - Added separate difficulty option for disabling megalodon attacks when creating a world

Fix - Player health/oxygen/debuffs are visible when sleeping
Fix - Fixed vehicles disappearing and not returning to workbench on some islands
Fix - Fixed crash when despawning track connector with grippers attached that are part of a different vehicle
Fix - Fixed pilot seat controls remaining visible after despawning a mission vehicle
Fix - Fixed solid rocket booster producing thrust in wrong direction when mirrored

Dear Stormworkers,

This week's minor update brings a new compact method of propulsion...

A small solid rocket booster has been added that will burn and produce thrust for a limited duration. These boosters can be stacked on top of each other to increase their capacity, and are ideal for building small rockets, ejector seats and missiles.

This patch also includes a number of bug fixes and improvements, including a minor rebalance to mission rewards that we hope will improve the pace of progression for those of you enjoying career mode. See below for the full changelog.

If you find any bugs or want to request a feature, don't forget to head over to the Stormworks issue tracker (accessible from the main menu and pause menu) to leave your feedback.

Have a great weekend
The Stormworks Developers




v0.7.18

Feature - Added small solid rocket booster component (can be stacked to increase the fuel capacity of the booster. The booster at the bottom of the stack controls ignition and burn rate of the whole stack)

Fix - Rebalanced amount of research points awarded by loot crates and missions to be slightly more generous
Fix - Missions scale the number of research points they give by the number of stars awarded on mission completion
Fix - Fixed video signal continuing to transmit over connectors after disconnecting them
Fix - Fixed double rewards being granted from loot crates when pressing E and Q at the same time
Fix - Fixed crash when copying save directories if the source directory doesn't exist
Fix - Fixed being able to resume a game if the save file has been deleted
Fix - Fixed players being able to join a singleplayer game immediately after host has quit a multiplayer session
Fix - Fixed being able to send empty chat messages in multiplayer
Fix - Solar cells are draggable in the X/Z axes