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Performance update, GeForce NOW and important information for MacOS players



Hello everyone!

The next Barotrauma update is coming in early October, and among other things, it will include a big change under the hood: we’re updating our .NET runtime to a new version, and this should yield significant performance gains. Combined with the ongoing optimization work, the .NET runtime update will help to make the game run considerably more smoothly for most players.

[h4]GeForce NOW[/h4]
Another exciting change is bringing Barotrauma to Nvidia’s cloud gaming platform GeForce NOW. While this will have no impact on those who can run Barotrauma on their systems currently, it will open possibilities for players on officially unsupported systems to get into playing. We’ve received a number of requests about this over the years and are happy to be making it happen now – you’ll find Barotrauma on GFN in the coming weeks.

[h4]To MacOS players[/h4]
Unfortunately the mentioned runtime update comes with a downside for players on older Mac systems: because the .NET 6 runtime does not support MacOS older than 10.15, Barotrauma will not be able to support versions 10.13 and 10.14 either, and we need to raise our official minimum technical requirements to match.

We’re very sorry to be cutting support for systems we have previously supported, but this change is inevitable: as the runtime is a core technology that the game relies on, and it has already dropped support for these systems on its end, we will have to follow suit sooner or later. We’ve decided to go through with the runtime update now, while still in early access, rather than later when it might affect a larger number of players.

[h5]Compatibility branch[/h5]
To help the affected Mac players continue having access to Barotrauma, we’re creating a compatibility branch which allows MacOS 10.13 and 10.14 users to keep playing the current version of the game. To our knowledge, 10.14 users should also be able to update their systems to stay compatible.

Additionally, the GeForce NOW access should help bridge the gap for players on the affected operating systems, and we hope these measures put together will take the worst of the edge off. MacOS 10.15 or newer, or other operating systems, should not experience any difficulties with the new runtime.


We’ll be back with more news about the update over the coming weeks. Stay tuned, and let us know in the comments if you have any questions!

Fix for MacOS v0.18.15.2

Hello MacOS players!

We've released a fix to address issues you've been having since the previous hotfix.


v0.18.15.2 (MacOS only)

- Fixed crashes on MacOS 10.13 and 10.14. This seems to have happened because Microsoft quietly dropped support for these versions in .NET Core in late 2021, and we didn't realize until this hotfix when we deployed with a sufficiently new version of the technology.
- Fixed inability to use the voice chat on some MacOS versions, due to the game not having permissions to access the microphone as a result of the aforementioned .NET Core upgrade.

Hotfix v0.18.15.1

Hello everyone!

We've just released a small hotfix to address a couple of issues that were discovered while we were away on our summer holidays. Stay tuned for continued content updates a little later and see the changelog for today's fixes below!


v0.18.15.1

- Fixed frequent crashing in the submarine editor. The crashes were caused by modifying multiple entities at the same time, such as by selecting an entity of the same type as the last entity that was edited.
- Fixed dragged objects becoming invisible if you bring the cursor over a UI element in the submarine editor.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused radio voice chat to be muffled.

Fix patch for the anniversary update



Hello everyone!

We've just released a bugfix patch to address issues in the latest update. Take a look below to see the full list of changes, and be sure to update your game to the latest version now.

Most of our team are on holidays until the end of July, but we will get back to reading the forums in earnest in August. Until then, we wish everyone a great summer!


v0.18.15.0

Changes:
- Show a warning when trying to switch to a submarine that's low on fuel or to a submarine that has no manually placed items to prevent softlocking the campaign if you switch to a sub that has no fuel. Whether a submarine is considered to have manually placed items can be set when saving it in the submarine editor (the checkbox "manually outfitted" in the saving dialog).
- Also show the low fuel warning when leaving an outpost without enough fuel.
- Handheld sonars can't detect minerals from inside the sub.
- Changed the plus and minus button in the campaign settings into arrows. The button on the right increases difficulty, which in the case of the starting balance and supplies means reducing them, making the plus and minus buttons misleading.
- Reduced costs of handheld weapon ammunition significantly.
- Slightly reduced effectiveness of harpoons and revolver round to compensate for the cheaper ammo.
- Changed recipes for Handcannon, Assault Rifle and Auto-Shotgun. Weapon crafting is more expensive, to compensate for cheaper ammo.
- Adjusted numerous other recipes and price costs of materials. Previously little used materials (like tin) are now used more.
- Partially reintroduced the "toggle inventory" keybind, now called "toggle entity list". Even though toggling the in-game inventory is no longer possible, the keybind can be used to change the hotkey for toggling the sub editor's entity list.

Fixes:
- Fixed shuttles getting misplaced when switching and transferring items to a new sub with shuttles.
- Fixed inability to damage items (such as monster eggs) with melee weapons or handheld weapons.
- Fixed "failed to parse the string 'COLOR.GUI.GREEN' to Color" errors when using the submarine upgrade interface in Spanish.
- Fixed items with a projectile component (e.g. bullets, harpoons, syringes) going through external walls when dropped.
- Fixed incorrect value in the "too many lights" error message in the sub editor.
- Fixed lightcomponent not getting refreshed when flipping a lightcomponent horizontally.
- Fixed extra cargo defined in the server settings spawning every round in multiplayer campaign.
- Fixes wreck corpses' damage visuals (bloodstains, burns) not showing client-side.
- Fixed wearables that are worn (or held) in multiple limbs applying skill bonuses multiple times (e.g. when holding a bandolier with both hands).
- Fixed console error when deselecting all target types from a motion sensor in the sub editor.
- Fixed crashing when multi-editing motion sensor targets in the sub editor.
- Fixed one of the path unlock event texts still using the old price (talking about 12,000 mk even though the price is 4,000 mk).
- Fixed money getting incorrectly deducted on the client side when buying items from the vending machine.
- Fixed item transfer taking items from non-interactable containers.
- Made depleted fuel sprite darker to match the rest of the "depleted" items.
- Fixed PUCS's autoinjection feature sometimes causing performance drops in multiplayer.
- Fixed "tried to overwrite a submarine that's not in a local package" error when you delete a sub that's in a local package and try to resave it.
- Fixed misaligned broken duffelbag sprite.
- Fixed full-white x-ray monitors.
- Fixed FPS drop when adjusting character appearance in the campaign setup menu or server lobby.
- Fixed tunnels at the beginning or end of the level sometimes being too narrow to pass through (especially with a small sub) when there's no outpost at that side of the level.
- Fixed missing background sprite in duct block.
- Fixed water particles not showing up when water is flowing down a duct block.
- Fixed changing the scale of resizeable structures (such as background doors) messing up the outline of linked subs in the sub editor.
- Fixed non-player-team interactable items getting transferred on sub switch.
- Fixed ballast flora root emitting particles when damaged client-side, even if it's already been destroyed.
- Fixed recycle recipes for Piercing Ammunition Box and Pulse Tri-Laser Fuel Box.
- Fixed friendly fire and karma always showing up as disabled on dedicated servers in the server list.
- Fixed some lights (e.g. vending machines, neon lights, holographics displays) looking different in the sub editor than they do in-game.
- Fixed undocked shuttles remaining undocked if you save and start a new game with the same submarine during the same session. Restarting the game fixed the issue though.
- Fixed sonar markers going crazy if the start and end locations have the same name + added some more variety to location names to prevent duplicate location names.
- Fixed multiediting an ItemComponent modifying all the components of that type in all the selected items (e.g. when editing the 1st light component of a switch, all lights in all switches would be edited).
- Fixed melee weapons not damaging structures from outside.

Modding:
- Fixed removing a door mid-round crashing the game. Does not affect the vanilla game, because doors are never removed mid-round.
- Fixed having a vending machine in your inventory crashing the game due to the 0-capacity input inventory of the machine.

Barotrauma’s 3rd Steam anniversary update



Happy anniversary, everyone!

Barotrauma recently reached another anniversary on Steam. We’ve been here for three years now and couldn’t have done it without you – thank you for sharing this long ride with us! Head over to our blog for more birthday greetings, with a stroll down memory lane as well as a look at what still lies ahead.

[h3]The anniversary update[/h3]
Today we’ve released an update with a variety of quality of life improvements, fixes and minor changes. We’re hopeful it should help with the performance issues we know many players have been experiencing, and there are some exciting additions as well, such as…
  • Transferring items between submarines when purchasing a new sub
  • New difficulty presets for campaigns
  • Three new beacon stations
  • Further modding improvements to wrap up the Modding Refactor we did before.

See the full list of changes just below and be sure to update your game to the latest version. Let us know how the update plays, enjoy the coming summer and thank you for being with us today!


v0.18.11.0

Balancing:
- Added some new campaign settings: starting balance, amount of starting items and difficulty.
- Cargo mission reward of construction materials has been reduced to be less balance-breaking.
- Revisited all item spawns. Drastically reduced and adjusted the spawns everywhere. Disabled some spawns in campaign. All the subs should now start with a bare minimum in the campaign.
- Reduced selling price to ~25% of base price to avoid getting too rich from looting too early/easily
- Increased effect of "Requested Goods" to be 2x to compensate for the decreased selling price.
- Alien artifacts and trinkets can still be sold for a high price at research stations. (2x modifier, to compensate for the reduced selling price)
- Removed batteries from Headset, to reduce the value of selling/deconstructing these.
- Duffelbag deteriorates over time when in use, and now is carried with both hands.
- All items now deconstruct into less materials than it takes to construct them. Avoiding infinite construction/deconstruction loops for easy skill leveling.
- (Temporarily?) Removed most hand-placed items from the vanilla subs to make balancing and debugging the auto item placement easier.
- Revisited crew corpse spawns. The id cards are no longer manually placed. The cards found from the crew now actually work.
- Minor adjustments to bandit loadouts.
- Changes to chaingun. Now fires 500 shots instead of 200 per ammo box, at the cost of DPS.
- Added shredder rounds for chaingun, as an option against armoured targets.
- Adjusted the armor penetration of all turrets.
- Made location evolution take a little longer, colonies cannot be formed closer than three steps to another colony.
- Made wreck missions a little more common.
- Adjustments to the preferred containers (= where things are spawned and where they should be placed).
- Changes to the existing missions and how they are distributed. Added new missions.
- Reduced the costs for unlocking the biomes.
- Adjustments to the monster spawns.
- Changes to the item "gating". Some items don't appear early in the game anymore.
- Adjustments to the mission specific variants of the monsters.
- Added a large Crawler variant for some missions (removed the Swarmcrawler that was used for crawler missions).
- Halved Mudraptors' priority for eating dead bodies.
- Reduce nausea chance of energy drink to 25%.
- Changes to the campaign progression in general.
- Changes to the level generation parameters, especially in Cold Caverns and the Ridge.
- Changes to the level resources distribution.
- Changes to the event manager settings (that affect the monster spawns).
- Adjusted and normalized the item loadouts for all the jobs.

Chat improvements:
- Chat mode (radio/local) can be toggled using a dropdown next to the chat box or with a dedicated "ToggleChatMode" keybind (R by default).
- Voice chat now has only one push-to-talk keybind (V by default) which respects the selected chat mode.
- There's now a dedicated "ActiveChat" keybind (T by default) to open the chat using the currently active chat mode.
- If you want to keep the chat keybinds the way they were (separate keybinds for local and radio), you can rebind the "Chat" and "RadioChat" inputs back to T and R and the new "ToggleChatMode" and "ActiveChat" inputs to something else.

Changes and additions:
- Added damage overlays to characters (characters who've taken damage look damaged).
- Added two new beacon stations.
- Added a bunch of new UI sounds (tickbox toggling, confirming transactions, increase/decrease sounds for number inputs, cart sound for adding/removing items in store interfaces, selecting/clicking components, sliders and modlist).
- Added UI volume slider.
- Show a verification prompt if an automated circuit tries to make the submarine undock from or dock with an outpost. Prevents campaign getting softlocked if someone rewires the docking port in a way that makes it dock/undock immediately at the start of around.
- Color subs in the sub editor's list to indicate whether they're vanilla, workshop or local subs, added a tooltip that explains why some of them cannot be deleted through the editor.
- ID cards can now be purchased from outposts. The card gets assigned the appropriate tags for the character doing the purchase.
- Clients need to wait 1 minute if their vote gets rejected before they can start another vote of the same type.
- Increased the priority of explosion particles to make it less likely for them to not appear when the particle limit has been reached.
- Made matriarch genes slowly heal bleeding (not just afflictions of the type "damage") to get it to be more in line with the description.
- Adjusted small water flow sounds: lower max volume, lerp volume according to the water flow (-> small leaks are much more quiet).
- Added energy drinks and protein bars to vending machines.
- Reduced Winterhalter engine power drain (from 6000 total to 4250).
- Decorative level objects (plants and whatnot) can spawn on outpost walls.
- Adjustments on the particle effects of chaingun and coilgun.
- Added non-lethal rubber bullets for riot shotgun.
- Added a server setting to change if the looted money goes to the player or to the bank.
- Improved tooltips in the wallet menu to make their function more clear.
- Corpses can now be grabbed in singleplayer to loot money.
- Made the crew wallet menu update when the players permissions change.
- Prevented selling items from submarine containers tagged with "dontsellitems", instead of "donttakeitems".
- Removed merchant balance effect on item prices.
- Replaced "item sell value" with the location reputation effect on the store interface.
- Hide AppData path from tooltips in the sub editor to prevent exposing the user's name.
- Made the descriptions of some materials (that used to just say "useful for crafting") more descriptive.
- Increased oxygen generator output in some vanilla subs.
- Made handheld sonar beacon sound less grating.
- The client who initiated a vote cannot take part in that vote (except if they're the only client who can vote, in which case the vote automatically passes).
- Made flashlight flicker before the battery runs out.
- Added some lootable money to corpses found in wrecks.
- Removed the small equipment indicators next to the character portrait.
- Weapon holders now use the tag "mountableweapon" instead of "weapon" to determine which items can be placed in them. Allows tagging non-weapon items as mountable in the holder, without making bots consider it a weapon due to the "weapon" tag. Also allows to keep some weapons not-mountable.
- Ammunition Shelf can now also store Depth Charges ("depthchargeammo" tag added)
- Doors and hatches can now be mirrored in the sub editor (making them open from top to bottom, or from right to left).
- Depth charges can be stored in coilgun ammo shelves.
- Adding preview images to wrecks, beacon stations, outposts or enemy subs isn't allowed in the sub editor (unnecessarily bloats up their file size, as the preview images aren't visible anywhere).

Performance:
- Improved the performance statistics view that's enabled with the "showperf" console command: more fine-grained stats and easier-to-read visuals.
- Optimized AI pathfinding when they're trying to find a safe hull. Particularly noticeable in colonies when the NPCs are fleeing from something.
- Optimized character status effects (e.g. health regen and other constant damage reductions).
- Optimized watcher's acid clouds.
- Optimized loading submarines. Reduces loading times especially when there's lots of items in the sub.
- Lighting optimization: now some unimportant (dim and small) lights are hidden when there's lots of light sources visible on the screen at the same time. The maximum number of visible lights can be adjusted in the game settings.
- Lighting optimization: the number of light recalculations per frame is limited, meaning that when there's lots of moving, shadow-casting lights visible, the game doesn't try to recalculate the shadows all at the same time.
- Lighting optimization: simplify the light rendering when zoomed very far out (e.g. when looking through a periscope).
- Optimized status effects that modify items' conditions every frame (for example, oxygen tank shelves that fill up oxygen tanks).
- Optimized many status effects by making them only execute once per second instead of every frame (most importantly, diving suits and volatile fuel rods).
- Optimized talents: buffs are applied to characters periodically instead of every frame.
- Optimized the logic that bots use to determine the safety of hulls.
- Optimized items: stop updating items that don't need to be updated more aggressively.
- Optimized bot AIs: in particular, the cleanup, repair, pump water and load items objectives. Should significantly improve performance when the bots are doing these objectives when there's a large number of items in the sub.
- Optimized entity culling logic (determines which items/structures are currently visible in the screen).
- Optimized a bunch of textures.

Fixes:
- Fixed server not refreshing the power grid when a client disconnects and reconnects a power wire.
- Fixed hull updates not being sent if the water/oxygen/fire in the hull doesn't change server-side, preventing the hull's status from getting corrected if a client somehow ends up out of sync.
- Fixed ballast flora sometimes becoming unkillable in multiplayer.
- Attempt to fix tab menu crew list sometimes getting stuck to a broken state at the beginning of a round.
- Fixed inability to access the character tab in the tab menu when dead (preventing you from creating a new character).
- Fixed occasional "hash calculation for content package xxxx didn't match expected hash" errors when updating/enabling certain mods.
- Fixed preview sometimes breaking in the character customization menu when switching the hair or accessories on Linux or Mac.
- Fixed fonts not getting rescaled when changing resolution.
- Fixed misplaced hull in the beacon stations.
- Fixed ability to pick up items and take items from other characters when controlling a character whose inventory is inaccessible while alive.
- Fixed message box about a too large preview image not being shown when trying to publish one in the Workshop (instead throwing the generic "publishing failed" error).
- Fixed Venture airlock (missing button, inner door wiring).
- Fixed level floor not being visible on the sonar.
- Fixed bots being unable to shoot with a turret whose line of sight is blocked by another turret (even though the projectiles can go through the turret).
- Fixed switching a sub making its preview image disappear from the submarine switch menu.
- Fixed an issue where the client was adding mission rewards into the bank on their screen causing desync.
- Fixed item assemblies still getting misaligned when saving.
- Fixed crashing when there's no audio device available (no speakers/headset connected) and a character enters water.
- Fixed crashing when trying to save an item assembly with a space at the end of the name.
- Fixed crashing when a character tries to operate a turret from outside the sub.
- Fixed submarine name being set to a truncated value in the submarine save dialog if the submarine name text at the top of the screen gets truncated, leading to a crash if you try to save the sub with that name.
- Fixed devices whose power consumption is set to 0 not working when not connected to a grid.
- Fixed outpost NPCs choosing the item to spawn for the device they're operating randomly, occasionally causing them to for example load reactors with volatile rods.
- Clients replicate sending chat messages to wifi components in mp. Fixes radio-linked wifi components not receiving the signals client-side.
- Fixed tab menu staying open during loading screens.
- Signal components' and terminals' sprites don't mirror horizontally in mirrored subs (what's a DNA, RO, ROX or XEGER component??).
- Fixed inability to rewire any docking ports in outpost levels, even if the port is not docked with anything (should only apply to the port docked with the outpost).
- Fixed "Ignore This" orders being wiped when loading an existing multiplayer campaign save.
- Fixed abyss area being very small in the Aphotic Plateau, preventing the abyss monster from reaching you if you go deep enough.
- Fixed status monitor displaying small amounts of water as 1% even though water detectors output 0%.
- Fixed autopilot conflicting with VELOCITY_IN inputs (now signals override the autopilot for 1 second).
- Fixed ConversationAction getting interrupted when opening an input-blocking menu in single player.
- Fixed sprite bleed in chaingun ammunition boxes.
- Fixed appearance of specific named NPCs being inconsistent (e.g. Captain Hognose sometimes being a woman or not having an eyepatch).
- Fixed certain scripted events getting stuck if you switch characters in single player (e.g. the events that require you to interact with fliers on the wall).
- Fixed crashing when the source of a rope is removed (e.g. when a latcher despawns while latched on to the sub).
- Fixed votes always going through if no-one votes.
- Fixed energy drink giving x10 more haste when used via the health interface.
- Fixed the monster spawns for the new game plus not working (currently a placeholder set).
- Fixed monsters spawning from missions not avoiding the engines.
- Split campaign state networking messages into multiple ones. Previously all the campaign-related data (map state, reputation, upgrades, purchased items, selected missions) was included in the same message, and whenever anything in the data changed, the server would send all of it to clients. This would cause performance and bandwidth issues in some situations, for example when reputation was changing rapidly.
- Fixed some pumps in Kastrull working without power.
- Fixed quick-reloading working incorrectly when trying to reload from a stack that doesn't fully fit in the weapon (e.g. when double clicking on a full stack of revolver rounds with a half-loaded revolver in hand).
- Fixed inability to quick-reload weapons with more than 1 inventory slot (e.g. autoshotgun).
- Fixed outpost NPCs having x3 more health than they should.
- Fixed morbusine not killing NPCs with higher-than-default health.
- Fixed graphics errors when using Razer Cortex overlay.
- Fixed bots being unable to repair Winterhalter's top hatch.
- Fixed server crashing if you disable all mission types and try to start a mission round.
- Fixed Chinese/Japanese/Korean text not wrapping properly on terminals.
- Fixed bots sometimes walking towards a wall or holding the ladders when they are idling.
- Fixed "main docking port" property not being taken into account when placing outposts (= the outpost was placed with the assumption that the docking port closest to the sub's center is the main docking port). Sometimes caused the outpost to be placed too close to the level walls, preventing the sub from docking with it.
- Fixed ladders not being visible in the sub preview.
- Fixed some UI elements being too large when switching from a large resolution to a smaller one, or vice versa.
- Fixed weapon holder sprite depth.
- Fixed level editor's test mode generating a different level than the editor itself.
- Fixed ballast flora branches that have been disconnected from the root not being considered disconnected after a level transition (allowing them to keep growing).
- Fixed "set default bindings" not doing anything in the settings menu.
- Fixed door/hatch gaps not getting moved when snapping to grid in the sub editor.
- Vertically mirrored beds can't be laid on.
- Fixed wrecked reactors being forced to non-interactable even if made interactable in the sub editor.
- Fixed keybinds shown in the controls tab not refreshing when resetting the binds.
- Hopefully fixed colonies sometimes not including some modules (most often the armory module).
- Fixed ready checks sometimes ending at a slightly different time client-side compared to the server, allowing you to answer the prompt even though the time to answer already ended server-side.
- Fixed large terminal welcome messages going slightly outside the bounds of the listbox.
- Fixed overlapping in the tab menu's mission tab when there's more than one mission selected.
- Fixed fabricators and deconstructors playing the sounds even if they're out of power.
- Fixed occasional "hash mismatch for downloaded mod" errors on Linux.
- Fixed clients occasionally spawning as the old character after they've opted to create a new one. Only happened if the client hadn't died and was still controlling the old character at the end of the round.
- When a client creates a character with a new name, the client's name is changed to match it after they spawn as that character.
- Fixed enabled mods getting disabled when updating them in the mods menu.
- Fixed a rounding error in Sprite.DrawTiled that sometimes caused an extra 1-pixel line on some scaled and flipped structures (e.g. certain wall pieces scaled to 0.6).
- Fixed Orca 2 still using the old chaingun charge time.

Modding:
- Added "mod lists" which can be used to enable/disable sets of mods more easily.
- Option to choose which local mod(s) to add a submarine to when saving one in the submarine editor.
- Mods can be unsubscribed from by right-clicking on them in the mod list, and it's possible to unsubscribe from multiple ones at the same time by using ctrl+click or shift+click to select more than one.
- Local mods can be merged in the mod list by selecting the ones you want to merge and selecting "merge all selected" from the right-click context menu.
- Better filtering in the mod list: option to only show local mods, Workshop mods, published mods, submarines and/or item assemblies.
- Added "SameInventory" spawn position type to status effects (allows spawning items in the same inventory the entity applying the effect is in).
- Added support for multiple light components in wearables.
- Fixed permanent stats given by talents not getting synced to clients in multiplayer (doesn't affect any vanilla talents).
- Fixed nullref exception when trying to trigger a location type change to a type that doesn't exist (doesn't happen in the vanilla game).
- Added an extra tag to the "canned heat" talent to make it easier to add custom upgradeable tanks that aren't compatible with vanilla tools.
- Option to make status effects drop the items contained inside the target item (usage example in the duffel bag).
- Level object, cave and mineral commonness can be defined based on the biome instead of the level generation parameters (= no need to define commonness for "coldcavernsbasic", "coldcavernsmaze" etc separately).
- Option to define ConversationAction texts directly in the event xml (instead of having to always define them in a spearate text file).
- Extended CustomInterface functionality with NumberInput elements that allow using float values ("numbertype") and defining the increment size ("step") the number of decimal places ("decimalplaces"). (Thanks, mLuby!)
- Implemented element for removing all the child elements of an element in a variant file.
- TriggerComponent now supports negative forces: negative force value will cause the it to pull triggerers towards it.
- Multiple TriggerComponent properties can now be modified through signals and CustomInterface components.