It's been a hectic few months for us since our major refactor as we feel like we have finally been able to hit our old stride in the project. If you look back through our weekly updates you can see how spending that period to time to redo the project has paid huge dividends. We are now able to more robustly focus on the future of the game as well as add new content.

We've been a little slow at getting new content in over the last weeks, as we have been laser focused on fixing bugs - especially some very serious ones introduced (or highlighted) by our refactoring work. What really spurs us on is seeing all those amazing youtube videos of your content, the twitch streams, and the thoughts you share here and on discord.

Important fix for multiplayer

Fixed not being able to join servers unless they were being advertised. We don't normally highlight bug fixes but this was affecting a significant number of people over the last few days. Thanks to the community and game server providers for alerting this to us, and helping us work towards a solution quickly.

Balance: Tool Speed Buffs

The welding torch now is 20% faster than the arc welder. Increasing the welder's burn atmosphere to be above 3000C (by using a N2O combustion mix) will increase this speed bonus to 50%.
Players now get additive tool speed increases of 20%, and a structure placement speed increase of 20% when not wearing a spacesuit. A friendly reminder that gas welding without a suit has been known to cause respiratory issues. Lastly, all MkII tools now have a 10% speed bonus over the regular tools.

New Content: Mining Backpacks

We've added a new type of backpack to help with some of the awkwardness of long mining trips. There are two variants, the Mining Backpack and the Hard Mining Backpack. These have a large number of ore slots (24 and 28, respectively), and are available in the tools manufacturing machine alongside the existing mining belts.

Atmospherics Changes

Balanced atmospheric mixing rates no longer depend on room state, with room mixing being raised slightly, and roomless mixing being lowered more significantly. Atmospheric movement now has a greater effect on player movement.

Future Price Change

As noted when we started the project we would slowly increase the price as the project matured, but in doing so would be as transparent as possible with the community. We will be adjusting the price slightly in the coming weeks. Obviously this will only be affecting new players, not those who already purchased the game. The exact amount will vary depending on the currency, and it is possible the game may become cheaper in some territories as it has been some time since we revisited the price to ensure it was fair in different currencies.

Experiments Under way for Future Updates

We are still experimenting with some pretty big changes, some of which could have some really profoundly positive impacts on the project. These areas cover everything from new content (such as the much requested Nuclear Reactors), changes to how multiplayer connections are made (to improve connectivity with those with network troubles), new approaches to terrain (to make the game feel more visually appealing like Space Engineers or Astroneer), and more.

Your support makes this possible

The major refactor has been a huge milestone for us and we think you can already see the tremendous success. Your support through bug reporting, suggestions, and direct involvement with our team on discord makes a tremendous difference.

If you like the progress we have made, please consider taking a moment to leave a positive review. This makes a great deal of difference to the project. We have worked hard on this project now for five years, and we feel confident the game is substantially improved from when we started. Many projects steer clear of the hard tasks, and we are proud to have taken them on.

Additionally, you can support us by purchasing the DLC we made to allow those who like the game to support us, and in return get something a little fun to continue to use in the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2089290/Stationeers_Human_Cosmetics_Pack/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038400/Stationeers_Zrilian_Species_Pack/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1038500/Stationeers_HEM_Droid_Species_Pack/

Changelog v0.2.3545.17252

• Tool speed multipliers are now correctly used during deconstruction.
• Changed mining backpacks column count to 4
• MKII tools now have 10% speed bonuses
• Fixed storms appearing inside
• Changed the number of slots on the mining backpacks. Basic is now 24 and hard is now 28
• Changed the recipes for the mining backpacks to reflect the difference in slot numbers
• Added mining backpack recipes
• Changed number of slots for mining backpack
• removed tool slots on mining backpack
• Fixed checking game version throwing exception on join when not advertising server
• Fixed Error spam on server when using FireExtinguisher.
• Fix for fire effects spawning an world origin.
• Fixed not being able to join hosted games unless they were advertised due to a game session(only created when advertised) being required to do the password check
• Updated prefabs with missing serialized property
• Fixed inventory windows don't remember their positions when reloading world
• Fixed inventory windows can sometimes be positioned half or fully off the screen when loading world
• Fixed a few issues around starting tutorials with a non-human character selected. Disallowed character customisation in tutorials
• Fixed main menu stack items not being cleared after exiting world
• Fixed emote command throwing exception in single player
• Added windowheight command to set the console window height
• Fixed An edge case that could cause fires to spawn at world origin.
• Fixed Hotspots or cold spots building up on Venus around devices. This could happen on other planets but the effect was less noticeable.
• Fixed Items in slots of structures sometimes interacting with the incorrect atmosphere.
• Fixed WorldAtmospheres Close to global pressure not mixing with neighbours.
• Fixed exception being thrown when using 'help' command if command not found
• Added first pass of mining backpack and hard mining backpack
• Fixed scenarios button was throwing an error so have disabled it for the time being
• Fixed issue where changing save folder name would cause autosaves to save to the old folder. New saves will now update the world_meta with the correct WorldFileName. Old saves which already have the old WorldFileName will not be changed
• Balanced IsCloseToGlobal atmospheric checks in large and small air leaks on multiple planets. This allows for small air leaks, like an open door or burst pipe, to still be noticeable in world, while preventing large pressure bursts from spreading too far.
• Tied atmosphere IsAlive to depend on a constant ratio of the new atmosphere creation threshold.
• With a unified IsCloseToGlobal standard, made atmospheric mixing rates to no longer depend on room state, with room mixing being raised slightly, and roomless mixing being lowered more significantly.
• Increased lower pressure clamp on IsCloseToGlobal, to give very low pressure environments a higher pressure to consider irrelevant.
• Fixed dynamic scrubber throwing invalid grid exception
• Fixed bug where navigating back with esc on main menu would lock up certain buttons
• Removed Thing.CurrentGrid. (old and deprecated way of keeping track of grid-position)
• Refactored a number of Grid3 localGrids to use WorldGrid.
• Changed Pipe.CurrentGrids to use WorldGrids rather than vector3.
• Refactored UpdateAirState() to take in a worldGrid instead of a Vector3.
• Fixed exception when cleaning up chunks on exiting world
• Added Atmosphere logic types for input and output pipe atmospheres. Devices that have an IC slot will be able to read atmosphere values from their input and/or output networks.
• Added "debugthreads terrain" command. This will display the number of currently queued Terrain Tasks and the total number of tasks created in the current play session.
• Added ability for tools to decrease structure build times.
• The welding torch now is 20% faster than the arc welder. Increasing the welder's burn atmosphere to be above 3000C (by using a N2O combustion mix) will increase this speed bonus to 50%.
• Players now get additive tool speed increases of 20%, and a structure placement speed increase of 20% when not wearing a spacesuit. A friendly reminder that gas welding without a suit has been known to cause respiratory issues.