What is up Depthians! What is this new disconnection check? I hear you scream As some of you know, some blocks can only be attached by a specific side and some of the other sides you may not be able to build on/attach blocks to(red squares). We have enforced this rule with this update as we could bypass this rule by shift+click to replace a block which initially would not be able to be put in that specific location. Lets take this exhaust as an example
As you can see it is only connected on the T junction and the corner. It is not attached to any of the light-alloy blocks of the construct, therefore if I delete or if the T junction gets destroyed the rest of the exhaust system will fall off. However! Do not worry about your current blueprints already saved block placement as they will not be affected and you will see a tooltip saying that the block you are looking at is protected. Only newly placed blocks will be affected as the rule and block connection logic is enforced. Its a common-sense thing should a floating block be able to connect to something like this exhaust? Not unless it has a face that can be attached to something like the corner exhaust.

You can also disable the protection on your current saves by hitting V on the construct
You may see a few blocks falling off your construct if they were placed incorrectly by using shift+click to replace. For example, this receiver and munition detector will fall off.

Changelog

Additions

Blocks

• Added a 3m sign post and increased the display capacity of the normal sign post

Build mode

• Area and block group erase now work with mirror
• Attempting to replace a block when the new block cannot be placed now has no effect. It used to delete the old block without placing a new one.
• Block group erase can now also delete a chunk of blocks of the same type if the selected block is not part of a multi-block system
• Option to show build marker coordinates on HUD

Undo/Redo

• Undo/redo now works in multiplayer. Every player building on the same construct share one undo/redo list. Only the author of an action can undo/redo it.

Changes

Blocks

• [FTD-586] Blocks from old blueprints are spared from the strict disconnection check
• [FTD-586] Changed placeable faces of ACB, ship wheel, fire control computer, drone spawner, blueprint spawner, docking station, repair bot, respawn beacon, gauge block, AI wireless receiver, Lua box, stair, door, and a few other blocks.
• [FTD-586] Replace, repair, and disconnection check now respect placeable faces of the blocks

Fortress

• In-play movement speed of a Fortress under AI / player control increased to 3m/s (from 1m/s)

Harpoons

• Improved the rendering of missile harpoons so you can now see a sensibly thick cable rather than a constant thickness black line

Missile

• Large 2x2 hatch texture replaced

Physics

• 'Autosynch transforms' flag has been turned off in the Unity physics engine which should improve performance particularly for vehicles that are very close together, without affecting the simulation much

Fixes

AI

• Fortress manoeuvre routine will no longer try to move a fortress if it is within 3m of its waypoint, this is for performance reasons (moving large fortresses can be quite computationally expensive)

CJE

• Custom jets with both thrust and energy/power output do not use more materials than intended

Drones

• Docked motherships and drones will no longer activate their colliders immediately after spawning, they now correctly identify that they are connected by a tractor beam and don't need colliders.

LWC

• Fixed a threading problem possibly causing different priority LWCs/AMCCs controlling the same turret making it twitch and not fire

Missile

• Harpoon cable width scales width is reduced further from the camera

Performance

• Air pumps calculation didn't stop when vehicle is frozen. Now fixed.

Steam

• Fixed a problem causing steam propellers to be considered higher than intended relative to the water level
• Fixed transmissions possibly changing direction instantly when getting a sequence of 0-opposite direction rotation requests