If you still play FortressCraft:Evolved - read this! If you don't play any more, but you have a save game that you might one day decide to go back to, and look at with the horror 'What WAS I thinking?', read this! If you aren't ever going to play Evolved again, but are excited for Phoenix, then head over to #fortresscraft2 our Discord - and if you're SUPER-excited for Phoenix, then head over to https://www.patreon.com/ProjectorGames to help out. Thanks again to all the Patrons helping this continue to keep development going. Speaking of which! @JaJaTec asked me in the PatronsOnly channel - "Will FortressCraft Phoenix have Cloud Save support?" and I went "Why yes, of course, Steam have vastly changed the rules around Cloud Saves, so it'll be trivial!" "So why haven't you done it for FortressCraft Evolved?" Because... I didn't think of it? Oh... yeah. Good point. So, I shall be flipping on Valve's support for Cloud Gaming for FortressCraft on or just after August 1st. IF YOU HAVE A SAVE YOU CARE ABOUT PLEASE MAKE A BACKUP OF IT. I don't expect this to go wrong. I suspect it will work perfectly and have no issue at all. HOWEVER, I've worked with computers my entire life, and 'hoping' it'll work is a terrible plan. So - BACK YOUR WORLDS UP. I mean, you should back them up anyways. Back up anything you feel is important to a computer that's not in your house. Just good advice. You're limited to 10 gigabytes and 10,000 files. If you're running with compression turned OFF, you may run into this. Keeping the default Compression on will solve this.
If you have worries or issues or concerns, speak up now! Anyways! FortressCraft 2 is still moving along, tho I'm super-struggling with Unity, and I always have a bunch of other projects on the go. Check out the channels if you haven't! Love and kisses always! DjArcas

[ 2024-07-15 11:58:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

As 2019 draws to a close, I thought I would drop you a few notes. First of all, a reminder that we have a very active Discord : https://discord.gg/advmf8S - there's always someone there to answer questions, give advice on builds, or help you solve issues. I'm literally always there if you feel the need to ping me. Second, I've only gone and released another game! Summed up as 'Gauntlet meets Pikmin', it's essentially a cutesy version of how it felt to play a Necromancer in Diablo 2. Check it out! https://store.steampowered.com/app/290180/Gnomancer/ Thirdly, a reminder that works has been bubbling away on the next in the FortressCraft franchise, tentatively entitled FortressCraft : Phoenix. Purchases of Gnomancer, PacketStorm, ADATPR and FortressCraft's DLC directly contribute towards its development. Fourthly, a reminder that the most direct way to contribute towards FortressCraft Phoenix is via Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/Fortresscraft Aaand fifthly and finally - Patch 25 is now live for everyone. This combines a ton of fixes and has been collected over the last year. This means that a Maintenance P26 patch will sneak it's way onto the forum at some point, but, genuinely, the number of bugs reports to me on the Discord is really minimal now. See you next year, next game, next time, next batchannel. Patch notes :

• Mynocks can no longer spawn below +32m when on Sky Islands
• Freighters now reject items for assigned station needs that they can't serve
• some smaller Handbook updates and additions to entries.
• Fix to Falcor lockup when returning with a null item.
• Fixed exploit with stacked Grommets
• Updated WFE clearlist
• Fix for turret lasers getting stuck on
• Fixed 'Mobs killed' spam
• SpiderBot should no longer fly away
• Fixed link to correct DLC page for TAP
• Ensures Patreons get research access to TAP DLC scan
• Carts with no accessible destination that have an assigned station now properly set their error state
• Fixes NRE unity thread crash with ForcedInduction on modded smelters
• Fixes to All-Ore mode to make it a bit more playable
• serveroverrides.ini now has the autopause and listpublic in the example file
• MissionManager has the superbuild mission hooked up to translation support some new Chevron handbook files
• updated the master_language_data.xml to have more stuff ...
• Freight handbook update
• Corrects icon display of freight stations in the system monitor
• Several Freight bug fixes
• Minor freight UI polish and fix for carts not entering reserved station
• Turn off FreightCartStation mbWaitForFullLoad...
• Fix to Carts Idling on world restart
• CCW and CW fixed/switched on recipe descriptions for conveyor curves
• Canvas now says it made form paste and not Rought hew rock
• Fix to make "Collect Research" button appear if research finished while the machine window is open (no more having to close and re open it)
• Calling player.TeleportTo on host no longer causes the host to teleport regardless of the player object
• Fix for hosted player hotbar getting items added to it when client player picks up new items.
• Fix for hosted player hotbar getting items added to it when client player picks up new items.
• prevent the creation of orphaned Unity objects of drop items when the segment drop item queue is full (dropped cubes stuck floating in air problem).
• Adv Teleporter now tells clients about removed machine deleted destinations so they get taken off the list.
• Fix belt re-facing distortion against a different face (first belt against Y second against wall)
• Prevent a workshop mod with a bad mod.config id and/or name from blowing up the mod panel script.
• Fixed basic ore smelter handook
• Barkeeper now knows about its placement blocks WFEMK2 and MK3 now have the correct amount of power usage in the handbook. All changes requested by Madvandal
• Fixed GPS unlock
• LPTs can now fire through Energy Grommets
• Fixed NRE in FreightCartMob caused by HopperInterface OfferItem being dropped on update
• Fixed error flashing on FreightCartStation to correctly error only when there are less than 3 nodes in the network... again...
• Lidgren changes for IPV6
• changed decriptions for the Ore carts as the capacity is different from the Handbook. (may have missed one or two) Chevron renaming if different files
• Madvandal fixes to conveyors

Thank you to Mad Vandal, Tobmia, Zebra and Steveman0 for their continuing support and help - as well as anyone else I forgot!

[ 2019-12-25 19:44:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here's patch 25 for you, and also, Merry Christmas! I hope to see you all in the future!

SkyIslands Fixes

• Slightly reworked Ore spawns on Sky Island to be wider and more reliable:
• 450-530 - Nickel
• 380-450 - Gold
• 280-350 Titanium
• 220-270 Crystal
• Previously Nickel was very-likely to overwrite Gold - they now exist in separate band.
• Altered T4 spawn density

All-Ore fixes

• T4 ores now spawn separately to T2, meaning it's possible to progress
• T2 ores have improved spawns

Skins!

• Added Adventurer's Garb skin for TAP owners
• Added ADAPTable skin for ADAPTR owners

Spiderbro!

• SpiderBot's knees should no longer go wrong.
• If SpiderBot's knees DO go wrong, they should fix themselves in short order

Technical stuff!

• You should now be able to enable multiple new mods and not worry about the security confirmation dialogue failing. (thank you MV)
• Mods now support Tags - just add Cats,Dogs,Mass HysteriaAdded IPV6 Support (Thanks to TechPizza and Zebra). This does not support IPV6-only setups - the server can still only transmit and receive on IPV4. NAT should take care of this. The other situation that will not work is an dual-stack IP server where the client on a LAN attempts to connect via IPV6. Utilising Name Resolution on LANs should work, as it will default to IPV4. Internet IPV6 resolution where NAT is available should work fine. IPV6 VPNs won't work, but they wouldn't have worked before either.

Misc!

• 'Fix' for incorrect Conveyor ReadyForConvey flag for network clients
• Fix for corner Conveyors for network clients.
• Fixed MFP preview not correctly removing hurtboxes/lights under all circumstances.
• Mass Storage now correctly culls inside Rooms
• Mobs should now correctly cull on raycast blocks
• Fixed Main menu text issues, added ADAPTR link
• Added catch for Recipes with CraftData with 0 entries needed
• Fixed Patreon-URL when user attempts to build Adventures Mode block
• Minecarts are now recoloured to match Freight carts, with the colour order being Green,Blue, Purple, Orange
• Icons have been recoloured to match Thank you Mad Vandal for the Corner conveyyor fixes.
• Make carry objects added through AddItem on basic/regular curved belts start at 0.5 offset and facing the input direction.
• Slows carry object turn speed on basic belts to 0.8 so animation turn speed meshes better with the forward speed and more real.
• Added curved and sloped belts to those subject to cold/toxic penalties.
• Working MFPs now have text to show you that they've completed their work. (SP only)
• Fixed issue where network clients would not use up power when teleporting via Advanced Teleporters.
• MK4 guns now use ExceptionalOrganicLens, not PerfectFacetedEye
• Organic PSB now uses Lense, not Eye.
• Potential fix for bad timing when teleporting into and out of and between Rooms.
• CPH tutorial should no longer be around for Network Clients.
• Fixed Airlock rendering, easily turning this game into GOTY.
• Developed final Bootstrap screen :-(
• Added Adventures Pack signs to Main menu
• Fixed issue with ConstructoBot permissions
• GPS no longer shows coords when CPH is offline.
• GPS works for Patreons.
• The Adventures Pack is no longer referred to as 'Forthcoming'
• MFP should no longer disallow building under odd circumstances when network clients
• Freight Filter Window should now correctly work as a network client
• ARTHER disconnect should no longer transmit a NULL Station segment under some circumstances
• ARTHER will now automatically disconnect from Docks when he's more than 96 metres away, for network clients. This avoids a situation where ARTHER 'dangles' as can no longer see the segment he's in!
• Freight Carts permission is now correct for all owners
• Rail Gun permission is now correct for all owners
• Robots permission is now correct for all owners

[ 2018-12-25 10:06:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

So before I finally say goodbye to FortressCraft, I do want to ensure it's in the best state I can get it to. To that end, there's planned to be one more patch, with a few important longevity and 'most-demanded' fixes. So we have IPV6 support, a fix so SpiderBot doesn't suffer from a permanent broken knee (just occasional ones!), 2 new skins, one for TAP owners, one for ADATPR owners, mod Tag support, and imho most importantly - conveyors work properly in network games again. If you're having ANY problems at all unlocking Adventures Pack stuff, please opt into the test branch, it should be perfectly safe. You can get full details here : https://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1742228532896639848/ And if you need that ADATPR skin in your life, grab it from here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/516570/ADAPTR/ The patch should be available just around Christmas - I want to get the 'Lasers can fire through Grommets' fix a little better first.

[ 2018-12-22 11:57:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

..was totally working perfectly during testing, but as we all know, no plan survives contact with the enemy! I've release a Win64 patch into the Staging branch tonight - this has a number of fixes, and should alleviate most of the major issues that have come up. I'll be doing an all-platforms build to match this overnight, and will push it live tomorrow, unless anyone notices anything horrifically wrong!

Please feel free to opt into the Staging branch if you've been having any issues!

• Fixed issue with ConstructoBot permissions
• GPS no longer shows coords when CPH is offline.
• GPS works for Patreons.
• The Adventures Pack is no longer referred to as 'Forthcoming'
• MFP should no longer disallow building under odd circumstances when network clients
• Freight Filter Window should now correctly work as a network client
• ARTHER disconnect should no longer transmit a NULL Station segment under some circumstances
• ARTHER will now automatically disconnect from Docks when he's more than 96 metres away, for network clients. This avoids a situation where ARTHER 'dangles' as can no longer see the segment he's in!
• Freight Carts permission is now correct for all owners
• Rail Gun permission is now correct for all owners
• Robots permission is now correct for all owners

[ 2018-12-12 21:56:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

I'm aware of the permissions issue that some of you might be seeing with The Adventures Pack. I'm currently streaming here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/254200/FortressCraft_Evolved/ and my PC is building the builds in the background! Should be live soon!

[ 2018-12-10 19:55:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you've followed me at all on Twitter, Discord or any of my Streaming Adventures(tm), you'll know I blimmin' love FortressCraft. If it wasn't my game, I'd play the crap out of it, and pester the Dev to fix all the stuff that annoyed me. Thankfully, I *am* the Dev, so I can already fix everything that annoys me... given infinite time at least. Sadly, I've been working *so* much on FortressCraft over the last couple of years that I've slipped behind on my other obligations - I've put these off as long as I've been able, but I've had to spend the last few weeks finishing off something I started some 4 years ago. To that end, I'm proud to announce that ADATPR is finally done, shipped and released. https://store.steampowered.com/app/516570/ADAPTR/ Once the dust has settled down, and any patches emerge from the great unwashed playing my delicate game, I'll be on the final run for the Adventures Pack - it's pretty much done barring odds and ends, and the Patreons have been cheerfully breaking things and making me fix them. Watch this space!

[ 2018-10-31 18:16:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Different days can provide wildly inconsistent amounts of work. Some days I can get half a dozen new machines in. Other days, I can spend looking at one line of code and end up achiving nothing. This month has been one of the latter months; after the end-to-end playthrough that took about a month for P20, this month has been a consolidation of all the new things. And just a couple of shiny toys for everyone. The handbook has also received a ton of love - if there's any entries for non-obvious machines missing, please let me know!

TL;DR

• Launch the Railgun to unlock the GPS (Adventures Pack)
• Use Hive Brains to craft Hive Agitators to get more Resin. (Adventures Pack)
• Use AntiGrav-tubes to move vertically without risk of dying.
• Colour-coded Freight Tracks (Adventures Pack)
• Advanced Teleporters! (Adventures Pack)
• Context Help overhaul
• Massive performance improvements to threaded work.
• Added a 14-page handbook entry, covering the complete game, from your first steps until the RailGun. Feedback wanted!

The Adventures Pack is planned for release in P23 next month; my work until then will pretty much be polishing and fixing issues with that, as opposed to adding anything new.

Performance

• Altered HBAO to be dynamic based on framerate; this should heavily improve framerate for 1440p and 4k users.
• Fixed a performance issue on Fabulous and above when many Airlocks were nearby.
• Performance improvements to animated plants
• Performance improvement to ConstructoBots when not visible.
• Fixed Instancing on a large number of plants
• Fixed a potential issue where plants clearing themselves up would massively overload the Build Orders.
• Tunnel Nukers will now delay and re-try explosions on successive frames as opposed to locking the mob thread up.
• Item simulation has been spread out over a number of ticks, and should use approximately 500% less CPU time.
• Significant memory and performance improvements disk queuing. This should alleviate a number of microstuttering bugs, as well as improve worst-case memory usage.
• Fixed an issue where exiting the game shortly after running around in a new world could cause a long exit queue time.
• Plants now smartly request segment saves, as opposed to forcing save too often
• Tunnel Nukers should now try a little harder to pre-page their segment
• Tracking of orphaned Build Orders and executed Build Orders
• Made ArchiveManagement Lock a non-blocking call, meaning no long gaps where SegmentRequests can't be serviced. TL;DR, a queue is much smaller than it used to be.
• Optimisation of Shifting and Population, reducing the worst-case scenario from ~180,000ms down to 80ms. This is not a typo.
• Teleporting should be virtually instant for single-players now
• Complete rework and new caching system for the GetSegment code; this is an exceptionally risky change, but should provide enormous performance benefits.
• Fixed performance issue with Electric Lights when inside rooms
• Reduced Good from 10 segment draw distance to 8 segment draw distance, to see if any issues from this thread are resolved : https://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1760230157503109103/?ctp=3

Quality of Life

• Added ToneMapping and EyeAdaptation. I don't like the look, so it's disabled by default. When Bloom is off, this turns on, adding to the 'low contrast' look. Simply type

  enter /detail bloom enter enter

  
  
• Medbay now ticks longer, to avoid any timing hiccups on busy worlds
• Heists now attempt to inject power boosters and ampules to the player's suit inventory first if slots are free
• Heists now have a configurable limit for injection so you can prevent them from injecting beyond a defined inventory quantity - enables stocking you with a handful of the essentials when you pass by
• Tweak to heists to support all suit items for all your clumsy suit replacement needs :D
• Repeat button should now work again on the Manufacturing Plant
• Paintable variants of blocks should now be placeable if the base block is craftable.
• Blueprints requiring DLC packs will now be colour-coded in the Manufacturing Plant.
• Researched/Available counts on the Progression screen are now actually correct.
• Removed a large number of archaic Console commands, meaning that the help is readable again

Fixes

• Altered HBAO system so color-bleeding is modulated by depth. TL;DR you won't see weird glowing blocks within the fog.
• Fog distance is now much more dependent on detail and bake amount, giving a significant draw advantage to higher detail settings.
• CC plants rendering improved
• Fixed GPS readout
• GPS now goes offline if the CPH is destroyed on Important CPH mode.
• Fixed CCCCC rendering
• Fixed Toxic plant rendering
• Fixed animated plants in CC
• Advanced Teleporter should now work correctly networked (TY MadVandal)
• Fixed TryExtract to stop taking additional items after it has one and it's an ItemSingle (Ty Pacasa)
• RecalculateAvailableStackHeight(bool periodicCheck) modified to allow clients to visually update when periodicCheck is true.

New things!

• Added Techno Anti-Gravity Lift for Frozen Factory Owners
• Added Rainbow Anti-Gravity Lift for Dapper owners
• Added Predator Anti-Gravity Lift for Adventure Pack owners
• Added Basic and Regular Corner Conveyors
• Added Basic and Regular Conveyor Crafters!
• Added Hive Agitators - build within 32m of a Hive and feed with power to cause the nearest hivemind to grow. (Adventures Pack only)
• Added MK4 turret as a multi-block upgrade from MK3s, using Purple (Boss/Perfect) eyes and some Alloyed Blocks. Yes, the turret from the trailer has been redone, made to work, and been made public. Sorry it took so long.

Handbook

• An enormous amount of translation and handbook work from Zebra + co.
• Updated Mass Storage Controller and CryoSpawner handbook entries.
• Updated Energy Grommet handbook entry.
• Added full handbook entries and guides for all 7 of the Mass Storage machines.
• Loads of Handbook entries added and updated. Too many to list. Did I miss one?
• Added Tools handbook entry, explaining all of the tools. This was submitted by a community member, but I haven't got a note as to who! Thank you, mysterious stranger.
• Updated a number of handbook entries for clarity.
• Ensures the machine 'hint' was displayed in the crafting interface
• Updated a large number of machine's descriptions and hints.
• Handbook fixes to AmpuleCrafters, Attack Scanners and Base Scanners
• Welcome and First Night Handbook entries no longer display after 200 Base Rating.
• Added context-sensitive subtitle to Handbook entries
• Research Panel no longer always inserts itself as the Selected Machine in the Contextual Help Handler
• Fixed an issue with the Contextual Help handler, due to the Translation team renamingUnknown_Materials to unknown materials.
• Removed the unnecessary numbers from the short 'Contextual Help' page list.

Fixes

• Dust in rooms will no longer be present if the room is correctly filtered.
• Fixed all NonHelp console commands (so /coords works again!)
• Macerator no longer incorrectly lists power
• MagmaBore correctly displays power needs
• Fixed invisible StockPort on initial build
• Fixed AutoUpgrader with down slopes/corners
• Resolved log spam due to error with slopes on delete
• Fix to UI redraw spam for freight cart stations.
• Fixes display of stacks of >1 million
• Fixes cube stacks max stack size not being obeyed in Hardcore Inventory .
• Fixed an issue with Advanced Teleporters when a network client.
• CargoLifts that attempt to spawn into overloaded segments will now fail gracefully and try again.
• Added QueueLength readout to the Server Monitor - if this is regularly at or over 200, your machine is beginning to struggle to keep up.
• Implemented a Fix where MSIO ports were causing an exception when non-stackable items were used.
• Fixed MSIO issue with ItemSingles
• Railgun is now marked as part of the Adventures Pack.
• Verified issues with CryoSleeping with no issues
• Melters will re-awaken fluid even if it can't move.
• Alloyed Assemblers are no longer part of Frozen Factory DLC (oops)
• Researching an Unknown Material will now correctly display the information about researching it again.
• Advanced Teleporters now available to Adventures Pack/Patreons - they do not work Networked currently, tho single-player should be just fine.
• Added RailGun stat tracking
• Fixed Scrap Track Junction rendering
• Fixed a hopper exploit
• Player will no longer be sent to look for Biomass once they have a Geothermal Plant.
• Crystal and Lithium 'search' missions no longer trigger once you have Solar Panels
• ARTHER PTG and Biomass 'comments' are also predicated appropriately.
• Fixed Tutorial message sizes
• Removed Copper Wire cost from Slopes, meaning a direct conversion is now available from regular Straights.

Freight Carts

Hooked up auto track colorer to the track pieces in the scene

Adds the color lighting update code for non-entity track pieces

Added ILightingDataUserInterface - this interface is attached to GOs to receive network lighting data updates

Added LightingDataOrderManager to pass the lighting updates to GOs on the unity thread

Added TrackAutoColor - a script that uses this interface to receive lighting updates for track color updates

Deleting cubes now check if they are tracks and queues a scan of the local track to determine if a freight connection was broken and will automatically trigger a grid reset

Added more verbose logging in FreightCartMob for some mystery errors recently reported to try to track down the source

Adds an error state for FreightCarts for when they can't find a place to offload excess (primarily to sync clients)

Adds necessary networking to support transmission of lighting data updates to clients

Adds AP DLC check and added tag for crafted items

Adds one way track to the AP DLC cube build check as they're of no use to players without the DLC (hidden to avoid confusion)

Adds depots and their cart contents to the freight system monitor grid display

Carts now tell depots if they can't navigate to them so they can tell the player there's something wrong

Blast furnaces no longer hint that they can connect to mass storage (they cant!)

Stations now only error for grids of 2 nodes (3 is minimum valid)

Junctions color by grid ID

Passes the entrydirection through to TrackPiece on create to cache for easy iteration

[ 2018-09-25 13:09:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you have a burning desire or feature or change you want in, then you're running out of time to persuade me and others - https://www.reddit.com/r/FCE/comments/8h00yn/what_next/ Current top candidates are Conveyor Corners, the MK4 turret and anti-grav ladders.

[ 2018-07-30 19:41:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

These days, of course, it's impossible to ship anything without breaking something, despite the tireless work of the testing crew, telling me how broken I've made anything - so therefore, have a tiny patch!

Fix List

• Fixed endless 'Base Destroyed' message, which was due to the new UI
• Reduced cost of Upgrade Cargo Lifts to be more in line with P20 costs.
• Freight Carts research should now be correctly gated behind Adventures Pack or Patreon access
• Fixed erroneous "Please purchase the Adventurers pack to continue" to people who have just built the MagmaBore.

Patch 22 goals:

• Corner Conveyors
• Advanced Teleporters
• MK4 Turret
• GPS

As well as continued polish, placeholder machines removed, and optimisation. See you next month! (Or, you know, sooner on the Forums, Twitter or Discord)

[ 2018-07-23 09:43:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

This month has been almost entirely focused on the new Freight Carts, and a complete, end-to-end playthrough of the entire game, networked, from the very start, right until the building, testing and firing of the new Rail Gun. Note : The Freight Carts are not currently available. You can build the 'Scrap' tier of carts, but anything higher than that will currently, incorrectly, open up the Dapper DLC page! Sorry.

TL;DR

• New main UI!
• Use Signs to name your rooms!
• All T2 crafting completely reworked to be similar to T1, and much more understandable to boot!
• Loads of Frozen Factory improvements and rebalances
• Freight Carts!
• Suit Inventory now auto-uses Ampules and Boosters

Adventures Pack

• Robot Herb Arms should now collect plants and hand them off to hoppers correctly.
• Robots should now do a 180 degree turn after servicing Hydro Bays or Storage Hoppers.
• Linked up all Orbital Railgun missions
• Orbital Railgun no longer uses ~47,000 Alloyed Machines Blocks to make, but will instead make ~1,700 Ultimate Upgrade Modules. This is still around 700k bars of each of the sub-types, but should be much easier to actually manage.
• Increased Ore Freighter carrying capacity by 4x, halved their speed, giving an effective 2x boost over previous.
  • Scrap Ore Freighters now carry 50
  • Basic Ore Freighters now carry 500
  • Fast Ore Freighters now carry 500
  • Large Ore Freighters now carry 1000
  • Bulk Ore Freighters now carry 1000
• Ore Freighters now show their carried ore correctly.
  
• Stations auto-name to the first freight item added if they don't have a name
• Carts now turn around at one-ways if they approach them from the wrong side and properly trigger a nav refresh
• SetErrorState now properly handles null interface case
• FreightCart error colours are now more specific
  • Freight Cart error colours:
  • Yellow - Offloading Excess
  • Cyan - Parking at Depot
  • Magenta - Station Full
  • Red - Nav Error
• Freight Cart Junctions of glory and win.

Just remember, the Adventures Pack is planned to be released within 1-3 months, depending on things, but if you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT WAIT, then you can become a Patreon and get immediate access, as well as supporting development of the game.

Rebalancing

• Added Titanium Housings and Titanium Housing Crafter
• Added Gold Foil and Gold Foil Crafter
• Added Secondary Upgrade Module Crafter and Secondary Upgrade Modules
• Added Alloyed Upgrade Module Crafter and Alloyed Upgrade Modules
• Added Ultimate Upgrade Module Crafter and Ultimate Upgrade Modules
• Replaced all self-crafts that used Gold Wire with Gold Foil, 5 times less.
• Replaced all self-crafts that used Titanium Plates with Titanium Housing, 6 times less.
• Replaced all self-crafts that used Fortified PCBs with Secondary Upgrade Modules, 5 times less.
• This should make things much simpler for T2 crafts. Everything should be 'about' the same cost.
• Apologies that this may affect a few automation setups :(
• Hid a number of items until slightly later in the game, so players can't research things they can't make.
• Added Basic Conveyor Belt Crafting machines
• Added Conveyor Belt Crafting machines
• MK5 Induction kits are no longer used as a crafting ingredient. Instead you'll use UltimateUpgradeModules, each of which costs about 10% of the resources of a previous MK5 Induction Kit.
• Titanium Housing Crafter PPS reduced to 25
• Secondary Upgrade Module PPS increased to 150
• Secondary Upgrade Module no longer required Primary PCBs (this reduces the cost of Alloyed Machine Blocks by 30 Tin bars per block)
• Reduced Chrome and Moly cost in Chromed and Magnetic Block Assemblers
• Reduced a number of RP costs for early-game items
• Increased Research Value of Copper Ore
• Added ScrapTrack Crafter
• Added MinecartTrack Crafter
• Many FF recipes now use the higher-tier Overclocked Clocks, which were sorely underused.

New things!

Improved things!

• New 'heavy machine cracks the ground' effect

Quality of Life

• Basic and Regular Conveyors can now be made immune to the effects of Cold and Toxic gases by building them inside an appropriately-classed room.
• Signs next to Generic Room Controllers will now specifically name the room - you can use this to help newbies to your server understand things, or to remind you what on earth you had planned...
• Many more optimisations to fluid
• Players will no longer have a shadow when riding a minecart
• Players should no longer clip into Stations whilst riding minecarts.
• Decorative Blocks should no longer be cleared by WorkFloor Excavators.
• Teleporting will now cause a clear-up of memory allocation and outdated texture loads.
• Fixed issue where CompressDuringPlayOnly wouldn't submit folder for archival under certain circumstances (You can use CompressDuringPlay or CompressOnExit for now to ensure backups are made.)
• Room Vaporators now support 256m^3, up from 192m^3
  
• Lancers and Melters are now 2x the speed on Rapid.
• Massive rework of the threaded fluid system. Now substantially better!
• Fluid Pipes can now change colour appropriately. This change was far harder than this sentence makes out.
• Destroying an OSC will no longer leave the OET in a really broken state. You WILL lose all the power tho - be more sure before hitting BOOM.
• Trenchers should now correctly page in target drill segment
• Healing Ampules are no longer used if you're dead. #bitlate
• Increased size of Organic Power Storage once more.
• Melters should now correctly support Freezon Boosting
• Freezon-Booster Ablators and Liquifiers now cover a much larger range.
• Lancers and Melters now have double range (18/26) when Freezon Boosted, as well as the increased clearance rate.
• Increased CryoMine radius by 25%
• Logistics Falcors will no longer service adjacent beacons.
• Overclocked Clocks now use 5 Clocks, not 1.
• All Overclocked use now reduced to 20%
• Added a new suit item that doesn't do anything other than have a really pretty drop object with a big light on it. Useful in Clumsy Mode, but not elsewhere.
• Improved Lens Polisher readout - it takes ALL lenses, btw!
• RayGun unlock now pushed before Labs
• Power cost for Rail Checking on Cargo Lifts is massively reduced, and doesn't change, regardless of fitted lift.
• Medbay range increased to 10 metres.
• All Ampules and Power Boosters now fit into the Suit Inventory.
• All items now droppable. ALL items now droppable.
• Assembly Line Machines are now 3x faster on Rapid.
• Ampules stored in your Suit inventory will automatically trigger when at <25% health
• Power Boosters stored in your Suit inventory will automatically trigger when ARTHER is at <15% health
• OET Charge now displayed with an ETA properly.

Known Issues

• Directional Hoppers cannot offload to Multiblock machines. I can't work out a good fix for this.

Fix List

Ore Density fixed on non-Rapid modes

Mobs that move outside of a Client's loaded frustum should no longer get lost in the ether.

Ore Smelter no longer gives any tutorial once the player has completed the game in a previous playthrough

Fixed rare crash in Mass Storage crates

New UI should fade appropriately.

Massively improved 'progress' indicator in Research Panel.

Hooked up 'Just keep scanning' achievement to when you hit 400/457 items in progression. I may change this to be harder.

Mynocks in a farm will no longer soak up lots of CPU time! This change will mostly only affect dual and quad core PCs.

All of the modifiers to plant growth speed should now apply correctly.

Fixed a generic issue with machines interacting with Assembly Line machines via the generic interface.

Fixed typo in Cost of MK3 Storage Ports

Fixed rare crash in Manufacturing Plants and Accessory Modules.

Railgun can now be fired more than once.

Railgun average, peak, ongoing and total firing stored and displayed.

CargoLifts should no longer get stuck forever after suffering from CryoPlasm or Sand

CargoLifts should be much more responsive for network clients.

Raygun now part of the Care Package.

Fixed issue where Dazzler would sulk if it couldn't find anything. Fun fact : 256 doesn't fit into a byte

Substantial improvements to smartness of fluid

Substantial improvements to performance of fluid

Segments with Cryo in them that haven't moved in a substantial timeframe will now freeze.

Falcor Bomber Radar is network synced

Falcor Beacons are network synced

Fixed threaded timing issue with CryoMap.

LOIC should now move under all circumstances.

Some fixes to the mission readout for the OET

Some fixes to TourCarts

Magma Storage now animates to show fullness.

MagmaBore readout switches across to Inferno Readout appropriately. Includes clients!

Fixed CryoMap machine display

Fixed CryoSpawner exploit

Network Freight fixes

Added Current Ride Cart debug

Added a new client comms stream to send world-wide data, even with the target machine isn't nearby.

Dropped items should no longer end up being visually in the wrong place.

Plenty of MagmaBore polish and fixes.

New top-UI

Teleport Mods should no longer punish you with pink

Locked TrackReservations to prevent thread clashing

Carts at request only hopper stations will automatically leave at the loading step

Made StationFull error state take precedence over OffloadingExcess - this should stop spamming of carts that are trying to offload at a full station

Freight cart depots should no longer report stations asking for carts of unknown tier

Freight stations on mass storage should have a popup box again

Doubled the penalty for carts passing through stations other than the destination

Carried out a bunch of graphical tweaks to all of the T4 Particulate filtration systems

[FreightCart]Suppressed some client spam for track reservations for FreightCartMob

Cleaned up the network reservation update for client FreightCartMob

Disabled the network updates of cart stats as that would be handled on mob creation and isn't needed each network update

Client freight carts can no longer shoot past a depot and derail while awaiting the server removal of the cart

FreightCartStations now force a UI refresh when a MS crate is registered (so MS connection is recognized)

Adds the abstract TrackPiece object for use in generic track tracing applications

Adds all necessary child TrackPieces for each existing track type with full navigation rules

Adds support to the AutoUpgrader to upgrade Scrap Track into standard Minecart Track

Fixes power requirement for AutoUpgrader to properly consume power for each upgrade

Freight Stations now flash red if there's an error

Ore Carts now show which ore they're carrying.

Freight Carts now utilise the Mass Storage colouring and texturing scheme, to show what they are carrying.

Fixed Overmind Guts hitbox + accidental achievement

Added error when Directional Hoppers are connected to offload to Multiblock machines.

Hiveminds will no longer be able to over-build and saturate orders.

Hiveminds now inter-react more strongly.

The punishment for nuking a hivemind is now about 4x worse. I'm tempted to reduce the amount of RP out there, in order to persuade people to go blow up hiveminds. Remember - hiveminds drop RP when blown up!

Fixed a number of issues regarding Hiveminds placing Mynocks onto Conveyors, that should now be resolved and improved substantially. You may spend a little more power on keeping conveyors clear now, tho.

Usable Item code now supports Suit Items

Hotbar counts now support Suit items.

Ampules are now correctly colour-coded by tier, starting with White at T0

Fixed the 'blip' of HODOR rocket noise when it loads.

Solar Panels are now 32x more efficient over the network

Ablators and Liquifiers should now correctly aim as network clients.

All Freight Carts and Ore Carts of all tiers now modelled

Lots and lots of Freight fixes

Lots of Freight fixes and improvements

Improved HEIST networking usage

All Spiderbot missions will no longer trigger when all overminds are dead

Added low-pass filter to Crystal Resonance, reducing some of the high frequencies at distance.

Fluid focus rebalanced to give priority to fluid near the player. When player isn't present, all fluid will tick equally.

Signs will now render faster

Improved Minecart track rendering

Freight Mod now part of the Adventures Pack! New, improved and improved!

[ 2018-07-20 13:10:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just a reminder - all of the Loading Screens in FortressCraft are supplied by the community - got an amazing pic you want in there? Let me know!

[ 2018-05-31 12:18:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here were are, at the 20th free Content Patch since we left Early Access. I'm going to keep saying that until it sinks in - I've *only* had a dozen people refer to it as Early Access in the last month, so maybe it's sinking in! This patch has mostly focused on bringing the Adventures Pack closer to completion, a huge amount of performance optimisation (yes, I'm surprised there's any left, but we're definitely out of low-hanging fruit now), and just a couple of useful shiny machines for you. I've also done 3 playthroughs of various Mutator combinations this month, and I'll be starting the P21 cycle by implementing the final changes to T1 progression, and then having a whoosh through the bonkers Sky Islands and the completely terrifying ResinPocalypse modes - feel free to join me! Live Streams Plans Roadmap So - on with the notes!

TL;DR

• All Missions and Tutorials now disable-able from the Settings menu.
• All Fluid is now on its own thread
• Decomposed Bug Parts are now burnable.
• Temperature calculations now threaded
• Lots of room-related and instanced rendering performance boosts
• Added Tin-based Upgrade Modules
• Added Directional Storage Hopper
• MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASIVE performance boost to Holobase rendering, working around a stupid Unity bug. Literally 100 times higher framerate in the Holobase.
• Waypoint machines that are touching Ore are super awesome and super useful.
• Added Tier 3 Glow to Skin Pack #1, replacing the utterly broken Neon Line effect.

Known Issues

• Constructocons can act weirdly in MP
• Manufacturing Plant in HardcoreCrafting mode has some issues syncing in MP.

Performance

• Moved balance of fluid from 'the entire world updates slowly' to 'up to 25% the amount fluid moves 4x faster' - it should be noted that the faster fluid might not be fluid anywhere near the player.
• A number of performance optimisations - worlds heavy on MatterMovers and Enrichers should see a substantial boost.
• Moved a number of very common, additively-rendered, instanced, meshes into a system where nearby lights don't break the instancing run. Performance++
• Monster update to every machine I noticed not instancing.
• Optimisations to Mission Manager
• Optimisations to player movement
• Further Torch optimisations
• Fixed major LFGP issue with Grass and Plants (also all other machines, but mostly those)
• Substantial render improvements to Jet Turbines
• Substantial render improvements to FALCORs (3.5ms -> 0.24ms)
• Substantial render improvements to Defense turrets
• CPU performance boost to FALCOR Beacons, Workfloor Excavators, Mass Storage Ports and Quarries.
• Substantial performance boost to Hazard Panel
• Fluid (Cryo/Sand/Magma) has now been moved onto its own thread, which is designed to run adjacent to the current low frequency thread. This should provide substantially better use of your CPU and a large reduction in issues.
• All torch calculations are now threaded, giving the unusual boost of being more responsive AND improving the framerate.
• Rewrote Holobase rendering to avoid a Unity bug, increasing performance at least 100-fold.

Quality of Life/Progression

• All Missions and Tutorials now disable-able from the Settings menu.

  
  Be aware this will leave you with very little guidance on ideal progression.
• Game should now correctly detect focus loss and regain on focus gain appropriately.
• The Craft x25 button now shows how many you can craft, if you haven't got enough to craft 25. I'm really sorry I didn't add this 5 years ago, it's so good!
• Increased HEFC biomass usage on non-Rapid difficulties. This has the net effect of making Geothermals more attractive, as well as making Resin farming relatively better.
• All grades of FALCOR now have unique popup text
• Servo Motor Makers are now a bit slower, as they were nearly instant!
• Reduced the Paste cost of many blocks.
• Removed CrystalOre usages from all recipes, and replaced with CrystalClocks.
• Reduced craft costs of Minecart Track substantially.
• Iron Bar usage removed entirely from all crafting recipes and replaced with Iron Gear where appropriate.
• Self-healing now requires 4 power per health point, for a total of 400 power.
• Torches' influence now slightly larger
• Tweaked FALCOR Beacon heights so be 16m when underground
• Airlock Doors are now a third of the cost, to encourage earlier-building of them
• Changed a number of early and mid-game crafts to use Primary Upgrade Modules. This is aimed to relieve the pressure on the over-use of Lightweight Machine Housings, so 1 target hopper of each of these should go further.
• Removed Mass Storage Input Ports, which are now entirely replaced with Mass Storage Stocking Ports. Craft costs are the same, and the upgrade path not a pain.
• On non-rapid difficulties, Ore Density is substantially reduced near the CPH, increasing to the old density at approximately 256 metres. This means you'll need to decide between nearby, easy veins that won't last long, and further away, more challenging veins, that may lat your entire run.
• Slightly decreased Rapid heal rate
• Slightly increased healing power cost
• Slightly increase Medbay heal rate
• Fixed Issue where using a lower tier of healing after a higher tier would do nothing at all.
• Dropped items readout now quantises to the nearest 25, to avoid mission spam
• Conveyor Belts now count as a hard surface, and the player will move quickly.
• Turrets will no longer wipe their power on game restart. No-one's noticed this in about 4 years.
• Added 'hurt' sound effects for when the player is damaged by a mob. The voice is decided by your gender in the skin select screen.
• Cargo Lifts now have improved paging capabilities; this should alleviate fluid dropping down shafts getting stuck, as well as allow them rapidly page in underground bases.
• CPH can no longer sustain charge when destroyed, regardless of difficulty or gamemode. 3 playthroughs this month has shown that if you actually try and defend early, it's easy to win.
• Day/Night sensitivity on Batteries - should give a little more performance, and a little less glow during the day.
• AutoExcavator Preview should now run to the surface.
• Decomposed Bug Parts are now burnable. This is mostly for Sky Islands, to ensure you're not screwed, even if there are no decent Coal deposits around.
• Headlight power usage is now reflected in the Power Panel.

Adventures Pack

• [Adventures Pack] EMP Wasp health now scales with Threat
• Added 1 EMP wasp per attack wave
• [SkyIslands] Crystals high in the air are no longer of type 'unknown'
• [OSHA]Fixed PTG/OSHA combo exploit.
• Added correct ownership for Adventures Mode blocks
• [Adventures Pack]OSHA Chevrons now correctly craftable.
• [Adventures Pack]Added OSHA-compliant chevrons
• [Adventures Pack]PTGs and OEs will now lose charge during a CPH loss on Important CPH
• [Adventures Pack]Ore Smelter now loses power on Important CPH
• [Adventures Pack]EMP Wasps will now spawn on Lucrative Mobs, Aggressive Mobs, and Important CPH modes.
• [Adventures Pack]Added EMP Wasps which will drain the power of your PSBs
• [Adventures Pack]Lucrative Mobs mode added. This is hilarious.

Other

• Aggressive Slimes found in Caverns now deal more damage to the player.
• Slimes are no longer affected by Slime Attractors massively above or below them.
• Slime movement is no longer entirely random, and they will now target your vibrating machines. The Slime Attractor will draw them away. P21 is likely to introduce 'Slimes getting jammed up in Ore Extractors', for those of you who decide not to defend your mining operation. ;-)
• EMP Wasps will now spawn on Hard Mobs, if the user has the Adventures Pack or is a Patreon of the game.
• CPH now repairs much slower than before.
• Major fluid optimisation and completion of moving it to a totally unique thread - fluid should now be far more reactive
• Further rework of graphics generation logic that should eliminate delay on vox changes
• Updated Resin Handbook entries
• Optimisations and priority changes to segment mesh updating - this should mean that 'busy' hiveminds no longer mean an incomplete and poor draw distance. It should also improve responsiveness when building.
• Optimisations to fluid should reduce backlog and load.

Fix list

• Fixed a bug where ignoring a Critical mission for more than 20 mins would cause an erroneous success popup dialogue. This was specifically the Ore Thief one that was the cause of a number of negative reviews.
• Ore Pings should now work in all languages
• Fixed IO port recipe
• Solar panels no longer work underground
• BFL9000 has now been mothballed, and all recipes using it have been replaced with TurretMK3s.
• Dirt is no longer invisible.
• Removed the information cluttering up the info panel about how to craft something.
• Fixed a number of critical issues with Creative, for the 3 people who still use it.
• Solar Panel mission no longer persists if the player decides he hates solar. (?!)
• Tweaked hivemind growth rates
• Added extra safety checks for Dazzlers accidentally sweeping active beams around the entire Cold Cavern
• Added Primary (tin) Upgrade Module + Support machines
• Items will no longer default back to 'broken cube' when on Conveyor. This mostly applies to RackRails.
• Fixed Jet Turbine exhaust, cone and heat haze
• CargoLifts that don't fill in 1 tick now attempt to fill 3x more, every 3 ticks. Less spam, less CPU usage!
• MFP preview of objects with sound will no longer play their sound whilst crafting.
• Fixed potential issue with stat upload.
• Slimes will no longer attack AFK players
• Slimes will no longer attack guests
• Tweaked Tunnel Nukers
• Tweaked EMP Wasps
• Waypoint machines now support Hardened Resin
• Workfloor Excavators now appear on the Holobase.
• Improved CamoBot targetting of Teleporters, Induction Plates, PSBs and LPTs
  
• Teleporters now use up power in network games. Previously, a teleporter would never drop power. This may lead to a rebalance of Teleporters, as I nearly ALWAYS play as a network client, and I thought they were just fine.
• Fixed issue with Melters not forcing segment into Fluid state
• Fixed a number of MFP issues in network play
• Turbine exhaust should no longer act oddly
• You'll no longer be endlessly prompted to build 9 torches.
• Grass now generates on headless network servers
• OET should now show approximate time until full charge.
• Fixed power cost of Imbued Machine Block crafter, which was accidentally 15.
• Blue Bar (top right) now represents your CPU load; lower is better.
• The Caverns now have a more substantial ongoing power cost to exist in them, which is negated via rooms. Hopefully this is a *little* more encouragement to room up your base.
• 2020 mode now keeps graphics live to an unlimited distance. Do not use until the year 2020. Well, you can use it all you like, just don't complain it runs slow until at least 2020. ;-)
• Fixed an issue that could cause a Mynock to spawn into the wrong segment
• Fixed an issue on reloading a world with Mynocks on existing conveyors.
• Fixed constructobot 'escaping' issue
• Fixed exploit in [redacted]
• Tweaked FALCOR fps rate
• Oozes can no longer attack the player unless they can see them (this is updated once per 5 seconds, so there's a bit of a window where they can shoot through walls still)
• Fixed visibility issue with attacking Wasps
• Fixed error with MFP generating preview object
• Fixed potential block and repetition on Ore Thief mission
• Fixed timing issue with updating of Mobs during Saving.
• Fixed a large number of potential Mob issues with segment handoff. If there were any Minecart bugs left, they should be gone now!
• Fixed an issue where more than 100 mobs in a single segment would lose ALL of the mobs. Mobs can no longer enter 'full' segments.
• MedBays now accept power 5 times faster than before.
• Entirely-threaded temperature calculations!
• Waypoint Machines placed on Ore are now super-duper useful. Try it!
• Slime Attractor mission gives up if the player is determined to ignore it.
• Ore Thief mission will no longer bug the player after they have killed at least one Overmind. Please note, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that ALL players build an Ore Thief and connect it up to their start smelter, with virtually no exceptions.
• Players should no longer see incorrect "Well done you done a copper" messages after being in-game a long, long time, or in Trencher-only bases.
• Fixed performance issue with Crystals rendering incorrectly
• Refinery Vats in segments by themselves are no longer invisible
• Ore Extractor error count warning needs 5 minutes before an extractor counts towards that total.
• OET charge should not longer get replaced with CPH 'kill counter' whilst charging.
• MK5 batteries should now show their charge via glowing again
• Fixed an issue with vis for Robotic Sorters when you come into range
• Fixed a poor vis issue for Conveyor Belts when in a room and you come into range
• Fixed vis issues with Storage Hoppers when in a room and you come into range
• Fixed vis issues with PSBs inside rooms and... yeah. Range.

[ 2018-05-18 12:58:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Then it's time to opt into the shiny new P19-Frozen! P20 should be made live early tomorrow morning, featuring a huge swathe of optimisations, loads of progress on the Adventures Pack DLC, and just a couple of brilliantly-clever new machines, neither of which were my idea - so this is your LAST CHANCE to opt-out of the patch. And remember, if you want to have your say on what should be next, head over to this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/FCE/comments/8h00yn/what_next/ and either submit your idea (ONE!) or vote up/down what you feel should be implemented.

[ 2018-05-17 16:56:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've got a Reddit thread going on here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FCE/comments/8h00yn/what_next/ If you get a moment, it would be great if you could pop along and vote on the features you'd like me to prioritise. If you have several moments, it'd be awesome if you could write up the single thing you feel the game needs most! (Don't put your responses here - the point of this is to get people to vote!)

[ 2018-05-06 14:37:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's a tiny Monday patch for you all!

• RackRailer graphics updated
• Fixed hand-off issue with conveyor
• MK3 turrets now need Lenses, not Eyes.
• Macerators don't tell you about their power, as they don't use it
• You should now spawn in front of a Cloner, not inside it.
• Fixed Organic Parts collected by Robotic Sorters
• [Adventures Pack]Added The ResinPocalypse Mutator. This... this is special and brilliant and terrible all at once.

Your Steam client should grab this automatically, and all dedicated server branches have been updated.

[ 2018-04-16 09:40:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

(Important note - if you DO NOT WANT TO OPT INTO P19, then please select P18-frozen from your Steam beta client BEFORE entering the world) And here we are, once again, for the 19th free content patch since leaving Early Access. This patch again delivers a bunch of progress on the Adventures Pack (available before release to Patreons), and I have to say - the Sky Islands gamemode is a lot more fun than I'd imagined! For those of you who watch me stream development, make sure you tune in for the P20 playthrough, as I'll be running as many of new Mutators as I can for bug testing. On top of that, Rooms can now be classified into Filtered, Clean, Hot, Cold and, er, Wet. Wet rooms allow Plants to grow faster, and Hot and Cold rooms allow you to ignore the effects of the Cold Cavern/Magma Caverns. Filtered rooms allow you to ignore the effects of the Toxic Cavern. Clean Rooms will be finalised in P20. There's no current achievement for completing the game without fitting a Suit Heater and Toxic Filter, but it's now - in theory - technically possible. After a 3 year hiatus, the Robot Arms are back and renamed to Robotic Sorters. You can use these to move items from one conveyor to another without slowing the conveyor down, allowing much faster sorting than the current Advanced Conveyor Filters allow, with no backstuffing. They come in 4 tiers, the top tier being Frozen Factory only.
And finally, ARTHER's gained a proper UI (press tab) and SpiderBot can now have Beacons fitted to it, to collect drops when out in the wild.
On with the patch notse!

TL;DR

• SpiderCORs allow SpiderBot to return Pristine drops to base (Feed the base a couple of Beacons)
• Fully-threaded visiblity - FPS get!
• Almost all Mutators implemented (Adventures Pack only)
• Hiveminds now much more... interesting.
• Player gun needs crafting!
• Ore Extractor offline messages now MUCH more accurate and useful!
• Robotic Sorters allow you to collect specific items from Conveyor runs WITHOUT slowing them down
• ARTHER has a proper UI - press Tab! (and yes, it's re-bindable)
• Specific Room types with uses and everything!
• If you're running your Steam Client in a non-English language, the game will default to that language. You can return to English when the main menu starts up.

Known Issues

• Cloning Machine drops you off inside it instead of near it
• Some issues related to Conveyors and Assembly machines; Stampers don't animate, and finish instantly
• Some items are HUGE on Robotic Sorters - this includes all Organic stuff, but won't affect performance or behaviour
• Macerator still shows power, only it doesn't need it.
• Cargo Lift controllers no longer show Tier correctly.
• Manufacturing plants have some items that are visually weird when crafting (Minecarts are one of them)
• Electric Lights are missing SpotlightShadow mode

Important stuff

• Implemented Improved and Advanced Crystal Scanners. These should further aid the player in their discovery of Crystal resources. If you're playing on Rapid mode, you always have access to the Improved scanner, and crafting it will achieve nothing. The Advanced scanner will require Frozen Factory.
• Hive minds have evolved due to player's playstyles, and are much more tightly linked. As if they were a... hive mind, or something. This is designed to be much more 'scary' than 'base-ending', and so far tests have looked great.
• Added SpiderCors, and the ability to load a FALCOR Beacon onto the SpiderBot. This means that SpiderBot should be quite capable of returning Organic Drops from his wildlife murderin'
• Dedicated Server Launcher now works. Like, actually properly works. Use the Tool download in Steam.
• Added Cloning Machine. Use this to set your spawn location, where you die when you die, and where new players on your server will be... spawned!
• Renamed TriSeed to Mandragora.
• Added recipe to craft Crude Organic Lense from Mandragora. YOU DO NOT NEED TO KEEP AN OVERMIND ALIVE FOR LOTS OF LENSES EVER.
• Added new Robotic Sorters. This can collect from a Conveyor in front of them and place onto a Conveyor behind them. Available in 4 tiers, the fastest of which is only part of Frozen Factory.
• CamoBots have evolved to defeat smart-alec player's defences. They haven't worked out a way to defend against a laser turret to the face. Laser turrets : recommended.
• Added Room Coolers; use these to remove any heat penalty from Rooms built within the Magma Caverns.
• Added Room Heaters; use these to remove any heat penalty from Rooms built within the Cold Caverns.
• Rooms with a Greenhouse rating of >100% will cause plants to grow at double speed. There is no current benefit to increasing the rating above 100%
• Added Room Scrubbers and Filters. Filters improve the Clean rating of your room, which will provide various bonuses to machines built in them. Scrubber improve the Bio-Hazard rating of your room, allowing the player to bypass the Toxic Filter cost inside the Toxic Caverns.
• Rooms now re-check validity when the player is inside and building. This should mean near-realtime feedback on additional Scrubbers and Filters.
• Added Room Smoke. Room working fine? No smoke. Room in the Toxic Caverns and not properly Scrubbed? Green smoke. You get the the idea.

QoL

• Logistics FALCORs and Robotics Sorters both support pressing T ("Store") for a quick assignment of the current hotbar item.
• Trenchers now work with signs
• Trenchers now have report on/off toggle
• Trenchers now send issue type/name to alerts
• Ore Extractors now Clear Veins 150 times faster. This is about 18,000 blocks/hour, up from 120 per hour.
• The most-broken Ore Extractor (as listed in your missions, top right) will now be MUCH MORE OBVIOUS on the HoloBase.
• Ore Extractor 'offline' message no longer generic. It will now warn you about badly placed Extractors, ones where the Cutting Head has depleted, ones with no power, ones with no storage and ones where the vein has been depleted. I hope this alleviates literally everyone's complaints.
• "Out of Storage' Ore Extractor warning now suppressed until it's been offline for 30 minutes.
• Added Inversion for Type Filtering on Basic Filters (Thank you Mad Vandal!)
• Room Doors now open from further away, based on some sensible rules.
• [Dapper]Electric Lights now paintable. Light modes should also now cycle on the server.
• Resin is no longer optional to complete the base game.
• Worms health reduced to 150k
• DapperBlocks now count as 'hard', and you'll run fast on them.
• Moved a number of outdated machines behind the 'Mothballed' research. Can't find a machine? Check the research station first!
• Free Induction Plate for Rapid players
• Trusses are now marked as Glass, and shouldn't work as walls, and lasers should go through them
• ARTHER Turret now allows charging to 300%, letting him fire more often, if he's sat in the turret in advance.

Adventures Pack

• [Adventures Pack] "The Floor Is Lava" implemented. Probably you can charge the OET in this mode. Let me know it goes for you. No further details are forthcoming.
• [Adventures Pack]Added a Mesh for the Orbital Railgun
• [Adventures Pack] Improvements to Orbital Railgun construction and feedback
• [Adventures Pack]Robots, when aggressively disassembled, will now pack themselves into a handy-dandy crate. Stick this back in a Robot Constructor to turn it back into a Robot!
• [Adventures Pack]Robots can now have Carrying Arms and Herb Arms. Carrying Arms let them interact with Storage Hoppers and Herb Arms let them automatically harvest grown plants off of Hydroponics Bays.
• [Adventures Pack]Herb Arms (name pending) now require Agriculture research.
• [Adventures Pack]Robomania mode implemented. This is basically an incredible Conveyor nerf.
• [Adventures Pack]Aggressive Mobs mode implemented
• [Adventures Pack]Hardcore Inventory mode implemented. This essentially changes all infinite-stack items to a maximum of 100, and leaves Ore at 150 max. You can also no longer manually-craft - all items crafted via a Manufacturing Plant must be delivered to a hopper, and will require both time and energy to craft.
• (This means that only Hardcore Ceilings, Lucrative Mobs, Purchase Mode and Happy Feet are left)
• [AdventuresPack]Disallowed Paste placement in Sky Islands
• [AdventuresPack]Crystals and Organic rock should spawn in Sky Islands
• [AdventuresPack]Added Organic Detritus to Sky Islands

Frozen Factory

• [FrozenFactory]Fixed issue in CryoMap fade
• [FrozenFactory]Each CryoSpawn Kill will speed up all remaining CryoSpawners; this should (hopefully) mean an escalating challenge for the player
• [FrozenFactory]Dazzler beams no longer disappear when Dazzler is behind you. Less 'surprise death!'
• [FrozenFactory]T4 drills will no longer have 'ghost' heads.
• [FrozenFactory]Dazzler will now correctly store AND transmit the amount of Cyro cleared.

Crafting changes

• Gold Bars are no longer used. Anything manual craft that used to use Gold Bar will now use Gold Wire.
• Titanium Bars are no longer used. Anything manual craft that used to use Titanium Bar will now use Titanium Plates.
• Nickel Bars are no longer used. Anything manual craft that used to use NickelBar will now use Fortified (Nickel) PCBs.
• GACs may still use a variety of items including bars, and these have not changed, so your automation should be just fine.
• MK2 Forced Induction no longer requires Copper Wire. However, this recipe will be rebalanced for the new T1 Ultimate in P20.
• MK3 Forced Induction now uses Alloyed Machine blocks instead of T2 materials.
• MK4 Forced Induction now uses Alloyed Machine blocks instead of T2 materials. Cost is about the same, but it's awful lot simpler to make or automate.
• Added Bulk Mining Upgrades and moved the highest tier of Inductions and Motors into it. Can't craft an item you used to be able to? You're gonna need to research this! (This was changed as Advanced Miner Upgrades gave access to just far too many new items, so it's been split into 2 sections)

Performance

• Added a number of performance improvements related to when you are viewing full-screen menus.(You can tell if these improvements are active, as the world goes blurry)
• Minor optimisation to the usage of Turret CPU when scanning for mobs.
• You can no longer build multiple CCCCC's!
• HoloBase should now be substantially faster to render.
• Fixed Vis issues with Geothermals
• Substantially improved MatterMover render performance
• Magma, Resin and Cryo-only segments now obey vis.
• Research Panel now runs at 60 fps
• Increased network transmission distance of Conveyors, which should significantly increase their sync ratio for clients.
• "Rate 0" for Dedicated Servers is now considered "LAN Mode". First thing to hook to this is that machines such as Conveyors will net-sync at unlimited distance. You can use this on an Internet server, but be aware that you may use up over a 1 gigabyte per player, per hour, on a medium-sized base.

Other

• Hiveminds will now get a bit pissy if you nuke their mates.
• Added improved readout to SpiderBot Base
• Fixed a number of text errors with /n's (Thank you Zebra!)
• Fixed Matter Mover descriptions
• Scanning something new in a network game will let other players know that they need to research it.
• Fixed weird-black lights on Minecarts.
• Minecart Tracks now cheaper, and use RackRails instead of awkward♥♥♥♥♥Iron Bars.
• Orange Emergency Lights will now spin when just behind you.
• 9x9x9 room achievement now correct.
• Fixed Issues where items added directly to inventory didn't stack
• Fixed Issue where items added weren't 'right', like coal and stuff.
• Fixed issue where swapping Robot Sorter conveyors would mess them up
• CPH now provides more warmth when you're near it
• A Large number of T1 machines that used Tin Plates now use Lightweight Machine Housing. The costs are therefore always a multiple of 6 plates; some are slightly cheaper, some are slightly more expensive.
• Tweaked erroring Extractor cooldown code, which should alleviate two extractors fighting to be the most errory. It /may/ still go wrong if you have 2 Ore Extractors that have been offline to within a second of eachother.
• Fixed some icon alignment issues in the Handbook
• Manufacturing Plant now under 'Manufacturing' and not 'Logistics' in the Manufacturing Plant.
• Fixed Unity complaint about negative collider size when using Chromed Lenses in Mk3 laser spam.
• Other Spam fixes!
• Named Ore Extractors (ones with Signs next to them) will no longer require you to add an extra space.
• Removing Ore from Extractors by hand now counts towards progression of missions
• Fixed Stack Exploits.
• Construction Paste now limited to stacks of 50,000 (including in Hardcore Inventory mode)
• Pause now looks visually less stupid. It's been a long time coming.
• Advanced Crystal Scanner available when using the Care Package.
• Mass Storage Output Ports are now correctly colour-tiered when using Ingots.
• Fixed issue with SpiderBot going to sleep when adding a weapon
• Reduced cost of Airlocks
• Laser Borer no longer *quite* so expensive to make.
• BFL-9000 now uses crafted materials, not bars.
• Reduced the cost of some FALCOR research
• Adding a Beacon to SpiderBro when there are PowerCores available will no longer lose the Beacon.
• Nano-Disintegrators in Manufacturing Plants no longer look ridiculous.
• Torches alone in their own segment will no longer be invisible.
• Robot Sorters now show current and potential sorting item in info panel
• Fixed Ctrl-Wheel Raygun Exploit.
• CarePackage hopefully spawns in Player's Inventory if the world is configured correctly.
• Copper Housing moved behind Mothball research
• Gear Crafter no longer placeholder
• ARTHER Command UI now has sound effects
• ARTHER cannot dock at Docking Stations more than 32 metres away - no more sending from the Cold Cavern to the surface!
• Fixed issue where Ore Extractors could give client-only ore.
• Added Mad Vandal's Minecart fix, where we would add 0.2, but then remove 0.333 and expect to have the same number.
• Fixed issue with Research Panel leaving Blur on during Tutorial
• Known Issue - over a networked game, ARTHER can only charge PSBs and OEs. More to come if people REALLY need them.
• FALCOR Beacons should now save correctly when alone in a segment.
• Location Indicator (top right!) will now show the player what sort of room they're in.
• A number of room-related fixes.
• Coloured torches will stack again
• Room lights will drop paste again
• MedBay now correctly classed as a Machine.
• Advanced Hydroponic Bays now work if they straddle a segment boundary
• JetPacks no longer use up negative energy
• Improved Crafting Readout for Manufacturing Plants.
• Fixed some issues with SkyIslands progression.
• Hiveminds can no longer spawn INSIDE machines.
• JetPack no longer uses up too much power
• Manufacturing Plants now have a fancy-way of showing what they're crafting
• Guests should no longer suffer from the visual effects of Hypothermia
• RayGun should be a suit item
• ARTHER's "go find stuff" messages now pushed later in the game, giving you more time before he hints that there's more to find.
• Mission Report will no longer appear unless you've been grounded for at least 1 second
• Raygun now counts as suit item
• Start PSBs should now be placeable.
• SpiderCors now craftable
• Moved around when some items become available. Something you have suddenly not available? Check the research station, you've forgotten what it is.
• Rooms Split into Advanced (Medbay + Scanner stuff) and Clean Rooms. Further room types coming!

[ 2018-04-12 11:24:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

And that time of the month rolls around, and the 19th free content patch since leaving Early Access (say that when you're drunk) is lurching its way towards completion. Remember - after the patch has gone live is TOO LATE to give feedback on any major changes, so if you're a brave soul head over to https://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1696040635906836690/ and give the notes a quick whirl, and if you're still full of bravery, opt into the P19-Nightly build and see what you think. If you're a non-native speaker, then this version will start to give you partial translation by default. German is now pretty good, but we've got zero people actively working on any of the other languages and have had zero updates to those languages this month, so if you're interested in helping out, please head over to : https://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/3/ Otherwise feel free to correct the most annoying lines after it goes live - I'd work on the translation myself, but... https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/8db9b25b-3ba9-48d8-b089-283ccade71b5 See you in P19 next week!

[ 2018-04-07 09:30:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

And that time of the month rolls around, and the 19th free content patch since leaving Early Access (say that when you're drunk) is lurching its way towards completion. Remember - after the patch has gone live is TOO LATE to give feedback on any major changes, so if you're a brave soul head over to https://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1696040635906836690/ and give the notes a quick whirl, and if you're still full of bravery, opt into the P19-Nightly build and see what you think. If you're a non-native speaker, then this version will start to give you partial translation by default. German is now pretty good, but we've got zero people actively working on any of the other languages and have had zero updates to those languages this month, so if you're interested in helping out, please head over to : https://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/3/ Otherwise feel free to correct the most annoying lines after it goes live - I'd work on the translation myself, but... https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/8db9b25b-3ba9-48d8-b089-283ccade71b5 See you in P19 next week!

[ 2018-04-07 09:30:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've been playing through Frozen Factory on stream, and despite having cranked the CryoPlasm to levels in code I was expecting to be 'terrifying', I'm finding it... easy. If you've been playing FF in P18, please head over to: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/2/1696040635904793075/ And give some feedback. Thank you!

[ 2018-02-28 22:37:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've been playing through Frozen Factory on stream, and despite having cranked the CryoPlasm to levels in code I was expecting to be 'terrifying', I'm finding it... easy. If you've been playing FF in P18, please head over to: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/2/1696040635904793075/ And give some feedback. Thank you!

[ 2018-02-28 22:37:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

As is traditional, the echo patch comes shortly after the main patch (Did I mention it's the 18th free content patch since we left Early Access? I still keep getting asked when we're leaving Early Access). This patch fixes some of the issues that have arisen, and as always, I *just* managed to squeeze in a handful of new things.

• Logistics FALCORS with no specified item now wait 30 seconds, to allow the player to set a filter. This will stop your new HEFC FALCOR legging it and grabbing a Plasma Head!
• Hopper-mounted Storage Beacon should no longer incorrectly pester you for power, and should glow appropriately.
• Visitors without build permission should no longer be able to die from Cold, Heat, Toxicity, standing in the wrong place or from attrition. Falling very long distances still lethal.
• Iron Plates should no longer be a mysterious item for new players.
• Biomass and Crystal now stack to 150. If you currently have > 150, you won't lose any, you just won't be allowed to pick up any more.
• Crafting Machines will now prioritise Conveyors as offload targets. This means they will ignore any hopper as an offload target, if a valid (full OR empty) conveyor is present. This means you can go GAC -> Add/RemoveHopper -> GAC -> Conveyor without problem.
• Perhaps the final fix ever to the 'Losing focus causes your base to not generate' issue. Fabulous mode should now hopefully allow you to create a base *just fine*
• You can no longer pause the game during the initial generation sequence, causing issues.
• Titanium Bars are no longer used in Crafting - it is ALWAYS Titanium Plates. Get to automatin'!
• CryoPlasm will not longer reach fully lethality until the player has at least setup a Frozen-Factory T4 level smelting system.
• Fixed issue on Linux where the mouse is detached and can click on Hotbar entries, thanks to MattKlynn for giving me the fix.
• CryoMap should now work correctly for network clients.
• Logistics FALCOR beacons placed within the Cold Caverns will now only require 8 metres of skyclearance
• Objects on blocked conveyors will no longer ever be incorrectly invisible and if I'm wrong, I don't want to be told otherwise.
• Tweaked Ore Scanning slightly - should now be faster on larger veins.
• All-Ore mode now works, tho it's not very playable.
• Doors are no longer silent.

[ 2018-02-27 10:57:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

The 18th free Content Patch since we left Early Access is now live for everybody. Check the previous post for pretty video and long-winded descriptions - this post is a little 'listy' Enjoy!

Network fixes

• Network Sun is less... lackadaisical.
• Fixed Network Sync issue with Falcors
• GACs as a network client should no longer offload, causing attached Storage Hoppers to show the wrong number of items.
• Fixed issue with Orbital Strike Controller not saving/loading correctly (and therefore not networking properly!)
• Network Guests will be warned they can't talk.
• A swathe of minor network fixes
• Networking on special conveyor types is now smarter, meaning less sync-vis issues

Room stuff!

• Surface rooms are now at a energy-efficient 20 degrees
• Added 10 new, reinforced, paintable blocks, ALL designed to make your rooms look super-cool!
• InductionChargers now count as valid Floors for Rooms. Let's hope that doesn't mess up the visibility...
• Grommets now support Generator Entities - this means Solar Panels and PTGs will transfer their power through a Grommet to a PSB on the other side.
• This means you can have a nice, neat Coal Enriching room, with Coal going in one side, and Power coming out the other!
• Segments now correctly support multiple rooms.
• Room Controllers now have a nice readout showing you how many machines are in the room. Remember that a Door is effectively 9 machines!
• Added CPH logging ALL bars and ALL ores
• Added readout of above : https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/134073202153357312/405828299521130496/unknown.png
• Added monitoring of 'base material efficiency'. <100%? You're extracting far more ores than you're turning into bars. >100%? Your ore storage is running out! Getting this close to 100% will help you achieve maximum performance and efficiency. How fun.
• Game will track ~45 days of progression.
• Added Configurable base readouts. Supports Ore and Bars. Should be idiot-proof ;-)
• Added Room Lights. Paint option will be Dapper-Only.
• Grass will now only exist on Organic Detritus, and not indoors.
• Configured Basic and Advanced Hydroponic values, disallowed Plants building on normal terrain, allowed on hydroponics, banned all non-plants on hydroponics.

Health and Agriculture stuff!

• Added MK1 Medical Ampule. Requiring 8 plant seeds, this will boost your heal rate.
• Added Agriculture Research
• Added MedBay. Will only work in rooms once complete. Give power; heals you when you're nearby.
• Added HerbiCOR; this FALCOR modification will track down surface plants within a 512m diameter, and will then return it to a hopper.
• All plants can now be harvested manually, for a reward, or via the HerbiCORE.
• Hydroponic Bays should also be available
• Health system reworked. Micro-fall damage is healed quickly. Major damage is much slower, and death damage is almost 10 minutes. Health UI shows the time until you gain +1hp
• Ampule Dispensers now correctly accept Ampules, save, load, and network transmit
• Ampule Crafters now correctly accept any type of Seed and convert into an Ampule. Ampules are automatically upcrafted
• HerbiCores should no longer auto-harvest plants that haven't been scanned.

Recipe and Progression changes

• Fixed the DESCRIPTION of the Basic Smelter to correctly inform the player that it is twice as fast as a regular Smelter. Can everyone stop telling me how useless they are please.
• Changed most/all recipes that use Copper Bar and Tin Bar to Copper Wire and Tin Plates. Carrying around these bars is about to get really pointless.
• Changed Iron Gear self-craft cost to 5 bars per 1 gear
• Added Iron Gear auto-crafter, which crafts 1 gear per 1 bar.
• Reduced ALL existing recipes that use Gears by a factor of 5 (so 15 gears is now worth 3 gears, and so on)
• Changed Lightweight Machine Housing self-craft cost to 12 bars from 6
• Added Lightweight Machine Housing auto-crafter, which crafts 1 Lightweight Machine Housing from 6 tin bars.
• Removed all performance penalties from Logistics Hoppers. Please, don't treat these as throwaway items! I feel that people over-use Storage Hoppers, when sometimes, you just want 2 of a thing.
• Reduced the performance penalty of MiniHoppers from 30 seconds to 5 seconds. These should now be much more useful early-game sources of input and storage.
• All MineCart tracks cost 4 Alloyed Blocks, down from 16
• Basic Minecarts now cost 8 Alloyed Blocks, down from 64
• MK2 PSB upcraft now needs Plates, not Bars.
• Virtually all crafting machines now work at double speed, using half power, in Rush Mode.
• Sweeping rework of Lithium Bars and Coils. All items of any note now use Charged Lithium Coils.
• Spiderbot Power Core removed, replaced with Charged Lithium Coil.
• Lithium Coils will also take up 1/5th of the storage room of the previous Lithium usage!
• SpiderBot will now use approx 25x more Lithium. However, as you were previously using 1 bar for every 1-2 hours, I don't really think this is much of a problem.
• Many T2+ items will now use substantially more Lithium - Lithium is used to approximately 10% of Tin in existing bases, and I would like to address that!
• Halved Power usage of Ore Thieves.
• MK1 WorkFloor Excavators are now substantially cheaper to run.
• RackRailers now use 2 Gears, not 2 Bars
• T1 Primary crafting ingredients are now learned at the appropriate time
• MK1 LPTs now use Lithium Coils, not Bars. The lithium cost has also been increased as a result.
• MK1 PSBs now use Lithium Coils, not Bars. The lithium cost has also been increased as a result.
• MK2 PSBs now use Lightweight Machine Housings (Tin secondary crafting material), and Tin cost increased from 5 to 6 bars.
• Tweaked CCCCC recipe to be automation-friendly.
• MK4 Induction now uses an equal amount of all T2 bars
• MK3 Induction now primary crafting materials, not bars
• Lift Compressors no longer need a stupid amount of lithium and LWMH instead of Tin Plates
• Transport Pipes now use Crystal Clocks and Lightweight Machine Housings
• Matter Movers now use Lightweight Machine Housing instead of Tin Plates
• All Drill Motors now use Lightweight Machine Housing instead of Tin Plates
• Mass Storage block now use Lightweight Machine Housing instead of Tin Plates
• MK3 PSBs now use Lightweight Machine Housing instead of Tin Plates
• Removed the Titanium requirement from MK4 induction kits, massively increased Lithium to balance. Now only needs 4 inputs.
• MK2 Turrets now use Lightweight Machine Housing instead of Tin Plates
• MK1+2 Induction Kits now use Lightweight Machine Housing instead of Tin Plates
• Forced Inductions now use Lithium coils, not bars
• Conveyor Filters now use Lithium coils, not bars
• Matter Movers now use T1 secondary materials, not bars.
• Suit Heater now uses T1 secondary materials, not bars.
• A number of single-craft Suit Upgrades have been made significantly more expensive (Toxic Filter, Head light, Jetpack)
• ARTHER upgrades now use Lithium Coils, not Bars.
• Refineries now use Lithium Coils, not Bars.
• Removed Diamond and Crystal requirement from Teleporters, added GoldWire instead; you should now be able to teleport to/from your T2 base immediately, as opposed to 2 hours later after your Crystal collection is setup.
• Ore Extractors now use Gears, not Bars
• Servo Motors are now auto-craftable. The recipe is placeholder, and is planned to use Gearboxes and Solenoids in P19.
• Power Booster Recipe altered to use Wire, not Coils
• MK1 Solar Cell recipe now predicated later on.
• MK1 Turrets now use Gears not PCBs. Less authentic, but much more straightforward.
• MK2 turrets now use Charged Lithium Coils instead of Charged PCBs
• SpiderBot Base now uses Iron Gears instead of Iron PCBs
• Slime Attractor no longer uses awkward items
• Conveyor Belts now use Plates and Wires instead of the appropriate Bars.
• Basic Logistics (Splitters + Filters) now has massively reduced research requirements.
• Advanced Logistics (Mass Storage) now has massively reduced research requirements.
• Assembly Line machines no longer use Copper Plates, but use Tin Plates instead.
• Advanced Conveyor Filter now uses Iron Gears instead of Iron PCBs
• Conveyor Filter now uses Lightweight Machine Housing instead of Tin Bars.
• Motorised Conveyors moved to Advanced Storage, as they were available far far too early for anyone to use!
• Research Assemblers now use Lightweight Machine housings instead of Copper Housings.
• Copper Housings no longer used in the game. Left in purely for compatibility with mods.
• PTGs now use Lightweight Machine housing and Iron Gears.
• Significant rework and breadcrumbing of the first dozen researches or so, making much more logical sense than before.

Rapid Mode

• I'm pushing to have more bottlenecks removed from Rapid Mode, so players who don't have the time or inclination for a challenge to be able to hammer through and nuke the overminds from orbit. It's important to note that this mode means that your mistakes are trivial; screwing up your logistics or researching the wrong thing won't set you back by many hours.
• [Rapid Mode]Un-upgraded Ore Smelters now at 5 second smelt, down from 10
• [Rapid Mode]Labs now take 1500 pps to run at full speed, down from 3000
• [Rapid Mode] Players now start with a nice selection of Up and Down Slopes.
• [Rapid Mode] now mostly drops Pristine Loot.
• [Rapid Mode]PTGs now 7.5x faster in Rapid than Normal; this is 3x faster than previously, and should now be able to run a Research Assembler flat out.
• [Rapid Mode]Base healing rate 5x faster on Rapid; player is not particularly expected to need a MedBay.
• [Rapid Mode]Basic Smelters on Rapid now use up half as much power to heat. They'll *just about* run off of a T0 laser, but a lens or a T1 is recommended!
• [Rapid Mode]AutoExcavators now cut through Ore on Rapid mode.
• Altered HiveMind growth patterns
• Slightly more aggressive surface paging should negate issues with active Hiveminds changing
• [NEW WORLDS ONLY]Active Hiveminds will always be MUCH closer to the surface
• [NEW WORLDS ONLY]Hiveminds can no longer spawn within +-32 metres of the CPH
• [NEW WORLDS ONLY]Player lifts created will now require 3 metres of clearance, not 2. I'm tired of almost bumping my head!

Optimisation

• Monster performance improvements to Storage Hoppers.
• Improvement to all Plant rendering speeds
• Plant Simulation around 50x quicker on end-game bases with cached segment
• Reduced overheads of certain end-game bases from 50ms to 5ms.
• Improved CryoLancer render performance
• Improvements to grass performance
• Many more machines now respect Segment visibility, including
• Storage Hoppers
• FALCORs (all marks)
• WorkFloor Excavators
• LPT impact lasers
• Torches!
• Large performance improvement for end-game bases with intelligent dropping of update cycles for remote or hidden segments
• Further improvements to CPU usage of Plants and Grass
• Fixed Hopper LOD Issues

Fixes

• Tweaked Tunnel Nuker spawns to make slightly larger tunnels.
• Fixed an ancient bug where high-tier Inductions would cause Smelters to get stuck with 1,2 or 3 of the wrong ore in them.
• Added a potential fix for the random crash within PhysX.
• MagmaBore now requires 10x the power to pump Magma, except on Rapid difficulty.
• Bases external to Cryo no longer work.
• ColdCreepSpawners should no longer be able to be entirely embedded by perlin gen (only by evil players)
• FALCORs no longer have unlimited Y range.
• Fixed 1,000,000 in Creative
• SpiderBot base no longer rounds the power inserted to the nearest thousand.
• Added an internal concept of CryoThreat; this should mean the Cryo scales to match your base, without overwhelming you at the start, but at the same time meaning you can't just ignore it during your FF playthrough.
• Scaling CryoThreat modifies the threshold at which Cryo treats rock/dirt etc as Air.

Polish and QoL

• Hopper Shift/Ctrl hint dynamically appears
• ScrollBars return!
• Reduced Surface Brightness by 15%
• Reduced Surface Saturation by 10%
• This will only affect new worlds, or new areas in existing worlds
• Added a tutorial Mission regarding the PaintGun
• MatterMovers can now 'mit through grass.
• All Thieves should Bloom a bit less now.
• Coal Enricher has an animation
• Fuel Canisters Crator is much less placeholder
• Started to look at correct reflection maps for various areas.
• Added cache mode CompressDuringPlayOnly - this will not attempt or require the player to sit through exit compression. Giving a copy of your world to someone? set "cache CompressOnExit" or "cache CompressDuringPlay"
• Added (unused) new Transport Pipe Models for a higher tier
• Many machines now have fixed and improved animations.
• Added Priority Splitter. Sends ALL items right unless the Right is blocked, then sends left. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/134073202153357312/407254222078214154/unknown.png?width=400&height=225
• Use this to send resources to places only when you need to, for example, to balance Research Pods vs other uses.
• Ore Thief mission priority raised to Critical; now context-sensitive when displayed.
• Worms now have 1 hp on trivial mob difficulty
• SpiderBot base mission now only appears once you've been defeated at least once.
• Fixes to order of Assembly Line, Lab and Research Assembler missions
• Items considered 'garbage' are not longer automatically added to your hotbar when picked up
• Ore Extractors will no longer incorrectly be in 'Error' state for a long time if it's only offloading items without exiting Out Of Storage state
• SpiderBot now gains 500 power per Lithium (Reducing the Lithium Boost from 125x to only 25x)
• Improved music
• Pick (Middle Mouse Button) now gives much more useful feedback. Try it!
• Slopes now considered 'generic conveyors', meaning Thieves can hand off to them
• Fixed issue where base scanners didn't work deep underground on dedicated servers
• Lights will now return Paste, not Lights.
• Further work on turning FortressCraft into some sort of Excel-clone, with smart peak calculation on Bar Graphs
• Added cardinal markers for Room Controllers, hopefully making it completely fool-proof!
• Additional fix for negative minecart station glow
• Surface Map creation is now very slow for the first hour; this should stop players who only play for 15 minutes having too many segments to save out!
• Tunnel Nukers are now more erratic and should cause larger explosions inside mountains, giving the mobs a fighting chance at a decent attack pattern.
• CryoMap is now super-smart, and uses up no CPU time on new worlds. P17 worlds will still have a chunk of CPU time dedicated to displaying the existing CryoPlasm.

Lenses

• Major rebalance of lenses. Currently the first 4 tiers of Lens (Diamond, Sapphire, Topaz and Emerald) are mostly available to the player whilst they have T0/1/2 lasers. As these lasers provide very low PPS, a percentage-based increase doesn't give much difference. As an example, a T0 laser with an Emerald in it gains 30%. 30% bonus to 1.16 PPS is 1.508 PPS. In larger Tier lasers, all Crystals provide a wonderful boost - but by the time the player get T2/T3 lasers, the Organic Lenses have far outstripped the lower-tier Crystal ones, and thus are pointless.
• T0 - 1.16 PPS with Emerald was 1.5 PPS
• T0 - 1.16 PPS with Emerald is now 31.5 PPS
• T3 - 320 PPS with Emerald was 416
• T3 - 320 PPS with Emerald is now 360 PPS
• This should make early-lenses more useful, and means that a T0 Laser with a Sapphire Lens is now a massive 101 PPS - but you will have to put in some manual time searching to get that reward.
• Diamond is 15 PPS bonus
• Emerald is 30 PPS bonus
• Ruby is 60 PPS bonus
• Sapphire is 100 PPS bonus
• I reserve the right to re-balance these in the future. ;-)
• Updated handbook to reflect all of the new LPT changes.

Known issues

• Many multiblock machines may not receive visual power correctly as a network client, leading connected lasers to show 0 transmitted power. The OET is very bad for this, but T4 batteries are fine. Refineries seem hit-and-miss. (This has been tracked down but not fixed)
• Plants have duplication issues across networked games.
• Base Scanners can be quite expensive over the network
• MedBays don't heal the player unless the player has power.
• The Glow of Hopper-based FALCOR beacons is incorrect. You can safely ignore the message about needing power, too.

Other

• Player lifts should no longer be able to get stuck above things.
• Fixed a minor annoyance with the Player Shadow
• Signs might not be too horrific to look at now.
• Fixed Ampule duplication exploit
• Plants now harvestable over the internet. As it were.
• Slight improvement to startup of Dedicated Servers
• AutoExcavators now respect IsSomethingWeDontWantToClearUsually
• [Dapper]Added SuperHEIST - puts items into your inventory at a range of 10m as opposed to 5m, at a rate 16 times higher than the base item. Ideal for the creative among you!
• Bosses and Heavies will now move faster as your threat increases. This means less mobs in the air, which means less framerate and cpu issues. It *does* also mean that MK3 lasers are somewhat relatively worse than they were vs Missiles in P17.
• Fixed a number of Base Scanner issues, improved smoothing.
• Fixed instancing on Lasers.
• Laser should respect Rooms correctly
• Added a Room-based achievement
• Many more common machines now have instancing.
• Massive performance boost regarding room/non-room rendering. How is there any optimisation left!!
• Raised maximum draw distance to an insane 512 metres in 2020 mode
• Extended SmartClip in Fabulous mode
• Death and Teleport effects are now different
• Fixed up a number of 'arriving' graphical issues
• A number of polish improvements to the in-shield Tutorial
• New Icons!
• LightWeight Machine Housing Crafter is no longer placeholder
• Changed density of Chromium and Molybdenum spawns, meaning that (at the right depth...) the veins should contain more ore.
• Herbicor should no longer get stuck if a plant is stolen from it and there's no closer plants.
• Fixed conveyor normalisation issue
• Fixed issue where you started in a room with a Base Scanner.
• Teleporting is no longer so nauseating.
• Teleporters now give a slight visual cue as to where they will whisk you
• Plants should no longer 'drop' on game restart when on Hydro bays
• Torches should now alter the local heatmap instantly when placed
• Grommets no longer use PCBs
• Motor Recipes no longer use Bars
• MK1 LPTs no longer use Bars
• Storage Hoppers no longer use Bars
• Charged (Lithium) PCBs no longer used
• Organic Recombinator now uses Crystal Clock, not Crystal.
• Fixed ancient bug where Power Usage and Temperature Gain were inextricably linked with Smelters. This should mean that Induction kits correctly use extra power and now correctly also allow a Smelter to efficiently smelt-on-demand.
• HerbiCors should no longer be able to get stuck in an endless state when the player destroys a plant the HerbiCor is flying towards.
• Fixed player Knowledge of Tin Plants, Copper Wires, Iron Gears and Lithium Coils.
• Lithium Coil Charger no longer need SpiderBot research.
• Significantly more surface-based Research Points available. Get to exploring.
• Suit Headlight no longer appears as a craftable item until T2.
• ARTHER will no longer trickle in 1 power to your suit; he'll save up at LEAST 8 power UNLESS you're suffering from Hypothermia.
• Suit panel now explains how to split stacks
• Picking up too much ore will no longer cause an incorrect completion of successive, on-going missions.
• ARTHER power bar now glows Cyan on grow and Red on reduce
• [Frozen Factory] Cold Caverns have new music
• Conveyor Slopes use Wires, not Bars.
• Conveyor Slopes now correctly autocraft ups to downs, and vice versa. Only carry around one type!
• CargoLift should no longer suffer from 'Perceived value' issues.
• Couple of minor fixes to Tutorial issue and Vis issue... fixed?
• ANOTHER Fix to Smelters and Manufacturing plants disappearing during startup. Complex threaded race conditions are a ♥♥♥♥♥ to track down and fix.
• Fixed airlock vis issues
• Fixed Performance issue with CargoLifts
• Fixed Performance issue with StockPilers and Mass Storage Input ports
• Improved surface performance with some clever code replacing some very dumb code.
• Reworked surface clouds + atmosphere
• Tweaked progression on some recipes
• New players now start with 5 health Ampules. DON'T WASTE THEM. Player also now knows what Ampules are.
• Alloyed Space Window is now Craft Anywhere.
• Player now knows what paste is.
• Items fitted to your Suit now show in the Crafting Panel for Items Carried.
• Fixed Ore Thief mission.
• Fixed ARTHER message incorrectly showing if your Ore Extractor never leaves 'Out of Storage' mode.
• FALCOR Beacons no longer use power when placed on a Storage Hopper (as opposed to no longer using power UNLESS they are placed on a Storage Hopper. Oops)
• Fixes to Conveyor Belt rendering issues (missing items, incorrect scrolling behaviour, incorrect forwards)
• Motorised Conveyors now have correct Crystal Clock cost.
• Fixed issue with Generic Machine Panels being scrolled incorrectly when opened.
• Fixed 'negative glow' issue with Minecarts.
• Tunnel Nukers can now take out SurvivalInjectionEntities, specifically Rocks, GlowTubes, etc.
• Fixed issue where HerbiCors could ignore plants for a minute
• Fixed issue where Ore Extractor Do Not Warn might not get saved under some circumstances.
• Hydroponic bays no longer work outside.
• Fixed a number of icon and text issues
• Fixed a number of sky colouring issues
• Fixed some room Vis Bugs
• [Dapper]Fixed an issue where the CPH would not have your Dapper Skin!
• Added support for detection of new worlds vs existing worlds, allowing me to make changes that only apply to NEW worlds
• Added ability for GenericAutoCrafters to only allow drop off to unique places.
• Increased the number of Pixel Lights, allowing many of the new shaders to provide tight highlights.

[ 2018-02-22 15:48:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

The 18th free Content Patch since FortressCraft left Early Access will be available early tomorrow morning, but I've spent the ENTIRE DAY assembling this... thesis... inside Valve's post editor, and I'm worried I'll lose it - so you get the verbose patch notes just a few hours early. Onward! There have been 2 major focii for this patch; Rooms and Progression, along with Base Scanning, Healing, Agriculture, Lenses.

TL;DR

• Added Rooms. Join the public server P18 Room Showcase to have a look
• All T1 Recipes reworked. Upcraft everything. Don't keep Ingots in your inventory.
• Diamond, Emerald, Ruby and Sapphire lenses now give flat-rate boosts
• Be more careful about taking damage, use Ampules to heal yourself
• Mini and Logistics Hoppers are no longer slow and horrible, just small.
• Added Priority Splitter. Sends ALL items right unless the Right is blocked, then sends left.
• Ported game to Unity 5.6
• The teleporting blur effect is gone!
• Logistics FALCORs are now useful!

[video]https://i.gyazo.com/1161725f5cf5a0cdc3ba0b515272255e.mp4[/video]

Progression

The recent negative feeback has been overwhelmingly about the complexity of the game. I initially thought that people liked complex and difficult games, but it seems a large number of Factorio players would much rather than each resource turned into one crafting ingredient; previously, in FortressCraft, there were 9 types of Plate, 9 types of Wire, 9 types of Coil, etc. The sweeping change this month has been to address the complexity, and make the game more streamlined. Overall, it's turned out to make the game much faster and less frustrating to progress through. To this end, Bars are of virtually zero use, and you will have to use Crafting machines to make almost everything now. This process has been hugely time-consuming, but I would say that the T1 progression (approximately the first 6-8 hours of the game) is now much much smoother. Some T2 work was done, but I will be looking at that as time goes on. For now, with few exceptions, you will ALWAYS want to upcraft your useless Ingots into useful crafting items. Copper Ingots -> Copper Wire Tin Ingots -> Tin Plates -> Lightweight Machine Housings Iron Ingots -> Iron Gears -> RackRails Lithium Ingots -> Lithium Wire -> Lithium Coils -> Charged Lithium Coils. Please do this via automation. Feeding in bars by hand into the start of an Automation run means you'll be wasting time staring at it! T2 materials are 'mostly' improved, but it's much more hit-and-miss than T1. Gold Ingots -> Gold Wire Nickel Ingots -> Nickel PCBs Titanium Ingots -> Titanium Plates I have further plans regarding this, but there's only so much I can achieve by myself in a month! See the Detailed section at the end for specifics. [video]https://i.gyazo.com/eaf5afcace71dad765bb4e97b5868440.mp4[/video]

Rooms

As FortressCraft has grown and grown, I spend large amounts of my time optimising the game. Sadly, the main effect of 'doubling the speed of the game' is 'people build bases twice as large', so to a degree it's a losing battle. At a rough guess, FortressCraft can maintain a base 25 times large in P17 than it could when it left Early Access at the same framerate. However, despite some horribly complex vis systems, people still manage to beat the frame rate into submission. So, what's the solution? There's a few. One of them is a cascading segment-based view system, but that is quite a lot of work, and the end result doesn't change or improve the game, barring the framerate. Patch 18 is in Unity 5.6, giving you access to DX12 and Vulkan, neither of which appeared to substantially improve the drawcall overhead. The solution I've moved towards, and have implemented the first pass for P18, is that of Rooms.

A room is defined as a rectangular area, encased in walls, a floor, a ceiling, a Room Controller, one or more Inner Airlocks, each of which is connected to an Outer Airlock. Inner and Outer Airlocks must have a gap of exactly 3 metres between them.

Once established, a room has one major, MAJOR technical advantage over randomly covering stuff up with walls - if you're outside the room, the inside of the room doesn't render, and if you're inside the room, the outside doesn't render! This can turn an end-game base with half a million active machines from 15 fps to 150 fps. Now, sadly, I find that giving players tools to help themselves doesn't always work. To that end, I hope to move FC towards a much more Room and building-based layout, but for this patch, players will be required to build rooms only for the new Hydroponics and Medbays.

It should be noted that the Rooms are a major, MAJOR change to the feel of FortressCraft. You have the option to opt into P17-Frozen if you do not wish to move to this patch

So, in short; Room advantages - they look cool, they have predictable lighting, they speed the game up, and if you're on the surface, they also make the air warmer. Do not attempt to enclose your CPH in Rooms. Also be a little wary of making skyscrapers diagonally too close to your CPH. If Rooms take off, I will be revisiting the concept and implementation of the surface attacks. It's very simple tho; research, craft and place a Room Controller. It will start to search for a regular-shaped room around it. Although the theoretical max size is 128 metres (+- 64 around the controller), this is ridiculous, and I recommend you don't do this. The Room Controller should guide you through the process. You will need a 3x3x1 or 1x3x3 Inner Airlock flush with one of your walls, and, in front of that, leaving a gap of exactly 3 metres, an Outer Airlock. Done. The Room Controller will let you know if it's having problems. Just remember that the Blue area shows the size of the expected room.

Room limitations!

• Inner Airlocks connect room to Outer airlocks, which connect rooms to the outside. The outside can be covered up. This is the only supported paradigm. The airlock->airlock area should be covered, or vis will break. This is Your Responsibility.(Think of Rooms and Buildings - you aren't forced to have all your rooms as little 'sheds' out in the wilderness - just put the Rooms in a Building, or have a nice lobby to go into all the rooms. You are allowed to have Doors without Rooms - you will be warned that these confer NO performace boost)
• Room controllers can share multiple segments, and multiple room controller can share a single segment. Really tho, I'd spread it out a little bit.
• You CAN leave holes in the floor and the ceiling. If you do this, it'll look stupid. I don't care. Don't build it so it looks stupid. The MAIN thrust of this feature is a player-controlled portalling and occlusion system. This is Your Responsibility. I've erred on the side of allowing the room to work whilst looking broken, as opposed to forcing the player to exactly adhere to every single little sub-requirement.
• You cannot put machines into the walls. The exception is the Induction Charger on the floor.

To get things in and out of the room, use Power and Logistics Grommets. These are supported by PSBs and Conveyors.

• A PSB touching a Power Grommet will transfer power to any power-receiving machine directly opposite it.
• A Generator (PTG, Solar) touching a Power Grommet will transfer power to any power-receiving machine directly opposite.
• A conveyor touching and facing a Logistics Grommet will transfer any items to any machine that normally accepts items from conveyors. Conveyor and Storage Hopper are favourites. This is infinite speed, so you can essentially build room walls straight through existing Conveyor runs without affecting your logistics.
• MineCarts can go through walls. It looks stupid and I'd like to address it in the future.
• Lasers cannot fire into Grommets. Lasers can receive power from Grommets.

Suggested uses, initially, are for segmenting your base into logical groups; Smelting, Research, Assembly Lines, Sorting, Storage, etc. Putting all of your base into these rooms WILL MASSIVELY IMPROVE YOUR FRAMERATE. Note : Putting all of your base into one massive room won't achieve anything. This is obvious - right? The current maximum size of a room is +-64m from the room controller, so about 129x129x129 metres. I won't stop you doing this, but if you do, you might have slightly missed the point. An example here is a simple (too simple) Smelter. Inside: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/134073202153357312/402919868854173696/image.png Outside: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/134073202153357312/402919941474615308/image.png Hopefully it's fairly idiot-proof. If not, please start a thread on the forum and I'll try and help out. A much better option is to join the Public server P18 Room Showcase and have a look around.

Medbay and Health changes

One of the changes to P18 includes stopping players using the 'deathport' exploit. Players aren't bothering with logistics, lifts or teleporters, and are just dropping down a shaft, grabbing ore, and killing themselves to teleport back to the surface. To this end, the health system has changed. If you take small amounts of damage, you won't see any difference whatsoever. If you receive major damage, it will take quite a while to sell-heal; it's about 10 minutes to recover to 100% health from 1% health, but it's only about 20 seconds to heal from 90% to 100%. To combat this, the player has a couple of current options. The first of which is the MedBay - this is a cheap machine that MUST be built in a room, and heals you if you stand near it, it heals you. Secondly, there's the Ampules. These work very much like the Power Boosters - stick it in your hotbar and left-click to use it. Different grades of Ampules will give you a different level of healing boost. Right now, the Ampule Dispenser machine must also be built inside a room, and will generate 1 Ampule per 10 seconds. Once it has 5 MK1 Ampules, it'll start to upgrade them to Mk2, and so on. This is designed to be paired with the new HerbiCors, which will automatically harvest plants within a few hundred metres of your base. [video]https://i.gyazo.com/25eed04ccebe433300d62a3400cd0c39.mp4[/video]

Hydroponics and plants

Waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in Patch 16, I completely re-did the surface rendering and generation, taking advantage of Unity's new Instanced Rendering system. New for Unity, that is - FortressCraft used Instanced Rendering on the Xbox 360... The main upshot of that were plants. A lot of plants. Patch 18 adds in the very first start of being able to use the plants.

• There are 7 types of plants, and 7 colours, for a total of 49 possible combinations of final plant.
• Plants are currently locked to their spawn colours. Future work will introduce breeding of plants from the current 7 types to the total of 49.
• The player cannot plant plants outside, but CAN Harvest them with RMB. Plants outside grow/regrow very very very slowly.
• If you want to harvest plants quickly and automatedly, then use the new Herbicors. They will pull in any plants within approximately 256m. Tests have shown that this will net you approx 8k plants (yes, and will speed the game up a bit). The disadvantage is that Herbicors destroy the plants that they harvest, so this is not renewable.
• The player can place plants into a Hydroponics Bay, or an Advanced Hydroponics Bay. The plant will then grow much faster, and can be harvested and re-harvested regularly.
• As of P18, there is no fully-automated way to renewably obtain more plant material. The ConstructoBots in the Adventures Pack will cover this. There may be other methods implemented to do so.

As of P18, right now, Plants have only one use - any set of 8 of the same plant can be used to make Ampules. The Ampules are planned to rely on specific plants, and I plan to add more effects than 'Faster Health Regen' in the future.

What effects or uses would you like to see? With 49 plants, I'm not likely to run out!

Base Monitoring

As well as rendering, part of the advantage of Rooms is that I know the player's PC will have plenty of spare grunt to do more complex things. (An example would be shadows-on-lights-in-rooms) As part of my bid to teach players to be more brilliant at playing FortressCraft, I've implemented extensive monitoring of every ore, bar and all of the power generation of a player's base. The first 45 days of play is recorded (Haven't decided if I'll just write-over the data or stop recording at that point yet). The player is able to analyse this data by placing Base Scanners (name pending) inside rooms. Placing ore, bars or a PSB inside the hopper will then let you monitor only those ores/bars or power. The Base Efficiency rating is feedback to the player about their relative Ore/Bar production. If your Base Efficiency is less than 100%, this means you are extracting more Ore than you're dealing with (This includes manual schlepping of ore!) - I hope to use this metric to hint back to the player that having collected 30,000 ore really isn't helping them progress. If your Base Efficiency is OVER 100%, that means you're burning through your ore reserves making bars, and will eventually run out. Balancing this number to 100% means you're making the most efficient use of your automation time. If you want to monitor something, stick it in a hopper underneath the Scanner. It also supports a hidden hopper behind the screen, if that's your thing. Things you can monitor!

• All bars!
• All ores!
• Base Power! (Stored power vs Power capacity) - put a PSB in there
• Resin - put a Refined Liquid Resin in there

[video]https://i.gyazo.com/65cb08f9a90bf129aacdd0b09221c59b.mp4[/video]

Low Tier Lenses

Currently the first 4 tiers of Lens (Diamond, Sapphire, Topaz and Emerald) are mostly available to the player whilst they have T0/1/2 lasers. As these lasers provide very low PPS, a percentage-based increase doesn't give much difference. As an example, a T0 laser with an Emerald in it gains 30%. 30% bonus to 1.16 PPS is 1.508 PPS. In larger Tier lasers, all Crystals provide a wonderful boost - but by the time the player get T2/T3 lasers, the Organic Lenses have far outstripped the lower-tier Crystal ones, and thus are pointless.

• T0 - 1.16 PPS with Emerald was 1.5 PPS
• T0 - 1.16 PPS with Emerald is now 31.5 PPS
• T3 - 320 PPS with Emerald was 416
• T3 - 320 PPS with Emerald is now 360 PPS

This should make early-lenses more useful, and means that a T0 Laser with a Sapphire Lens is now a massive 101 PPS - but you will have to put in some manual time searching to get that reward, making exploration that little bit more rewarding.

• Diamond is 15 PPS bonus
• Emerald is 30 PPS bonus
• Ruby is 60 PPS bonus
• Sapphire is 100 PPS bonus

I reserve the right to re-balance these in the future. ;-) [video]https://i.gyazo.com/e693d01a8dce6da23890fe412f11d31b.mp4[/video]

CryoPlasm

I get two main pieces of feedback about the CryoPlasm in Frozen Factory; 1) What CryoPlasm? 2) DEAR GOD WHY HAS MY BASED DISAPPEARED UNDER A SEA OF FROZEN HORROR. To this end, I implemented a system so I could actually monitor the CryoPlasm growth. I then turned it into a machine and gave it to you.
I then created a number of short animated movies for overnight CryoPlasm growth, so I could analyse when it worked well, and when it didn't work so well. Based on that knowledge, I altered how the CryoPlasm works.

The aggression of the CryoPlasm is based on the size of your base. Think of it as CryoThreat

Now, if you start Frozen Factory, you're not likely to see much issue; the Cryo is much more predictable, and doesn't worry so much about boring through rock to get to you. The 'boring chance' instreases as the Threat goes up. However, if you are a mid-to-late Frozen Factory playthrough as you update to Patch 18, then you are going to see a massive and sudden jump in the aggression of the Cryo, often leading to it completely swamping basic Lancer defences. If you've been defending 'properly', using Freezon Boosting, terraforming and Dazzlers, and extensive Bomber defence, then you'll be Just Fine. I mean. Maybe. But be prepared for a much bigger and more exciting challenge than P17! Also, hey - what happens if you build it on the surface? [video]https://i.gyazo.com/64ced14b4ea06590b1321fbd725fae93.mp4[/video]

Dapper

A huge 'thank you' to everyone who's bought the Dapper pack in the past. This patch implements 2 new machines and 6 new specific Dapper blocks

• The Super HEIST can inject 16x more items into your inventory at double the range. Ideal for paste!
• The Super Construction Paste Grinder is 8x more efficient than the regular one, and also allows you to hook up Coal veins for paste, partly as a 'thank you' to those awesome people, but mostly so their super-pretty bases don't require them to spend ages collecting paste.

This should hopefully allow the more creative amongst you to make really brilliant rooms without suffering too much from a Paste deficit. You also get access to 6 sexy new lights for Rooms. Room light 1 and 6 are available to everyone in Patch 18 (this includes NON Dapper owners). This is a neutral-coloured strip light, and a 'cross' light. The Cross light reacts to CPH attacks and failure by changing colour. It's therefore classed as Gameplay and not Cosmetic. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/209762729823567874/407228174423031810/unknown.png https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/209762729823567874/407228428647923712/unknown.png Dapper owners can also paint all 6 lights to their heart's content. Good taste sold separately. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/134073202153357312/407552896759234563/unknown.png RoomLights now paintable via network and 'pickable' for their colours [video]https://i.gyazo.com/f7ceac09b3fb16bbc940d46acdbef80b.mp4[/video]

And finally!

And just a little late to be shipped with the patch, but I'll make it available soon - the Dedicated Server configuration tool, by Boronia! https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/134073202153357312/415278867847053323/2018-02-19_17_49_21-Photos.png And finally, because as you might have noticed, I worked out how to embed videos, here are the 3 new Ore Extractors that are in Frozen Factory. [video]https://i.gyazo.com/16e9b67a89111e3f0f5cac33b399b042.mp4[/video] (MK1) [video]https://i.gyazo.com/d96c23336eedb56bf93217eac76fef23.mp4[/video] (MK2) [video]https://i.gyazo.com/bc59c8d17f439c6bb6d6084e166a5c82.mp4[/video] (MK3) YES I ACTUALLY HIT THE LIMIT ON THE SIZE OF PATCH NOTES! IN YOUR FACE VALVE! I'll be pushing the final patch live on the morning of the 21st, and that will include the detailed breakdown of everything changed. I seriously have had to split these into separate posts!

[ 2018-02-21 20:03:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you hate change, and feel that Agriculture, Rooms and Base Graphing is not for you, then please opt into the P17-Frozen branch. I'm currently typing up what feels like 300 pages of patch notes, and prepping the Staging builds. Watch this space!

[ 2018-02-21 13:17:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 18 fixes and improves CryoPlasm to a great degree. If you have been gently going through Frozen Factory, going 'meh, Cryo? It's not all that', and you haven't been creating strong defences, then you have 2 options. 1) Finish Frozen Factory before Patch 18 lands 2) Prepare yourself for vastly improved Cryo. Note : This only applies to existing worlds; Cryo now has an internal 'threat' system, so large bases modulate Cryo behaviour, meaning it can't get stuck. This means that if you go from P17 to P18, you may end up with the Cryo effectively going from the slow and docile start mode to the 'designed for Dazzler and Terraforming' mode!

[ 2018-02-02 14:16:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're now about half way through this patch cycle, so I thought it was a good idea to invite you all along to give feedback before it's all done! http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1693785669871349484/

[ 2018-01-30 14:05:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

I have some ideas to improve crafting, as well as to encourage players to play in a nice efficient way - a large part of this was a recent review, where the poor chap failed to get enough T2 mats to make a second Smelter after playing for 30 hours! If you're interested or have feedback, please pop to here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1693785035805715624/ Give it a read and help out!

[ 2018-01-17 14:43:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

I dunno, you wait around 10 months for a patch, then 2 come along all at once. Yes, you've had Christmas, but what about SECOND Christmas?
This patch is mostly aimed at fixing some of the issues that weren't thrown up during the surprisingly extensive P17 testing, plus just a few shiny new features.
The most useful and helpful of these stems from a discussion that be summed up as follows.

• uPnP doesn't work
• Yes it does, shut up
• No, look, I did all wireshark stuff, it doesn't work, and I'm smart and know technical words like 'TCP'
• Look, it blatantly works, I'm running a server with it!
• I don't think it works. I'll look up stuff. Wait, I configured wireshark wrong. But the game is doing a UDP broadcast when it should be doing a M-SEARCH multicast for the SSDP. --At this point I needed to do code things and read up on what any of those words meant--
• The code has been changed. Try that.
• It works!

So, basically, FC uses Lidgren, which is an industry-standard bit of networking code, and it follows the Microsoft/Novell recommendations which are WRONG. TL;DR - uPnP should work on many MANY more routers than before.
So, on with the subject of networking - after a LOT of testing of the server, which MANY of you have joined, I did some further work, and have come up with a sweet optimisation for the itemdata for networking. Previously, this data was approximately 1 gigabyte/hour/user. It's now down to about 50 megs/hour/player. And, sorry.

Mynocks will spawn on Slopes. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

And the rest!

• Fixed H and P erroneously opening up Help and Pause panels whilst searching. Hopefully didn't break anything else else.
• All (known) Drag and Drop issues fixed
• Added MMB to assign currently-hovered item in the Inventory to assign to currently selected HotBar slot.
• Added Controls note to this effect.
• Fixed issue where teleporting players took FOREVER to arrive - they should arrive within 2 seconds now!
• Added teleport graphics for network players
• Loads of handbook entries updated
• Players will no longer be told to make a Lab if it's already researched and built.
• Fixed Fast/Slow conveyor description when making a new world.
• Updated bootstrap screen
  
• Added a minor glow to Conveyor base, to allow you to see them in the dark
• Added auto readout of Ore Veins for network players
• Sign fix will now persist and also work over the network.
• Blocked/Unblocked messages should now filter out much more strongly to clients from Conveyors.
• Fixed debounce on MS output filters
• Caught InstancedRender failure and displayed message
• Fixed DiskThread.ProcessCleanUpQueue crash
• Fixed readout issue for Cargo lifts when on Rapid difficulty.
• Altered handbook to correctly show Rapid boost for Cargo lifts.
  
• Fixed Mod upload button
• Public server count now shown on the main menu
• Minecarts rideable again!
• Fixed texture assignment to Minecarts; Basic/Fast/Large should now correctly Tier with Loader Yellow, Green, Blue
• Added directional chevrons on the Minecart Tracks. Might help a little.
• "Crafted Item" filter now supports stacks of items, not just single items.
• Magma Caverns are now lit for network clients.
• MK3 WorkFloor Excavators should now spin SLIGHTLY slower, and not miss any block
• Dyed Marble now just 1 shader darker by default.

Ohhh yes. Your CPH will now match your player, ARTHER and your SpiderBot, if you have the Dapper DLC Pack. I felt that the pack was a little weak, and wanted to find ways to let players show off all their hard-earned Skins. So with an amazing piece of work by Andy and Todd, you can now do this! (In a multiplayer game, CURRENTLY, the CPH will just reflect YOUR skin, but this will change)
Have YOU always wanted a Pink CPH? "If the answer is no, you are sad, and I've no desire to speak with you further." - Sir Hammerlock. And finally, I kept a visual diary of some of the glorious pics from the recent P17 multiplayer playthrough. Check 'em out if you're bored! http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960315996/screenshots/?appid=254200&sort=newestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=imagewall Onwards to Patch 18 - Rooms and Hydroponics.

[ 2018-01-08 14:23:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Main Features

• The floaty-orange-button on some machine interfaces has been fixed.

YOU ARE WELCOME

Oh, you want more?

Major Features

• 95%+ complete internal support for multiple languages
• Complete replacement of UI API, giving support for double-byte characters, ie Arabic, Chinese, Indian, etc
• Network bandwidth now as low as 5% of previous network usage. This should reduce 'packet loss' issues to a hopefully distant memory.
• MK1, MK2 and MK3 Mass Storage StockPilers added (Allows you to limit the maximum number of an item in Mass Storage - thanks to SteveMan0 for this!)
• To celebrate the HUGE PERFORMANCE INCREASE in Multiplayer, there's a http://store.steampowered.com/app/637130/FortressCraft_Evolved_Skin_Pack_2
• This includes Santa (Yes, I missed the date on this a bit), Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, USA, Canada, Australia, The Nettherland and my favourite, the rainbow-themed Proud skin :
  
• I plan to get translation support into the game for these languages over the next few patches - if you'd like to help out, head over to the Translation section on the forum!

Unreleased ('Patreon Only') Features

• Orbital RailGun now buildable. Patreons only (until release of the Adventures Pack)
• Orbital Railguns that save out at the Firing state no longer end up completely broken on reload
• Fixed a really derpy code derp in the Orbital Railgun
• Orbital RailGun Rings now cool at a rate of 1 degree per 30 seconds. (approx 120 minutes). A Freezon Canister will reduce this by another degree.
• Orbital RailGun Rings currently require 100 resin per shot, per ring. (20,000 total Refined Resin) (TBD)
• Orbital RailGun Controller needs 9 million power to fire. (TBD)
• Destroyed CPH using Mutator Important CPH now causes all HiveMinds to grow. Yes. All.
• Happy Feet Pandora's Box effect prototyped - need a name for the 'unhappy feet' equivalent.
• Patreons will no longer be bugged to purchase the Frozen Factory expansion!

Networking optimisation details

• Added SegmentEntity.Base.MaxNetworkSendDist - allows mod authors (and me) to not bother syncing specific machine types with distant network players. Defaults to -1 for no culling.
• Conveyors now use this to aggressively cull unnecessary send data, further reducing the load on networked servers.
• Improved server CPU readout to include machines, items and 'other'
• Improved server disk CPU time monitoring
• Item Updates have gone from ~600 megs/hour to ~20 megs/hour
• Conveyors have gone from ~600megs/hour to ~1.3megs/hour
• Servers will now consume approximately 1 gig per hour per 3 clients, depending on MANY factors. However, this is approximately 1/20th of the network bandwith of P16.
• Server Network CPU time massively reduced; the server should now use approximately 30 minutes of a single thread CPU time per 24 hours of simulation.
• TechAxe exclusive Patreon reward should now show up reliably for network players
• Fixed overload of Build orders on large instanced entities on network servers
• Saved approx 300 megs/hour by smartly discard dropped item data
• Reduced item update footprint from to 320 bytes to 248 bytes
• Collated total network usage of machines
• Deeper introspection into UPDATE_CHANNEL usage
• Massive optimisation to Minecarts' network efficiency (from upwards of 2500 bytes/update to 60 bytes/update)
• Added deep and details /report to dedicated servers. This covers networking usage to the byte, and I'm gladly accepting reports from interesting and end-game and long-term servers!
• removed 260 bytes/sec/player from SpiderBot updates
• removed 100 bytes/sec/player from LOIC update
• Knocked several seconds off of dedicated server loading time
• Fixed issue where corrupted server information would break all public server accesses
• Added per-machine network usage readout
• Added PlayerData network usage calc

Quality of life improvements

Community fixes from SteveMan0, MadVandal and AgentMinty!

"Clearing Excavator" mission now supports Extractor naming (via Signs)

Build2Me orientation support for minecart track

Mad Vandal's fix for falling through lifts. Widens window for recognizing being on the lift to prevent spurious idling and keeps the feet out of the lift to prevent sliding through it.

Added Funelling. If you don't know what that is, it doesn't matter. If you do, you'll be all like 'oh wow that's clever, and I hope Dj shares some cool funelling analytics with me' - and you'd be right!

MK3 Workfloor Excavators now have DOUBLE (!) the range

Hooked up new IP query service

Signs should no longer be upside down

New loading screen! (remember, submit your amazing loading screens and I'll include them in the roster)

Added 'hint' when Mass Storage exceed 100 crates that perhaps, just maybe, you haven't designed your base quite right.

Stopped hinting and just telling that it's a bad idea when Mass Storage exceeds 1,000 crates.

Tunnel Nukers now spawn with much vigour during the start of the game, getting around a mistake in timing. This should mean Organic Rock is available to the exploratory player nearly instantly, and to regular players within the first hour.

Dead Overminds can no longer headbutt you.

Further support to 0.001% of my userbase - Linux should now accept chatline inputs, working around a Unity bug. Yup, FC supports Linux better than Unity does.

Hard Resin Detectors now show distance to resin AND distance of resin to base, as well as the last time the active Hive Mind gew.

Hard Resin Detector now shows encroaching Resin with audio and lights.

Made the Research Screen quite a bit less cluttered and more understandable.

25 conveyor mission disables on Peak. Fixes MP issues.

Added 'You really shouldn't be using low texture detail' warning, due to streamers continually misunderstanding the slider.

Added slope conveyor mynock spawning to HiveEntity as well. Sorry.

Fixed T4Grinder/CCCCC power exploit

Advanced Conveyor Filters are now available using T1 resources, meaning that you should be able to start sorting things much, much sooner into the game.

Fixed a dead-end in the tutorial (yes, really!)

Increased Research Assembler internal power storage from 1500 to 3500

SpiderBot Power Cores now give 2500 power, up from 1000

Public server entries that cause the game to fall onto the second page now correctly allow access to the second page

Deep network clients should no longer be pestered about making a PTG

MK1 Workfloor Excavators now available earlier, and cost significantly less to craft.

Freezon-Boosting Liquifiers now works

Performance boost to Ablators

Fixed issue where Hiveminds that were 'contained' by many Ablators and Liquifiers wouldn't flip from 'shell' to 'tentacle' mode. This might mean that they're a little better at breaking out of containment. Sorry. #notsorry

Reduced Particle Compressor from 1024 to 512 pps

Boosted Geothermal output by 50% across the board.

Refineries now use 500 power per item, down from 1,000. MaxPower is still at 3,000 per vat.

Fluid now capped at 250 block/tick (down from 500) to attempt to keep build orders clear

ARTHER Releases from current recharge station if asked to dock with another

Threat Scanner should now indicate when all surface attacks are cleared, and will give CryoPlasm readout instead

MK2 Trenchers now extract 2x as much ore as MK1 Trenchers

MK3 Trenchers now extract 4x as much ore as MK1 Trenchers

Performance Improvements

I'm listing these as I continually get told I should be optimising the game instead of adding new features.

• Plants on busy worlds will sleep for 10 seconds if they receive an error when accessing segments.
• Fixed Lifts not using Instanced rendering.
• Substantial performance improvements to rendering and CPU usage of Organic Rock.
• Substantial render performance gains all over, using new Vis system
• Substantial render performance gains on FALCORs
• Tweaked Low LOD of all PSBs
• Added rendering optimisations and LODding to Signs

Known Isssues

• Biomass Ore Pings don't always work
• LPTs that are directly behind you may have missing lasers (visuals only)
• Items in your Suit Inventory do not count on the crafting interface
• Mass Storage Input ports don't correctly visually sync for clients
• Mod Upload doesn't work

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue with available materials being reported as 2x
• Fixed error in Overmind renderer
• Plants on 'grassy' dedicated servers will now grow.

  FIXED FLOATING MOVING RANDOM BUTTON ON DIALOGUES

  
  
• Fixed a generic issue with UV scrolling; this should mean no more flicking mynocks
• Mouse sensitivity now works in both directions
• Further vis fixes
• Stack Split dialogue fixed
• Fixed LPT Max Power issue
• Fixed missing string on SuperDig
• Fixed graphics on Workfloor Excavators
• Pause menu will now correctly show current world data.
• Lifts no longer use the wrong texture.
  
• Wheelmouse should correctly scroll in all circumstances
• AutoExcavator area effect at least 83% less embarrassing.
• Anything that shows the current number that you own of a thing will now take into account how many are fitted to your suit.
• Inventory counts now displayed again
• Craft x25 button works again
• Fixed Z-fighting on Organic PSBs
• Scaled up Floating Combat Text to be noticeable
• Various UI alignment fixes
• Mass Storage Output Port no longer destroys items when full
  
• Mod support for overriding Mobs (Modding PDF updated to match)
• Reduced some client MassStorage spam
• Removed the red light while in Creative.
• Changed Geothermal Recipe from 512 Crystal Ore to 100 Crystal Clocks (gives a small discount for crafting clocks)
• BFLs can no longer be used to mine ore - it just get vapourised.
• Mods can be disabled properly now
• Fixed locally-hosted MP server UI
• Fixed an order when loading up worlds with signs that are a long way away
• Delete Server Entry button now works reliably
• Fixed issue where Freezon Injectors continually rotated.
• Reduced the crafting costs of signs.
• Fixed MK1 and MK2 Workfloor Excavators issue with clearing the wrong layer.
• Fixed MK1 and MK2 Workfloor Excavators rendering issues
• Enabled Unity Performance Reporting (this allows future analytics, but also allows me to get summated crash reports)
• Deorbit containers no longer drop if there's more than 16 live ones currently there for the player to pick up
• Fixed error where setting the Rate parameter would give really confusing feedback
• Fixed issue with Workfloor Excavator error when unloading
• Added another column for injections debug to prevent clipping stuff off the bottom
• Per Mad Vandal, fix for threat scanners losing their yellow alert state.
• Corrected OBO error with toxic cavern plant value entries that misaligned them with respect to the orange glowpod used as a basis. This caused the last plant to always appear as unknown and the other entries to not appear by their correct name.
• Safe casting PlantEntity to place nice with mod entity overriding
• Organic thief popup text shows the correct name for the machine.
• Prevents ConfirmationPanelScript Show spam that can make it appear translucent.
• Quarry chevron placement now obeys HardnessLimit to prevent exploits and accidents
• Laser borer obeys hardness limits to prevent exploiting but still bores hardened resin
• The Freezon Injector now builds facing the machine it wants to inject into.
• Abstracted the kill time to a const and corrected the popup text with this.
• Removed duplicate tag in air for MadVandal's OCD :D
• Updated AutoBuilder handbook to reflect fix of the old transport pipe bug.
• ARTHER charging station typo correction
• GACs now correctly check permissions of hoppers on offloading crafted items
• Restructured FALCOR offloading to prevent floating combat text spam on failed insert
• Loading hint typo/grammar corrections
• Fix to allow dragging in chromium lenses
  
• Implemented ItemSupplier/Consumer interface for MS output ports for mod compatibility
• At Mad Vandal's request, track the current updating SegmentEntity so that machines accessing interfaces can be identified even if they don't get passed to the interface itself.
• Mad Vandal identified this error > should be >= at resource check
• Disabled "Hit sideways pipe!" log spam
• Updated Chromium Bar(s) to list as Chromium and not Chrome for consistency
• Stopped HODORs from wasting fuel by consuming it when it is needed.
• More typo fixes from Agent Minty and self craft conversion recipes for pipes
• Crystal are now marked as machines to protect against B2Me but still be buildable
• jlp1528 aka Agent Minty provided several fixes to the TerrainData.xml
• Included in these fixes is several category tags to fix Build2Me through machines
• Filter shift+E category swap corrected to match the UI
• Modified : /Project/Assets/Scripts/Entities/Survival/JetTurbineGenerator.cs
• Releases ARTHER from current recharge station if asked to dock with another
• Added Build2Me orientation support for minecart track
• Put an NRE catch to solve the lock up of GenericMachinePanel on a race with the handbook
• MS crates on network clients won't reconnect to their own center reducing log spam
• Fixed debug spam due to inverted check on mass storage crate connected state
• Crate mapping check out is cleared on delete if the StockPort owns it.
• Excluded core multiblocks from stockport search to avoid confusion with placement blocks
• Geothermal Generator no longer will blindly dig through machines when laying pipe
• Merged Mad Vandal's fix for the Workfloor Excavator beams
• Safely write null MachineInventory to prevent rare network crash read past end of stream
  
• Marked grooved cement as reinforced to match it's cost and place as a patreon block
• NRE catch to solve the lock up of GenericMachinePanel on a race with the handbook
• MS crates on network clients won't reconnect to their own center reducing log spam
• Fixed debug spam due to inverted check on mass storage crate connected state
• Crate mapping check out is cleared on delete if the StockPort owns it.
• Excluded core multiblocks from stockport search to avoid confusion with placement blocks
• Huge amounts of changes and fixed to handbook translations, name, location, placement
• Fix for _DESC searching in Translation.
• Workshop Detail blocks now selectable in again
• Creative Hotbar now works again
• ServerOverride should now create custom-named worlds *and* load that world back in again.
• Fixes to Mass Storage Output Ports
• Zebra's 'big bag o' translation' community-submitted fixed and improvements.
• Fixes for Mod Icons.
• Thanks again to Zebra, SteveMan0 and MadVandal for your community-fixes, helping me towards getting the next patch public!
• Ore Smelter missions now more sensitive to threat generation
• Added None to available VR types.
• Display Bug fixed in Particle Compress, Filter, Grinder, HODOR and Fuel Compressor.
• Added MK1, MK2 and MK3 StockPilers. These allow you to limit the maximum amount of a certain items going into your Mass Storage. Thanks to SteveMan0 for porting his mod into the game! https://t.co/MX3GKWYowP

[ 2018-01-03 16:27:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

The last (major) bug has finally been knocked out of P17, and to that end, I'll be doing a multi-hour, multi-player game on the 2nd; if there's no issues, then P17 should go live shortly afterwards. However! If you do not want your gaming experience to change AND you promise not post any bugs, the answer to which is "I fixed that in P17", then opt into the new branch [quote]P16-Frozen[/quote] And tomorrow's major patch will not affect you. For the rest of you - see you on Discord to celebrate! https://discord.gg/tgFvu

[ 2018-01-01 18:22:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've just moved the current Staging branch to p17_debug[for_modders] This branch is a full debug build, with symbols - it's HIGHLY recommended you ensure your mods still work with the UI changes. NGUI, stupidly, decided to break its API - I've put as much ducttape in as I can, but there may still be issues. The debug build will help you track down issues far easier than the release build. For the rest of you intrepid testers - I'm in the process of creating non-debug (aka high framerate) versions of all platforms now, for a final bout of testing!

[ 2017-12-26 10:50:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

P17 has been knocked into shape, but I just ran out of time to get all the builds done and the skin pack live. This should all go live between Christmas and the New Year, unless something ELSE goes wrong... In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas, from me, Ajax and Cepheus. But especially poor ill Ajax.

[ 2017-12-24 23:14:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

All of the test branches have now been updated, and I believe there's no critical or major issues left. If you feel like helping out, BACK UP YOUR WORLD, read this thread, then opt-in! http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/135508489637345304/ If not, then this build should be live in the next few days.

[ 2017-12-21 17:33:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Today marks the first day I've sat at my desk since about the beginning of June, and the first time I've used a mouse. Ajax is pleased, and has resumed pride of place on my desk.
I'm now in quite exciting throbbing pain after 3 hours, and I'm going to stop. However, I have been at least a little busy. All of the recent community fixes have been pushed into the Translation branch, updated notes here : http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/135508489637345304/ I've also put a little bit here, hopefully to open a few eyes how BIG the task of translation support is: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1474221865187153613/

[ 2017-09-01 13:16:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

You're all so bloody lovely. Like a hundred of you wished me well, and that's just amazing. For those of you who want a few more details, well, you'll have to wait for the *proper* post (and that will have to wait until I can use a mouse...), but, in short, I was riding a ZZR-1400 *on a racetrack*, not on the highway. I was distracted during braking by another rider in the wrong position, and locked the front wheel up, causing me to flip upwards off of the bike., Yes, bikes do go that fast; top speed of that old girl was about 203 mph (~330 kph) and, until I ran out of talent, it was a really fun day in the sun. My next bike is quite likely to be a little less... large and ABS has shot up to the top of my priority list on it! All in all tho, I've ended up with a hell of a story; how many people can say they fell off a motorbike at just under a quarter of the speed of sound and walk away? #noragrets

[ 2017-07-22 21:46:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

So... my cast has come off. My plan was to go home, wash the bike, go for a ride, and celebrate, then throw myself back into code! However, it bloody hurts, like oh-my-god hurts. So I decided to drive instead. Then I realised that'd be too painful, and then relegated that to 'driving in VR to strengthen my wrist muscles' THEN I realised I can't actually push a light switch with my right hand, sooo... yeah. I suspect it's going to be somewhere between 2-6 weeks before I can sustain any sort of use of my right hand. Sorry. I'm really keen to get this new DLC and translation support out, I promise! You may all make the same joke about masturbating to strengthen my wrist in the comments section, if you like.

[ 2017-07-22 21:39:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is the first time I've been in front of a keyboard in 2 weeks, and it bloody hurts. I somehow managed to escape a 300 kmh motorbike crash virtually unscathed 2 weeks ago - I'll be doing a full set of pics and description when I've more stamina. I can still use the Discord via my phone - remember there's a link in the in-game handbook under Community links! The cast should be off in about 4 weeks, and I promise to stay under 150 mph until the Adventures Pack is released!

[ 2017-06-25 18:57:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Translation Support : about 75% complete German Translation : about 40% complete Finnish Translation : about 15% complete Every other language : 0% complete
I'm aiming to get something out at the end of May - if you're that special sort of grammar-lover, head over to the forums or the discord to help out! Discord : https://discord.gg/pmWuUnD Forum : http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/3/p

[ 2017-05-02 11:46:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

So, the translation support is proving to be a much larger task than I'd anticipated. Sadly, I'd already massively over-estimated, so this has become a huge quagmire of sadness and tedium. So, where are we? Right now, all the terrain, items, manufacturing recipes and the handbook have full translation support, as well as the main menu. We have a wonderful set of volunteers who are rapidly beginning to regret helping out on such a massive project, working away on German, Finnish and Swedish, so if you're a fan, and speak the right language, head over to the Discord translation room and feel free to help out! https://discord.gg/sdwWkq3 And just a reminder; Patreons get access to the RailGun, but I've had literally zero feedback on it so far. Does that mean it's far too hard to get? And in completely unrelated news, I've finally gotten Todd to get around to putting together Steam Greenlight pages for as-yet-unreleased games. A view and a yes vote, if you think you'd like to play them, would be ever so appreciated! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=870460416 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=870481156 Patch 17 will come out as soon as it's ready, with partial translation support, the RailGun, and the most-requested machine, a Mass Storage Input machine that allows you to limit how much is inserted into Mass Storage. Never let it be said that I don't listen to what the community wants!

[ 2017-03-27 09:29:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

So, Todd and I have been upgrading our UI system from 'ancient' to 'brand new', to support multi-byte characters. This is proving to be an enormous task, and is still going on. The plan remains more or less the same - Patch 17 will go out with the translation support, the test version of the Orbital Railgun, the Skin Pack. Hydroponics and Mutator will be bumped to Patch 18.

Patch 17 goals

• Initial Translation support for multiple languages, including Cyrillic/Kanji (Russian/Japanese/Chinese)
• [Patreons get early access to this!]Orbital RailGun Launcher. The ultimate in pointless e-peen. Fire massive containers into space and compare your base with other people's. 1 Kilometre of magnetically-accelerated terror.
• T4 Balance improvments
• New, country-specific skin pack to celebrate (and TBF, fund!) the Translation support.
• Improved networking with smarter bandwidth usage.

Goals pushed to Patch 18

• Plant Growth and Harvesting in Hydroponics Bays.
• [Patreons get early access to this!]Further Mutator work.
• Adventures Pack Work

Note : I've had zero feedback on the Orbital Railgun so far. Did I get it that perfect? ;-)

[ 2017-03-01 11:13:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

The first test patch for Patch 17 is now available. If you're interested, and understand terms like 'untested' and 'risky' and 'backed-up-my-world', then head over here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/135508489637345304/ I'm actually not going to be around tomorrow, as it's my birthday, and I'm old, and therefore I don't have to put up with you all. I'll be back, streaming and working on Thursday - the new Orbital Railgun (name pending) should be available for early-testing for Patreons; it's planned as a brand-new endgame for Adventure Pack DLC owners, hopefully within a few months! Don't break the game whilst I'm gone!

[ 2017-02-14 17:50:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

One week after rewriting virtually the entire lighting engine, surface generation, and adding vegetation, I'm proud to announce another patch, addressing a number of the issues the community has raised. TL;DR - Peak Sunshine has been reduced in brightness substantially, Networking in large bases is about 4 times more efficient, some mission popups fixed, Rapid mode has been tweaked

• Midday sun brightness now clamped from 62.5% to 50%. Cue all the old complaints of 'The surface is too dark' to come back...
• Fixed issue with Minecart tracks throwing errors on Headless servers.
• Storage Hoppers : were 368 bytes continuous update size
• Empty hoppers now : 39 bytes
• Full hoppers (Ore) : 60 bytes
• Full hoppers (Bars) : 56 bytes
• Worst-case scenario is still approximately 2k (100x Cutter heads)
• PowerStorage Blocks data reduced from 32 bytes payload to 1 byte payload (68 bytes -> 37 bytes)
• LPTs from 67 bytes to 39 bytes
• LPTs now request network updates if they have a lens fitted
• No more free coal in Storage Hoppers for Headless Servers
• Fix for SpiderBot Base using up too much networking
• Slight improvements to player networking
• TechAxe should no longer appear on the back of non-Patreon
• Fixed kill hitbox of dead overminds
• Overminds will no longer accidentally give you the 18 million achievement. BUT LOOK AT THE COMMUNITY LINKS IN YOUR HANDBOOK, DAMNED PEOPLE.
• Continuous Casting Basin no longer takes up 48 megabytes of memory for it's texture, and is no longer Point filtered. I have no idea how this happened.
• Eternal Day/Eternal Night should now work again on Headless servers
• Fixed Mass Storage drone colours
• Linux Dedicated Servers should now correctly support client-based commands (example inventorysearch)
• Fixed invisible manufacturing plant issue
• Performance Drops with SpiderBot in combat should be fixed. These only affected Fabulous, which is the 'I have a super-duper overclocked monster PC setting'
• Jet Turbines now burn through fuel 4x quicker. PPS is unchanged. (One per 30s, meaning 1x Fuel Refinery can support 3x Turbines. I expect to change this next month, meaning several refineries for 1 turbine - thoughts welcome. Refineries are a little irrelevant atm.)
• Tweaked Jet Turbine PPS.
• Easy Power gives 2.5x PPS boost
• Rapid Mode gives 10x PPS boost (up from 2.5x)
• Rush Mode gives 10x PPS boost (up from 5x)
• Mass Storage Input and Output ports now only require a single Power Booster to craft - much easier and less annoying.
• Ablators and Liquifiers are now 2x as fast on Rapid
• All Generic Auto Crafters now use 50% power on Easy (down from 100%)
• All Generic Auto Crafters now use 25% power on Rapid (down from 50%)
• Grass should correct simulate on dedicated servers that were generated from single player servers
• Slight tweak to holo-mission descriptions
• Smelter mission removed for Scarce difficulties and above
• Smelter mission no longer happens after 100% threat
• Base Reports can no longer appear when the holobase is up
• Mission Completion messages are now subject to all the same checks as Mission Reports (Player must be warm, standing still, on the ground, with power, etc)
• Fixed CryoGenic Spawn Tube
• Tutorial popups now 'lovely'

[ 2017-02-09 10:12:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've had a great deal of feedback on the brightness of things, and there's a test patch in Bleeding Edge right now that potentially addresses some of them. It 'should' be safe to opt into, but I do recommend that you backup your world first. http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/135508031949578329/ I'm aiming for an update to mainline early next week, that should include a number of fixes based on the recent feedback to Patch 16.

[ 2017-02-03 18:05:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Never fear! Buried in the enormous patch notes was the solution
Press N to select the paint gun, choose a nice medium-dark grey, and splurge paint around until you're happy with how it looks. You might want to go a little darker on Eternal Day worlds, as they're stuck at midday permanently. Go wild!

[ 2017-02-01 14:31:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

[quote] Mateo 20 minutes ago Im supporting Red alert RED ALERT#TRADING 30 minutes ago You Fool The Game is now not Fortresscraft Anymore Now its Horrible to look at I hate the new update I want the Old World Back the Beuty World [/quote] You can opt into P15-Frozen for all your snow-covered needs. I did say this before the patch went live, too! Details here : http://steamcommunity.com/games/254200/announcements/detail/240216094406022698

[ 2017-01-31 22:48:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you don't read anything else, read this bit

You need to remove -force-dx9 from your launch parameters - the game NO LONGER supports DX9. Thanks Unity!

Patch 16 - Reinventing yourself isn't just for Madonna.

I may disagree with some of you. I may argue with some of you. But I absolutely do listen to all of you. Many of the reviews of this game are wrong, idiotic or abusive. Such is the nature of a free forum. The ones that are not can be split into two types; Positive, or complaining about the lack of a Tutorial. Therefore, Patch 16 is the culmination of two major areas of focus.

New Players

I've gotten half a dozen people to play the game for the first time, streaming it to me and my channel, whilst I watched, made notes, and shouted at the screen how anyone could not understand everything perfectly. The end result has been a *huge* amount of work - the game now explains things many more things to new players, makes MANY less assumptions and, I hope, all of this without pissing off experienced players by treating them like children.

Tutorial, UI and New Player changes

• The game will now prompt you to have more than 5 torches placed in the world when it's nighttime
• You're no longer instructed to Terraform the Cold Cavern before you're ready
• Ore Smelter Storage Hopper now has unique mission
• Player will also be directed to correctly set permissions on starting Storage Hopper.
• The CPH is now warmer, and being near it should make you happier.
• You can no longer die of heat or cold when the game is paused, and power won't be used up either.
• You can no longer die of heat or cold when exiting the game.
• ARTHER will no longer simulate during paused.
• Holo-tutorial now has mission readout
• HotBar now indicates key presses slightly better
• HotBar now indicates F keys to select tabs.
• Suit Power Panel now reacts in a much more visible way to player actions, and flashes red when nearly out of power.
• Game no longer tells you to increase your threat when all Overminds are dead.
• Game no longer asks for a threat scanner when all Overminds are dead.
• SpiderBot is no longer present before you build a SpiderBot base, and will be summoned the first time it's made.
• Daytime is now 10 degrees warmer than it was, meaning much reduced suit usage during the daytime. For those of you who missed it, you were supposed to spend the day on the surface, where it's warmer, and the night-time underground; as it's warmer there than the surface during the night. This seems to have passed a lot of people by!
• Time of Day locked to 'sunrise' during the tutorial
• Moved DropShip another 16m away
• Tutorial now has much more detailed pop up hints
  
• Rapid mode now gives you enough resources to automate your base immediately.
• Contextual help now correctly takes user to the previously-completed scan
• Unknown scans now have a differently-coloured material on the scanner
• Tin and Copper Handbook entries now tell the player to use an Ore Extractor.
• SuperDig hint now ALWAYS shows for the first time, with Rubble afterwards
• Improved hint on Torches (They keep you warm, you know)
• Ore Scanner now has the 'Press X for Build Gun' prompt on it for new players.
• "Extract or Smelt Tin/Copper" now says "Automate Tin/Copper Extraction"
• Construct a Lab mission recommendation now comes before Iron.
• Improved formattting on Video Tutorial Page
• Mission Report changed from 5/15/60 mins to 15/30/60 mins
• Mission Report frequency dropped substantially for new bases
• Mission completion now supports optional pop up dialogue.
• SuperBuild mission has been improved, and relies on the user watching the super-build-tutorial-video.
• Basic Laser Power Transmitters now have significantly more streamline and simple readouts.
• Suit Battery MK1 now requires Lithium scanning before it's available.
  
• Holobase prompts are now delayed until the user has a suitably large base.
• Fixed Basic Mining Upgrades 1 description.
• Vein size result scan is slower and more readable now.
• Many important progression steps now have tutorial pop-ups, currently guiding the player to their Iron setup.
• CPH now burns resources twice as quickly (Power Per Second should remain the same)
• Vastly improved error messages when the player fails to build
• New hints for unscanned items in the world.
  

For current players, you'll notice a change when you start your next new world (or venture TOO far in an existing one)
The entire surface has been redone. This includes a triatic/split complimentary colour scheme for all things, new dynamic sky rendering, new sun shafts, new fog system, new dust system and surface flora. It's been a busy month.
The new rendering tech also gave me a chance to implement surface biomes; you should now be able to locate 8 separate surface biomes, each with their own unique plant life. Plant life has no use in this patch; over the next couple of months, I will be implementing farming and breeding mechanics. You can harvest them for funsies and watch them regrow, however.
Performance has been another focus this month - the new rendering code means that I can now reduce the drawcalls and increase the GPU load massively, whilst reducing the CPU load. Previously, FortressCraft was probably around 10:1 for CPU/GPU - it'll be closer to 8:1 this month! But this new tech is really REALLY fast - I checked
71 million vertices @ 105 fps. However, if you ARE having performance issues, then there's a few commands you can try out.

• Added 'detail instancing toggle' command, to disable all unnecessary instanced objects (grass, small rocks, stalactites)
• added "detail instancing shadowforce" - forces shadow casting on all instanced objects
• added "detail instancing shadowoff" - disables shadow casting on all instanced objects (very fast)
• added "detail instancing shadowsmart" - smart shadowing on all instanced objects (default)

(Pic is a little old, the green is less bright now!) The change in visuals with the new tech, I think, speaks for itself.

I'm not done! But I do need a rest.

Next Month

Just a reminder that this is now the 16th free Content Patch since FortressCraft left Early Access, and I would like to especially thank the Patreons for their continued support. Without them, I would not be able to continue development of the game. If you're continuing to enjoy this game, 16 months after it was finished, then please, please, consider joining them. https://www.patreon.com/Fortresscraft So, on with the rest of the patch notes!

Polish and visual changes

• New, procedural cloud system
• Player now has a shadow
  
• Completely new lighting system
  
• Completely new plant rendering + harvestable plants
  
• Completely new surface generation.
  
• (It's amusing how 4 lines of patch notes can represent a few hundred hours of work.)
• MK3 PSBs now use correct swirl shader for the battery charge sphere

Optimisation

PSB hulls are now instanced. Performance++

Conveyor Belts now use proper instancing. FAST.

Implemented generic auto-instancer

Minecart Straights are now rendered in a single draw call!

Hazard panel down from 1.5ms constant to 0.1ms with 0.4ms peaks.

Implemented procedural Instanced Rendering - performance gains are soon

Moved most type of plant onto PIR; this means they always render, they're incredibly cheap and fast, they use up no main thread time at all, they don't need to spend any raycast or vis time, and don't have to continually work out their own relative location. This has the potential to be really REALLY fast.

Fixed non-MPB instancer, improved performance

More work on using MPB to speed up plant rendering

Plants with childed lights no longer cause significant render load, and will cull appropriately.

Improved world generation speed

Improved unity-thread performance issues when you have thousands of dropped objects. PS, don't leave thousands of these around.

Quality of Life

• HoloBase Frozen Conveyors are now blue
• Holobase Blocked Conveyors do not go red until they're properly blocked.
• Improved accuracy of block selection AND performance
• Alien Plants no longer placeable in Survival (You will need to harvest seeds and plant them - Patch 17/18)
• Ore Pings now return the distance of the closest result.
• Ore Extractors not placed on ore give a much better readout
• Ore Extractors now externally show power.
  
• Fixed 3d Text shader to allow dynamic colourisation.
• On Rapid mode, Coloured Ping is available instantly
• SuperBuild feedback SFX
• Moved to a less-obsolete version of cursor locking, potentially fixing numerous Linux and OSX mouse issues
• It's no longer possible to click on the hotbar whilst the mouse is disabled
• Blast Furnaces now show their PPS costs
• Mission Report can no longer appear whilst a grappling hook is travelling, as it can kill you.
• Mission Reports disabled entirely for Squishcore and Hardcore difficulties.
• ARTHER will make a noise when he drops below 10% power
• Reduced Particulate filtration costs to 75% of their previous value.
• ARTHER Powerbar now slightly larger
• CPH Compass now slightly bigger
• Improved Research Assembler readout; lists power needed and correct state.
• Build Gun now has a glow map to indicate current power; also animates on use.

Patreon-only/future stuff

• Internally allocated Mutator #10 to Important CPH
• Power Storage Blocks now drain when the CPH is destroyed. This should make this game much very interesting; loss of the CPH means at least 30 minutes before the next attack wave, but your entire stock of stored power will be depleted; your threat should have stabilised by the time the next wave arrives.
• Implemented some basic OSHA mutator deaths. Don't stand in anything bright or dangerous-looking.
• [spoiler]OHSA damage added to Macerators, PTGs and Lense'd LPTs[/spoiler]
• As ever, Mutators are only available to Patreons. They'll become available to everyone in the Adventures Pack.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Cryo and Magma Rendering
• Sunshafts now return when you return to the surface
• Grooved Cement and Reinforced Concrete Blocks should no longer be overly bright (Existing blocks not altered, sorry)
• Fixed re-entrancy crash with Grass
• Upgrading SpiderBro should no longer leave him in a bad state.
• Fixed SmartVis making Toxic Caverns a bit icky
• Biomass veins should no long spawn outside of the Toxic Factory
• ARTHER power bar working
• Improved error logging for instanced errors
• Fixed OET explosion sound effect at startup
• Start sound fixed. Again.
• Improved Error Logging for Instancer issues
• Fixed the missing 7th CC plant

Multiplayer

Chat and InventorySearch now available non-admins

Significant reductions to network load of conveyors

Fixed missing Lab issue

One for Innomin8; Conveyor Updates reduced from 103 bytes/update to 69 or 89 bytes/update, with smart sending of data - that's 66.9% or 86% of the previous data size.

And the rest...

• Scan effect can no longer get stuck in the world.
• Fixed issue where a framedrop during the intro could cause the tutorial to disappear (!)
• Fixed silly over-scaling of Coal Calories in CPH burning code when in easiest.
• Deleting a machine with an attached completion mission will no longer repeat the mission by default.
• Dropship smoke should now fade over time.
• Ore Thief no longer directly refers to Storage Hopper, just Hopper.
• New Injection Entities will auto-scan their innards.
• Rocks and GlowTubes shouldn't drop incorrect crap now.
• Large world clusters of objects now require left shift (they're correctly marked as Multiblocks)
• Research Assembler now intelligently lists PCBs recipes.
• World Select now defaults to "Create World" if you have no worlds.
• Difficulty description now makes sense for Rapid mode
• During the Tutorial, the game will indicate incorrect scans of previously-known items.
• Sun location is locked during tutorial
• Forcefield kick now much less harsh, with a little 'fail' sound effect
• Generic Machine Panels now have an 'open' sound
• Central Power Hub Panels now have an 'open' sound
• Popup message panels now have an 'appear' sound
• Holo Tutorial Conveyor Belts now animated
• Holo Tutorial Laser Power Transmitter now animated
• Holo Tutorials now last for 1800 seconds (up from 600)
• "Unknown Block detected" is now on screen longer
• Research Station now has large and obvious particle effect active when player has outstanding scans to process.
• Fixed re-entrant call to System.Random from Terrain and LFGP threads
• Your free coal is now added later on in progression
• Improved Instancing logic; dropping and preventing object spawn.
• Storage Hoppers now let you know that you can open up the Inventory!
• Disabled GlowStick Shadows; they're simply not compatible with instanced objects :-(
• Fixed Instanced Toggled Grass rendering
• Improved Unity-side performance of LPTs
• Fixed 'black intro' issue.
• Improved LF load of flora
• Grass on top of super-built machines will now wither away
• Large performance increase to BlockPicker
• Fixed low-stepping Item drops (Performance still A++)
• Added 'flythru' command
• Added 'detail instancing toggle' command, to disable all unnecessary instanced objects (grass, small rocks, stalactites)
• New, procedural cloud system
• added "detail instancing shadowforce" - forces shadow casting on all instanced objects
• added "detail instancing shadowoff" - disables shadow casting on all instanced objects
• added "detail instancing shadowsmart" - smart shadowing on all instanced objects (default)
• Improved instancing drops and performance
• Fix to Conveyor Belts instancing
• Added rocks, boulders and stalactites.
• Fixes to dedicated servers
• Much more smarts on deciding when to instance objects
• Stalactites!
• Large Rocks!
• Lots and lots more work on perlin gen and trees.
• No bars/No Ore mission warning now based on having FOUND Tin and Copper, not on having NOT found them...
• Added Organic Detritus description; added it to paste grinder
• Improved intro sequence, much sooner to start now. This took all day!
• Turbine Full Spent Fuel light now flashes
• Turbines correctly dynamically load textures once more
• Suit power no longer drains when game is paused.
• Waving grass no longer sits in Forward rendering; draw order fixed
• Glowsticks no longer PURE green/blue
• Fixed jump in sunlight during joining new worlds
• New Grass textures!
• Grass no longer appears on scans or pings
• Fixed Shadow casting on lower details
• Fast/Fastest no longer have instanced grass
• New Grass rendering (does not currently autoremove)
• New biome scaling , substantially improved surface landscape feel
• Performance fix on light checking <-this broke glowpods!
• CPH spawn area now larger. Dropship to be moved tomorrow.
• All plants now second pass. Grass still placeholder!
• Improved vis culling on Instanced Objects/more intelligent placement
• Further improvements to particle fog; more to come.
• Further performance gains on UI (Glowing text appears to be expensive. Great)
• Major performance fix on visibility culling
• Performance fix on light checking
• Torches now also craftable at the manufacturing plant
• All Organic Recombination recipes now require Cryogenic Research (as opposed to being availble at the start of the game)
• Much improved hints on completing scans
• Added 7 new plants in total, one per biome
• UnderGrump now harvestable
• TriSeed now harvestable
• Baubleberry now harvestable
• TundraBreath now harvestable
• Tweaked bright sunlight once more, down a little.
• Reduced size of biomes slightly
• Fixed issue with 'disappearing machines' on revisiting areas you've been along way from.
• Added 4 more lock locations for the Magma Bore
• Slimes now despawn if they failed to move into another segment within 60 seconds, freeing up their slot for another slime to spawn.
• Advanced filters now correctly require Crystal Dynamics
• Added glow modulation to PTGs, to show if they're working a little more nicely.
• Wasp chance for High Quality loot now increases from 5% at 0 threat to 15% at 20,000 threat. Uncapped, so Threat Agitators will give a continual increase.
• Added MK3 workfloor excavator.
• Lancer and Melter fire can no longer be heard at an infinite distance
• Base Report can no longer appear when using SteadiCam
• Mobs can now correctly spawn around non-dedicated server hosts again

Are you here for the cat-tax?

[ 2017-01-31 20:37:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 16 introduces a *lot* of visual and gameplay changes. From some of the earlier shots, some people expressed their dislike at the change from a monochromatic surface to a much more colourful one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRy-TKAHMJ0 As I'm a one-man-band here, I'm unable to even consider supporting multiple codebases/branches, but I *am*, as ever, listening to people, so what I am offering is a new code branch. If you opt into

P15-Frozen

, then you will stay on Patch 15 - this option will never be removed, and you may stay there as long as you like. And now I will return to the monster task of getting this patch out of the door! Wish me luck!

[ 2017-01-31 15:54:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've pushed a hotfix live that should resolve many (all? most) of the issues with GPU-related crashing. I've gone with the age-old solution of 'disabling things', and narrowed it down to something related to instancing and threading. Blame Unity, really. Let me know if it's fixed, if you can, and if you're one of the DOZENS of people who wrote a negative review without checking the forums or discord or twitter or emailing me, please give it another whirl :/

[ 2017-01-23 14:57:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=SgzMrFAeCII

[ 2017-01-15 12:45:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just a note - the issues the game is experiencing are not my fault.
I'm using the latest patch of Unity 5.5 and they haven't updated that since the 22nd of December - I'm waiting them to fix the issues. Right now all I've been able to do is tell people about the workarounds (using DX9 and disabling threaded DX11 jobs), but I don't have a *fix*, because Unity doesn't have a fix yet. I'm keeping everything firmly crossed this gets resolves in the next 16 days, when Patch 16 is due for release. Apologies once again - none of these issue came up in testing, and I've been struggling to overcome both Valve and Unity issues recently. In some good news - are you liking the visuals from Patch 16 as much as I am? :-)

[ 2017-01-14 17:56:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

But lots of people are posting negative reviews, saying "It crashes a lot" Thanks to Orca9999's tireless efforts, it looks like we have a work-around, and a potential culprit. http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/154644598513676391/?ctp=4 Short version; it looks like, under some circumstances, something is going wrong with something DX11 related. The solution is to force use of DX9 - put

-force-d3d9

Into your Steam Launch options and it 'should just work' (tm) Cheers to Orca9999 for working out what it was!

[ 2017-01-06 16:37:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Uploaded for testing :

• dx11-no-graphics-jobs branch - this has the Experimental Graphics Jobs disabled, but VR and GPU Skinning support is active
• dx11-no-vr - this has the VR support disabled (I *think* - it looks like Unity might quietly turn it back on during the build)
• dx11-no-vr-sdk - this has the valve VR sdk disabled (As above, tho, Unity just turned it back on after the build, so I'm not 1000% sure it's removed)
• dx11-no-gpu-skinning - this has GPU skinning disabled. I think that this is the least likely of the candidates, and I'm /really/ hoping it's graphics jobs, else my future is going to get very awkward.

The more feedback I get, the greater the chances of narrowing in on a fix!

[ 2016-12-28 09:27:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've just uploaded a SPECIAL build to the Beta_Test branch - it's perfectly safe to opt into this build, and it's completely compatible with the normal game. There's 3 main differences:

• VR Support has been disabled
• Graphics Jobs have been disabled
• DX11 GPU Skinning has been disabled.

The chances are that it'll run a little worse than the regular build, BUT I'm dying to see if this makes the DX11 crashes of late go away. I would test this locally, but I've never had any of the crashes happen on my machine, making it more than a little hard to fix. If you get a crash, please let me know what's in the log file, and together we can quash this bug, as father and son!

[ 2016-12-27 12:07:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thanks to Orca9999's tireless efforts, it looks like we have a work-around, and a potential culprit. http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/154644598513676391/?ctp=4 Short version; it looks like, under some circumstances, something is going wrong with something DX11 related. The solution is to force use of DX9 - put

-force-d3d9

Into your Steam Launch options and it 'should just work' (tm) Cheers to Orca9999 for working out what it was!

[ 2016-12-26 11:12:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've heard of a few new crashes - if you can post your output_log.txt in the forum, along with machine specs and GPU driver versions, I'll see if I can work something out. I'm afraid that it looks like Unity's instanced support for AMD drivers is a little... er... shoddy. Not my fault! I'm off to eat lunch now, but I'll be back in the saddle tomorrow! If anyone works out a fix for the random crashing, please please let me know!

[ 2016-12-25 09:56:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Another month, another patch. It sometimes saddens me that 'daily test builds and monthly content patches by a single developer' hasn't gotten me one jot of publiclity - anyone know anyone famous? This month has been an especially odd one. To get the patch out in time for Christmas has meant that the patch cycle's only been about 2 and a half weeks, which means I haven't been able to touch much in the way of risk. On the good side, I've taken the opportunity to put some plans in place, and do some engine/tech work. So!

Engine and Tech work

You won't SEE any of this, but I feel that communication is important, and it's good for you to know that I haven't just been playing Astroneer all month. Just a little bit.

• Major engine work on non-gameobject linked, threaded instanced rendering. Speed+++. Not available yet.
  That's a picture of the test bed - I can shunt 100m-150m verts to the screen at ~60 fps using this technique! (No Man's what?)
• Work on supporting proper multiple languages. Not available yet.
• Added a HUGE amount of VR-specific work. This build will automatically run on your Vive or Oculus Touch but I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO AS IT'S NOT VERY GOOD YET. If you want to run in 2d, and you have a VR headset, just hit space bar on the loading screen. If you don't press space bar after 10 seconds, then it'll go to your HMD. If I get enough people expressing their interest, I'll do some more work on it. Details here : http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/154643795210839159/?ctp=5
• Moved to Unity 5.5. This should mean improved performance and a *lot* of crash fixes.
• New BC7 Texture Format should allow a massive reduction in texture sizes without the corresponding loss in quality.

Changes and Fixes you might care about

• A small present to all Dapper DLC owners, as a 'thank you'
• Wooden planks should now correctly boost movement speed, along with Dyed Marble
• Added loads and LOADS of loading hints! <3 http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1843493219417867240/?ctp=2
• Clicking the magnifying glass now clears the search
• Plant entity updates are now 300% - 500% faster than before. Thank you, new Unity 5.5 profiler!
• Storage Hopper Unity-side update now about 3x faster.
• Improved LPT beam detection rendering; saving 1.5ms for 1300 machines!
• Substantial improvements to Conveyor Belt CPU cost.
• HBAO now lower in quality (more speed, minor visual impact) for detail settings lower than Fabulous.

VR only changes

• This isn't going to get by on VR minimum spec. 1060 or above, pick a lower detail setting than 2d!
• Should work on Touch and Vive
• There's no specific plans on release or support.
• This is just a preview version, so I can get feedback
• It'll either be free, a paid-for DLC to cover the cost of the work, or a completely separate version. It depends on the scope of the work, really.
• Ins, Home and Page Up toggle quickly between low, medium and high quality renderscales.
• The game will start up in a quality BELOW low - this should hopefully give you the hint to change it ASAP :-)
• Left Control toggles between fixed and floating hud modes
• All 2d menus have to be nagivated using a mouse - look for the spinning circle of particles. That's the mouse cursor. I plan to allow that to be controlled via the controllers. (Update - you should be able to drive the cursor around with the left touchpad now, but you need to click with the mouse)
• F1 will toggle the 2d mirror output
• F2 should recenter you.
• Left Touchpad will override the mouse position in a fairly ugly way. You'll need to click the mouse tho.
• Touchpads should no longer control your look
• Use your Right hand to aim, as you would normally aim in FC
• Use the new Teleport Gun to teleport to where you're currently aiming. (left trigger == teleport)
• No support for switching used items yet! (so you're stick on the scanner)
• Mildly improved main menu experience (Space, Space is still the fastest way to your world)

Known issues:

• Typing /help/ as a client is just completely useless. Sorry.
• Server name override isn't working correctly
• Grappling Hooks and player Laser shots aren't synced
• Literally 30 seconds of testing of the pause system has thrown this up.
• [Pause]Grappling hook not affected
• [Pause]Robots don't move, but continue to animate
• [Pause]Gravity continues to work
• Recommendation is never "Fix your damned Ore Extractors"
• Conveyor belts continue to animate when the game is paused, as do many other machines using SinRot or UVScrolling.
• Tabbing away from the game whilst the inventory is open doesn't pause it.

Minor Changes and Fixes

Lots and lots of specular highlight changes

Fixed T2 pipe glare

Fixed issues with Conduits not working if the player removed and fixed the battery within 1 second (Thanks Mad Vandal!)

Fixed mission report derp

Fixed plants visibility to use the very cheap segment-based vis

Bloom tightened

Fixed LPT glow; it's now based on firing and stored charge

Missions will no longer instruct you to build an OET after all overminds are dead

Missions will now guide you through T4 again

Base Reports will now guide you to building an OET

Lancers and Melters no longer play annoying audio the first time you go near them

Stomach has recovered from VR week

All list variables fixed in Base Manager - no more escalating Mynock counts!

The game no longer nags you to build an Orbital Power Transmitter once all overminds are dead

Removed a bunch of tunnel nuker debug log spam

Moved plasma head charger to Advanced Mining Upgrades.

Fixed a number of poorly-performing non-instanced rendered machines

Base reports no longer fires when the player is using the jetpack

Base Report no longer fires when the player is moving

Upgrading a lense on a server should now correctly recalculate packetsize and power storage size. Ty MrWorm and co for the debug reports.

Hid away 'Robotics' error message.

Boosted Durability of non-Plasma Charged Cutter Heads.

Reworked Scan Effect

Mission Reports are no longer broken in Creative.

It's not often that patch notes aren't completely inclusive, but, just for once, I plan to drop a large new resource feature without piecemeal stuff - so; did some secret work on [spoiler][redacted][/spoiler]

Wrote a new InstancedMesh system, allowing generation of THOUSAND of graphical elements without any GameObjects. Super fast!

Spent the morning debugging the LAN in my house - my wireless repeater had gone nuts and taken out my router. Morning, wasted! :(

Removed HODOR and Fuel Compressor erroneous spotlight

Added substantial, yet very incomplete, VR support.

Moved to Unity 5.5.0p3, in an attempt to fix some of the memory allocation crashes that are present.

Moved to Unity 5.5.0p1, in an attempt to fix some of the VR crashes that are present in their engine.

More sensitive fix for the ""Error, ended up with DF" bug

Lifts speed now reduces to a maximum of 1.2 metres/frame - this should, maybe, alleviate the 'falling through the lift' issues.

Moved to Unity 5.5

Instancing crashes should be fixed
See you next month for Patch 16!

[ 2016-12-24 18:29:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mac, Linux, 32 and 64 bit windows available, dedicated servers will arrive tomorrow. Known issues include 'very shiny' T2 pipes and the loading hints not always fitting. Other than that, it's good to go. Get testing! Opt into the Staging branch and let me know!

[ 2016-12-23 23:44:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Got a short, handy tip you think should appear on the loading screen? Stick it here, and win a prize! http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/1843493219417867240/ Note : The prize is that you get your line of text in the game.

[ 2016-12-15 11:59:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you're getting random crashes, then please accept my profuse apologies on behalf of Unity. It looks like they had some bugs in their driver code that can cause all sorts of random lockups. (As far as I can tell, Nvidia is unaffected) There's 3 options you've got right now!

• Hope AMD fix their issue
• Try using the -force-d3d9 launch option
• Wait for Patch 15

You also have the option of trying out the nightly test build, or just... not playing. Or buying an Nvidia card. 6 options! I've moved to Unity 5.5 for Patch 15, which has improved things across the board, and, quite importantly, fixes this crash. Apologies again!

[ 2016-12-13 11:45:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

This month has been yet another month with a focus on polishing and improving the game. If you're just here to find out what new machines are added, then let me disappoint you immediately by saying 'none'. If, on the other hand, you feel that FortressCraft is already a massive and complex game, that's simply misunderstood at times by players, then read on!

Performance optimisations

• Loads and LOADS of machine now dynamically load textures when needed. This should massively reduce the footprint of the game, as well as speed up loading substantially!
• Texture footprint is down by 400 megs, a system has been implemented to easily, dynamically load textures in future, and main ram requirement has been reduced by several hundred megs.
  
• Reduced texture usage in a number of places (for example, the light cookie on the snowman is no longer 4 megs in size)
• Reduced texture footprint of minecarts-on-conveyor-belts by 25 megs.
• Reduced size of explosions from the intro sequence by about 40 megs, and quietly wondered why Unity felt the need to keep them loaded.
• Fixed a number of dynamic texture loads (It didn't work correctly when they were stored in a root folder)
• Added a much more generic Material dynamic loading system; used it on the MagmaBore, saving ~160 megabytes of GPU ram. This memory WILL be used again if you build one, of course, but it means you're not carrying around unneeded textures. The code can also form the basis of a dynamically-unloading reference counted system. (I wish Unity supported streaming textures like Unreal has since V3...)
  
• All Turret textures now dynamically loaded.
• All skins (player, ARTHER, Spider and Construct-o-Bots) are now compressed.
  
• Unloaded resources are now dumped appropriately.
• Fixed issue with magma bore gantry missing dynamic texture load

Quality of life improvements

• The game now pauses when you enter the options menu. This is far from perfect, I'm afraid, but I've been continually badgered to add it, so here you are.
• Added the Mission Report. You'll see this after the first 15 minutes of play, and it should tell you all sorts of interesting things about your base.
• Type /missionreport at any point to see it, or /missions to disable it
• Publically-listed servers should now correctly auto-refresh.
• Basic Robotics should be extra extra hidden away for non-patreons. Fingers extra-crossed!
• Context-sensitive 'Craft 25' button added!
• Help button added on the Craft screen!
• Added 11 new categories of item, and reworked all the existing items into it! (Example, Power has become Power Generation, Power Storage and Power Transmission - much easier!)
  
• Added support for Named Ore Extractors in the Mission Report. Don't know how to name an Ore Extractor? Stick a sign next to it!
  
• Fixed issue with too many mods installed - you can now reliably look through many pages of them. Best bug I've had to fix in a while! :)
• Made high-packet-loss servers more robust by increasing packet loss threshold to 400ms
• More helpfiles, thank you TabooRaver!
  
• Completely replaced Crafting UI panel. (Specific) feedback welcome!
• The 'first-hour' of missions has been substantially broken down for new players, and should guide them through locating their first resources, as well as completing scans.
• Laboratories should now go to Idle, not Finished, when researching. This should allow you to auto-feed them any amount of items for Research Points, without human interaction. (Thanks to Flexible Games for this!)
• Resin Handling now uses Green eyes from low level wasps and slimes.
  
• Added support in serveroverrides.ini for WorldName - this should force the game to load in a specifically named world. Setting this will also no longer break the RCON password.
• Working Night and Day doesn't let you know about progress so annoyingly often.
• RCON commands are now passed to local server sim (this means that builderlist, etc, will work)

Known Issues

• The conveyor count is incorrect on the Mission Report.
• Recommendation is never "Fix your damned Ore Extractors"
• Conveyor belts continue to animate when the game is paused, as do many other machines using SinRot or UVScrolling.
• Tabbing away from the game whilst the inventory is open doesn't pause it.

Misc!

• [Patreon-only]Added Pandora's Box mutator. Drop Pods will now drop between 1 and 150 items of questionable levels of use. There's a 1% chance of a LootSplosion, and that will drop 1-150 items of random types. Not all items are good, and can include really, really bad things.
• Signs now marked as Glass, so you can transmit power through them.
• Private servers now flag up dedicated/listen and linux/windows
• Laser Borer should now play sound effects without error.
• Threat should no longer do odd things when the game is paused
• Mobs should no longer move when the game is paused (large benefit to autopause dedicated servers)
• Fixed further pausing issues
• Resin handling now uses Crude ('green') Organic Eyes, available from lower-level wasps and slimes.
• Added 4 new achievements. No-one has 100% anymore, muahahaha!
• Rewrote large parts of the Crafting UI - you can now cancel automation o/
• Suit Panels now disappear appropriately - no more overdraw in silly aspect ratios! o/
• Lots of Category tweaks
• Added Freezon Injector handbook entry
• Added FCQuit command for RCON clients that are dumb.
• Reduced ARTHER Navlight from 800% to 500% brightness
• Mission Report should no longer list *all* the worst Ore Extractors, just a maximum of 2 worst and 2 best.
• The /Missions command now also disabled Mission Reports
• Added /MissionReport command to immediately show a report.
• Turrets no longer show their range during AFK or ORBIT modes
• Intellicam ('AFK Cam') now limited to tracking mobs within 64 metres
• Intellicam should no longer embed itself within large mobs.
• Fixed potential issue with 'tabbing away during load' and also improved and fixed logging for when it goes wrong.
• Removed debug key for missions
• Increased the number of categories from 11 to 22
• Categories are no longer case-sensitive.
• Added Smelting category and moved a number of Mining machines into it.
• Added ARTHER Upgrades category, clearing up the Progression category
• Added Storage category, clearing up the Logistics category.
• Added "Explore Deeper" mission recommendation, if the player has not located the Cold Caverns, but has located Lithium.
• Fixed an issue where unresearched categories would disallow selection of later categories.
• Added LPT0, Rack Railer, Slime Attractor, MK2 power pack, Agitator and Reducer helpfile categories.
• Updated a number of other category (ty Taboo Raver)
• New Power panel!
• Fixed Crafting panel icons!
• New crafting panel!
• New hazard panel!
• Mission Report, December 16th, 1991.
• Added MOD functionality for non-machine based network signalling.
• Ore Extractors no longer calculate efficiency on the wrong thread.
• An enormous amount of base introspection code added.
• Base Recommendations (more suggestions welcomed)
• Many turrets + Low Threat = Increase Threat
• More than 10% LPTs missing lenses = craft and fit lenses
• More than 16 Mynocks = Clear Infestation
• Mission system now tells you about un-researched Scans immediately.
• Mission system will now explicitly guide you to complete 8 scans
• Mission system will now explicitly guide you to complete 8 pieces of research
• Missions system now directs you to locate Tin and Copper; only once found are you instructed to Extract/Smelt it.
• SpiderBot base construction Mission raised from Important to Critical.
• Added "Critical Research : SpiderBot" mission
• Added "Locate : Organic Rock" mission
• Fixed Specular highlighting on Instanced Shaders.
• Improved error message for missing mod.config on Linux (Linux is a case-sensitive operating system, so mod.config, Mod.Config and MOD.CONFIG are 3 different files!)
• Fixed Orbital Strike Controller windup graphics
• Pandora's Box mutator expanded. I'm not going to go into details - it's a surprise. Sometimes good... sometimes not.
• Added Scan/Progression system to Research Panel. Somewhat buggy, but accurate at the end (I think!)
• Fuel Compressor now correctly draws power
• Added BarRainbowAlloy for mod authors
• Bumped WorldVersion to 5
• Added in storage for all 10 mutators
• Added network transmission for all 10 mutators.
• Mutators selectable! They don't work yet tho!
• Plasma Cutter Heads now require Advanced Miner Upgrades as well as Alloys.
• Tweaked the Laser Borer description to be clearer.
• Par times are no longer suggested for Creative play throughs.
• Spooky Aesthetics now costs 1RP
• Removed some spam from log files
• Significantly improved item handling CPU time under certain circumstances.
• Dedicated servers now re-request their IP every server readout
• Server readouts now happen every 10 minutes (3 was just too often!)
• Performance warnings now happen once per 30 seconds, as opposed to 3 times a second (oops)
• Fixed spam and performance warning for when wasps were killed AFTER the end of a wave.
• [Patreon]Critters should no longer leak.
• Mutators panel is now selectable.
• Corrupted Ini files should now fail gracefully, or at least 'more' gracefully.
• A change to the grappling hook means that server Visitors should be able to use them now. This *may* lead to weirdness in single-player; let me know if that's the case!
• Storage Hoppers no longer have Extract predicated off of AllowMovement; this means that guests should no longer be able to use them.
• Increased the chance of Quality loot from all Wasps from 3% to 5%.
• Manufacturing Plants should now correctly clear after auto-crafting the required number of items. Infinite loops should now also work. (Thanks to Dessi for this!)
• UV scrolling now pauses during pausing.
• Fix for Bars being sorted when you're using the Type filter
• Added description for HODOR and Fuel Compressor layout (3x1x3 and 3x3x3, respectively)
• Added support for server overrides of minimum latency for 'lost packet' calculation, and for network buffer size.
• Added BufferSize to serveroverrides.ini, which sets the outgoing server buffer size. This buffer is per-client, and defaults to 2000000 (2 megabytes). Decreasing this may decrease latency. Increasing it may increase reliability.
• Added MinLatency to serveroverrides.ini, which sets the minimum threshold for which a packet is determined to be 'lost' - this defaults to 200. Increasing this number may give a slower gaming experience for clients, but should reduce the resends. If you are seeing players being kicked from your server, you can try increasing this. I would not recommend going above 1,000. Decreasing this number may cause large amounts of RAM bloating.
• Removed the HydroJet Cutter requirements from all recipes.
• Removed the Required Modules display from the crafting screen.
• Crafting Automation queue only appears when there's automation taking place.
• If the player has a suit heater, but has not progressed lower than -280m, they'll get a new mission : "Traverse the Cold Caverns"
• Left-Clicking the crafting ingredients now jumps you to the appropriate sub-craft, or opens the help file if it's not craftable. Middle-clicking continues to open the help.
• Accessing the handbook from within the crafting menu should now lock the mouse.
• The in-game menu should now pause the game. You have 29 days to find issues with this before it goes live. This is an utterly terrifying and wide-ranging change that affects many, many threads, and can potentially cause all sorts of horrific issues, but I've been hounded into it.
• ARTHER readout should now be configurable from all threads.
• Added CryoTube spawnable prefab for mod authors

[ 2016-12-01 18:26:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

It was all set for today, but, alas, it turns out that Todd and I broke the Suit Upgrade panel at the last moment. He's fixing that overnight, and I'll be making the builds tomorrow. Thank you for your patience! (If you're brave, you're welcome to opt into the Staging branch, there's only that single issue!) In the meantime, here is what google assures me is 'The best pic ever'

[ 2016-11-30 23:26:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

...if you stick a sign next to an Ore Extractor, you name it?

[ 2016-11-28 16:25:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mini patch 13.13a:

P13.13a - 1st November 2016

• Packet Loss is now calculated globally, not repeatedly
• Auto kick can't happen until at LEAST 1024 packets have been sent
• Tweaked the packet resend ack window to 220ms minimum; currently it behaves in a slightly odd way that will just go mental if the latency between client and server varies massively.
• Fixed auto excavator preview graphics
• Robot parts are now locked away behind robotics research
• Fixed confusing Geothermal UI when in rush mode.

Btw, for those of you asking for LAN play - that Just Works. By default, FC lists the external IP, as that's the one that's hard to get. If you want to join a LAN server, just add the local ip! http://www.helpfulpctools.com/HowToCheckYourLocalIP.php

[ 2016-11-01 14:19:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

So, lots of copies were sold in the Hallowe'en sales, but sadly, they were are 75% off. Feeling guilty about how cheap it was? Well, why not purchase all the DLC ;-) So, I noticed that we had a GREAT peak of 600 players on Sunday night, but that the sale purchases aren't in line with that. The conclusion is that people like buying games a lore more than they like playing them - I was then asked if I could track that, and why yes, yes I can!

• 82.9% of purchasers have managed to run the game.
• 82.8% of people have managed to leave the main menu.
• 30% of players have never entered survival mode.
• 50% of players have never extracted a single ore (yes, 20% of players have basically just entered survival mode, looked at trees or the sky or something, and then quit)
• 3% MORE players have located the build gun than extracted any more - I suspect down to button mashing.
• 42% of players have died in game.
• 16.6% of players have made it out of the initial Tier-1 area, by fitting a suit heater.
• 15% of people have managed to build automated defences of some sort.
• 6% of players have joined a multiplayer world.
• 1.5% of players have downloaded a mod.

That means that 83.4% of players haven't fitted the suit heater. Let that sink in. 64 lithium bars and some pretty easy research.

This leads me to remind myself that I need to not forget the start game, the UI, the guiding of new players.

When I see complaints on the forum that "We don't need handholding, the missions tell me what to do, this is a sandbox, I should be able to do what I want, it's obvious, it's easy", remember that over EIGHTY PERCENT of players haven't hit T2 - something that you can manage in about 5 hours in normal play, and probably 2-3 hours in Rapid mode!

[ 2016-11-01 11:54:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Rather like rain on your wedding day, the big-ass halloween patch is number 13. Wait. The opposite of that. So, this has been an interesting month, due in large part to my family-related absence last month. Work has been split between the next DLC and further free machines (Despite one horrible negative review saying that everything new requires DLC purchase THIS IS NOT TRUE!) So, as ever, I'll apologise that this patch is a bit smaller than normal, but in my defence, I only had 3 weeks *and* my house and cats were in dire need of my attention after so many weeks away!

New stuff!

• Moved to latest Unity version, potentially fixing Instanced Rendering problems, other performance improvements.
• Suit Inventory Panel now available - press S to use it.
  
• Added T3 Fuel Compressor; uses a LOT of a coal and just a little HEFC to produce High Octane Fuel.
• Added SLODRS. Yes, it's pronounceable. This is the Surface-Launched Orbital Debris Retrieval System; using T3 level mats, you'll be able to purposely knock down DeOrbit containers and gain RP. I expect to scale up this system in the future to allow 'requesting' of certain rare things. This also gives an excellent way to allow new materials to be introduced without forcing new worlds.
• Renamed SLODRS to HODOR after a long talk with the Discord.
• Added Rocketry research for the new The High Orbital Debris Object Reclaimer (or H.O.D.O.R.) and Fuel Compressor.
  
• Added Robotics and Rocketry research, all hidden away nicely if you don't have access to 'em!
• Moved HODOR and Fuel Compressor into the Progression category (for now - I think we need a new row of these things now)
• Fuel Compressors now treat Coal, Enriched Coal and Infused Coal as the same thing.

Improvements!

• All Crystal Veins are now 33% richer. They are 100% richer on Easy resources and 200% richer on Rapid mode. (this will only affect new worlds, or new areas in existing worlds)
• Quality of life change : Coal will no longer pointlessly spawn below the cold cavern. (this will only affect new worlds, or new areas in existing worlds)
• Resin Ablators and Resin Liquifier now support Freezon Injections, giving these machines a 4x boost in their work rate.
• Moved Freezon Injectors to their own research; this is available much sooner in progression than previously. Remember; Freezon-boosted Lancers are *27* times better than regular ones!
• Fixed a number of particle effects.
• Iron Man will now wipe your suit upgrades
• Clumsy will now drop your suit upgrades
• Verified that Conveyor Mission cannot play sound effect repeatedly.
• Added HODOR sounds
• Added Suit Upgrade panel readouts
• Hard Rock Grinders should no longer end up not working under any known circumstance
• Added a fix to for a codepath where Grinders would end up with NULL cube type; improved logging.
• Moved to a new smoke rendering system. (old one is on the left)
  
• Updated crashed ship smoke (remember it disappears after a while)
  
• Fixed an immediate crash when the debug menu was open.
• Tweaked HBAO to be a bit broader and less intense
• Linked up Mutators menu
• Optimised the front end a bit - includes a small fix to stop computers running the front end at 900 fps.
• Fixed UI recalculate error on startup
• Improved CPH solar panels - I didn't spot any flips or jiggling, but let me know if you do.
• Critters no longer spawn on headless servers (they'll be back once they work and the expansion is released!)
• Bottling plant description is now consistent
• Toxic Damage is applied more sensibly and consistently, and the toxic tick no longer happens during the grace period, and it's reset.
• Trencher Heads and Motors now have first-pass holobase graphics.
• Gas Storage has appropriate holobase colour
• CCB has holobase graphic
• Particulate Filters now have a holographic of the right size.
• Reduced Liquified Resin costs of Hard Rock Grinder.
• Lancers and Melters are no longer silent.
• Inferno turret reduces from 30 minutes to 15, to match the help files!
• Fixed ARTHER's red Nav light accidentally being too bright.
• Increased audio drop off of Melters and Lancers.
• Fixed a really weird internal Unity error causing crashes.
• Arther Nav Light now reacts appropriately to light/dark places instead of just being far too bright all the time.
• Midday sun is now brighter and more cheerful.
• Hopper UI should now visually update when remotely updated
• Hopper UI Drag and Drop should now work better
• Fixed a number of object's instancing usage, to reduce shader overhead.
• Stripped out a number of shaders to reduce shader keyword usage. Ugh.
• Fixed a race condition that could cause the amusing "Error, can't load a null segment - the hell you doing?" error.
• Moved CryoBomb Assembler to Defences
• Moved Organic Recombinator to Logistics
• Rocket Parts are now all correctly mapped
• Fixed issue where Overminds had the wrong hitbox when dead.
• Ablated and Hardened Resin are no longer placeable.
• MagmaBore Doors are no longer invisible
• Fixed MagmaBore gantry and arm textures.
• Fixed rare exit race condition, added a catch to all dirty selects
• CryoHoppers no longer appear under Consumables (oops)
• Fixed clamped UV on Ore Ping.

Networking!

• Fixed RCON protocol
• Added an explicit null terminator to the returned RCON body string.
• Added player ranking to /report on dedicated servers
• Newly joining players have their rank displayed, and a handy hint on promotion for newbie server operators.
• Guests can no longer spam glowsticks.
• Guests can no longer delete things locally.
• Guests can no longer superdig locally.
• Removed Multiplayer DLC message, replaced with "You should do a cache verify as that's pretty much the only reason you'll be seeing this message!" message.
• Item Injectors will no longer give items to Guests
• Global addition to disallow interaction and building by Guests. This should disallow all actions, including opening and emptying hoppers, and adding ores and removing bars from smelters.
• Guests can no longer affect, move, drop or collect items.
• AutoPause servers no longer panic you by worrying about not saving (an asleep server doesn't need to save!)
• Suit Upgrade panel now transmitted to clients on joining.
• Private servers now pass up the number of players and capacity to a private server - this lets me understand how many people are running servers, and what capacity there is. Nothing identifiable is transmitted, no records kept, and your unique ID is just a random number.
• Dedicated servers will receive a warning at 10% packet loss, and will now automatically kick players at 25% packet loss.
• Clients who are removed from the server for any reason should now see an improved message
• Fixed issue where dedicated server host didn't have the permissions to send messages.
• Added timestamps to a bunch of server messages
• Looked at Builder Permission code, some fixes there.
• Unique server ID for private server registration is now a hash, not a random number.
• RCON clients can now connect! Commands work!
• Thanks to CubeCoders.com for help their RCON code, as well as Ikiris and Skid for helping me work through the integration issues.
• You'll find a free RCON Client, PicoRCON, in Assets/Default/Tools. Tested as working with FC.

Halloween

[spoiler]

• Halloween-themed changes to the front end.
• Added the Witche's Cauldron. But she'll let you use it. This is a new aesthetic light; this is appropriate to the season, and requires the Dapper DLC, as do all 4th-wall breaking lights.
• Added a Halloween aesthetics research
• Ghosttrain Tour Carts, Pumpkins and Cauldrons now easily accessible via this research.
• Added 4 ARTHER masks and an ARTHER ghost costume!
• All halloween parts should now have icons.

[/spoiler]

Bug fixes!

• Major Fix! Trenchers accidentally capped ore richness to 900, but high tier ores could actually have much higher ore values. This should now be about 30% richer on normal difficulties, and 285% of their previous richness value on Easy Resources.
• Fixed Geothermal UI readout.
• Magma Bores and Particle Filters can now be connected starting with bent pipes
• Fixed Linux chat system

Patreon-only stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2pThQwixFc Note - anything on this list is only available (currently) to Patreons - this stuff will eventually be available as part of the Adventures Pack DLC!

• Worked out a way to hide research for expansion packs o/
• Fixed issue where robots had to be at a very weird set of coordinates to be able to use Storage Hoppers.
• Implemented Coppator, Tindron, Bronzite and Ironide Bodies + Assemblers for them.
• ConstructoBot Tiers are now serialised.
• Added Arm, Leg and Chassis crafting machines for T0 ConstructoBots
• Made a recipe to construct a constructobot construction machine.
• Critters can no longer spawn during exit conditions (oops)
• Added Constructor Bot Assembler, and a Head, Leg and Arm Constructor for them.
• Tweaked a number of ConstructoBot (CB) emission maps
• CB Assemblers now build the correct robot out of the input arm/leg/body
• All CB machines should now be craftable. Go wild!
• Added CB sprayer, improved serialisation.
• Added CB Cold Sprayer, allowing them to work in the Cold Caverns.
• Added 'Low Power' CB direction tracks
• Robots! (Currently Patreon-only, will end up as part of the Adventures Pack - feed a tin bar into a Minecart Depot to spawn a random Robot. They can collect things from Storage Hoppers. These are likely to change a lot over the next few days!)
• Absolutely tons and tons of work and research on the new critter and robot system

Modding

• Some fixes to cope with broken mods.
• Updated the modding document to support Generic Machine Panel UI changes.
• Added Generic Machine Panel UI support for mod machines
• Added generic rideable system for mod authors

And don't forget, I stream a huge amount of the FC development work, and usually, one of my cats joins in.
#cattax

[ 2016-10-28 10:02:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ok, so, I did a stupid thing and decided to be a smart-arse and make an automated build process, which almost literally took the entire day. BUT I believe that the Staging branch is updated with P13.13 for all platforms. Servers will go up soon. If you're brave (or stupid) and want to opt into the staging build and let me know how it's going, please do! If you're a sensible, patient, normal person, then it all should go live tomorrow!

[ 2016-10-27 19:43:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Today's Deal: Save 75% on FortressCraft Evolved!!*

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

*Offer ends Tuesday at 10AM Pacific Time

[ 2016-10-27 17:00:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Remember, if you feel like testing it in advance and giving feedback, here's the thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/350540780275928225/?ctp=6 And if you just want a picture of what's new, then this is for you :

[ 2016-10-25 11:09:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Remember, I stream development of FortressCraft from Mon-Thu over on the PG youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ProjectorGames/live (Fridays are of course non-FortressCraft days - if you're curious to see what else I'm upto, that's the day to mosey along) Patch 13 is scheduled to drop next Thursday/Friday, and should contain shiny new graphics and bug fixes for all o/

[ 2016-10-19 19:16:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Come keep me company for a few more hours, and look at the fabulous new Construct-o-Bots, destined to arrive in the Adventures Pack! https://www.youtube.com/user/ProjectorGames/live

[ 2016-10-16 14:07:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

I generally work 5 days on FortressCraft, then one day on non-FC stuff, then I attempt to have a day off, which almost entirely fails and I end up working. But if you're Interested in seeing I'm upto on the non-FortressCraft day, head over here for the next few hours: https://www.youtube.com/user/ProjectorGames/live

[ 2016-10-14 12:28:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Run one? Read this. Don't? Well, go google "cute kittens" instead. I really need some feedback on this, as it's not something I can easily check. Until now, the Linux Dedicated server has needed all sorts of faffing about with X-11 and... stuff. I've just uploaded a snapshot of the latest codebase into the Tool, and added a new branch there called linux_server_headless - this has had the Unity option 'headless mode' ticked, which should remove all of the X-11 dependencies. If anyone has the necessary setup to download this branch (remember, it's AppID 443600 ) and let me know how it's behaving!

[ 2016-10-06 09:25:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

The casts are off! Here's a picture of my mum having her cast removed :
I've now got a 5-6 hour bike ride ahea of me; I suspect it's going to take me half a week to recover, catch up and tell the cats that I've missed them, so I hope to start having all the cobwebs removed and things rolling against by Thursday! Thank you all for your kind words and patience - I've bought mum a number of motion-activated LED nightlights, so there will be NO falling down the stairs again! <3 you all.

[ 2016-10-02 10:24:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

I'm still stuck down in the deepest, darkest depths of rural Cornwall - I'm not joking, my nearest Pokestop is about 7 miles away - and I'm itching to get back. Sadly, mum's casts don't come off until next week, so I'm stuck here until probably early October! Thank you for your kind messages - for those of you who cheerfully said "Don't worry, at least nothing was broken!", then I'm sorry to say that she actually broke 4 bones. My first focus will be getting a quick patch out with a bunch of fixes for dedicated/permission based servers, and then get on to the Adventures Pack and the Critter hunting minigame! I've been on the Discord on my phone, but the internet here isn't close enough to fast enough to achieve much else!

[ 2016-09-21 11:05:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

I try, wherever possible, to keep my personal and work lives separate. Unfortunately, I'm unable to do so this time. My mother has managed to fall down the stairs and needs caring - she lives half the country away from me, in a rural area. I'll be heading down to look after her, but could be gone for 3-6 weeks. Worst of all, there's LITERALLY no internet there - I'll just about have GPRS on my phone! I should be able to appear on the forum and the discord, but the chances of uploading builds are virtually zero - I'll have a laptop with me, of course! If you haven't joined the discord yet, it's a /great/ place to chat with other FC people, and I'm always there on my phone, along with some actual nice helpful people as well! https://discord.gg/advmf8S Thank you all for your understanding, and I'll keep you posted as to news and progress!

[ 2016-09-05 10:00:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 12! Since FortressCraft left Early Access, there have now been 12 major content patches. This one is perhaps the smallest, but has a huge amount of underlying tech changes. I'm genuinely sad to say that there's no new machines in this patch - but read to the end for a little gift that should make almost everyone happy! The two major foci of this patch have been performance (yeah - again!) and networking.

Performance

I've now ported the game to Unity 5.4 This introduces a number of engine improvements, including vastly improve thread usage for lighting and culling - this alone could see a huge performance boost on computers with a relatively weak CPUs. On top of that, I've spent a huge chunk of time implementing a technique known as Instanced Rendering. This is one we used extensively on FortressCraft on the Xbox, and Unity 5.4 finally gives me access to this! Simply put, in Unity 5.3, I had to do thousands of "Draw an ingot here, draw an ingot here, draw an ingot here" With Instanced Rendering, all of those individual calls are turned into a single "Draw 3 ingots here, here and here" I've expanded this paradigm, so every single ingot you see here in this picture is done in a single draw call!
This has reduced the number of drawcalls in my test scene from well over 9,000 to less than a thousand. This has effective trebled my framerate in a busy base - let me know how it does for you! Fingers crossed that moving to Unity 5.4 hasn't introduced any NEW issues but... well, we'll see!

Networking

Despite being asked on a daily basis when multiplayer will be added, it's been working since about October 2015. This patch gives a bunch of new tools for dedicated servers. If you just join them, then the main thing you should notice is that network players firing glowsticks should now sync up - I didn't get a chance to sync grappling hooks and plasma cannons, but the infrastructure is there to expand it. Full RCON Support Specifically designed for Linux Dedicated servers, FortressCraft now supports the industry-standard RCON protocol. Once connected, you can use any of the existing server commands.

• Quit
• Rate
• Chat
• InventorySearch
• QuietSearch
• Inventory
• Report
• Mobs
• Items

Fully configurable servers Added support for FIRSTRUN.INI and SERVEROVERRIDES.INI. There's 2 files used to configure Dedicated Servers. Both of them live in the server executable folder, so they are per-instance, if you decided to run more than 1 server on a given computer. The game ships with a pair of example files that should be reasonably straightforwards. These files are NOT accessible when using a professionally-hosted server, and are expected to be written to and generated by the hosting company. FIRSTRUN.INI contains server name, difficulty and other single-use settings. Edit this file and then run the server to configure your world. THESE SETTINGS ARE NOT CHANGEABLE. SERVEROVERRIDES.INI allows you to uniquely override the server settings on a per-instance basis. This includes RCON port and password, server port and maximum players. These are designed for the hosting company to configure. Dedicated servers cannot alter the MAXPLAYERS except by editing this file. Both of these files can be located in the Default folder.

Public servers!

A trio of changes have happened here; the first person to join a fresh dedicated server will be marked as the Admin of that server; that admin can then promote people; Guests can only view, Builders can Build (and delete, and place explosives... be careful), and Admins can promote. If you just want to go back to previous patch's behaviour then use /autopromote command. Once you've configured your admins and builders, you can bravely use SetPublic - this will list your server PUBLICALLY for EVERY FortressCraft player to see. I've had very little feedback or testing on this, despite it being implemented a few weeks ago - please backup your world regularly, and treat the SetPublic command as really dangerous to use - it will leave your IP public and there is every chance that people can grief your world. I have put both client and server protection about doing this, but people can be sneaky buggers. Be careful out there! I've also added support for steam:// and +join - this should allow people to scrape the server list and make clickable join links. steam://254200%20+join%20123.123.123.123:12345;

Balance changes

I have been listening to players (NOTE : CONSTRUCTIVE AND USEFUL FEEDBACK ALWAYS WELCOME!) regarding balance and play issues, and these are the relevant crib notes:

• Massively reduced cost of all Particle system components apart from Filter.
• Increased cost of Filter.
• These two changes should make it a 'bit' more expensive for a full multi-filter setup, but way cheaper for your first one. It's still the most efficient to have 16 filters -> 4 compressors -> 1 storage.
• Greatly reduced cost of Hard Rock Grinders.
• Geothermal build cost reduced to 80% of previous. The cost of heat pipes remains the same.

And, courtesy of Steveman0
Storage Hoppers now have a full UI. Remember we've got a workshop, and there's more and more mods appearing there! http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=254200&browsesort=trend§ion=readytouseitems 50 mods and counting!

Next Month!

Along with the usual slew of new machines, features, optimisations, balancing and feartures, I'll be starting to delve more seriously into the next DLC pack, tenatively entitled The Adventures Pack. Whilst the Frozen Factory extended the end-game, lots of people like to start new worlds. The Adventures Pack should give you new reasons to explore, new ways to tweak your worlds, and some... let's say interesting challenges. I'm hoping to get the Adventures Pack out within 2 months, but it could take as long as 4, dependings on what else ends up happening. Given that my job is full-time Indie dev, it can be remarkably unpredictable!

Known issues:

• HardRock Grinders that have only partially unloaded when the player quits will lose all non-offloaded ore.
• Grappling Hooks and player Laser shots aren't synced
• Typing /help/ as a client is just completely useless. Sorry.

And for the completionists amongst you:

Full notes

• Verified that Conveyor Mission cannot play sound effect repeatedly.
• Added server autojoining - by parsing the known server list, this means you can create a webpage with a clickable steam:// link - add "+join 123.123.123.123:12345;" as a launch parameter and the game will automatically try and join that server at startup.
• Fix to networked storage hopper interface
• Fix for crash in storage hopper interface
• Potential fix added for 'inventory duplication' on death in Clumsy mode.
• AutoPausing, Public. servers should now still register themselves with the central public server. BORED.
• AutoPause servers will now not awake when a client polls them for active player count - most important for public servers that will be polled a LOT. Cheers to Tarakesh for this one!
• Fixes to public server advertising - things I regret doing, #1. This.
• Fixes to storage hopper windows
• Massively reduced cost of all Particle system components apart from Filter.
• Increased cost of Filter.
• These two changes should make it a 'bit' more expensive for a full multi-filter setup, but way cheaper for your first one. It's still the most efficient to have 16 filters -> 4 compressors -> 1 storage.
• Greatly reduced cost of Hard Rock Grinders.
• Geothermal build cost reduced to 80% of previous. The cost of heat pipes remains the same.
• Fixed Don't Eat The Paste achievement. Game is now complete again.
• Just click on this. Many thanks to Steveman0! https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cqio_9OWEAAfabh.jpg:large
• Added server environment overrides; used primarily for hosted servers, this means no messing with ini files.
• Located issue where packetloss wasn't calculated for release builds.
• Stored most recent sent/received packet time stamps.
• Tracked Ping and Pong counts
• Mismatched Pongs are now treated as valid instead of not resetting heartbeat timeout.
• Greatly improved timeout message.
• Fixed an issue where server time could go negative, which really... REALLY.. .messed things up.
• Added instanced rendering to holobase and pings. Holobase instancing seems to be completely unreliable however. I have let Unity know.
• RCON passwords no longer are forced to lowercase.
• Fixed console spam and made ServerConsole messages correctly predicated.
• Added public servers! (you'll see them after your manually added servers)
• Added server console command setpublic
• Linux dedicated server support. Interface is ONLY via RCON. Untested. Quite a lot of code tho. Uh, lemme know!
• Fixes to a number of permission issues.
• This month is really boring.
• More work on permissions, RCON, dedicated servers and other tedious shennanigans
• Network servers should no longer get player's helmets and gender mixed up. Really.
• Dedicated Server uptime should work again. I broke it when optimising... something.
• AutoPausing Dedicated Servers should now unpause correctly
• [Patreon]Critters should no longer spawn inside heat conductant pipes, casting pipes or mass storage. This change also affects WorkFloor Excavators, which will no longer wipe out mass storage. Surprised no-one noticed that one!
• Ore Extractors now give Holobase Info in handbook.
• Refineries now give a description of their current recipe.
• Wrote a complete 'high frequency' network system
• Implemented networked GlowSticks via this syste,
• Improved Packet Loss readout to no longer list NaN - it'll just list that no packets have successfully left the Winsock Stack.
• Added Admin and Builder permissions; the first player to join a fresh Dedicated Server becomes the Admin. He must then promote players to Builders. Non-Builders cannot interact with the server in any fashion at all, apart from walking around. And looking.
• Only Builders and Admins can issue Build commands or Interface commands.
• All world modulation commands are now accessible to Admins only. This should include Admin/Builder/Whitelist promotion.
• Added AutoPromote command - this will automatically promotes all new clients to Builder.
• [Experimental]Added AutoPause command - this will automatically pause server simulation when there's no clients on there. I may consider extending this to drop all active segments and save ram.
• Rush Mode mission is now silent
• Added HELP to Dedicated Server command list, which lists all the other commands/
• Added RCON support for remotely administering Dedicated Servers. This should mean that Linux servers 'just work' now. I'm sure someone will write a specific RCON client, but until then, I've been using this : http://spelsajten.net/webrcon/
• RCON commands use all normal Dedicated Server commands.
• Added support for FIRSTRUN.INI and SERVEROVERRIDES.INI. There's 2 files used to configure Dedicated Servers. Both of them live in the server executable folder, so they are per-instance, if you decided to run more than 1 server on a given computer. The game ships with a pair of example files that should be reasonably straightforwards. These files are NOT accessible when using a professionally-hosted server, and are expected to be written to and generated by the hosting company. FIRSTRUN.INI contains server name, difficulty and other single-use settings. Edit this file and then run the server to configure your world. THESE SETTINGS ARE NOT CHANGEABLE. SERVEROVERRIDES.INI allows you to uniquely override the server settings on a per-instance basis. This includes RCON port and password, server port and maximum players. These are designed for the hosting company to configure. Dedicated servers cannot alter the MAXPLAYERS except by editing this file. Both of these files can be located in the Default folder.

Critters should correctly spawn all types. Have fun hunting down that rare Generic06!

Critters should no longer be collectable OR MACERATABLE DEAR GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

Trenchers that go OOP can no longer get stuck there

Removed the horrible Unity splash screen

Tweaked HBAO max distance

Fixed known issues with battery powerbars becoming crazy-bloomy

Fixed issues with Ini files filling up with crap.

Dedicated Servers are no longer forced to hardest mode, but instead obey the firstrun.ini located in Default folder underneath the executable. Tweak this to your heart's content before running a server for the first time. I will be adding per-server overrides next week, so you can have per-instance ports and world load preference

Increased power usage of ARC Smelters. Again.

Most plants now use an instanced shader for much more performance

Improved Frozen Factory Research help page. This should now guide players into the first machines they need.

Large Scale Vein Extraction is no longer available to the player until they have successfully used the Hard Rock Grinder.

Solar Panels are now instanced and should run much nicer.

Fixed many more broken particle systems.

All non-cube conveyor items now use instancing.

You can now unlock Whole Lotta Nope! as a network client

Patrons should now see Critters.

Improved Trencher readout when network client and out of power.

Massive rendering overhaul reducing drawcalls to about 1/4 of what was previous.

Cubes on conveyors, solar panels, lasers, bugs and torches are still NOT instanced, and there is more performance to gain there.

Lots of fixes to various particle emitters - let me know if you see particles just repeatedly animating on the spot. This is a unity bug I'm having to work around

Moved to Unity 5.4

Fixed BuildGuide particles

Fixed issue where ZipperMerges didn't bother to wait for CargoConversion.

A huge amount of Instanced Rendering additions

[ 2016-08-31 17:11:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

...the game has gotten so popular that I can't keep up with all the forum posts. I'll continue to do my best, but I'd need to spend half of my working day reading and reacting to posts on the forum, and I need to get these dedicated/hosted server bugs fixed! Thank you so much for continuing to play and promote my game - we hit a new record average number of players last months! ːpcraceː -DjArcas

[ 2016-08-15 11:00:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 11 This is the first major mainline patch since the Frozen Factory was released. Primary focus has been on balancing, optimisation and new features. Er. Just like all the patches then. I'd like to take this opportunity to say - All Achievements are now implemented and can be obtained. The game is now complete. Thank you. Next month's free content patch will primarily focus on performance with the new Unity 5.4 and Server permissions.

Remember - Completed is not the same as Abandoned!

Sorry the patch notes are a bit short - it's only been two weeks since the last patch.

What's new

• Official DLL and XML Mod Support via Steam Workshop!
• Added Horizon-Based Ambient Occlusion for people playing at Good quality and above.
  
• Added mid-T2 machine; the Laser Borer. Capable of making a shaft to the Cold Cavern in a few seconds, this re-usable machine is powered by HEFC.
• Added Organic Thief - this will automatically removed Ruined Parts from your inventory. It's highly recommended that you connect this straight to a CryoHopper and on to an Organic Reassembler.
• Added a Waypoint machine. Place this down and give it a tiny trickle of power to have waypoints in your world! If you put it down next to an Ore Vein, it'll automatically name itself, otherwise, pop a sign next to it to name it.
• Added Cluster Missiles; these missiles fire 4x quicker than Imbued, but only do 25% of the damage. However! They can target Heavies, due to their relatively small payload, and 8 of them are crafted from 1x Imbued Missile. They also look sweet. (Red White and Blue colouring is available to Dapper owners only)
  
• Added 'Video Tutorials' section to the handbook.
  
• Added Fast Zipper Merge
• Added 3'n1 Zipper Merge, which merges in the order Right Right Right Left - perfect for Research Assemblers.
• Much improved AFK cam, capable of following along conveyor belts - use it near a deep Ore Extractor!
• The final 2 achievements are finally implemented. By all definitions, the game is now complete. Go crazy!
• Signs placed next to Ore Extractors will give unique names when mission readouts refer to that machine. A picture may help.
  
• Added NanoDisintegrator. Place down, and after 5 seconds, it will remove a 3x3x3 area underneath it. It can be placed on walls and ceilings, and it can be used to make flat T4 ore spots, and to dig holes into Hardened Resin.
• Completely redid surface fog.
• ARTHER will now acknowledge Go Away/Come Here TAB commands
• Superbuild works for /yourcraft mode
• Added help/handbook entries for most early T4 machines.
• Added Mass Storage colouring
  
• Enriched and Infused Coal now have unique textures
  
• MagmaBore has been visually reworked. PS that's 80 metres tall
  
• Added SearchInventory command that does exactly the same as InventorySearch

Casual mode has been renamed to Rapid mode

You'll have a huge amount of incoming resources, allowing you to experiment and make mistakes without setting you back many hours. Here's a (current) comprehensive list of the Rapid Mode differences:

• CPH generates twice as much power
• MK3 Lasers do double damage
• Research Assemblers are 3x faster (thus using up 33% of the power)
• Laboratories are twice as fast (thus using up 50% of the power)
• Geothermals generate twice as much power
• All Generic AutoCrafters work twice as fast
• Conduits have doubled throughput.
• Particulate Systems generate 8x as much resource; you don't need multiple ones.
• Logistics and MiniHoppers are twice as fast (30 and 4 items per minute, respectively)
• Ore Smelters take only 66% of the usual smelt time
• It's only 2 ore per bar!
• Ore Extractors generate twice as much ore as Easy mode.
• Cargo Lifts are twice as fast and carry twice as much

I highly recommend that new players, parents, people with fulltime jobs, impatient people and streamers play through to at least the OET level on Rapid before getting onto any harder difficulties! If you want to polish off the game in a weekend of hard play, then this is the mode for you. To make things clearer, I've also added a 'par' system to the main menu. This should give at least a rough idea of how long a given gamemode is expected to play through. Much like par in golf, however, this is for people who can actually play golf. Me, I see a par 3 and I'd be lucky to make the ball get in the hole in less than 50 whacks with the whacky golf stick. I don't play golf. But these par times are for someone who has a reasonable grasp of computer games, and follows the mission, without getting TOO distracted. FortressCraft is a game of a million distractions, I find. (Getting distracted a lot? Why not Middle Click on a Blueprint in the Manufacturing Plant to add a reminder?) Hopefully, tho, this should reduce the number of people cranking the difficulty up and going "Why is everything taking so long?"

Tweaks and Balance

• Tweaked GeoThermal power input to scale better across modes and difficultes (values are approximate due to thermal difference, and are given for a full-extend geothermal with active Freezon boost; all other factors scale as below) Rush = 25,000 PPS Casual = 10,000 PPS Easy = 5,000 PPS Scarce = 2,500 PPS
• textureres variable in settings.ini works again - set to 3 for low memory PCs!
• Massively increased the spawn and steal rate of Mynocks in Trivial Mobs difficulty. People were finding it impossible to grow hives! Mynocks should spawn approximately every 45 minutes on Trivial, and can steal 1 item per 30 seconds (down from 2 hours/6 minute, respectively)
• Basic Smelters use up slightly more power
• Basic Smelters had their efficiency reduced from 50% to 25%
• Basic Smelters are now twice as fast as they were
• MK1 Trenchers are now only 5% efficient on T4 ores. MK2 are now 25% efficient and MK3 100% efficient. Using them on T1 materials confers a further 75% bonus (80/100/100), T2 materials get a 62.5% bonus (67.5%, 87.5%/100%) and T3 materials get +50% for 55%/80%/100%.
• Further improvements and balance to the Magma Bore; this is now pegged at 100k PPS minimum.

Modding

• Official DLL and XML Mod Support via Steam Workshop!
• Fixed modded mobs import issue
• Allowed modders to re-use Minecart graphics
• ResearchAssembler::mTargetCreation is now public
• Full integrated workshop support
• 59 pages of modding documentation.

Little fixes and improvements

Iron bars in Mass Storage are much redder

Mass Storage Ports + Drones now obey segment vis

Increased Ooze update rate

Pushed MK2 lasers until after the player has actually seen the mats to make them

Fixed Hardened and Advanced block manufacturer graphics

New magma bore textures

Fix to SuperBuild mission

Drop rate bug with Deorbit containers now fixed

Fixed more Unknown Material issues; pipes should no longer appear this way.

Fixed Race condition that could cause the player suit power to drop when the Mk2 battery is fitted

Lots of Magma Bore polish - new graphics, new audio, new info, new 'why am I blocked' stuff

Added Magma Bore handbook entry.

Reduced cost of Charged Explosives to 128 resin.

Added a bunch more handbook entries courtesy of Taboo Raver

ARTHER now tells you if you turn music on or off.

Cargo Lifts are twice as fast and carry twice as much in Casual mode. You probably won't need to bother with more than 1.

Workfloor Excavators don't take out Minecart tracks anymore. Sorry!

Some nice CPU optimisations.

Shaved 0.5ms off of the mission introspection code.

Removed a significant amount of dictionary calling time for the Torch light code.(0.6ms)

Minor performance boost to oozes; they also shouldn't consume too much CPU time when the game is running at a lower framerate.(0.7ms)

Minor performance boost to weapon selection systems(0.1ms)

Improved CPU Usage of Rotation Script to pay attention to the Segment visibility (0.5ms)

Total savings : 1-2ms regardless of base size (equating to a potential 30+ fps boost, depending on relative GPU/CPU balance)

Mission system will no longer bug the player to have an OET live when there's a C5 active.

Breaking a Grinder should no longer result in you losing 1/9th of it.

Nano Disintegrators will no longer convert Air into Rubble

Laser Impact Particles now obey segment vis

Fixed issue where Hard Rock Grinder failed to page in segments correctly - this could have lead to all sort of weirdnesses.

Auto Upgrader now lists current power.

Auto Upgrader now uses 1/4 of it's previous power.

Fixed minor BFL exploit

Missions now work for Mobs and Minecarts

Some Ore Extractor missions no longer pester you after building Trenchers.

Secret. Why not press H and check out the new Video Tutorial section?

Added Build2Me mission for players who haven't build 100 blocks!

Reduced RP cost of Manufacturing Plant.

Fixed issue where the Lab popup text flickered as network clients.

Basic Smelters are now 30% faster

Organic Rock chance from Nukers increased from 1% to 3%

Multiple Tunnel Nukers can now spawn whilst your base threat is low, increasing the chance of plenty of Soft Resin and Organic Rock, and also increase the chances that attacking wasps will vector over a sensible path.

Crashes shold now list the callstack of the crash, not the callstack of the crash handler

Enqueing missions should now work from any thread

Missions added on the first frame will no longer crash, but will defer instead

Tweaked Critical mission time for normal difficulty up, reduced it for Casual.

Changed loading/saving priority for segments, meaning that bases should load faster after a game restart.

Power panel now displays during Battery and Extractor Charge tutorial stages

Player can no longer get stuck during tutorial due to suit power being full up

Player can no longer get stuck during tutorial due to CPH being full on power

Player can no longer die from Hypothermia during the tutorial

ARTHER should no longer bug you about the power core after it's fitted, during the tutorial

Added some intro text so people will stop thinking it's a cinematic. It's not. It's a bloody loading screen! Unskippable cinematics can DIAF.

Spent the entire afternoon on loading polish.

Added Default/Loading Screens

[Tutorial]Explained PSB text in subtitle : "Power Storage Blocks (PSBS) are the main method of storing power."

[Tutorial]CPH will no longer show bottom-left popup text during the critical parts of the tutorial, reducing the amount of text on screen, as it was confusing people.

Reduced power booster cost of Booster Chargers from 32 to 8

Players should no longer suffer from ? when referring to blocks

/YourCraft mode now works for SuperBuild

Research Assembler has a purty glow

Fixed issue where teleporting could cause a machine to think you're still close by.

Generic AutoCrafters now have their particles modulated by framerate; this should help performance

Dead overminds should be very obviously actually dead.

Added a mission feedback for minecarts derailing - no more suprises!

Note : CryoPlasm can cause Minecarts to derail

Fixed missions in Rush mode

Fixed confusion when missions were disabled

Imbued Machine blocks now require 3 Advanced Machine Blocks (up from 1), but craft 3 at a time. They still need a single MK5 power booster. Another perfect use for the 3'n'1 Merger!

Generic Auto Crafters can now hand off multiple items to a single conveyor belt

Dapper Owners will get a FREE visual upgrade to the Cluster Missiles.

FALCOR Bombers now give better offline message, and also should stagger their damage better across CryoPlasm.

TechAxes and ARTHER Dapper parameters are now synchronised for network players.

Improved Load times of Overminds, C5, and various other multiblock machines.

Improved Load times across the board; analysed further areas for improvement.

Further fixes to logging spam and Load times

Fixed PTG mission not to say 'FG'

Fast Zipper Merge should now be craftable.

Couple of exploits fixed, ty Somon!

Fixed 3'n'1 Zipper description to be correct ; it's RRR L!

Rush mode now correctly activates Care Package

Rush Mode now correctly activates Casual mode (double speed assemly machines, etc)

Fixed HEIST collection graphics

Fixed a particularly brilliant misuse of a machine. Nice one. No it's not going to stay. But nice.

Fixed storage crate UI issues

Fixed an issue where missions could accidentally trigger the OH WELL DONE sound effect, if the framerate was particularly low.

Fixed responsiveness of Vsync and Target Frame Rate modulation

Fixed a number of potential Frustum memory leaks.

Fixed exploit with Cargo Lifts.

Removed archaic snow particles

Reworked Snow Mist to render in the correct order; lasers (etc) should now no longer appear behind the snow

Flickering mist/snow - fixed...?

Optional Missions no longer turn 'critical' and flash

Fixed crazy basic laser transmitters!

Conduits should always drop 9 items when destroyed, not 9-or-10

Chromed Machine Blocks now use more Chrome

Magnet Machine Blocks now use more Molybdenum

Fixed crash with null LoadSegment

Mission system will cease warning you about offline PTGs when you have Solar and/or Jet Turbines

Killing CryoSpawners should cause players to correctly unlock FlatLand.

Transport Pipes now use 3 Hardened Machine Blocks instead of Nickel + Titanium Bars. This should help players understand about crafting intermediary blocks much sooner.

Transport Pipes now require Alloys research.

Explosives now requires Refined Liquid Resin. It's suggested that a player will now use a combination of Nano Disintegration and Resin Handling in order to deal with Hiveminds. Once you get access to the soft core, explosives will do just fine to clear up the infestation.

Creep Inferno now marked as a multiblock machine

Fixed an issue where the Gas Storage might lose pressure when connected to a Gas Bottler.

Added some specific Mission audio

Tweaked a number of missions based on watching streams

Removed Q and E prompt when >100% threat

Removed incorrect E prompt from Storage Hoppers

Added /missions to toggle all missions. Requested by the community, but NOT RECOMMENDED.

Crafting Panel now shows current category

Removed some server spam

Added SCT to Automated Smelters for new bases

Tweaked specular on the Ore Scanner, to hopefully be more readable.

Made timed-out critical/progression missions significantly more flashy and in-your-face. If it's flashing, you really should deal with it! (this isn't stuff like "Ore Extractor Offline", this is progression, BLOODY WELL DO IT FFS AND STOP IGNORING ME type missions)

Missions when on Greg difficulty give a huge amount longer amount of time to complete before prodding you.

Fixed Audio Spatialisation on PSBs

AFK mode should no longer drop you into the cold cave with 0 power

Reinforced Wood uses up Construction Paste.

CPH/Charge health should be back

CPH/Charge should disappear when all surface attacks are cleared

Calmers can now be used when a C5 has been built AS LONG AS the C5 has not been powered up.

Care Package should no longer become 'unresearched' on a restart (I think! Lemme know if this doesn't work)

Care Package now available to Patreons

Added T4 mission for scanning T4 ores, if you have the Frozen Factory Expansion Pack installed.

Added audio reward for completing critical missions. GO YOU! ANNE PERKINS!

Altered CryoPlasm spawning behaviour; it should now be much more consistent across worlds. There's just 2... slight problems. 1) If you have an existing world with CryoPlasm, the CryoPlasm might just simply not work well, and be no threat at all. 2) If you have an existing world with CryoPlasm, it might spawn in upto 8 new spawners, and be really quite hard. This is unpredictable, and is based on the vertical placement of your C5.

Increased CryoPlasm loop rate; hardcap is 8x higher too

CryoPlasm is now much keener to cut through soft rock

Vsync should save and load correctly now

Workfloor excavators no longer do Bad Things to Cargo Lift Rack Rails

SpiderBot power readout can no longer stack with the upgrade requsts

SpiderBot weapons should do significantly less damage to the ground now.

SpiderBot will now remain significantly closer to your CPH during combat - it was within range of a FALCOR setup anyways, but this should hopefully alleviate a number of people's complaints.

Space Window should drop Paste now

Workfloor Exacavators should no longer break any sort of pipe

Fixed an issue where HoloHoppers appeared next to Smelters - rotating the Smelter will usually fix this for now tho.

Fixed Lancer warning when C5 is offline/underpowered.

You'll no longer be harrassed about SpiderBot Cannons before you can make 'em

Induction Charger is no longer placeholder!

Iron-based missions no longer trigger until you've automated your smelter

Other mission-related tweaks to avoid confusing new players

Added Mission related to Orbital Debris

Fixed debounce with music; both LEFT and RIGHT control now toggle the music with Ctrl-M

Implemented a completely new music system. All the old music is gone. If you want it, it's available on iTunes, Zune and Google Music. All the money goes to the musician.

Conduits and Trenchers will now work on non-dedicated servers.

[ 2016-07-30 14:59:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Due to the art being a tad late and a few last-minute bugs, I'll be pushing the patch live first thing Saturday morning! <3

[ 2016-07-29 23:48:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Best way to make sure I know of any of your 'favourite' issues is live : https://www.youtube.com/user/ProjectorGames/live

[ 2016-07-27 08:59:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Global Orbital Energy Transmitters Charged : 1004 In fact you completely flew past it. You guys make me proud :>

[ 2016-07-24 20:26:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Remember, if you want to be a member of the super-exclusive sub-1k club, we're at a global total of 998 Orbital Energy Transmitters done! Who's gonna be the last 2?

[ 2016-07-24 16:39:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Total people who have charged their Orbital Energy Transmitters : 987 13 more to go! Can you do it this weekend? When we hit 1,000, I promise to make this shiny new feature live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8l_UFXOyZM And just for those of you who haven't been keeping up - the game has had Signs and working multiplayer for at least a year now. Here's the retrospective I published with the last patch:

Patch 2

• Organic Solar Panels
• Advanced Conveyor Filters
• Tunnel Nukers
• Threat Calmers and Agitators
• Conveyor Slopes
• Unity 4.6
• Polish and fixes!
• Organic Batteries

Patch 3

• Floating Combat Text
• Snowmen!
• CryoGenic hoppers and Organic Recombination
• Clumsy mode
• T0 LPTs
• Polish and fixes!
• Ore Extractor Auto upgrading of Drill Heads
• DLC #1 - The Dapper Pack

At this point, I'd kinda finished polishing the enormous amount of content available at release, and work began in earnest in moving the game forwards.

Patch 4

• T2 Ore Ping graphics
• MK4 and MK5 Induction Kits
• Motorised Conveyors
• Skins!
• Armour Piercing and Imbued missiles!
• Coal Enricher
• Plasma Imbued Cutter heads
• AFK Mode
• Dynamic texture loading
• Server Monitor
• Tactical View

Patch 5

• Moved to Unity 5
• Added threaded visbility
• These gave 40%-400% framerate boost!
• Minecarts!
• Signs!
• Zipper Merge!
• Overminds!
• Orbital Strike Controllers!
• DLC #2 - The Skin Pack
• Added new aesthetic blocks
• Made Frozen Factory items available for the first time
• Added MK2 grappler
• Added worms and hivemind kill rewards

Patch 6

• Spider Bot weapons and base
• FALCOR loot collection robots
• MOD Support
• Added the Nova
• WorkFloor Excavators

Patch 7

• Cargo Lifts
• Scanning of Storage Hopper
• 3 new Matter Movers
• Usable ARTHER Power Cores
• A complete new resource tree : Resin Handling
• MK2 Organic Solars
• Added the Crashed Parts container
• Added minecart logic gates
• Added Casual Mode

Patch 8

• Ore Thief
• Induction Charger
• Slime Attractor
• Coal Infuser
• Empty Fuel Canister machine
• Steel Bar, Advanced and Imbuied crafters, to allow automation
• Glowsticks now colourisable for Dapper owners!
• Inventory sorting
• ARTHER Power Bar

Patch 9

• Mission System
• Improve mod support
• Massive rebalance of early and mid-game progression
• Faster movement on Reinforced Blocks!
• Mass Storage rework and IO ports!
• World Seeds!
• Base Power Bar
• Hopper Emptying Inventory Storage Transporter (H.E.I.S.T.) machine
• BarKeeper

[ 2016-07-23 11:06:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Total people who have charged their Orbital Energy Transmitters OET : 980 Come on guys. You can do it. I'll give you SuperBuild on Conveyors when you hit 1,000. I promise.

[ 2016-07-22 14:48:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

There should be public, full Workshop Mod support within 12 days. Please - get your mods converted and uploaded! Full details here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/1/366298942096381952/ NON Mod authors AKA normal people - hey, guess what! Workshop support in 12 days! ;-)

[ 2016-07-19 17:47:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Remember, I pretty much stream all day, every day, letting you be a part of the dev process : https://gaming.youtube.com/projectorgames/live Today : Waypoint machines.

[ 2016-07-19 10:37:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Staging build updated with a potential fix. Please let me know if this solves your issue, or introduces any new ones! (It's perfectly safe to opt into this build) I'll be pushing this to mainline in about 4 hours, once I've given the fix a good thrashing. If you're affected by the issue, please select the Staging branch and see if it works!

[ 2016-07-13 12:11:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've just located the issue. This is a critical issue affecting every Frozen Factory owner, and I will get a patch out tomorrow, first thing. It's taken me until 4am to track down this bug, and building and putting up all the branches would be risky at best! (this works PERFECTLY WELL on a dedicated server, which is where I've been doing the bulk of my testing, on the basis I wanted the multiplayer to be great - and I went and broke the single player!) (An identical issue affects the Conduits) Apologies all round, and this patch will arrive as soon as I dare push it out!

[ 2016-07-13 02:57:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Frozen Factory is still fresh and raw from its release, so there's every chance there's balance and progression issues. If you've got any feedback, please plop it here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/365172547954266542/

[ 2016-07-11 22:27:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

BIG LETTERS! YOU DO NOT NEED TO START A NEW WORLD FOR THE FROZEN FACTORY, OR FOR ANY PATCH EVER!

Hate reading? Got your wallet at the ready? [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/443691/]Purchase the Expansion Pack here!, 10 months and 10 patches ago, FortressCraft left Early Access. Since then, I've been regularly adding free content to the game. If I had my way, I'd be releasing free content forever, but, sadly, I have 2 fluffy cats that demand only the finest in cheap catfood, so here we are - the first paid-for expansion pack for the game! Before I get onto the expansion, let's review what everyone's gotten over the last 9 months a bit - you might be surprised at the things you thought were always there.. I know I was!

Patch 2

• Organic Solar Panels
• Advanced Conveyor Filters
• Tunnel Nukers
• Threat Calmers and Agitators
• Conveyor Slopes
• Unity 4.6
• Polish and fixes!
• Organic Batteries

Patch 3

• Floating Combat Text
• Snowmen!
• CryoGenic hoppers and Organic Recombination
• Clumsy mode
• T0 LPTs
• Polish and fixes!
• Ore Extractor Auto upgrading of Drill Heads
• DLC #1 - The Dapper Pack

At this point, I'd kinda finished polishing the enormous amount of content available at release, and work began in earnest in moving the game forwards.

Patch 4

• T2 Ore Ping graphics
• MK4 and MK5 Induction Kits
• Motorised Conveyors
• Skins!
• Armour Piercing and Imbued missiles!
• Coal Enricher
• Plasma Imbued Cutter heads
• AFK Mode
• Dynamic texture loading
• Server Monitor
• Tactical View

Patch 5

• Moved to Unity 5
• Added threaded visbility
• These gave 40%-400% framerate boost!
• Minecarts!
• Signs!
• Zipper Merge!
• Overminds!
• Orbital Strike Controllers!
• DLC #2 - The Skin Pack
• Added new aesthetic blocks
• Made Frozen Factory items available for the first time
• Added MK2 grappler
• Added worms and hivemind kill rewards

Patch 6

• Spider Bot weapons and base
• FALCOR loot collection robots
• MOD Support
• Added the Nova
• WorkFloor Excavators

Patch 7

• Cargo Lifts
• Scanning of Storage Hopper
• 3 new Matter Movers
• Usable ARTHER Power Cores
• A complete new resource tree : Resin Handling
• MK2 Organic Solars
• Added the Crashed Parts container
• Added minecart logic gates
• Added Casual Mode

Patch 8

• Ore Thief
• Induction Charger
• Slime Attractor
• Coal Infuser
• Empty Fuel Canister machine
• Steel Bar, Advanced and Imbuied crafters, to allow automation
• Glowsticks now colourisable for Dapper owners!
• Inventory sorting
• ARTHER Power Bar

Patch 9

• Mission System
• Improve mod support
• Massive rebalance of early and mid-game progression
• Faster movement on Reinforced Blocks!
• Mass Storage rework and IO ports!
• World Seeds!
• Base Power Bar
• Hopper Emptying Inventory Storage Transporter (H.E.I.S.T.) machine
• BarKeeper

Every patch also contained endless balances, optimisations, polish and help file updates! But what you really want to know is - what's new? As well as the Frozen Factory stuff (which I'll cover later), I've been playing through the game, and paying special attention to boring, tedious, grindy and downright rubbish parts of it. So here's your regular Patch 10 notes. ;)

• Added a completely awesome new skin to the Skin Pack.
• Added /YourCraft - type this in the chat system to swap your mouse button to match the 'other' voxel building craft game.
• Added Construction Paste and a Construction Paste Grinder. ALL Reinforced and Aesthetic Blocks now use Construction Paste. This should mean you only need to carry around ONE slot's worth of material, and you can now craft any pretty you like with it! This can be hooked up with the new super-efficient Garbage Thief to make your base prettification and defences super-easy! This will save you around TEN inventory slots.
• Major rebalance to Casual Mode. Details in the main page, but crafting machines, power usage and lab research are all now lightning-quick on this mode, and MK3 lasers are cranked to double damage! I'm still not 100% happy with this - it's designed for streamers and parents, really, and the idea is that you can charge the OET in a weekend's worth of hard play. I suspect it'll continue to be rebalanced as time goes on, but I'd love to hear feedback!
• Crystal Cutter Heads have had a major boost
• Ore Extractors now tick more often, for less ore. This is the same Ore-Per-Minute, but means you shouldn't get overwhelmed with a massive chunk of ore all in one go.
• Ore Vein clearing is now substantially faster with higher-tier motors. You're welcome.
• Added the Care Package. When you build your C5, any new worlds you start will optionally give you ALL the suit upgrade immediately. This should make for MUCH more pleasurable starts to new games for veterans. This includes the MK3 grapple gun and the All-In-One suit upgrade.
• Added some secret DD, Shadow and FPS bars. (Top right - FPS is red, Draw Distance is Green and Shadow is Blue. Middle == fine. Right of centre == too high (YAY YOU), left of centre == too low (Your PC is struggling)
• Added Alloyed Machine Block Assembler. This creates alloyed blocks from 16 gold, 16 Nickel and 16 Titanium. Added alternative crafting recipe for MK3 batteries that uses Alloyed Machine Blocks. This should automatable by regular human beings now.
• Souped up LPT and Research Pod storage

Most of the focus this month, obviously, has been on the Frozen Factory Expansion Pack. Now, if you want to just have it all as a surprise, then purchase the Expansion Pack, and get on with it!

So what does the Frozen Factory contain?

I'll give a brief rundown of all the machines in it. The best-usage of these machines, of course, is down to you!

• MK3 Grapple and Build Gun. Immune to cold effects. Super fast
• Larger Player Suit Battery
• All-In-One suit upgrade - free up those Inventory Slots!
• Added Chromed Lenses. 1600 PPS from a MK3. Awww yeah.
• FlatLand. Requires killing a CryoPlasm Spawner
• Added the Care Package. When you build your C5, any new worlds you start will optionally give you ALL the suit upgrade immediately. This should make for MUCH more pleasurable starts to new games for veterans. This includes the MK3 grapple gun and the All-In-One suit upgrade.
• Bulk Cargo Lift
• Bulk Minecart
• Tier4 MatterMover - 4800 items per minute!
• IO Ports for Mass Storage
• Conduits. Link together 2xT4 batteries at a range of 128m. Balancing happens at 10,000 PPS.
• Slow and Poison missiles. These things are lethal.
• Cold Cavern Climate Control Centre; now with emergency CryoPlasm defence!
  
• 3 versions of the new Ore Extractor; the Trencher. 54 cubic metres of Ore-Collecting glory.
• Blast Furnace - 3 seconds to slagify ore.
• Continuous Casting Basin - capable of cooling 4 slagged ores into bars simultaneously!
• GeoThermal Plant and ancillary items - feed this pipes and it'll use the difference between the Cold Cavern and the Magma Cavern to generate FREE power! (Feed it Freezon Canisters in order to boost its output by 20x!)
• Hard Rock Grinder, to allow you to progress onto a new tier of ores.
  
• Particle Filters, Compressors, Gas Storage and Bottlers. These are a completely new style of resource collection, and you will be building them in the Cold, Toxic and Magma Caverns.
• The ultimate drill; The MagmaBore. 87120 cubic metres of glorious machine, designed to drill down into the Magma Caverns and collect liquid Magma.
• Magma Storage unit can hold Magma from the MagmaBore, and pass it along to the...
• CryoInferno. Maintain burnage on a CryoPlasm Spawner for 15 minutes and it'll no longer cause you any problems.
• Lots of CyroDefence! Lancers, Burners, CryoMines, FALCOR Bombers (these are ace), Melters, and the completely LETHAL (yet achievement-giving) Dazzler.
• Freezon Injector - used to soup-up the Lancers at end-game.

I'm afraid that the new surface defences and the Ore Washer didn't make it in; I'll try and get those done for Patch 11 (End of July).

There's going to be questions on 'How do I get the T4 stuff?' and 'How should I play?', so I'll touch on those.

Regardless of anything else, you'll need to locate Chromium and Molybdenum, and plonk down a Hard Rock Grinder on a 3x3 area, and collect your first ores by hand. I hope you feel dirty, having to carry ore by hand. Ugh.
Can't find a flat 3x3? A small explosive charge should help you here! To process these first few ores, you'll need to use an ARC Smelter upgrade. This is crap. This is really crap - but it lets you process just enough T4 ores to build your Trenchers and then your Blast Furnace and Continuous Casting Basin. Pretty much, the base game, from your first research to discharging the OET in a blaze of orbital glory, remains unchanged if you have the expansion or not. As indicated at the start of this post, there is a metric ton of improvements, balance changes and brand-new, free machines that have made the game significantly smoother, easier to play. I haven't entirely taken the 'Warcraft' approach, however, and if you have the Frozen Factory, you'll find you can utilise some of its early-progression items to make the final part of the Vanilla game much easier. I highly recommend, tho, that you try and clear down the surface attacks via the Orbital Strike Controllers before attempting to conquer the Cold Caverns. That said, Geothermals provide a /lot/ of power, and power is usually the limiting factor in charging your Orbital Energy Transmitter. I've found that progressing onto Geothermals and Particulates but NOT trying to achieve much in the way of Cryo Defence works well. You are, of course, running the risk of being overwhelmed by the CryoPlasm. If you want to play it SAFE - and remember, Safe and Slow are usually opposites - then clear down the surface, charge the OET 4 times, destroy all the Hiveminds, THEN move on. The quickest way, however, is probably to tech rush to 5 or so Freezon-Boosted Geothermals, and shunt that power to the surface via Conduits. However, at the end of the day, there a great number of 'best solutions' to this problem, and I sincerely hope that you find your very own best way. I dislike it when there is one solution that is overwhelmingly the best. The particulate system are interesting. I didn't want to require a new world from you, so I had to come up with ways to generate resources that DON'T rely on existing stuff. The solution was the Particle Filters. These constantly collect Freezon, Chlorine or Sulphur for you, depending on if you built them in the Cold, Toxic or Magma caverns. A quick note on setup; for MAXIMUM efficiency, you'll want 16 Particle Filters connected to 4 Particle Compressors, connected to 1 Gas Storage, connected to 1 Gas Bottler. That's a 'complete' system (Handy hint : there's a 5th connection UNDERNEATH the Gas Storage and Compressor!). You'll be using these compressed canisters all over the place to boost machines. There's a similar setup for the smelting; use 4x Blast Furnaces to run 1x Continuous Casting Basin flat out. You'll probably be building several of these for maximum ingots!
And, of course, the elephant in the room; the CryoPlasm. Now, if you've played CreeperWorld (as you should! It's great!), you might think all this seems a bit familar. And you'd be right. About 80% of the way through this expansion pack's development, I realised that the CryoPlasm acted rather like the Creep, and the defences acted rather like theirs... so I'm exceptionally proud to announce that this is the 2nd EVER game to be 'Tower defence vs Fluid'. Genuinely tho, any inspiration was definitely sub-conscious - but damn is it fun, as well as very challenging. You've got an incredible array and variety of defences against the CryoPlasm. I've listed them above, but I'd really rather let you find out the best way to defend; I suspect it'll be the subject of a great number of heated Forum debates. I will say one thing - building a wall does NOT work. The CryoPlasm will 'prefer' to go through air... if it can't, it'll PREFER to go through rock. But if it can't, it'll go right through Reinforced blocks. You're not Donald Trump. Build guns, not a wall. Think big.
Other than that, play through, have fun, give feedback! A word of warning - the CryoPlasm seems a tad... unpredictable. Sometimes it just tears through the cold caverns at a horrific and terrifying rate. At others, it just seems to hang around and ignore you. I suspect it's world-dependent, so you may get wildly differing behaviours. I'll be continuing to balance, polish and generally improve FortressCraft for the foreseeable future. I will not purely focus on Frozen Factory items, but will do stuff across the entire game. Thank you all for supporting me and following this game over the last 10 months. I very much hope to continue developing the game, adding more content to T1-3 and T4, to start on the Adventures Pack, and to work towards T5, Nuclear Reactors, Rocketry and Orbital SpaceStations. For now tho - go get some of the new achievements!

[ 2016-07-11 16:55:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Lands in 1 hour and 45 minutes, along with a final patch to change, tweak and balance EVERYTHING. Come see me panic here : https://gaming.youtube.com/projectorgames/live If you're a brave tester-type, the Staging build is now updated with Mac, Linux and Windows Patch 10.

[ 2016-07-11 15:15:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ok, it appears I completely under-estimated the sheer back-and-forth that's required for a major DLC to come out, so it's slipped a few days, and it'll be coming out on Monday 11th July instead of the 7th! Much apologies all round, but I absolutely promise to make use of the time to add a little extra layer of polish and balance to it! Thank you for your understanding ːpcraceː

[ 2016-07-06 01:33:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

After 9 months of hard work, it appears that my baby is but 1 week away from being born. This metaphor breaks down, cuz this is the patch before the birth. Anyways.
Patch 9 has seen a hell of a focus on 'new players'; only 868 players have ever finished the game, meaning that the potential audience for next weeks' expansion pack (more on that later) is pretty small. I've worked out, more or less, that we're gonna want to ship ~25,000 units of the Frozen Factory Expansion Pack for it to have been worth doing.
Skin pack sales never hurt either. Ahem. But I digress - again. This is the 9th free content patch for the game, with the ever-so-topical name; Winter is coming. The biggest change you'll notice upon patch your game is the new Mission System. This has take a large amount of my time, and is built upon ARTHER's existing base introspection system, and should be able to tell you not only what is wrong with your base right now, but also let you know what it feels you should do next. Using this tool, I realised that quite a lot of early progression didn't make sense, so things like Basic Smelters are now available to players in the first 15-30 minutes of the game!
Modding has received another massive update. Remember to check the Mod forums! Patch 10 should see the Workshop going live, and I'll be working with Mod authors over this patch cycle to help them get their mods ready for that release - it's gonna be awesome!
Patch notes are shorter than usual, I know - there's been a LOT of focus on polishing what we have, rather than adding too much new stuff. Yes, I will be linking this sentence to the next person who accuses me of doing on the forums. :P

The Frozen Factory Expansion Pack will be available on the 7th of July

Major new changes

• Walking on Reinforced blocks is now much much faster!
• Added new Mass Storage system. Makes your existing Mass Storage at least 5x faster (WHEN coupled with a sorted input system); higher tiers are 12x and 25x faster
• Crystal Infusers no longer have an ongoing Crystal cost.
• Added World Seeds. By default, your world name is your seed. If you enter a number, that's used as the seed. This won't affect existing worlds
• Added Main-menu readout for all current DLCs and install status. Clicking on a DLC you don't own should open the page for it. Lots and lots of people still don't realise we HAVE shiny toys to add to the game!
  
• MMB click on a BluePrint when Crafting to add a Reminder
• MMB click on an Ingredient when Crafting to jump to it's help.
• Massive Modding updates.
• Basic Smelters now only need Copper and Tin, and should be available within 1 hour of a new game. Organic Rock surface spawns increased at corners of your base.
• Removed Iron requirement from MK1 Forced Induction, allowing it to be available much sooner in the game.
• Base Building Logistics research no longer require the Lab.
• Added a bar beneath the ARTHER power bar to show the Base's power.
• Left-Command and clicking Craft should now make 25 items on the Mac.
• Increased Organic Battery storage to 8500 (up from 5500)
• Electric Lights should now correctly save. Honest. HONEST.
• You can no longer build on top of CryoPlasm, Sand or Magma.

New Machines

• Added the Hopper Emptying Inventory Storage Transporter (H.E.I.S.T.) machine. Attach it to a Storage Hopper and let it do its thing!
• Added the BarKeeper. Perfect for network servers, each active BarKeeper removes 100 bars from an exiting network player, and puts it into storage. Never again will people run off with all your Titanium bars!

Frozen Factory Expansion Changes

• Added Flatland unlock as a reward for killing your first CryoPlasm Spawner!
• Added MassStorage IO ports; these can interface with a Mass Storage system at huge speeds, but require power and a Mass Storage Controller.
• Added TourCarts; like Minecarts, but with zero capacity, and lovely and fast. Great for a tour of your base.
• Added CryoMines. If CryoPlasm covers these, then they detonate in an 8m explosion. Does not hard any types of machines or blocks; it WILL, however, detonate other CryoMines in range!
• Added FALCOR Bomber. Ideal for removing dense, remote creep.
• Added CryoBomb Assembler
• Added Chromed Machine Blocks
• Added Magnetic Machine Blocks
• Added Hiemal Machine Blocks
• Added Assembler for each of the above
• Added MK2 and MK3 Trencher heads, with increasing efficiency
• Particle Compressors now have a compression ratio of 232:1.
• Increased MagmaBore cost to 1 billion power. This is approximately 3 hours for 20x full-speed geothermals.
• Added V3 build gun and V3 grapple with glorious T4 orange!

Everything else

• Fixed SpiderBot sim on Dedicated Servers
• Removed ongoing crystal cost from Coal Infuser - added massive up-front Crystal cost instead
• Locked away T4 skin properly this time - sorry!
• Patreons will now have access to T4 skins, due to overwhelming sentiment. The only thing Patreons do NOT get is the little sign on the main menu, saying that you own the Expansion. Bling Skin requirement remains unchanged.
• Removed the ability to manually remove items from Mass Storage. This is FAR too over-powered, and will likely come back in the form of a single-item 'Get me this' machine later on.
• Fixed disappearing spiderbot on dedicated server (I hope!)
• Fixed item dupe bug. Ty Inomin8
• Tiered Mass Storage
• Fixed Mass Storage recipes
• Fixed Mass Storage descriptions
• Fixed lots of networked Mass Storage Errors
• Fixed crash when you tried to craft something with 'Have Materials' turned on, and ran out of them.
• Ore Extractors that are only trickling resources will no longer appear to be stuck for Network Clients.
• Fix for Turntables look towards conveyors that are looking back at them.
• Fixes to network client issues
• Improvements to mission system
• Resin Handling now only requires 25 Soft Resin (down from 200!)
• Fixed Scan-And-Pick-And-Place exploit
• Increased ARTHER mission time to 20s
• Removed dumb requirement from MK2 and MK3 Trencher drills.
• Added "Automate Smelter" quests
• Fixed ARTHER telling you about iron like, 9 seconds after starting the game
• Fixed issue with Starved PTG readout
• Marked top-tier Mass Storage as T4 items.
• DLC ownership check now happens immediately on startup.
• Changed Ore Extractor to no longer start up when it doesn't have enough room to complete the drilling operation.
• Reduced the minimum internal hopper of the Ore Extractor. Maximum size is calculated much more sensibly. (it's still more than enough room for a single cycle regardless of anything else )
• Fixed issue where Ore Extractor Window didn't refresh when full
• ItemCubes now obey stack limits. This fixed a number of exploits YES YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
• ARTHER will no longer push you to explore underground until your Lab is complete. (Labs can and probably should be constructed before you have Iron automated)
• Player is hinted at to build MK1 turrets much sooner now. (Y'know, you're supposed to defend the Iron lines with MK1 turrets, then move onto MK2s later on!)
• Fixed accidentally-massive Smelter Input hopper size. Missions to encourage the player to setup early-game smelting now present.
• Changed the shadow balancer to make more sense. The game will now ALWAYS obey the min and max shadow distances, and will attempt to balance to 30 fps unless overridden by the Dynamic Framerate target.
• Grinder Particles updates. Final mesh. Texture Placeholder.
• Reduced MK3 Trencher efficiency from 10,000% to 100%.
• Fixed MK3 trencher animations
• fixed item sync issues
• fixed item collection issues
• known issue - clients can appear to collect an item they're absolutely nowhere near. Martijn has been made aware.
• All CryoDefences go offline if the CPH is destroyed
• Calmers no longer work if the C5 is built (this stops the "Kill a CryoSpawn whilst you have 4x Overminds active" super-hard achievement becoming really really easy.
• Grappling hook can only fire once per 5 seconds in the Cold Cavern, until the point where the player gets the MK3 Build Gun crafted and fitted.
• C5 can only be placed in the cold cavern.
• C5 cannot be dug up under any circumstances.
• C5 will warn you about the above restriction during placement
• GeoThermals now lose charge if touching CryoPlasm.
• Increased power cost of Magma Bore digging substantially.
• Machines that are starved of Oxygen now flag up in the Mission system.
• All T4 achievements now available.
• Walking into the dropship's burning radioactive flames will no longer unlock the MK1 turret achievement.
• Issue with FlatLand achievement being erroneously unlocked now fixed.
• Spent 3 hours attempting to fix SpiderBot's legs. Failed.
• FlatLand now selectable.
• FlatLand now tells you what you need to do in order to unlock it.
• RushMode now tells you what you need to do in order to unlock it.
• Missions now fade from green to red if they are up for more than 10 minutes.
• Missions that have been active with no change for 20 minutes will now blink for attention. This does not include 'progression' missions that are expected to take the player more than 20 minutes, but tend to refer to things like "sort your broken ore extractors out"
• Improvement to Quarry usage, improvement to Quarry errors (Building over itself)
• Many more mission improvements, focusing primarily on the first 3 hours of gameplay. Yes, I will be linking this comment to the next muppet who writes a review stating that I only ever 'worry about end-game players'
• Flagged MK2 and MK3 trenchers as craftable, added research.
• Fixed an issue with Jet Turbines not handing off power very well, especially in rush mode.
• Added 4 more tiers of research for Mass Storage. The final tier requires Frozen Factory-grade power and resources.
• Surface attacks can no longer drop poor-quality loot if there's more than 500 items lying around in total, just good loot. Added FALCOR mission to remind you to improve it.
• Added FALCOR / FALCOR Beacon mission that kicks off if you have more than 150 items lying around.
• Mass Storage can no longer communicate directly with Trenchers, Continuous Casting Basins and Blast Furnaces - use IOPorts instead.
• Cheat-teleports now warn the player and have a 30 second magenta wipe. Use this ONLY if you are STUCK.
• Floating Combat Text now correctly obeys maximum distance
• Altered Cargo Lift Combat Text spam
• Changed all Resin Handling to use Organic Lenses (from Blue eyes) instead of Sapphires.
• 9.10
• Lots of fixes regarding the new storage system.
• AutoBuilder cost now reduced one-sixth of what it was originally!
• Fixed Mission System on new worlds.
• Improved Mission System intelligence in when things are shown or hidden
• Improved H.E.I.S.T. readout
• Improved Mass Storage Input Port graphics (still no tiering)
• Reduced the Rave Effect on the Power Boosters and Chargers a lot.
• Mission System no longer draws over the top of other dialogues.
• Many more Missions added to help breadcrumb players through a better progress (example; player is hinted at to build a Forced Induction system before they start to amass all that Copper for their first lab!)
• You can now (T)oggle the Offline warnings from Ore Extractors.
• T4 skins are locked to ownership of the Frozen Factory Expansion Pack
• Added two additional tiers of drone based mass storage input and ouput ports. Currently these use the same model, research and resources. This needs to be changed.
• Added a new XML element for TerrainData.xml for indicating items are garbage replacing a hard coded method which was not mod friendly. true
• Added a new XML element for TerrainData.xml for holding fuel information which replaces a hard coded method which was not mod friendly. Note there is currently no method of specifying which category fuel should be shown in for the power generation overlay in the holobase. The coal entry here is hardcoded to the three existing types of coal. 467 EnrichedSmoke 2.5 0 1 0 1
• Added a new XML element for TerrainData.xml for indicating the ore type for (mainly) sorting purpose, replaces hard-coded information which was not mod friendly. Smeltable Burnable Refinable Other
• Added a new XML element for TerrainData.xml for indicating if a block is reinforced, replaces hard-coded information which was not mod friendly true
• Added a new XML element for indicating that a block is part of a multi-block machine replacing hard-coded information which was not mod friendly. true
• Added a new XML element to indicate a "pick replacement", this should be the key of the terrain cube or value to be used when pick is used on the block. Typically used for multi-block machines to replace with the placement block T4CreepBurnerPlacement
• Changed the MassStorageCrate block to be passable, this allows an empty crate space to be walked through. Full spaces are handled using the collider system.
• Added a mass storage controller block to TerrainData.xml. Requires a model, recipe & research.
• Added a mass storage IO port block to TerrainData.xml, which is the step up from drone I/O and works using the storage machine interface. Requires a model, recipe & research.
• Added support for a mod block preview atlas. This atlas is generated at runtime using a prefab and will contain all of the block preview images supplied by active mods. Anywhere displaying block preview has been updated to support switching to this atlas when required.
• Storage Hoppers
• Major update to storage hoppers. They now use the interface StorageMachineInterface allowing them to be swapped with other storage machines, or mod machines.
• This contains a variety of useful functions for inserting or extracting to/from storage machines, counting items, or checking the state.
• The hopper permissions enumeration is now outside of the StorageHopper class, it is called eHopperPermissions.
• Everywhere which used StorageHopper has now been updated to use StorageMachineInterface.
• OreSmelter has been updated to use the iterator interface to remove the smelter specific ore code from the storage machine.
• Five additional storage related interfaces have been added
• ItemConsumerInterface Lightweight interface for machines which can take or consume a single item, currently: Conveyor Macerator MassStorageIOPort MassStorageInputPort StorageHopper
• ItemSupplierInterface Lightweight interface for machines which can supply a single item, currently Conveyor
• StorageConsumerInterface Allows machines which wish to remove items from a hopper, or similar machine, to be queried by the hopper itself, instead of needing to search every adjacent space for a hopper. Replaces hard-coded information in the storage hopper.
• Currently: CentralPowerHub PyrothermicGenerator SpiderBotBase
• StorageSupplierInterface Allows machines which wish to add items to a hopper, or similar machine, to be queried by the hopper itself, instead of needing to search every adjacent space for a hopper. Replaces hard-coded information in the storage hopper.
• Currently: ManufacturingPlant ManufacturingPlantModule OreExtractor RefineryController T4_GasBottler T4_Grinder
• StorageUserInterface Many storage methods require the 'requestor' to be supplied so that the machine is able to make decisions based on that if necessary (e.g. the direction of the requestor could be important as to whether the action is allowed), this must be something inheriting StorageUserInterface which is currently SegmentEntity or MobEntity. It can be added to any other class which needs it.
• Mass Storage
• The autobuilder can now lay mass storage crates (this was mainly for testing purposes, but see not reason not to leave it in?)
• Mass storage crates can now operate in two modes, the legacy mode where it holds a fixed size list of 25 items separately, and a new mode where it can hold 25xstack height of a single stackable item.
• The legacy mode will be used for existing mass storage (which is not empty), and for storage of non-stackable items.
• A number of performance issues relating to splitting and merging crate arrays have been fixed.
• The graphics for the crate boxes has changed to accommodate the stackable system.
• Sudden changes in stack height (e.g. when an IO port dumps huge quantities in at once) are 'smoothed'
• Input and output drones can now carry more than one stackable item of the same type at a time.
• MK1 = 5 items at a time
• MK2 = 12
• MK3 = 25
• The input port will wait until either it reaches that capacity, a timeout occurs, or a different item type arrives, then it sends the drone.
• A number of bugs relating to the drones finding the closest storage space have been fixed.
• Added a mass storage controller, this is only required for providing power to any advanced I/O ports attached to the storage. Although you can also scan it with the scanner to get a list of items in storage.
• Added an I/O port, this implements storage machine interface allowing anything to add or remove from mass storage as if it was a hopper. It needs pretty graphics to 'matter mit' the items in and out. Each item transmitted requires power which is taken from the mass storage controller attached to the same array. This requires balancing work.
• Modding
• All mod relatedclasses have been moved to their own files under a Modding sub folder to make it all more maintainable.
• All moddable xml data files (terrain data, items, recipes, research & auto-crafter) now support being supplied custom values which can be queried by mods.
• The forced induction upgrades now use a smelter interface, this allows them to be placed on top of custom modded smelters. Example:
• Method OverrideBlockTypeAndValueForMultiblocks now uses the TerrainData.xml values instead of being hardcoded.
• Added a VeritySuitUpgrades method.
• Added a CheckForCompletedMachine method for multi-block mod machine support
• Added provisional support for custom mobs
• Significant updates to mod registation data to allow an event based subscription to 'global stuff'. Currently: OnVerifySuitUpgrades OnPerformItemAction
• Mods can also register their own custom mod registration classes which can contain their own events that other mods can subscribe to.
• Added serialisation to the research assember so that it does not lose items anymore.
• Added Deselected and Selected methods to the SegmentEntity, currently only used by hopper for debounce purposes.
• Increased the number of nearby colliders supported by the player collision to help with mass storage changes.
• Cleaning up of segments has been altered to add a delay from a segment being removed from all frustrums to it actually having its data zapped. This is to allow anything currently using it (e.g. in the LFGT) to finish its work instead of crashing when the data disappears unexpectedly.
• Updates to the scanner when used to scan storage to condense results and limit to the number visible on the screen, sorted by most populous first.
• The segment now contains a dictionary of entities by location exclusively for use by the LFGT. This allows fast lookups without knowing what type you are looking for (which is important for supporting the new machine interfaces). This is automatically used by the SearchEntity function if it is being called on the LFGT.
• The segment updater now uses concurrent queues to add or remove segments from the update list, and has two update lists, one for the unity thread, and one for the LFGT. This is to remove race conditions which could cause crashes.

Final bits and bobs.

• Attempting to take items from an empty Storage Hopper will no longer tell you that your inventory is full.
• Blocks incorrectly configured with a Max Stack of 0 will now error to the Mod author and then return 100.
• Improved Research Pod Assembler help files
• Fixed issue with partial locking of Liquifiers.
• Fixed issue where Item Injectors that have never been within the client's local frustum can hand off items to the player. Oops!
• Transport Pipes now require Crystal Scans and researching. I will LITERALLY hang people from their own entrails if they start threads asking "Why can't I build Transport Pipes anymore?"
• Added a complete hand-holding and guidance mission/quest system.

  I want lots of feedback on this!

  
  
• Fixed loads of lift bugs
• Using Items will now force an update to the server.
• ARTHER can now connect to Docks correctly, even if if there's no network player playing!
• Reduced Coal Infuser cost to 1x OrganicRock
• Reduced Coal Enricher cost to 1x OrganicRock and 2x Glands

• MAJOR CHANGE

  
  A stack of unprocessed ore is now limited to 150. This has been done in order to stop people avoiding automating their base, doing everything by hand, and then after 10 hours of grinding INSTEAD OF setting up automation and then complaining that the game is too grindy. There is a significant chance that subterranean smelting will be disabled in order to compliment this change. TL;DR?

  RUN CONVEYORS BELTS FROM YOUR ORE EXTRACTORS TO YOUR SMELTER

  
  
• Icons! Textures! Models!
• Fixed the radius check on Ablators, Melters, Lancers and Liquifiers.
• Substantially improved Lancer and Melter efficiency against high-speed rebuilding CryoPlasm.
• Ablators and Liquifiers now use up half as much power
• Ablators and Liquifiers now perform their work twice as quickly (net gain : 4x boost in hivemind clearing and liquid resin collection)
• Increased usage of Refined Liquid Resin across the board, including many T4 recipes. The player is expected to locate, grow and farm Hiveminds as a resource.
• Ore Thief 3000 now supports offloading to conveyors, and even gives handy hints on using its power!
• Fixed issue with overbuild on fluid errors.
• Fixed issues with missile errors
• Added Chilled Reinforced Block - thanks to Nexus for the crazy donation!
• Added Neon Border block - thanks to TadForever for the continued patreon support.
• OverClockers should now have a unique model
• Cargo lift controller now checks line and will make lifts get stuck if blocked.
• Bumped cargo lift controller to store rail count so that it won't waste more rails
• Added FlatLand achievement
• Added FlatLand itself. This isn't available until the UI is implemented, but it works.
• CCCCC will now record, load and save destroyed spawners. Pity I realised this code was missing AFTER killing the Koi on our server. Oops.
• Many fixes to Magma Bores, Compressors and Inferno Turrets
• Potential Fix to Interface Command bug
• Fixed issue where a Cargo Thief placed near a teleporter in network play could cause excessive network traffic and server crashes.
• Increased Electric Light onboard storage buffer, to allow running off of T0 lasers
• Increased AutoBuilder onboard storage buffer, as it was bottlenecking.
• Improved uPnP support and error messaging
• Added CompressWhenServerIsEmpty disk cache mode, for dedicated servers.
• The ARTHERrecharge station now only allows one player to charge there at a time.
• Added T4 skin
• Fixed issue where removing V2 build gun allowed you to continue to dig harder ores.
• Manufacturing plants now ignore stack sizes and simply allow a single item to be crafted before filling up.
• Dedicated Server player backups now happen substantially less often.
• Compressed Gas now requires only 250 uncompressed gas (down from 500); Freezon lasts half as long in Geothermals and Lancers. This balances out the same, but should be more satisfying, and provide a slightly more complex logistics challenge. I may scale everything 2x or 4x more.
• Fixed issue where LPTs could lock onto deleted machines permenantly
• Gas Bottlers now twice as fast.
• Fixed Skin ownership issues.
• Fixed Server Disk Cache when Empty issues.
• Halved Gas Usage rate of Player Lifts
• Fixed error with MagmaBore
• Fixed ARTHER complaining about low power at 75% (!)
• Fixed audio range of Particle Compressors
• Added T4 item requirements into Conduits.
• FALCOR bombs now require Sulphur. They're so damned awesome that their requirements need to be made harder!
• Increased Blast Furnace PPS from 500 to 2500.
• Fixed issue where Geothermals could leave gaps when placing pipes.
• Loads and loads of work towards MagmaBore stuff
• Increased Melter rate substantially.
• Fixed LPT readout
• Fixed Laboratory readout
• Lifts now appear on the holobase
• Dangerous Hiveminds now have a unique holobase icon, and also should signal to network clients appropriately. The unique icon on the holobase that players will be totally unable to avoid going and investigating.
• Orbital Strike Controllers now guarantee valid explosions, even if you leave during the attack(!)
• Added metrics for creep spawners, to help spread their load out better.
• Altered DropPod logic substantially, meaning they will be a LOT more spread out!
• Increased FALCOR explosion range by 50%, to 12m
• A few of the T4 machines are no longer placeable without the DLC.
• Fixes to FALCOR Bomber movement
• Reduced Glow of a bunch of Booster Chargers.
• Increased Order Pool on dedicated and shared clients again.
• GeoThermal plants will now align the pipes better when server is at high load, reducing Order Block usage.
• CryoMines now only trigger if their LOCAL up has CryoPlasm. The blast radius is always an upwards-aligned hemisphere.
• UpSlopes and DownSlopes now self-inter-craftable.
• Reduced cost of Generic Pipe Bends (oops)
• Standing on Creep now is BLOODY COLD
• Standing on Creep now is now slippery
• Standing on Reinforced Surfaces allows you to move quicker
• Logistics Hoppers are now 5x quicker
• Sigificant FPS boost by applying visibility culling to all Fluid, Casting, Heat and Generic pipes.
• Fixed Tangent Export issue.
• Improved FPS by dynamically disabling the SuperHex effect; improved some flashing black hexes
• Added TourCarts! Only took 45 mins, and I've been telling myself to do this for about a year now.
• [Adventures Pack]Added All-Ore mode
• [Adventures Pack]Added Sky Islands mode
• Capped out vein scanner at 256,000 blocks, rather than crash the game
• Fixed a number of confusing handbook entries for the ARTHER Power Boosters and the ARTHER Power Booster Chargers (It's easy! Chargers? Why, they charge up Boosters! Boosters will then boost ARTHER!)
• Added 2 new tiers of Anti-CryoPlasm research.
• Improved errors when GAC XML files are corrupted.

Why are you here? Go away, or I shall set the hivemind on you.

[ 2016-06-30 21:32:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

There is a massive thread on this here:http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/412446292767390072/, but I'll clear up a few of the confusions we have going on about this! 'T4' is the lazy way of saying 'Tier 4', which is the lazy way of saying "Any machine made available to the player after purchasing the Frozen Factory Expansion Pack". This is a ton of machines designed to catapult the player into the Cold Cavern and to make the Orbital Energy Transmitter look like a baby's toy, featuring a completely NEW Tower Defence mechanic, new resource trees and just bloody loads of stuff. It's great! The Frozen Factory Expansion Pack should be available TO EVERYONE at the end of this month, assuming nothing goes wrong. ːpcraceː If you are a Patreon of the game, you get early access to this expansion pack; this was done for a whole bunch of reasons:

• I don't have much else to offer :(
• If I gave this out as part of the mainline build and then hid it away when it got released, everyone would get annoyed at me
• If I did work out a way to give it to all the Bleeding Edge crew, I would be completely flooded with bug reports - restricting it to a few hundred Patrons means that the bug reports I get tend to be more detailed and much less common!

BUT!

Patrons do not get any special or unique machines or recipes in the game - they just get it in an early and sometimes very broken state!

If you have questions, confusion or annoyances, then you can email me, hit me up on twitter, post on the forum, skype me, use the discord... people seem to be using the Review section to tell me they're unhappy about things and, really, I only check there about once every 3 weeks - even commenting here is better!

[ 2016-06-13 19:11:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

When you press H, you get contextual help on the following things!

• What you're looking at
• What you have highlighted in your hotbar
• The currently-selected Manufacturing Plant recipe
• The current item underneath the mouse cursor in your Inventory

Let me know if there any help files missing, unclear or just downright confusing!

[ 2016-06-13 14:35:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just for those of you who don't know, I stream nearly 100% of development of this game, interact with the community, get feedback and test things, all live and uncensored. https://gaming.youtube.com/user/ProjectorGames/live Sometimes there are cats. Today there's a pink blanket where a cat is shunning the blanket.

[ 2016-06-01 10:07:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

8 months on from release, and I'm still at average of 1.0 patches per month. As (most of) you are aware, the plan is to release the Frozen Factory Expansion pack at the end of June. Pricing has still to be decided, but it's been a lot of fun testing and playing all the new features - the CryoPlasm spawners offer a very different gaming experience to the current 'surface wasps' system, the new Particulate resources look great, and the Magma Bore itself is absolutely awesome. It was quite a struggle to make the Orbital Energy Transmitter look small and puny, but we've managed it! There's still an awful lot of work to be done in the next month, but I'm pretty confident we're going to make it. What other time I have will be spent on improvement Server management code; RCON, permissions, ranks etc. But despite my heavy focus on the expansion, we've got a few awesome new machines, and some somewhat LESS awesome machines, designed to help you automate. I've also been spending a huge amount of time optimising the dedicated server, and you should be seeing CPU usage around 10%-15% of what it was previously, along with much-reduced ram usage. That's all from me; on with the patch notes!
The bit everyone cares about...

New machines!

• Added Ore Thief 3000(tm). This 3x3 early-game machine will remove ore from the player's inventory and store it. It'll then offload onto any attached storage hoppers.
• Added 5x5 Induction Charger. Ideal for low to medium power solutions without lots of awkward Lasers.
• Added a Slime Attractor. Requires Spoiled Organic Remains and 8 pps.
• Added Infused Coal; this gives PTGs a much needed mid-game boost and gives alternative power type choices to players
• Added Empty Fuel Canister crafting machine
• Steel Bars can no longer be crafted by hand, and instead you need to make a machine to do it. I meant to do this about 3 years ago.
• Added Advanced and Imbued Machine Block crafters; these are no longer hand-craftable.

The reason that above list is quite small this month...

Patreon-specific and Frozen Factory

• Added T4 Ore Pings
• MagmaBores are now considered to be T4 machines, and are no longer craftable, except by Patreons.
• Added T4 Particle Filtration systems and T4 Gas Compressors.
• Added Gas Bottlers - you can get the Gas Canisters from these.
• TLDR - Particles Filters -> Particle Compressors -> Gas Storage-> Gas Bottler. Build only where the atmosphere is thick with particulates [spoiler]ie the toxic or cold caverns[/spoiler]
• Added Poison and Slow missiles. They've got fancy-pants names in-game however.
• Added DoT effect to mobs
• Aded Slow Effect to mobs. It'll even work networked!
• GeoThermals now produce 10x the power if fed by Freezon Canisters. The rate of feeding is still to be decided.
• Added PPS for filtration systems.
• Added T4 Minecarts; as fast as Fast ones and as large as Large ones!
• T4 Dazzler Turret now constructable
• Geothermals should no longer use 1xFreezon per connected player (!)
• Geothermals should now be able to build into Lava
• Lancers should only sleep for 5s after completing a work cycle, not 60
• Added T4 'sparkle' to MK3 lasers when fully-upgraded. This should let you easily see if parts of your network need some love.

Important stuff!

Major Fixes and improvements

• Added 3 Inventory Sort functions; Alphabetical, Type and Quantity.
• Added a CPH compass.
• Everyone should now have brand new glowsticks!
• Dapper DLC owners : Glowsticks default to blue, not green.
• Dapper DLC owners : Glowsticks will be the colour of your paintgun (N to select)
• Dapper DLC owners : Choosing BLACK as your Paintgun colour will force fully-saturated, randomly-coloured glowsticks. RAVE!
• Looking at the help page for an un-researched Project will now show all the items that it unlocks.
• Increased maximum power transfer rate of Lab
• Fixed a missile issue where delayed damage was ALWAYS delayed for 15 seconds (!)
• Further fixes for 'flickering combat text' issue. Maybe I got this time. Maybe not. Maybe it's mabelyinne.
• Substantial CPU saving to LF simulation on Dedicated Servers.
• Teleporters now work for networked clients again.
• Fixed Target Marker Duplication issues with Teleporters
• Rebalanced lab work; Labs now require half as much power to research. Research Pods now require twice as much power; this gives the net effect of the same power to complete a research, but allows the player to work in advance to complete the research, as well as deal with a number of smallers power consumers, instead of one massive one. The lab will also give readouts on how well you're doing. Go you! nne Perkins!

Not-so-important stuff.

Minor stuffs

• Reduced rate of archiving, to reduce threaded load.
• DropPods now drop less and less often as the game progresses; after 50 hours of play, they only drop once per 10 hours, instead of once per hour.
• Minecart visual updates now happen a little faster if your framerate is high enough.
• MK2 PSBs now require research. I shall be EXCEPTIONALLY SARCASTIC to anyone who asks "Why can't I craft these any more? (As that means you not only didn't check the forums, you didn't even check the damned reearch station!)
• CamoBots now lurrrrrrrrve the Induction Charger platforms.
• Removed circular dependcy; Steel Smelters no longer require Crystal, which requires Steel Drill heads.
• Massively improved Cold Creep.
• Significant CPU improvements to Oozes, Camobots and Minecarts, especially on dedicated servers.
• Fixed a MAJOR typo, causing things to think they were in the wrong segment. This will affect all mobs and all dropped items.
• Reduced the disk load CPU usage by approximately 90% (TO 10%!)
• Iron Gears no longer need 15(!) Research Points.
• Liquifiers and Ablators now obey Pythagorus (Sum of the square of the other 2 sides, not the product of the sum!)
• Changed Bulk Cargo Lift crafting costs
• Ablators should no longer leave partially ablated resin behind.
• Slimes will now ignore attractors more than 128 metres away.
• MK2 Solars will DEFINITELY collect power at night now. Tottes.
• Removed some log file spam. Log spam is approx 10 gigs per day on a large base. (That's per 24 'real' hours)
• FALCORs that do not share a segment with anything will no longer fail to save.
• Fixed Cargo Lift Duplication issues
• Fixed issue with Cargo Lift where any empty hoppers might cause the lift to stop loading.
• Cargo Lifts can no longer be rotated (I really wouldn't try, you could potentially break anything!)
• Fixed Handbook URL Parser.
• Non-Patreons will get explained why ARC Smelter are falling off randomly.
• Clock Crystals now needs 5 crystal but no Copper.
• Fixed issue where repeated pings would give potentially incorrect resource usage readouts.
• FALCOR bases no longer accept power.
• Clearing Ore Extractors now clear at a rate of 1 block per second, up from 1 block per 30 seconds.
• Altered 'random' mob spawns to more appropriately distribute amongst players.
• Reworked Slime fall damage to be much better
• Fixed a few Slime clipping issues
• Added a Slime Attractor. You can probably work out what this does if you read the previous 2 patch notes. Requires Spoiled Organic Remains and 8 pps.
• Exceptions thrown on the dedicated server will no longer fire every single frame
• Fixed NRE with Storage Hoppers
• Fixed NRE with SpiderBot base
• Cold Creep growth should now be indicated by the CCCCC
• Hard Resin Detectors should work for network clients.
• ARTHER should now tell network players to craft him a core!
• Refineries are now capable of dealing with Liquid Resin. It's your choice which machine to use! <3
• Fixed issue where some T4/Patreon machines weren't working on dedicated servers. (This would have affected the ARC Smelter most obviously)
• CCCCC now has improved paging code for the CryoPlasm spawners.
• Laser Power Transmitters should sync with clients much faster now.
• Numerous fixes to CCCCC and CryoPlasm
• Added Generic Pipes to craftables.
• Steel Bar Smelters work now. Cheers Vandal!
• CCCCC should now calculate CreepVec on the correct thread.
• CargoLifts now visible on the Holobase! #awesome
• CargoLifts will now show how long they've spend loading/unloading/travelling
• Fixed crash when changing refinery recipes.
• Laboratories now give improved autochat when players start doing things.
• Slime Attractors no longer remove 'zero' Spoiled Remains from attached hoppers; they can now also talk to full storage hoppers.
• Visual loading/unloading of Cargo lifts is now faster.
• CargoLift glows now based on tier
• Improved network performance of Cargo Lifts
• Fixed issue with console spam when removing a lift from an interface
• Improved Particulate networking
• Steel Bars can no longer be crafted by hand, and instead you need to make a machine to do it. I meant to do this about 3 years ago.
• All threads named.
• Potential 30%-50% CPU time saving on Dedicated Servers by not calculating facets.
• Explosions (All player-based types) can no longer destroy the CPH. #handholding101
• Quarries can no longer chew into entities of any sort. Like the CPH!
• Updated Help for MK3 lasers.
• Added NetSleep commend for dedicated servers. This indicates how long the server thread will sleep for after each tick. Increasing this will fractionally increase latency, but can reduce CPU usage massively. TODO : Put this into an ini file.
• Reminder : There's also the mobrate parameter!
• Improved mob readout information.
• Reduced Cargo Lift spam
• Advanced Machine Manufacturers no longer require you to have scanned Advanced Machine Blocks.
• T4 Trenchers will no longer make items with stupid values on startup.
• Blast Furnaces now respect difficulty settings. T4 ores are 200/64/32/16 ore per bar, depending on difficulty.
• MK3 Laser beams made a tad smaller
• MK2 Laser beams made a tad less glowy
• Fix Minecart Load glows
• Absolutely tons of optimisations and improvement for dedicated servers and lots of new yummy metrics.
• Increased transfer rate and bufer size of Power Booster Chargers
• CryoPlasm touching batteries will rapidly wipe their power.
• Trusses are now 5x cheaper
• CCB bars now count towards achievements and holobase readouts.
• Induction Charger should now be craftable.
• FIXED TOTALLY GAME-BREAKING BUG THANKS TRAVIS!!!!!!!!!
• Storage Hoppers 'Last added' text now respects value. It's been 3 years. I'm quite happy to have fixed it.
• AutoExcavators' range increased to 512 metres.
• AutoExcavators' power usage greatly decreased.
• Missile Launchers will no longer target surface worms.
• Fixed FMOD 'Spread' issue in Cold Caverns. Free performance and less errors! YAY
• Fixed issue with CamoBots oscillating at very low framerates causing NaNs
• Dazzler Turret should now match up to server angles
• Sped up Dazzler Turret scans, improved CPU usage
• Increased Dazzler maximum trigger range from 64 to 128 metres
• Blast Furnaces should no longer use up extra materials when more players are connected.
• Significantly smarter CPU usage of Overmind spawning; massive decrease in constant mob thread usage!
• Completely network capable and rewritten Orbital Strike Controller code. Way cooler single player, and actually works brilliantly for dedicated servers. EXPLOSIONS, HOOOOO!
• Reduced CPU usage of cold creep
• Solar Panels should no longer crash for network clients
• Induction Chargers should no longer report the wrong number of machines
• C5 will now intelligently drop unnecessary segments
• ColdCreep Spawns now round robin the work, alleviating CPU and segment load
• Dedicated servers now default to CompressOnExit; type cache to modify this.
• Lancers will now drop extra segments after a scan
• Ablators will now drop extra segments after a scan
• Liquefiers will now drop extra segments after a scan
• Inverted the Paintgun Injectors. Remember, the paintgun can be used to paint torches and affect glowsticks if you have the Dapper DLC.
• Further improvements to MagmaBore
• Orbital Strike Controller now has a much more obvious visual effect when signalling
• Fixed holobase for Particulate filter machines
• Fixed descriptions on Power Boosters and Power Chargers (Chargers charge up and make Boosters)
• Ore Grinder no longer works unless you have a Cold Cavern Climate Control Centre.
• Cold Caverns should now be a lot more dangerous without the Suit Heater. Still too easy? Let me know!
• Fixed issue where duplicate segment requests could explode out of control.
• Fixed CPU usage on dedicated server due to pointless block picks
• Fixed CPU usage on dedicated server due to the server's ARTHER having no power core.
• Massive CPU optimisation on Ablators, Refiners, FALCORs and Lancers.
• Inventory Sort By Type now sub-sorts identical types by names
• Inventory Sort By Type now puts Upgrades first, Garbage last, and sorts all Ores seperately.
• Fix to Teleporter repeat sound effect
• Fixed network issue with display of CCB
• Fixed Blast Furnace not obeying resource scalars correctly.
• You can no longer drag T4 ores into the Smelter.
• Blocked FALCOR beacons will no longer soak up lots of CPU time on busy worlds.
• CryoPlasm Spawners will allow the world to page in before attempting to fill it with CryoPlasm.
• Fixed dropped item textures
• Sped up T0 Laser Power Transmitters substantially
• Continuous Casting Basin warns of overheating - only build this in the cold cavern!
• Blast Furnaces now have a 50% higher power transfer rate
• SuperBuild can no longer build through Multiblock machines
• Digging up the Grinder when you have no C5 should now return the resources
• New handbook entries for FALCORs, Induction Chargers The Cyberdyne Ore Thief 3000(tm), SpiderBot weaponry
• Fixed Handbook entries for all Forced Induction kits.
• Ore Thief 3000 (tm) now increased to a sustained 3,300 items/minute maximum.
• Toxic Warning indicator now works
• Cold Warning indicator now works reliably.
• Reduced brightness of Chromed Lens bonus laser
• Increased Order Blocks to 400 from 200. Servers are now 4000.
• All Particulate machines will now drop the correct number of blocks.
• Minor polish improvements to intro sequence
• Minor polish improvements to tutorial sequence
• Removed an exploit.
• Liquefiers should no longer leave Liquefied blocks around. It may take some hours for them to catch up with previously-knackered resin setups, but they will!
• Auto Ore Removers renamed to the much catchier Ore Thief
• Ore Thieves should no longer be able to reduce player's ore to negative levels (!)
• Teleporter effects should now be visible for clients; added SFX and GFX
• Refinery now requires 10x less liquid resin
• Auto Ore Removers no longer show errors whilst linking. Items in this machine are stored in limbo, and breaking it will not give the items back.
• Auto Ore Removers are now much much faster at removing ore. You'll still need to clear the ore out of them!
• Improved logic behind a number of ARTHER prompts. Don't ignore ARTHER. It only makes him sad.
• ARTHER will now let you know if the Lab has work to collect
• You should no longer be able to super-build through the new T4 multiblock machines.
• Saved 2-8ms of mainthread time on servers by not spawning or dealing with things that it doesn't need to.
• Teleporters should now network update. This doesn't mean they WORK, but they are guaranteed to be at least slightly less broken.
• WorkFloor Excavators no longer destroy multiblock machines.
• MK2 Solar Panels should use up a lot less ram.
• GeoThermal plants should no longer use up tons of segments
• Loads and loads of work on the Magma Bore.
• Dazzler turret now rapidly scans through air. Some might say murderously fast.
• Added CryoPlasm Melter; this converts frozen CryoPlasm into its liquid form. This, I believe, turns the game into a completely unique form of tower-defence, allowing and requiring the player to build channels to flow CryoPlasm into a killbox.
• C5 is now marked as a MultiBlock machine.
• Organic Cutter heads now give you 5 heads for 1 Refined Resin. (That's down from 420k power to 42k power per head)
• Added a T4 lens, along with upgrades from ALL previous lens tiers.
• Blast Furnaces should give correct SH readout for network clients
• CCBs are now serialised, and should work on the network ok.
• SpiderBot now requires Base Building Automation.
• Fixed "Collected" info panel, due to watching LovinDaTacos
• Renamed MK2 FALCORs to Logistics FALCORs, due to people's confusions.

Mod Stuff

• Made a bunch of UI specific things public
• Added EntityManager.instance.WhatsAtTheOtherEndOfThisPipe - I decided that the generic pipes were so damned cool, that modders will want to use 'em. Call this and you'll get what's at the other end of the pipe. WhatsAtTheOtherEndOfThisPipe(long x, long y, long z, ushort dir, int maxdistance, MachineEntity lOwner, out ushort lCube, out SegmentEntity lEntity, out lnPipeDistance) returns either ePipeResult.eSuccess or ePipeResult.eSegmentLoadingCallAgain - questions welcome!
• Generic Auto Crafters can now be made that do not require power. You're welcome, modders!
• Not much much support in the form of code changes this month; remember, the nice guy doing the mod changes is a volunteer, and has been busy at work!
• Next month, Workshop support is high priority. I think there's enough mods out there to warrant it, and it'll stop the endless "Does this game have mod support?" questions I get...

[ 2016-05-31 17:13:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Final help files, testing, polish and chat about the forthcoming Frozen Factory and tentative Adventures Pack here today! https://gaming.youtube.com/projectorgames/live

[ 2016-05-27 09:41:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

I'm putting more final touches on here today: https://gaming.youtube.com/projectorgames/live

[ 2016-05-23 10:44:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Remember I've defected from twitch for a vast number of reasons :) https://gaming.youtube.com/user/ProjectorGames/live

[ 2016-05-12 08:51:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

https://gaming.youtube.com/user/ProjectorGames/live

[ 2016-05-05 08:18:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Youtube again! https://gaming.youtube.com/user/ProjectorGames/live

[ 2016-05-02 09:08:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

All items marked as [T4] are for the Frozen Factory Expansion pack. This is slated for release in patch 9 which, all things being well, should come out at the end of June. I'd like to apologise in advance for a number of missing icons. The 2d texture artist got run over by a car. Whilst he was sitting at a restaurant. This really happened. He's ok now, but it has ofc impacted on the schedule! Major new features!

• Cargo Lifts. These wonderful new machines will absolutely answer the prayers of all the Minecart fans; "How do I get resources from -600 to the surface?" - the answer is the modular, upgradable, and above all easy-to-use Cargo Lift! Q: What is the maximum depth these go to? A:There is no maximum depth. Uh, about 500 light years I guess.
• Scanning a Storage Hopper will now give you a readout of its contents. (ty to Zen for prompting this change)
• Absolutely loads of help files updated and added.
• Added 3 new tiers of Matter Mover. The fastest one can shift 4800 items per minute, addressing all your short-range, high capacity transport needs.
• Added useable ARTHER Power Cores. Craft these in advance and keep them on your hotbar; select and Use them in emergencies for boosts of power!
• A complete new resource tree; Hardened Resin can now be removed, utilised and indeed farmed. Research Resin Handling from your Laboratory for more information. Those poor hiveminds.
  
• Added a Hardened Resin Detector. This should guide you towards the nearest active Hivemind, and source of gloriously useful Hardened Resin.
• Added MK2 Organic Solars. More power, and a reasonable amount merely from the light of the moon.
• Moved to Unity 5.3.4. This should alleviate a number of Linux-related issues.
• Added crashed parts containers. Keep an eye on the sky. You can't miss 'em. They should arrive approximately once per hour currently.
  
• Significant improvements to storage hoppers and conveyors on network games, and a reduction in the memory footprint of dedicated servers.
• Added Chromium and Molybdenum across the game. This is NOT accessible without Frozen Factory Expansion or Patreon
• Added WorkFloor Excavator. These should allow you to clear out useful-shaped and sized work areas, slowly at, but ever so fast if you have the power to run 'em flat out!
• Added Minecart Logic tracks. You can now turn Minecarts around (no more awkward loops!) , and also predicate Minecart movement on FULL or EMPTY. This should improve the effiency of your Minecart networks by hundreds of times.
• Laboratories have been re-balanced, and *assuming you have the power available* are upto 3 times faster!
• Added MK2 FALCORS. These can carry items between Beacons attached to Storage Hoppers, to their base. MK3s with Exemplar filters are planned.
• Added Casual Resources - 2 ore per bar, double speed smelter, much denser Ore veins. Designed for those with jobs and children. This also gives a 'starter pack' of Storage Hoppers, Lasers and Power Storage Blocks. This should make the start-game go past extremely quickly. Not recommended unless you've already played the game on a harder difficulty tho!
• Hiveminds now have much better graphics, and should die when nuked from space. It was the only way to be sure.
  

Known Issues

• Cargo Lifts can suffer from occasional duplication issues.
• Black Hexagons on certain video cards, when in the cold or magma caverns, due to low specular. (Unity issue, hopefully fixed in next patch)
• Flickering fog particles (Unity issue, hopefully fixed in next patch)
• A few missing icons. Apologies for this.

Frozen Factory Expansion Pack

This is all work towards the future release of the Frozen Factory Expansion pack. Patreons gets preview access to this : https://www.patreon.com/Fortresscraft?ty=h

• Added the Cold Cavern Climate Control Centre. (C5 for short). This item will allow you to 'terraform' the Cold Cavern into something habitable. This will require the Frozen Factory Expansion Pack. Patreons will get early acccess.
• Cold Cavern Climate Control Centre (CCCCC or C5 for short) should now be craftable and buildable by Patreons. WARNING - BY BUILDING THIS, YOU WILL START THE NEXT SECTION OF THE GAME, WHICH INCLUDES ENVIRONMENTAL-BASED ATTACKS FROM CRYOPLASM. NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED!
• Added the Hard Rock Grinder. This will allow access to grinding your very first T4 ores. This will require the Frozen Factory Expansion Pack. Patreons will get early acccess.
• Fixed Frozen Factory research
• GeoThermal Plants should no longer need an attached hopper with a pipe in it to start working on reload.
• Grinders now craftable
• Grinders have improved start/stop graphics, and a larger power pool
• Fixed erratic network sync/flood of CCCC, Grinder, MagmaBore, Mk4 battery, T4 Conduit and SpiderBotBase.
• Added ARC Smelter. This upgrade will allow Smelters to smelt T4 ore. This is extremely inefficient and power-consuming, but will allow the player to move onto bigger and better smelting T4 systems. Patreon-only until Frozen Factory Expansion is released - of course!
• Fixed error with crafting Heat Conductant Pipes (thanks Tychon)
• Added CryoPlasm defence reearch and CryoPlasm Lancer; that should allow you to hold off against the CryoPlasm.
• A bunch of fixes and visual improvements to the Geothermal Plant.
• Lots of work on the Magma Bore. Graphics still 100% placeholder. It's very... very... big
  
• [FrozenFactory Expansion only]Continuous Casting Basins, Blast Furnaces and Casting Pipes are now all craftable.
• Trenchers now empty slightly quicker, and shouldn't end up with 9 ore lying around in them.
• Trencher internal storage now increased to 450 ore, meaning it should be able to work 100% of the time.

Cargo Lifts

• Added Cargo Lift, research, rack railer, rack rails, and 3 tiers of Lifts. The first should be available with Lithium-level resources, the second with minecarts, and the final one about the point where you're looking to automate biomass and T4. The largest lift moves at 15 metres per second, and can carry 3,000 items - that will be limited to Frozen Factory, as it's T4, but the other 2 lifts will be available to all!
• Cargo Lifts should work without issue for networked clients
• Cargo Lifts now allow you to remove the Lifts without error
• Cargo Lifts now allow you to re-scan the rails, in order to extend your lift.
• Cargo Lifts rescanning no longer wastes and duplicates previously-placed rails.
• Cargo Lift Glow represent power charge of the lift controller.
• Cargo Lifts no longer have issues when loaded remotely
• Cargo Lift UI should no longer screw up
• Cargo Lifts are no longer marked as T4 machines
• Cargo Lift now authoritates power state over the network
• CargoLifts can no longer get stuck in an endless acquiring inventory state
• Cargo Lifts now use power relative to the fitted Cargo Lift type
• Cargo Lifts now load faster for higher tiers.
• Cargo Lifts no longer load everything immediately, but stagger it depending on tier of lift.
• Cargo Lifts - Slightly improved floating combat text readout
• Cargo Lifts can no longer load more than their maximum
• Cargo Lifts no longer attempt to pull more than the available resources out of a storage hopper
• Cargo Lifts now pause after loading to allow visuals to catch up
• Cargo Lifts now come to a near halt if they run out of power
• Cargo Lifts now support MK2 and Organic MK2 solar panels
• Attempting to upgrade a Cargo Lift whilst it has cargo will no longer longer lose the upgraded Lift.
• Cargo Lifts now have full audio for arriving, leaving and travelling.
• StorageHoppers now count up the number of free slots once a Cargo Lift has emptied them. This means they will no longer be empty, but report full.

Matter Movers

• Boosted MatterMover power pool by 50%
• Boosted MatterMover power transfer rate by 50% - they should hopefully no longer run dry.
• Reworked Matter Mover visuals for all tiers, added sound effects
• Matters Movers will IGNORE Remove Only status and WILL add to these; this is to allow usage of MMs for Cutter Head Delivery
• MatterMovers are now capable of firing directly at each other
• MatterMovers will drop their stored item on deletion
• Fixed MatterMover max distance to be 64, not 63!
• MatterMovers will no longer remove from Locked or Add Only Storage Hoppers.
• MatterMovers will no longer add to Locked or Remove Only Storage Hoppers.
• Various MatterMover timing and storage hopper issues fixed.
• MatterMovers are now Server-Authoratitive.
• Added 3 new tiers of Matter Movers. These will become craftable tomorrow.

Other Fixes and Changes:

• SpiderBot will no longer leave the base if he has received a Power Core in the last 10 seconds.
• ARTHER will not bug you about Lithium for 2 hours
• ARTHER will not bug you about T2 materials for at least 6 hours!
• Crashed DropPods no longer drop 1 item per player.
• Fixed networked 'centre request' for many multiblock machines.
• Grey spawn chance raised from 5% to 15%
• Iron Gears now require Base Building Automation
• OverMinds should no longer appear and disappear near the edge o the screen
• OverMinds can now kill you in a variety of interesting ways
• Fixed boot error with ARTHER
• Changed organic cutter head to use refined resin. People argued. I disagreed.
• Mildly tweaked the intro
• Added Help for all Power Boosters.
• Added help for Research Parts, fixed help for Hive Brains
• Doubled Density of Biomass veins
• Boosted Density on Casual
• Increased Biomass Perlin Zoom Factor by 50%
• Significant improvements to busy conveyor network syncing
• Improvements to Storage Hopper removal duplication issues.
• CamoBots now have 3x as much health on Hard mode.
• Slimes will no longer be angry at the player if they take fall damage (ty to Zen for prompting this change)
• Slimes now take substantially more falling damage. Make traps dammit!
• Ores and Materials now come back as different colours on unknown pings
• Chromium and Molybdenum now have unique colours
• Unknown Pings will now give a breakdown of types, ores and materials on the scanner.
• Known Pings will give a specific breakdown of ores on the scanner.
• Lots of new help files and documentation for new machines added this patch.
• Reduced Macerator max power storage from 1500 (!!) to a more sensible 150.
• Added support for "URL" links in the handbook; primarily will be used for tutorial videos. Got a great tutorial video about a specific machine? Let me know and I can link it!
• Added Resin Liquifier UI popup.
• Made ARTHER power bar more obvious
• Icons that are clickable in the Handbook now grow and change colour when hovered. This should make them much more obvious that they ARE clickable!
• Fixed Mk5 ARTHER Power Cores.
• GeoThermal plants now require pipes in order to build.
• Added extra debug to Mob timings; /debug will now give a breakdown of the spent mob time.
• Fixed issues with Novas getting rather too large. Oops.
• Orbital Strike Controllers can no longer fire when 'too close' to the CPH. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO VERIFY THIS FIX OK?
• Orbital Strike Controllers now give the readout for the current quadrant they are placed in.
• Balanced the cost of MK2 induction kits to be multiples of eachother, for automation. LMK if I got this wrong.
• Reduced the Nickel cost of MK4 inductions; increased the gold cost. They should now be a *tad* more balanced.
• DeOrbit containers. I'm gonna let you find out about this one yourself. ;)
• Destroying a DeOrbit container will net you a ResearchPart, which can be researched for 5 RP.
• You can no longer manually feed T4 ores into a smelter. Nice one.
• Fixed issue where time ran at the wrong rate. NOVA AHOY! (You're fine)
• OverMinds now have a death animation
• Fixed a MAJOR error with the Mob/Orbital Strike/Tower Defence loading saving. This possibly hasn't been working properly for months. I GUARANTEE* that all Orbital Strikes will now work.
• Fixed complicated internal issue with SuperDig that could have caused all sorts of horrible knock-on effects. If you've been using vacuum hoppers and superdig, you might see machines refuse to use the ore. Sorry!
• All Generic AutoCrafting machines should now correctly research cube/value type products. (Mesh Weaver was a specific example)
• Generic Autocrafters can now directly offload crafted items onto conveyor belts.
• Generic Autocrafters can now directly collect items from conveyor belts. This ONLY applies to machines that have a SINGLE input; an example would be a Coal Enricher. You CANNOT put multiple types of items on multiple input belts - you'll need to interface via a Hopper.
• Generic AutoCrafters will animate according to XML again. Sorry about that, modders!
• Added Craftable PowerCores. When used, these will give power to ARTHER No-they-don't-stack-in-your-inventory. There are 5 tiers, each of which needs the result of the previous tier. The highest rank ones are pretty amazing!
• Nova Timer can now progress past 7 days. This should also fix the Server Uptime readout too. #floatingpointaccuracy
• Added an Upcraft ('C' menu) recipe for converting (many) MK2 batteries to MK3s.
• Geological Surveyors are now limited to 1024 metres of scan range. If you need to scan deeper, place it deeper!
• Fixed dig audio on WorkFloor Excavators
• Fixed random crash on WorkFloor Excavators
• Added Chromium and Molybdenum bars and various other recipes related to them.
• Smelter can now have per-metal melting point. All T1/2/3 metals are still 1139; Chromium and Molybdenum are now set correctly. Feel free to google and check ;-)
• Blasts Furnaces can now connect to Continuous Casting Basins. These should now be considered testable. Graphics == Placeholder.
• HiveMinds will no longer drop brains scattered around a 48m area. All other loot is, mind you - go looking!
• Mynock/HiveMind interaction code has been belt-and-braced, and I am confident in saying that only the closest hivemind to the CPH will grow.
• Mob spawning should cause less of a CPU spike on servers
• Fixes to Ablators, Liquifiers and Lancers loading off disk during their clearing phase; they should not longer get stuck!
• Added the Work Floor Excavator; this clears a 33m, 3m-tall circle around itself, using power. Ideal for setting up neat work areas and for clearing unknown terrain.
• SpiderBot base should no longer take power from adjacent items and... give it back out again. It was basically a T4 battery. Er, oops. Sorry.
• Ablators and Liquifiers now correctly revert back to size 0 after finishing their scan up to range 32 (instead of accidentally carrying on forever, ooops)
• Significant speedup for overloaded fluid segments.
• Increased Laboratory maximum power transfer rate.
• Reworked 'Closest Hivemind' code; Closest Hivemind should now also be linked on the holobase.
• Added Hardened Resin Detector. This should guide you to the nearest active hivemind.
• Added Casual Resources - 1 ore per bar, double speed smelter. Designed for those with jobs and children. This also gives a 'starter pack' of Storage Hoppers, Lasers and Power Storage Blocks. This should make the start-game go past extremely quickly. Not recommended unless you've already played the game on a harder difficulty tho!
• Mynocks can now spawn at any altitude on Hard Mobs
• Charged Explosives can no longer destroy EVERYTHING
• Added Cold Creep; similar to hive minds, this will provide a 'vs the world' version of tower defence for the Cold Caverns Expansion Pack. Now renamed to CryoPlasm!
• Lots of new icons!
• Organic MK2 Solar Panels will no longer drop a useless central block
• Organic MK2 Solar Panels are now considered to be multiblock machines
• Organic MK2 Solar Panels now collect at night
• Added T4 GeoThermal plant. This should be built in the Cold Cavern for maximum effect. You'll need Patreon access in order to get it before the Frozen Factory Expansion Pack's release (http://patreon.com/fortresscraft)
• Added Mesh Weaver and Pipe Coater; feed these into the GeoThermal Plant in order to increase its output.
• Power Generation levels of the GeoThermal have NOT been set; it should probably generate around 4500/sec at full power.
• Ablators should no longer leave orphaned partially-ablated resin around. It may take a few game restarts to clear anything that has been left in this state. It shouldn't be a problem for any new setups.
• Ablators and Liquifiers now work in a sphere shape, not a cube.
• Fixed a number of client-side crashes.
• Implemented Laser Ablator. This can be used to burn off hardened resin.
• Implemented Laser Liquifier. This converts Ablated Resin into Liquid Resin
• Implemented Liquid Resin Refiner. This converts Liquid Resin into a useful crafting component; Refined Liquid Resin.
• Added MK2 Solar Panel (Organic); collects 2x normal MK2s, and works at night. Requires Refined Liquid Resin.
• Fixed issue with hiveminds. They may be a few hundred times more efficient now. Balancing in progress. BE WARNED.
• Added MK2 FALCOR. This will only collect loot from Beacons that are placed on top of Storage Hoppers.
• FALCOR beacons placed on top of Storage Hoppers will now collect an item from them, and, proffer it to MK2 FALCORs.
• Zipper Merges will now work after rotating.
• Fixed some minor UI issues relating to readback of machine status and help files.
• Fixed issue where GACs could corrupt on save *if* they were unable to drop off an item at the moment of saving.
• Added Minecart Buffer! Any minecart that hits this will simply turn around. This can be used in place of loops
• Added Minecart FULL Gate. A Minecart approaching this from the Green direction will treat it as a Straight. A Minecart approaching from the Red direction will turn around unless it is FULL.
• Added Minecart EMPTY Gate. A Minecart approaching this from the Green direction will treat it as a Straight. A Minecart approaching from the Red direction will turn around unless it is EMPTY.
• Split Minecart Research into 2 parts; one gives you the better carts, one gives you the improve Logistical and Decision-making track pieces (as above)
• Significantly increased cost of Turbo Rails
• Research Assemblers should now more reliably run at full speed, due to increased power storage and power transfer rate.
• Tweaked network load of conveyors a little
• Fixed ARTHER power bar
• ARTHER will no longer tell you to go searching for a new fuel source, once you've got jet turbines.
• Blocked Solar Panels on Dedicated servers will no longer permanently blocked.
• Fixed Deployed Explosive duplication error.
• Reduced cost of Conduits; likelihood is that they'll go back up after CCBs are implemented
• Fixes to Laboratory Decompose code
• Basic Smelters now 10% faster (I'm aiming for ~2 bars/min)
• Dedicated servers now have all DLC! (This means that T4 Trenchers will now work on Dedicated Servers)
• Fixed serialisation issue with Matter Movers
• All Cutters Heads apart from Plasma now have +50% durability
• Plasma Heads now have 20% less durability
• Increased Lab Power Per Seconds by 300%
• Decreased Time Per Lab Pod to 33%
• This should mean that the power-per-hour of your lab remains the same, but you have the option to process 3x more (at 3x the power cost, of course)
• Ore Extractors will drop their stored ore on deletion
• Deleting a SpiderBotBase will also drop whatever item it was offering to SpiderBro
• SpiderBot should charge to 150k now.
• Added Mod-Specific error if ItemCubeStackSize is zero.

What're you doing down here?

[ 2016-04-29 14:44:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

For streaming 'non-gaming content' (srsly) So I'm streaming here today instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58yrBZpJzMg

[ 2016-04-28 08:25:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

As with every day, come join me in my office. https://www.twitch.tv/djarcas Patch in 4 days.

[ 2016-04-25 09:26:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you're interested in seeing what's coming, and giving feedback, head over to here: https://www.twitch.tv/djarcas And read what's already been implemented over here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/371918937259594309/

[ 2016-04-18 09:13:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

...that the dedicated server has been out and available for about 5 months now! Just look inside your installation folder for 'dedicated server' - if you want to be all neat, copy that folder somewhere, and then just run the batch file on your server! Other useful links people seem to miss! ;-) https://www.twitch.tv/djarcas https://twitter.com/fortress_craft https://www.patreon.com/fortresscraft

[ 2016-04-13 11:04:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 6 is here! Slightly less than a month since the last patch, and here I am, writing up the patch notes once again. So - there've been 3 major areas of focus for this patch:

SpiderBot!

The first and most immediately obvious of those will be the new upgrades and progression available for the SpiderBot https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CdsMLrtW4AIBJ_f.jpg:large
He's now capable of taking on entire waves by himself, with the appropriate upgrades, and is able to target 5 different enemies simultaneously!
You'll be introduced to the SpiderBot Dock at around the 2-4 hour mark, and from then on, he will be your faithful, native lifeform-murdering robot helper!

FALCOR!

Secondly, we have the new Fully-Automated Loot Collection Organisational Robot - or FALCOR for short.
This addresses the complaints I've had from players about loot dropping everywhere - a FALCOR automatically collects loot that has been retrieved by a FALCOR beacon. You shouldn't have any problems centralising your loot collection now!

Official Mod support!

And finally; we now have full Mod support. This includes partial XML overrides, DLL-based mods for larger game changes, and a full in-game UI to enable and disable mods. I don't like to brag, but there's a certain-other voxel-craft game that still has failed to come through on their promise - so go out there and make great mods! We'll be looking at Steam Workshop support in time for Patch 7! If you're interested in creating mods for the game, Please head over to here On top of all of this, as ever, a shedload of optimisations, quality of life fixes and improvements. There have also been improvements to the T4-level of machines; Patreon Subscribers should now have immediate access to working Trenchers and Conduits. ARTHER has also had a significant overhaul, and should now prove to be a lot more useful, and a lot less annoying - let me know what you think!
Sadly, the new OverMind model has slipped to Patch 7 - I'll be revisiting the Orbital Strike Controllers and progression onto T4 during this patch cycle.

Full patch notes are over HERE, as per usual!

Known issues

• TechAxe is shown on the back of non-Patreons
• Linux builds will potentially require -force-opengl (due to using Unity 5.3.2)

Major changes

• Doubled speed (and therefore halved power-per-item) of Organic Reassemblers
• Boosted DPS of MK3 turrets by 20%
• Fixed major issue with Ore Extractors. This would have meant that you were losing around 25% of the ore in normal resources (so a vein that reported 10m, extracted using 100% heads, would have given you only 7.5m) - worse, in Plentiful mode, you would have lost 75% (!) of the reported ore. This should also accidentally fix the 'infinite veins' bug that has been previously reported.
• Completely re-written ARTHER messaging, dynamic help and information system.
• V2 build gun will clear ore veins 4x faster. You do NOT get 4x more ore - you simply can dig through veins quicker. You're welcome!
• Bouncy Minecarts have been calmed, and should now be reliable.
• Increased vein richness and size in Plentiful resource mode.
• Hard Mobs mode now has much harder mobs, but won't blow up your CPH
• Added a bunch of VR stuff - really still don't recommend trying this unless you have a stomach of steel tho!

Minor changes

• Increased maximum power transfer rate of refineries when more are connected togerther
• Belt-and-braces fix for invisible machines at new world start
• Improved ARTHER hints for network clients (he should no longer go on about T2 materials just because you haven't happened to visit there this game)
• Better error on missing mod.config file for mods
• Brand-new GACs now work in mods
• Improved error handling when working with malformed or incorrect XML files
• Error returned to user when mod id is misnamed WRT folder name
• Multiple simultaneous Mods now work
• Fixed issues with spiderbot skins
• Reduced cost of Conduits to 33% of previous.
• Minor tweaks to T4 Ore Extractors ('Trencher Drills' - Patreons are welcome to give feedback!)
• You may now start creating mods for the game. Please head over to here : http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/1/
• COPPER WIRE ISSUES NOW FIXED!
• You can no longer open the console whilst typing a chat command.
• SpiderBotDock effect improved
• Full modding support added. 4 little words, with such big scope. Please check out DataDefaultFortressCraft Evolved Modding API.pdf for many MANY more details.
• Added custom 'crafting' string to Generic AutoCrafters, so you can make your custom modded machine say Assembling or Fermenting
• Improved readout of GACs under all circumstances
• fixed lag when crafting lots
• fixed CRAFTING vocal spam
• ARTHER will no longer tell you he doesn't have a powercore when in fact he does
• Added a minor April Fool's 'in joke'
• CryoHoppers use up 50% less power when placed in the Cold Caverns
• Increased crafting cost of MK3 turrets, to use up more Eyes
• Reduced the size of ore veins by approximately 50% in Plentiful mode - this should still be around 175%-225% of the value of the Ore Veins in the previous patch!
• Charged Explosives can now be charged 5x faster
• Increased the research cost of a number of later recipes; much more use of Lithium.
• All recipes that use Iron Gears now use a multiple of 5
• Increased cost of upgraded minecarts
• Minecarts now delay at a station for 300 seconds without any arriving resources before moving on; this applies to both loading and unloading.
• Fixed a number of draw order UI issues
• Smelters now capped to 25 bars; this should avoid the state where a previously-blocked smelter cannot offload into a 100 capacity hopper. It also stops players using the Smelter as a free hopper.
• The same fix has been applied to Refineries.
• You can no longer collect items whilst dead. Cheers DivineLumen
• SpiderBot UI improvements
• [T4]Thresher now works again
• [T4]Conduits have second-pass graphics (but placeholder textures)
• Fixed race condition where player would randomly lose half of their suitpower, once the larger battery has been fitted.
• Fixed collision race condition with spiderbot projectiles
• You can no longer insta-redie from HurtBoxes (like conduits or overminds)
• Easy Resources should now give larger-sized veins
• Easy Resources should now give veins of approximately double the richness
• Fixed ARTHER Solar Warning Spam
• Fixed ARTHER detection of mining types on a network game
• Fixed ARTHER detection of PTGs on a network game
• Fixed Minecart Factory Duplication issue
• Added ARTHER Power Bar on the UI
• ARTHER readout now readable on Fast detail
• Hard Mobs no longer means a unrepairable CPH. You can still select Hardcore mode to get this effect.
• Hard Mobs should also mean many more mobs around, all with much boosted health. Mynocks will also prove to be a much, much harder challenge.
• SpiderBot Base can now be destroyed.
• Alternative SpiderBot damage systems for dedicated servers.
• You can no longer host a multiplayer game before completing the tutorial (Thanks Deluks_Gaming)
• Threat Scanners now have much reduced power requirements.
• CPH now burns Enriched Coal correctly.
• ARTHERs readout display has had a massive overhaul - feedback wanted!
• Reduced heat distortion on Ore Smelters
• Minecart stations now authoritatively update attached Storage Hoppers.
• Player blaster shots should register on servers that aren't hosting, ie single player games
• Detected and warned users running on Intel chipsets. I really shouldn't have to do this for you guys, but, it's done!
• Fixed spelling of 'Complete' and 'Efficiency' in the help. Did not fix the spelling of 'manoeuvring',as I'm British and this is the correct spelling.
• Ore Extractors are no longer rotatable by players.
• Shift-R now rotates in the opposite direction.
• Iron Gears no longer researchable until you've located Iron
• Items that need the Lab no longer list 0 RP.
• Lab-based research is now all hidden until you research how to make a Lab.
• Ore Extractors with no cutter heads fitted no longer show a random '0' in the durability field
• Added Description to all crystals, indicating how useful they are, after research has been carried out on them.
• Added Description to all plants, giving much clearer hints on progression, after research has been carried out on them.
• Changed PSB interaction keys to match up to Storage Hopper behaviour. Old keys still work for experienced players.
• PTGs no longer allow direct removal of power. This was never actually intended!
• Music is no longer dimensional, and can now be heard. Oops.
• Loads of SpiderBot improvements, especially for networking.
• Improvements to Spaceships, including calculation of Delta/V
• Generic AutoCrafters should now research their target. No more auto-crafting of 'Unknown Items' !
• Fixed drill head materials. Learned not to trust artists.
• Bling Skin now available, as I've gotten a little less incompetent now I've had coffee.
• SpiderBot should no longer stomp ALL the way to the enemy base during at attack, but will hang on the (expected) perimeter of your base.
• SpiderBot should now target mobs more accurately
• SpiderBot audio now significantly cheaper on the CPU
• SpiderBot's Basic Blaster will no longer target large mobs that he has no chance of killing.
• Added SpiderBot Cannon
• Added SpiderBot Pulse Rifle
• These weapons are smart, have preferential targets, and SpiderBot can target 5 different mobs simultaneously! A fully-upgraded SpiderBot has no trouble demolishing 50+ heavies and many bosses - power permitting!
• SpiderBot attacks now require power
• Added SpiderBot Upgrade and Recharge Dock; he'll automatically return there when low on power, or an upgrade is available, or he's at less than full power and there's no attack active.
• Added SpiderBot Charge Core; give it 1,000 power and SpiderBot can go murder things for you.
• Added loads of related SpiderBot research and crafting. You may need to read up on locating hiveminds and extricating their brains for research points!
• Fixes to various fog shaders.
• Tweaks to the MobSpawner; you can now spawn 100 mobs with shift-e. Not recommended.
• FALCORs should now be correctly network sync'd
• FALCOR graphics and UI now first-pass final
• ZipperMerge network behaviour improved
• Redid Patreon CPH skin to second pass.
• Removed the music track 'Promises' from the game, to avoid any future tuneid matching issues.
• Hotbar should now update on research and usage of consumables
• Upgrades should now be applied and removed under ALL circumstances (especially storage crates)
• Re-did selection glow. Thoughts?
• Added Fully-Automated Loot Collection Organisational Robots (F.A.L.C.O.R. for short). FALCORs will fly from their base to FALCOR beacons and automatically collect loot near them. Right now they will collect ANYTHING - best used to collect Organic parts. Also useful for Auto Excavators and BFLs.
• Fix for items being transmitted over the network.
• [VR]Ins/Home/End now select VR quality low/med/high (this defaults to POTATO, so your framerate is high)
• [VR]F1 will toggle the VR being sent to the viewport. This can improve performance slightly
• [VR]Added virtual VR mouse cursor; all menus should now be navigable in VR
• Reworked Sun and Moon shafts and visuals; Shafts disable when deep underground; VR no longer attempts to render shafts (Can be toggled; will need a good video card (980ti or better))
• Organic Items spoil in hoppers correctly again.
• MK5 batteries now respect WantsPowerFromEntity correctly.

[ 2016-03-31 14:23:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Final work happening over here, all day long! https://www.twitch.tv/djarcas

[ 2016-03-29 09:50:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Final work happening over here, all day long! https://www.twitch.tv/djarcas

[ 2016-03-29 09:50:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just a brief heads-up on where we're at; bleeding edge is being well-behaved, with substantial improvements to networking of the SpiderBot, a new automated loot collection system, and a full upgrade path for the SpiderBot. I'm sadly away on business for a few days, so there will be no streaming from me; that said, I've got this page on a tab: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/FortressCraft%20Evolved! So I can see if anyone else is playing! Tuesday should be the day I update the Mac and Linux builds to match. Wednesday will be spent playing through the easy mode dedicated server world, and with a little luck, the patch will ship Thursday. The new OverMind may or may not make it into the game - we'll see how time passes!
Thank you again for your continued amazing Patreon support - I'll be dealing with any outstanding key requests just after Patch 6 goes live!

[ 2016-03-24 09:44:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just a brief heads-up on where we're at; bleeding edge is being well-behaved, with substantial improvements to networking of the SpiderBot, a new automated loot collection system, and a full upgrade path for the SpiderBot. I'm sadly away on business for a few days, so there will be no streaming from me; that said, I've got this page on a tab: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/FortressCraft%20Evolved! So I can see if anyone else is playing! Tuesday should be the day I update the Mac and Linux builds to match. Wednesday will be spent playing through the easy mode dedicated server world, and with a little luck, the patch will ship Thursday. The new OverMind may or may not make it into the game - we'll see how time passes!
Thank you again for your continued amazing Patreon support - I'll be dealing with any outstanding key requests just after Patch 6 goes live!

[ 2016-03-24 09:44:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

As you may or may not know, I stream almost all of the development work on this game here: https://www.twitch.tv/djarcas The next 2 days are almost-exclusively SpiderBot-related. Hate SpiderBro? Love Henriette? COME AND HAVE YOUR SAY, OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR 8-LEGGED PEACE! -Dj

[ 2016-03-16 09:27:49 CET ] [ Original post ]