Testing Branch Available Now! - 472677

[Ipsquiggle]

Hello friends!

We're putting a new Spaced Out! update on the Public Testing Branch today, which introduces the third Classic Cluster option: a large-sized Swamp Start! We've also been focusing on bugs and stability.

There's an experimental system in place for varying the amount of sunlight per asteroid, meaning that sunburns and solar power will behave differently depending where in the cluster you're building.

There's TWO new songs in Spaced Out! to feast your ears on, as well as a number of new lore entries in the Codex. We've added details to the background of rocket interiors as they travel to different parts of space.

And of course, there's a number of bug fixes and polish improvements. Please let us know in the bug forums if you see anything unexpected, and as always, thank you for your feedback!

All Oxygen Not Included Players

Now that both versions of the game are on a unified codebase, there will be simultaneous updates to the base game whenever a DLC update goes out. We'll now be running the testing branch for those that don't own Spaced Out! as well, where you can preview the next patch, as well as get earlier access to bug fixes.

This Testing branch contains fixes for a number of issues introduced to the base game by the Breath of Fresh Air update, including a number of worldgen fixes (available on newly generated worlds) as well as some issues with Space Scanners.

Occasionally there will be fresh new bugs as well, so as development on ONI continues please check the Public Testing branch out if you're so inclined, let us know if you find any issues!

 What does this testing branch contain so far?

Here are the changes we've made so far in this update, loosely categorized:

Spoiler

Features and Improvements

• Adjusted colour/saturation of Ocean and Rust biome backgrounds
• Spaced Out! Only
  • Added Classic Swamp Cluster
  • Worldgen: Added varied sunlight & radiation values per world.Starting planets will be quite dim and the old "default" sunlight value will not be reached until you are closer to the outer planets in the cluster.
  • Add orbiting skybox objects for rocket interiors
  • Audio:
    • Added new dynamic song: Brighter Future
    • Added new dynamic song: To the Stars
    • Added Grubgrub sound
    • Added Grubgrub Wormling sound
    • Starmap music is muted during Temporal Tear victory notification.
    • Adjust audio mix on Cartographic Module
  • Added Spaced Out! Specific My Log entries
  • Regolith Biome Codex and Radioactive and Regolith planetoid naming prefix category
  • Lore for Temporal Tear Opener
  • New icon for Rocketry skill replacing placeholder icon
  • Minor art revisions to Artifact Analyzer

Bug Fixes

• Fixed another trait exclusivity with some Ranching traits.
• Gravitas Chandelier can be demolished.
• Reverted unintentional change to steam’s molar mass back to 18.01528
• Corrected capitalization of kilogram (kg)
• Solar panel foundations will no longer by destroyed by Duplicant Breath or off gassing tiles like Oxylite
• Base game only
  • Fixed crash if a duplicant loses their balloon while in a rocket.
  • Worldgen: Fixed issue where Volcanea'a magma channels contained all obsidian and no magma.Also fixes Magma Channels trait.
  • Worldgen: Fixed issue where volcanoes would not spawn in the core on Rime.
  • Worldgen: Fixed Volcanic Activity trait not spawning volcanoes.
  • Worldgen: Improved worldgen rules for Rime and Oceania to decrease worldgen failures.
  • Fixed most cases where Sky Scanners' Automation output doesn't match the meteor shower. This also fixes some cases of them being stuck in the wrong state after upgrading a save.
  • Fixed Sky Scanner not consuming any power after it goes from Detecting to Not Detecting.
  • Fixed a bug where Sky Scanner would flicker its Automation output on load, causing connected doors to open and close.
• Spaced Out! Only
  • Fixed bug that could cause massive amounts of Beetiny to spawn.
  • Fixed a bug where Space POIs had infinite capacity
  • Fixed a bug where Beeta Hives would render behind Drywall & Tempshift Plates.

 

 

 

What is open testing?

"Open testing" means players get to test-drive new content early and give us feedback and suggestions before it goes live. Because this is an unfinished and in active development version of the game, it's pretty likely you'll encounter bugs, crashes or balance issues while playing these builds. We'll try to fix any problems that crop up as quickly as we can, but it's possible you'll lose progress in your games while playing on the Testing branch.

Regarding performance, the Testing branch has additional debugging tools enabled to help us track down crashes. This makes the game run more slowly than the live version of the game.

Please also be aware that once a save is loaded in the Testing branch, it cannot be reopened again in the previous Live branch or previous builds.

What do I do if I find a crash or a bug?

Post it up on the Bug Tracker and we'll fix it as soon as we can. If you can attach a copy of your save file to your report, that helps us even more as we can pinpoint the source of problem more quickly.

Do I have to play the open testing build?

Nope! If you'd prefer to only play a stable build, you can continue to play in the current Default branch until the game launches in full. Playing the Open Testing build isn't necessary, but it helps us a lot to receive your feedback and reports - if you're interested, try it out!

How do I become an open tester?

There's no sign up or registration for becoming an open tester. If you own Oxygen Not Included and want to join the Testing Branch, all you have to do is play the Open Testing build on Steam.

Spaced Out! testing features will only be available to those who own Spaced Out!

How do I play the open testing build?

You can switch your branch on Steam using the instructions below:

Spoiler

How to change branches in Oxygen Not Included (Steam)

• In Steam, click on Library > Games.
• Scroll down to Oxygen Not Included.
• Right-click and select Properties.
• Go to the BETAS tab.
• In the dropdown, select the name of the branch you want to play. In this case, the branch name is "public_testing"
  • This branch does not require a password.
• In that same Properties window, go to the Local Files tab and press "Verify Integrity Of Game Cache."
• Your game will be updated to the the previous branch.
• Launch and play Oxygen Not Included

 

 

View full update

 

[Nebbie]

Hmm, nerfing solar space efficiency is a good step (it was the major problem with it), but this leaves us still with the sting of previous changes to delay getting them at all. A bunch of Materials Science and 200kg of glass is a pretty steep barrier to getting them up and running. Could we see a bit of a mass increase in the new glass panels of POI? Not to old levels, but just to where it'd be feasible to make one panel without the Glass Forge.
Additionally, the Glass Forge would be a bit nicer on us if it only took 50kg of sand, not necessarily because sand is scarce or anything, but so that its storage would be 2 runs, like many buildings.

Also, I must state that we really need more numbers in these patch notes. It was easy enough to check in game on things like fridge power and heat production, but the solar output now is a worldgen thing (and by the sound of it, not on old worlds) that's a bit more complicated to check. Is this to where a Solar Panel only will produce 100W average on the starting asteroid?

Edited July 27, 2021 by Nebbie

[WeSaidMeh]

27 minutes ago, Ipsquiggle said:

Worldgen: Added varied sunlight & radiation values per world.Starting planets will be quite dim and the old "default" sunlight value will not be reached until you are closer to the outer planets in the cluster.

Does this also affect existing saves? I assume not since it's prefixed "Worldgen"?

[gabberworld]

Fixed Sky Scanner not consuming any power after it goes from Detecting to Not Detecting. 

 

nice, waited that fix sometime now. finally i can setting up the automation what i was planned

[Nebbie]

7 minutes ago, WeSaidMeh said:

Does this also affect existing saves? I assume not since it's prefixed "Worldgen"?

Tested my old save, seems like it doesn't affect existing ones. I suspect from the wording that the way they did it is each planetoid has a field for sunlight percent, and if the field is null (like it will be for old saves), the game loads up that planetoid with "default", which is 100%.

[pether]

31 minutes ago, Ipsquiggle said:

There's an experimental system in place for varying the amount of sunlight per asteroid, meaning that sunburns and solar power will behave differently depending where in the cluster you're building.

Thats a really cool idea, I like it. If somebody is curious about the values, here is my freshly-generated cluster during mid-day:

Spoiler

IMO this is much better solution than before.

Some of the values seem random, but I guess it's more like game balance than real-life case of planet illumination and there is no need to search for the light source in my cluster

[crbd115]

1 minute ago, pether said:

Thats a really cool idea, I like it. If somebody is curious about the values, here is my freshly-generated cluster during mid-day:

  Hide contents

IMO this is much better solution than before.

Some of the values seem random, but I guess it's more like game balance than real-life case of planet illumination and there is no need to search for the light source in my cluster

seems weird that the ice planets lux is so low compared to the other outer planetoids

[gabberworld]

Just now, crbd115 said:

seems weird that the ice planets lux is so low compared to the other outer planetoids

but its logical, if it was high then ice should start melt

[sakura_sk]

2 minutes ago, pether said:

Some of the values seem random

This is definitely not random 

Spoiler

Maybe the previous update hasn't sink in yet...

[pether]

1 minute ago, crbd115 said:

seems weird that the ice planets lux is so low compared to the other outer planetoids

it does, but I guess this is a balance thing - if you had too much power there you could just warm up everything, and where is the challenge in that?

[blueberry pi]

And radiation levels from space would be lower as well, making the radbolt generation for the temporal tear opener challenging. Tho wheezeworts solve this a little bit.

[crbd115]

@Ipsquiggle Also with this testing branch I'm consistently getting a crash when switching a small command capsule to a large one using the swap rocket module button.
I have no mods installed.

Edited July 27, 2021 by crbd115

[sakura_sk]

2 minutes ago, crbd115 said:

 Also with this testing branch I'm consistently getting a crash when switching a small command capsule to a large one using the swap rocket module button.

That one is not new... If you don't use sandbox, it doesn't happen.

[crbd115]

Just now, sakura_sk said:

That one is not new... If you don't use sandbox, it doesn't happen.

Oh sorry

[sakura_sk]

1 hour ago, Nebbie said:

but just to where it'd be feasible to make one panel without the Glass Forge.

You currently can make two in any starting asteroid

[Magheat2009]

1 hour ago, sakura_sk said:

This is definitely not random 

  Reveal hidden contents

Maybe the previous update hasn't sink in yet...

I don't understand. 

[Nebbie]

19 minutes ago, sakura_sk said:

You currently can make two in any starting asteroid

Oh, I guess there's more glass in those windows, or more windows, than I thought. 50kg each and there's 4 of them?

[QuantumPion]

Any word on performance improvements? The last major patch seemed to cause a substantial performance drop around 100 cycles in.

[sakura_sk]

2 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

50kg each and there's 4 of them?

100kg each and there's 5 

5 minutes ago, Magheat2009 said:

I don't understand. 

When you visit frozen ...

[Magheat2009]

3 minutes ago, sakura_sk said:

When you visit frozen ...

Say no more o good person, say no more.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Magheat2009

[sakura_sk]

Is swamp worldgen a little bit .. messy or does that happen to all Classic starts?

Spoiler

  seed: V-SWMP-C-685914781-0 

 seed: V-SWMP-C-452181418-0

It seems like POIs are finding the most inconvenient way to spawn "only" if they are in between biomes

 

 

Edited July 27, 2021 by sakura_sk

[Orzelek]

20 minutes ago, sakura_sk said:

Is swamp worldgen a little bit .. messy or does that happen to all Classic starts?

  Hide contents

  seed: V-SWMP-C-685914781-0 

 seed: V-SWMP-C-452181418-0

It seems like POIs are finding the most inconvenient way to spawn "only" if they are in between biomes

 

 

The evil cool steam geyser does that on current classic forest start also. Since it's uncovered it did heat up two biomes on my current game to above 50 before I managed to get to it and enclose it with insulated tiles.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Orzelek

[Primalflower]

the new orbiting/grounded skybox objects are cool, but may they please have more resolution? They look pretty grainy up close, and thats how you normally see them.

[lunazone]

@jambell This is probably known but I wanted to bring up that the radiation overlay doesn't have a sound like the other overlays

[Gurgel]

Well, so a solar fix. I do not mind, I just ran a colony to cycle 2000 exclusively on two NatGas generators and only increased cooling need made me even start with solar. And anything that requires you to find am individual strategy for each planetoid is definitely good for the game.

5 hours ago, pether said:

Thats a really cool idea, I like it. If somebody is curious about the values, here is my freshly-generated cluster during mid-day:

So around 25% sunlight of before for the starting planetoid. That is still plenty until late-game.

2 hours ago, sakura_sk said:

Is swamp worldgen a little bit .. messy or does that happen to all Classic starts?

  Hide contents

 

 

 

I think that may need some tuning. Generally Klei tries to minimize biome border breakage. There is some in the "terra" and forest big start ones, but not this much.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Gurgel