[Game Update] - 640445

Update Information:

Fellow space explorers,

It's time to start beta testing for our November 2024 Quality of Life update! 

This free minor update includes new buildings, UI improvements, bug fixes, and performance improvements for the base game and Spaced Out! We've also made some tweaks and additions to The Frosty Planet Pack. 

A few highlights for all versions: 
There's a new Canister Drainer building that enables gas canister contents to be released directly into connected gas pipes. The new Bottle Drainer building provides the equivalent for bottled liquids into liquid pipes, while the new Bottle Filler building automatically stores piped liquids into bottles. 

We've improved the Schedule screen by adding multi-cycle schedules and the ability to shift schedule blocks left and right as desired. In addition, Duplicants will now prioritize finding new errands once they've completed their current one, which means less standing around idly on late-game saves. 

We're also working on increasing the drop rate for blueprints—this will be implemented after the beta period.

For The Frosty Planet Pack:
We're introducing a new Regal Bammoth morph whose impressive horn can be shorn for gold amalgam. Critter diets have also been tweaked so that the Flox, Spigot Seal and Bammoth all have access to certain foods outside of their native biomes—making it easier for them to thrive in DLC-scrambled worlds.

We added a new Spaced Out!-style mini asteroid cluster that presents daunting challenges for colonizing isolated fragments of biomes from the namesake frosty planet.

We're looking forward to hearing what you think! You can share your feedback and post bug reports here—we read it all and really appreciate your input. 

Here's what you'll find in the update so far: 

Features

• All versions
  • Added Canister Drainer building.
  • Added Bottle Drainer building.
  • Added Bottle Filler building.
• The Frosty Planet Pack
  • Added new Regal Bammoth morph.
  • Added new Spaced Out!-style Mini Ceres Mantle cluster.

Changes and Improvements

• All versions
  • Schedule changes
    • Schedules can now be configured to last multiple cycles.
    • Revised schedule screen UI allowing for multi-cycle schedules, schedule duplication, and easier schedule block shifting.
    • Morale bonus from Recreation schedule blocks now accumulates and diminishes gradually as Duplicants experience their schedules.
  • Power Plant room
    • Revised Power Plant room requirements. Power Plants no longer specifically require a Power Control Station: any two eligible power buildings will suffice so long as at least one of them is a heavy-duty generator. 
    • Increased the maximum Power Plant room size to 120 tiles.
    • Added Microchip tune-up indicator animation to heavy-duty generators when they are boosted in a Power Plant.
    • Microchips can now be stored in storage bins.
    • Manual Generators are no longer microchip tinkerable.
    • Microchip production time is increased, while generator microchip application time is reduced. 
    • Power Control Stations in a room do not need to be operational in order for the generators in that room to be tuned up with microchips, as long as the microchip tools have already been manufactured elsewhere.
    • Added "Allow Tinker" user menu toggle to tinkerable buildings when they are in their correct room type.
  • Adjusted livable temperature range for Hatches and Pips to prevent them from freezing in cold environments.
  • Duplicants will now occasionally slip while walking over ice or puddles of oil.
  • Pause menu
    • The "Save" button in the pause menu now reads "Already Saved" if the game has just been saved.
    • Added "Save and Quit" option to the confirm quit game dialog.
  • Small adjustments to Duplicant errands list UI.
  • Duplicant’s Equipment and Assignables are now represented in their side screen Config tab.
  • All menus and overlays are now enabled while sandbox mode is active.
  • Added visible horizontal scroll bar to the Consumables screen when many columns are unlocked.
  • Renamed “Move to” to “Relocate to” for pickupables.
  • The Plastic Monomer database entry now lists the elements in that category.
  • Oxygen Masks and Atmo Suit recipes no longer appear in fabricator sidescreens if their ingredients are not discovered.
  • Added new artwork for the Pyrotechnics skill hat.
  • The research screen is now prevented from zooming when the mouse is not over the game window.
  • Bed diagnostic now evaluates bed assignment and reachability.
  • Tweaked the Crafting Table sound.
  • Allowed sublimating elements to emit gas to adjacent tiles in situations that would otherwise delete mass.
  • Increased capacity of the Canister Filler to 200kg.
  • Added sidescreen slider to control Canister Filler's desired canister fill size.
  • Adjusted gun delivery offsets of the Canister Emptier and Bottle Emptier.
  • Added new pickup animation to Canister Filler.
  • Bottle Emptier animation now displays the bottle of the element being emitted.
  • Revised skill screen icon for skill-granted traits.
  • Research screen button's tooltip now shows information about what is currently being researched.
  • Critter body temperature tooltip now mentions the temperatures at which critters will start taking damage.

• Spaced Out!
  • Sweetles and Grubgrubs can now apply their plant growth effects to plants in Planter Boxes.
  • Asteroid toilet diagnostics now monitor Duplicants and toilets inside landed rockets.
  • Asteroid bed diagnostics now monitor Duplicants and beds inside landed rockets.
• The Frosty Planet Pack
  • Bammoths can now eat Nosh Beans, Nosh Bean Plants, and Plume Squash Fries.
  • Floxes can now eat Bristle Blossoms and Bristle Berries.
  • Spigot Seals can now eat Sucrose ore.
  • Pips can now eat Bonbon Tree branch growth.
  • Shine Bugs (and some of their morphs) can now eat Pikeapples and Pikeapple Skewers.
  • Adjusted Bammoth navigation so they require the area above a ledge to be clear in order to hop up/down.
  • Added Pikeapple seeds to care packages.

Fixes

• All versions
  • Fixed issue causing Duplicants to repeatedly play the Water Cooler’s “drink water” animation when using other buildings.
  • Fixed a number of bugs related to sim heat transfer from materials that became debris or entered/exited storage recently. (E.g. incorrectly updating the overall temperature of a pile of debris whose composition has recently changed.)
  • Updated localizations and included missed translation fixes from previous hotfix.
  • Fixed a crash that happens when loading a save containing a plant that was in the process of being destroyed.
  • Fixed a bug where Spicy food was not actually providing immunity to chilly surroundings.
  • Fixed various animations in the Supply Closet.
  • Fixed Duplicants not using the correct eye symbol when blinking.
  • Duplicants that are incapacitated can no longer talk to other Duplicants.
  • Fixed Mac OS Sonoma input issue while playing in windowed mode.
  • Added germ source indicator to various plants, critters, and buildings.
  • Fixed Canister Filler replaying filling animation on load when already full.
  • Changed LogicCounter to not pulse output signal on reset in advanced mode.
  • Fixed issue on the Research screen where panning with a controller/Steam Deck would also move the game camera.
  • Fixed sparks animation on Crafting Table.
  • Food diagnostic adjusted to consider custom game settings for hunger.
  • Fixed tutorials not triggering after save/load.
  • Lockers, Vending Machines and other buildings which drop items can now be prioritized and remember pending errands on save/load.
  • Biobots can no longer be marked using the Sweep tool.
  • Fixed a bug where the research button was not showing the progress of the current research when researching more advanced tech.
  • Fixed a bug where sometimes the research button would stop displaying the icons of the current research.
• Spaced Out!
  • Fixed lander exhaust appearing on other worlds.
  • Fixed crash that could occur when reordering a Trailblazer module after deconstructing its contents.
  • Rovers can no longer be marked using the Sweep tool.
• The Frosty Planet Pack
  • Fixed an issue where a geo vent could get stuck when the solid mass remaining was too small to emit.
  • Fixed a crash that would occur when unblocking a geo vent that existed on a world without the Full Steam Ahead imperative using debug/mods.
  • Edited blocked geo vent description to specify that hot liquids must be pumped through in order to melt the obstruction. 
  • Fixed carried Lumen Quartz appearing in front of Duplicants.
  • Fixed Carved Lumen Quartz still emitting light when in storage containers.

Blueprints

• Increased speed of blueprint claiming process when claiming more than one at a time. 
• Added "unclaimed blueprints" count label to the Claim Blueprints screen.

Performance

• Duplicants now prioritize finding new errands after they finish the previous one. On late-game saves this means they don't stand around for as long between tasks.
• Reworked Chore Precondition system to allow a limited set of preconditions to be evaluated in a multi-threaded context.
• Improved performance of pathfinding where lock contention was the limiting factor.
• Improved performance of NavGrid Updates and reduced memory allocations.
• UpdateOffset tracker now runs in parallel where possible.
• Fixed performance issue where the "See All" colony diagnostics screen was still updating data and graphs while closed.

Modding Notes

• Upgraded game to Unity 2022.3.45f1
• Mods should target .NET Framework 4.8 to match Unity's supported .NET profile. Existing mods targeting 4.7.1 will still work.
• Specifying DLC requirements in IBuildingConfig has changed.
  • Deprecated GetDlcIds.
  • Added virtual methods GetRequiredDlcIds and GetForbiddenDlcId.
  • RegisterBuilding detects deprecated usage of GetDlcIds and converts to the new format so existing mods should continue to work.
  •  How to update your modded building configs:
    • AVAILABLE_ALL_VERSIONS -> Remove GetDlcIds
    • AVAILABLE_VANILLA_ONLY: Replace GetDlcIds with "public override string[] GetForbiddenDlcIds() => DlcManager.EXPANSION1;"
    • AVAILABLE_EXPANSION1_ONLY: Replace GetDlcIds with "public override string[] GetRequiredDlcIds() => DlcManager.EXPANSION1;"
• Specify DLC requirements for TechItems has changed.
• Deprecated TechItem.dlcIds
• Added TechItem.requiredDlcIds and TechItem.forbiddenDlcIds
• Deprecated TechItem constructor with single dlc list. It converts dlcIds to requiredDlcIds and forbiddenDlcIds so existing mods should continue to work.
• Deprecated DbTechItems.AddTechItem with DLCIds argument, use the one with requiredDlcIds and forbiddenDlcIds instead. 
• IEntityConfigs have not been refactored yet.
• Duplicant cheek shape now matches mouth shape instead of head shape.
• Worker class was refactored. StandardWorker now implements the behaviors previously implemented by Worker.

What is public testing?

"Public 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 public 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 a public 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.

How do I play the public testing build?

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