What is up Depthians!

This update brings numerous changes and tweaks to blocks such as propellers, steam cranks, custom control surfaces, drills, hydrofoils, and rams.

Showing off the new 3×3 drill bits

The new steam crank wheel and the UI to configure, joining to the main shaft.

When you do use the new propeller setup, you can see if the blade setup is too long as the green squares will change to red, yellow Xs partially blocked airflow and orange Xs fully blocked.

Rudder Pivot does not require a spin block to work.

Changelog

Additions

Drills

3x3x1 drill head added for M crankshafts. 3x3x3 drill extension and 3x3x6 drill head added for L. 5x5x1 and 7x7x1 drill heads added for L
5x5x1 drill head added for simple drills

Options

It is now possible to change which display FtD is displayed on

Propellers

Base output is 140 thrust/blade/area. Power use is 3.5/blade/area
If a block is in the way of a blade the propeller stops working
Longer blades change speed slower. Hubs with more blade arms change speed slower
Max length for blades is 15
Output(but not power use) for any given cell is reduced by 25% for each direction if its up/down side points inside the swept area of at least 1 other propeller. Spinblocks are also checked
Output(but not power use) for any given cell is reduced by 50% if it’s blocked in 1 direction, by 100% if it’s blocked in both directions. Vents and similar blocks count as 25% obstruction. Spinblocks are also checked
Overall propellers with good clearance are a very good form of propulsion, and the parts are a small part of the cost so can be made redundant
Parts: propeller hub 1000 health, 60 armor, 100 weight, 100 materials. Propeller blades 600 health 60 armor 50 weight 50 materials
Propellers are affected by air density
Similar to dediblades, but ~1 order of magnitude stronger, much more durable, can’t be turned from -100% to 100% around instantly and have stricter placement rules
Thrust output and power usage is based on the area covered by each individual blade line attached

Steam crank connections

Crank motor efficiency down from 0.75 to 0.65 kinetic energy/power
Parallel steam crank wheel with the same size and RPM limit can be connected within 6/8/10/12m (S, 1×1 M, 3×3 M, 3×3 L wheels)
When connected to wheel attached to other gearboxes/transmissions/crank motors the crankshaft share energy, if 1 part is destroyed the other can take over
When connected to wheels not belonging to any other crankshaft the new connection will act as part of the parent crankshaft
When multiple propellers or drills are attached to the same transmission group the drive request with the highest absolute value will be used by all transmissions
When multiple transmission outputs are merged their transmission power is summed

Changes

APS

HEAT secondary body for APS is only 70% of a head now (final power is ~unchanged beyond the 5% base buff)
HESH base power up by ~11%, HEAT base power up by 5%
Squash and shaped charge base power increased by 15% for APS only (missile HEAT is the same)

Campaign

At the maximum difficulty level the player’s faction strength is now overestimated by [x3 + 5 million] rather than [x10 + 10 million].
There is a new slider for diplomacy/strategic AI aggressiveness. This used to be included in ‘design difficulty’ slider. You can now have a more ‘diplomatic’ campaign against the hardest vehicles, or all out war but with easy vehicles.

Control surfaces

Air control surfaces now have the same drag custom rudders have

Custom control surfaces

2-4m pivots added for custom control surfaces. 1-4m pivots and a 2m shaft pivot added for custom rudders. 2-4m rectangular plates added for custom rudders
Custom control pivot base health up from 100 to 200, armor from 1 to 20, weight from 2.5 to 20, cost from 5 to 30
Custom control surface base health up from 100 to 200, armor from 1 to 15, weight from 2.5 to 15, cost from 5 to 20
Custom control surfaces give 50% more thrust in air than custom rudders
Custom control surfaces now also add drag based on their force output
Custom control surfaces turn 3x as fast as a custom rudder of the same size
Custom rudder base health up from 35 to 400, armor from 15 to 50, weight from 4 to 80, cost from 1 to 30
Custom rudder blocks using multiple cells now also provide more force
Custom rudder pivot base health is 500, armor 50, weight 100, cost 50
Custom rudders give 100% more thrust in water than custom control surfaces
Force output up by ~1 order of magnitude for both custom control surfaces and custom rudders
New, common code for custom control surfaces and custom rudders. Both can be used as simple plates on spinblocks or with their own pivot blocks

Dediblades

Removed from the inventory and can’t be saved into/loaded from prefabs. Existing vehicles keep working as before. Replaced by propellers

Diplomacy

At least one of the available options should now not cost any commodities

Drills

Simple drill and steam drill special hit detection merged and fixed, both are faster and more consistent
Simple drill power inputs convert power to kinetic energy, torque amplifiers reduce max rotation speed and damage but increase AP
Simple drills reworked/fixed: base components slightly more durable, much more compact. Drill heads are much more durable
Steam drills are generally stronger against armor above ~stone, simple drills easier to place/rotate. Spinning rams very efficient at low motor drive

Hydrofoils

Base force up by 50%
Health up from 85 to 150, armor from 1 to 5, cost from 3 to 10
Now have the same drag custom rudders have
Turn rate increased from 40°/s to 180°/s

Melee PAC

PAC damage multiplier for melee lens reduced from 20x to 10x

Missiles

Checks for invalid components added to missile loading and some other places where it was missing
Default missiles for newly placed launchpads improved
Initial speed for drop as bomb option in rail gantries reduced from 30 to 25 m/s

Rams

Damage done by each individual ram impact is a function of impact speed and spinner mass
Max kinetic energy stored in a spinblock is a function of its mass and rotation speed
Ram and spinblock tooltips added
Rams on other constructs and pistons use the energy of the mainconstruct to do damage
Rams on spinblocks use up kinetic energy generated by the spinblock for each hit
Spinblock kinetic energy regenerates based on motor drive. 1x rate is free, motor drive can increase it to 2x-11x the base rate

Simple rudders

Base force down to 20% the previous value
Health up from 85 to 600, armor from 1 to 10, weight up from 15 to 50, cost up from 10 to 50
Multiple simple rudders combined provide the same force as 1
Now have the same drag custom rudders have
Now only work if their up-down and forward-back axis matches the main construct

UI

Custom rudder/control surface tooltips show how many custom blocks are in the given sheet, and the sum of their current output
Force visualisation helper in build mode now shows FORCE^0.5 and line thickness for buoyancy is lower. Easier to see what’s going on in a vehicle
Hydrofoils now show their force output
Simple rudder tooltips show how many simple rudders are on the ship, and the base/current force output

Fixes

ACB controller

ACB controllers now work correctly if they are spawned in in a destroyed state and are then repaired

Animation block

Fixed the breadboard to animation block filtering by name

Bugs

BUGS-3612 It is now possible to only display the spring and axle for a wheel, not the block attachment
BUGS-3629 Fixed fortress turbines from taking damage when out of power if the language is changed from English
BUGS-3618 Explosions should now be rounder (it probably won’t change a thing as no explosions reach their max radius)
BUGS-3638 Lasers fired through non-AI, non-manual methods will keep aiming forward as they are rotated
BUGS-3632 Fixed L and H rail gantry missiles sometimes getting tangled in their gantry when being dropped as bombs
BUGS-3635 Fixed steam transmissions not their input’s RPM limit for their gear ratio in some cases, when loading
BUGS-3646 Playing local video is now working again
BUGS-3550 The suspension (spring, axle, and block) are now displayed/hidden correctly when the setting is changed when loading the BP when repaired or placed as a prefab

Breadboard

Fixed an issue where some breadboard components would run their logic more than one time per frame
One-shot component will now correctly only activate once
The first output of the steering info component now indicates whether the mainframe’s movement is turned on or off

Campaign

Fleets with a patrol route setup will now properly save and load the waypoint they were moving towards

Collisions

Fixed too many collisions triggering at once, damage output is more predictable now

Diplomacy

Fixed a problem preventing the player from getting options with a lot of enemies

EMP

EMP charges can now travel between constructs
Laser Q switch EMP resistance fixed

Gridcases

Fixed a rare problem causing gridcasts with an alignment very close to a construct’s rotation to miss

Hologram projector

Hologram projectors now work correctly if they are spawned in a destroyed state and are then repaired

Impact

Impact damage can now travel between constructs

Lasers

Charge lasers will fire if either continuous or pulsed shot does more damage than the minimum damage set in the output regulator

LUA

Added functions to get the number of subconstructs and to get information for a specific subconstruct by index similar to the other APIs
Replaced outdated propulsion methods with new functions ‘AddPropulsionRequest’, ‘SetPropulsionRequest’ and ‘GetPropulsionRequest’
The docking station now uses the correct ids to identify friendly vehicles for all functions
Weapons fired by Lua can now hit missiles

Separator

Separating or attaching a vehicle while the player is in a chair will no longer eject the player from the chair except for multiplayer clients

Transparency

Changed render queues for smoke and shields to render properly in front of and behind glass.

Wings

Effective speed for wings is capped at the speed of the main construct