v1.18.0-rc.1&rc.2 Lore Update: The Resonance Archives

Dear Extraordinary Survivalists
v1.18.0-rc.2, a release candidate, can now be downloaded through the account manager (section "Other Goodies").

Woop! Nearly 500 features, tweaks and fixes later, we are reaching feature freeze territory with 1.18. The mod api should now also remain unchanged unless there is important issues to fix. As usual, the rc.1 blogpost will only list the changes since pre1. The 1.18 stable blog post in the future will contain a complete list of all changes. Further release candidates will now be on our devlog. For more information on what 1.18 is all about, please refer to our pre1 blog post. Thank you everyone for testing the pre-releases!

Can I finally start playing now?
That's up to you
With 1.18.0-pre we had zero confidence that existing or new worlds will not break. With todays release candidate we have a medium level of confidence that your old and new worlds remain intact. If you want to be on the safe side, wait until stable, where we will have a high level of confidence that your worlds will be alright. With this release, old worlds should upgrade just fine due to the new chunk smoothing system, but the main story event will currently only generate in worlds created in 1.18. As far as the main story event is concerned - it is now pretty much complete albeit still has quite some bugs.
[Edit:] There is still some major issues with the main story event, recommend waiting for next rc.2 before exploring it
[Edit2:] Also releaced rc.2 to fix most issues with the main story event, transparent doors as well as issues joining our Vintagehosting servers!

Still unfinished
Some more gadgetry, gadgetry ruin loot, more work on surface and underground ruins is left to be done, which might or might not make it into 1.18.0 stable. The tutorial system needs finishing. There is still a significant amount of known non-critical bugs that have not been fixed yet. The resonance archive map does not show the exact location of the archive, its roughly 100 blocks further south.

Game update trailer

Game updates

• Everything listed in the pre.1 update + 72 tweaks and fixes to 1.18 content
• rc.2 changes
  • Fixed: "Missing mods" title when installing mods from the moddb
  • Fixed: Sieve breaking after one use in crafting
  • Fixed: 2x4 Gate crafting recipe overlapping with 2x2 gate
  • Fixed: Opened doors were transparent
  • Fixed: Multiple minor issues in the main story event
  • Api Tweak: BlockEntityTeleporterBase.GetTarget() is now public
  • Api Tweak: Server event CanPlaceOrBreak now comes with an additional claimant argument that must be null when the request is denied
  • Api Fixed: Block Durability property not synced to client. WTF?
• Feature: Chunk border smoothing system. Should greatly mitigate jarring world borders when opening a 1.17 world in 1.18 (and future versions where world generation changes)
• Feature: New music track for when you are travelling, titled "Radiance and Rust"
• Feature: Added tall display case. Can now center-place items in display cases. Placing direction now affects the placed item rotation
• Feature: Further worldgen fine tuning
  • Added more noise to geologic upheavel
  • Reduced overall upheavel default amount, more fine gain control in worldconfig
  • Added slight vertical variation to block layers y-values
  • Added gravel coverage & loose rock to mountain peaks to mitigate large empty areas with exposed rock.
  • Added smoother terrain noise generator by K.Jpg. Still in need of an optimization pass
• Feature: 2nd ocean system rewrite.
  • Added saltwater where oceans appear. Crops on farmland die when exposed to saltwater.
  • More configurability - more control over land/ocean ratios.
  • Fixes main story event spawning underwater
• Feature: Tree foliage fine tuning. Each individual tree is now slightly ahead or behind the season tinting, and chopping a tree is now more likely to only fell the targeted tree
• Feature: Player can no longer hold in active hand slot or craft with hot items above 300°C. Now requires wooden tongs in off-hand.
• Tweak: Clutter blocks can now drop at a 50% chance
• Tweak: Wonky hitbox on bells, bells no longer spawn surface drifters and try harder to spawn a mob nearby
• Tweak: Fine tune chunk loading system. It now prioritises chunks that are facing the player view direction. General optimization pass over existing chunk sending system.
• Tweak: The world config fertilityRecoverySpeed no longer affects fertility recovery from fertilizer
• Tweak: More strongly attenuate lightning and thunder sounds while underground
• Tweak: Updated community translations. Added Dutch translations.
• Tweak: Prevent generation of loose boulders and loose stone on snow and ice
• Tweak: Treasure maps now print the distance to the location when the world map is disallowed
• Tweak: Added 50+ more clutter shapes
• Tweak: Added crafting recipe for ink&quill
• Tweak: Worldgen: Replaced barren soil layer with low fertility soil layer
• Tweak: Added many more translator credits and organized them alphabetically. If your name is in the credits and you don't want it to be, please contact us through email, support ticket, or Discord.
• Tweak: Meals now get lost when a pot or bowl with a meal is dropped in water
• Tweak: Dialogue system tuning. Clear previous dialouge upon selecting an answer (this might change again still). Added text to border padding for better readability.
• Tweak: Updated /time to new command system and added translation entries for all responses
• Tweak: /gm sp now puts the player back in 1st person mode if they were in 3rd person mode
• Tweak: All stone-age knives now produce just 1 knife from the knapping recipe, and their durabilities have been doubled.
• Tweak: Improved documentation for tongs. Seraph dropping hot items now also displays a hud error "Requires tongs", has an item description and is mentioned in the handbook
• Tweak: Added display clutter items, added crown and mianguan
• Tweak: Better positioning of the hover item info box when it moves out of the window area
• Tweak: Disabled racking of tuning cylinders on vertical racks
• Tweak: Clean bandages can now be used to heal for +3 hp.
• Tweak: Prevent creatures from walking into fire or boiling water
• Tweak: Better crash reporting then tesselating a chunk crashes
• Fixed: Exception when SHIFT clicking item from crafting output into a full inventory
• Fixed: Polar bears spawning in mountains
• Fixed: Game crashing when failing to connect a server
• Fixed: Serious issue with cascaded ore bomb explosions somehow exploding multiple times causing extreme lag. Tweaked explosion smoked particles a bit.
• Fixed: 0.5 second interval lag spikes when playing on a server with many players
• Fixed: Auroras visible where they shouldn't be
• Fixed: Added missing server side smithing recipe validation
• Fixed: Creative inventory sometimes not reacting to mouse clicks to pick up an item/block
• Fixed: Might fix issues with game stuck in the world loading/connecting screen
• Fixed: Window border settings not remembered after game restart
• Fixed: Wrong block breaking decals on bookshelves and clutter blocks
• Fixed: Server side block related commands not behaving correctly with meta blocks around (render meta blocks mode was not synced to server)
• Fixed: Should avoid a crash related to fruit trees
• Fixed: 2 server side exceptions near the world border
• Fixed: Should fix able to interact with claimed firepits, querns and barrels
• Fixed: Players in spectator mode were emitting light from held torches / respawn glow
• Fixed: Should fix client desync with ground storage, creating ghost items in the players inventory

Api Changes

• Tweak: Added OnHeldInteractCancel to CollectibleBehavior
• Tweak: Fixed missing server side verification of auction price
• Tweak: Added OnBlockBrokenWith and OnBlockBreaking to CollectibleBehavior
• Tweak: All Wildcard matching util methods now accept * as Domain to ignore domain checking. Also works for the SearchItems and SearchBlocks methods. Also fixes spawner block dialog not showing modded creatures
• Tweak: Added LanguageCode field to TextCommandCallingArgs so its easier to respond with correctly translated strings server side via Lang.GetL()
• Tweak: BlockLayeredSlowDig class more moddable now
• Tweak: Server now keeps track of player placed or broken blocks for each chunk
• Tweak: Made some AStar stuff public/virtual
• Refactor: Clean up GuiDialogHandbook code in preparation for use in a new command handbook
• Refactor: Client side world loading code - now all in one file instead of 6 different ones
• Refactor: Rename block.LiquidBarrierHeightOnSide() to block.GetLiquidBarrierHeightOnSide()
• Refactor: Renamed the multiblock interfaces again and they no longer inherit from eachother, which made no sense. Renames:
  • IMultiBlockMonolithicBasic => IMultiBlockColSelBoxes
  • IMultiBlockNormal => IMultiBlockInteract
  • IMultiBlockExtensive => IMultiBlockBlockBreaking
  • New: IMultiBlockBlockProperties
• Refactor: For the server side event ChunkColumnGeneration. Changed delegate method arguments. Now passes on a single IChunkColumnGenerateRequest object containing the previous 4 arguments
• Fixed: Trader dialogue variable names not parsed correctly if they contained a 2nd dot.
• Fixed: Code domain issue in BlockGenericTypedContainer.GetDecal
• Fixed: Particly registry not available through IClassRegistryAPI
• Fixed: Cairo graphics system printing not-disposed errors for unowned surfaces
• Fixed: Finally fixed generic chest blocktype texture oddities
• Fixed: Entity idleSoundRange not synced to client
   

Changes since 1.18-pre.8, partially also listed above

• Tweak: Clean bandages can now be used to heal for +3 hp.
• Tweak: Prevent creatures from walking into fire or boiling water
• Tweak: Better crash reporting then tesselating a chunk crashes
• Fixed: Exception when SHIFT clicking item from crafting output into a full inventory
• Api Tweak: Server now keeps track of player placed or broken blocks for each chunk
• Api Tweak: Made some AStar stuff public/virtual
• 1.18 related changes
  • Tweak: Continued work on the resonance archives and technical gadgetry, purposely not further explained here
  • Tweak: Oars can now be placed on tool racks and ground storage.
  • Tweak: Reduced damage from holding a hot item in hands (1hp -> 0.25 hp)
  • Tweak: Beam recipe now yields 3 beams per log instead of 1
  • Tweak: Added placeholder cobbleskull textures for the other rocktypes because Saraty refuses to make those
  • Fixed: Removed Reed Butterfly from spawning
  • Fixed: Door issue with sync in multiplayer
  • Fixed: "/time add 24" no longer working
  • Fixed: Should fix terra preta no longer spawning
  • Fixed: Avoid client side crash with corrupt charcoal pits
  • Fixed: Gap in inner sod roof corner
  • Fixed: Stone knives only producing 1 blade since 2x durability also fixed durability for bone knives