Progress #33: It's been a while!

Yeah, it's been a while. Our last update was seven months ago, and I'm sorry about that. A mix of real-life busyness, burnout, and the time it takes to put these posts together got in the way. The good news? There’s a ton of cool stuff to share. So much, in fact, that I had to leave a lot out. If you’re curious about everything we’ve been up to, the full list is always available on our Changelog Page.

We'll try not to let such a long gap happen again. It sucks for you, and honestly, it just means more work piling up for me when it's finally time to write one of these.

Anyways, let's just go directly into the cool stuff.

For those who didn’t know, MobsV2 is a system we introduced a while back to fix some long-standing issues with how non-playable characters worked. One of the biggest problems with the old system was that NPCs had completely separate logic from player characters. They had their own versions of health, movement, and other core systems, which meant anything we wanted players to interact with needed a separate version just for mobs. It was a mess.

MobsV2 fixes that by introducing a shared layer between player characters and NPCs. Now, both use the same underlying systems, so anything new we add just works across the board. When we first rolled it out, only the Arials used it, and that was mainly because MobsV2 didn't have a proper way to move mobs around the world yet.

That’s finally changed, thanks to MaxIsJoe. With traversal now in place, we can start migrating more mobs to the new system. Which brings us neatly to the next section.

Our roboticist players were probably well aware of how underwhelming the simple bots had become. Their movement was erratic, they barely functioned, and they completely lacked the personality that made them memorable in classic SS13.

Thanks to the effort of AtnerNt, not anymore! Floorbots, Cleanbots, and Medibots are back, and more voicy than ever.

The bots now use the new MobsV2 system, which makes them far more reliable. They can scan and traverse the map with purpose. Before, they used a literal drunk man algorithm, moving randomly until they happened to reach their goal. And on top of that, they talk again, with all the iconic lines you’d expect from the originals.

Previously, only wall-mounted objects could use emissive lighting. That was pretty limiting. But thanks to Autumn, a whole bunch of new stuff can glow now.

Doors, holosigns, bar signs, and lasers can all emit light now, and they look great doing it. It's a small change that adds a ton of atmosphere. Just look how cool it looks.

Unitystation now has liquid puddles! They work kinda like gases: tiles can hold reagents in liquid form, and if too much builds up, it spreads out naturally to nearby tiles (reagents will also blend with other reagents, as demonstrated in that redish tile).

The visuals are still simple and blocky, just like our gas overlays, except puddles show up beneath your feet instead of over your head.

To celebrate, MaxIsJoe also added space cleaner granades. Pop one of these and boom, the area gets blasted with space cleaner for some quick and dirty cleanup. Or clean cleanup, depending how you look at it.

Tired of lugging around a pile of machine parts and guessing how many stock components you’ll need? AtnerNt has your back. Introducing the Flatpacker; a handy new machine that turns a machine board into a neat little flatpack, complete with all the materials, parts, and items required to build the thing.

Just print your flatpack, carry it to where you want the machine, unpack it, and get building. No more running back to the autolathe because you forgot a capacitor.

You can unlock the Flatpacker through the techweb, so scientists please, go ahead and make engineering life a little easier.

AtnerNT has added mappable logic gates, timers, and triggers! These tiny components open the door for all kinds of fun map-based interactions, like traps that activate when someone steps on a pressure plate. I think it's super cool, and I plan to expand on it in the future, maybe even make it buildable, so players can create their own contraptions in-game.

This first stage of the system includes:

• Logic gates (AND, OR, XOR)
• Clearance providers (for doors with access restrictions)
• Triggers like pressure plates, timers, and logic switches
• Spike traps and dart traps

You might run into some of these traps in an away site. You should probably explore... but maybe watch your step.

Thanks to MaxIsJoe, admins can now edit the character sheet of any player during a round. This only affects your character's data for the current session, so no worries. admins can’t permanently change your character.

FunTimeDudesky is back with a bang of a new awaysite. I don't really want to spoilt it all by showing all the pictures, so you guys have to go explore it!

If memory serves, it has been almost four years since a cooking battle was held in this sector, and in this time a new generation of space chefs has emerged, eager to prove themselves. Now, the time has come for aspiring chefs to do battle, create new cuisines, and become the next Space Iron Chef!

The secret Theme Ingredient has been selected and placed in the center of Kitchen Stadium. As acting Chairman, you are tasked with presenting the Theme Ingredient and starting the Cooking Battle Timer, after which competitors must create dishes that feature and express the flavors of the ingredient. When the timer runs out, cooking must cease and the chefs must present their dishes to the panel of judges. Who will take it? Whose cuisine will reign supreme?!

To the chefs: Good luck, and ALLEZ CUISINE!

• Chairman Kaga

Thanks to Bod, the permissions system I built is finally up and running!

Previously, we used a simple admins.txt file where you’d list the IDs of players you wanted to grant admin powers. That worked fine, until we wanted to add mentors. So we added mentors.txt. Then we thought, what about developers? They should be able to test things on the server like admins, but definitely not have access to ban commands or player management tools.

It was clear we needed something more flexible. That’s where the new permissions system comes in.

Now, everything is handled through a permissions.toml file. As a server owner, you can define any ranks you want and assign permissions with as much granularity as you need. You can even customize things like whether a rank shows up in chat and how it's displayed.

We’ve included some example roles: host, admin, developer, game master. You can check out the sample file to get started.

Ok, this one is actually huge. Bod implemented a new text-to-speech system in Unitystation, which means your character and everyone around you can now have a unique, natural-sounding voice.

It runs locally on your machine, and the delay is almost nonexistent depending on your hardware. The TTS server is handled by the StationHub launcher, so make sure to keep it running while you play. Just a heads up, the first time you download a build it might take a while, since it has to grab the TTS server and model weights. Not the best user experience right now, but we’re working on making it smoother.

Once it’s set up, head over to your character editor to pick a voice. The system supports spatial audio, so voices have direction, distance, and are affected by things like ambient reverb or radio filters.

And speaking of voices, Bod also added the reverse: speech-to-text. You can now speak into your mic and have your words typed directly into chat. It’s great as an accessibility feature, or if you just don’t feel like typing. Press M to try it out. And yes, in case you were wondering, you can go full circle with voice to text to AI voice.

Finally. This bug was incredibly annoying and made the first-time experience for new players way more confusing and janky than it needed to be.

If you weren’t logged in when trying to join a server, the game would prompt you to log in but instead of connecting you afterward, it dumped you into the generic lobby scene. From there, you'd have to manually type in the server IP like it was 1999. Infuriating.

Thankfully, MaxIsJoe fixed it. Now, if you're not logged in, the game will log you in and then connect you to the server like it always should have.

There is an absolute shitton of them. Seriously, go check the Changelog Page. I can’t list them all here, but here are some highlights you might want to know about:

• Linux builds are finally fixed. They used to break because of issues with our networking transport.
• Scrubbers now actually send gas into the network, like they’re supposed to.
• Foam no longer stays around forever like some kind of cursed residue.
• A bunch of annoying map loading issues were squashed.
• Server info now shows up properly when you press Escape.
• People in critical condition no longer blurt out chat bubbles. They stay quiet, as they should.
• The station nuke and the nukeops nuke can no longer be "defused" by just destroying them.
• Late joiners and relogging players now properly regain control of their characters, instead of getting stuck in limbo.

And that’s just scratching the surface. Go read the changelog for the full list.

Alright, that’s it for now. Like I mentioned a few times already, there’s a lot more I couldn’t cover here, but you can always check out our Changelog page for the full list.

Huge shoutout to the people who keep Unitystation alive, our contributors: Bod9001, MaxIsJoe, FuntimeDudeski, AtnerNT, and AutumnNova. And of course, to the players, patreons, and friends. You all rock. You're the reason we’re still here.

If you believe in what we’re doing, consider becoming a patreon, a contributor, or a regular player. We host playtests every Saturday, and you can check our Discord for the event and your local time.