v1.1.9.0

Mostly NPCs.

• Initial implementation of NPCs!
  • This release contains the foundation of the new NPC sub-system of the simulator
    • Additional functionality will come out with future releases
• Added new "Lamp" tool, allowing you to peer at wrecks into the darkness
  • Revisited darkness of wrecks in the process: ships now fade into darkness as they sink deeper and deeper
    • This new behavior may be controlled via "Settings"->"Rendering"->"Ship"->"Depth Darkening"
• Rendering improvements:
  • Improved flames
    • Each release brings flames closer to the way I've always wanted them to look...
  • Improved clouds
  • Marginal rendering performance improvements
• Revisited ocean floor friction and silting
  • ...mostly spurred from a lot of development in this area due to NPC work
• Added "shift lock mode": use middle mouse button to toggle SHIFT on or off, for easier exercising of advanced tool behaviors
  • Thanks to Damien for the idea!
• Added "Guide Mode" to Terrain Adjust tool: keep SHIFT pressed and you'll be able to draw terrain along straight lines
• Added new "Tungsten" material - the heaviest in Floating Sandbox's library!
• Added 28 new ships
• Bug fixes:
  • Fixed a ShipBuilder bug that was messing up copy-and-paste of electrical elements
  • Fixed a ShipBuilder bug with the electrical panel not reflecting some changes to the electrical layer
• ...and a few more small improvements here and there!
• Musical theme for this release: Carbon Based Lifeforms, entire discography

v1.18.0

Performance improvements, improved interactive waves, and revamped rendering of ocean.

• Significant performance improvements, especially on multi-core CPU's - where frame rates have improved by at least 2x
  • Parallelized integration, spring relaxation, and ocean floor collision detection
  • Vectorized spring relaxation
  • Used a small part of the performance gains to improve rigidity by 33%
  • Note: remember that Floating Sandbox is capped at 64FPS, so do not expect to get more than that. These performance improvements benefit large ships which in previous versions would run at less than 64FPS
• Re-designed wave interactions - user-spawned waves are now more natural and smooth
• Revamped rendering of ocean
  • Added lighting effects of clouds onto ocean
    • Thanks to Denis Nesterenco for the fantastic idea!
    • Note: disabled by default on lower-end computers
  • Changed defaults for a more moving experience
  • Fixed depth gradients (which were suffering from color banding)
• Re-designed night ambient
  • Added moon lighting
    • Thanks to Joadix for the fantastic idea!
    • Note: can be controlled in the "Rendering" section of the Settings window
  • Added crepuscolar gradient
    • Note: can be controlled in the "Rendering" section of the Settings window
    • Note: disabled by default on lower-end computers
  • Added menu entry to suddenly switch to full day or full night
• Small improvements to various tools (among which Thanos Snap, Anti-Matter Bomb, and Blast)
  • Check out the new SHIFT mode with the Thanos Snap!
• Fixed: loading flipped or rotated ships now flips and rotates engines accordingly
• Fixed: resizing view now resizes physics probe panel accordingly (very ancient bug)
• Added black glass material
• Added 12 new ships
• ...and a few more small improvements here and there!
• Musical theme for this release: Random Forest, Ascension

v1.17.5

• Added new "Laser Cannon" tool
• Improved behavior of lamps under extreme conditions:
  • At great ocean depths
  • When subject to electric sparks
  • When their power generator is flooded
• ShipBuilder:
  • Added Copy/Cut/Paste tools
  • Added rectangle-drawing tool
  • Allowed electrical particles to be placed on rope endpoints, thus enabling construction of "electrical ropes"
  • Fixed a sporadic crash with the rope-drawing tool
• Added Ukrainian translation - thanks to Roman Shavernew (Dioxcode)!
• Added 6 new ships

v1.17.4

• Improved "Ship Load" window, allowing to sort by different attributes, and allowing to load ships flipped and/or rotated
• Small user interface changes here and there, mostly to improve experience on Windows 11
• Fixed bug which would cause ships to explode when increasing the "strength adjustment" setting
• Fixed sporadic ShipBuilder crash while the Ropes tool was setup with "no rope" material
• Added one new ship, "Steffinton Class Hovercraft" - by Pocketwatch
• Added new background music track, "Nightmare" - by Kukan Effect (https://kukaneffect.bandcamp.com/)

v1.17.3

• Added Jet Engines
  • Not really "ship" stuff, but essential to a physics simulator nonetheless :-)
  • Two types of engines:
    • Jet Engine: provides main propulsion
    • Jet Thrust Engine: provides short bursts to correct small directional deviations
  • ...and two engine controllers:
    • Jet Engine Throttle Controller: best for controlling Jet engines
    • Jet Engine Thrust Controller: best for controlling Jet Thrust engines
  • Check out the new Air Boat and Rocket ships to see these engines in action!
• Re-designed interaction between engine controllers and engines, allowing a controller to run an unlimited number of engines
  • Introduced new "Engine Transmission" electrical material that may be used to connect engine controllers with engines at a distance
• Added auto-focus - for cinematic awesomeness
  • May be turned off and on via the Control menu or by pressing Ctrl+HOME
• Added "Stress Overlay" view mode, showing structure stress as a heatmap
  • Among other things, it allows for stress-testing your model and understanding where structural weaknesses are
• Added lightning hit probability setting
  • You can set it to zero to prevent lightnings from hitting the ship altogether!
• More stable FPS rate on multi-core Windows computers
• ShipBuilder:
  • Added some initial texture editing tools:
    • Magic Eraser: for removing background from textures
    • Eraser: for removing entire sections of textures
  • Added analysis of electrical layer during ship validation
    • Detects issues with electrical circuits such as disconnected engines and unpowered components
  • Added "Backup Ship" button to save the current ship to a backup file
    • Useful when you're making experiments and you're not sure whether they'll work out!
  • Added Preferences window for setting a default size for new ships, and for setting a custom background color for the canvas
  • Fixed material palettes annoyingly closing when mouse moves out of the palette
  • Fixed drawing lag on low-bandwidth graphic cards
• Added 9 new ships
  • Thanks to Pocketwatch, Menta1ity, braun, and BeamierBoomer!

v1.17.2

• Expanded the materials database - building lighter ships has just become easier!
  • Metals and Woods now have at least 6 different variants:
    • "Hull": impermeable, heavy
    • "Solid Bulkhead": impermeable, medium heavy
    • "Light Bulkhead": impermeable, light
    • "Solid I-Beam": permeable, heavy
    • "Light I-Beam": permeable, light
    • "Low-Grade": brittle (breaks easily)
  • Added a new type of lighter wood ("Pine Wood", and renamed older wood as "Oak Wood")
  • Added Sodium material - if you don't know what sodium does when immersed in water, check it out! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiCnUkCCsMw]
  • Added Helium - similar to Hydrogen, but not explosive
  • Added transparent variants to glass and gaseous materials
  • The new structural materials database contains now 694 materials!
  • Added a few more ship sounds - thanks to Officer TimCan!
• ShipBuilder:
  • Added "Measuring Tape" tool, which allows to measure lengths of structures
  • Added "Waterline Analysis", predicting whether a ship will float or sink, and where the waterline is going to be
  • Added electrical panel customization
    • Can now position the interactive elements as will, change their labels, and decide whether they should be visible or not
  • Added ability to rotate ship by 90 degress
  • Added ability to import layers from other ships
  • Adding and removing layers can now be undone via "Undo"
  • Added ability to export structural and texture layers to image files
  • ...and a few more small improvements here and there!
• Reworked Spanish translation - "ahora hasta yo entiendo"

v1.17.1

• ShipBuilder:
  • Added "Sampler" tool, to inspect and select materials from existing particles
  • Added "SHIFT lock" to "Pencil" and "Eraser" tools
  • Fixed crash when using CTRL^Z keyboard shortcut (Undo) when undo is not possible
• Added a small "grace period" before allowing water-sensing switches to flip again
• Fixed sporadic crash when activating the WindMaker tool underwater

v1.17.0

• First release with "Ship Builder" - the integrated ship editor which allows players to create and edit ships from within the game
  • This first version already allows for creating ships with all layers (structural, electrical, ropes, and texture)
  • Many more tools and features are planned for subsequent releases
• Improved wind simulation
  • Re-calibrated susceptibility of all materials to wind
    • New settings are more realistic - watch out for ships and aircrafts drifting away with strong winds!
  • Improved influence of wind on flames
• Added "WindMaker" tool
  • It's now possible to generate (radial) winds at will
  • Check out the effect of the SHIFT key on the tool!
• Added new materials for ropes:
  • Metal Chain
  • Rubber Band
• Improved water displacement caused by ships
• Fixed exhaggerated destruction at touchdowns on ocean floor
• Fixed "slice lock"
• Fixed bug with WaveMaker waves sometimes becoming too tall and crashing the game
• Lowered HeatBlaster radius when in ultra-violent mode
• Added "Preferences" setting for starting the game in full-screen mode or as a normal window
• Moved Strength Randomization settings from the "Preferences" window to the "Settings" window
• Improved precision of "Move" tool for tiny movements
• Added 6 new ships

v1.16.7

Fix crash with re-entrant "new version" dialog display

v1.16.6

Bugfix on 1.16.5 for dFdy being negative on certain graphics cards.