Patch 0.4.1.0



Patch Notes: Early Access - v0.4.1.0 – Build 150216. This patch was released on April 13, 2021.

The original post can be viewed on Satisfactory's Discord, Reddit, and Steam.

Intro
What's up!

Update 4 is now finally available on Early Access! This update is jam-packed with new content! So let me break it down for y'all!

If you're looking for the complete patch notes of the update then scroll to the bottom of the post!

Drones
Transporting things on conveyor belts is cool and all - but transporting things using drones is indisputably better, so we added that. Still, they wouldn’t let me stand on them though on account that it could interfere with the drone’s avionics. I don’t blame ‘em. Drones are designed for long-range, low-capacity transportation and unlocks in tier 7 & 8. The drones are fully automated, traveling between two fixed ports and navigating themselves around any obstacles they encounter along the way. Each port can only contain one drone but they move across the map extremely quickly and are far easier to set up than Trains, Belts, or Trucks. Drones require batteries as fuel and their consumption rate and travel speed become more efficient as delivery distances increase. They can’t carry much, but they’re doing their best.

Hover pack and Ziplines
But drones aren’t the only thing flying around! There’s new equipment pioneers from FICSIT Inc. can also utilize such as the brand-new hover pack to get a good overview of their production lines and build from a higher vantage point! Hover packs draws power from the power grid and doesn’t require any extra fuel to function. However, they’re not the fastest way to get around and explore with, but not everything’s a competition. In addition to this there’s also a new tool called the zipline, used to zip around your power poles in your base!

Nuclear Power & New Buildings
We’ve extended the nuclear refinement processing the game to be able to produce Plutonium Fuel Rods. Not only that but there’s also a bunch of new buildings in the update that play an integral part in some of the nuclear production lines such as the blender, the particle accelerator, and the resource well pressurizer & extractor. But also, some that will improve the existing aspects of the game such as the power storage and power switch. The Blender combines up to 2 fluid and 2 solid resources, and therefore earns its name of next level fluid related production. After unlocking the Nuclear Power milestone in Tier 8, the Blender can be used to refine Uranium straight into Encased Uranium Cells. Further down the line, the previously useless Uranium Waste can now be refined into Plutonium Fuel Rods for even more power generation. This spectacular machine puts the power of matter conversion and generation into your hands. It is the last part of the nuclear production chain, and is used to create both Plutonium Pellets and Nuclear Pasta Nitrogen is the first gas added to Satisfactory. It functions like other fluids except that it doesn't require pumps to be moved through pipes. We've also added Resource Wells, a new resource spot that can be tapped with the Pressurizer. Depending on the Resource well, they can give access to Nitrogen Gas, Oil and Water. These bad boys stores excess power and distribute it back into the grid when needed. Use them to balance out dynamic power generation and consumption. The power switch gives you more control over your circuits! You can now separate circuits, turning them off and on at a whim and you can name them too! Or you can just use them as signs until we add that to the game in the near future. Soon™.
 * Blender
 * Particle Accelerator
 * Resource Well Pressurizer & Extractor
 * Power Storage
 * Power Switch

Lights
Last but not least, one of the most requested features to the game is lights! Now your factory can be brighter than my future! There are 3 different types of lights, there's ceiling lights, flood light towers, and wall mounted flood lights! You can also set the intensity and color of the lights!

There's also new parts & resources, new alternative recipes and project parts! Not to mention a ton of optimizations, bug fixes, UI improvements, QoL features, Multiplayer fixes, and more! You can learn all about them in the patch notes below!

Engine upgrade

 * Updated to Unreal Engine Version 4.25

Modular builds

 * Changed the way the game is packaged to make it more mod friendly. This shouldn’t have a significant impact for anyone other than modders

Aerial resource transport

 * Drone & Drone Port
 * Let Drones fly your resources across the map in Tiers 7&8. They are most effective over longer distances.

Lights

 * Ceiling Light, Flood Light Tower, Wall Flood Light & Street Light
 * These 4 buildables will allow you to finally illuminate those dark factory floors.
 * Lights Control Panel
 * This panel can control the settings of all lights connected to it.

Equipment

 * Hover Pack
 * This new equipment allows you to fly through your factory wherever you have a functioning power grid.
 * Zipline
 * It allows you to attach to Power Lines and zip up and down them as much as you want.

Buildings

 * Blender
 * The next level of fluid related production allowing you to combine up to 2 fluid and 2 solid resources
 * Particle Accelerator
 * A high-end production building with an intense power drain that fluctuates over the course of each production cycle
 * Resource Well Pressurizer & Extractor
 * In combination these 2 buildings can harvest vast amounts of fluid resources from the new Resource Wells
 * Power Storage
 * Can store excess power and distribute it back into the grid when needed
 * Power Switch
 * These can be named and break their power circuit connection via the flip of a switch

Resources

 * Nitrogen Gas
 * The first gas to be added to Satisfactory. It functions like other fluids except that it doesn’t require Pumps to be moved through the Pipes
 * Resource Wells
 * This new resource spot can be tapped with the Pressurizer. They can currently give access to Nitrogen Gas, Oil and Water depending on the Resource Well
 * New Parts
 * 17 new parts & resources have been added:
 * Aluminium Casing, Empty Fluid Tank, Cooling System, Fused Modular Frame, Non-Fissile Uranium, Plutonium Pellet, Encased Plutonium Cell, Plutonium Fuel Rod, Nuclear Plutonium Waste, Copper Dust, Pressure Conversion Cube, Nitrogen Gas, Nitric Acid, Packaged Nitrogen Gas, Packaged Alumina Solution, Packaged Sulfuric Acid & Packaged Nitric Acid
 * New Alternate Recipes
 * 17 alternate recipes added for the new parts and several alternate recipes added for parts already in the game
 * New Project Parts
 * A total of 4 new parts for the next phase of Project Assembly:
 * Assembly Director System, Magnetic Field Generator, Thermal Propulsion Rocket & Nuclear Pasta

Balancing

 * Rebalanced all production lines containing Bauxite/Aluminium
 * This includes alternative recipes
 * Rebalanced Nuclear production lines
 * This includes alternative recipes
 * Removed Uranium Pellets as part of this rework
 * All conveyor fed Generators now always produce at full capacity instead of regulating their power output to factory consumption
 * Geothermal Generators now produce a fluctuating amount of power
 * Geysers now have purities which affect the minimum and maximum amount of power a Geothermal Generator can produce
 * Upped stack sizes for several commonly used items
 * Rebalanced progression of inventory slot increases
 * Decreased Fuel burn rate in Fuel Generator from 15 per minute to 12 per minute
 * Added several new Crash Sites so there are enough Hard Drives for additional alternate recipes

Progression

 * Changed the Tier 7 progression to work with the new Tier 8 content (this has no effect on already unlocked content)
 * Added a global MAM research completion sound

Optimisation

 * The maximum bandwidth of the Network Quality Setting values have been increased
 * General bandwidth reduction
 * This includes optimisations to the general bandwidth consumption of Minimap/HUD location data transfer, Replication Graph optimizations for Conveyor Belts/Lifts, Building Inventory replication and many other minor replication changes.
 * Optimised and replaced lots of particle systems and VFX #PraiseSimon
 * Implemented a new Conveyor Item Renderer (Experimental)
 * We are testing this new system to reduce the cost of having many conveyors items moving. It is still work in progress but will already have positive effects depending on your system. We are continuing to work on this.
 * Implemented a Pooling System for building components
 * This system is intended to reduce objects in the game
 * Implemented new impostors for most factory buildings
 * Reduce instance mesh component memory foot print, should improve instance creation and updating
 * Optimized Power Lines
 * Tweaked LOD timings and reduced number of elements on LODs
 * Added some optimisations of the Train functionality
 * Enabled PushModel Replication. This should significantly improve CPU performance for hosts/single player for large saves
 * Factory tick optimizations #PraiseBen
 * Added distance cull to skeletal meshes
 * Enabled only ticking when rendered for several skeletal meshes
 * Refactored scalability implementation for background thread. Makes the system more future proof and mod friendly.
 * Cherry picked Instance mesh optimization from unreal engine 4.26 upgrade.
 * Most factory buildings will now only have legs when they are not placed on flat surfaces, will reduce object count.

Quality of Life

 * Added a Gamma slider in the Options Menu
 * Added another condition to trigger a slide, you now have to be holding a direction for it to start
 * Added a “Continue without multiplayer” button for when the game cannot connect to EOS, this should help for those of you who get stuck in a “Working…” screen when launching the game
 * Implemented proper snapping functionality for Water Extractors
 * Added ability to copy and paste settings in buildings (such as selected recipes, overclocking, etc.)
 * Added a quick switch radial menu in the Build Mode that can be accessed by pressing “E” to switch between similar buildings like different Power Poles
 * Added a directional arrow to the Hyper Tube Entrance hologram
 * Quick search (opened with N) now closes when hitting Enter with an empty search field
 * New M.A.M. completion pop up in HUD
 * 144 FPS lock option has been added
 * Changed the number of decimals in overclocking from 1 to 4
 * Disabled clearance check on fences, now players can build in between them.
 * Certain buildings can now be rotated 45 degrees when placing instead of only 90 degrees:
 * Jump Pad
 * U-Jelly Landing Pad
 * Street Light
 * Personal Storage Container
 * Light Control Panel
 * Power Switch
 * M.A.M.
 * AWESOME Shop
 * Craft Bench
 * Equipment Workshop

Networking

 * Added compression of hidden map data when sending it to clients
 * Made sliding more stable to use for clients
 * Implemented an improvement for choppy player movement in multiplayer
 * Testing a possible improvement for choppy vehicle movement in multiplayer

UI

 * Updated the style and info of all production UIs
 * Updated multi-output production UIs to better display the recipe information
 * Added maximum consumption and Power Storage information to the Power Graph
 * Updated the Power Graph to show the last minute of power history
 * Changed respawning to Right Mouse Button
 * Overhauled the attention ping (Alt + Left Mouse Button) so it indicates when it is off screen and shows distance to ping when it is centred on screen
 * Made several additions to the AWESOME Shop UI: Favorites, product page, related schematics, image gallery, descriptions and a search bar that can be activated by pressing Space Bar like in the Build Menu
 * The AWESOME shop now displays the cost to build the specified buildings in the schematic that you want to purchase
 * Moved the warning errors in the Pipeline Pump UI to the centre
 * The recipe scroll box in the build menu now properly covers the whole area
 * Added scrolling support with arrow keys in the chat window
 * Right click menu on inventory slots and buildings in the Build Menu has option to open the appropriate Codex page
 * Re-shot Liquid Biofuel icon to look less like Oil
 * Added option for High contrast build/dismantle mode – places a semi-opaque backdrop behind text
 * Added option for small/large slots in build/dismantle mode
 * Production UI now has a search bar to find specific recipes
 * Overclocking no longer rounds to nearest whole percent
 * Overclocking now supports math formulas when entering a number (similar to the Quick Search)
 * Tooltips on inventory slots now display which Building the part/recipe is produced in
 * Changed max width of tooltips so longer recipes don’t go out of bounds
 * Changed the size of some things in the Build Menu info so the cost slots can be regular size
 * Updated the size of the Alternate Recipe buttons in the M.A.M.
 * Added icon for Water in Compass and Map
 * Inventory tooltips now display a maximum of 3 recipes, with a hint to the codex if there are more alternate recipes
 * Made Tooltips a bit more compact

Factory

 * Tweaked sounds on all vehicles
 * Improved sounds for different production cycles on Constructor, Manufacturer
 * Updated factory building leg texture and mesh
 * Added specific factory building legs for the Space Elevator

World

 * Polished Dune Desert Maze layout (south west corner of the Dune Desert)
 * Implemented several new ambient VFX and an automated proximity-based system to spawn them
 * Added support for area specific music with a few new music tracks
 * Tweaked and added some caves in the Dune Desert
 * Polished a large list of environment assets

Wildlife

 * Added some additional animation, VFX and sound feedback to the Lizard Doggo

Equipment

 * Improved first person and third person Parachute animations, VFX and sounds
 * Polished the Object Scanner mesh
 * Polished Chainsaw animations and sounds
 * Overhauled the Color Gun visuals and sounds

Player character

 * Tweaked landing and footstep sounds
 * Reworked swimming and water impact sounds

Settings

 * Overhauled options menu functionality
 * Added a menu volume slider for UI sounds
 * Added some Build & Dismantle Mode contrast options
 * Added an option to toggle small or big slots in Build & Dismantle Mode

Bug fixes

 * Fixed Miner Mk.1 sound start-up/stop bug
 * Fixed client players always having full fuel on equipping a Jetpack
 * Fixed a sound bug that occurred when dying under water
 * Fixed a sound bug that occurred when triggering water effects with vehicles
 * Train track switch positions now update correctly for 3 or more outgoing tracks
 * Fixed several localisation bugs (with around 3000 words translated by the community as a result)
 * Buildings now show power consumption in MW in the Build Menu
 * Clients driving Trains should no longer get the “No Power” message while having power
 * Fixed Miners Mk.1&2 sometimes not shutting down properly
 * Fixed bugs that resulted in extreme velocity when sliding under certain conditions
 * Changed Sliding so it works more consistently with different frame rates
 * Fixed loading/unloading Freight Carts while standing on or near them crushing players
 * Fixed exploit that made it able to obtain multiple upgrades of the Space Elevator at the same time in multiplayer
 * Corrected Personal Storage Container center. This will cause Personal Storage Containers to be moved slightly

Localisation
Known issues
 * Fixed a lot of typos and consistency errors
 * Hidden a lot of irrelevant strings
 * Fixed some text wrapping issues
 * Made a lot of strings localisable
 * Added support for Extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters in train station names
 * Updated UI fonts to support special characters and other stuff
 * Updated all languages with the latest translations
 * Added language completion rate percentage in the selection menu
 * Updated community translators in the credits
 * Updated the visuals for community translators in the credits; Languages are now highlighted and longer translator lists are broken into several lines to display everyone
 * Some conveyor belt items might look odd due to the new Conveyor Subsystem, this will be fixed soon™.
 * Conveyor Lift items don’t show up correctly in some situations.
 * Conveyor belt items can flicker when switching level of detail
 * First initialisation of new conveyor items can affect performance for a few frames