Tethers now have flower decorations on them (?)

[Happosai 八宝斎]

Is is currently 2025-03-03T04:00-08:00 and I load up my save and my tethers look .. more decorated than usual. Top has flower petals and stamens coming out of it.

I last played roughly 2025-03-02T15:00-08:00 (so 13 hours ago) and they looked normal then, like they look on the wiki. Top being just two white disks with an air gap between them.

Nothing on game feed says there was an update, though there is another post from 14 hours ago talking about how an update during this same period messed with their dedicated servers.

I'm not complaining that the tethers look bad or anything (though they are now a bit visually bulkier than I would like them to be) it just makes me pause when aspects of the game change with no warning and no explanation.. so I don't know what if anything else may have also gotten changed.

[BraveCaperCat]

I'm also experiencing this issue and want tethers to return to normal. This may be one of those weird seasonal things that games do sometimes - it doesn't require an update since it checks if the current time is within a specified period. There may be a limited time event going on right now, like EXO F.A.R.M. even though that's probably not on right now.

[Zarinthal]

seasonal thing, happens every year, like the christmas lights, pumpkins

I don't like it, the colors are irritating in some biomes, I'm surprised there's not a way to keep them normal

[Marck]

Originally posted by Zarinthal:

I'm surprised there's not a way to keep them normal

There is a way: Play Astroneer while Steam is in offline mode.

[BraveCaperCat]

Originally posted by Marck:

Originally posted by Zarinthal:

I'm surprised there's not a way to keep them normal

There is a way: Play Astroneer while Steam is in offline mode.

Seasonal events are coded into the game and aren't related to internet connectivity or the sort. It checks the system time and compares that with various scheduled event times.
The actual solution is to change your system time to when there is no event. (or your chosen event if you just want a different design)

[Marck]

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Originally posted by Marck:

There is a way: Play Astroneer while Steam is in offline mode.

Seasonal events are coded into the game and aren't related to internet connectivity or the sort. It checks the system time and compares that with various scheduled event times.
The actual solution is to change your system time to when there is no event. (or your chosen event if you just want a different design)

Obviously, you have not checked if it is actually true what you are claiming. I have never changed the clock of my system for Astroneer, and I do not see tether decorations when playing with Steam's offline mode enabled.

[Zarinthal]

Originally posted by Marck:

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Seasonal events are coded into the game and aren't related to internet connectivity or the sort. It checks the system time and compares that with various scheduled event times.
The actual solution is to change your system time to when there is no event. (or your chosen event if you just want a different design)

Obviously, you have not checked if it is actually true what you are claiming. I have never changed the clock of my system for Astroneer, and I do not see tether decorations when playing with Steam's offline mode enabled.

I just tried it, I put steam into offline mode. the tethers did in fact revert to normal non-event tethers

[BraveCaperCat]

Originally posted by Marck:

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Seasonal events are coded into the game and aren't related to internet connectivity or the sort. It checks the system time and compares that with various scheduled event times.
The actual solution is to change your system time to when there is no event. (or your chosen event if you just want a different design)

Obviously, you have not checked if it is actually true what you are claiming. I have never changed the clock of my system for Astroneer, and I do not see tether decorations when playing with Steam's offline mode enabled.

I don't need to check whether something works or not, this is just how seasonal events are done in games. Maybe astroneer is different, I don't know.

[Geauxboy]

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Originally posted by Marck:

Obviously, you have not checked if it is actually true what you are claiming. I have never changed the clock of my system for Astroneer, and I do not see tether decorations when playing with Steam's offline mode enabled.

I don't need to check whether something works or not, this is just how seasonal events are done in games. Maybe astroneer is different, I don't know.

Your option should not work. Offline mode is the best way to do this.

[Marck]

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Maybe astroneer is different, I don't know.

And yet you made a claim, stating it as fact, which turns out to be actually wrong.

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

I don't need to check whether something works or not, this is just how seasonal events are done in games.

No, this is not how seasonal events are done in games.

See? I made a claim and stated it as fact, without checking whether it is true or not. Because I don't need to.

[Slartibartfast]

Actually what I thought was, they started at a lower level, no power transfer it seemed, and then one of the upgrades in game changed them. That first pole I thought looked the best. Super simple.

Wish there was long-distance versions, maybe I just haven't unlocked them yet. Every 2 seconds have to stop & drop, then usually just missing, so you've got to turn the camera slightly to get it to connect and wasting more time. Makes you want to rage quit because the rock next to you makes the camera shift and and you try to take step and fall off the cliff, pit edge, ridge line, etc etc.

Oh wait that is a feature!, thus the glitch part.

[Geauxboy]

Oh how I HATE the camera in this game. Just trying to pan around to see something only for the camera to go full stupid and refocus on everything BUT what you are actually trying to look at. Especially when trying to look up.

[Happosai 八宝斎]

Originally posted by Geauxboy:

Oh how I HATE the camera in this game. Just trying to pan around to see something only for the camera to go full stupid and refocus on everything BUT what you are actually trying to look at. Especially when trying to look up.

I agree that camera controls are one of this game's weaknesses. Looking up is bad because devs lock the mouse to where it is in 2d on the screen, then poll relative positions from there, so when you're looking up you suddenly cannot get large relative positions near the border (trying to move the camera up more) while you can when moving down, so arbitrary mouse motions stop averaging to staying still and instead begin averaging to drifting down.

The same can be said for every edge of the screen, but trying to look up is by far the most common desired use case because of attempts to mine into ceilings.

Also I don't have data on whether this only affects playing fullscreen or if the problem might be lessened in window mode, because I'm too lazy to try playing in windowed mode to find out.

What they should instead do is:
* When right click (or any "begin camera movement" state) is started, temporarily kill all of the 3d picker logic so that you stop seeing a 3d reticle (circle) projected into the world, stop seeing picked objects highlighted, stop seeing tooltips, etc.
* Also kill the 2d reticle (dot)
* Then record the 2d screen coordinates in memory somewhere (call that "where it was") and move the invisible cursor to the *center* of the screen.
* Then carry on with relative polling to measure how to move the camera, resetting cursor to center of the screen after every poll.

Finally, once right click is released (or whatever other state change represents the end of manual camera control) do the following:
* Recall "where it was" in 2d screen space, and move the cursor back to that position.
* Unhide 2d dot reticle, and turn picker logic back on to restore 3d circle reticle, object highlighting, tooltips, etc. This will drop cursor into a different 3d position in world, but since no interaction stronger than "look at things, maybe see tooltips" is happening it should be every bit as safe as if the user just flailed their mouse about.

[Geauxboy]

When looking up (or at least trying to), I HATE that it recognizes the ground itself and refocuses based on that.

Windowed or fullscreen produce the same results.

Speaking of windowed or fullscreen, ever since this update, my game opens in windowed mode no matter how I change the start options and it is becoming EXTREMELY annoying that the cursor ends up on the window border (which pauses the game) or the task bar and I end up starting one of my hot bar apps (which obviously opens the app). I need to find a way to get it back to fullscreen.

[Marck]

Originally posted by Geauxboy:

I need to find a way to get it back to fullscreen.

Have you tried this?

1. On the Steam Library page of Astroneer, click on the gear symbol to the right of the "PLAY" button, and select "Properties...". (Or right-click on the Astroneer entry in the Library's games list.)
   
2. On page "General", find "LAUNCH OPTIONS", then set "Selected Launch Option" to "Ask when starting game"

[Geauxboy]

Already tried that and the results are the same regardless of what I do. This never happened before the update.

I did Googie it and there is a way to alter the GameUserSettings file that I might try tonight.

change values FullscreenMode , LastConfirmedFullscreenMode , and PreferredFullscreenMode to 0 in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Astro\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\GameUserSettings

During my search, I also came across a reddit that mentioned being able to lock the mouse on the screen that I may try too. Not sure I want another 3rd party app that I know nothing about though.

https://dualmonitortool.sourceforge.net/dmt_cursor.html