If you've been following development of the 1.16.5 update closely, you would know by now that we've been having a hard time making hydrostatic pressure a zero-sum game. This is because a line integral along any closed curve in a hydrostatic pressure field should yield zero - which is why underwater objects don't move or rotate on their own just because of pressure - but in a discrete world with discrete curves and discrete forces, the aforementioned integral tends to yield non-zero net forces and torques, resulting in unrealistic shifts and rotations of underwater bodies.

Well, we're proud to announce that after months of experimentation and adjustments, we have finally developed an algorithm that minimizes net force and torque by modulating pressure forces on the exterior hull of the ship. The results are quite satisfying, as you can see in this newest video we've uploaded just yesterday:

Thanks to these fantastic results, we may now say that hydrostatic pressure simulation is finally complete, bringing us closer to a 1.16.5 release! There are still a few work items we need to bring to completion - for one, the new algorithm is quite expensive (quadratic in the number of exterior hull particles, for the nerd-minded among you) and thus requires heavy-handed optimization - but we might go out on a limb and put a release date just a few weeks away from today. Have some more patience, and stay tuned for some more news regarding pressure simulation!