Blazing Sails

Visual improvements:

• Ship frontal water wakes now move with the wave height for a cleaner visual result
  
• Fixed some visual artifacting on the shoreline waves
  
• Shoreline waves are now less visible through high waves
  
• The deadzone is now less visible in the night fog setting (now same visibility as in the noon fog setting)
  

Ship customisation:

• Added a slider for ship hull paint wear to ship settings menu (from factory new all the way to very battered! Slider can be found via the cog wheel in the ship customisation menu)
  

Server browser:

• Setting filters added
  
• Sorting tabs added for all server properties (ping, password, name, player amount, setting, ...)
  
• Added icons to all region tabs
  

Main menu:

• Added a "Streamer mode" that replaces friend names and server names with random ones, this feature will be added in-match as well in a later update
  

Bug fixes:

• Melee blocking cooldown progress bar no longer interferes with reload bar of other weapons
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the character model to float in front of the camera when switching between weapons fast on medium ping servers
  
• Voice chat icon now visible again above player usernames
  
• Fixed the height of the wood barrel and battle drink rack interaction indicators
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the steering wheel to snap to a certain frame when using it
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to sometimes join a team as a fifth member
  

Price drop

I bought the game at $24.99, what now?

• EXCLUSIVE. DOUBLE. PEG. LEGS. That’s right. Fancy-looking akimbo peg legs in gold and silver color variations! These beauties can’t be bought at any price!
  
  
  
  
• A brand new set of Privateer pirate cosmetics to show off just how fancy you all are
  
• New Privateer ship cosmetics, including an intimidating lion bow figure
  
  
  
  
• The original Blazing Sails soundtrack
  
• Our eternal gratitude
  

Check out our Halloween trailer here:

• The Kraken Keep island has been added
  
• Foggy day setting added
  
• Foggy night setting added
  

• The main menu has been temporarily overhauled with a spooky night theme (Will be reverted back to the old main menu after Halloween event ends)
  
• New Halloween themed music added to the main menu
  
• The new items popup now reveals your newly unlocked items in succession with a small delay between each reveal
  
• Cosmetic items now include a new icon that indicates from which event the item is
  

• The server browser has been completely overhauled visually
  
• Server browser now allows filtering per continent
  
• Added an option to hide or show password protected servers
  
• Added an option to hide or show in progress servers
  
• Added an option to hide or show client hosted servers
  

• You can now see how long it takes before a dead crewmember respawns
  
• Elevators have been added (When used, they carry you up, remain stationary for 10 seconds and then go down again)
  
• Bow mounted explosive barrel ship detection radius has been increased making them explode a bit easier when colliding with another ship
  

• Player kill cards have been added (They show the killer’s Steam avatar and the weapon you were killed with)
  
• We will expand upon this in the future with custom kill card unlockables like glow color, border style, additional killer information and more!
  

• Crewmembers UI tweaked a bit
  
• Player and ship amount UI tweaked
  

• 4 new spooky hull colors
  
• 6 new spooky flag emblems
  
• 4 new spooky flag colors
  
• 9 new spooky sail emblems
  
• 4 new spooky sail colors
  
• 6 new spooky colored hats
  
• 2 pumpkin hat styles
  
• 6 new spooky colored torso items
  
• 2 new spooky colored pants
  
• 2 new spooky colored boots
  

• Character heads are now always straight and no longer strangely rotated with some animations
  
• Rifle animations tweaked so character holds them cleaner
  
• New crossbow idle and fire animations
  
• Character necks no longer get stretched when using cannons
  
• Character cannon fire animation tweaked a bit
  
• Beards are no longer poking through some hats
  

• Steep slopes should no longer be as easy to walk on and very steep slopes should no longer be walkable
  

• Crashes caused by voice chat should be fixed (If not, please post your crash logs in our discord so we can further investigate the issue) Reset your keybinds if VOIP doesn't seem to work
  
• Fixed a bug that made it so death chest disappeared after a few meters, they are now visible from afar
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused trap shot cannonballs not to drop a ship’s anchor
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused anti-cannon shots to sometimes not block a ship’s cannons
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused battle drink bottles not to appear in the Bottle rack
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused wood planks not to appear in the wood barrel
  
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause the VOIP icon (parrot) to stick after using VOIP
  

Experimental features:

• Voice chat has been re-enabled (It can still cause issues, but we are gathering data to improve and fix it)
  
• Voice chat keybind added
  
• Voice chat volume slider added
  
• Voice chat icon added to crew player info (top left corner)
  

Gameplay improvements:

• Added walking planks to connect the rocks between Forsaken Fort and Starlight Shallows
  

Visual improvements:

• Added some extra ropes to the masts for a more logical visual representation when adjusting the sails
  
• Added a bit of extra detailing to the ship’s hull and improved the wood texture unwrap
  
• Brigantine ladder model made a bit a more obvious so it’s easier to spot the ladders
  
• Crossbow bolt LODs improved
  
• Ship lantern and other glass material reflections tweaked
  

Audio improvements:

• Fish gun reload sound tweaked a bit
  

Optimisations:

• We’ve identified and fixed a problem that caused a severe loss in performance (overall FPS should be 10-20% higher)
  
• Wood planks and battle drink bottles have been changed to instanced meshes for optimisation
  
• Improved performance on same water and deadzone calculation related code
  
• Max render distance added to treasure chest particle effects
  

Bug fixes:

• Fixed some LOD issues with the brigantine’s ship mesh
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause the items in your inventory to flicker when dropping single pieces
  
• Brown hair color not matching Steam ID fixed
  

New cosmetic items:

• 58 new sail colors added
  
• 61 new flag colors added
  

Gameplay:

• When dropping an explosive barrel from your inventory you now have to wait 5 seconds before you can drop another one
  
• Projectile hit detection improved which makes it so you don't accidently hit nearby railings anymore
  
• You can now also drop single pieces from your inventory by holding ALT
  
• Single pieces dropped from your inventory now check if the item is already on the ground, if it is, the item’s amount will be increased instead of a new item being spawned
  

Balancing:

• Teams are now filled differently; New players will be put in the smallest team first now, which should result in fewer unbalanced matches
  
• The time it takes to pull a cork has been increased from 3 seconds to 5.5 seconds
  
• Melee range has been decreased from 2.2 meters to 1.9 meters
  
• Melee damage has been decreased again by 5%
  
• Heavy cannonball AOE damage reduced from 40 to 20 damage
  

Visual Improvements:

• Added texture to the map of the spawn selection screen
  
• Vehicle animations improved so they look much cleaner
  
• Third person steering wheel animation tweaked so the hands and steering wheel are much better synced
  
• Weapon idle and fire animations improved so they look much cleaner
  

Quality of life:

• A vote kick menu has been added to the ingame menu
  - You can silently vote to kick players from your crew using this menu
  - A vote will pass if enough players of your crew vote to kick a player
  - For 3 player crews 2 votes are needed
  - For 4 player crews 3 votes are needed
  - 1 or 2 player crews can not use the vote kick system
  
• You can now pre-press interact so that when you get close to an interactable object (pickup, vehicle, pump, …) you won’t have to release and press the interact button again
  
• You can now also pre-press primary fire so when you equip your hammer for example you will start repairing immediately without having to release and press your primary fire button again
  
• Added a cooldown of 5 seconds when spamming voiceline command too fast (+UI notification)
  

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that made it so weapons would keep reloading while using a vehicle or when using the spyglass (Reloads are now cancelled as intended)
  
• Invisible players on ships should be fixed now (If not, please let us know)
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed 2 or more players to duplicate items when taking them from a container simultaneously
  
• Fixed a bug that would allow ships to sail through sinking ships which had their geometry clip through the hull pushing players outside and making some vital parts of the ship inaccessible
  
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes make the teleporting time shorter than it should be
  

Gameplay:

• Melee hit detection has been tweaked so it works much better while moving the camera quickly around, this makes it much easier to hit people in high speed moments
  
• Melee range slightly increased (from 1.7 meters to 2.2 meters)
  
• Melee damage increased again with 5%
  
• Red shine has been added to enemy players so they are better distinguishable from friends (you can disable this feature in gameplay options)
  
• You can now also detonate explosive barrels with melee weapons
  
• Explosive barrel weight increased from 200 to 201 (to cap the max barrels you can carry at 4)
  
• Fish launcher reload time increased from 1.8 seconds to 2 seconds
  
• Fish launcher AOE damage reduced from 70 to 60
  
• Shoulder cannon reload time increased from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds
  
• Double barrel rifle projectile damage decreased from 45 to 42
  
• Container UI has been revamped so you can no longer click on items as they are transferring (a throbber has been added as well to show transfers are in progress)
  
• Holding ALT while using a container now transfers single pieces instead of opening a pop-up for a custom amount (the pop-up was too slow and was barely used)
  
• Holding ALT for single pieces removed from character inventory UI (to avoid people spamming hundreds of single items to cause lag)
  

Visual and audio improvements:

• Fish launcher reload sounds added
  
• Shoulder cannon reload animation sounds and visuals tweaked a bit
  

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused item amounts to sometimes double when transferring items with high latency (see “Container UI improvement” in Gameplay updates)
  
• Players can no longer take damage as long as the spawn selection screen isn’t finished
  

Quality of life:

• You can now disable head bobbing while sprinting in the gameplay options (enabled by default)
  

Optimisations:

• Some coral LODS have been improved
  

• The monstrous Kraken Keep cluster
  
• Special spoooooky cosmetics
  
• A map setting that'll shroud the entire map in a thick fog, making it more difficult to spot enemies
  
• And more! Depending on your feedback, we may push priority on things around!
  

Extended sale!

• Melee hit detection greatly improved, landing hits should now be much more consistent
  
• All melee weapon damage has been reduced by 20% (due to the new more consistent hit system and because melee was a bit too strong)
  
• Treasure chests now spawn perpendicular on the surface beneath them
  

• New inventory and container UI
  

• Jawblade damage has been increased compared to other melee weapons
  
• Deadzone collapsing speeds and in-between times have been tweaked
  

• Fixed a bug that allowed players to create a 5 man crew when spamming interact on the crew banners
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the final collapsed deadzone to not do any damage to ship or players
  
• Fixed a bug that caused a player to sometimes not be attached to a ship and therefore appear as invisible to other players
  
• Stealing widget no longer appears when looting a destroyed ship
  
• When your inventory is full you can no longer loot quick access points (this caused items to disappear)
  
• Player level no longer shows when spectating players (this was a leftover UI element from the Beta) Actual levels will be added again in a future update!
  
• Deadzone is now more centered in the map which should make it so circles are generated more evenly across the map
  
• Changed minimum post processing quality option to medium as low and lowest disabled auto-exposure which caused the screen to appear extremely dark
  
• Windowed fullscreen no longer swaps back to fullscreen and vice versa
  
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes due to lag allow 2 players or more to pick up the same weapon
  
• Fixed a bug that still showed amulet glow in UI after being killed while standing on a teleport platform
  

• Added some missing translated text
  
• You now don't need to stay until the end of a match to get a chance at a new cosmetic
  
• Winning a game now gives you a higher chance for a new cosmetic
  

• Fixed a bug that made cannonball projectiles spawn twice when other players we’re spamming fire button when using a cannon
  
• Dedicated servers now automatically restart when a match is in progress with 0 players
  
• Fixed a bug that made footsteps continue to play after a player had died
  
• Fixed a bug that made swivel cannons show loaded indicator when they weren’t actually loaded after being installed
  
• Fixed a bug that made hair colors not work until you equip a beard
  
• Shoulder cannon projectiles AOE no longer damages players through obstacles
  
• The game icon has been updated to show the Blazing Sails logo and no longer the Unreal Engine logo
  

• Bow mounted explosive barrels now produce the renewed particle effect when exploding (it still spawned the old one)
  

• When sailing in the deadzone the wind now always blows toward the safe zone (This will make it easier to get out of the deadzone)
  
• Usernames have been lowered so they appear closer the player’s head (This should make it easier to recognize friends in battle situations)
  

• The ship’s cork now fills up the hull a bit slower than before (about 20% slower)
  
• Double barrel rifle projectile damage increased from 40 to 45
  

• When you received a new cosmetic, you will now get a fancy pop-up showcasing your new items when returning to the main menu
  
• “Ship” and “Pirate” buttons will now be highlighted if you have a new item in one or both categories
  
• Kill information now also shows kill streak counter and has a small animation
  

• Props now cull out correctly on all islands
  
• Character mesh LODS added
  
• Seagulls above floating crates now use vertex animation instead of skeletal bones which is more performant
  
• General prop culling optimisation pass