Hi everyone, this is a small patch to fix some things I've seen brought up on the forums / discord over the past month or so. If you've reported something and don't see a fix for it here, chances are I am aware of it but have not yet been able to track down the cause.
v1.3.3
- Fish fixes: The spawn logic for all fish and wildlife has been reworked to avoid cases where a particular fish doesn’t spawn for long periods of time by random chance - Fish weather requirements: Certain weather requirements (mainly snow), have been fixed so that the relevant fish now properly spawn when the appropriate conditions are met. This should resolve any issues people have had with completing their fish collection. - AI fixes: AI ships are better at aiming at certain types of targets, especially land-based things - Crushed Ice achievement fix: The relevant achievement should now be properly triggered when the player crushes an enemy vessel with a falling ice spire. - Map travel: Revised fast travel logic to avoid rare situations where a revealed location would not be visitable - Map travel: Prevent traveling via shell spells in situations where fast travel is unavailable
I'm busy working on Update 2, which I'll have more details to share on in the near future! Cheers and as always thanks for playing my game! : )
Patch v1.3.2
Hi everyone, this is a small-ish patch which addresses a few things I've seen reported throughout all the various feedback channels. Thanks for all your continued support!
v1.3.2 - Capsizing rework: It’s intended to be pretty hard to do this but previously if it happened your boat would just sink, which felt too punishing. Now your crew will spend some time pulling the boat upright before hopping back in and continuing - Photo encounters: Fix some instances where these weren’t being marked as complete on the map - More photo encounter fixes: Remove ‘fake’ photo encounter icons being shown on map that didn’t represent a real encounter - Fix Tekk Blazer occasionally hitting itself when firing - Target Courses: Ensure player does not spawn on top of another boat when positioning player at the start of the course - Moontide Recruitment Arc: Ensure the location the player is directed to travel to is revealed on their map - Docking: When recovering a sunk boat from the Ship Shape Shop, it will now be automatically sent to the dock if there is no room in the player’s fleet - Teknogaunt Boss: Teleport player out of collision zone if the Teknogaunt surfaces directly below them - Fix some instances of ghost ‘Talk’ or ‘Interact’ prompts that didn’t do anything - Lighting Pearls are now properly sellable at the merchant, as indicated by their description - Final Boss: Your save will always begin you at the rift entrance while fighting the boss - Travel: Rules for when the player is allowed to exit a location are now more consistent between fast travel and manual travel. In cases where the active quest disables travel for a critical story section, purple mist will prevent leaving the area. It is still possible to leave a location via manual travel during combat.
Major Update: The Fleet Update!
Update 1: The Fleet and Community Update
Hi, I’m excited to bring you to the first large feature update to Sail Forth! This update is all about addressing feedback from the community and improving the fleet mechanics within the game.
Fleet Management - The Dock
The goal here is to enable more playstyles and allow you to accumulate new ships in a satisfying way. Don't want to deal with a fleet? Store all extra boats in your dock and use them like extra lives. Got a neat boat for a specialized purpose? Bring it out of the dock when you want to use it.
- Boats can be stored at a dock, accessible from the fleet management menu whenever not in combat - Unlimited boats can be stored at the dock along with their crew and loadout - If your entire fleet sinks but you have docked boats, you can undock them to continue the fight - Previously in places where you could acquire a boat (encounters, boarding), you might have had to scrap it due to no remaining room in the fleet, now it can be stored at the dock directly
Fleet Management - Orders and AI
Some of the most common feedback about the game so far has been that the fleet AI doesn't do a great job of avoiding collisions. I spent a bunch of time overhauling the way the AI sees the world around it and expanding your ability to control them.
- Greatly improved navigation AI: Your fleet (and other AI boats) should be much more adept at avoiding collisions - The ‘set order’ functionality of previous demos has been restored and updated - Fleet boats can be told to Escort, Hold Position, or Hold Fire - Can also issue one of these commands to the entire fleet at once - Your fleet will attempt to escape combat and return to your flagship if you are not close by
Progression Balancing
Another common bit of feedback from the community was that the progression felt a bit strange. Having large ships available from the first shop you encounter meant that some players would grind it out immediately and not feel any need to upgrade for the rest of the game. With this in mind, the set of available ships has been modified to spread out the progression more sensibly throughout the game's chapters. Special thanks to Neizod from the community for a great writeup on the Steam forum about this problem!
- Based on feedback many of the boats in the game have had their balance tweaked, in addition to a revised unlock progression - Each new Shipshape Shop encountered will unlock a new boat of that chapter’s tier - Larger ships are now unlocked later in the game and have had their prices updated to reflect this - Removed boat selection from tutorial sequence to curate a more consistent intro experience
Content Updates
This is not a content-focused update but I did find some time to add a bit of stuff. The new Tekk Speedboat should make the Tekk Clan fleets a bit more interesting to fight, and the Croaker bounties have been overhauled to present a bigger challenge. Many people have asked for more ability to customize their crew-members, and this update brings a small first step towards this, giving you the ability to set their colors separately from the boat/sail colors.
- The way enemies are placed in the world has been overhauled, which will allow for new types of content in the future - For now the main difference is that hostile locations such as forts have a chance to spawn new enemies each day - Updated Croaker Bounty encounters which now scale in size and difficulty - Introducing the Tekk Clan Speedboat: a fast and lightly armed engine-powered vessel - Tekk Subs are now implemented as proper ‘boats’ in game terms, giving them better physics and AI - Tekk Destroyer weapon slots increased to 4 - Updated visuals for Lightkeeper Flagship: Based on feedback the design of the ship has been revised with a more realistic and better looking sail rig - Crew color customization: Your crew’s color scheme is now chosen separately from the sail colors
Other fixes and changes - Updated tutorial system: The old tutorial system felt a bit heavy handed as it would frequently pause the game and force you to do something that you potentially already know how to do - Tutorials now use a ‘checklist’ system that never pauses the game, and are much less intrusive - New tutorial added for camera zoom controls - 'Feedback' option now available from the pause menu to report bugs directly from the game - Improved capsizing logic: If your boat capsizes, your crew is temporarily thrown in the water and must spend some crucial time flipping the boat right side up again, which can be devastating in a battle. Watch those sails! - Many smaller bug fixes and tweaks, too many to enumerate here
Thank you to everyone for continuing to play and engage with the game, it's really motivating for me! This was a ton of stuff, and it is by no means the end, I've got lots of cool stuff planned for the rest of the year. Feel free to share any feedback you have on the forums, the new Discord, or via the new feedback tool in-game. I can't promise to address everything but I do read all of it.
For console players - The update is in certification, and should be out in about a week.
Gorbspeed!
Update 1 Beta
Hi everyone, Update 1 is close to complete, and as this is a pretty big set of changes I'd like to try making a beta available for a couple weeks before the update goes out.
If you have the game on Steam and would like to opt-in to the beta, you can do so by right-clicking the game in your Library, selecting Properties > Betas, and choosing `public_preview` from the dropdown.
It is very important to note that if you do this your save file will become incompatible with the old version! The game will automatically create a backup of your original save on load, which can be found on Windows at %appdata%\..\LocalLow\Festive Vector\Sail Forth\boat-game-old.save
If you want to return to playing the old version before the update is released, replace `boat-game.save` with `boat-game-old.save` Otherwise you can continue playing your save in the public preview branch until the update is fully released.
If you find a bug you can now report it directly from the game, using the 'Feedback' option found in the pause menu. This is helpful for me as it includes a copy of your save file, the log, and a screenshot which make it much easier for me to find and fix the bug.
Update 1 Changelog
Fleet Management - The Dock - Boats can be stored at a dock, accessible from the fleet management menu whenever not in combat - Unlimited boats can be stored at the dock along with their crew and loadout - If your entire fleet sinks but you have docked boats, you can undock them to continue the fight - If you get a new boat and have no room in the fleet it can be added to dock automatically
Fleet Management - Orders and AI - The 'set order' functionality of previous demos has been restored and updated - Fleet boats can be told to Escort, Hold Position, or Hold Fire - Can also issue one of these commands to the entire fleet at once - Greatly improved navigation AI - Your fleet (and other AI boats) should be much more adept at avoiding collisions - Your fleet will attempt to escape combat and return to your flagship if you are not close by
Progression Balancing - Based on feedback many of the boats in the game have had their balance tweaked, in addition to a revised unlock progression - Each new Shipshape Shop encountered will unlock a new boat of that chapter’s tier - Larger ships are now unlocked later in the game and have had their prices updated to reflect this - Removed boat selection from tutorial sequence to curate a more consistent intro experience
Content Updates - Hostile locations such as forts have a chance to spawn new enemies each day - Updated Croaker Bounty encounters which now scale in size and difficulty - Introducing the Tekk Clan Speedboat: a fast and lightly armed engine-powered vessel - Tekk Subs are now implemented as proper 'boats' in game terms, giving them better physics and AI - Tekk Destroyer weapon slots increased to 4 - Updated visuals for Lightkeeper Flagship: Based on feedback the design of the ship has been revised with a more realistic and better looking sail rig - Crew color customization: Your crew’s color scheme is now chosen separately from the sail colors
Tutorial Updates - Updated tutorial system: The old tutorial system felt a bit heavy handed as it would frequently pause the game and force you to do something that you potentially already know how to do - Tutorials now use a 'checklist' system that never pauses the game, and are much less intrusive - New tutorial added for camera zoom controls
Other fixes and changes - Many smaller bug fixes and tweaks, too many to enumerate here
Join the official Discord!
Sail Forth now has an official Discord server! The goal with this is to provide a platform-agnostic place to discuss the game, report issues, and interact with the dev team.
I'll continue to monitor and reply to threads on the Steam Discussions board, however you'll likely get a faster response on Discord.
Sail Forth has been released but that doesn’t mean I’m done working on it! There are many things that didn’t make the cut for release, and I’ve got lots of new ideas as well from listening to community feedback and watching everyone play.
Now that the initial launch craziness has calmed down a bit, I’d like to share with you all a rough roadmap for the coming year, consisting of a series of free updates. It’s important to keep in mind that these things are very fluid and of course subject to change, so I’m going to be intentionally quite vague about the exact contents of later updates until they are ready. That said, I still want to share that there are cool things in the works!
The first update is going to be focused on adding and improving things I’ve consistently seen mentioned by members of the community. Subsequent updates will contain new features and content such as new types of encounters, enemies, and in general more things to do!
As always, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has played and engaged with the game, it truly means a lot to me to see people enjoying this thing I spent 6 years making!
Update 1 “The Fleet Update” - Q1 2023
- Features and improvements based on community feedback - Store and retrieve boats from your fleet at the Dock - Control your fleet’s behavior with orders - Improved AI navigation that avoids collisions far more effectively - Revised boat balancing and progression
Update 2 - Q2 2023
A dangerous, but lucrative phenomena arises in the Deepblue!
Update 3 - Q3 2023
A brand new way to explore the Deepblue!
Update 4 - Q4 2023
A new danger looms over the Finefolk…
Patch 7 (v1.2.7)
Hi everyone, this will likely be the final patch before the first big feature update! This has a small set of bug fixes and improvements to address some things I've seen mentioned here in addition to a couple things I noticed myself.
The feature update (v1.3.0) is nearly done, and I'll soon be sharing more details about it along with other planned major updates, so keep an eye out!
v1.2.7
- Remove 2 non-existent photos that were making it impossible to complete the photos achievements - Extra dialog hint to encourage exploring to the north while exploring Commo Cay - Slightly increased time limit on final target course - Don’t show stats on items in research tree that aren’t unlocked - Fix some bounds calculations for target courses that allowed them to spawn partially in an adjacent area - Updated Light Prism logic at Skull Shrines, made them more visually obvious and ensure the prism remains collectable if player leaves area without picking it up
Patch 6 (v1.2.6)
Hi everyone, here is the latest patch! This is a bit of a small one as the main focus here was fixing a crash on Switch and the interest of keeping versions synced across all platforms some of the fixes I've made in the last couple days aren't present. Those should come along in 1.2.7 pretty quickly though!
v.1.2.6
Bug Fixes - Switch/Low spec machines: Fix crashes and GPU stuttering in Pine Peaks locations - Crew dialog adapts to crew members being stowed below deck mid-dialog, fixes possible soft locks in tutorial from stowing Goose or Toot - Fix bug where the Moontide Moonflower event might not trigger if the player had done many Moontide quests in quick succession
Improvements - World Map: Rumors window resizes to fit content, current location is selectable - Further optimization to island flora rendering and generated meshes - The first Shipshape Shop and Anglerwrangler Emporium are revealed on the map after being mentioned by Toot and Goose
As mentioned before, I've been working in parallel on the first feature update, which is getting close to being ready! In case design changes I won't be that specific about it but the goal with this update is to give you more control over fleet management. ːfrogagentː
Patch 5 (v1.2.5)
Hi everyone, here's the latest patch! This one has a mix of bug fixes, some changes based on feedback, and some other small improvements.
v1.2.5
Improvements / Changes - World Map: Add Rumors tab which has same info as the Area Map for selected location - Lengthen day/night cycle and weather patterns to make catching specific fish easier - Make wind direction slightly more consistent in calm weather - Wind turbulence now increases in stormy weather - Target shooting courses have hand-authored wind directions to ensure fair difficulty - Boats involved in Friendly Rescue encounters can be damaged before the dialog begins, which shortcuts the encounter straight into combat - Item fishing spots are much less likely to give Ancient Junk that has already been collected - Perf improvements to vegetation rendering
Bug Fixes - Moontide Recruitment: Automatically add new Prophecy Bell locations if there aren’t enough remaining to get the required number of bells - Angler Recruitment: Automatically add new Bibblebait Penguin locations if there aren’t enough remaining to get required number of penguins - "Buzzing Box" delivery quest: Marley no longer acts as if you still haven’t delivered the package once the quest is complete - Free Sail mode: Fix mode failing to start if the rowboat had been unlocked - Free Sail mode: Add description window explaining what the mode is about - Tekk Clan ships no longer drop non-functional blueprints - Ensure Eclipse state is properly applied when changing active save - Boarded boats no longer gain a bit of health when being boarded at very low health - Localization: Add a few missing translations for some player dialog options late-game
Thanks everyone for continuing to play and give feedback, it's really helpful and encouraging! I'm also working on some larger features which I hope to have out in the coming weeks.
Patch 4 (v1.2.4)
Hello, here is the next patch! I've got some larger improvements in progress as well but this addresses many of the issues I've seen reported over the past week.
Also, now that the holidays are at an end we'll be able to start getting these patches out on consoles very soon.
v1.2.4
Croakers
- Croakers: Add save file fix step for any bugged Croaker bounty missions - Croakers: Can no longer talk to the Croaker Agent while they are submerging, after completing a bounty mission. Doing so would cause them to offer a bugged-bounty mission. - Croakers: Fix softlock when speaking to Admiral Picklepea about your 3rd medal - Croakers: Add world map icon for Croaker Bounty quest giver location
General fixes / improvements
- Fix bug where some story-critical objects like the Lighthouse might have not spawned due to the location not containing any land-masses - Lightkeepers: Fixed not being able to progress if you ended up with more Spectral Oil than necessary - Add variety to sell values of all fish - More perf improvements to Frigid Sea / snow effects - Fix a couple end-game items that were not working properly - Add extra accessibility options for controlling camera shake and ambient motion - Add accessibility option for reducing flashing imagery (for now, disables lightning flashes)
Thank you everyone for continuing to submit reports and suggestions!
