Here's the new update at long last! First of all apologies for the delay, a number of issues in my personal life prevented me from putting the time in that was required. That said, this build mostly addresses gameplay issues, adds new content and introduces important performance optimizations (frame rate should now be more stable and consistent).
And the sea monster finally made it in!!! =D
Here's the what changed and what's new, all bulleted up in a nice list:
loads of bug fixes!
you can now always dock with capital cities, in order to make peace
capital cities are now marked by stars
fleets now slowly repair while inside a city harbor
rewards now differ depending on the mission type
added outlines to mission and location icons
rumours are now more interesting and informative
on ship capture the player can now find maps, skilled people or crew
now displays fleet type on ship hover
fix speed stat not being affected by blueprint
ships are now more expensive
fixed blueprint descriptions not matching stat bonuses
when ships are adrift they can be sunk and loot drops with cargo and salvage will spawn
combat between npc ships no longer leaves them adrift, they are always sunk and plundered by the victor
cannon shots now take into consideration target height and distance (no more impossible to hit tiny ships)
capital city names are now bigger when on map overview
locations will now reward player with resources
sea monsters!
And here are a few of the new things you can expect!
Keep braving the unknown!
Build 13
Ahoy Captains!
This one is a small update that fixes a bunch of issues players found and introduces a number of gameplay balance tweaks.
Also it adds outlines to text in a number of places to improve readability, specially on the map overview (it's been annoying me for some time and I finally dedicated some time to it!).
So here's a list of the main fixes
- city and ship names start with upper case characters again
- can now buy ships from docks when in a lifeboat
- if your fleet is composed of only one ship you can still sell it (it will force your crew into a lifeboat)
- mission targets will no longer get sunk arbitrarily causing you to fail your missions
- can now ask at any tavern the location of a ship (as long as it's a mission target)
- a number of tweaks were added to make it easier to track ships down
- lowered xp requirements to increase crew rank
- several fixes to ship behaviors
Here's a few screens from this update
Enjoy guys!
Build 12
Ahoy there Captains!
It's been a long time coming but here we are finally!!
In this update the player can now create his own faction and his own settlements. Settlements are significant because they provide the player with a way to exploit the resources present on the island, better prices when trading and a sleugh of other bonuses.
Another big change is that ships are now classified with ranks, first rank ships having in general significantly better attributes than third rank ones. That and ships are unique, attributes wise, you can always find that slightly better carrack now!
There's been loads more tweaks, from world generation, to collision, to platform specific code, so the game should be more stable overall. So without further ado here's a relatively complete change list:
All Platforms
- added ship rank system, ships are now categorized in three ranks
- player can now create his own faction
- player can now create settlements
- certain trade goods are now required to build city improvements
- cities creation system has been completely reworked
- reworked collision system, collisions are no longer "bouncy"
- map and island generation has been severely tweaked
- "hull durability" and "sails durability" ship attributes have been merged into a single "durability" attribute
- rebalanced ship attributes
- rebalanced ship equipment attribute bonuses
- cities now have harbor areas, where the player won't be attacked if he's at peace with the owners faction
- each faction now uses a single coat of arms instead of each city having a different one
- added small waves around islands and certain locations
- shadows for animated props now animate
- added new ships menu on captain's log
- added new cargo menu on captain's log
- revamped faction menu, can now go to cities (click on arrow icon)
- fixed crash that would ocasionally happen during a capture mission
- fixed crash when buying ships equiped with equipment player hadn't unlocked
- fixed qin woman texture
- input text fields now have blinking end of line cursors
- loads of ui tweaks and fixes
Windows
- fixed windowed mode (can now minimize and drag window correctly)
- alt+enter now toggles between fullscreen and windowed mode
MacOS
- fixed mouse controls, player can now draw the ship's path, rotate and zoom in/out the camera correctly
Quick Note
Ahoy everyone!
It is not often I am writing here, I am the Artist behind The Inner Sea and I wanted to let you know that Spiky, the amazing musician who made the music you can hear in the game, has released his new album Okopova, feel free to have a quick look https://youtu.be/2RntzqCDx9Q
I go back to my pencils now, stay alert, a new game update is coming soon ! :)
Yours sincerely,
Antoine
The Inner Sea Times (vol 5)
Ahoy there Captains,
It's been a while since the last announcement and we've been cranking on the next update.
On the content side we're almost finished, the new features are generally speaking working and a lot of fixes, ui revamps and other touches here and there have been made.
What remains to be done for this update is a lot of balancing, both on the ship stats and the city building mechanics (things like resources required, days it takes to build and bonuses that apply and so on) and some bug fixing. After we're happy with this, a period of intense play testing will follow, although the game has been getting progressively more stable with each new update, we still find the ocasional crash now and then, we really want to minimize them as much as possible so everyone can have a good experience.
We'll leave you with a few screens, it's taking a bit we know but we're almost there!
Your fellow captains,
Ivo & Antoine
The Inner Sea Times (vol 4)
Ahoy Captains!!
We're finally at a stable state where we can focus on adding more content, so that's exactly what we're announcing today.
Ship Ranks
Next update will see the ship rank system come into place, most ships will have three ranks (first being the best, third the crappiest), you'll be able to identify them visually, third rank ships will look a bit worse for wear while first rankers will look glorious =)
Also ship stats will be randomized (based on the ship template), so finding two identical ships should not be common.
Settlements
The other big feature we're working on at the moment is settlements, so on the next update you'll be able to create your own settlements and consequentially your own faction!!! This is a huge addition, we're currently revamping the whole city system and there's loads of stuff to consider ui wise, so we're not entirely sure exactly how it will all look in the end, but you can expect towns to start small and eventually grow to full sized cities, building improvements will unlock services and provide certain bonuses.
This will be our biggest update to date!
If you have suggestions about what you would like to see in the game, hit the forums and let us know!
Your fellow Captains
Ivo & Antoine
Build 11
Ahoy there Captains!
For this update I've mainly focused on polishing, performance and bug fixes and adding a couple of features I had previously announced before but they hadn't made it in yet. So there won't be loads of new stuff, but everything will be a bit nicer and more consistent. Also as I mentioned in the previous post, I fixed a rather daft issue I had in the rendering pipeline, so most people can expect significant performance improvements! =)
So without further ado here's the more or less complete change list:
- added brawl skill
- added more information to the top bar
- added docks to the cities (buy & sell ships)
- revamped shipwright menu
- removed gun and ship upgrades (improvements come exclusively from blueprints now)
- now while in combat if you hover over a ship it will show its cannons range
- locations no longer spawn on map creation, they need to be revealed by finding treasure maps
- all locations now disappear after being explored/farmed
- big performance improvements
- a truck load of ui tweaks
- player can no longer spam governors for missions
- fixed issue where a governor would give you a mission targeting one of his own faction ships
- fixed issue where npc ship spawning would become increasingly slower
- fixed issue where players boarding bar wasn't being rendered correctly
- fixed issue where the game would fail to correctly load the save game (screen would remain black)
- fixed issue where crew being damaged by cannon shots wouldn't belong to the ship being fired on (weird one)
- fixed several combat issues (especially when fleets of several ships were involved)
- fixed issue where loading a game saved during combat wouldn't result in the combat being correclty loaded
- fixed an issue where the background would lighten up while displaying menus
Happy sailing!!
The Inner Sea Times (vol 3)
Ahoy Captains!
So I've been working on the new update, well since I've released the last one =)
There'll be a number of areas addressed as usual, namely the way locations/resources work (things like fish, walruses and forts), they will no longer be spawned initially when the map gets generated and you'll have to find "treasure maps" that expose these locations, this is mainly to address the issue that the game was getting too grindy and to encourage exploration.
There'll be loads of ui tweaks and you'll now be able to buy ships at the cities, also the issue with certain ships not spawning (pirates and galleons) will be adressed (thanks for letting me know in the forums =).
I also want to rebalance all ships stats to be more coherent, although I'm planning a fairly big overhaul so it might not come all at once and instead be split across a couple of updates.
Finally and for some awesome news, there's one major fix coming, which is a big performance boost, I found and fixed an issue with the render pipeline which was slowing down the game considerably!
I still have a couple of things left to fix in this update so it will take a bit, but hopefully not much longer!
Build 10
Ahoy there Captains!
It's time for another update! As I had mentioned in the previous post, one of the main features of this update was boarding (crew against crew battles), which was a bit more complicated to add than I had initially thought.
One of the areas that saw a lot of work was controls, I went to a couple of showcase events and had the opportunity of seeing first hand people playing the game and some stuff that I though was easy to grasp turns out wasn't that obvious or at least user friendly. So camera mouse controls were redone, they're way better now and more coherent (at least I really hope so), and the fleet itself is also easier and less frustrating to control!
I wanted to add another skill "brawl" but it required loads more of playtesting and tweaking and I wanted you guys to have this update before xmas (which I ended up missing by a couple of days), so that got postponed to the next one.
Without further ado, here's a more or less complete list of the changes:
cannons now have a larger range
removed the need to acquire 3 pieces of blueprints, now as soon as it's unlocked you can equip it
added crew morale (play's a big part in boarding)
capturing fleets now awards gold (if the captured fleet is carrying any)
added boarding and remade capture fleet menu flow (it's now possible to replace your ship with another one if you can only control one)
added top bar (displays date, morale, captain's log button, time scale buttons)
new cursors and other hud assets
new camera controls, press and hold left mouse button to move the camera
new camera controls, press and hold middle mouse button to rotate the camera
it's now possible to right click anywhere on the map and the ship will move there
you can now start drawing the ship's path anywhere on the map (no longer needs to be over the flagship)
to draw the ship's path you now press and hold the right mouse button and drag the mouse around
updated the tutorial to reflect all the changes
fixed an occasional ui flicker glitch
fixed adrift or sinking ships not being correctly saved
Some screens:
Your fellow captain
Ivo
The Inner Sea Times (vol 2)
Ahoy Captains,
I've been working on the next update and wanted to tell you that the next feature to come to The Inner Sea will be boarding.
Here is how it will work, when you disable a ship, instead of immediately capturing it, you will initiate boarding. This is where your crew comes into place.
There are two ways of winning the battle either by winning the morale contest or by disabling the entirety of the adversary crew (no man left standing). Morale influences a number of variables in the battle and it will slowly chip away as the battle progresses and fellow crew members fall, so it will be important to come into battle with a high morale.
With this new mechanic we'll introduce a new skill as well, "brawl", each rank will give benefits that will help you while boarding, eventually allowing a smaller crew to take on a bigger one.
You'll also be able to retreat from boarding if it doesn't seem like it's going to end well =)
There's a number of things that will be introduced, like an overall crew morale, which you need to keep watch over. I'm not entirely sure yet on what will affect it, as I'm still working on it, but expect things like time at sea, retreating from boarding and other factors to come into play.
Also I plan to add consequences if you remain with a low crew morale for too long, although not sure if that will make it into this update or the next one =)
* Here's how it's looking at the moment, still needs a bit of work, but you can see how it will play out.
