This evening (at least in this part of the world) we're pleased to bring you a new update (finally I know..) This one is more focused on gameplay and a bit of new content as well, as will be the future ones. I already have a pretty good idea on what I'll be focusing next, so expect some news when I have something to show!
Here's a list of the more relevant changes:
- added three new characters
- added two new skills, diplomacy and trade
- revamped faction menu (it's more helpful now)
- slightly revamped skill menu
- new drift loot system (spawns loot for your ship to pick up)
- added rafts with castaways
- added a new kind of reward, skill unlocks
- added additional governor options (unlockable throught diplomacy skills)
- you now need to make first contact with a faction in order to get their info on the factions menu
- you now need to dock at cities in order to discover their name
- fixed an issue where the cities coat of arms weren't being saved properly
- fixed a couple of annoying crashes
- loads of tweaks and smaller fixes
Here's a few screens of some of the new content:
Your fellow captain,
Ivo
The Inner Sea Times (vol 1)
Ahoy Captains!
So this time it isn't a new update (yet) just a bit of news on what we're working on currently.
The next update will feature two new skills, so you'll have somewhere to spend your hard earned skill points (finally!). The first new skill is trade, it will progressively make your life easier when trading by keeping track of the best places to buy and sell stuff, reducing the city profit margin and even allowing you to smuggle (meaning you'll be able to trade with cities you're at war with, that also includes pirate settlements!).
The second new skill is diplomacy, it will give you new options when talking with the governor, it'll make it easier to identify enemies on the map, and as with trade it will allow you to always dock at cities (even if at war) and talk with the governor.
These skills won't be immediately available, you'll have to unlock them somehow (still figuring it out) before you can actually spend points on them, unless you pick the appropriate sponsor at the beginning of the game, that will allow you to start with one of them unlocked and the first rank already bought.
Also the faction menu will be improved, you'll have to discover the different factions before it shows you any information about them, and we're looking at ways of improving it in terms of visual feedback so you guys have a better understanding of your current relation status with a given faction and between themselves.
There's a few more things we're looking at but they're not super final yet, so if they're ready on time they'll come in as a bonus.
Your fellow Captain, Ivo.
Build 8
Hey guys!
Sorry for the long wait. To reward your patience this update is a bit more meaty. The mission system has been significantly overhauled (for the better) which that also means that I had to break compatibility with the previous save files, so you'll have to start a new game.. I was reluctant to make this change but I believe it's for the better.
Improvements and new stuff:
- the ship immediately starts following the path as it's drawn.
- added audio cues when spending/earning money.
- improvements to shipwright menu (highlights attribute upgrades on hover).
- improvements to blueprints menu.
- reworked mission system (better log, more helpful ui cues, failed/complete mission menus).
- can now mark a mission in the mission log (red arrow).
- added glowy particles to pickables and sea props.
- changed icon highlight color on the fleet manager menu.
- added shipwrecks.
Fixes:
- fixed a tooltip rendering bug where the arrow tip would render separately from the box.
- fixed an issue where a crash would occur when a defeated fleet tried to enter combat.
- fixed an issue with the delivery mission where you could get close to the target city and then get your reward at the source city.
- fixed an issue where on delivery of a captured ship, the player would loose the gold, crew and cargo on that ship.
- fixed an issue where sometimes the game would crash if player got an escort quest and the city couldn't spawn a ship.
- fixed an issue where while in lifeboat mode the player could sometimes be attacked.
As always let me know your opinions / issues on the forums! I've been a bit quiet lately, but I'll make and effort to be more active! =)
Enjoy
Ivo
Build 7
Hey guys!
Here's another update! I've been testing the game loads and it seems super stable, let me know if you run into runtime crashes in the discussions section! Here's a list of the stuff that was adressed/changed:
- a more balanced city economy
- if an enemy fleet is significantly stronger a skull icon displays before the fleet's ship's name
- cities will now spawn fleets with multiple ships from time to time
- war fleets will now plunder and sink enemies that are adrift
- tooltips can now be disabled in the options menu
- fixed an issue that was causing the fishermen fleets to stand idle at the city docks
- fixed an issue that was causing the cities to spawn only the higher level ships
- fixed an issue related to reseting the camera rotation angle
- fixed issue where a defeated fleet would sometimes return to activity instead of remaining adrift
- fixed issue where the player could draw path through islands
- fixed a bunch of memory leaks
- performance optimizations
Build 6
Hello everybody,
The week has just started and we have yet another update with a bunch more stuff added and fixed!
Here's a complete list:
- added camera rotation (press ZX or move the cursor to the screen edges, backspace resets camera)
- fixed an issue related to fleet not remaining in formation
- npcs no longer reset the cooldown of farmable resources
- added hold full message when collecting/farming resources
- increased quantity of farmed resources (fish/ivory)
- decreased speed of smaller ships
- improved ship obstacle avoidance
- factions now declare war on each other
- if war fleets are too damaged they return home for repairs
- ships should no longer leave the map
Build 5!
I've just integrated the steam api into the game so you guys can access steam's overlay and take screenshots! More steam features will come in the future!
Build 4!
Hey,
Another build today with more fixes and a few requested features!
I've gotta say your feedback has been awesome, thanks for taking the time to report the issues that come up. As the game gets more stable we'll have additional time for features!
- pressing 'C' will now center the camera on the player's flagship
- added camera panning with the mouse (press & hold middle mouse button and drag the mouse around)
- available crew to hire at cities now replenishes slowly (no longer possible to spam the hire crew option at the tavern)
- can no longer harvest resources while paused
- can no longer harvest resources repeatedly (both fish & walrus have cooldown timers to replenish)
- forts & sea monster skeletons now provide treasure / blueprint
- if the game fails to create a rendering context (due to lack of support of opengl 3.3 for example) it should now show a message
- possible fix for missing text
Build 3!
Hey Guys,
Here's another update, this time apart from crashes and bugs, we've tried to address a few issues related to the gameplay balance.
Here's the complete list:
- fixed crash related to context menu
- added change zoom keyboard shortcuts (press Q & E)
- added velocity toggle keyboard shortcut (press V)
- ships now award xp according to difficulty
- increase skill points gained to 2 per crew rank (retroactive)
- faction standing now slowly goes back to suspicious for factions at war with player
- every time that the player docks in a city crew gets healed up
- added build label (renders while on the main menu)
- faction standing correctly decreases every time a faction sinks another's ship
- fixed startup crash that was happening on previous versions of macosx, the game should now run fine for all versions 10.9+
Quick update 2!
Here's another quick update, fixing a bunch of issues people have reported!
Issues addressed:
- fixed issue where the crew would be completely healed after loading a game
- when on a lifeboat player can't attack anymore
- blueprints are now correctly unlocked on the shipwright menu when loading a game
- added save option to the in game menu
- fixed crash related to user having save paths with non ascii characters (windows)
- fixed issue where it was possible to spawn in a lifeboat with 0 crew members
Quick update!
Hey guys & gals,
I've just uploaded a first update fixing a few of the crashes reported by the users so far. The complete list of changes is:
- blueprints progress is now saved correctly
- skill points cost is now displayed on the top right of skill rank to purchase
- fixed crash related to selling/scraping ships
- fixed crash related to trying to board a ship and it would suddenly start to sink
- move log.txt to user folder
- removed F1 quick exit
