Hey! It's been a while! We hope you had a good summer. We've enjoyed a short break, but we've also been working hard to get this update ready for you :D
There's a good mix of new stuff, old stuff, fixes, and performance improvements! We hope you enjoy.
As always, let us know if you have issues, comments, or feedback! We're happy to help out on our discord server :)
Additions
Added the small submarine - it has both the helm and harpoon turret combined in one place! As a result, we recommend you only use it solo (as a second person wouldn't have much to do...)
Added swimming! While we were gone, our local treasure-appropriators have been taking swimming lessons. Whether it be the open bodies of water of the shipyard, or a flooded submarine, just jump in :D
Added molas to the shallows. These gentle giants won't do much, but they're neat to look at
A new foe has moved into the basin caves - try to avoid its grabby tentacles or you might end up as lunch!
Added skin and hair colours to the wardrobe. More colours may be added over time, but at the very least this allows you to mix-and-match better.
Added key re-binding for gamepads, and fixed key re-binding for keyboards. We're not typically controller players, so let us know if our defaults suck :>
29 new cosmetics can now be purchased from Tanma's shop
Added a crew list to the status menu - you can now see who's in your session! You're not able to remove them, but hey, knowledge is power
Spice
Added a swirly effect to loading zones. This makes it less likely (but not impossible) that you'll get jumpscared by the loading screens
Updated the model for oxygen tanks
Made new FX for water leaks. The new effect also changes to a different effect when it's underwater for extra "realism"
Added FX for selling and wrench hits
Added ambient sounds to the caves
Added sounds to the boltcrabs. They now sound appropriately mischievous
Added sounds for coconuts and various other objects. Our audio designer does not write detailed changelogs :(
Added an octopus to the new kitchen. She's a chef. I'm sure she'll be more interesting later, but for now she's just hanging out!
Updated the main menu to match
Changes
Changed the water pump to be a hold action
The water pump is now more effective when there are fewer leaks (meaning less time spent staring at the walls while nothing is happening!)
Updated some bad default sell values for cave treasures
Added error text to some unavailable interactions. Now you won't have to guess why you can't buy that firewood :>
The submarine no longer loses all upgrades when you lose a run. Items on the submarine are still lost
We had a lot of back-and-forth about this, but decided that having to start over is too punishing. We'll work more on progression and upgrades in the near future to balance it all out
Added a spinny visualizer in the periscope to help guide you find points of interest
Made it possible to open the doors again as long as you are in the docking volume, after undocking. This should make it easier to go back if you accidentally close the doors.
We're trying out a new direction for hull damage to make it easier to balance the game going forward. As a result:
We've removed all sources of scrap and bolts
Leaks now spawn dynamically. This means it's less predictable where the holes are, and there can be more holes than before.
(Players with boltmakers and boltcrates in their savegames will be able to sell them, but it is not possible to place new ones)
Fixes
Replaced the flickery startup screen with a not-flickery startup screen. We apologise for the discomfort this may have brought
Fixed an issue where foliage would not spawn the same places on server and client, leading to desyncs
Fixed an issue where large foliage would sometimes spawn in exit tunnels, making it impossible to extract
Held items no longer go invisible when docking
Removed oxygen drain while at the shipyard
Captain can now drown again
Oxygen tanks now increase in price the deeper you go (like vending machines already do)
Fixed unassigned materials at The Bottom
Fixed an issue where hull upgrades were using the wrong model on clients
Fixed an issue where a disconnecting player would destroy their currently piloted station
Fixed areas of the caves where you would walk in slow-motion
Fixed a bug where the submarine doors would teleport shut on clients
Made it possible to pick up certain items while holding the wrench (again)
Disabled several work-in-progress menus
Fixed a bunch of gaps and stuff in the shipyard
Made the hitbox on pufferfish more accurate
Performance
We've spent quite a bit of time on performance this time around! As a result, we're getting around 1.5-2 times as high framerates on our computers, depending on area.
The biggest improvement has been in the shipyard, but the framerate in other levels has also improved drastically.
Disabled lumen and nanite
Improved performance of audio
Fixed an issue that would cause extra invisible components to spawn
Refactored many classes
Improved performance and generation speed of navigation