Following Seas · published
My sincere apologies for missing the broken game start with the last update. Not the splash I'd intended.
Most issues should be fixed with this small update.
Fixed caravel still having tutorial prompts highlighted when loading with a completed tutorial.
Fixed caravel becoming either stuck or having a physics breakdown after traveling ~500m from the start.
Migrated all ladders to teleport type to improve stability. (I would like to rework ladders entirely - but this is a band aid.)
Fixed option panel not functioning correctly in the start menu with the most recent update.
Fixed audio changes not effecting the audio in the main menu.
Fixed (most?) cases where settings failed to save.
Fixed fast-travel dialog only working once per session.
Fixed strange appearance of matchlock wick smoke, as it appeared to have become distorted in one of the recent updates.
I believe after several months I've finally sorted the issue that would periodically cause any ship to become static and non-interactable. It appears this was due to non-ship-sourced rigidbodies being brought aboard, and then disposed between recenter events, causing a gameobject not found error.
Changes:
Added shortcut hotkey to the screw-log, replacing the matchlock at '7'. Matchlock has been moved to '8', as it currently has very little function.
Player Movement:
A recurring pain point I receive is that player movement feels poor. It's a tough thing for me to nail down as it can be a kind of ambiguous issue. This update brings in a number of small changes to hopefully improve things. The two most prevalent changes are that the player's additive friction with the 'ground' layer has been reduced. This should result in less speed being lost when colliding at low angles to the environment, making the player feel less 'sticky'. Secondly, I've reworked the relationship between player and clone to much better account for vertical space.
If this doesn't make sense - a little about how the character controller works --
As anyone who's worked with Unity physics has experienced -- it's notoriously finicky to get player movement feeling good when on a moving object. To work around this, in Following Seas when the player boards a ship, while the camera remains in a synced position, the actual player teleports a few 100 m into the sky, and navigates a non-dynamic copy of the ship. This is why there's a history of odd-feeling momentum changes when disembarking the ship -- though most of these issues have been resolved.
The effects of this change to vertical space management is that the player should be far less likely to end up 'standing' a few meters off the deck, particularly after using ladders. Also, jumping and colliding with edges should no longer arrest vertical movement, so even if the player is stopped by colliders, you should feel less like you are stuck on geometry. I'm interested on feedback as to how these changes feel.
Note that this update is not 100% complete, but it's functional enough to push with the emergency fixes above. A known issue due to the vertical sync changes is that in some cases the player might jitter a bit more than previously, especially when on the very edge of colliders, or when using an interactable object (such as the wheel or various winches) for a significant period. I intend to fix this shortly - but figured being able to play the game is more important.
Another reported issue is severe instability on the Xebec -- I have been unable to reproduce, but working on it.