New Open World
Desert Skies now has a fixed open world map instead of one that is procedurally generated as you fly. This makes exploring the deserts a more engaging experience which will keep getting better as we fill the world with lots of details to find and explore. Press M to view the in-game map to help you navigate the world as you search for locations, caves and resources.
The current version of the world is just the beginning. It was mostly created using our old procedural generation tools with a bit of manual editing. Now that it's fully operational we will be working on new world creation tools to empower us to hand-craft lots of interesting areas to find and explore in the deserts. As we improve the world over coming updates borders will shift, biomes will become unique, and the landscape will grow with hills, valleys, canyons, roads/rails and more.
New UI
We now have artwork for our menus, in-game HUD and interfaces!
The build menu will also be updated after we make some gameplay changes to how you find and learn schematics to build.
Inventory System
Our old inventory system could not work with multiplayer, so we rebuilt it. The new system is multiplayer ready and has improved features - you can split item stacks, it will remember which slot you like to keep each tool and consumable in, and it intelligently picks which stacks to add items to and remove from.
Other Changes
- The wind can now blow in any direction instead of always pointing westerly. We have improved how the wind and engine interact so that it's easier to fly the direction you want even when it's against the wind.
- White Sands is now a biome of towering dunes interspersed with fields of bright red flowers, while Salt Flats is now very flat. These are the first steps in these biomes' development, with more to come as we improve our world building tools.
- We have created a weather system. This first version changes cloud formations when the weather changes, and in future will support additional weather effects like dust, lighting, wind intensity and sandstorms.
- In-game interactions like opening doors and harvesting resources are now using a rebuilt interaction system which supports multiplayer.
- We have rebuilt our save system to support the fixed open world. Currently resources and locations will reset when you fly away and return to an area, but once we've added more content we will switch over to permanent saving - any changes you make to the world will be there forever.
- As a side effect of rebuilding our systems, several bugs no longer exist. Any existing problems with inventory or items are gone, as well as bugs like planted prickly pears not growing fruit or duplicate items appearing at workstations after loading a game.
Multiplayer Update
We are close to having multiplayer ready for testing. The initial multiplayer release will be a quiet one to find any major bugs or connectivity issues. Once we're sure everything is ready we will make an announcement for the proper release.
Desert Skies will use drop-in multiplayer so you will be able to invite friends to join your game at any time without needing to start a separate multiplayer game/mode. Initially multiplayer will be locally hosted with friends able to join your game via the Steam friends list, but later we will release a dedicated server.