The beta version of the upcoming economy update (0.20.b1) is now available on the beta channel.
The full patch notes for the update will be available on full release. For now, here are the main new features:
- New economy system: you can now buy and sell trade goods directly at the Sailwind office. The prices and availability will change over time based on a simulated supply and demand system. You will also have access to some information about the prices of goods on other islands, allowing more planning and predictability with trading.
- Currencies: each region now uses its own regional currency, and there is also a universal "gold" currency (at the moment only used for purchasing ships). You can exchange currencies at the Sailwind office in capital cities and several other islands. The exchange rate will vary over time, and your transactions will affect it as well. (if you load a previous save, your "old" gold will be converted automatically, with some amount split evenly between the three regional currencies, and new gold for larger amounts)
- Missions: missions are now integrated with the new economy system, using the market prices of goods to determine mission rewards and destinations. In general, you can expect more variety, such as some rare very high reward missions. Also, trans-oceaninc missions will now generally pay significantly less money. The goal with the new mission system is to encourage the player to gradually transition to trade for making most of their money.
Beta testing and feedback
The new economy is a complicated, dynamic system, which still requires some balancing and fine tuning. Major game-breaking bugs are also possible. The goal of this beta release is to gather some feedback to allow for better balancing and bug fixing before the full official release of the update. If you'd like to help out with testing, here are the most important points to focus on:
- trading: does it feel fair, interesting and realistic? Can you make a reasonable amount of profit through trading skillfully? Is it too hard, or too easy?
- missions: especially when starting a new game, are the mission rewards good? Is there enough variety? Any abnormal behavior, such as no/very few missions availalbe?
The best place to share your feedback is the #beta-general channel on the Sailwind Community Discord:
https://discord.gg/u4C8RQG6X9