Milestones, Celebrations and a Thank you!

26 Jul 2024Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Hey everyone,

We hope you've been enjoying the recent blogs about the upcoming Naval Command Update, we have some exciting news about when you can expect to play it as well as some new screens, a personal thank you from Tomas, and more! Let's get started!

The Naval Update

So first of all, get hyped - the Naval Update will be dropping onto your public Beta access branches on 13th August! We don't have a SOLID date for the full on release yet until we've seen how you react to the beta branch - but mark the date down in your calendars!

Naval Update Preview

Just to get you warmed up to the idea of what to expect - Tomas sat down and played with it to demonstrate the new features in an early iteration, and talk through the differences to the Bulwark play experience that you can expect. Put the kettle on and set aside 30 minutes so you can hit the water running on the 13th.

Watch on YouTube

New Naval Update Screens

It wouldn't be an update without some shiny new Ursee eye candy - so here's some new screens fresh from Tomas PC for you to admire!

Thank You Surveyors

Moving on from the Naval Update for a moment. We had a little peek at the player counts across Bulwark and The Falconeer, taking into account all of you who have played on Console, the cloud, downloaded on services such as Gamepass, and of course - the hardcore who have been part of our beta tests since day one.

Turns out that there are over 2 Million of you across both games and all platforms combined. Which is WILD!!

It is every developers ambition to take an idea they've had in their head and see people resonate with it the world over, and the fact that over the course Tomas creation of The Falconeer Universe, from a aerial dogfighting RPG on Xbox, to an evolving sandbox builder - so many of you have joined into the fantasy, shared your creations and helped spread the word of this unusual series - is just mind blowing.

As a little thank you - Tomas is currently putting together a free unit DLC pack containing some new trade ships that you'll be able to recruit and set to work. No set date on these, but we'll keep you updated!

Naval Update Patch Notes

Wrapping things up here on this mini update - we know there's more than a few of you that like reading the nuts and bolts and raw numbers of how the game world is changing - so here's the update notes for what to expect for those of you that like to see behind the curtain. WARNING! It's Long!

New Features:

Added new total conquest mode
Total conquest you start at war with the other factions except your starting faction and freehouse
You gain one officer and commander when starting total conquest
Hostile attacks are increased
No diplomacy
Survive
unit commanders now have three possible tactical groupings
defensive grouping lets unit patrol around the command tower
escort lets units follow the surveyor
assault adds units to an assault group that can be given a target via the map or from the surveyor.
Extra units can now be bought in the commander select screen
Splinters are earned in more ways
Population growth is your base splinter income
Trade and banking may provide additional repeating splinter income
ancient fortresses can be found in the world and purchased for splinters
Ancient fortresses require stone,iron and workers to expand
Ancient fortresses have either a giant missile dome or giant anti shipping gun
Ancient fortresses can be expanded with smaller gun batteries
added new stone curtain walls that spawn beneath skyways for stone towers.
added new metal curtain walls that spawn beneath skyways for command towers.
Different wallguns are spawned from different commanders
Wallguns aren’t spawned from empty command towers
Wallguns may be point defense, naval batteries or multirole guns
turrets now prefer their proper class of targets, point defense will hit warbirds and fighters, default guns will hit all, big guns and giant batteries will only hit airships, fixed turrets and surface vessels
guns on naval vessels or airships have deadlier ordnance and longer range, with a preference for targeting gun batteries or other capital ships first.
naval vessels of other factions patrol the Ursee between faction settlements
War behavior for factions improved
attacking enemies will form in waves at a rally point until a force is formed and then
attacking enemies will retreat back to the rally point after a few minutes and reform
Factions may spawn their own fortresses to defend their settlements
wars will allow faction settlements that have a commander HQ to spawn appropriate units to attack you, size of the fleet is dependent on the war levels and your empire size
A command flagship is summoned when you first build the naval command harbor, or if you repair your fleet or if you rebuild the naval command harbor.
You can control your command flagship similarly to the surveyor
you can switch to surveyor or command flagship via the map or via selecting it with the switch button
you can assign two combat captains to your naval command to form a surface fleet.
surface fleet vessels will follow your command flagship
surface fleet vessels shown on map

New world Content

24 new locations added on the map where you may buy Outposts, fortresses and unique buildings
combat zone "the Hole" added , farm combat for splinters and xp, opposition scales with your assault force
combat zone "the Stump" added , farm combat for splinters and xp, opposition scales with your assault force
Mosaurs may attack your trade routes
Mosaur Hunting Lodge unique building can be found in the world
Treewatchers unique location added
Several existing random encounters such as the lighthouse now have fixed locations on the map
Dynamic fishing boats spawn near settlements
mongres mercenaries are joined by a mongres banker
mongres commanders can only be acquired by traveling to New Nerevin.
mongres banker adds interest to any splinter earnings

Qol:

friendly units are tracked on the map, different groupings have different colors
Enemy patrolling ships are tracked on the map
Map shows the level of a settlement (from colony to capitol)
Map shows unique building locations, buyable outposts and fortresses on the map
You can fast travel to tradeships on your trade routes
You can select both the end or start harbor of a route on the map
You can edit the captains of a route from the start or end
Cycling through captains and clicking on the little portraits is now doubleclick
You can open up the captain selection on an endpoint harbor without it teleporting
A red outline on the little captain portraits shows when a click will un-assign them
turned on available action prompts on map
wood industry can spawn on hills and rock
factions will only surrender to vassal state if they have lost the majority of their settlements
when selecting a trade route from a harbor if the cursor is closer to a building it will select that and de-snap
captains and commanders from pacified factions don't protest who is in charge and still spawn
industry population buildings don't get demolished in an attempt to upgrade
The next nearest tower building indicator has the height of the buildline UI.
splinters are now calculated and shown in the resource flow mode
building near volcanoes less janky
scenario screen shows populations of your save
scenario screen shows flames if total conquest mode
range of shown resources and points of interest increased on the map
range of surveyors HQ on the map increased to unlock the entire map
scenario screen show population of each savegame
removed some advisor messages if your save file is already progressed
the camera can be tilted lower when controlling vessels
added expanded commander menu tutorial texts
tutorial end texts have been improved
camera sensitivity when zoomed in reduced

Balance:

cannot build floors without resource access
top tier housing cannot spawn close to resource locations, except on foundations
harbor population building spaced out more..
harbor population buildings earn more splinters
defending units on faction settlements mostly spawn beyond visual range
defending units on faction settlements only respawn after being defeated after 5 minutes.,.
defending units on faction settlements remain guarding even after you attack them. making escape easier and conquest more consistent as you whittle down their forces
depletion is no longer default in any scenario.
trade profits from all ships increased
raised total unit cap from 30 -50
population of the soultree raised to 5000
population will build top tier houses only when the worker access is high enough
old raids are removed
requirements for spawning the lighthouse reduced.
the amount of guns the Mancer gunner can spawn on a tower is 6, he does spawn special wall guns now
removed captains giving splinters upon rejection
anytime a business appears from a craftsman you get additional splinters
trade route raids start further out.. giving more time before units attack and more space to respond
ordnance doesn't get triggered when hitting friendlies or settlement

Visual Improvements:

improved the colors of low hanging mist
made the low hanging mist variable
Volcanoes improved
Added red and green storms
gun turrets reset to default position
gun turrets start scanning when enemies are near but not yet in range
reduced jitter on ship floatation
captain and commander select screen has been positioned off center so players can see the hq or harbor
particle fx for splashes and gun impacts improved
explosion fx improved
on the map all harbors are shown with a harbor icon,
made impact of dead enemies on the water more epic

Fixes

prevented audio flanging on buttons that scale
prevented audio flanging in scenario selector
removed endless repeating requests for tribute from vassals
imperial wonder quest has the correct title
fixed captains not appearing if you went hostile against the other major factions
fixed that unique craftsman house events get properly saved.
fixed that after resetting a scenario you might lose track of the surveyor on the map
fixed sluggish photo mode camera controls at high fps
reduced amount of building instructions for wonders
the commander selector won't jump back to the first commander sometimes after you already scrolled to another.
mines don't animate back to reset mode when resetting a scenario or all saves
the circle cursor around the active tower will be red if it cannot upgrade
buzzing sound from razorbeetles toned down
floating items don't bounce when unpausing
camera cannot go below the waves
prevented unfriendly captains from delaying the spawn of friendly captains
optimized the resource calculations, though it may still have inefficient outcomes at massive scales (Where multiple routes are possible for supplying resources, it might not find the optimal).
sometimes warbirds would fire at targets beyond the horizon
improved map scrolling snappiness
icon for sentry tower changed to separate from fortresses
turrets that were prevented from firing cuz they were obscured ignore any colliders that is part of their vehicle or building
camera shouldn't be dragging on low fps
unit xp now correct in all scenario
turrets that were prevented from firing cuz, rescan for enemies twice as fast
resource flow output prioritization, biggest extractors calculated first and dominant.
prevented ghost harbor walkways from being saved and loaded

Told you it was extensive!

Anyway - that should do it for now - keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks where we can show some more of both the Naval Update and the upcoming Free ships - and get ready to see the Ursee evolve once more!

- Gary from Wired Productions