Hello Pioneers!
We're excited to announce that Sailaway: The Sailing Simulator, will leave Early Access on February 27th - that's this time next week!
The short run in Early Access allowed for major additions to be tested, balanced and tweaked before official launch and your help has been instrumental in this. Thank you all for the input and support!
During Early Access we have implemented a variety of new boats including a Nordic Folkboat, a 50-foot Performance Cruiser and even a Catamaran. Captains are also now able to customise their boats and create their own liveries in Steam Workshop, share their location between players, utilise private group chat and persistent crew chat and track their success with Steam Achievements.
We've also been working hard on some of the most requested features: Land textures and landmarks. Here is an early look:
For those of you wondering what we'd implemented during Early Access...
Here is the BIG list of changes to Sailaway during Early Access
New Boats
- Addition of Nordic Folkboat
- Addition of 50ft Performance Cruiser
- Addition of Catamaran
Boat Customisation
- Workshop access for players to create their own liveries
- Livery customisation packs
Multiplayer Features
- Fixes to the multicrew system
- Addition of player created races
- Addition of private chat groups and persistent crew chat
- Location sharing between players
- Addition of player information on boats
- Performance improvements to allow large numbers of boats without crashes
- Race Teams - Players can create and run their own teams for races.
- Player badges for race completion
Sailing and navigation
- Navigational lights added to the boats
- More buoys, lighthouses and markers
- Wave surfing simulation
- Wind shadow simulation
- Voyage management
- Day/night indicator added to the map
- Continuous improvements to ocean height map data
- Extra visibility (actual numbers) of what the simulation is simulating.
Environmental Improvements
- More ambient sounds
- Increased real-time weather accuracy
- Wildlife added to the oceans - Birds, Dolphins, Whales
- Horizon improvements
- Gameplay music and new audio
- Improvements to visual elements such as shading and textures
- Improvements to US map data
Accessibility
- Addition of extra Hotkeys
- Addition of controller support
- Ability to view sails while accessing trim options
- New tutorials
- Addition of Japanese language options
Other
- Addition of Steam achievements
- Improved player statistic tracking on profiles
Development will continue after we end our Early Access period as we are committed to making Sailaway the best Sailing Simulator it can be.
Let us know what you think in the comments and come join us on Twitter or Facebook for updates!
Happy Sailing,