Build Version: Survival update. 1.1.6.2.e8412a5
Release Date: 07/11/2018
Known Issues
What’s New
New Winchester Redesign
In order to bring it up to the standards of the recent Reach redesign, the central New Winchester segment has had a fresh lick of paint. Along with the visual changes, we’ve tidied up the storylet options at Wolvesey Station and also removed the Victory Hall and Company House areas. They are now available at separate Platforms where you can dock and hand in your port reports.
New Opening Game Experience
Now when starting a new game the player’s initial position (which is still in the New Winchester segment) is explained by an opening story. The player will emerge from the Blue Kingdom Transit Relay, their captain dying, on a mission to get to New Winchester Station.
Part of this narrative will be conveyed via storylets, and part of it will be shown via ambient messages in game. The story will continue once you dock at New Winchester and it’s at that point that a new player will go through the Character Creation screen. In future updates the opening narrative that begins at New Winchester will continue in Albion and the Blue Kingdom.
We highly recommend starting a new game with this build so that you can experience the updates and for additional reasons that shall be explained below.
The Opening Game Experience is not totally complete, some things need to wait until the launch build, so there are a few things to note about it. Please do not report these as bugs:
- The loading screen text on a new game is not displayed for very long - we will be extending the time so it can be read without having to rush
- In a future update we shall be adding tutorial tips which will explain controls and mechanics as you progress through the opening sequence and the early game - these need to wait until closer to launch when all features are locked down
- You need to shoot your way through the barrier at the end of the opening game area before you can reach New Winchester, in a future build this will be made clear with the use of said tutorial tips
- It’s possible to come away from the wreck of the Ozymandias without a Scout. This is a player choice and it is signposted via the pink instructional text, this is not a bug. We will be adding other ways to acquire a Diffident Bat in a future update (other than from Mr Menagerie)
- If we have time we may tweak the opening sequence so you are shunted from the relay, or so it starts with you inside with the doors opening to reveal your locomotive - this is yet to be decided
- The chart in the starting area is slightly different before character creation, i.e. there is a gap in the terrain of the opening area on the chart - this is deliberate
Survival changes
In the previous build we introduced new survival content triggered by high Terror and also low Fuel. In this build we’ve added an additional survival complication; your Crew. The low Crew storylets will fire periodically when your Crew is less than the Safe Manning Number for your locomotive. This value can be found in the Possessions interface under the Your Train section.
Having low or even zero Crew will not kill you outright, but many things can go wrong when you don’t enough staff to operate a locomotive, things that will impact your other survival qualities. Engines may fall into disrepair causing Hull damage. Accidents may cause loss of fuel, supplies and even the death of yet another crewmember, filling the survivors with Terror. Best to make sure you keep your locomotive fully manned.
Terror reduction
Now, when you discover a new port your crew will be flooded with relief and Terror will be reduced by 20 points. This will only happen the very first time a captain comes across a new port. Subsequent visits are a “been there, done that” sort of affair.
Players with existing save games will be able to take advantage of this new feature the next time they load the game and visit already discovered ports. Enjoy the little exploit while it lasts as it’s the only time you’ll ever see it.
Save File Support
As mentioned, we highly recommend you start a new save file in this build. Not only will this allow you to go through the Opening Game Experience but you’ll also gain access to a lot of new content, as well as old storylines which have been heavily tweaked (such as those at Traitor’s Wood and Polmear & Plenty’s Inconceivable Circus).
Once we release the Commander update (in December) we will no longer be supporting save files older than those created in this build, the Survival build (1.1.6.2.e8412a5). If you do wish to keep your existing save game however, then all you’ll need to do is make sure you load the save file up and save it in the Survival build.
We do appreciate that a number of you have already sunk many hours into your current captain and may feel reluctant to start a brand new game. The whole purpose of Early Access has been to give us feedback and to help us find issues, and throughout that time there have been a number of bugs and content changes that might have left your qualities in unusual states. We’ve always done our best to manually fix save files for affected players when they report issues to us, but now that we are coming closer to launch we will be unable to do so for old save games and we recommend you start anew.
Updates
- Victory Hall and Company house are now Platforms within the New Winchester segment.
- The quest at Polmear & Plenty’s Inconceivable Circus has been reworked.
- We’ve made several updates to the chart:
- Regions are no longer in view of each other, instead you need to transition between them using the cycler.
- We’ve restricted the maximum zoom level.
- The legend cycler works correctly in both directions.
Bug Fixes
- We’ve addressed some performance issues around agents engaged in combat.
- Players will no longer take damage when flying over the bullet colliders of rapid fire weapons before they despawn.
- Players will no longer get stuck in the Traitor’s Wood storylet.
- The Isambard line signal boxes now set qualities correctly on interaction, allowing players to complete the Fatalistic Signalman's storyline.
- Crew, Hull and Terror are now capped correctly.
- Vessel and backer names will now display correctly for Tacketies and Dreadnoughts in Albion.
- The name for the Curators will now display correctly when the headlight is shone on them.
- Terror once again increases after using the transit gate to Albion.
- The Fog of War can no longer be lifted to reveal the entire chart using the mouse wheel.
- The - and + keys now work correctly when using the cycler on the Chart.
- The Storm that Speaks no longer has a chart icon when encountered in game.
- SFX will no longer play at the same time when returning to the title screen from the Reach.
- The Altani once again has a large weapon slot.
- The avatar tooltip will now close down correctly when Must Events fire.
- We've corrected the wording on the tooltips in engine yards when trading in ships with the same stats.
- We’ve fixed several typos and grammatical errors on the Legacy, Victory and Loading screens.
- We've fixed several typos in ambient messages.
- We’ve corrected a large amount of typos and grammatical errors in our content - a huge thank you to the dedicated player who has been sending us lots of reports.
As always, if you find a bug that's not on the Known Issues page then send us a quick Bug Report.