Join us on Discord for public playtests Friday at 12pm ET, Saturday at 3pm ET, and Monday at 7pm ET.
The expedition lobby overhaul massively improves the lobby experience. The UI is reworked with expedition in mind (rather than a team death match like escort mode) and should flow much more naturally for new players. For experienced players, you'll need a few more clicks to get into match but the new "Instant Launch" button should mitigate any extra time needed to get out on the archipelago.
This update also targets AI. Previously, AI were designed around going 1-for-1 in Escort Mode but they have a different purpose in Expedition Mode. AI needs to be a conquerable challenge that instead of destroying the player who puts up a poor fight, wounds them and moves them closer to defeat in their next battle. Fighting AI must be a risk, but the cost of a single failure should not be defeat. To adhere to this ideal, AI turret targeting aggro has been adjusted to be more evenly spread, until an opportunity to deal permanent damage arises. AI turret damage has been slashed by 50% so every fight isn't a fight for your life. Lastly, AI turret range has been extended by 30 meters to eliminate the faster forms of long-range zero-risk victory strategies.
Contracts
The new UI most importantly lays the foundation for more expedition mode features the previous UI had no space for such as Contracts. Contracts are an upcoming expedition mode feature intended to give crews more concrete objectives during their expedition. Before launching, your captain will be able to spend gold to purchase one of a variety of contracts including activities like cargo delivery, AI ship hunts, and fort defense. Completing a contract will reward crews with a large amount of resources.
1.9.1
Major Features
- Massively overhauled the user interface for expedition mode lobbies.
Minor Features
- Added a Harbor>Ridgeline and Tablet>Cauldron jet stream and reversed the direction of a few to create cyclical pathways. Jet streams to and from every spawn point will be added over the weekend.
- Improved AI's ability to chase their target. They will not barely enter range then stop only to go out of range immediately.
- AI turret's target focus is random until an engine becomes much lower HP than the others.
- AI turrets (NOT autoturrets) deal 50% reduced damage but have slightly extended range (+30m). AI will pilot the same as if they had normal range.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed captainless players appearing as spectators after reconnecting.
- Fixed a bug where only moderators could set their crew to private.