Improving town balance
It's nearly impossible to predict how players will utilize a mechanic in an open-world/sandbox environment. Towns were originally intended to be something you could do for side revenue but most users tend to make towns their main objective.
As a result we are slowly making towns more profitable and easier to manage. For example islands were being captured by pirates far too often so we toned back the chance of that happening.
We've also increased the effectiveness of town defenses which can further reduce the chance of an island being taken from you.
Quality of Life
While we aren't near to the full release of Don't Sink yet we do consider the game to be a playable product and as such are making efforts to improve the experience no matter how small the change.
There is now a tooltip pop-up when you begin ship combat for the first time that explains the controls and gives a simple tip.
We've added a buy/sell all button for shops in this update to help make the late game faster paced and less annoying. It's hard work shopping for a crew of 250!
Thanks to a community suggestion we took the shopping category of the quick menu and merged it in with the base menu for governing. We will continue to make changes like these moving forward.
New content & features
- New island, "Yamakoshi"
- New island, "Yaleshka"
- New quest, "Broken Bones"
- New cutscene, "Yamakoshi Mountains"
- Revamped intro and loading screen
- Tooltips added for combat when it's your first fight
- Recreated and added new character sprites (may negatively affect performance for low-end computers)
- New pirate crews added, 9 in total
- 3 Schooners
- 1 Corvettes
- 1 Caravels
- 1 Brigantine
- 1 Naves
- 2 Galleons
- Changed buy/sell menus to include the following:
- +10
- -10
- Buy/Sell all
Minor changes
- No more ship encounters or random events right at the beginning of a trip
- Sea Bully quest changed to make (the) Sea Jerk more likely to appear
- Quick menu no longer has the sub-menu "Shop", instead all buttons are listed from the base menu
- Enemy ship AI won't attempt to board unless they have the same amount of or more crew than the player
- Improved character shadows indoors
Bug fixes and performance improvements
- If game was paused during battle, travel music track would begin to play when the game was resumed
- Selling items would occasionally return the wrong amount of gold
- Resolved mixed up gender sprites
- Fixed possible crash when defeated during ship combat
- Gamepad interface setting is disabled unless a controller is plugged in
- Starting up the game with the gamepad set as the input interface but no gamepad plugged in will default to keyboard input
Balance Changes
- Reduced chance of islands being captured at lower attack risk percentages
- Island defense more drastically decreases the rate that attack risk increases
- Mining Camps and Farms are much more effective and trading has been reduced to 25% of its original effect
Community Additions
- The user Khaesho made the suggestion that the "Shop" sub-menu be migrated into the quick menu and that enemy AI doesn't try to board you when they have less crew
- New pirate crew, "Seas" the Day added as requested by baneofpain823
- New pirate crews, The Naughty Buoy, Schooner Or Later, Somefin Fishy, and Doofish Brigade added as requested by colormecurious
- New pirate crew, Booty Smacker added as requested by Taco_Guitar
- New pirate crew, The Black Dawn added as requested by noonyx33
- New pirate crew, If It Ain't Broke added as requested by baneofpain823
- New pirate crew, The Big One added as requested by Captain Fantastic
A sneak peek of the new combat!
As always... stay salty sea dogs!
Team Lead / Lead programmer
Sebastian Nigro (Seabass)
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Artist / Visual design
Daniel Marques (Thirteen)
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Audio / Web / Programmer
Chris Anselmo (Topher)
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