Ahoy Captains!

We've unlocked three regions for you to explore in our latest Major Update, alongside a load of other cool new stuff.

Check out this video of the latest additions to see them in action:

https://youtu.be/ZrJCA8haLjY?t=0

Before we delve into The Spider Islands, some important house-keeping: In order to gain access to the new content, your existing saves will not work in the latest version - Don't worry though, you can get a head-start by using one of the multiple quick-starts, the latter two have the option to customise your ship and crew so you can approximate where you were before.

If you are mid-playthrough on the previous version and wish to continue it, then you may switch over to this older version of the game via the Beta Branches system:

• Go to your Steam Library
  
• Right-click on Abandon Ship and select "Properties"
  
• Go to the tab marked "Betas"
  
• In the drop-down box, select the one called "0.5.11395 – Shattered Empire Version"

Wait for the game to finish updating, you should see the branch name listed after the game name.
If you’re up-to-date on the Beta Branch (i.e you already have the items listed below) then your saves will be unaffected.

Here's what we've added...

The regions we’ve unlocked are:

• Spider Islands
  
• Cannibal’s Lurk
  
• Peril’s Cauldron

Head south to gain access to them, and they're unlocked once you defeat the Kraken - the second and third Quick-Starts commence with these areas accessible.



Ports are few and far between in these areas, so only enter them with a well-supplied ship with a full crew!

All of the new maps contain a wealth of unique events and islands to discover. We won’t spoil everything, but here are some examples of what you can expect…

Stemming from Mother’s Grasp, Arachnids of all shapes and sizes have gradually spread out, taking over the entire region. Tales of treasure and the availability of rich silk draw people to the region, despite the danger it poses.

Blanket web permeates the skies, obscuring visibility, while thick strands connect the islands together.



If you’re forced into combat in this region, the disturbance draws the attention of the larger spiders. These periodically drop down onto both ships and attack. While individually weak, they can overwhelm weakened stragglers and the red spiders explode into a pool of acid, so be sure to stay on top of any infestations.



The strong winds of the Wild Sea, and poisonous gasses of the Forsaken Sea stop the spiders from expanding beyond their region. The Silk Keys had none of this protection however, and it fell to Aldous Spiderbane to stop their encroachment, pushing them back to near extinction. Unfortunately he was unable to complete his task, and in the years since the spiders reclaimed the territory they lost. You can visit Aldous and undertake a special quest for him in the Silk Keys, which lie in the Shattered Empire region.


-- Visit the Silk Keys to find out about the statue we teased in the last Major Update --

We’ve added a handful of new weapons in this update, none are available in ports and can only be obtained by completing quests. If you want to get your hands on the Spider Egg Launcher, you’ll have to go looking for it somewhere in the region.



Also, beware of strange vessels with spider iconography that can be found in the area. The crew only utter the words “Mother knows best” and are seemingly ignored by the arachnids.

The second of our new regions has a different kind of infestation: Cannibals.



These natives wear imposing masks designed to intimidate their prey, and will paddle out to battling ships, boarding both at the start of combat. If you can dispatch them quickly, you may gain some advantage over an enemy still distracted by them.



While it’s easy to assume the locals are savages, the settlers drawn to the region are not blameless, drawn by misguided rumours of cities of gold. One event in the bottom of the area sees you responsible for determining the fate of both factions.

In this region you’ll once again team up with Sigismund, the explorer you encountered in the Howling Seas. He’ll reveal what was at the centre of the imposing mass of Ice before joining him on another one of his adventures.

Our third region contains a broad selection of maps to explore.

Head to the Sea of Serpents and explore the Writhing Atoll. Strange people who live in harmony with the snakes patrol the area in custom vessels. They are capricious, just as likely to attack unprovoked as provide you with a gift.

It is in this region that you have a chance to gain the Snake Venom Gun.



One of the other maps in the region may contain an island familiar to those who have braved the Haunted Seas. It is here that you’ll obtain the Ghost Mortar:



This weapon was previously only found on Ghost Ships. Now, should you complete the associated quest you can unlock it and use it against your foes.

There is of course a whole lot more to discover in these regions, and if you want to discuss what you’ve found, how you resolved some of these quests, need help finding everything, jump on the forums or our Discord.

The community have often asked if they’ll ever have the chance to take control of the cool-looking ships available to the other factions, and now you can!

The Visual Blueprints system is available from the Ship Management menu in the Journal, and once you’ve acquired a Blueprint you can swap over to it as long as you own the same class vessel.

You have to earn the Blueprint however, and you can only do so by capturing it intact. Your blueprints are not tied to a save game, so once you’ve unlocked a blueprint you’ve unlocked it in any of your games.

We intend to add many more Ship variants for each class before full release, and in this update we’ve added two more to find (we’ve given hints on where to find them in the region descriptions above)



Accompanying the Visual Blueprints is another ship-based system, and this one allows you to select a different weapon layout.

By choosing a Strike, Bombard or Heavy Bombard you can choose to forgo your cannon batteries and replace them with more Swivel Guns or Mortars. The Heavy Bombard can gain even more Mortars by losing the Swivel Guns on the ship.



This opens up a wealth of new customisation options with your ship and weapons, and there can be some potent combinations. It takes a while (and sufficient booty) to find everything you want, but it’s fun trying different setups and testing their effectiveness.

Of course, anything you can do, the enemy can do too – so be prepared to be on the receiving end to some of these deadly combo’s.

You can swap Weapon Layouts at any time in the Ship Management section of the Journal.

The AI will now ram and board you. Some ships will be more aggressive in this than others, but even defensive-minded ships may decide a quick “ram-and-run” may be an efficient way to stop you once you chase them down.

This, combined with the Weapon Layout changes mean that existing players should be on their toes when engaging in combat, as there are many new ways the AI can hurt you.

To help you keep ramming AI ships at bay, we’ve created the Anti-Ram.



This one-shot-per-battle-per-side upgrade can be equipped into the side-slot on your ship (the same space Gargoyles and Harpoons go) and, once an enemy attempts a ram on you, the button will light up. Pressing this in time will fire out the Anti-Ram, which is stuffed with explosives. Upon impact, it will halt the ramming vessel, inflicting damage on it. This will allow you to either move out of range, or attempt a counter-ram.

We’re also conscious that ramming is something some players do frequently, and wanted to give the AI something to counter that with. If they have it of course, but it’ll give Rammer-Spammers pause before going in for the kill :)

Coastal Defences are like Sea Forts, but are land-based. You’ll find these scattered throughout the world, and they’ll open fire on you if you’re at Wanted Level 1 or above. If you engage in battle in range of a hostile Coastal Defence, it’ll bombard you in combat, too.



We plan on doing a lot more with Coastal Defences in a future update, so consider this their opening salvo.

Sometimes in battle the AI may now plead for mercy, which you may choose to accept, or fight to the bitter end. Likewise, if you’re at deaths door, the AI may offer clemency if you’re prepared to give up some of your hard earned loot.

We’ve done a huge amount of work optimising the game, so those players with Integrated graphics can now run the game much faster with the correct settings.

If you previously weren’t experiencing high enough framerates, we advise checking them again. You can switch via the in-game settings menu and see the difference, so it’s simple to achieve the right visual quality and framerate sweet-spot.

If you’d been running the game on Low quality previously, you may wish to see how the game runs on Medium settings with this update.

On our test machine with an Intel HD630, combat (which is the most-intensive part of the game) is running at a steady 30fps at 1920x1080. Lowering the resolution gives a hefty speed boost, too.

If all that wasn't enough, we've done a load of bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements and polish, too! Head to this post for the full details:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1642038659010595314/


-- Take on a mission with The Syndicate when you visit the port in No Yonder --

Our last update was huge, and this one is even bigger - we can't wait to show you what we have planned for the next one, too!

If you find any issues, please report them on the forums, and if you like it, let us know by leaving a review :)

Thanks for the support.

The Abandon Ship Crew.

PS - Thanks to all our Beta Branch testers, your feedback was invaluable.

Hello fellow Captains,

We've updated the Beta Branch with a whole swathe of new content to enjoy.

To learn how to gain access to the Beta Branch, click on this link:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/10/1698293255137774100/

If the number in the bottom-right corner of the Main Menu ends in 11784 or later, you have the correct version.

To access this new content, you'll need to start a new game.

Here's what we've added...

The regions we’ve unlocked are:

• Spider Islands
  
• Cannibal’s Lurk
  
• Peril’s Cauldron

Head south to gain access to them, and they're unlocked once you defeat the Kraken - the second and third Quick-Starts commence with these areas accessible.



Ports are few and far between in these areas, so only enter them with a well-supplied ship with a full crew!

All of the new maps contain a wealth of unique events and islands to discover. We won’t spoil everything, but here are some examples of what you can expect…

Stemming from Mother’s Grasp, Arachnids of all shapes and sizes have gradually spread out, taking over the entire region. Tales of treasure and the availability of rich silk draw people to the region, despite the danger it poses.

Blanket web permeates the skies, obscuring visibility, while thick strands connect the islands together.



If you’re forced into combat in this region, the disturbance draws the attention of the larger spiders. These periodically drop down onto both ships and attack. While individually weak, they can overwhelm weakened stragglers and the red spiders explode into a pool of acid, so be sure to stay on top of any infestations.



The strong winds of the Wild Sea, and poisonous gasses of the Forsaken Sea stop the spiders from expanding beyond their region. The Silk Keys had none of this protection however, and it fell to Aldous Spiderbane to stop their encroachment, pushing them back to near extinction. Unfortunately he was unable to complete his task, and in the years since the spiders reclaimed the territory they lost. You can visit Aldous and undertake a special quest for him in the Silk Keys, which lie in the Shattered Empire region.


-- Visit the Silk Keys to find out about the statue we teased in the last Major Update --

We’ve added a handful of new weapons in this update, none are available in ports and can only be obtained by completing quests. If you want to get your hands on the Spider Egg Launcher, you’ll have to go looking for it somewhere in the region.



Also, beware of strange vessels with spider iconography that can be found in the area. The crew only utter the words “Mother knows best” and are seemingly ignored by the arachnids.

The second of our new regions has a different kind of infestation: Cannibals.



These natives wear imposing masks designed to intimidate their prey, and will paddle out to battling ships, boarding both at the start of combat. If you can dispatch them quickly, you may gain some advantage over an enemy still distracted by them.



While it’s easy to assume the locals are savages, the settlers drawn to the region are not blameless, drawn by misguided rumours of cities of gold. One event in the bottom of the area sees you responsible for determining the fate of both factions.

In this region you’ll once again team up with Sigismund, the explorer you encountered in the Howling Seas. He’ll reveal what was at the centre of the imposing mass of Ice before joining him on another one of his adventures.

Our third region contains a broad selection of maps to explore.

Head to the Sea of Serpents and explore the Writhing Atoll. Strange people who live in harmony with the snakes patrol the area in custom vessels. They are capricious, just as likely to attack unprovoked as provide you with a gift.

It is in this region that you have a chance to gain the Snake Venom Gun.



One of the other maps in the region may contain an island familiar to those who have braved the Haunted Seas. It is here that you’ll obtain the Ghost Mortar:



This weapon was previously only found on Ghost Ships. Now, should you complete the associated quest you can unlock it and use it against your foes.

There is of course a whole lot more to discover in these regions, and if you want to discuss what you’ve found, how you resolved some of these quests, need help finding everything, jump on the forums or our Discord.

The community have often asked if they’ll ever have the chance to take control of the cool-looking ships available to the other factions, and now you can!

The Visual Blueprints system is available from the Ship Management menu in the Journal, and once you’ve acquired a Blueprint you can swap over to it as long as you own the same class vessel.

You have to earn the Blueprint however, and you can only do so by capturing it intact. Your blueprints are not tied to a save game, so once you’ve unlocked a blueprint you’ve unlocked it in any of your games.

We intend to add many more Ship variants for each class before full release, and in this update we’ve added two more to find (we’ve given hints on where to find them in the region descriptions above)



Accompanying the Visual Blueprints is another ship-based system, and this one allows you to select a different weapon layout.

By choosing a Strike, Bombard or Heavy Bombard you can choose to forgo your cannon batteries and replace them with more Swivel Guns or Mortars. The Heavy Bombard can gain even more Mortars by losing the Swivel Guns on the ship.



This opens up a wealth of new customisation options with your ship and weapons, and there can be some potent combinations. It takes a while (and sufficient booty) to find everything you want, but it’s fun trying different setups and testing their effectiveness.

Of course, anything you can do, the enemy can do too – so be prepared to be on the receiving end to some of these deadly combo’s.

You can swap Weapon Layouts at any time in the Ship Management section of the Journal.

The AI will now ram and board you. Some ships will be more aggressive in this than others, but even defensive-minded ships may decide a quick “ram-and-run” may be an efficient way to stop you once you chase them down.

This, combined with the Weapon Layout changes mean that existing players should be on their toes when engaging in combat, as there are many new ways the AI can hurt you.

At the same time, we’re conscious that both systems will need on-going balancing. Do the AI Ram too often? Too little? Are there certain weapons that are too over-powered now you can deploy more of them with the new layouts? Jump on the forums to let us know.

To help you keep ramming AI ships at bay, we’ve created the Anti-Ram.



This one-shot-per-battle-per-side upgrade can be equipped into the side-slot on your ship (the same space Gargoyles and Harpoons go) and, once an enemy attempts a ram on you, the button will light up. Pressing this in time will fire out the Anti-Ram, which is stuffed with explosives. Upon impact, it will halt the ramming vessel, inflicting damage on it. This will allow you to either move out of range, or attempt a counter-ram.

We’re also conscious that ramming is something some players do frequently, and wanted to give the AI something to counter that with. If they have it of course, but it’ll give Rammer-Spammers pause before going in for the kill :)

Coastal Defences are like Sea Forts, but are land-based. You’ll find these scattered throughout the world, and they’ll open fire on you if you’re at Wanted Level 1 or above. If you engage in battle in range of a hostile Coastal Defence, it’ll bombard you in combat, too.



We plan on doing a lot more with Coastal Defences in a future update, so consider this their opening salvo.

Sometimes in battle the AI may now plead for mercy, which you may choose to accept, or fight to the bitter end. Likewise, if you’re at deaths door, the AI may offer clemency if you’re prepared to give up some of your hard earned loot.

We’ve done a huge amount of work optimising the game, so those players with Integrated graphics can now run the game much faster with the correct settings.

If you previously weren’t experiencing high enough framerates, we advise checking them again. You can switch via the in-game settings menu and see the difference, so it’s simple to achieve the right visual quality and framerate sweet-spot.

If you’d been running the game on Low quality previously, you may wish to see how the game runs on Medium settings with this update.

On our test machine with an Intel HD630, combat (which is the most-intensive part of the game) is running at a steady 30fps at 1920x1080. Lowering the resolution gives a hefty speed boost, too.

This update also contains a load of bug-fixes and quality of life improvements which we’ll detail in full in the patch notes that accompany the full update.


-- Take on a mission with The Syndicate when you visit the port in No Yonder --

As this update is so huge, we plan on leaving it on the Beta Branch for a few weeks, and would appreciate any feedback. Please report bugs and your thoughts either on the Steam forums, or on our Discord:

https://discord.gg/ZVuEe2a

Happy sailing,

The Abandon Ship Crew

PS – If you’re running the game in Russian, Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese, this update has about 25k new words, so our translation team are working hard to catch up. We’re hoping this will be ready by the time we move this build from the Beta Branch to the main one. If you’d like to know what other languages are coming, check this post here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/3726075043726578031/

Greetings Captain,

We've added full support for three new languages: Russian, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish.

If the version number in the bottom-right corner of the Main Menu has 11395 or above, you have the correct version.

If you spot any text issues in those languages, please report them in the following sub-forum:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/5/

Other languages are at various stages of development. German and Simplified Chinese are in-progress, Dutch is being handled by our lovely community translators, and we're in the early stages of other languages (such as French and Japanese).

We consider many factors when deciding which languages we'll translate the game to, but our best guide is to look at sales and Wishlists on a per country basis. If we see we're particularly popular in certain countries, then we're encouraged to translate to that language.

Things are progressing well with our next Major Update. There will be another wave of features plus three new regions to explore.



You can get some sneak peeks of upcoming content on either our Discord:

https://discord.gg/jbahTp6

Or by joining our Newsletter (you'll also get your name in the game as a randomly generated crew member by signing up!)

http://abandonshipgame.com/get-your-name-in-the-game


Have you tagged the game yet? If not, it would be absolutely awesome if you could!

Tags help our visibility on Steam in many places, and it only takes a moment. Just press the "+" symbol on our store page, which is to the right of the screenshot carousel:



This sort of thing really makes a positive difference to indie developers, so thank-you for the support.

We'll post up the details of the new Major Update when it launches onto our Beta Branch.

Until then, may your sailing be smooth!

The Abandon Ship crew

Ahoy Captains!

We've unlocked three regions for you to explore in our latest Major Update, alongside a load of other cool new stuff, making this our biggest one yet.

Check out this video of the latest additions to see them in action:

https://youtu.be/xbgjdKh8nTc?t=0
Before we delve into Shattered Empire, some important house-keeping: We've greatly optimised our save files, which were becoming too large. This change means your existing saves will not work in the latest version - but fear not! There are multiple quick-starts, and the latter two have the option to customise your ship and crew so you can approximate where you were before.

If you are mid-playthrough on the previous version and wish to continue it, then you may switch over to this older version of the game via the Beta Branches system:

• Go to your Steam Library
  
• Right-click on Abandon Ship and select "Properties"
  
• Go to the tab marked "Betas"
  
• In the drop-down box, select the one called "0.5.10427 – The Haunted Seas Version"
  
• Wait for the game to finish updating, you should see the branch name listed after the game name.

If you’re up-to-date on the Beta Branch (i.e you already have the items listed below) then your saves will be unaffected.

Here's what you'll find in the latest update:

We’ve unlocked 3 new regions to explore:

• Forsaken Seas
  
• Shattered Empire
  
• Howling Seas

These are just off the Great Founding, the region you move through to fight the Kraken.



All of these regions exhibit our ultimate goal for every map in Abandon Ship. Which is for each map to have a unique island to discover, plus a unique event / side-quest. In some cases, there will also be a modifier to combat gameplay as well. Below is a brief description of these regions, we’ll let you discover what’s in them for yourself!

Note - These regions aren’t accessible until Act 2, but don’t forget there are two quick-starts that put you at Act 2 and beyond, so if you just want to check out these regions, you can easily do so.

This arctic region is constantly battered by blizzards. Wight’s Embrace is the only port here, and the harsh environment contains some strange islands and events to discover.



In combat, blizzards will occasionally ramp up their intensity. When this happens, the crews on both ships can do nothing but shield themselves. If they pass the brace test at the apex of the storm, they can continue as normal, otherwise they’ll fall to the deck or risk being knocked overboard.

The Forsaken Seas have always been a geologically strange area, but one fateful day the mountains began spewing toxic fumes into the air. This had a catastrophic impact and the region is largely abandoned. Although the air is something you can now survive in (for a few days, anyway), it is still a very inhospitable area. Only those wishing to pass through to other regions in a more direct route, opportunistic looters or those under the employ of the Sweethook Barons tend to be found here.



In combat, this poisonous fog obscures visibility and will continually sap the health of both crews until it reaches the red portion of the health bar.

Bordering such hostile areas as the Forsaken Seas, Spider Islands and Cannibal Islands means this once-prosperous region is under siege.

Your intervention can have a lasting impact on the areas in this region. When you find the broken monument to the Empire which two factions are fighting over, will you help rebuild or destroy it?

Duskvale is a cursed map, haunted by Ghost Ships. Will you lift the curse or fulfil it?

You can visit the Silk Keys, the gateway to the Spider Islands, and finally there is a Plague Colony with blockades guarding each exit. Will you break through the blockade, or is there another way? Once you visit Rotholme, will you be merciful with your much-needed supplies, or turn a swift profit?



Speaking of the Plague Colony, this is the only place in the world where you can acquire a new weapon – the Plague Dart.

Crew infected by this swivel gun instantly have their health capped at 66%, and anyone standing within close proximity will be infected. We’ve had great fun hitting a crew member running past their colleagues, infecting the whole ship. Combining this weapon with other anti-personnel weapons can be especially effective.



Originally, we had 5 biome types: Arctic, Sub-Polar, Temperate, Sub-Tropical and Tropical. As my thoughts turn to the more Southerly regions in the game, I felt that Sub-Tropical and Tropical didn’t offer enough distinction from one another. We’ve therefore merged these two island types into Tropical, in order to make room for an “Arid” biome. This offers a nice visual difference from anywhere else, and has a hot, Mediterranean vibe to it.

You’ll notice this region just south of the Temperate areas.



We’ve added a couple of new systems that aid navigation and provide more of a sense of purpose to general explortation.

The first of these is the Lighthouse. These Empire-era buildings not only provide a high vantage point, but they are also stocked with maps of the local area.

Visiting one of these will uncover the fog of war in that map, and due to their height, are clearly visible from afar.



This means when you enter a map, the fog of war around them is already revealed, so by checking the pulled-out map view and spotting a lighthouse, you can sail directly to it.

No Captain would take to the sea without a compass, and this acts as an arrowhead around the ship that points to undiscovered points of interest.

That means even without a lighthouse, you’ll have something pointing you toward points of interest you haven’t yet discovered, so no more hunting down that last icon hidden in an unrevealed corner!



As you play Abandon Ship and make decisions in events, you’ll now notice some will display a new piece of UI, explaining that you have made a Friend or Enemy.

Life on the seas is tough, so people live their lives by one mantra: A debt must be repaid.

If you go around helping people, they will eventually come back and repay the debt by their own act of kindness. Similarly, being more piratical and not helping those in desperate situations will earn enemies that could return for revenge.

Once created by your actions, these acquaintances will be in the world, and if they return the message box will provide the context to help you recall the choice that led to this particular encounter.



Of course, not all will return. For example, not picking up a Castaway may make them an enemy, but they may also not survive the situation – as in real life, you won’t know, unless of course they one day crop up for revenge.

Equally, you may make decisions that create friends or enemies without you knowing about them – perhaps liberating a port from the Cult resulted in a locals loved one being killed, and they blame you for it?

Our team of community translators are busy working through the text, and the first languages have been implemented: Russian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

To activate them, follow these steps:

• Right click on a game from the Steam game library and choose Properties.
  
• Go to the Language tab
  
• Select the language you wish to use from the drop-down menu

Not every line has been translated yet, but we’ll keep updating them to get full coverage.



German is likely to be the next language ready. Simplified Chinese, French and Dutch are in our plans but no ETA on those yet.

In case you were wondering, we choose our languages through a combination of willing translators and Wishlists + sales we get from specific countries.

After we visited The Haunted Seas in our last update, we took the opportunity to make some infrastructural changes, because the more content we added, the more pressure this was putting on minimum spec machines (like mine!). Something that would have only got worse with future updates. This work is crucially important, as it’ll put us in a good position for adding everything else in the game. You should see memory usage come down, and it should be faster to get into the main menu when you boot the game.

As mentioned near the start of this post, this work included huge optimisations to our save file system. This will be useful for implementing Cloud Save support.

We've done a bunch of other cool stuff as well, which are encapsulated here:

Crew now cheer when they’ve won a battle, which helps positively reinforce your victory, and there are multiple new ways enemy ships will now sink. We added this last one because it’s something you see a lot, so we felt variety helped keep it fresh.



A raided or blocked trade route will now increase prices at their connected port – so you’ve got a choice when spending money there. Do you take care of the trade route to save money, or if you’re desperate for repairs, do you take the financial hit?

Similar to the gold chests floating in the sea, we now have “Hull Repair” flotsam. These repair your ship hull a small amount when you collect them.

We’ve generally made it faster to get through maps by making actions that didn’t previously count towards gate opening now do so. This is stuff like dealing with pirate discount ships, Sea Forts and ships on trade routes.

Alongside this, we’ve nudged down the amount of events needed to get through Region 1 maps, so in general the game moves along at a faster pace now.

Each crew member can have an “old” variant. There’s no gameplay difference (yet, it’s something I’m considering) but it was a fun way to give your crew a bit more character.



We’ve added support for 5:4 and 4:3 aspect ratios. Previously this only allowed the choice of 16:9, resulting in lower resolution choices for people with 5:4 or 4:3 monitors.

We’ve also added Discord Rich Presence, so your Discord friends should see details of what you’re doing in-game.

If you want to join our Discord server, the link is here:

https://discord.gg/jbahTp6

If you want to see all the other bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements etc. you can check out this post here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1778261844036495690/


This ended up being our biggest update yet, and we're already excited about our plans for the next one!

If you find any issues, please report them on the forums, and if you like it, let us know :)

Thanks for the support.

The Abandon Ship Crew.

PS - Thanks to all our Beta Branch testers!

Hello fellow Captains,

We have updated the Beta Branch with a huge amount of new stuff. To learn how to gain access to the Beta Branch, click on this link:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/10/1698293255137774100/

If the number in the bottom-right corner of the Main Menu ends in 11049 or later, you have the correct version.

Here’s what we’ve been up to recently:

After we visited The Haunted Seas in our last update, we took the opportunity to make some infrastructural changes, because the more content we added, the more pressure this was putting on minimum spec machines (like mine!). Something that would have only got worse with future updates. This work is crucially important, as it’ll put us in a good position for adding everything else in the game. You should see memory usage come down, and it should be faster to get into the main menu when you boot the game.

We also took the opportunity to rework our save file system as this was creeping up to large sizes as well – so these are now massively smaller compared to before. This will be useful for implementing Cloud Save support. It does however mean that your previous saves are incompatible unless you’re on an older branch.

While Adam was undertaking this work, I planned out the rest of our time in Early Access – which you can read about here:

http://abandonshipgame.com/early-access-roadmap-update


Originally, we had 5 biome types: Arctic, Sub-Polar, Temperate, Sub-Tropical and Tropical. As my thoughts turn to the more Southerly regions in the game, I felt that Sub-Tropical and Tropical didn’t offer enough distinction from one another. We’ve therefore merged these two island types into Tropical, in order to make room for an “Arid” biome. This is visually distinct from anywhere else, and has a hot, Mediterranean vibe to it.

You’ll notice this region just south of the Temperate areas.



For keen observers, you may notice the World Map is slightly different. The region borders are approximately the same, but we wanted to make changes to accommodate our latest plans – such as the Spider Islands becoming an entire region rather than a single map. We have some cool plans for this so it warranted more prominence.

For this update, we’ve unlocked 3 new regions to visit:

• Forsaken Seas
  
• Shattered Empire
  
• Howling Seas

All of these regions exhibit our ultimate goal for every map in Abandon Ship. That is each map should have a unique island to discover, plus a unique event / side-quest. In some cases, there will also be a unique modifier to gameplay as well. Below is a brief description of these regions, we’ll let you discover what’s in them for yourself!

These regions aren’t accessible until Act 2, but don’t forget there are two quick-starts that put you at Act 2 and beyond, so if you just want to check out these regions, you can easily do so.

This arctic region is constantly battered by blizzards. Wight’s Embrace is the only port here, and the harsh environment contains some strange islands to discover.



In combat, blizzards will occasionally ramp up their intensity. When this happens, the crews on both ships can do nothing but shield themselves. If they pass the brace test at the apex of the storm, they can continue as normal, otherwise they’ll fall to the deck or risk being knocked overboard.

The Forsaken Seas have always been a geologically strange area, but one fateful day the mountains began spewing toxic fumes into the air. This had a catastrophic impact and the region is largely abandoned. Although the air is something you can now survive in (for a few days, anyway), it is still a very inhospitable area. Only those wishing to pass through to other regions in a more direct route, opportunistic looters or those under the employ of the Sweethook Barons tend to be found here.



In combat, this poisonous fog obscures visibility and will continually sap the health of both crews until it reaches the red portion of the health bar.

Bordering the Forsaken Seas, Spider Islands and Cannibal Island regions has meant that this once prosperous region has fallen on hard times.

Your intervention can have a lasting impact on the areas in this region. When you find the broken monument to the Empire which two factions are fighting over, will you help rebuild or destroy it?

Duskvale is a cursed map, haunted by Ghost Ships. Will you lift the curse or fulfil it?

You can visit the Silk Keys, the gateway to the Spider Islands, and finally there is a Plague Colony with blockades guarding each exit. Will you break through the blockade, or is there another way? Once you visit Rotholme, will you be merciful with your much-needed supplies, or turn a swift profit?



Speaking of the Plague Colony, this is the only place in the world where you can acquire a new weapon – the Plague Dart.

Crew infected by this swivel gun instantly have their health capped at 66%, and anyone standing within close proximity will be infected. We’ve had great fun hitting a crew member running past their colleagues, infecting the whole ship. Combining this weapon with other anti-personnel weapons can be especially effective.



We’ve added a couple of new systems that aid navigation and provide more of a sense of purpose to general explortation.

The first of these is the Lighthouse. These Empire-era buildings not only provide a high vantage point, but they are also stocked with maps of the local area.

Visiting one of these will uncover the fog of war in that map, and due to their height, are clearly visible from afar.



This means when you enter a map, the fog of war around them is already revealed, so by checking the full map and spotting a lighthouse, you can sail directly to it.

No Captain would take to the sea without a compass, and this acts as an arrowhead around the ship that points to undiscovered points of interest.

That means even without a lighthouse, you’ll have something pointing you toward points of interest you haven’t yet discovered, so no more hunting down that last icon hidden in an unrevealed corner!



As you play Abandon Ship and make decisions in events, you’ll now notice some will display a new piece of UI, explaining that you have made a Friend or Enemy.

Life on the seas is tough, so people live their lives by one mantra: A debt must be repaid.

If you go around helping people, they will eventually come back and repay the debt by their own act of kindness. Similarly, being more piratical and not helping those in desperate situations will earn enemies that could return for revenge.

Once created by your actions, these acquaintances will be in the world, and if they return the message box will provide the context to help you recall the choice that led to this particular encounter.



Of course, not all will return. For example, not picking up a Castaway may make them an enemy, but they may also not survive the situation – as in real life, you won’t know, unless of course they one day crop up for revenge.

Equally, you may make decisions that create friends or enemies without you knowing about them – perhaps liberating a port from the Cult resulted in a locals loved one being killed, and they blame you for it?

I’m keen for feedback on this, as I’ve found it a particularly tricky feature to balance. It is one of those systems that requires multiple full playthroughs to get a feel for it. Do acquaintances crop up too often? Not enough? There are safeguards to ensure new acquaintances don’t crop up too soon after they’ve been made, but is this too short? Head to the forums to let me know!

Our team of community translators are busy working through the text, and the first languages have been implemented: Russian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

To activate them, follow these steps:

• Right click on a game from the Steam game library and choose Properties.
  
• Go to the Language tab
  
• Select the language you wish to use from the drop-down menu

Not every line has been translated yet, but we’ll keep updating them to get full coverage.



German is likely to be the next language ready. Simplified Chinese, French and Dutch are in the works but no ETA on those yet.

In case you were wondering, we choose our languages through a combination of willing translators and Wishlists + sales we get from specific countries.

We’ll post the full list of changes once the update is released onto the main branch, but some other stuff worth calling out is listed below:

Crew now cheer when they’ve won a battle, which helps positively reinforce your victory, and there are multiple new ways enemy ships will now sink. We added this last one because it’s something you see a lot, so we felt variety helped keep it fresh.



A raided or blocked trade route will now increase prices at their connected port – so you’ve got a choice when spending money there. Do you take care of the trade route to save money, or if you’re desperate for repairs, do you take the financial hit?

Similar to the gold chests floating in the sea, we now have “Hull Repair” flotsam. These repair your ship hull a small amount when you collect them.

We’ve generally made it faster to get through maps by making actions that didn’t previously count towards gate opening now do so. This is stuff like dealing with pirate discount ships, Sea Forts and ships on trade routes.

Alongside this, we’ve nudged down the amount of events needed to get through Region 1 maps, so in general the game moves along at a faster pace now.

Each crew member can have an “old” variant. There’s no gameplay difference (yet, it’s something I’m considering) but it was a fun way to give your crew a bit more character.



We’ve added support for 5:4 and 4:3 aspect ratios. Previously this only allowed the choice of 16:9, resulting in lower resolution choices for people with 5:4 or 4:3 monitors.

We’ve also added Discord Rich Presence, so your Discord friends should see details of what you’re doing in-game.

Oh, and if you want to join our Discord server, the link is here:

https://discord.gg/jbahTp6


Phew! This ended up being our biggest update yet, and once we feel like it has received sufficient community testing we’ll release it onto the main branch.

If you find any issues, please report them on the forums, and let us know if you like it!

Thanks for the support.

The Abandon Ship Crew.

Seasons greetings, Captain!

As 2019 rapidly approaches, we wanted to extend our thanks for your support, and we hope you have a very happy holiday season :)

This year has been a whirlwind. Releasing into Early Access, that night hitting 4th in the Global Top Sellers chart on Steam, and three Major Updates that have massively improved the game.

Of course, we're not stopping there, and we have plenty more planned before we call the game version 1.0!

Our Roadmap was overdue an update, which we posted up on our website in November. If you haven't seen it already, you can find it by clicking here.



Since we released "The Haunted Seas" we've been busy working on Major Update 04, which contains a bunch of new systems and two new Regions. We'll be sticking this on the Beta Branch in mid-January, and we'll explain all the cool new stuff when we launch it.

Before we got stuck into the new content, we spent some time performing necessary infrastructural work. As the game has been expanding, our memory usage was creeping up, and this was jeopardising performance on the minimum spec machines. We've finished this work, so we're a lot less memory hungry now, and the game boots up a lot faster on my ancient PC, too!

While we were doing these changes, we also greatly optimised the save file size, which is now significantly smaller than originally, and makes Cloud Save support more viable.

All of this work puts us in a good place as we rapidly expand the game world and move toward full release. You'll notice all of these changes in the next update.

In mid-November we were busy doing a couple of shows. The first was the UK Games Fund Awards up in Dundee.


-- Team Lead Gary Burchell (second from right) on a panel at the UKGF Awards --

Dundee was a very appropriately-themed place for our visit, not only containing the HMS Unicorn and RRS Discovery, but it also had a bar called Abandon Ship!


-- The RRS Discovery (Left), and what looks like a lovely place for a drink (Right)! --

After Scotland, we immediately jetted off to Portugal to demo the game as part of the Indie X area in Lisbon Games Week.


-- The convention centre was open 10am till 11pm, so we packed in a lot of players over the weekend. --

It was lovely to meet so many keen local players and fellow-developers.

We've finally got round to verifying our Discord server. If you'd like to join, click here.



I have a terrible habit of spilling the beans on what we're working on, so you'll often get screenshots of upcoming content before anywhere else.

Also, for those that didn't know, we have a newsletter. Signing up means you get your name in the game as a randomly generated crew member. If you're interested in reading the full details of that, click here.

The sign-up form is at the bottom of that web-page.



As well as getting your name in the game, every Newsletter we reveal something about Abandon Ship never before shown outside of the team. The last newsletter showed concept art for our new biome!

While we'll be taking a short break to see our families over Christmas, we'll be back before you know it, finishing off Major Update 4. During the holidays I'll be keeping an eye on our support and social channels should anything need attention.

Happy Holidays, from Gary, Adam and Alex.

(Oh, and the Christmas Kraken, too...)

Happy Halloween, Captain.

Our latest update unlocks a region, includes a new standalone 'Abandon Ship Story' and has a whole host of other cool stuff!

We've released a trailer to accompany our latest Major Update, which you can watch here:

https://youtu.be/MpypWEYPR9c?t=0
First, some important house-keeping: Adding a new region means your saves from previous versions will not work with this latest update. We have added some new quick-start locations with ship customiser to get you close to where you were previously - we'll explain that in more detail below.

If you are mid-playthrough on the previous version and wish to continue it, then you may switch over to this older version of the game via the Beta Branches system:

• Go to your Steam Library
  
• Right-click on Abandon Ship and select "Properties"
  
• Go to the tab marked "Betas"
  
• In the drop-down box, select the one called "0.5.9802 – The Perilous Bounty Version"
  
• Wait for the game to finish updating, you should see the branch name listed after the game name.

If you’re up-to-date on the Beta Branch (i.e you already have the items listed below) then your saves will be unaffected.

So what's in the latest update?

In the main game, The Haunted Seas is accessible after you have defeated the Kraken. It's located near the top-left corner of the world map:



In order to get further into the Haunted Seas, you'll need to commence a side-quest in the port of Mox-Mortis.

If you want to dive straight in however, then you should check out our new standalone story that is based within The Haunted Seas:


We launched into Early Access with both the main story and a separate story that was focused around a combat campaign. We enjoyed making this and always intended to do more (as explained in our Roadmap) - these 'Abandon Ship Stories' are meant to be standalone and cross over with the main game in interesting ways, and is something that if the community likes, we'll do more of.



In this particular story you play as a Captain with a tragic past. A routine job goes awry when they are lured into The Haunted Seas and must attempt to escape whilst uncovering the truth.


Well, while we don't want to spoil all the surprises we will cover a few things here:

Ghost Ships
These spooky vessels sail The Haunted Seas, looking to claim lost souls.



They are manned by soulless automatons, who are weaker than standard crew, but led by the dreaded Lich Captains. These tough demons are able to ressurect their fallen comrades, which provides a tricky tactical conundrum to overcome.


-- A resurrection in action. The build-up can be interrupted with certain weapons --

Ghost Mortar
Each Ghost Ship comes equipped with at least one of these macabre weapons. It fires a blood splat onto the deck of your ship, and a handful of zombies emerge from it, ready to attack your crew.

Zombies are individually weak, only needing a couple of hits to cut down - however, in groups can be dangerous if left unmanaged.



Strange Environments
The Haunted Seas is Death's own realm, and as such, the normal rules don't always apply. Expect to navigate environments unlike ones you've come across so far...



Some environments are actively hostile and will seek to crush you, so be ready for anything.



Oh, and there's also a Zombie Kraken ;)

We've also added quite a lot of new systems and done a bunch of polish and bug fixes.

For the patch notes on everything that we've updated, you can check out this post here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1734343065623850270/

Some of the bigger items we've added in this update include:

Now, when you select a new Main Story game, you'll have a drop-down box that allows you to select multiple quick-start locations, roughly spread around the length of the story.

In the two new options, because these are much further into the game, you'll have an opportunity to visit a special port where you can customise your ship and crew.

These new quick-starts serve two purposes. The first is that they're handy for players that want them. The second is that you'll be able to approximate where you'd got to on previous versions of the build where saves were invalidated.



Some people want to be able to play through the game primarily to experience the story, others wish to have the ultimate challenge. We've added a Casual and Hardcore difficulty mode for players to set up the sort of game they want. We'll no doubt tweak these as development continues.

We've spent some time expanding out the ship functionality.

Swivel Guns are no longer in matched pairs, so you can equip each side differently (a much-requested feature).

We've also massively expanded the Ship Section Upgrades. Previously, you only had the choice of three section upgrades. Now, you have up to 35. These upgrades provide a performance boost, have more armour, better durability against hull cracks and fires, and can be repaired faster, giving your ship an extra edge.


-- The Section Upgrade menu is accessible from ports --

The new Ship's Storage allows you to store weapons in it. These can be swapped around in the Ship Management menu, and mean you can switch your loadout to suit the situation. Normally like to get up close and personal, but that isn't working so well against a Sea Fort? Switch to your long-range weapons before engaging and rule the waves!


-- Visit the Ship Management menu in the Journal to change the way your vessel is equipped --

We hope you enjoy this latest update. If you like what we're doing, please leave a Steam Review, as it really helps us out.

Similarly, if you want more of these standalone 'Abandon Ship Stories' that are separate from the main game, let us know - we have some cool ideas for other ones, so if it's a popular feature we'll keep making them.

As for what's next, we'll keep unlocking regions and adding new systems as we do so - and if the 'Abandon Ship Stories' is a much-requested addition, we'll keep adding them, too :)

Keep an eye on this sub-forum if you want to stay up-to-date with our latest plans:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/8/

Good luck in The Haunted Seas...

The Abandon Ship Crew

I bring spooky tidings, Captain.

We have a Major Update incoming, titled "The Haunted Seas". As well as a bunch of new systems and improvements, it also unlocks a new region AND standalone story.

As you've probably guessed, the theme of this update coincides with Halloween, and we really need the help of dedicated Captains to test it and provide feedback on any nasty bugs you find.

To learn how to gain access to the Beta Branch, click on this link:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/10/1698293255137774100/

If the number in the bottom-right corner of the Main Menu ends in 10364 or later, you have the correct version.

This new side story lasts approximately 60 - 90 minutes and focuses on a new Captain with a tragic past. Lured into the Haunted Seas, they must attempt to escape while finding the truth.



Needless to say, the Haunted Seas is unlike any other region in the game. We won't spoil too much, but be prepared to encounter things like Ghost Ships crewed by the Undead, Zombie Kraken, Ice Monsters, a piano puzzle inspired by the Goonies, and more!

There are no ports in the Haunted Seas, so you'll need to rely upon the new Souls currency to repair your ship and heal your crew.

You can choose this story from the new game menu.

You can navigate your way to the Haunted Seas in the main game. Of course, you're not the same Captain as in the standalone story described above, but you can still venture in and fight your way through.


-- Navigate your way to the port at Mox Mortis in the base of the Haunted Seas to get started! --

Your saves from older versions won't work in this build. While they'll continue to work with the previous update, you can't play the new content unless you start a new game.

We've therefore created two new Quick-Starts. These put you at different points in the main story, and will allow you to play through from that point.


-- Quick Start has become a drop-down box to select where you wish to commence your game --

As these Quick-Starts are much further into the main story, we've chosen a set route through the world and given you money to suit that progression - you can equip your ship and crew in a special customisation port before your playthrough commences.

These changes should allow you to create something approximate to what you had before, at the point you had it.

We'll provide a complete breakdown of all the cool new stuff when the full update goes live in time for Halloween. For now though, it's worth drawing your attention to two big new additions - Ship Section Upgrades and the Ship's Storage.


-- The Section Upgrade menu is accessible from ports --

Previously, you only had the choice of three section upgrades. Now, you have up to 35 upgrades. These upgrades provide a performance boost, have more armour, better durability against hull cracks and fires, and can be repaired faster, giving your ship an extra edge.

Ship's Storage allows you to store weapons in it. These can be swapped around in the Ship Management menu, and mean you can switch your loadout to suit the situation. Normally like to get up close and personal, but that isn't working so well against a Sea Fort? Switch to your long-range weapons before engaging and rule the waves!


-- Visit the Ship Management menu in the Journal to change the way your vessel is equipped --

With the addition of a new region, a new standalone story AND two new Quick-Starts, the game is already quite large for a team of three to test all the permutations, so we really need your help - if you play it and find a serious bug, please report it on the forums! We want to make sure this Major Update launches in as robust a state as our previous ones, and for that we need your help. This update is a little different from normal, because it is coinciding with Halloween, which is rapidly approaching!

Note - There are two things that we know will be added between now and the Halloween release - a final text pass, and a handful of Monologue images that didn't quite make it, so we don't need to hear about those on the forums, we're working on them :)

This Spooky Update has been a lot of fun to make. While we'll keep adding new regions throughout Early Access, if the standalone story goes down well with everyone we'll do some more of those, too!

Thanks for the continued support,

The Abandon Ship Crew

Greetings Captain!

We have just released a Major Update: The Perilous Bounty.

This packs in a bunch of exciting additions to Abandon Ship, and the post below explains these in greater detail.

We have also released a trailer showing the new features, which you can view here:

https://youtu.be/NUDQVhWE1vU?t=0s

Before we look at the latest changes, some important house-keeping: Because we’ve had to change the world to accommodate these new systems, your saves from previous versions will not work with this latest update.

If you are mid-playthrough on the previous version and wish to continue it, then you may switch over to this older version of the game via the Beta Branches system:

1. Go to your Steam Library
   
2. Right-click on Abandon Ship and select "Properties"
   
3. Go to the tab marked "Betas"
   
4. In the drop-down box, select the one called "0.5.8433 – Treasure from the Deep Version"
   
5. Wait for the game to finish updating, you should see the branch name listed after the game name.

If you’re up-to-date on the Beta Branch (i.e you already have the items listed below) then your saves will be unaffected.

Here are the major new features in the update:

Sea Forts are a new type of enemy you can battle. As giant stone structures, they cannot be sunk, so you’ll have to defeat them in other ways.



They have an outer-ring section which can be damaged and repaired just like a ship. This can house up to 4 mortars and 2 Sick Bays.

The inner-ring section is a raised stone platform that houses a new weapon – the Mega-Mortar.

The Mega-Mortar is auto-fired and auto-reloaded from mechanisms within the Sea Fort. It cannot be mounted on a ship, as the recoil would tear the vessel in half! This weapon will continually fire at you, and as well as the devastating damage it causes, will also momentarily halt the movement of your ship.

You can disable the Mega-Mortar by damaging all 4 inner-sections, which cannot be repaired. Once the Mega-Mortar is disabled, the Sea Fort will surrender (although it should be noted that Cult-owned Sea Forts will never surrender).



Of course, you could always charge in, board the Sea Fort and slaughter the crew to win as well, but the Mega-Mortar will make it tough-going for you!

Sea Forts provide a slightly different challenge for Captains to overcome. Victory provides a high reward, but you will take damage trying to defeat one – so only attempt hostilities if you’re in a strong position. In our playtesting thus far, we’ve found that specialised builds are more effective, so make sure you’re able to either get in super-fast and finish the battle quickly, or are set up for anti-crew warfare, or are extremely powerful at long-range and can disable the Mega-Mortar before it causes too much damage (the new Catapult weapon is handy for this).

Sea Forts are immune to ‘Brace’ tests and cannot be rammed, so if your strategy is heavily reliant on those tactics, you’ll need to change things up. Also, the imposing structures rise above the highest waves, so Tidal Waves have no effect on them.


-- Attacking a Cult Sea Fort --

In exploration mode, the Sea Fort will open fire on you if it’s hostile. While they won’t sink you, they will whittle your hull health down. Also, if you engage in battle within range of a Sea Fort, an off-screen bombardment may come into play. This could be a help or hindrance depending on the combatants. For example, if you battle a Cult vessel in range of a neutral Sea Fort, the Cult ship will be bombarded. If you fight a pirate in range of a Cult Sea Fort, you’ll both be bombarded.


If you engage in lots of piratical acts (or attack neutral Sea Forts) then the new Wanted Level will rise. As it passes certain milestones, negative-effects will come into play. Previously neutral Sea Forts will open fire as you sail into their vicinity, and Bounty Hunters will be dispatched to bring you to justice. Depending on your notoriety, they may offer to collect the Bounty in money, or prefer to shoot first and ask questions later!


-- At Wanted Level 1 and above, neutral Sea Forts will open fire if you sail too close --

You can reduce your Wanted Level by doing good deeds (either in events or liberating Cult-owned Sea Forts), or heading to the Magistrate in Port to pay your fine.

Side note: In order to fit in this new functionality, the old Magistrate menu has been changed to the “Explorer’s Guild”, just in case you’re looking to file your charts and use your Captain’s Log Saves.


Trade Routes snake out from ports, and little trading vessels sail along them to their destination. You can raid these by sitting on the dotted line and pressing the “Raid” button.

Doing so will increment your Gold, but will also raise your Wanted Level.



Trade Routes can be raided by Pirates – in which case they’ll appear yellow, or completely blocked by Cult vessels (where the dotted line will appear red). If you displace these ships from the Trade Route, your Wanted Level will decrease.

The dotted lines of a Trade Route are also a handy navigational point – you know one direction will always end in a port!


If you reach a high enough Wanted Level, Ports will close down and not allow you access. If you reach this position and need to get those pesky Bounty Hunters off your back, then find a Floating Outpost.


-- Racing to a Floating Outpost with a Bounty Hunter hot on our heels! --

These neutral places act like mini-ports and are open to even the worst pirates. They don’t have the full range of options you’d find in port, but you’ll be able to boost crew morale, purchase supplies, patch up the worst of your hull damage and most importantly, pay off your wanted fines.


This update also includes 5 new weapons, and two new combat-upgrades.

We posted information on the Lightning Gun, Gargoyles, Catapult, Web Gun, Anti-Boarding Spikes, Timed Bomb and Berserk Dart Gun here, if you liked to read about how they work:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/551860/announcements/detail/3007726172112961652
All maps will now repopulate their events over the passage of time, so you’ll no longer revisit previously explored places to find them empty.

Repopulation is handled through transitioning between exploration maps, or by waiting. You can wait by pressing the new button on the right-hand side of the screen – but be careful, waiting can result in being ambushed.


The Kraken has received some love and attention. When it chases you throughout the game, it’ll now perform additional attacks on top of the standard hull-grab – so be prepared to deal with other things while you’re cutting those tentacles.


-- Several other attacks can disrupt your attempts to fight off the Kraken --

The Kraken will now ‘Aggro’ in the Boss Battle – once they reach a certain health they’ll play an aggro anim and from then on, attack more aggressively.

We've also improved the effect of the Kraken chasing you in exploration mode!




This has been a popular request, so crew size is now dependant on the ship class and on the larger ships, goes up to 8.


-- Only the biggest vessels will support a crew of 8 --

We've also given the rest of the crew unique skills to differentiate them further:

• Captain: Leader. Provides a passive bonus to whatever action the crew on your ship are doing.
  
• Navigator: Evasive Manoeuvres. When manning the wheel, reduces the accuracy of enemy fire.
  
• Marine: Dodge. Reduces the damage received.
  
• Sailor: Special Repairs. Provides a bonus to extinguishing fires, repairing hull cracks and pumping water.
  
• Gunner: Accuracy. Increases the chance of hitting when firing cannons or mortars.

The Surgeon of course already has their 'Heal' Skill.

Another popular request: every single weapon in the game can now be toggled between manual fire and autofire!


-- Weapons set to Autofire will have a gold highlight that circles the Weapon Button. Right-Click the Weapon Button to toggle Autofire on and off --

Cannon Targeting has now been visualised with a system which is much clearer to read.


-- Targeting the enemy ship with cannons will now display a red highlight to show which section you are targeting --

In previous updates, we added Explorers Guild Saves; a way of manually saving if you found a rare Captain's Log. 'Iron Captain' Mode is something you can select when creating a new game and means there are no Captain's Logs in the game.

You can now re-map your keys in the new Key Bindings menu!



We've fixed a load of bugs and made lots of other improvements to the game.

We have also been re-balancing from feedback and the new features. In particular, combat should feel less attritional when targeting sections, the AI should be more aggressive, and we've made some big changes that should greatly reduce any leftover feelings of "I got a new ship and so did the AI".

For the patch notes on everything that was changed, you can check out this post here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1736589520009196666/

Of course, as we continue to improve the game we'll refine everything even further.

We hope you enjoy everything in the new update. It's been a lot of fun creating it.

Next, our focus will turn to unlocking a new region, including special gameplay associated with that area. The ETA for that is mid-to-late October.

We'd love to hear your feedback, so please join us in our Steam Community Forums, and thanks to those who have left us a Steam Review. If you haven't done so yet, please do!

The Abandon Ship Crew

PS - Thanks to everyone who provided feedback from the Beta Branches :)

Ahoy Captain!

We’ve just released a big update on our Beta Branch – with a lot of new exciting things coming to the game.

To learn how to gain access to the Beta Branch, click on this link:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/10/1698293255137774100/

If the version number in the bottom-right corner of the Main Menu ends in 9540 or later, you have the correct version.

You’ll need to commence a new playthrough in order to see all these changes, as your old saves won’t work on this updated Beta Branch.

We talked about multiple ways around this; however any solution wasn’t great from a player-perspective, and would have taken too long to implement. That’s not to say we won’t create a workaround in future, but anything we do is a massive undertaking and we didn’t want to delay getting this update into your hands!

Here are the big-ticket items in the new update:

Sea Forts are a new type of enemy you can battle. As giant stone structures, they cannot be sunk, so you’ll have to defeat them in other ways.



They have an outer-ring section which can be damaged and repaired just like a ship. This can house up to 4 mortars and 2 Sick Bays.

The inner-ring section is a raised stone platform that houses a new weapon – the Mega-Mortar.

The Mega-Mortar is auto-fired and auto-reloaded from mechanisms within the Sea Fort. It cannot be mounted on a ship, as the recoil would tear the vessel in half! This weapon will continually fire at you, and as well as the devastating damage it causes, will also momentarily halt the movement of your ship.

You can disable the Mega-Mortar by damaging all 4 inner-sections, which cannot be repaired. Once the Mega-Mortar is disabled, the Sea Fort will surrender (although it should be noted that Cult-owned Sea Forts will never surrender).



Of course, you could always charge in, board the Sea Fort and slaughter the crew to win as well, but the Mega-Mortar will make it tough-going for you!

Sea Forts provide a slightly different challenge for Captains to overcome. Victory provides a high reward, but you will take damage trying to defeat one – so only attempt hostilities if you’re in a strong position. In our playtesting thus far, we’ve found that specialised builds are more effective, so make sure you’re able to either get in super-fast and finish the battle quickly, or are set up for anti-crew warfare, or are extremely powerful at long-range and can disable the Mega-Mortar before it causes too much damage (the new Catapult weapon is handy for this).

Sea Forts are immune to ‘Brace’ tests and cannot be rammed, so if your strategy is heavily reliant on those tactics, you’ll need to change things up. Also, the imposing structures rise above the highest waves, so Tidal Waves have no effect on them.


-- Attacking a Cult Sea Fort --

In exploration mode, the Sea Fort will open fire on you if it’s hostile. While they won’t sink you, they will whittle your hull health down. Also, if you engage in battle within range of a Sea Fort, an off-screen bombardment may come into play. This could be a help or hindrance depending on the combatants. For example, if you battle a Cult vessel in range of a neutral Sea Fort, the Cult ship will be bombarded. If you fight a pirate in range of a Cult Sea Fort, you’ll both be bombarded.


If you engage in lots of piratical acts (or attack neutral Sea Forts) then the new Wanted Level will rise. As it passes certain milestones, negative-effects will come into play. Previously neutral Sea Forts will open fire as you sail into their vicinity, and Bounty Hunters will be dispatched to bring you to justice. Depending on your notoriety, they may offer to collect the Bounty in money, or prefer to shoot first and ask questions later!


-- At Wanted Level 1 and above, neutral Sea Forts will open fire if you sail too close --

You can reduce your Wanted Level by doing good deeds (either in events or liberating Cult-owned Sea Forts), or heading to the Magistrate in Port to pay your fine.

Side note: In order to fit in this new functionality, the old Magistrate menu has been changed to the “Explorer’s Guild”, just in case you’re looking to file your charts and use your Captain’s Log Saves.


Trade Routes snake out from ports, and little trading vessels sail along them to their destination. You can raid these by sitting on the dotted line and pressing the “Raid” button.

Doing so will increment your Gold, but will also raise your Wanted Level.



Trade Routes can be raided by Pirates – in which case they’ll appear yellow, or completely blocked by Cult vessels (where the dotted line will appear red). If you displace these ships from the Trade Route, your Wanted Level will decrease.

The dotted lines of a Trade Route are also a handy navigational point – you know one direction will always end in a port!


If you reach a high enough Wanted Level, Ports will close down and not allow you access. If you reach this position and need to get those pesky Bounty Hunters off your back, then find a Floating Outpost.


-- Racing to a Floating Outpost with a Bounty Hunter hot on our heels! --

These neutral places act like mini-ports and are open to even the worst pirates. They don’t have the full range of options you’d find in port, but you’ll be able to boost crew morale, purchase supplies, patch up the worst of your hull damage and most importantly, pay off your wanted fines.


This update also includes 5 new weapons, and two new combat-upgrades.

We posted information on the Lightning Gun, Gargoyles, Catapult, Web Gun, Anti-Boarding Spikes, Timed Bomb and Berserk Dart Gun here, if you liked to read about how they work:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/551860/announcements/detail/3007726172112961652
All maps will now repopulate their events over the passage of time, so you’ll no longer revisit previously explored places to find them empty.

Repopulation is handled through transitioning between exploration maps, or by waiting. You can wait by pressing the new button on the right-hand side of the screen – but be careful, waiting can result in being ambushed.


The Kraken has received some love and attention. When it chases you throughout the game, it’ll now perform additional attacks on top of the standard hull-grab – so be prepared to deal with other things while you’re cutting those tentacles.


-- Several other attacks can disrupt your attempts to fight off the Kraken --

The Kraken will now ‘Aggro’ in the Boss Battle – once they reach a certain health they’ll play an aggro anim and from then on, attack more aggressively.

We've also improved the effect of the Kraken chasing you in exploration mode!



We hope you enjoy all the cool new stuff!

As the game expands, and even more new systems overlap in interesting ways, we’re increasingly reliant on the community to provide feedback to ensure we've covered all angles - so we'd love to hear your thoughts on this latest update. Details of how to provide feedback can be found here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/10/1698293255137774100/

Our longer-term plans can be found here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/6/1693788202021118098/

Depending on how much feedback there is, in approximately two weeks we’ll package this, plus our previous Beta Branch update into a Major Update that will be the new default version of the game.

If you’re interested in what was in the previous Beta Branch update, you can read about that here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/551860/announcements/detail/1651011615843111367
Thanks for all of the support and feedback :)

The Abandon Ship Crew