The new Tainted Ground Gameplay Trailer is finally out! This trailer shows more of what makes the game dark, tense, and unforgiving.
We’ve been working hard to make every fight feel raw and every moment atmospheric. Check it out and let us know what you think — your feedback helps us shape the final game.
Welcome back! This is the third post in a series where we explore the core concepts presented on the Traction Point store page. Check out the previous part here in case you missed it. Today we are looking at "Switching Vehicles Freely".
Last time, we talked about the importance of letting players drive both small and large vehicles in the game, to emphasize their size differences. When switching from a small vehicle to a large one, the player thinks "Look at me, I am so huge!", and when switching back they go "Wow, I can go so fast!". This is an important part of the Traction Point experience.
In Traction Point, you can switch between the vehicles you have, by simply driving up to them and pressing a button. You'll see the switch indicator on the target vehicle, which is handy when you are close to several vehicles, and you want to know which one you are about to switch to.
I've gone back and forth on how and when to allow switching vehicles, but I think the current solution works pretty well. The player is allowed to switch to another vehicle if:
Their current vehicle is close enough to the other vehicle
Both vehicles are stationary (or close enough)
Switching vehicles isn't explicitly prohibited because of story reasons (ie. through a script)
The last rule is typically only used in the story mode, not in the sandbox mode, though sandbox levels can be scripted too. There are certain relaxations to these rules. Eg. the Mother vehicle can "reach" for another vehicle using her cranes. That counts as being "close enough" to the target vehicle.
Another thing to keep in mind when making this system is "Who is driving which vehicle?". In the story campaign you have a set of default vehicles along for the trip + you may find level-specific vehicles as well. All of the default vehicles have a character assigned to them, so that when the player isn't driving a vehicle, one of the other characters is considered to be the driver for that vehicle.
That means that the player can always ask another vehicle to do something by calling them over the radio. At the time of writing, I haven't decided yet if the level-specific vehicles should be contactable over the radio or not.
Mother (the AI construct) is obviously the driver of the Mother vehicle when you aren't driving it, Diego is the Scout driver, Steller drives the Gripper Truck etc. Sometimes this setup causes narrative challenges when the story calls for one of the characters to do something, but you (as the player) parked their car all the way on the other side of the level.
Some of these things can be solved by scripting, while for others you have to suspend your disbelief a little. I think it's a fine compromise. We'll talk more about AI drivers when we cover the NPC Companions.
Until next time!
--Sebastian
Hello adventurers!
The first Dark and Darker Dungeon Rivals will kick off on October 25, 2025, at 10:00 PM (UTC).
This tournament will feature teams of two top North American players paired with one legendary creator to battle it out in the arena.
Team 1: Markstrom, Majora, ItsSolarBear
Team 2: Ski Mask, Y4mi, PartyChip
Team 3: Sequisha, Anugy, UrbanGent
Team 4: Pokelawls, Endboss, Katie
Team 5: Summit1G, Repoze, Promoz
Team 6: HunterPence, Ryan6DaysAWeek, SkinnyPete
Team 7: AnthonyKongphan, Pounder2, vApollo
Team 8: Blooprint, Redami, FoxManSlays
Dungeon Rivals will take place in the Arena with items up to Rare rarity!
1st - $6,000
2nd - $4,000
3rd - $3,000
4th - $2,000
5th - 100 Redstone Shards
6th - 75 Redstone Shards
7th - 50 Redstone Shards
8th - 25 Redstone Shards
Twitch Drops will be active on all participating tournament channels from Friday to Sunday while the tournaments are live.
For more information on participating channels, please keep an eye out for the tournament start announcements!
Drop Rewards:
5 Reward Tokens
3 Greater Luck Potions
2 Gold Pouches
5 Reward Tokens
5 Antiquated Coins
2 Gold Pouches
5 Antiquated Coins
Candy Cascade Emote
G'day Rat Racers.
This is a small hotfix patch for some immediate issues I caught while testing the release build of the online update.
Bugfixes:
Fixed a bug where race start animations would play too early then reset when the race "started" on Player 1's instance of the game in online mode.
Fixed a serious timing issue that could cause latency compensation to be inconsistent across clients.
Fixed an issue with Player.log spam from code that should have been removed before release. Sorry about that!
Fixed an issue where certain terrain was abnormally shiny.
Fixed an issue where the rotation axis became misaligned when attempting to build another structure after constructing a building site.
Hotfix #2 for Seafarer: The Ship Sim has been moved from the Public Beta branch to the Default branch – thank you all so much for your support, feedback, and patience!
As mentioned in our previous post, this update brings a handful of community-requested improvements, fixes, and quality-of-life updates to make your time at sea smoother:
Motion Blur Option
Included option to turn Motion Blur in the Graphics Setting on/off
FPS cap in quickplay
Issue with a FPS cap in the quickplay missions has been addressed
Performance
Performance optimization in tutorial cutscene and tutorial Mission
Deletion of User Profile
Many users reported issues to delete their profile. This has now been addressed with a better explanation
Stability
Fixed a random crash triggered by weather change
Invert Mouse
Option to invert the Mouse has been implemented
Vessel: Rigid
Acceleration has been optimised so that the throttle is no longer as sensitive.
Seating Position on Herbert adjusted
Loans under 100 CR can now be paid back
Fixed a problem in the mission "Teddy's Delivery Service" where sometimes players would spawn on top of another Herbert
Fixed a problem in the mission "Teddy's Delivery Service" where upgrades and inventory of the player's Herbert wouldn't be transfered correctly
Fixed a sensitivity issue with the gamepad controls for cranes
After analyzing the crash reports that have reached us, we recommend this assistance for players whose game crashes immediately upon launch and before reaching the main menu.
Short Summary:
Create a backup of your files
Turn off Steam Cloud synchronization
Delete the affected files
Restart the game
1. Create a backup of your files
Please note that before deleting your files to copy and save them in a secure space!
the full folder: %LOCALAPPDATA%\\Orca\\Saved\\Savegames\\
(You can also rename the folder to e.g. "Savegame_OLD", that will also do the trick.)
Then(!), please follow these steps:
2. Turn off Steam Cloud synchronization
Right-click on "Seafarer: The Ship Sim" in your Steam library
-> Properties
-> Disable saving game progress to the Steam Cloud
3. Delete the affected files
Delete invalid entries in the game settings
These can be found here:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\\Orca\\Saved\\Savegames\\
Only delete the file "SAVESLOT_PlayerPrefs_v0.sav"!
Furthermore, the following file should be deleted to reinitialize the shader compiler on the next game startup: %LOCALAPPDATA%\\Orca\\Saved\\
Only delete the file "Orca_PCD3D_SM6.upipelinecache"!
4. Restart the game
(The previously deleted files will now be recreated. Before the next game start, you can also re-enable saving to the Steam Cloud. In case of a cloud conflict, please select the local save data so that the files causing the crashes are overwritten.)
While restarting the game try to not edit anything else and continue to the main menu. Ignore the missing entries in the profile!
Option1:
Your profile will be loaded correctly after initialising the game the first time.
Click on "Singleplayer" and "Casual".
Please note: This will abort your current mission and its progress!
Option2: (If you want to keep your current mission progress)
After reaching the main menu go to your profile selection screen by pressing "P" or click on the button in the bottom right corner of the main menu.
This will update your profile. Your first profile should now be correctly loaded.
Go to the main menu and press "Continue".
Please note: Sometimes missions have corrupted the save file, therefore it is recommended to try option 1 if it still crashes!
We know there are still issues that need attention, and we truly appreciate your patience as we continue working on solutions. We wanted to make sure everyone could enjoy these fixes and improvements before the weekend, so we’ve moved the hotfix to the main branch. We’ll keep listening to your feedback as we chart the next steps.
Thank you for being part of this voyage — see you on the horizon!
Your Seafarer Team 🚣
P.S.: You can also join the conversation across our socials and on Discord.
🌐 https://www.seafarergame.com
📸 Instagram
📘 Facebook
🐦 X
🎥 TikTok
💬 Discord
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2582140/Seafarer_The_Ship_Sim/
A citizen of Sheol, mutated by gas, has transformed into an acid-spewing monster. It’s tough, aggressive, and ugly.
With the demo update, weapon functionality, enemy AI, and several minor bugs have been improved.
I hope I didn’t break anything else in the process.
Cheers,
Paul
Fixed critical bug where players that had played the game a long time ago had stale user configs which would lead to the user unable to connect to game sessions or other weird bugs
Alpha Net 9.4.5
1 Adjusted multi-resolution support in the settings page
2 Added strawberry seedling plants
3 Added strawberry seedling items
4 Registered network items
5 Added strawberry seedling planting
6 Added strawberry fruit
7 Added sidebar notification tools 8 Added three new achievements
