Full Release Patch Notes (Version Number "1.0.13298 ")

[Gary]

The Full Release version of Abandon Ship is out on the 22nd October 2019!

You can read a post that describes all of the main new features for the launch version here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/551860/announcements/detail/1564364251370530377
This includes the following major changes:

• New Campaign: Freeplay
  
• The Uncharted New Region Unlocked
  
• All 4 original regions reworked to include unique islands and events
  
• New Lifeboat & Stranded system
  
• Main story has been completed
  
• Female Captain
  
• Achievements

If you’re up-to-date on the Beta Branch (i.e you already have the items listed above) then your saves will be unaffected. If you have older saves, they will not be compatible with this new version. If you wish to resume your playthrough from a previous build, 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 appropriate version
   
5. Wait for the game to finish updating, you should see the branch name listed after the game name.

While the Steam post mentioned above covers all of the headline additions, the list below captures all the individual changes:

Bugs

• Fixed iceberg spawning in combat so they appear in the distance. Previously if the enemy ship was moving away, they'd get beyond the icebergs spawn area, meaning they were avoiding the icebergs while the player wasn't.
  
• 3 maps with factions get switched on as part of the tutorial - this logic was missed by the last two quick-starts, which is now fixed.
  
• Fixed being able to use "Enter" to select a disabled message box option
  
• Fixed triggering a whirlpool when arriving at the end of the path to it but the path failed to take the ship right to it (player could get blocked in this situation)
  
• Ship Visuals swapping in Journal - after swapping, another swap cannot be performed for a couple of frames. This is to fix spam changing sometimes breaking the pathfinding system
  
• Fixed Intervention quest trying to reward the player with a new crew member when the player has no room left
  
• Point of Interest compass no longer points towards hidden guard zones, floating outposts and cult base map features
  
• Haunted Seas Intro - after disabling playing control, the quest waits 2 frames before opening the first whirlpool. This prevents the player spam clicking it and going through it before they are supposed to
  
• One of the spider maps had three unique islands in it, all set to spawn randomly. There was an increasing chance per island that one of these wouldn't be able to spawn, so they are now placed on position locators to guarantee they'll appear. This was important, because two of the islands were locations you'd visit in quests.
  
• Act 2 Spawn Port Liberation Quests graph node now ignored map Region13_Generic17 - this prevents the port at No Yonder potentially becoming unusable in the main story Cult Aggro port liberation events and the player missing out on the associated quest there.
  
• Fixed Sea Forts counting their gate opening events twice.
  
• Fixed fleeing from faction guard ships counting as gate opening events, will now only count if you defeat them.
  
• Haunted Seas "Mirror Ship" will no longer offer or demand surrender
  
• Redoubt Faction Sea Forts set to never demand surrender from the player
  
• Explorers Guild "Collect Charts Gold" tutorial now completed when there is no gold left to collect, rather than on the button press. This fixes the tutorial getting stuck if the player clicks the collect gold button before the tutorial has started up

Balancing

• Guard ships now have a cooldown when player emerges from lifeboat or stranded mode, so you won't be immediately attacked by them.
  
• Guard zone ships will no longer chase ships with a message box open, so you can get events in their radius without being attacked underneath the event.
  
• Enemy ship levels will only increase at a maximum of one step when changing maps, minimising instances where players save up loads of money, use it all in one go and the enemy ships jump up several levels.
  
• Extensive balancing tweaks across difficulty levels, so the choice between Casual, Easy, Normal, Hard and Hardcore should be more representative.
  
• At the end of a victorious battle, player crew incapacitated and overboard timers no longer go down
  
• Adjusted spawn weights of ship layouts (cannons now 50%, Strike 20%, Bombard & Heavy Bombard 15% each)
  
• Increased the chances normal AI would fight to the death (up from 50% to 70%) as this was frustrating to nearly kill them and then they run away. Also decreased the max number of AI that would board the player if the AI was trying to get to close range (from a max of 4 down to 3) as this was a bit difficult to deal with.
  
• If a character is trapped inside a web coccoon it now protects them from acid
  
• Player-controlled Kraken attacks: Acid Spit, Vomit, Ink Spew, Deep Dive and Spear are all now faster and more damaging.
  
• Increased minimum cult chase timer (left maximum the same) - this means it'll be more consistent when it triggers, and in general will trigger later.

Map Improvements/Changes

• Ensured more lighthouses spawn in Region 1, and reduced the number of events required to open gates to speed up progress through the first region.
  
• Propagated more factions throughout the world.
  
• Switched on 6 factions depending on the outcomes of specific existing quests. These now include a message describing the faction being active. For example, if you don't carry out the Syndicate quest, a pirate faction will appear in that map.
  
• Had to change the destination port of the Sweethook Barons delivery, because this was in Far Haven. This port had a wait-for-port node which would incorrectly trigger if you hadn't visited the port before and were delivering Sweethook to it.
  
• Added reset quest nodes to the Cult Aggro Port Liberation events so there are more opportunities to not lose the port if the player loses a battle or decides not to continue with the event (in the case of ones with multiple battles)
  
• There was a small chance that the unique islands on Ghost Map 01 and Ghost Ice Sheet Chaser maps would randomly spawn where a whirlpool has to be, so these now spawn on position locators to prevent it blocking the player.

UI Improvements/Bugs

• Added tooltips to current crew and past crew buttons in the journal.
  
• Added a tooltip to the whirlpool.
  
• Added ship layout tooltips.
  
• Depending on context, mouse cursor will now change when clicked to give additional feedback.
  
• Enemy UI icons in top-left now show their status icons above.
  
• Added "on fire" icon to Character Widget UI
  
• Implemented "Character can board enemy ship" distance bar UI icon
  
• Fixed Ship Distance bar UI not showing manoevure or harpoon distance information and implemented showing of Flaming Gargoyles distance info
  
• Negative morale resource on the Inventory UI and Message Box Transaction UI now shows a sad face sprite

Audio Improvements/Changes

• When a waterspout is over the ship, it'll now play a damage sound effect on top of the existing audio.
  
• When settlements on islands are now set ablaze, they play a fire sound effect.
  
• Captain now has additional VO for some instances like Mutiny, Surrender, Boarding etc.
  
• Port Audio Ambience is now disabled when the port is burning
  
• Added floating outpost ambiance.
  
• Character UI no longer plays the low health sound if the character is on a sinking ship
  
• Added audio to the Info Tutorial button

Miscellaneous Polish and Improvements

• Cult crew in Cult Bases now have their own descriptions.
  
• Changed three info tutorials to not pause, as this was halting the audio and making it sound a bit stop-start.
  
• Player crew can now cut enemy winches, killing the enemy overboard crew.
  
• AI Characters will no longer heal themselves and be healed by the surgeon at the same time
  
• Repurposed 4 "Hunters" events into unique events tied into islands, removed them from the generic quest spawn set, and implemented "Plague Port" quest, which was created a while ago but never hooked up.
  
• In the non-turorial version skipped some of the non-essential info tutorials from triggering
  
• Fixed broken iceberg shader on Mac.
  
• Added latest Newsletter names. Removed those people who have either unsubscribed, or the emails have had a hard bounce.

We’re expecting to spend a period of time focusing on addressing any issues that crop up from full release. While we’ve had lots of testing, there is nothing like a large influx of players to flush out obscure compatibility issues and other bugs. Once the dust has settled, we’ll be working on a free update with new content, and the size of that will depend on how successful release is. Once we’re at that point, we’ll post news on what we’re planning here:

Latest Dev-Team Focus

We also have more translations coming, and you can check the status of those here:

Translations Status/Timeline

Thank-you for your support and feedback, it is greatly appreciated. If you like the game, please leave a review – it helps us massively and is important now more than ever.