The day is finally upon us: Project 5: Sightseer has exited the Early Access stage. I just want to say: THANK YOU to everyone that played in the beta stage. Without your play-testing, feedback, and (many) bug reports, today would most assuredly not been possible.

<3 you all.

-Aren

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQZJtWpGH2Q

What the title says!

I know I've been putting this date off for quite some time for a variety of reasons, but the waiting is almost over. The game is currently in final testing on the Development branch (which you can check out right now if you like by opting into it via), and will hit version 1.0 right in the middle of August.

The dev branch is currently testing such changes as roads, more challenging simulations, achievements, and most importantly -- many bug fixes.

-Aren

Hey there explorers, the long awaited third PvE update is finally here!

As those of you who are familiar with Early Access games know, most studios release updates to their games once or twice a year, but they tend to be pretty big. As those of you familiar with Tasharen know, that was not the case with Windward and Sightseer. I, personally, prefer to release updates with small, tiny daily or semi-daily builds. This update, however... unfortunately didn't make this possible.

The problem lied in what I wanted to change -- which was basically everything. I wasn't happy with Unity's built-in terrain system for example, so I wanted to replace it with my own, custom one that wouldn't be so slow and would allow for more impressive looking features.

I didn't like the sky and lighting system I was using and wanted a custom one as well -- something that supported a spherical planet. So the sky had to go too.

With the new terrain and sky came the possibility of dramatically increasing the view distance which make the planet's curvature quite apparent.

To make the game's performance high I replaced the tree placement and drawing system with a GPU-based solution, which allowed for a lot more trees to be visible at once... the list goes on. One thing led to another, and the entire game had to be changed.

If you look at the patch notes, found in their usual place (tinyurl.com/p5notes), and there are 14 pages worth of changes to go through. Since you don't have all day though, I'll point out some notable ones:

• Windward-style instancing has come to Sightseer. You can now run combat instances (simulations) by yourself or with your friends that will always be of appropriate challenge for the player starting the instance.
  
• The loot system has changed. You will no longer get items as drops. Instead, you will receive upgrade kits that you can apply to your existing items, boosting their quality. The item quality is also no longer limited to +5. You can keep progressing as long as you like.
  
• The way vehicles and parts get unlocked has changed. You will need to not only acquire the necessary technology, but also upgrade your Mk1 laser to +5 before you can unlock the Mk2 one, for example.
  
• Basic questing system is in place, and NPCs will start conversations with you and give a clear objective to achieve.
  
• Most vehicles now have additional slots that unlock as the players progresses along their technology tree.
  
• You can now transfer power between outposts (once you have the appropriate technology).
  
• Threat is now a very useful stat that will give a powerful skill that will scale with your threat rating. The skill is different for whether you're going for +threat (tanking) or -threat (dps).
  
• Completely redesigned many of the biomes. 24 out of 27 biomes were changed, so go out there and explore anew!
  
• New vehicles, new items, new building types.
  
• Upgradeable wheels with improved traction
  
• Voice overs done by FP[twitch.tv]

There is more... so much more. So visit the patch notes, say hello in Discord[discord.gg] or, better yet -- fire up some Sightseer to check them out for yourself, because the next step is going to be the full release in May.

*gulp*

-Aren

New terrain with the low angle of the sun looks... Not Bad™
makes for more scenic sunrises/sunsets in the mountains.
Aren Today at 1:30 PM Dec-5th
Just to give you guys an idea of the reason behind the continued delay of the update release, short version is I'm basically trying to make it more Windward-like.
Long version is, I want there to be long-term progression in the game for those that wish it. On the released last version atm, you get to tier 3 weaponry, finish research, and you're basically done. Progression stops. That's what I've been trying to change.
So, just a quick overview of major changes: by default the world will no longer have hostile NPC outposts (can change in options). Default mode will have the entire world will be up for players to explore and populate like a year ago.
Instead, I'm in the process of adding support for instances, like back in Windward. When you want to siege an NPC outpost, you will start an instance, which will effectively teleport you into a remote region where there will be a ready-made NPC outpost to conquer. You can invite friends into this raid, like in Windward. There may or may not be a boss fight. Drops will be catered to the player, based on the player's existing gear, as well as the chosen raid's difficulty.
Players out in the world will still be able to do quests, traders, protect random NPCs from pirates, etc -- and acquire basic and rare quality loot this way, but it's the instanced raids that will progress past +6 gear (with difficulties to match).
Of course player tactics and composition (healers, tanks etc) will help a lot, but I'll try to scale it in such a way that good equipment will matter greatly in such encounters.
All this is a biiig change, which is the real reason for the continued delay.
With the system I have in place, gear will go up to +20 quality for the absolute top-tier raid drops from bosses, although I'll have to change it to primarily boost health and damage instead of other stats.

I'm thinking of implementing my original idea of there being 1-3 starting spots to choose from for new players, so everyone starts at specific locations and moves out from there. This way players that are there first on the server will get to build things that players that come after will be able to visit. And with the questing in place, the outposts in question will be giving new players a way to progress even without having to build outposts, until they find a spot of their own.
Of course how it ends up being in practice remains to be seen/tested. We'll see.
But one thing I do want to bring back is the feel of adventure, of being the first to visit a part of the world. This feeling is missing if the entire world is populated by NPC outposts.
Perhaps as players expand into the world, add new starting spots on the "frontier", to keep the line moving forward without forcing new players to drive through hours of populated terrain.


Aren Dec 24th at 11:14 PM
I'm beginning to see the light at the end of this long tunnel... might even get the update working some time this century <_<
Instances will need some serious balancing, I'm sure... but they do work. It's nice being able to just start a random raid from anywhere, even while sitting at your own outpost, without having to travel anywhere.
The way I set them up is the difficulty scales up with the tier of the instance, which in turn is based on the player's desired difficulty (but can't be chosen too high above the player's current average loot tier) -- and while inside, you not only have to capture the outpost, but also defend yourself from constant harassment of NPCs trying to take you out.
Each player gets attacked independently, so having 10 players in an instance won't necessarily make the instance easier, as you will literally be getting 10 times the number of assailants.
The NPCs do drop loot, rarely, and even if your luck is terrible and RNJesus hates you, you will still get 2 items for completing the instance itself.
Higher tier instances have a chance of spawning tougher NPCs, even bosses. Bosses are tough (and adds actually don't spawn while a boss is out), but drop loot for the entire group of players when defeated, not just 1 item.


Aren Dec 26th at 1:03 AM
Here's a fun random addition... as I was adding a conversation dialog to the pirate encounter, I decided it would be cool if you could bribe them like in Windward. So I did. You can now bribe pirates, and they will become allied to you, following you around and helping you in combat.
You can even attack other pirates and they will help. I imagine more peaceful-minded players like @Black Cat will find this handy.
They follow you around for 8-12 minutes, then leave -- and you can only have one following you.
if you bribe another, you get an item instead.

Part 2 of the PvE update is finally here! As promised, this update greatly expands the PvE part of the game, adding random encounters, raids, and skills to the game. Here are some of the feature highlights from the June 29th update:

You will now encounter random NPCs in your travels. These can vary from helpful -- such as giving you free items, to useful -- such as traveling traders, to downright hostile -- such as pirates. To trade with NPCs, simply drag the items onto them. A full, proper trade interface will be added in a coming update. And speaking of trades, neutral NPC outposts and traveling traders will now buy your items of quality +1 or higher -- just in case you are short on credits.

While the NPC outposts added in the Part 1 of the PvE update are still there, you can now expect the previously docile non-player factions to be far less... welcoming... to you taking their territory and outposts. You will be subject to retaliation strikes after capturing outposts, and your own outposts will also be periodically raided by enemies. Be sure to protect them by building meaningful defenses! Just keep in mind that as you defeat more and more raids, they will get progressively more challenging, with proportionally better loot! And yes, you can even issue a challenge to effectively summon a raid to your outpost manually, if you so choose.

Here's a video of one such raid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-7HI5bxmTo

To help you combat the new threats, you will now have access to a fairly extensive number of skills at your disposal. Certain skills are innate, such as the ability to repair, capture outposts and use hydraulics, while others are granted by items. All weapons have different special abilities you can use to increase their damage for a short time, but don't expect to find them available to you unless you install proper computers into your vehicle's internal slots.

The unique thing about skills in Sightseer is that they don't have fixed cooldown timers. Instead, all cooldowns are "soft". They won't prevent you from trying to activate the skill again -- but chances of it succeeding are based on the remaining cooldown time. As an example, if you have 3 seconds remaining of a 10 second cooldown, there is a 30% chance that activating the skill will simply fail, resetting the cooldown and possibly wasting resources. This makes it possible to risk activating life-saving skills early (such as in-combat repairs) if you happen to be close to death anyway and have nothing to lose.

As an extra bonus, certain skills can even completely change the feel of the part itself, such as one of the Railgun's skills allowing you to instantly fire off a shot instead of waiting for it to charge, sensor jammer's Electromagnetic Pulse disabling all hostile weapons in the area, or the scanning pulse on the externally mounted (non-prototype) radar instantly identifying everything in range.

The game now features a proper threat generation and management system, with threat reduction or increase coming both from skills and items. This makes it possible for players to assume certain roles in combat, such as a "tank" and "dps", protecting others by pulling aggro as needed.

There is now a new weapon type in the game that shoots regenerative projectiles that effectively heal your target. This finally fills the previously absent "healer" role within the game. Be sure to pair this weapon with Mk3 combat computers that provide hull regeneration as they can greatly improve the weapon's functionality.

The technology tree has been redesigned to offer faster research early on, as well as sooner access to early land vehicles such as Puma and Cobra. Coupled together with the increased chance of finding vehicle wrecks out in the field this should make getting out of the Scarab take less time.

Tier 2 and 3 weapons have been added to the game, greatly boosting the possible damage output. Also note that certain skills, such as Volley that instantly fires all weapon barrels, mix very well with certain weapons that have more barrels! Tier 2 and 3 weapons can't be crafted manually -- but can be both found as loot in outposts as well as during raids and random encounters.

Many of the vehicles have been re-designed, giving them a clear role. For example, the LV-01 has gained a built-in dome shield and now features 2 power generator slots as well as the highest shield regeneration rate per point of power of any vehicle, while the Interceptor is now the fastest flying vehicle (not counting the rare Shuttle, of course). Be sure to check out all your favorite vehicles, as they may now be different! In addition, two new vehicles have been added (3 if you count the Shuttle that was added some time after the Part 1 update) -- the fearsome Firebrand, a direct upgrade to the Meerkat offering more firepower and superb agility, as well as the earliest available ship -- the Cutlass.

This update brings full Linux support (no more broken water!) as well as makes the game available for OSX. Thank you all for your patience. :)

If you are interested in the full patch notes, you can find them in their usual place (tinyurl.com/p5notes).

Last but not least, I just want to extend a big thank you to all the players who have been testing out this update for the past few weeks on the development branch on Steam. Without your feedback and bug reports, this update wouldn't be possible -- so thanks!!

Neil and I hope you guys will like this update, and if you have any feedback, please drop by our Discord[discord.gg]! Also, if you happen to find bugs. Just let us know. We'll squish 'em for you. Promise!

-Michael "ArenMook" Lyashenko

Fellow Sightseers,

Today marks the release of the first part of the PvE updates that many of you have been waiting for. Due to exensive back-end changes, starting a new world will be necessary to experience the new content to its fullest. Server administrators will also need to update their server executable before putting up a new world.

Alongside the expected mundane-but-necessary bug fixes, today's update adds NPC outposts that can be discovered by exploring the world. These can be simple resource extraction satellites that players can steal useful resources from, lightly defended outposts to capture, or even heavily protected forts placed in a restricted area best to avoid -- so greater care must now be taken when exploring the world.

Of course to make the challenge of capturing these outposts more meaningful, an all-new loot system has been added to the game. Most NPC outposts have a loot container somewhere containing some useful goodies for players that succeed in capturing them. The items found in containers, looted from defeated NPCs, and sometimes even found lying on the ground may be of higher quality than what can be crafted manually. From faster weapon recharge to stronger shields, you can now better customize your vehicles to match your play style and prepare for Part 2.

After all, this is only the first part of the planned 3-part PvE changes. This first update focused on passive (stationary) threats. The second update will add active threats, making it possible for NPCs to raid your outposts and potentially hunt you out in the wild. The last part will tie all of this together with an active quest system, adding specific goals for players to pursue.

Just keep in mind that if you are going to be checking out this update, be sure to start a new world as old ones are not going to be compatible with some of the changes. They will still work, of course -- should you wish to continue your existing game -- but certain features will be missing.

As usual, to keep an eye on Sightseer's development, Discord[discord.gg] is still the best place to do so. There you can ask questions, report bugs, find friends to play with and offer feedback on the potential changes before they happen.

Full list of patch notes can be found at tinyurl.com/p5notes.

Happy adventuring!
-Michael "Aren Mook" Lyashenko

It has been two months since Sightseer went into Early Access, and the updates have been pushed out almost daily since then. While each one was quite small by itself, together they make up 12 pages worth of changes, which I'd happily link to directly if Steam would just stop replacing my links with {LINK REMOVED}tinyurl.com/p5notes every time I try.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

It's tinyurl.com/p5notes btw.

To give a quick summary, the vast majority of them have been bug fixes reported by players such as yourself. Of course there also have been a lot of quality-of-life improvements as well -- from improved driving physics to color-coded map markers presented in a handy selectable list, to newly added radiation instantly killing everything and everyone due to a "slight" bug in distance calculations and the at-the-time lack of shielded storage containers.

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

Then there were the bigger changes too, the largest of which is the Steam Workshop support that is now in what I'd call a "beta" state. Aspiring modders can now change everything about the game by following the {LINK REMOVED}tinyurl.com/p5mod modding guide (tinyurl.com/p5mod), and can download the modding project[github.com] (github.com/ArenMook/P5SMod) to get started adding their own custom content to the game!

Just for the fun of it, one of the first mods Neil and I added to the Workshop is a mod that adds a Sloop and a Corvette for all you Windward fans out there!

(－‸ლ)

(That was an actual link to Steam's own store page for Windward)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1282200091
And best of all, the entire project is available for modders to examine and change as they see fit! If you're interested in modding Sightseer, it's quite simple. I'd link it, but you know... {LINK REMOVED}tinyurl.com/p5mod

So instead, check out the handy video tutorial to get started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdV5IKwNgAQ
And as usual -- if you have questions, comments or bug reports, you can find me in discord: https://discord.gg/trruSNc

Wow, that's the first link that actually worked!

(ヘ･_･)ヘ┳━┳

One last thing, since I know someone is bound to ask the "what's next?" question -- tutorial, hostile threats and raidable outposts, task system (quests), more world customization options such as keeping your vehicle after you die and an actual alternative "survival" mode are the next notable tasks on our TODO list.

Keep an eye out on Sightseer's progress in the coming months, and from both of us at Tasharen -- thank you for your support!

-Aren

Whew, the first week of EA is behind us, and it was certainly a busy one. Even though I intentionally tried to keep the launch quiet outside of Discord[discord.gg] in order to have a smoother experience for players, it seems quite a few of you were keeping an eye on the game and it still ended up blowing Windward's EA launch out of the water. Let's have a look at all that went down this week, literally and figuratively.

• Due to a bug that went completely over everyone in the closed testing, in the first two hours of the launch, no one could play single player games. Whoops!
  
• The official server saw a peak of 90 players.
  
• With all the population on the official server and the many factions/outposts, there was a ~5 MB download for everyone connecting to it. Players on slow connections that would take more than 10 seconds to download that data would get disconnected due to inactivity. That one took 4 days to fix!
  
• According to Steam, there were almost 250 players in Sightseer at one point on Sunday.
  
• The 664 unique players on the official server created 252 factions and 1150 outposts.
  
• Players found and reported 4 different duping bugs of varying severity. Thanks!
  
• Many quality of life features and hotfixes were added due to direct player feedback, all found in the patch notes[docs.google.com].

The official server currently looks like this:

Going forward, I am thinking it would make sense to put up new worlds on regular basis, and eventualy retire old ones. This way new players that want to play online won't feel like they've missed out on all the good spots. Thoughts? Comments? Let me know!

In the meantime, it's back to work for the two of us at Tasharen. Workshop support? Modding guide? Achievements? Actual... story to the game? All of that and much more. Keep an eye on Sightseer -- as I've said before, all of this is just the beginning!

Thank you everyone for your support! You're awesome!

-Michael "ArenMook" Lyashenko