Hello everyone!
Thank you sailors old and new for joining us over the past weeks to celebrate our 1.0 release. We hope you’ve had fun diving into the depths; we’ve been overjoyed to see how many of you there have been!
Now that we’ve had some time to recover from the release, it’s time to turn our eyes to the future again. Barotrauma is going to keep getting further updates and improvements, perhaps not as frequently as during early access, but regularly nonetheless.
As life on Europa may already have taught you, things don’t always go entirely smoothly, and as such some issues slipped into the release build. We’ve released two hotfixes to tackle some of the more severe ones since then, and more fixes are in the works. Thank you for being diligent with bug reports (and patient while waiting for fixes)!
The next patch
The next release is going to be a slightly larger patch, coming in a little over a week. It will contain many fixes for the bot AI in particular, to hopefully make them less prone to asphyxiation and getting stuck on things, and help them do a better job while manning the ship’s guns. There are also many other fixes and improvements coming at the same time. Here are just some of the things to look forward to:
- Bots should be better at changing oxygen tanks and finding items overall.
- Fixed multiple bot pathing issues, including many fixes specific to using ladders.
- Fixed bots using both a diving mask and a diving suit suit simultaneously.
- Improvements to bots operating turrets. For example, better prioritization of targets and less delay before shooting.
- Reworked Typhon submarine, with many QOL-fixes. (Kudos to UberPendragon)
- Makeshift shelves should now be placeable, even in saves predating 1.0.
- Linked fabricators to nearby cabinets in Azimuth, Berilia, Kastrull, Orca2, Typhon, Typhon2 and Winterhalter.
- Replaced the wall between gunnery and engineering (that every sane person cuts a hole in) with a door in Kastrull.
- Multiple fixes to talents
- Several multiplayer fixes which should make various disconnects / networking errors less common. Most notably, submarine/mission equality check -errors should happen less often.
Further down the road
The release after the next one is also most likely going to be a large-ish patch rather than a full-fledged update, with more fixes and improvements. We’re aiming to have this second patch out sometime later this spring or in the early summer. We’ll write more about that closer to date, and of course, stay tuned to the Unstable version which grants you test access to in-development content and fixes.
Even further: next content update
Gamedev is not all bugfixes, luckily, and we’ve already begun work on the next content update. Without going into too much detail about it yet, since it will only be release-ready in the latter half of this year, we’re now finally planning on reworking the traitor mode. Our goal is to offer more variety in the traitor objectives and rework them so they take a longer time and perhaps a bit more finesse to complete, fleshing out the traitor concept a bit better. More about that later when the new design is finished and ready for the light of day.
Stay tuned for the upcoming patch in a couple of weeks, and thank you again for making our release a wonderful experience!
KnightForEyes
When developers do play their own game and fixes the percise issues that players mad of… Man these devs are awesome. In old times these type of devs were common but rn Gotta protect them eh? Also all these years(even its 3-4 years) guys didnt put any monitization and the game is very fun. Like its a rare sight!
The only suggestions I can say :
-Priotizements for the AI, just like in Rimworld.
-a Way to telling the AI to ALWAYS CARRY a Suit instead of mask.
-A way to make mechanics not casually try to fight off aliens meanwhile security doing that job poorly but still “trying” to do that.
-Friendly Fire off for Singleplayer(as a setting). Reason is obvious. We all know these dumbasses are prefer trying to beat a damn Mudraptor with a baton meanwhile you got a HMG staring them (If you shoot they’re probably die) watching your own AI Crew die.
DuckY
Lovely
Corwin Cameron
Hey, I have 2 suggestions.
Firstly a quality of life item idea. Pet Bowls. I don’t know how many times I have watched one of my pets crawling over fruits, saline bags and cans of pet food as they starve to death. Also in trying to leave food out for them bots will pick up the food and put it in containers when I am not looking and the pets happiness drops. A pet bowl (that the pet hopefully would be able to path to) with a single item slot could help reduce starvation and prevent bots from stealing food would be incredible. Sometimes something infuriating happens, but it makes sense so it’s easy to accept. Watching a pet almost drowning in food starve to death doesn’t make sense.
Secondly, I have a proposal to change the punishment for death in game. 75% skill regress feels completely debilitating. When I play with friends, if anyone dies they normally ask for us to restart the mission entirely, which when it does happen completely ruins the flow of the game and often leads to us loging off for the night, especially on harder missions. I suggest starting the punishment at 75% as it is now, but reducing that penalty by 2.5% for every talent you have. With 22 talents unlocked, that would be a 20% skill drop, 75 base talent drop – (22 talents × 2.5) . When you get to the late game a 75% skill drop feels completely debilitating. If you feel that is too forgiving, maybe only apply that 2.5% per talent reduction the players jobs primary skill.
These two things are my biggest problems with the game. I am totally infatuated with everything else. I can’t thank you enough for having made this absolute work of art, and hope to someday get a sequel! (Said as somebody with several hundred hours in the game with no intention of quitting any time soon. I haven’t actually beaten the game yet, I keep restarting both with different subs and with different groups of players!) 2
Paul
That’s great news about oxy ballons!
Also there’s a bug with cargo delivery on Winterhalter sub. After department, some of the crates appear on sub empty with «bought» indicator, some doesn’t appear at all. It fixed itself after restart, but nevertheless…