What's New

This week I spent a lot of time working on galeflows and currents. They are now displayed on the map, as you can see above, but I'm not really happy with how Galeflows are shown. I spent a couple days experimenting with showing galeflows in gameplay as well, but haven't managed to come up with anything satisfying yet. Their effects are still present though, buffeting around subs in a chaotic fashion.

I'm planning on adding a sound effect for galeflows, then taking a break from them. I don't want to get too stuck on trying to get the visuals down when there's other parts of Xenosea that need work.

As teased last week I did add a new Minisub type, the Striker (available at Newhome and Bastion). It's a fast, short endurance minisub. Much more of a "strike fighter" than the other minisubs.

I also took some time to add exploration to the campaign. As you can see in the top screenshot you don't have perfect knowledge of the world's terrain until you explore it.

Patch Notes

• Increase sonar detection range.
• Local current pushes on submarines, divers, torpedoes, etc.
• New ocean current logic.
• Weather system generation and simulation.
• Added new Striker minisub, available from Newhome and Bastion.
• Show ocean currents on ingame map.
• Tracking of explored datums.
• Adding storm indicators to in-game map.

What's Next

Next up is some small tweaks to controls and UI. I'd like to clean up the weapon controls, especially torpedoes. Following that I plan on fleshing out the world with more detail, starting with Northburg. This will include more dialogue and probably some quests, wrecks, and other bits of flavor.

Lastly I think that while currents and storms are good additions, they haven't solved the "travel is boring" problem. I'm currently pondering adding a "Map Travel Mode". This would add an option to the world map where you can travel at 10x or more speed to cross boring distances quickly. This would allow me to "turn off" a lot of the effects and physics that start to behave badly at that level of time compression. If you've played or seen Cold Waters, the campaign movement is basically what I have in mind.

I'm concerned that this might pull the player out of the game world somewhat, so I'm not certain if this is the direction I want to take yet.