Hey Elysians,
Happy Saturday! We hope you’re all doing well! We’re back with another Elysian Report and this time we’re taking a closer look at the upcoming UI changes that will be released in the v0.20.0 Rain and Weather Systems update. To walk you through the changes, we sat down with our Lead World Designer, Mav, to discuss the thinking behind the new UI and how these improvements will make interacting with the game’s systems feel more intuitive. While these aren’t major changes on their own, together they have a meaningful impact on the overall player experience.
Let’s dive in!
We’ve added a new dedicated weight icon for airship pieces, making it easier to identify how much each piece contributes to your ship’s total weight. This icon matches the one displayed alongside the total weight indicator on the HUD in the lower right corner, creating a more consistent visual language across the interface. The iconography is still a work in progress, so the versions shown here are temporary placeholders until we refine the final designs. Currently, most stations and airship pieces have an assigned weight. A few pieces such as certain hull pieces, the helm, sails, and rudder do not have weight values yet, though that may change in time.
Pallets will also now display the stored weight for haulables, making it easier to keep track of how they contribute to your airship’s overall weight. Unlike standard inventory items, haulables each have their own individual weight. For example, a single log weighs 25, so storing just three logs bumps the total to 75 already. As you continue loading pallets, that weight accumulates and directly contributes to your ship’s overall encumbrance, making cargo management a more important part of planning your journey.
Since one of the major impacts of wetness is adding weight to the ship, we needed to make improvements to the Weight Bar in the Vehicle HUD to provide a breakdown of where your weight is coming from. The Weight Bar now has a few new segments to help you understand your ship’s current load at a glance:
"Stored Weight" is shown as an orange segment and represents the weight added from logs, ore, and other large objects stored in your Pallets. This makes it much easier to see how much weight these things add and helps you decide if having a Sawmill or Grinder on your ship is worth adding that extra weight.
When Constructing or Destroying parts of the ship, a flashing preview segment appears on the Weight Bar to show exactly how much weight will be added or removed before you commit to the change, helping you make smarter decisions when building.
As parts of the ship become wet, they gain additional weight. This "Wetness Weight" is shown as a blue segment on the bar so you can easily see the impact of rain on your ship’s overall encumbrance. Heavier ship pieces are important to protect from rain!
Fuel types were previously unclear and confusing to some players, so we’ve updated the UI to make them much easier to identify at a glance.
Stations such as the Galley and Smelter will now display different icons depending on the fuel type being used. Wood and other combustible fuels will use one icon, while Liftum fuel is represented by a battery/lightning bolt symbol. These visual cues make it easier to tell what each station requires.
We’ve expanded the flight statistics in the UI for each airship component which will give players a clearer picture of how individual pieces affect their airship’s performance.
Using the thruster as an example, you can now view key stats such as thrust speed, acceleration, weight limits, and more. We’ll continue refining which values will be displayed in the update, and we’ll also add an “Added Maximum Encumbrance" or "Added Weight Limit” stat so players can easily see how much additional weight each piece adds. We’ll also be adding tooltips throughout the UI to explain what each individual stat means and how it affects gameplay, making these systems easier to understand for both new and experienced players. Originally, we didn’t include weight to thrusters because they already increase an airship’s weight limit. However, with the upcoming rain system affecting weight, thrusters themselves can become heavier in wet conditions, making their individual weight something that does matter as it gets heavier. As development continues, we’ll continue to make adjustments based on testing and player feedback.
Your ship will now react to rain in different ways. Components gradually become wet over time if they’re left uncovered, while covered stations are protected from the elements. Previously, players learned that stations needed to be covered in order to use them, but it wasn’t clear why. With these changes, we want protection to become a natural design choice rather than a requirement. The goal is for players to understand the impact of weather through the new wetness indicators and make decisions based on their own builds.
Pictured from left to right; Makeshift Wooden Cover, Cloth Hull, and Wood Hull. Not all covers provide the same level of protection though, and each material offers a different balance between weight and rain resistance. Our current plans are:
Makeshift Wooden Cover: Blocks around 50% of rain
Cloth Hull: Blocks around 80% of rain
Wood Hull: Provides 100% protection from rain
The goal is to give each piece a meaningful purpose throughout progression. Early in the game, for example, the Cloth Hull offers an excellent balance of protection and weight. While it doesn’t completely prevent rain from getting in, it provides strong protection while remaining much lighter than a full wood hull - and even lighter than a makeshift cover. This gives players a reason to choose cloth before upgrading to heavier, fully enclosed builds.
As stations get wet, they will now display new status icons, with varying levels from damp to soaked. This provides a clear indication that a station is being affected by rain and that performance is impacted. Stations affected by Dampness have some level of cover, but not enough to provide full protection from rain. Stations that become Soaked have no cover protection at all and are fully exposed to the elements. Affected stations will increase in weight and have reduced crafting and production speeds with the changes reflected directly in the displayed stats. Players will need to recognize and understand the impacts of wetness and to make necessary adjustments when needed.
Stations can also have multiple effects active at the same time. For example, here the Galley has both a debuff (dampness -33%) as well as a buff (charcoal fueled +100%) active at the same time, resulting in a final production speed of +67%. There’s still plenty of work to be done with the UI, along with additional quality-of-life features we’d like to improve and add over time. However, we’re hopeful that these changes will make the experience smoother and more intuitive for both new and returning players.
To wrap things up, we asked Mav about the thought process behind the UI changes and what they considered for improving player experience:
“There has been quite a few iterations, especially when it comes to finding the best way to communicate that information clearly without overwhelming our players. One example is the status icon system we already use with food consumption which has the opportunity for gaining buffs. That idea was inspired by games like Zelda, where food acts as a temporary buff on top of your base stats. We really liked that approach for a survival game because eating isn’t necessarily something you’re forced to do, but something that rewards that preparation. We want players to recognize that choosing to prepare and eat food leads to a better experience through additional health and useful bonuses. Since we already have a clear system for showing buffs and debuffs through status icons, it felt natural to extend that approach to our stations as well. When it comes to new effects like wetness, we want players to immediately understand that a station is being affected and how that impacts performance. We really want players to feel that there is depth to the game without it feeling overly complicated. It’s not just about surviving or learning how to pilot the ship, but more so learning how to build a ship that can withstand different challenges and changing conditions. This adds a new layer of intentional design to the airship building process and encourages players to be more creative."
Overall, we’re all very excited to see how these changes affect the way players approach designing their airships. With these systems, players can still build their ship however they want - if someone wants to start early in the game with everything uncovered, they can. We don’t want to force players to play a certain way because of its design, but we do want them to discover the advantages of protecting important parts of their ship. Beyond these immediate improvements, these UI changes also create a stronger foundation for future quality-of-life updates, controller support, and many other systems we’re excited to bring to the game in the future. Thank you all for continuing to follow along with development and sharing your feedback with us. We cannot wait for you all to soon finally experience 20.0!
Thanks again,
-Team Loric 🧡