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Full Steam announcements and update articles for this title.
We discovered this bug thanks to Hirnsturz during German coverage on Twitch and YouTube (very entertaining, be sure to watch and follow on YouTube here )
If your save game from the previous patch had characters in the middle of sleeping, in the new patch those characters would retain the old sleeping condition and as such would keep their sleeping face throughout the day! This is now fixed :)
Fixed issue where characters had a sleeping face, if you loaded a game from old version where those characters were in the middle of sleeping. This was due to new conditions for sleeping with the new lighting system.
Remember, you can check the official Workshop (https://steamcommunity.com/app/3052510/workshop/) for community made translations. There you will find:
German (by Bobby)
Spanish (by canelOnes)
Simplified Chinese (by law)
Russian (by DrPerec) and (by MentaliST)
Brazilian Portuguese (by Sambamen)
Polish (by Khaar) - Newly Added!
If you encounter any typo's or issues with these translations be sure to let the creators know in the comments of those pages.
Huge thanks to the community for making use of the community translation system.
All you need to do is subscribe to the language mod in the workshop, and enable it in-game.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/3052510/workshop/
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A huge thanks to all of the players helping each other out on the forums and in discord. It's really cool seeing tips being shared.
Keep your feedback coming as well, we read it all!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's patch time! (Full patch notes below).
As with every new patch, we highly recommend doing a "save as" to create a new save file.
The new Lights & Clothing update is now live! Complete with new tech and lighting features!
The update improves the lighting system, and makes it a defined mechanic that affects things like work speed. In addition to new lights, we've added an accessibility setting to control how dark nights are.
This update also extends tech and adds new clothing features with new outfits and two new slots on your character sheet for new clothes "lining" items.
Clothes Linings:
We've been thinking a lot about what we want the clothing system to do, and been cautious about just adding stats to them. We don't want you to be forced to wear specific "best in slot" clothing, especially where temperature is concerned - if you want your chef to wear a chef outfit, then you should be able to.
So we've added new lining items which can be added to your character to give you bonuses (heat resistance, cold resistance and armor). Once you've put in the effort to equip your colonists with the highest tier lining, this should handle most of the weather, and you can continue to survive in style.
Backpacks:
The second part of this is backpacks which are now available. Not only do they expand your equipment slots but there are specialist backpacks which do give stat bonuses. These are themed around the jobs you tend to do on expeditions like mining.
Outfits:
Speaking of outfits, we've added 8 new uniforms that you can find. Primarily found as loot in bunkers, or purchased from the clothing trader. We like the idea of more loot in bunkers, as this gives you more benefits of bunker scavenging.
Feedback:
We'd love to get your feedback no the new clothing system once you have spent some time with it. There will be balance tweaks as we go, but we're pretty happy with this direction, and it's something we can expand on with new types of linings.
New Tech: Jellyfish Farm, Moongel Lamp, Conduit Mill, Polyweave Sail, Drying Rack, Packing Rig (upgrade).
New Resources: Sunstone Powder, Bioglow Compound, Polyweave Mesh, Copper Wire
New Conditions: Bright Light, Darkness
New Clothes: Chef, Farmer, Scout, Captain, Lumberjack, Fisher, Miner and Science Uniform, plus 7 new backpacks and 6 lining items.
New Key Features: Light range, Cold & Heat Resistance, Backpacks, Lining Equipment, Armor Stat
We are already working on the next update and current overhauling some aspects of building (including grid based building and the ability to move buildings). We have more planned for the next update, with a focus on higher tier islands, new modules, and module system improvements among other things.
There will be more automation tweaks, QoL and bug fixes as well (keep that feedback coming please).
Important: Light now effects work speed. Characters in an area that is too dark will get a work speed penalty, check the character sheet for how much light they have.
Important: Light now effects beds (instead of day/night), sleep faster in the dark.
Important: Hide & Leather items have been moved to the new Drying Rack. You'll need to research and build it. Existing items you had queued/processing in the Jerky Rack should still be there.
New Tech: Jellyfish Farm is now available, for moongel production.
New Tech: Moongel Lamp is now available, for lighting.
New Tech: Conduit Mill is now available.
New Tech: Polyweave Sail is now available.
New Tech: Drying Rack is now available (hide/leather recipes moved here from the jerky rack)
New Tech: The Packing Rig upgrade is now available for the Tailor’s Table, allowing you to craft backpacks.
New Resources: Sunstone Powder (Pulping Station), Bioglow Compound (Fermentation Tank), Polyweave Mesh (Fabricator), Copper Wire (Conduit Mill)
New Clothes: Chef, Farmer, Scout, Captain, Lumberjack, Fisher, Miner and Science uniforms are now available as clothing loot.
New Armor Mechanic: Characters now have an Armor value. The Armor value directly reduces incoming damage, but will not reduce damage below 50% of the original damage, and damage is rounded up. E.g. taking 15 attack damage with 5 armor will reduce damage to 10, and with 100 armor will reduce damage to 8.
New Conditions: Bright Light and Darkness are given based on the light area the character is in (>70 and <30 respectively).
Clothing Changes: We wanted to make clothing temperatures resistances something you work towards and eventually “solve” with resources and production. For this we have added two new item slots in the character sheet for new “Lining” items. This allows you to keep whichever clothing you want (e.g a Chef’s Outfit”) and apply any lining type to your character to improve their cold/heat resistance, or improve their armor if you want to be a combat Chef. Early game you may have to switch clothing out a little, but mid-late game your characters will start to be equipped to deal with temperatures and not have to change clothing.
Lighting Change: The lighting system is now defined by light areas and daylight. The middle of the day provides 100% light, and middle of the night provides 0% light. Light sources (which you build) have a light range indicated by a circle. The amount of light a character has is shown on the character sheet. The character light stat effects sleeping, working and incidents that can occur.
Sleeping Change: Sleeping is now affected by the amount of light the character has instead of only whether it is day or night. There are 3 sleeping conditions Sleeping, Sleeping (Bright) and Sleeping (Dark). The amount of energy gained relates to how dark it is when sleeping. The high tier Sleeping pod (coming soon) will be immune to light.
Working Change: Work is now affected by the amount of light the character has, with a 20% work speed penalty if working in the dark, and a higher chance to trigger a negative event. There are only a handful of negative events that can occur at the moment but this will be expanded in the future.
Insulation Change: The character insulation stat has been separated to Cold Resistance and Heat Resistance instead of a single stat. Cold resistance makes cold temperatures more tolerable, and Heat resistance makes hot temperatures more tolerable. E.g. The default safe temperature is 10-35 C, having +4 Cold Resistance changes this safe range to 6-35C.
Backpacks are now available and can be crafted at the Tailors Table with the new Packing Rig upgrade. Backpacks go in the special backpack slot on each character, they increase slots for equipment and some specialization backpacks have other bonuses, typically focused on tasks you will do away from home. There are 7 backpacks available.
Colonists will now automatically add Ice Blocks to Rain Collectors as part of Maintenance automation tasks.
Rafts will now attempt to automatically disembark to the nearest island when they return from expeditions.
Added a new blueprint to the research tree: \. The blueprints have also been re-organized.
Added a new accessibility option to control how dark night is. This can be set from 30% to 200%. 100% is the default (which is what it was previously), so this lets you have lighter night or even darker nights if you prefer. Note that this is a visual effect only, even when it’s visually lighter the character “light amount” is based on the time of day and whether they are near lights.
Added a new game option to change the temperature display between Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Added a Manage Upgrades button to the selected building corner information. This will also show the number of outstanding upgrades.
Character sheet now shows light %, to show how much light the character is in. This is affected by how much daylight there is plus any light they are in. Daylight goes from 0 to 100% throughout the day, and all lights provide 100% light.
Character sheet now shows the new Cold Resistance, Heat Resistance. The safe temperature range is now updated based on these resistances, and the previous insulation stat was removed.
Character sheet now shows the characters Armor rating.
Renamed Reinforced Cloth to Heavy Cloth
Buildings that provide light with the new light system will also show a light circle. Heat circles have also been updated.
Light effect from the standing torch is now more visually distinct, and brighter.
Cooking Station, Furnace and Goop Furnace now show heat circles. They have always provided heat but this was not previously shown on some buildings.
Heat and light details are now shown in building tooltips.
Ironwood and Everwood trees can now be harvested by two colonists at the same time (like the Palm Tree).
Water Ration thirst decreased from 100 to 80. Potential further changes being looked at.
Linen Sail hauling power from 30 to 25.
Jerky Rack default processing slots from 5 to 4, and Double Hooks upgrade from +5 to +4 slots.
Jerky Rack now visually shows the number of items processing.
Refinery now requires fuel for processing.
The same micro-event can now occur more often (once every 3 days).
Trait: Love Handles, Insulation changed to Cold Resist +2
Trait: String Bean, Insulation changed to Cold Resist -2
Trait: Iron Fingered Chef (from cooking skill mastery), Insulation changed to Cold Resist +1
Rafts will now automatically do a disembark command to the nearest island when returning from an expedition.
Improved how characters are moved to positions on the raft after traveling which more reliably ensures they are move onto the raft.
Rain Collectors now show visually when they have an ice block.
Traders no longer sell Strongwood, this was leftover from before the Advanced Research upgrade cost was changed.
Change for gulls to drop a feather when kicked increased from 5 to 10%. There is also now a very small chance they will leave a feather when they fly away by themselves.
High tier industrial buildings beauty penalty from -5 to -8 (refinery, goop furnace, fabricator, conduit mill).
Game options now show two button options for some simple toggle values.
Updated objective text in the final region to make it more obvious where to find the scanning device.
New animations for the Tailors table, and artwork for the AutoSpool upgrade
New animations for the Fabricator, with a new design and sounds.
New animations for the Refinery
The “Show Autosaves” toggle now starts enabled in the load game dialog.
Increase rare and super rare loot chance in all bunker storage rooms by 5%
Copper Spear now costs 2 fewer Copper Ingots.
Iron Spear now costs 2 fewer Iron Ingots.
Yarn (plant fibre) cost reduced from 8 to 6 plant fibre.
Yarn (wool) cost increased from 2 to 3 wool, but now gives 2 yarn instead of 1.
Palm fronds now give 3 plant fibre when processed, increased from 2.
Glass recipe cost reduced from 5 to 4 Sunstones (sand crystals).
Sunstone Clusters (sand crystal nodes) increased from 6 to 8 crystals.
Sand Crystal nodes renamed to Sunstone Cluster and Sand Crystal resource renamed to Sunstone for consistency with new items.
Economy Balance: BioSoil from 320 to 150. Better Herbal Purge value from 300 to 180. Healing Salve from 100 to 250. Medical Biogel from 100 to 200. Sturdy Raft Plank from 100 to 250. Hauling Propeller Kit from 100 to 300. Reinforced Hatch Kit from 100 to 1000. Reinforced Hauling Propeller Kit from 100 to 500. Evercoal from 100 to 150. Iron Ingot from 700 to 400. Copper Ingot from 300 to 250. Leaky Bladder from 700 to 580. Glass Ingot from 1300 to 1000. Sunstone Sash from 1450 to 1100. Rawhide Belt from 950 to 710. Composite Goop from 150 to 250. Machine Part (Advanced) from 1700 to 1400. Machine Part (Metal) from 1700 to 850. Biopolymer Ingot from 700 to 450. Moongel from 150 to 75. Moonburst Candy from 100 to 200. Fish N Chips from 100 to 250. Clean water from 100 to 80. Seafood Chowder from 100 to 150. Cooling Balm from 300 to 200. Reinforced Plank from 1000 to 700. Wood Crate from 250 to 100. Copper Axe from 2000 to 1400. Copper Pickaxe from 3500 to 2550. Copper Shovel from 3000 to 2050. Reinforced Fishing Rod from 2000 to 1250. Metal Pot from 1900 to 1200. Iron Axe from 3300 to 2300. Iron Shovel from 3700 to 3550. Metal Fishing Rod from 3300 to 2950. Stone Block from 400 to 150. Cloth from 150 to 200. Heavy Cloth from 305 to 350.
Economy: Yarn from 120 to 80. Wool from 50 to 40. Rope from 50 to 40.
Economy: Sunstones from 200 to 150, Glass Scrap from 300 to 200, Glass Ingot from 1000 to 700, Sunstone Belt from 1450 to 1150
Fixed a bug where trees in planters could display multiple artwork variations.
Fixed islands not updating the building & beauty stats on load until something triggered it.
Fixed an issue with islands when loading a game where an island was just about to sink.
Fixed recruitable survivors missing eyebrows.
Fixed skin color changing back to default when wearing clothing, and clothing visuals not being restored after using the mirror.
Fixed missing shadows on the Advanced Rain Collector
Fixed raft Sails incorrectly having the Drive Raft action.
Fixed colliders and scaffolding on the Medium Raft Dock.
Fixed the placement blockers for all Raft Docks.
Fixed navigation space on some buildings, including the Forge, Fabricator, Refinery, Fermentation Tank, to prevent characters walking through it.
Looking forward to your feedback :)
See the translation changelog for text changes in this version.
HUGE thanks to everyone putting up the translation mods, you are all amazing. There are now translation mods for Simplified Chinese, Spanish, German, Brazilian Portuguese and Russian.
All you need to do is subscribe to the language mod in the workshop, and enable it in-game.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/3052510/workshop/
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A huge thanks to all of the players helping each other out on the forums and in discord. It's really cool seeing tips being shared.
Keep your feedback coming as well, we read it all!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The new Lights & Clothing update, complete with new tech and feature updates, is now on the public test branch for you to try right now. It will spend a short time there so we can gather your feedback and watch out for any significant bugs to squash.
We will post the full patch notes and details when this is pushed to the live release, here's a summary:
Fahrenheit: You asked. We delivered.
Lighting Update: Overhaul of the lighting mechanic, plus a new type of light (that doesn't need fuel), a new \ Float-Tech blueprint, and accessibility setting for darkness.
Backpacks: Backpacks are now available. 7 backpacks can be crafted at the Tailor Station.
Clothing: 8 new clothing uniforms can now be found, search those lockers inside bunkers or find your friendly clothing trader. Yes Chef!
Lining Items: New item slots for lining your clothes to improve cold resistance, heat resistance, and take advantage of the new armor stat which reduces combat damage.
New Tech: 5 new tech buildings are now available and 2 upgrades. From jellyfish farming to a late game conduit mill, you'll be able to setup production for new and existing resources.
New Resources: Sunstone Powder (Pulping Station), Bioglow Compound (Fermentation Tank), Polyweave Mesh (Fabricator), Copper Wire (Conduit Mill)
Plus a range of Automation Improvements, QoL and bug fixes.
Light now effects work speed. Characters in an area that is too dark will get a work speed penalty, check the character sheet for how much light they have.
Light now effects beds (instead of day/night), sleep faster in the dark.
Hide & Leather items have been moved to the new Drying Rack. You'll need to research and build it. Existing items you had queued/processing in the Jerky Rack should still be there.
Rafts will now attempt to automatically disembark to the nearest island when they return from expeditions.
Looking forward to your feedback :)
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A huge thanks to all of the players helping each other out on the forums and in discord. It's really cool seeing tips being shared.
Keep your feedback coming as well, we read it all!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're hard at work on the next patch, and we wanted to share some details!
Yes, Fahrenheit is coming 🌡️
Two of the focuses of this update are Lighting 💡 and Clothing 👕. Below details are subject to change as we test them internally, and based on feedback.
Due to limited lighting buildings, we previously didn't include a "light" stat for colonists. As part of this update, lighting is now a system that effects work speed and sleeping. Objects that offer light will show a new light range circle, and the actual light they provide is brighter and more obvious.
We are keeping the fuel based torches (which provide light and heat), but we're adding a new type of glow lamp for light only, that doesn't require fuel and turns on automatically when it's dark. They have a decent upfront cost since they provide "free" light once built.
We've also heard you in regards to accessibility. So we are adding a new option to control how dark the night is, you can reduce this or increase it if you want nights to be even darker. This affects the visual aspect, not how "light" your characters think it is. Here's an example, you can choose the setting that is most comfortable for you.
Everyone loves being able to change the look of their colonists and have outfits match the role, but currently it's a little annoying having to swap outfits for the weather.
We decided that we want to keep the visual element separate in most cases, because it's just more fun. To handle this we've added two new equipment slots on the character sheet for "clothes lining". You can craft linings that provide Cold Resistance, Heat Resistance and Armor. (Cold Resistance and Heat Resistance will replace the previous "insulation" stat).
This means you can have your Master Chef all dressed in chef clothes + hat, with resistances from lining so you don't need to equip a snow coat on an expedition.
You'll still have a bit of management here, and will need to decide what to put in those two slots. You could balance it out with heat and cold resistance, double up on cold resistance, or go all out on armor.
New Clothing
Around 8 new outfits will become available to complete your look (Chef, Farmer, Lumberjack etc). These don't have stats, their purpose is to make colonists look like their role. We will be keeping existing outfits as well, so you can still get the benefit of the Snow Coat etc.
We mentioned armor above. This is an entirely new stat for characters. Initially you will be able to have some armor with lining, but this is a system we will expand in the future (likely with dedicated armor outfits), and allow us to have higher tiers of enemies.
The first set of backpacks is also on the way. These will be a mix of equipment slot increases and role-based backpacks that will give stat bonuses. They are focused on tasks you tend to do away from home. For example there is the Mining Backpack which gives bonuses to mining.
Between backpacks and the new lining equipment, we have some fun things to play with and expand upon in the future, and you have plenty of things to craft to equip your colonists.
All of the above means there is a range of new tech, resources and crafting recipes that are just around the corner. From the Jellyfish Farm to Polyweave Mesh, you'll find a few new small production lines to manage.
Thanks for taking part in our Early Access journey! We'll keep you updated on progress, I'd expect the patch to take another week or so before it is put on the public test branch, depending on how everything feels during out internal tests.
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A huge thanks to all of the players helping each other out on the forums and in discord. It's really cool seeing tips being shared.
Keep your feedback coming as well, we read it all!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's patch time! (Full patch notes below).
As with every new patch, we highly recommend doing a "save as" to create a new save file.
The new Drinks & Beverages update is now live! Complete with new tech and automation features!
One of the changes with this update involves restricting some buildings that you could previously build on the raft. This will be a little jarring at first for players that are used to the current system, but overall I think you'll find it is beneficial.
You can now take drinks that don't spoil on expeditions (consumable directly from food crates) without taking up that valuable raft space. We aren't ruling out further changes, for example we may add a new mid-game raft specific building for the raft that can produce some water.
The Change:
Solar Stills/Rain Collectors can no longer be built on rafts. This wont effect existing rafts for now (to help you transition) and you can still build these on islands at expeditions (though that's more of an emergency thing), taking water rations in cargo will be the typical method for expeditions.
The, "Why":
We initially allowed these buildings on the raft simply because there was no alternative way to take water on expeditions, in many ways it was a placeholder. The other reason is that we want to add more separation between colony and raft buildings since they serve different purposes, and having some buildings/features on the raft can make automation a little more complicated than intended.
Feedback:
We'd love to get your feedback once you have your drink production set up and have spent some time with this new system. Things like this are a big part of why we did Early Access, and while we aren't against reverting changes, sometimes we'll make an adjustment like this so the new system can be properly tested.
New Tech: Mollusk Farm, Water Packer, Drink Station, Fermentation Tank
New Resource Nodes: Debris (with beachwood + mollusks)
New Resources: Salt, Mollusks, Shells, Vinegar, Carbonation Satchel
New Conditions: Energy Boost, Energy Crash
New Consumables: Water Ration, Berry Juice, Sweet Water, Mermaid Cordial, Berry Fizz, Marsh Mellow Fizz, Ocean Breeze Fizz, Corporate Water Ration, Roasted Mollusks, Seafood Chowder
New Key Features: Consumable Automation Restrictions (via character sheet), Salt as a byproduct.
We are planning the next update, which will have more focus on lighting. There have been requests for this so we're excited to be working on that.
There will be more automation tweaks, QoL and bug fixes as well (keep that feedback coming please).
Important: Due to significant changes, you will need to re-do any food restrictions in the new consumable system. All characters will start with “Colony Defaults”.
Important: Solar Stills/Rain Collectors can no longer be built on rafts. This was temporary since there was previously no way to take drink items in cargo. This wont effect existing rafts and you can still build these at expeditions. We will see how this feels with the new beverage system, once you’ve had a chance to experience the system please let us know how it feels.
Important: You can no longer directly access stored water from the food crate. This was temporary since there was no previous way to package drinks. Drinks and water rations made at the new Water Packer and Drink Mixer can be consumed from the food crate.
Consumable Automation: You can now setup rules for consumable restrictions including food, drink and medical remedies. Each colonist can choose the rules to use “Unrestricted”, “Colony Defaults” or “Custom Rules” giving you lots of control, per colonist if you desire. This allows you restrict items and prioritize items. Note that remedies don’t use priority since they typically have specific uses.
Consumable Automation: Characters now automate the thirst need with the new beverage consumables, in addition to water storage and water producers.
Consumable Automation: Characters now automate consumable remedies in addition to healing items. This allows characters to consume remedies to remove conditions they may acquire (e.g. food poisoning).
Colony Automation: Buildings will now automatically be marked for repair when durability becomes major.
The Mollusk farm is now available in the Farming research tree. Harvest mollusks for food and for their calcium rich shells.
The Water Packer is now available in the Cooking research tree. Make water rations that can go in your cargo and be used on expeditions.
The Drink Mixer is now available in the Cooking research tree. Make beverages that can go in your cargo and be used on expeditions. Complete it with the Carbonater upgrade.
New building, the Fermentation Tank has been added to the Production research tree. This can be used to create vinegar.
Water devices that produce clean water through desalination, such as Solar Stills, now produce Salt as a byproduct. The salt must be emptied when full or the desalination process halts (this action is automated and a new Empty Salt task can be done manually if desired).
You can now add salt directly to farms using any salt you have collected. Salt will still accumulate in farm plots if an island is sunk.
The top toolbar now has a separate category for beverages, and the icons have been updated.
The top toolbar now shows water and waste storage combined under the one icon.
The food crate now shows food and drinks separately.
The training complete (choose skill) dialog now has a 2 second delay before accepting your choice, to prevent actually clicking as soon as it appears.
New recipe “Vinegar” now available at the Fermentation Tank
New recipe “Carbonation Satchel ” now available at the Pulping Station
New recipe “Roasted Mollusk” now available at the Campfire and Cooking Station.
New recipe “Seafood Chowder” now available at the Cooking Station.
New recipe “Water Ration” now available at the Water Packer.
New drink recipes available at the Drink Mixer.
Driftweed Tea is now a medical item consumed from the Medical Crate, it no longer spoils and no longer provides health.
The Roasted Berries recipe can now also be cooked at the Cooking Station
New Condition Energy Boost gives a work speed boost, energy loss reduction and walk speed bonus.
New Condition Energy Crash is applied after Energy Boost ends.
Mollusks can now sometimes be found as pickups on beach islands (wont apply for zones/island where data has previously been generated).
Mollusks are sometimes found when collecting salvage and the Debris Whisperer trait bonus occurs.
Corporate Water Ration has been added to bunker loot tables.
Butchers Block “Sharp Tools” upgrade now requires Industrial Science instead of Advanced, to better align with the progression requirements.
When characters are drinking, they will now show the “Drinking” condition in the character sheet.
The research tree has had adjustments to suit the new tech that has been added.
The building toolbar will now show multiple rows when there are lots of buildings.
The anchor now raises itself when launching the Nautilus.
Economy balance changes: Machine Part (wood) from 100 to 125, BioSoil from 320 to 300
Updates to Scenario Start music track.
Added a new type of debris node that can contain mollusks.
Added a new drinks filter tab to Global Reserves window.
Added a new drinks filter tab to the cargo selection window.
Updated the description of the Emergency Bunker Hole to clarify that it is only for Beach islands.
The Paddle Float blueprint will now show as locked in the research tree since it isn’t ready yet. It is also no longer shown in the build bar if you previously discovered it. Other blueprints that are not implement should no longer be discoverable (you will reach a point where obtaining new blueprints has no effect, though you do get a piece of paper and a chit!).
Clean Water and Waste now always start as a discovered resource.
Bunkers will now use a consistent global light intensity, not effected by the time of day outside, which could previously cause characters to appear darker than intended when entering a bunker at night.
If a character can’t get next to a creature/turret to attack (because they can’t path there) they will try and attack from the other side.
Improved the click collider on the dead sentry turret.
Conditions including Too Hot, Too Cold and Wet will be removed when a character is traveling, previously this condition would persist and result in characters escalating the condition as soon as they reached the destination. The escalated versions of these conditions (e.g. Heat Stroke, Hypothermia) are not removed.
The “Too Hot” condition now escalates to HeatStroke after 5 hours instead of 4 hours.
Various new text elements are now linked to translations.
Fixed a case where a character could die even if they had enough health to remove Death’s Door, because the expiry of the condition was evaluated before the removal rules (such as when loading).
Fixed a bug where a character would repeatedly move around a crumble even if they were already on one, when trying to automate “return to ground”.
Fixed a bug where automated drinking and remedy usage could be interrupted by the character choosing another automated task.
Fixed a bug where the objective list headings could show when starting a new game.
Fixed the “All resources” toolbar category not showing some items like keycards and hauling kits.
Fixed text sometimes not fitting inside the discovered item notification box.
Fixed character eyebrow style not saving correctly, causing bushy eyebrows to revert to default eyebrows.
Fixed some bunker issues where loot could respawn. A new island spawn routine has been implemented, please let us know if you encounter any new issues.
Fixed a bug where translations would not remember enabled state when opening the game.
Fixed various text elements to better fit translations which could be longer.
Fixed bunker layout showing “Terminal” instead of “Modules” when hovering over the module room.
Fixed a bug where the paper mill crafting queue would add items back after loading.
Fixed a bug where characters wouldn’t empty toilets to zero.
Fixed prepared meal descriptions not showing replacement text for localized text in tooltips.
Fixed scouting progress continuing when in a bunker or raft design mode.
Fixed a bug where characters with a bonus to max health from the combat trait, wouldn’t have max health after loading a game.
Fixed the trait bonus floating text showing in red instead of green.
Looking forward to your feedback :)
See the translation changelog for text changes in this version.
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A huge thanks to all of the players helping each other out on the forums and in discord. It's really cool seeing tips being shared.
Keep your feedback coming as well, we read it all!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're putting the final touches on the new Drinks & Beverages update, complete with new tech and automation features! This is currently on the public test branch for you to try right now. It will spend a short time there so we can gather your feedback and watch out for any significant bugs to squash.
We will put the full patch notes and details when this is pushed to the live release, here is a summary:
New Consumables: 8 new drink consumables, water, juice, and fizzies! There's also a handful of new food consumables.
Mollusks: The new mollusk resource has been introduced, including shells as a valuable source of calcium, used in new recipes (further recipes are also planned).
New Tech: 4 new tech buildings are now available, for crafting drinks and farming mollusks. This gives you more control for taking drinks with you on expeditions, and controlling what your colonists consume.
Salt: Salt is now a byproduct of solar stills and will be used in some recipes. You can now also directly add salt to your farming structures.
Consumable Automation: You can set rules for consumables. Customize the colony wide defaults, or set it up per colonist if you desire! Restrict food, drinks and medicine, and set food priorities!
Plus a range of QoL and bug fixes.
Due to significant changes, you will need to re-do any food restrictions in the new consumable system. All characters will start with “Colony Defaults” so it's easy to set colony-wide rules.
Solar Stills/Rain Collectors can no longer be built on rafts. This was temporary since there was previously no way to take drink items in cargo. This wont effect existing rafts and you can still build these on islands at expeditions. We will see how this feels with the new beverage system, once you’ve had a chance to get used to the changes please let us know how it feels.
You can no longer directly access stored water from the food crate. This was temporary since there was no previous way to package drinks. Drinks and water rations made at the new Water Packer and Drink Mixer can be consumed from the food crate.
Looking forward to your feedback :)
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A huge thanks to all of the players helping each other out on the forums and in discord. It's really cool seeing tips being shared.
Keep your feedback coming as well, we read it all!
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Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're one month out from release and are ready to share part of the roadmap for the road to 1.0 release. Many players have already been putting 50-100 hours into the game with the current content, but we have much more planned!
As we noted early on, Oceaneers already has a full story, plenty of content and a good level of polish. We've released a few patches to improve systems and QoL, which will continue, but more of our focus will shift towards content updates.
The roadmap is subject to changes, we're not afraid to scrap features that just aren't working, and try weird things on our path to finding what is the most fun for gameplay. A large part of this is based on your feedback which has been amazing so far, so please keep it coming! That said, we do have a pretty clear path forward with what we want the game to be.
The items in the roadmap are in no particular order, some things will take longer than others, but let us know what you're most interested in. The roadmap also isn't extensive, we have plenty of QoL updates planned as well, including new hotkeys, UI scaling options, and other little things we have mentioned on the forums.
The first thing we are planning is new content for drinks and the beverage system, as we feel there is a bit of a gap and too much reliance on coconuts, especially when you want to take drinks to expeditions.
This is a big ticket item, long-term we expect that this will be the main mode that players get replayability out of. It won't have a fixed storyline, but will use random events and have things to discover during exploration for story aspects. We have some neat ideas for this one, stay tuned!
The current story mode will naturally get improvements and new content as well (tech, buildings and items), some features and items will be exclusive to the new game mode though as they wouldn't make sense in the story mode.
Thanks for taking part in our Early Access journey, exciting times ahead!
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A huge thanks to all of the players helping each other out on the forums and in discord. It's really cool seeing tips being shared.
Keep your feedback coming as well, we read it all!
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Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello fellow Oceaneers!
It's patch time! (Full patch notes below).
As with every new patch, if you've been using only one save file, we highly recommend doing a "save as" to create a new save file.
This patch has 3 core focuses. More automation, Steam Workshop for translation mods, and a performance fix for the Torrid and Arctic regions.
Automation
Every update has moved towards more automation and improvements to existing automation. This update irons out a few issues with colonist behavior, and adds a new "Always" mode to crafting automation.
There's a whole lot you can automate now, but we also have more planned:
Fully automating building repairs (currently you have to mark buildings you want repaired)
Automation options for combat.
Automated ice usage
More food restriction automation.
The aim is to be able to fully automate your colony, leaving any micro-management stuff to rafts and expeditions, so if there is anything preventing you from fully automating your colony please let us know in the forums or on Discord.
Steam Workshop Translation Mods
Community translations finally have Steam Workshop support, this will greatly simplify sharing your translations. We already have a few community members putting effort into translations, be sure to thank them when you subscribe to their translation mod!
https://steamcommunity.com/app/3052510/workshop/
We will be going through and updating the guides, and we still have a few text items to link up, but roughly 98% or so of the in-game text can now be translated.
Performance Fix
There was a performance issue in the Arctic/Torrid regions, the settings on the water tessellation was much higher than intended which is likely the cause for most players. Let us know how you go after this patch.
We will now be shifting more of our focus to new content! We'll have more to share on this soon :)
There will be more automation tweaks, QoL and bug fixes (keep that feedback coming please), getting Steam Workshop up for translation mods was a big task and great milestone and we're happy with the implementation. We still have a few text items to hook up there,
Steam Workshop support for translation mods has been implemented. This allows players that have created community translation mods to easily upload them to Steam Workshop using built-in tools we have in the game, and other players to subscribe to those mods directly via Steam. Roughly 98% is now translatable, there are still a few odds and ends we need to link up.
Removed the requirement that someone has to stay behind for expeditions/scouting. This was an old condition that was no longer required. If you do send everyone you won’t have a character to control while they travel. Don’t blame me if the Seagulls pinch your stuff or painted coconuts take over your colony..
Hauling Spikes can now extend a short distance to reach islands, this should make it easier for larger rafts which can have trouble pathfinding right next to islands due to their size. You can still use the keyboard arrows to manually move rafts closer as well. If you have any further issues with hauling spikes please let us know.
Crafting Automation: Added a new “Always” option to the crafting automation list. This will always queue the item whenever you have resources available.
Food Automation: As a further update to recent changes allowing characters to automatically eat raw food, we now restrict them to eating a maximum of 10 food items at once (e.g. 10 beach reeds) so they don’t eat entire stacks of food. This limit is ignored if that food is very close to spoiling.
Need Automation: Improved the choice of which facility to use. Colonists will now prefer the highest tier facility (e.g. the best bed) on an island, instead of always choosing the closest facility.
Need Automation: Characters will now use facilities on another island if the current island has the desired facility, but that facility is in use. Previously they would wait until the facility on the current island was available.
Need Automation: Colonists will now use facilities to manage needs on islands other than the one they are on, even if those islands are not connected by bridges, however they will prioritize islands that are connected by bridges.
Need Automation: At an expedition if a character is in the water, they will check for facilities on nearby rafts/islands, but at a limited distance.
Need Automation: Colonists will now be more closely associated with a raft they have been working so they don’t run off and work elsewhere or uses non-raft facilities. This association remains until the return to an island or similar.
Need Automation: Removed the max distance that colonists can use facilities from. Now if they are in the ocean far away from your island, they will still return to the island to use the facilities unless you gave them a direct command to do something, or they are working in a raft work area. There may be further changes to this depending on how it feels. The distance rule still applies if at expeditions.
Job Automation: When not assigned to a work post and in workpost-only mode, characters at the home colony will now check all workposts for jobs instead of only the workpost they are within range of.
When a raft goes to/from an expedition the raft crew will now occupy driving positions if possible.
Collection time per item from Driftweed farms reduced by 50%, Kelp farms reduced by 30%, fish traps reduced by 35%.
Added a new debug button to the automation panel on the character sheet. This tool will be used to help diagnose character automation decisions and allow us to better improve the automation systems. The decision tracking is per-session and is not saved/loaded. You can SHIFT click the selected characters automation button to quickly open this.
Removed the ironwood trees from story islands in the first region, as it was creating the expectation that this resource would be available in the first region instead of progressing the story for higher tier resources. An additional stone pile will spawn instead. This will only effect games where the zone has not spawned yet.
For locked storage rooms, the orange keycard option will now only be shown if you have discovered the orange keycard. This is to avoid confusion with story progress.
The advanced and industrial research table upgrades now show in the research tree.
Researched upgrades on the research tree are now ticked, neat!
Moved the red keycard pickup to a part of the floor that wasn’t so dark, and made it bigger so it stands out more.
Improved colliders on the wood debris in the water.
Open character sheet button for the selected character will now open to the skill tab (since we have a different button to go directly to automation).
Hour is now shown under day (instead of having to hover over the clock).
Searching in the cargo and other areas will now search for the translated names of items.
Added an Open Folder button next to save files, to make them easier to find to send to the devs.
Added support buttons in the game options, making it easier to find support and game files.
Added the game version to the escape menu.
Added beauty tags to the selected object, and “Industrial” is now shown as a beauty type (previously it was shown as decoration).
Added a new tip to the island inspect screen explaining class ratings.
Updated the anchor repair objective text with additional clarity.
Updated the Refinery description to include goop.
Updated tooltips on automation toggles.
Removed skill requirements from end game story beast \.
Fixed story token given when picking up aquaflux conduit instead of black keycard (there was no negative impact of this bug).
Fixed story token not given after reading Allies birthday log (there was no negative impact of this bug).
Fixed a bug where characters would not use the closest building if looking for facilities while in the water.
Fixed a rare case where a raft could enter an expedition too close to the edge of the map.
Fixed the Arctic/Torrid ocean areas which were using much higher tessellation values than intended, which could cause performance issues.
Fixed a bug where the automation toggles on the character sheet could show the incorrect state the first time the character sheet was opened.
Fixed various text, descriptions, typos.
Fixed a bug where traits would be cut off if you had too many.
Fixed descriptions of Fatally Wounded and Death’s Door which said to heal above 25/50%, as its not a percentage it’s a value.
Fixed a bug where the cargo limit of your raft was not updated on the trade screen.
Fixed a bug where the Dig Up Science capsule could remain active.
Fixed a bug that could save bridges in an invalid position if you used the Nautilus twice in one game session. While this issue is now fixed, if you load an old save that had invalid bridge positions it will now just not load them. If this rare issue happens to your save file you may need to rebuild the bridges (if you contact us we can fix your save file for you if you prefer).
Online translation tool now shows line breaks “\\n” in the source files and what you are entering.
Hello fellow Oceaneers!
It's patch time! (Full patch notes below).
We were finalizing some automation changes for the next automation pass and had to put up a critical fix for save files. So we decided to include the other improvements we have been working on to let you start playing around with them.
HUGE thanks again to Skay24 on the forums for making us aware of the save file issue!
Important: For existing characters, you will need to check their automation settings. New characters will start with no food restrictions, and will have the new "work anywhere" mode enabled.
As mentioned in our previous update news, one of our big focuses is improving automation to reduce micromanagement, and smooth various aspects of the story. Once we finalize the new automation features we will go through and update all of the in-game tutorials.
This patch has the next iteration of the automation system, and gives more expected results without relying on workposts. For example, you mark a node for harvest in the ocean, someone will go get it. It's up to you to mark responsibly, as they will cross the ocean if you mark something way out there.
We want to keep workposts though, this is where you can add restrictions and more control at your home colony. These largely behave as before and work on top of the new "Work Anywhere" system. If you want someone to only work in workpost areas, you can change their mode in the automation section in the character sheet. We have more changes coming to expand the functionality of workposts as well.
What About Rafts?
Rafts effectively run on their own system and should behave as they did previously. These are intended to be semi-automatic and make use of the Work in Area feature.
What About Food?
New food automation settings allow you to control which types of food colonists can eat.
Previously they wouldn't eat raw ingredients unless you told them to (like Beach Reeds) so if you weren't cooking food it could feel like they weren't managing their own needs.
Now you can allow different types of food (warning: they are all enabled by default). You may find ingredients getting eaten more often because of this, but you can simply untick "Raw Food" from the automation settings for each character. More settings are planned that will give additional control.
Story Progression Improvements
There were some encounters and steps that felt a little cumbersome so they have been removed. Repair kits felt cumbersome, so they have been replaced with a new thematic thingy.
It wasn't obvious that you need to progress the story to open up new areas, so there's a new guide on the map. All of these things come together to make a significantly smoother experience.
Shout out to everyone that's already done these steps, your feedback has been a huge help! More tweaks are planned, but the major points of frustration have now been removed.
There's a few more automation tweaks coming (keep the feedback coming), but our next focus is the Steam Workshop support for translation mods which is underway.
New automated work anywhere feature which is enabled by default for new characters. This allows you to mark any node on the map, and a colonist in “Work Anywhere” automation mode will go do it. This also works for crafting stations, allowing everyone to work on any island. You can still change this to “Workpost Only” mode if you need more control over some colonists.
Food automation has changed. You now have control over the categories of food characters can eat from the Automation tab on the character sheet. This can further be restricted by individual food. Previously characters wouldn’t eat raw food ingredients, now you can allow this. Note that these are all enabled by default so you will need to adjust them for existing characters.
Bunker ventilation system that are damaged (causing gas) no longer require repair kits. We have added a new repair dialog instead (its not a mini-game, just an interactive repair screen that’s super quick). Taking repair kits on expeditions was too tedious for our liking. Repair kit recipes have been removed.
Six new skin tones have been added to the game. We have overhauled our sprite shader so it gives us more flexibility with colors which will be useful moving forward. New recruitables you find may use some of these new colors.
Six new clothes colors have been added!
Food resources categories now show on resource tooltips.
When attempting a task that required a tool (such as clearing debris, working at a resource node), the exact tool type and tier required will show in the overhead text.
If a tree or bush stump is marked Do Not Harvest, when it regrows it will keep the now keep the marked state.
Changed the Rare Samples upgrade for the Research Table, instead of strongwood it now requires a wooden machine part.
Added a new keybind for the “Do not harvest” marking tool that was added in the previous patch. By default this is bound to “4”.
Added a new button to the bottom left selected character area, to go straight to automation settings.
Added a new note to the provisions dialog about taking food in cargo for expedition usage.
Added a note to the first region map so you know what resources are available in the first region before you need to progress the story to get higher tier resources.
Added a new final checklist screen to expeditions for commonly forgotten items
Added a new debris crate that can contain raw mackerel
Removed skill requirement on Slumberclaw. It caused unnecessary frustration.
Slumberclaw: The cost of the “attack” option was reduced from 5 to 4 spears, but you still get them back.
Slumberclaw: The cost of the “crafty” option was reduced from 6 planks to 4 planks. The wood machine parts can also now be found in the zone, but only if you haven’t visited the zone yet.
Slumberclaw: The cost of the “peaceful” option was reduced from 5 to 4 charred mackerel. Floating crates of raw mackerel have been added to the zone, but only if you haven’t visited the zone yet.
Slumberclaw: Added extra stone pickups to the area, enough for a campfire (only effects new games).
Slumberclaw: This island is now a rock island (which was originally intended).
Updated the artwork for debris crates that have grilled fish, to distinguish them between crates that have raw fish.
Updated butcher block description to mention crabs.
Updated jerky rack description to mention leather.
Updated tinker crab description to hint at kicking them to drop their items.
Updated the workbench description.
Updated the colors of the Do Not Harvest icons.
Updated the fastest speed warning message.
Updated the wording “science mishap” to “lab accident”
Updated the intel for the blue keycard expedition, to hint at the tinker crabs.
Removed first debris blocker in main bunker (it felt unnecessary after just opening the door). This will only effect new games.
The tip about building water storage now only shows if you haven’t built any.
Adjust the click collider for the palm tree.
Adjusted the simulation speed for each speed setting, first/second/third speed are 10-15% faster. Clicking a speed button while the game is paused will now also automatically unpause.
Shelf life of Driftweed Tea increased from 3 to 10 days.
The raft “Work in Area” command no longer marks resources in the area (as this would conflict with the new work anywhere automation). Characters simply work in the area of the raft. You can also use the Do Not Harvest tool which the raft will obey.
Updated the job toggles in the selected character area to have 3 states for the new automation system.
Fixed a bug where unavailable Float-Tech was not showing as coming soon in the research tree. Note that we have left the Paddle Float unlocked even though you can’t build it yet, we’re working on this one.
Fixed not being able to use the Nautilus launch level by dragging the mouse (you could only click to do it).
Fixed the character designer panel when using Groom-O-Tron mirror which wasn’t showing the correct text label.
Fixed food smasher missing the manage building settings button.
Fixed a bug where bunker terminal text was using the wrong font in some cases.
Fixed some music tracks that were playing for a shorter time than intended.
Fixed bunker music continuing to play after exiting bunker.
Fixed a bug where title music was not playing when returning to the title screen.
Fixed the mark combat and mark repair cursors which were clicking off centre.
Fixed a critical issue that could case save files to be deleted when deleting auto saves.
Hey folks! We unfortunately had to put a critical fix up today due to an issue that could delete save files when you deleted autosaves.
If it doesn't update immediately you may need to re-launch Steam.
HUGE thanks to Skay24 on the forums for the help with this, absolute champion. Even though we are in early access we hate to see this sort of bug and are disappointed that it somehow went under the radar, so our deepest apologies.
Please make sure you get this patch. It also has a bunch of other improvements we were working on. If you run into any other issues please let us know. We will be putting out a second patch and full patch notes for this when we do that, but here's a very short overview:
Critical save delete issue fixed
New automation system "work anywhere"
New food automation options
Story steps improved and simplified, removing various hurdles.
New skin colors and clothing colors.
Lots of players have been really getting into the story which we are super happy about. Progressing some parts of the story is more cumbersome than we'd like (this is addressed below), so a huge thanks to all of the players giving us feedback on that.
Throughout development we'll share more plans on the content and features that are coming.
For now, these are our immediate tasks for the coming week or so:
Getting Steam Workshop up for translations
Reducing annoying friction in the story progress and doing a better job of providing the guidance that higher tier resources come as you progress the story and new areas open up.
The next wave of improvements to automation system
Fixes for any critical game stopping bugs that players stumble into.
We have translation modding support with roughly 90% of the text hooked up and tools so players can start translating. We've already players in the community prepare translations in their language which is amazing, and we'll do what we can from our end to support community translators.
The most important thing here is hooking up the rest of the text (which will happen this week), and integrating Steam Workshop (this is high priority, it might be this week but it needs some testing). This way players have an easier way of getting the mods.
Sometimes ideas, even the interesting ones, just add too much friction which can be borderline frustrating. There are a few things in the story that we don't like. One example of this was the debris pile when getting the blue keycard, while the intention was okay (helping players learn how to clear debris), it could be annoying if you weren't prepared.
Other examples are the extra blockers you encounter after using the blue keycard to clear the gas. The intent was to provide a challenge, but in practice it creates a bottleneck that slows down the fun.
And... if you've dealt with a particular crab already... let's just say, there will be some changes coming there. Ultimately we want to reduce any back and forth to story expeditions.
We have a bunch of changes planned here, honestly it's mostly removing some hurdles.
Higher resource tiers such as strongwood require that you progress the story to open up new areas. This in itself is fine and not uncommon, but we don't do a good enough job in letting the player know what resources this involves.
We have some ideas on how to improve this which should help a lot.
There is quite a bit of automation already, and while you can setup fully automated production, it's a little cumbersome and some things don't work entirely as expected. We've been closely monitoring how you use these systems and your feedback is helping us prioritize some specific improvements.
We'll be overhauling things and adding some new features:
We are going to experiment with having colonists not require workposts, and slightly change the role of workposts.
We are going to add some more food automation options. Currently colonists only eat cooked food, this is a large part of why it feels like sometimes they aren't eating when you expect them to.
Skin color options were on a tighter spectrum than we would like, there weren't enough lighter or darker options. We've updated our sprite shader to better support a wider range of skin tones without visual issues. The next patch will have 6 new options.
We are planning more accessibility including UI scaling, and fixing some fonts that are too small. Our goal is to ensure the UI remains clear and readable even with the large amount of information on screen, so we're taking the time to get this right.
It's probably not going to be in the next patch, but we just want to let you know that it is planned, so if you have any suggestions or particular things you need fixed let us know.
There's a forum post already going on this, so you could just put any requests in there:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/3052510/discussions/0/805722696534105212/
Once we iron out these early hurdles and polish the core experience, we'll be shifting our focus to new content and new systems like medicine, trapping and taming.
This feels like a good approach since there is already a heap of content in the game, and we already have players reporting that they have played 50+ hours, so we want that playtime to be as enjoyable as possible.
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For a limited time we've bundled our game with the new release "The Ember Guardian". If you have already purchased Oceaneers you can complete the bundle and get the game even cheaper, if not, you can buy them together for really good value!
A great chance for you to get a great deal AND support a couple of indie games (Oceaneers is made by 2 people, and The Ember Guardian has a solo developer).
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A huge thanks to all of the players helping each other out on the forums and in discord. It's really cool seeing tips being shared.
Keep your feedback coming as well, we read it all!
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Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello fellow Oceaneers!
We're approaching 4 days since release and have the first patch ready to go! Patch notes are at the bottom if you just want those.
Important: For existing characters and workposts, you will need to change the settings to enable the two new automation types.
Developer Message:
Things are going well, but we wanted to smooth the start for new players with some minor changes to the story steps, and some automation improvements. There's quite a bit of automation in the game, but some of it isn't enabled by default which is causing a little too much friction for new players.
In addition to that, this patch introduces the first part of translation mod support, this is experimental and roughly 90% of game text is linked up (we're hoping to link the rest up over the coming week). We are planning to add Steam Workshop support for these translation mods, so that is on the way as well.
Regarding Content, The Main Story Takes Places Across 4 Regions
We've had some players expressing that there may be a lack of content and resources available, we noticed this is usually due to not progressing the story (and not progressing beyond the first region). Some players from our discord have 40 hours and are into the third region, so just want to reassure players that there is plenty of content, some of it just tied to the story progress.
There aren't many steps so you should be able to get through the steps reasonably quickly, but there are some things we aren't happy with and steps we want to simplify and smooth out in the story process. Currently there's more friction than we would like which can trip players up.
If you get stuck on anything be sure to ask for help on the forums or in our discord and we'll be happy to provide guidance.
The full story (which you can play right now) takes place over 4 separate regions, with each region having more sectors than the last and higher tier resources. The first region that you can scout is less than 1/4 of the game.
When you open the map, you may notice the "WORLD MAP" tab at the top, N54 E66 is only the first region where you start.
So currently you need to progress beyond the red keycard and get to the next region to access more of the higher tier resources. I also appreciate that some players prefer a pure sandbox experience, and this is something we are planning out for a future update. The story doesn't require too many steps though, so you should be able to enjoy the mostly sandbox experience as is.
Regarding Music!
Currently music in the game plays for a short period at around hour 4 and hour 14, based on the overall mood of your colony. I know some players might prefer to have music playing all of the time, this is something we will be looking into. Music is not final yet.
More automation is enabled by default (including full needs instead of idle-only), and we have added new Harvest (all) and Scavenge (all) types which are enabled by default (only for new characters & workposts). This means as soon as you start a new game, characters will get to work by themselves.
To support this we have added a new marking tool to put an X on resource nodes, telling your workers "Don't work here!". Note that this tool on prevents automation, you can still manually command them to work there.
The first stage of support for community translation mods is here! Over the next week there will be more improvements to this, and we are planning to also implement Steam Workshop for this.
Important: You can use this feature, but please keep in mind it is experimental and undergoing more development.
Players can create a translation mod with our in-game tools, and translate the mod with a special online tool we have setup. If you're interested on translating any language please let us know so we can help guide and support you.
Added a new "Do Not Harvest" marking tool, this prevents nodes from being harvested while the new Harvest (all) automation is on.
New Automation features “Harvest (all)” and “Salvage (all)” have been added to the character sheet and workpost. This allows characters to do these tasks within a workpost area without you having to mark nodes. This is enabled by default for new games/new characters. It can be turned off if you only want them to work on nodes you mark.
When starting a new game, there is now an extra screen that allows you to choose the tutorial enabled settings before starting the game (these can be changed at any time from the escape menu).
Bunker #48 changes (blue keycard bunker). Removed the debris pile to make the initial story steps easier, this has been replaced with copper scrap. Also removed the “bring a shovel” expedition intel. A random hat is now found in the storage room.
An extra fuse will now spawn in the blue sector island, to hint to players to get the other fuses from the blue tinker crabs. This change will only effect new games.
Characters now start with need management on Full instead of Idle-only. This wont effect existing characters.
Recruitable Marcus: Reduced the cost of the first option (10 fewer berries, 2 fewer water, 3 fewer fish). Reduced the skill requirement of the second option from level 5 science, to level 4 science.
Pickup items (all) is now enabled by default in the character sheet, so items within a workpost area do not need to be manually marked.
The Find Blue/Red keycard objectives now show the sector you need to go to find them.
Added search keywords such as bandage, bite and bleed to the medicine tutorial.
Add an accessibility tab in the game settings in preparation for new accessibility options which are coming soon. If you have any accessibility requests please let us know!
The raft builder will now automatically add a mast if for any reason it was removed (which shouldn’t happen).
The raft mast now requires a little extra space, previously you could place it too close to raft edges. This wont effect existing rafts, but may require you to move some things next time you edit your raft.
The trader in region 1 now sells a piece of strongwood and sand crystal, this is to ensure players can upgrade the research table in region 1 even if they accidentally used those resources on other things.
New Translations button added to the main menu, this lets you access community translation mods. This is experimental and a work in progress (but it does work).
Building tooltips now show any relevant beauty values (decoration, mess, waste)
Removed the language setting from options as its now replaced by the main menu translations button.
Removed the recovery stat from floats (it was an old value that was no longer used).
Various UI formatting changes to better handle translations. You may notice an placeholder in some tip
Fixed the Island Collection popup which would not scroll if you had many islands.
Fixed a bug where time would pass while waiting for click to continue after starting a new game.
Fixed some unintended tutorials showing in the side list when tutorial popups were disabled.
Fixed a bug where the insulation value on the character sheet was not correct.
Fixed a bug where the state of the Next button when starting a new game would not refresh after pressing back from the character creator.
Fixed missing descriptions for higher tier tools.
Fixed a display bug with skill level requirements on the recruit & interaction dialogs.
The ocean awaits.
Oceaneers, your survival crafting adventure, is available now on Steam Early Access!
After years of development, we're excited for you to be able to jump in and play our new survival crafting adventure. If you enjoy survival-crafting games, colony-sims, or base builders, then this is the game for you. We hope you enjoy it, and look forward to your feedback.
Oceaneers blends survival-crafting with colony-sim gameplay, giving you both direct control of your colonists and automation features.
You'll start with a small group and a tiny island, then recruit more survivors, haul islands home and create a large colony connected by bridges.
We enter Early Access with a huge amount of content already in the game, and you can experience the full story from day one,
Player feedback has been a big part of getting the game to this level of polish, and we're looking forward working with you and the community as we continue to expand the game.
Oceaneers has a Public Test branch with a special build that allows community translation mods. Check out the forums here for more information.
Here are the approximate release times in a few time zones for 13 April 2026.
Los Angeles: 3:00 am PDT
New York: 6:00 am EDT
London : 11:00 am BST
Paris : 12:00 pm CEST
Japan: 7:00pm JST
Australia: 8pm AEST (Melbourne/Sydney)
10:00am UTC
Wishlist and Follow the game and you should get a notification from Steam! We'll do another post at launch so if you follow the game that should show up for you as well.
Install the game on Steam, load it up, and press New Game from the main menu!
The starting story determines how many characters you start with, what resources you start with and the condition of your characters. This makes the early part of the game easier or more difficult.
"Fresh Start" is a good option for the default difficulty.
"Smooth Sailing" if you want an easier time or just want to chill.
"Punching Sharks" is a nice place to start if you want a little extra stress 😄
Remember: you control ALL of your characters, if there are 3 characters in your starting group you can customize all 3 characters!
Choose their name, hair etc.
Survive the apocalypse in style with our fabulous beard-stache system. There's also more than 40 hairstyles, be sure to share your characters, we'd love to see your creations!
Choose from the 7 available backgrounds.
The background determines your starting skill and can give your characters unique traits that you can't get any other way.
Choose their traits.
Now fine the tune the traits. There are negative and positive traits. If you choose too many positive traits you will need to take a negative trait to balance things out.
Feeling adventurous? Take 4 negative traits, i dare you!
Finally, name your colony!
You can also choose how difficulty the playthrough will be. If it's your first time, you probably want to leave everything on default. There are also presets to choose from, or you can customize each setting.
Oceaneers has a little bit of a learning curve due to the surprising amount of depth, once you learn the ropes it will be smooth sailing. We've got a few types of tutorials to help you get the hang of things.
These hold your hand, and tell you where to click. They are also yellow, neat! There only around 3 of these and we only use them for the most important things.
These popup right in your face, ready to annoy the information directly into your brain. You can also find these in the handbook.
These are the same as the popup tutorials, but they just shown on a list to the side. They don't popup so won't go directly into your brain, you'll have to click them. You can also find these in the handbook, and you can dismiss them by clicking the X.
Tutorials are front-loaded, so you'll get most of them in the first few days. After surviving for the first few days you won't notice many popup tutorials or interactive tutorials.
I know tutorials can be annoying if you don't need them, so if you just want to figure things out for yourself right from the start, press escape to open the menu and turn them off.
Even if you turn them off, you can find most of the information in the handbook. If there's something you cant find that needs explaining, let us know, we'll add it.
You can adjust the options from the start menu, or even once you are in the game. The defaults are pretty good, but you may want to adjust:
Audio volume (Sound tab)
Camera pan speed (General tab)
If you are on a low-end device you might also like to lower the graphics settings, though you may not need to do this until your colony gets bigger.
There's also keybinds which you can change. If there are any new keybinds you would like to see in the future, be sure to let us know.
You're now slightly more informed than you were before!
We hope you are as excited for release tomorrow as we are.
See you on the raft!
It's almost time to get soggy! 3 days to go!
Here are the approximate release times in a few time zones for 13 April 2026.
Los Angeles: 3:00 am PDT
New York: 6:00 am EDT
London : 11:00 am BST
Paris : 12:00 pm CEST
Japan: 7:00pm JST
Australia: 8pm AEST (Melbourne/Sydney)
We don't anticipate any delays. Some things aren't within our direct control on Steam so if any delays occur we will let you know.
Wishlist and Follow the game and you should get a notification from Steam! We'll do another post at launch so if you follow the game that should show up for you as well.
Only 5 days until Oceaneers releases! Not long now folks.
Early Access means different things to different people, and every game handles it uniquely. With that in mind, we wanted to cover what Early Access means for Oceaneers.
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it, in preparation for release on 13th April 2026
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
As a gamer, I've played a lot of early access games. Personally, I love survival crafting games, and it's incredibly common for games in this genre to use Early Access.
Early Access is a great system for getting players involved in the development and help shape the direction of features. For us, that's one of the biggest benefits.
It's for this reason that we've entered early access:
Highly polished, and including a range of QoL features.
With a lot of content, including the main story objectives.
Going into this, we wanted players to have somewhat of a "complete experience" from day 1. This is why the main story is ready to play right away.
Players can get 35-60 hours from a single playthrough with the content that's already there.
Internally we "speed run" the game using only the highest speed, not exploring everywhere, only doing the minimum story requirements, and already knowing what to expect - and we usually come in at around 25 hours. Someone playing "normally" can easily double that, and even more for those that want to create the perfect colony with the best islands.
Note that it isn't our goal to make the game "take more hours", we're often trying to reduce the time while having pacing at a level that skill mastery matters (e.g. crafting with a level 10 crafter is noticeably faster than a level 1 crafter).
We're planning to add more content during Early Access, so the variety of interesting things players can do will just keep increasing.
Yes you can turn off tutorials!
There's quite a few systems and more depth than many players expect in Oceaneers. We have a robust and detailed tutorial system already in the game (including a search feature).
This has been quite important as we've had a mix of player types that have really enjoyed the game, and some players are less familiar with colony-sim mechanics.
Love achievements? We've already got them! Well, the first set of 16 achievements. We are expecting to add more and improve the achievement icons during Early Access.
Have an idea for an achievement? Let us know!
Even though we are launching in English, we are currently hard at work implementing a community translation system. It's already working and we are just hooking everything up, which is quite time consuming with so much text.
We're expecting this to be ready close to release or shortly after.
If you're interested in contributing, please let us know here or on Discord!
Ultimately, our goal is to "find the fun" if everything we implement. We want players to be having a good time, and feel like they are getting both enjoyment and value from their time playing the game.
This generally means:
If we try something and it doesn't feel quite right, we have no problem trying another way, or scrapping it if need be.
If we make balance changes that don't end up feeling right, we have no problem reverting them.
We loving having things you can do that players don't expect (how many games let you kick crabs, or your poop off the side of an island!).
I'll preface this with, "these plans are subject to change".
Internally we have a heap of content and feature plans. Once the dust settles after launch, we will go over your feedback to see what players are most interested in and that will guide the roadmap a little.
These are some key items (but by no means an extensive list):
Community Translations: As we are releasing in English, one of the first things we have planned is a community translation system so that players can start the translation process for any language they want.
Creature Taming: We're excited to see how far we can take this and have some fun things planned.
More Tech: There's already heaps of things to research, but we have more planned at the higher end of the tech (even beyond what is currently shown in the tech tree).
Side Story Content: There's already a handful of unique side-story expeditions, adding more of these will increase re-playability.
Modules: A range of new modules are planned.
Building Upgrades: More building upgrades where it makes sense.
That only scratches the surface, and in addition to content there will be visual improvements, new animations etc.
The foundation for the game is really solid, and there's a lot of different ways we can expand content which is really exciting!
All feedback is important to our process. We read it all, and try and understand your frustrations, excitement, what things are working and what isn't. The best way to get involved in feedback is by joining our friendly Discord community. We also read the Steam Forums.
The game releases in 5 days! Wishlist it today so you are notified, get in on the 13th and enjoy!
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Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
As we countdown to release (now only 7 days away), we're taking a look at the modules system in Oceaneers.
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it, in preparation for release on 13th April 2026
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
Modules can be installed inside islands that support them. Visually they look a little like 80's cassette tapes (yeah we had a bit of fun making these).
You can find modules during expeditions inside bunkers and bring them back in your cargo.
Pop them in the tape player, a.k.a. the Module Machine to apply bonuses to the island. Only high tier islands have module machines, so later in the game you'll want to haul these islands home and add them to your colony, so you can install whichever module you desire.
We currently have a small range of module types that you can find, that come in multiple tiers. For example the Research Amplifier has two tiers, and the Buoyancy Calibrator has three tiers.
Modules can effect a range of things, such as:
island buoyancy stats (e.g. make it float longer before requiring recharge)
temperature (make all characters on that island warmer),
effect specific stats (research speed for research performed on the island)
We're looking forward to expanding this system throughout early access and have some interesting modules we are planning to add. Some modules will also be restricted to biome types.
The goal is to allow you to set up specialized islands (e.g. an island that is best at cooking). We also have some ideas for rare unique modules that can do some... weird and unusual things.
We would love to hear any ideas you have for modules, and how you would like to setup your islands, be sure to share your feedback!
7 days until release, that's what!
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Update: We have already started working on the community translation system! All going well, you won't have to wait long for this to be available.
Work on translations will take place during Early Access, and the initial EA launch will be in English. As development progresses we plan to add support for community translations.
If you're interested in contributing, please let us know here or on Discord!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
We're only 9 days until release, and wanted to share some information on the visuals that make up Oceaneers and the range of new graphics options we've recently added!
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it, in preparation for release on 13th April 2026
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
At first glance with the 2D objects in a 3D world, it's easy to take for granted a lot of the visual features going on that make up the whole picture.
Some of the visual features become more apparent when you are moving your raft around at an expedition, there's light rain, and night is approaching. You notice a slight reflection of the raft on the water, moonlight shining through, and see the torchlight dancing on the ocean.
Or... maybe your setting up your cooking island and see the pulsing glow of jellyfish nearby in the water and glow from the cooking fires. Then you notice the real-time lights from the fire casting shadows from your characters as they move around.
There's a range of other visual features that add to the scene, some obvious and some subtle:
Wildlife and characters leaving footprints on the sand.
Characters leaving water ripples as they swim.
Shadows, reflections and lighting on the water.
Particle effects light glow lights and dust motes.
Foam edge along the water.
Water tessellation and deformation.
Cloud shadows that move across the ground, changing in shape and size as they move.
All of these visual features come together really nicely. We've had to implement some interesting techniques to have all of this work with 2D sprites, and we're really happy with how it's turned out.
As with any game, if you have older or lower-end hardware then you may need to turn the graphics settings down a little, and we've added a range of new options for you to tweak.
Even on low end hardware at lower frame-rates, the game is very playable since it's not a fast paced action game (e.g. like a first person shooter). We have also tested it on hardware that's 10+ years old. As with any sim game, late game with a full colony is when it's most taxing, but we will continue to add options and improve performance wherever possible.
Many of the improvements are thanks to your feedback, so please keep it coming. If you have any ideas for the types of upgrades you like, or your top QoL requests for the research tree, be sure to let us know!
We're counting down the days to release. Everything is in place so that you can start playing and enjoying the game on 13 April 2026.
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Work on translations will take place during Early Access, and the initial EA launch will be in English. As development progresses we plan to add support for community translations.
This approach allows us to iterate quickly on systems, UI, and story as the game evolves, and has worked well for many Early Access titles (such as Stardew Valley, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, and Satisfactory) that also started with English first.
If you're interested in contributing, please let us know here or on Discord!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
The wait is nearly over. Your ocean survival adventure begins on April 13, 2026.
Oceaneers is ready to make a splash! Learn more about what's in store in our official Early Access trailer:
Be sure to wishlist Oceaneers here to get ready for release!
Oceaneers blends survival-crafting with colony-sim gameplay, giving you both direct control of your colonists and automation features.
You'll start with a small group and a tiny island, then recruit more survivors, haul islands home and create a large colony connected by bridges.
We're entering Early Access with a huge amount of content already in the game, and players can experience the full story from day one,
Player feedback has been a big part of getting the game to this level of polish, so we're excited to enter the next phase and keep expanding it together with the community.
Put on your raft boots. It's almost survival time.
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
There's been roughly 100 separate patches since the previous demo went live just over a month ago. Needless to say, we're going to skip the patch notes. Instead we'll give you the broad strokes!
Just what you've been waiting for (even if you didn't know it, or ask for it)! You can place stinky pits anywhere, they cost waste but have a negative beauty penalty. This is a great way to manage things when you have too much waste. The pits degrade and disappear over time.
As mentioned previously we have changed the progression of tools. Stone tools are now crafted in the tier 1 crafting table (previously the toolbench). Copper tools will be created in the tier 2 workbench (though you can't make them in the demo).
We were considering this for a while, and eventually some feedback pushed it over the line. It felt like the right move, your characters are essentially playing their own survival crafting game, and this change follows the typical progression you expect.
New combat animations and improvements to the combat system. Yay!
By popular request, there is now a higher game speed! Be warned, as with other sim games, running at the highest speed means when things go wrong, they go wrong much faster. Use at your own risk.
We've added filters and categories to the cargo screen! A nice QoL improvement that was requested.
A range of new game options are now available, including graphics settings.
New autosave limit.
Sensitivity settings for edge panning.
New keybinds.
More graphics options, especially for low end devices.
New graphics presets.
There's heaps of other changes, some we have previously mentioned. Try it out, or if you've already played the demo, stay tuned, a big announcement is around the corner!
Many of the improvements are thanks to your feedback, so please keep it coming. We are very open to further improvements to automation and other systems, and will continue to improve them!
We will be announcing our official release date very soon, and are working around the clock to have the game ready in a good state for release into Early Access.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Work on translations will take place during Early Access, and the initial EA launch will be in English. As development progresses we plan to add support for community translations.
This approach allows us to iterate quickly on systems, UI, and story as the game evolves, and has worked well for many Early Access titles (such as Stardew Valley, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, and Satisfactory) that also started with English first.
If you're interested in contributing, please let us know here or on Discord!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
Hey folks, we've been working around the clock as we get closer to release. The release date announcement is just around the corner!
The demo was updated just over a month ago, and we've already done more than 70 new patches internally. So, we are keen to do another demo update soon. This should happen near end of month.
In the meantime, we want to share a few changes and things we have been working on!
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
As you already know, our plan is to launch into Early Access. We're happy to announce:
It was important to us that we have an experience that offers a lot of value, right out of the gate.
There's a really good amount of content and heaps to do, and we have focused on a high level of polish. Sure there will be the odd bug or two, but we've done heaps of QA testing to make sure the experience is smooth.
We will go into more detail on Early Access, and what we want to achieve from the process soon.
New attack animations, and new faces when attacking and working. We've been wanting to improve these for a while and are happy with how it turned out.
We've made a lot of improvements to combat, plus with healing as part of the automation it's feeling much nicer!
There have been a range of changes and additions to the tech tree, including some later game production lines and a new... err... wildlife "deterrent" turret.
After more testing and feedback, we have also changed the primary crafting buildings so that they relate to the tool tiers.
Crafting table now includes the Tier 1 stone tools (previously you had to make a toolbench)
Toolbench, renamed to the Workbench, now handles Tier 2 copper tools.
Tier 3 Iron Tools are handled in the Forge, and there are buildings beyond this for various higher tech materials.
We are happy with how these changes feel, and should align more with player expectations based on your typical survival crafting game progression. They also speed up pacing a bit more which is great.
This one is for players that want to get deeper into automation, especially when your colony is nearing 20 survivors and you've got a colony of islands connected with bridges.
Colonists can now be assigned to an island workpost, they will only do work tasks on that island. This allows them to use facilities on different islands before they return to work.
This plays right into our expectations for how players will want to setup islands, with dedicated characters on an island setup for farming, and a different island for production, and cooking etc.
Colonists will use bridges to get to other islands and use facilities (though they will prefer using facilities on their own island first, so you can set things up for efficiency).
Colonists with weapons equipped will automatically fight back, instead of fleeing, when they are attacked. Healing is also now automated and these changes go hand in hand.
We are planning to expand this further and give you control over this behavior per colonist.
We still have things we can tweak and improve, it often comes down to determining what the player expects to happen in most situations and finding edge cases to deal with. Some of the trickier edge cases are raft interactions, it's feeling really good right now but there will be some more tweaks.
There have also been a lot of quality of life improvements across the board.
New game option to set the number of rotating autosaves (autosaves per colony).
New search and filter features for the cargo screen.
Improved island hauling details.
Improved UI for island modules (and a range of new modules).
Overhauled Float Regulators, they now change size and have 3 color phases.
New keybinds for the recent marking tools.
Many of the improvements are thanks to your feedback, so please keep it coming. If you have any ideas for the types of upgrades you like, or your top QoL requests for the research tree, be sure to let us know!
We will be announcing our official release date very soon, and are working around the clock to have the game ready in a good state for release into Early Access.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Work on translations will take place during Early Access, and the initial EA launch will be in English. As development progresses we plan to add support for community translations.
This approach allows us to iterate quickly on systems, UI, and story as the game evolves, and has worked well for many Early Access titles (such as Stardew Valley, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, and Satisfactory) that also started with English first.
If you're interested in contributing, please let us know here or on Discord!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
Hey folks, things are going well with the new demo and we are hard at work preparing for release.
We are planning to do another demo update next month to bring across many other improvements and changes (there's quite a few).
In the meantime we just wanted to share some recent improvements to the research tree.
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
If you've already played the new demo you may already have noticed this change.
Previously we had upgrades in groups, which functionally worked okay, but it wasn't clear enough to the player. It also added some confusion as to what the tiers of upgrades meant.
Now upgrades are individual items that you research. Straight forward, and simple. The end result is still similar (you unlock the upgrade which you can construct at a building.
Something we have added to an internal build is a search feature. The research tree is pretty big, so being able to search for something is just neat!
Upgrades are evolving as we go and we are adding/removing them based on what feels good. So far there are a few typical types of upgrades
Upgrades that unlock recipes at the building.
Upgrades that improve capacity of the building (more processing slots)
Upgrades that improve efficiency of the building.
Upgrades that add features to the building (e.g. a Snow Catcher for the Advanced Rain Collector)
There's a few other features we want to experiment with that would also be nice, but they aren't a high priority at the moment and may come in early access.
Ability to zoom in/out on the research tree.
Ability to queue up research.
Many of the improvements are thanks to your feedback, so please keep it coming. If you have any ideas for the types of upgrades you like, or your top QoL requests for the research tree, be sure to let us know!
We will be announcing our official release date very soon, and are working around the clock to have the game ready in a good state for release into Early Access.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Work on translations will take place during Early Access, and the initial EA launch will be in English. As development progresses we plan to add support for community translations.
This approach allows us to iterate quickly on systems, UI, and story as the game evolves, and has worked well for many Early Access titles (such as Stardew Valley, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, and Satisfactory) that also started with English first.
If you're interested in contributing, please let us know here or on Discord!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
You can check out heaps of quality improvements, changes to systems, new automation features, fishing rods, and more!
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
Due to so many underlying changes to systems and data structures, previous demo saves (earlier than version 0.0.6) are not supported by this version.
There's pages of patch notes (over 500 lines), so rather than list them all, we'll just list things with broad strokes. Some of our previous dev logs cover things in more detail. If there is any point you want more information on just let us know!
Lots of pacing improvements, not only are things faster (crafting, gathering), the story pacing has improved with the new Scout Glider.
Rafts now navigate around crumbles and we have introduced new mega crumbles.
World difficulty settings are now available when creating a new game (expect more settings in the full game).
New automation features have been added, including job priority, crafting automation, fuel automation and more.
Fishing Traps were removed (they are still in the full game as mid-late game tech), and replaced with Fishing Post and Fishing Rods in the demo.
Study Nook is now available in the demo (as it is required to learn Science Mastery I).
When creating a new raft, you can now customize the flag design. You can also change the design of the flag in the raft dock. More designs are planned.
Changed the research upgrade systems to make it clear and straight forward.
Walk speed increased, and walk speed system overhauled.
Overhauled the skill systems with new mastery levels that require training and give special traits.
Overhauled scouting and expedition times so things are faster.
Overhauled the raft engine system which now takes into account the size of the raft compared to the power of the engines (paddle etc).
Overhauled the death and leaving systems.
Overhauled fuel balance, now that fuel is only used as needed.
Overhauled object weights, cargo weight and added new overweight cargo mechanic.
Heaps of quality of life improvements such as keybinds, right click to unequip items, overhauled expedition UI and so much more.
More tutorials for some requested topics.
Many of the improvements are thanks to your feedback, so please keep it coming. We are very open to further improvements to automation and other systems, and will continue to improve them!
We will be announcing our official release date very soon, and are working around the clock to have the game ready in a good state for release into Early Access.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Work on translations will take place during Early Access, and the initial EA launch will be in English. As development progresses we plan to add support for community translations.
This approach allows us to iterate quickly on systems, UI, and story as the game evolves, and has worked well for many Early Access titles (such as Stardew Valley, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, and Satisfactory) that also started with English first.
If you're interested in contributing, please let us know here or on Discord!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
Hey folks, the updated demo is almost here (we're hoping to make it live within the week). Here are some changes we have made regarding automation, and some of our plans for more automation in the future.
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
We want to emphasize that direct control of characters is incredibly important to us for this game - just click a character and give them a command. It's pretty rare in colony sim games, but it lets you get more attached to your characters.
It also adds more of a "survival crafting" game feel, allowing the game to appeal to players that don't typical get into colony sims.
All of the automation features we have added work with this in mind, and are completely optional.
But... this doesn't mean they are an afterthought. We've spent time implementing automation features familiar to colony sim players, and we will continue to improve on them (so keep the feedback coming!).
Oceaneers has some unique features that add some extra challenges when adding automation, these features aren't frequently seen in sim games:
Being able to directly control characters.
Being able to send an expedition and fully control (and build stuff) in the expedition zone.
Being surrounded by more water than land.
Being able to have multiple rafts that you can move around with multiple drivers and crew.
Islands that sink.
Objectives and story features.
We established goals based on what we wanted the automated experience to feel like, and the actions players will be doing during the game.
Keeping direct character control is a must, its unique and players love being able to just click a character and give them a command. It also makes you more invested in characters.
We want your home colony island(s) to be, optionally, fully-automated.
We want rafting around with a crew to be, optionally, semi-automated.
We want automation to be optional, if you want to manually do everything and directly control all of your characters, go for it!
Looking at late game, we envisage players having several islands connected by bridges, with each island setup for specific tasks. E.g. a farming island, production island, butchering & fishing island. Islands will support this by the different island biomes, and specific modules they can get.
If you've played the demo already, then you may have used the existing automation features, which don't fully reach our goals.
The Island Workpost allows you automate tasks on the island (harvesting, crafting etc)
The raft has a special Work in Area feature which is semi-automatic, the crew gets off, harvests things n the ocean the gets back on (and you can queue this up).
You can't fully automate production lines though... Well, in the new version, you can!
To take things to the next level we have added more automation layers.
Improved Character Jobs
Characters can now set job priorities. When they are idle, they will check within their workpost area for jobs in the order of priority.
New Marked Targets
Previously characters would just harvest everything in range of the workpost, now you mark things you want to harvest or pickup. And, you can now also mark wildlife for combat as a sort of call-to-arms.
New Fuel Automation
You can now choose which fuel to automate, and set reserve limits. Campfires also turn on/off automatically (and can be manually forced on if you just want light/heat).
New Crafting Automation
This is was needed to establish fully-automated islands. You can now set items to auto-queue at each crafting station. It allows you to set limits and priority as well.
New Reserve Resources
In order to have full control over crafting automation we needed to add the ability to reserve resources, which you can now do per-zone (home colony, each expedition zone). If you reserve 10 beachwood, then the automated crafting wont use it.
Fishing Post Bait Automation
The fishing post can automatically use bait, or you can manually allocate it.
Putting all of this together allows you to set fully automated production chains (e.g. farm reeds > craft bait > catch fish > butcher fish > make food).
This is all available in the upcoming demo which will be live later this week or so. If you encounter any bugs please let us know, and be aware that this is experimental and very subject to change, so your feedback is super important here. If we need to overhaul these systems to make it feel better, we will.
We also plan to add two other automation features.
Character food restrictions (to control what they automatically eat)
Behavior toggles for combat. Characters now flee if getting attacked, before returning to their task, but we want to add some options so you can decide on this behavior.
Thanks for your patience while waiting for the demo update. We wanted to make sure we had a good set of automation features for players to try before we put it live.
There are HEAPS of QoL changes, and pacing improvements as well which we are happy with, so getting your feedback on that would be amazing.
Anyhow stay tuned, we will post when the demo is released. If anyone made it this far, thanks for reading!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a few other things we are experimenting with, we should have more detail to share on these soon:
Changes to how upgrades work in the research tree
Changes to combat & related equipment
Changes to the temperature system and how heat sources work
Lots of QoL improvements
UI Improvements
On the translation front, we are still deciding the best way to handle localization. A lot of big titles went into Early Access as English Only and later added support for community translations (Raft, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, Satisfactory), so we may follow suit. With so much depth to the game there are a lot of objects and a lot of text, and we want the flexibility to make quick changes throughout the Early Access period.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can show us if you are interested in a language by:
Wishlisting the game (we see wishlists per region)
Let us know via forums/discord.
The number of wishlists and interest shown for each region heavily influences the languages we will localize into, and we will be considering whether community translations are a good fit for the game.
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
We like to ask players what game it reminds them of, and, "oh buoy", we have seen just about every game under the sun mentioned by now!
It's been really interesting to see what type of games players have brought up - obviously this depends a lot on which games payers have played in the past. In no particular order:
Don't Starve and Paper Mario (in relation to the art style).
Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, The Survivalist, Cult of the Lamb.
Raft (and open world survival crafting games in general).
The Flame in The Flood, Flotsam, Frostpunk & Sheltered.
A hint of Fallout/Fallout Shelter.
Monkey Island, The Sims, Craft the World, Clanfolk.
We knew there would be comparisons to similar looking games (like Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included), so we were extremely pleased to see players add comments to this comparison that Oceaneers is still very different and innovative, it's very much doing its own thing.
We are hard at work on the full game! Recently we have been improving crop farming, fishing rods and smelting metals - then tying all of the survival progression into the story/objective progression.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
Hey folks, the updated demo is going through final testing and is just around the corner. For now, here are some changes we are making regarding Fish Traps.
(Someone please save us from the puns!)
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
Fish Traps started as an early-game building, largely because we didn't have fishing rods.
Now that we have fishing rods, this will be flipped around - Fish Traps will be disabled in the demo and instead the Fishing Post will be enabled (for rod fishing).
Fish Trap Changes
We didn't like that you had to move Fish Traps around to get the most out of them, So we have designed them to be a more expensive and more permanent thing that you can invest in for long term fish farming.
A big part of this is a new feature that lets you "chum" the waters near the fish trap to attract a fish circle. There are multiple tiers of chum to attract rarer fish circles, and multiple tiers of fish traps.
We also increased the range that they can use fishing circles (and they can now pull fish from multiple fishing circles), but we have also added a penalty when a fish trap is placed close to other fish traps.
Fish Traps are a long term investment, mostly passive, but can only catch small and medium fish.
Fishing Post (with rods)
The Fishing Post is an early game building, thought it remains useful throughout the game. There are multiple tiers of rods and bait, and it's tied to the fishing skill.
Fishing Posts are cheaper, not passive, very skill dependent, and can catch large fish.
Once the demo is updated you will get to try it out.
Balancing
There will no doubt be more balance required around these two systems, and the fish themselves, so be sure to give any feedback you have regarding this.
We have a demo update coming very soon, stay tuned! Heaps of QoL, balance changes, faster pacing, and a whole bunch of new automation features!
All of the above changes will be put through the paces as we will continue to make further improvements. Would love to hear what you think!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a few other things we are experimenting with, we should have more detail to share on these soon:
New automation features!
Changes to how upgrades work in the research tree
Changes to combat & related equipment
Changes to the temperature system and how heat sources work
Lots of QoL improvements
UI Improvements
On the translation front, we are still deciding the best way to handle localization. A lot of big titles went into Early Access as English Only and later added support for community translations (Raft, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, Satisfactory), so we may follow suit. With so much depth to the game there are a lot of objects and a lot of text, and we want the flexibility to make quick changes throughout the Early Access period.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can show us if you are interested in a language by:
Wishlisting the game (we see wishlists per region)
Let us know via forums/discord.
The number of wishlists and interest shown for each region heavily influences the languages we will localize into, and we will be considering whether community translations are a good fit for the game.
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
We like to ask players what game it reminds them of, and, "oh buoy", we have seen just about every game under the sun mentioned by now!
It's been really interesting to see what type of games players have brought up - obviously this depends a lot on which games payers have played in the past. In no particular order:
Don't Starve and Paper Mario (in relation to the art style).
Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, The Survivalist, Cult of the Lamb.
Raft (and open world survival crafting games in general).
The Flame in The Flood, Flotsam, Frostpunk & Sheltered.
A hint of Fallout/Fallout Shelter.
Monkey Island, The Sims, Craft the World, Clanfolk.
We knew there would be comparisons to similar looking games (like Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included), so we were extremely pleased to see players add comments to this comparison that Oceaneers is still very different and innovative, it's very much doing its own thing.
We are hard at work on the full game! Recently we have been improving crop farming, fishing rods and smelting metals - then tying all of the survival progression into the story/objective progression.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
I hope you are all enjoying the holiday period! We are still hard at work and wanted to get one more update out before we say goodbye to 2025.
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
You may have noticed some UI changes in our previous news, we have since made even further changes. This is still a work-in-progress and subject to change, so be sure to share any feedback!
In our previous iteration which was shared in our Discord server, we had simplified the character sheet UI and moved things to tabs. Throughout development we added more detail to the character sheet, and the amount of information shown at once was a little overwhelming (especially for new players). Moving to tabs allowed the information to be organized.
As noted by some players in Discord, this did mean they couldn't instantly see all of the information they wanted. This is always something we are cautious of, in particular for the information that you access a lot of the time.
The character needs are the most important information (especially conditions), so they are always shown. We did have "Equipment" on a tab, but we didn't love not being able to always see the equipment.
So we've rearranged the information and limited the tabs to the information you access least (skills, automation settings and log). This strikes a nice balance and gives us some flexibility in adding more information to tabs as we go.
Oh, part of the reason we needed more room was for the new equipment display, which shows a character silhouette. Yes, there is now a dedicated weapon slot!
You may have also noticed the new Walk Speed detail on the character sheet.
Previously walk speed was determined by conditions, but it was pretty inconsistent as some conditions would override others.
We've changed how this works and conditions can have a walk speed modifier shown on the tooltip (e.g. Exhausted will give -2 walk speed, and a food buff might give +1 walk speed).
The total is calculated which determines your current walk speed. If you reach the right side of your walk speed bar, your character shifts up a gear and moves faster. All the way to the left, and they will be walking around slowly, as though they are injured or in a bad mood, which, they probably are...
This new system gives some leeway with conditions, as -1 Walk speed will keep you in the "Normal" walk zone. It also allows you to clearly see the impact of food and items, so you can directly counter any negative conditions you might have.
All of the above changes will be put through the paces as we will continue to make further improvements. Would love to hear what you think!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are planning to update the demo at some point and bring all of the new changes across, however there are more changes we are testing and a few other QoL improvements before we do that.
Another reason we aren't rushing this out is that the demo update will not work with previous saves due to significant underlying changes, so if you want to finish your current demo playthrough you have plenty of time (we know some players have already put 10+ hours into the demo!).
The full game is being put through its paces with lots of testing, and we are going through and tweaking balance, pacing and even making some more significant changes to systems we aren't' 100% happy with. Here's a few other things we are experimenting with, we should have more detail to share on these soon:
Changes to how upgrades work in the research tree
Changes to combat & related equipment
Changes to the temperature system and how heat sources work
New automation features & improvements to existing features
Lots of QoL improvements
UI Improvements
On the translation front, we are still deciding the best way to handle localization. A lot of big titles went into Early Access as English Only and later added support for community translations (Raft, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, Satisfactory), so we may follow suit. With so much depth to the game there are a lot of objects and a lot of text, and we want the flexibility to make quick changes throughout the Early Access period.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can show us if you are interested in a language by:
Wishlisting the game (we see wishlists per region)
Let us know via forums/discord.
The number of wishlists and interest shown for each region heavily influences the languages we will localize into, and we will be considering whether community translations are a good fit for the game.
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
We like to ask players what game it reminds them of, and, "oh buoy", we have seen just about every game under the sun mentioned by now!
It's been really interesting to see what type of games players have brought up - obviously this depends a lot on which games payers have played in the past. In no particular order:
Don't Starve and Paper Mario (in relation to the art style).
Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, The Survivalist, Cult of the Lamb.
Raft (and open world survival crafting games in general).
The Flame in The Flood, Flotsam, Frostpunk & Sheltered.
A hint of Fallout/Fallout Shelter.
Monkey Island, The Sims, Craft the World, Clanfolk.
We knew there would be comparisons to similar looking games (like Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included), so we were extremely pleased to see players add comments to this comparison that Oceaneers is still very different and innovative, it's very much doing its own thing.
We are hard at work on the full game! Recently we have been improving crop farming, fishing rods and smelting metals - then tying all of the survival progression into the story/objective progression.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
We've been hard at work on Oceaneers, making lots of adjustments and improvements as we internally test the full game build.
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
If you've played the demo, you are likely already familiar with the research table requiring a character of a minimum Science level to do "Advanced Research".
We are now experimenting with skill mastery levels, and high tier cooking stations and crafting stations will require "Advanced Cooking" and "Advanced Crafting".
Characters must reach the mastery level in the appropriate skill and then use a training station to obtain the mastery level. You may have noticed characters studying and training at combat dummy's in the recent gameplay trailer. Once they complete training they gain the mastery level, AND get to choose a special skill trait.
Not all skills will have mastery levels (we will add it where it feels appropriate). Some skills like combat have two mastery levels so you gain two extra skill traits.
When combined with our character creator, equipable items and clothing this gives you a good amount of depth for customizing your character and making them specialists in their field.
Overall we love the scouting mechanic; it really plays into exploration and the excitement uncovering what's in the nearby sectors - but... we didn't love the pacing at the start to get to scouting. This added friction for new players, and just felt unnecessary for experienced players. So we're testing some changes.
There is only one tier of scout vessel, the new "Scout Glider", strap on your canoe shoes!
We are also experimenting with possible upgrades to the glider.
There is a new outpost vessel, the "Outpost Barge", that has nothing to do with scouting, but follows the Scout Glider on the research tere.
The game starts with an abandoned scout glider which works well with the story, and allows you to start scouting right away without the additional research or construction time.
We are planning to update the demo at some point and bring all of the new changes across, however there are more changes we are testing and a few other QoL improvements before we do that.
Another reason we aren't rushing this out is that the demo update will not work with previous saves due to significant underlying changes, so if you want to finish your current demo playthrough you have plenty of time (we know some players have already put 10+ hours into the demo!).
The full game is being put through its paces with lots of testing, and we are going through and tweaking balance, pacing and even making some more significant changes to systems we aren't' 100% happy with. Here's a few other things we are experimenting with, we should have more detail to share on these soon:
Changes to how upgrades work in the research tree
Changes to combat & related equipment
Changes to the temperature system and how heat sources work
New automation features & improvements to existing features
Lots of QoL improvements
UI Improvements
On the translation front, we are still deciding the best way to handle localization. A lot of big titles went into Early Access as English Only and later added support for community translations (Raft, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, Satisfactory), so we may follow suit. With so much depth to the game there are a lot of objects and a lot of text, and we want the flexibility to make quick changes throughout the Early Access period.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can show us if you are interested in a language by:
Wishlisting the game (we see wishlists per region)
Let us know via forums/discord.
The number of wishlists and interest shown for each region heavily influences the languages we will localize into, and we will be considering whether community translations are a good fit for the game.
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
We like to ask players what game it reminds them of, and, "oh buoy", we have seen just about every game under the sun mentioned by now!
It's been really interesting to see what type of games players have brought up - obviously this depends a lot on which games payers have played in the past. In no particular order:
Don't Starve and Paper Mario (in relation to the art style).
Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, The Survivalist, Cult of the Lamb.
Raft (and open world survival crafting games in general).
The Flame in The Flood, Flotsam, Frostpunk & Sheltered.
A hint of Fallout/Fallout Shelter.
Monkey Island, The Sims, Craft the World, Clanfolk.
We knew there would be comparisons to similar looking games (like Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included), so we were extremely pleased to see players add comments to this comparison that Oceaneers is still very different and innovative, it's very much doing its own thing.
We are hard at work on the full game! Recently we have been improving crop farming, fishing rods and smelting metals - then tying all of the survival progression into the story/objective progression.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
Hello survivors! Time for an update with some new features.
We've been hard at work testing more of the full-game features and re-working some existing system we have been working on. Let's dive straight in!
Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
We did an updated version of the gameplay trailer where you get a glimpse of some of the new things.
Build a Fishing Post, equip a Fishing Rod, choose your bait, and... hope for the best.
There are multiple tiers of bait and fishing rods that help determine which rarity of fish you catch and whether the character will succeed.
Fish are specific to different Ocean regions, so we also have upgrades you can toggle to try and catch fish that are not local to the current region you are in.
We are currently looking at ways to adjust the existing fishing trap system so that both of these methods to get your fish are unique.
A stable food supply is key to the progress of your colony. Your survivors are going to get pretty annoyed if you force them to live on reeds and charred mackerel forever.
Our crop planting system allows you to obtain seeds, plant and water them. Crops have ideal conditions, and unique to our world you will have to deal with salt content (some plants might even prefer it). This ties nicely into our sinking islands.
Once you have the right tools you can get seeds by digging up wild plants you find, though you may even come across some unique crops from traders or hidden in bunkers.
Skill up your characters to improve their skill specializations. The handy Study Nook can be upgraded with books you find as you progress. This allows you to skill up things like Science and Medicine - the better the book, the higher skill you can train to.
Perhaps you just want to work on your combat skills for improved seagull retaliation?! The Combat Training Dummy MKI is just the thing (warning, higher tier training aids may hit back).
You may have noticed some other things in the trailer, we won't go into the story aspects (spoilers!!), but there are a few new buildings and resources that you may be able to spot.
We will go into more detail on changes to existing systems in the next post, as this one is already long enough. But I'll do a quick mention:
Overall pacing has increased. and more resource density.
We are revisiting the scouting system so that it's quicker to start scouting.
We are revisiting expeditions so they are quicker (cargo has changed, expedition UI has changed, costs have changed, density of resources at expeditions increased).
We have overhauled aspects of procedural generation and how biomes generate.
The raft builder has changed, as has how raft speed is calculated and how island hauling works.
New occupations (Gastrophysisist and Captain).
Lots more automation has been planned.
We are planning to update the demo at some point.
Oh yeah... you may have notice a sneaky release window at the end of the trailer. This is subject to change, but we are currently on track for a Q2 release in 2026 (we are aiming for the start of Q2). If we need to delay it we will, but we aren't expecting to.
The game will be released into a relatively short Early Access period (we are not planning for multiple years of early access), we have a clear plan towards the 1.0 release.
Players have already commented on very positively on the quality and depth they have seen so far, and that only scratches the surface. For us, the Early Access period is to get players involved with shaping some aspects of the game and finding what is most fun for balance and features.
Translations
On the translation front, we are still deciding the best way to handle localization. A lot of big titles went into Early Access as English Only and later added support for community translations (Raft, Subnautica, Oxygen Not Included, RimWorld, Satisfactory), so we may follow suit. With so much depth to the game there are a lot of objects and a lot of text, and we want the flexibility to make quick changes throughout the Early Access period.
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We are planning to add more languages further into development. The game text is still evolving and we made the decision to keep it English only for now to allow us to focus on faster development and updates. In addition to this, the game has a pretty quirky and sometimes comedic tone (with the occasional pop culture reference), which adds some challenge to localization.
You can show us if you are interested in a language by:
Wishlisting the game (we see wishlists per region)
Let us know via forums/discord.
The number of wishlists and interest shown for each region heavily influences the languages we will localize into, and we will be considering whether community translations are a good fit for the game.
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
We like to ask players what game it reminds them of, and, "oh buoy", we have seen just about every game under the sun mentioned by now!
It's been really interesting to see what type of games players have brought up - obviously this depends a lot on which games payers have played in the past. In no particular order:
Don't Starve and Paper Mario (in relation to the art style).
Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, The Survivalist, Cult of the Lamb.
Raft (and open world survival crafting games in general).
The Flame in The Flood, Flotsam, Frostpunk & Sheltered.
A hint of Fallout/Fallout Shelter.
Monkey Island, The Sims, Craft the World, Clanfolk.
We knew there would be comparisons to similar looking games (like Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included), so we were extremely pleased to see players add comments to this comparison that Oceaneers is still very different and innovative, it's very much doing its own thing.
We are hard at work on the full game! Recently we have been improving crop farming, fishing rods and smelting metals - then tying all of the survival progression into the story/objective progression.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
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Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
Huge thanks to everyone that has tried the game, it's been amazing, and we have received really great feedback! The key takeaway from the demo is that players are really enjoying the game, but pacing is a bit too slow. Which is great news, as we already have plans to speed up pacing.
Below are some notes on our plans, and also some of the amusing stats we have on playthroughs. Just a quick reminder, the best way you can currently support the game is:
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
Firstly,.. Yes! We will be speeding up the pacing of the game. In feedback players said either "pacing is fine" or "pacing is too slow", no one has said it's "too fast". This means we need to speed it up! We came to the same conclusion already while testing the full game and have started tweaking things there.
Secondly, we are planning significantly more (optional) automation in the game for those that want to fiddle with all the dials. This all needs to work on top of the direct control you have over characters, as players love that aspect. Lot's planned here, stay tuned.
Everything is on track and headed in the right direction, we have a heap of players really looking forward to full release which we have been hard at work on. It's been fun implementing and testing the new features that no one has seen yet (fishing, crops, smelting), as well as expanding the later stages of the game. The demo really does only scratch the surface! (But, that's kinda the point of a demo).
We are happy with the demo at the moment, though once we have tuned pacing more, we will roll out an update for the demo.
Here's an infographic of some stats!
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We are planning to add more languages further into development. The game text is still evolving and we made the decision to keep it English only for now to allow us to focus on faster development and updates. In addition to this, the game has a pretty quirky and sometimes comedic tone (with the occasional pop culture reference), which adds some challenge to localization.
You can show us if you are interested in a language by:
Wishlisting the game (we see wishlists per region)
Let us know via forums/discord.
The number of wishlists and interest shown for each region heavily influences the languages we will localize into.
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development (and we have our Steam Deck ready to test!)
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
We like to ask players what game it reminds them of, and, "oh buoy", we have seen just about every game under the sun mentioned by now!
It's been really interesting to see what type of games players have brought up - obviously this depends a lot on which games payers have played in the past. In no particular order:
Don't Starve and Paper Mario (in relation to the art style).
Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, The Survivalist, Cult of the Lamb.
Raft (and open world survival crafting games in general).
The Flame in The Flood, Flotsam, Frostpunk & Sheltered.
A hint of Fallout/Fallout Shelter.
Monkey Island, The Sims, Craft the World, Clanfolk.
We knew there would be comparisons to similar looking games (like Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included), so we were extremely pleased to see players add comments to this comparison that Oceaneers is still very different and innovative, it's very much doing its own thing.
We are hard at work on the full game! Recently we have been improving crop farming, fishing rods and smelting metals - then tying all of the survival progression into the story/objective progression.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
As developers we want the game to be a fun experience with good value. Features in the game are subject to change and your feedback can effect this. It's important to know the parts you enjoy as much as the parts you don't, so please make a post in the forum and let us know!
Wishlist it.
Let your favorite YouTuber/Streamer know about the game.
Important: If it's shown in the objectives, you CAN do it in the demo!
A "speed run" of the demo (bare minimum to reach the end) is around 1.5 hours. Some players have already spent 4-20+ hours in the demo by researching and building everything available.
The game is part survival-crafting, part colony-sim. If you like either of those genres there is a good chance you will enjoy this (players that don't play many colony-sims have enjoyed Oceaneers due to the direct control over characters).
The demo is what we consider the "Normal" difficulty of the game. In the full game you will have control over various aspects, including whether characters can perish or leave your group.
The demo allows you to play the first part of the story, which progresses through important mechanics such as expeditions and resurfacing islands.
You will get to see a large part of the research tree and even research a good number of buildings in the demo (if it doesn't have a demo lock you CAN research it). The full game research tree will include even more than what is shown.
You can recruit one additional survivor in the demo, unlike the full game which will have many more.
You can send expeditions to a few sectors. The full game takes place in the entire region and beyond into other regions.
Overall, the demo lets you experience what the gameplay feels like. The full game has much more content and features you would expect from this type of game (farming, fishing rods, smelting etc), as well as plenty of features you don't typically see in this type of game (bunkers, story progression etc).
We are planning to add more languages further into development. The game text is still evolving and we made the decision to keep it English only for now to allow us to focus on faster development and updates. In addition to this, the game has a pretty quirky and sometimes comedic tone (with the occasional pop culture reference), which adds some challenge to localization.
You can show us if you are interested in a language by:
Wishlisting the game (we see wishlists per region)
Let us know via forums/discord.
The number of wishlists and interest shown for each region heavily influences the languages we will localize into.
Some players have already played on the Steam Deck, but we don't have official support just yet. We do plan to have it fully playable on the Steam Deck further into development.
Controller support is challenging for this type of game that has this much depth, and we don't want the gameplay to be limited by controller inputs. Our plan is to look into this once we have all of our features in to see what is possible. We have good experience implementing controllers and it is on our mind during development, but we are also aware of the limitations.
Please report them! Whether it's a typo or something more significant please let us know via the forums or via Discord.
This genre of game naturally comes with a lot of freedom, and this includes freedom to make mistakes (e.g. not building water production for your colony). Figuring things out is a big part of the fun for these types of games!
Having said that, if you struggle to survive you can follow the progression guide shown on the side of the screen and there is a bunch of tutorials in the handbook.
There is a lot of depth in the game and we already have a heap of tutorials shown in the handbook. We do have more tutorials planned so if you find something is not explained well enough or are still confused about anything, be sure to let us know.
We like to ask players what game it reminds them of, and, "oh buoy", we have seen just about every game under the sun mentioned by now!
It's been really interesting to see what type of games players have brought up - obviously this depends a lot on which games payers have played in the past. In no particular order:
Don't Starve and Paper Mario (in relation to the art style).
Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, The Survivalist, Cult of the Lamb.
Raft (and open world survival crafting games in general).
The Flame in The Flood, Flotsam, Frostpunk & Sheltered.
A hint of Fallout/Fallout Shelter.
Monkey Island, The Sims, Craft the World, Clanfolk.
We knew there would be comparisons to similar looking games (like Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included), so we were extremely pleased to see players add comments to this comparison that Oceaneers is still very different and innovative, it's very much doing its own thing.
We are hard at work on the full game! Recently we have been improving crop farming, fishing rods and smelting metals - then tying all of the survival progression into the story/objective progression.
Our community is growing, and everyone has been amazing and really friendly. Come chat with the devs and other players in our Discord
If you encounter any bugs, or would love to discuss features please do so via the Steam forums or our Discord. It's really helpful to know about the parts of the game you enjoy, as well as anything you don't.
You can also check discord for a list of known bugs, community suggestions and upcoming plans!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our discord to discuss the game and share your ideas! Join discord here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recent Dev Diaries in case you missed them:
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Oceaneers, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Oceaneers statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.