Salt 2 News

This patch contains some fixes, balance adjustments, and quality of life improvements.

One large focus of this update was to change to the way the game saves data. The purpose of this was to try to address an issue where the game would sometimes not read the save file properly. Additionally, it reduces the size of the save files and makes the save system a little more robust for future updates. If you notice anything about your save did not load properly after this update, please let us know on the Steam forums, or through an in-game bug report.


[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Updated the way the game saves data. This reduces the size of save files, and potentially addresses an issue where the game temporarily fails to read save files.
  
• Crafting stations on your ship now take into account items in your ship storage. Crafting stations that are not on your ship will not.
  
• You can now inspect some things in the world to glean more information about the lore and history surrounding it. Higher skill levels in different skills will unlock additional information you can learn about these objects.
  
• Small pirate islands now have slightly different foliage colors from natural islands to differentiate them better.
  
• Large natural islands are now more mountainous.
  
• Added remove all decorations option when inspection ship items. This will remove all objects that you have placed on that ship and put them back in your inventory.
  
• The reticle is now hidden when in ship storage and count selection.
  
• You can now split stacks when transferring items to and from your ship storage.
  
• Added buttons to count selection interface.
  
• Fixed stackable items indicating they are new when some of the stack is transferred to another container.
  
• Fixed there not being enough inventory pages to display all of your items if you had more than 9 pages worth in both normal inventory and ship storage interface.
  
• Added an option to change the appearance of the reticle.
  
• Slightly reduced the volume of the lavaboots logo splash screen.
  
• Combat skills such as Slashing, Bludgeoning, etc. now gain more xp when you fight higher level enemies.
  
• Fixed heals being treated as critical hits.
  
• Fixed skill levels not capping at level 50.
  
• Removed heavy armor skill for now since it is not being used, and renamed light armor skill to "Armor".
  
• If an island that you marked on your map previously is no longer valid (due to world changes with updates), the icon will automatically be removed.
  
• Fixed bug where things would not respawn properly.
  
• Merchant inventories will now refresh after an hour.
  
• Disabled collision with fox corpses.
  
• Fixed some typos.
  
• Fixed merchant coin interface not scaling right with different resolutions.
  
• Made it easier to pick up items on top of dressers.
  
• A cure poison potion can now be found and crafted.
  
• Increased the drop rate of staves.
  
• Cheese and potatoes no longer spoil as quickly.
  
• Lowered the recipe requirements for some basic weapon recipes.
  
• Increased the chance for rare crafting mats to drop at higher levels.
  
• Grizzly bears can now spawn on natural islands.
  
• Added a destroy button when inspecting items.
  
• Adjusted lockpick recipe requirements.
  
• You can now find job boards at lone merchants and guild headquarters.
  
• Fixed an issue with hammer weapons not awarding bludgeoning experience.
  
• Increased experience gained for blacksmithing, cooking, woodworking, and tailoring.
  
• Added a maximum amount of time that can occur when fishing before catching a fish.
  
• Fixed typos.
  
• Fixed some rare weapon effects not occurring.
  
• Increased mining experience gained from silver and gold ores.
  
• Autosave no longer occurs immediately after entering the game.
  
• Fixed axe master talent affecting swords instead of axes.
  
• Silver ore is now a little more likely to spawn at world tier 3+
  
• Increased fishing experience gained.
  
• Increases bludgeoning, slashing, piercing, and archery experience gained.
  
• Ghosts can now only spawn at night.
  
• Fixed an issue that would rarely cause an infinite loading screen.
  
• Fixed longer NPC names not displaying correctly.
  
• Improved stats on some world boss gear.
  
• Added open player log button in bug report window.
  
• Added announcements section in main menu.
  
• Fixed torch holder ship decoration sound not affected by volume settings.
  
• Blood decals no longer project on Hammer handheld models and pirate crowns.
  
• Local backup save files are no longer created if have not created any saves.
  

Ahoy mateys!

Today I wanted to give you a preview of what's to come in the next patch we are calling The Marshland Update. We expect this update to be out within the next few weeks and can't wait for you to try out the new content.

Also, today we've pushed a new update to the beta branch which includes some save changes to hopefully address issues with the game rarely not loading a save, balancing changes, and visual changes to some islands to make them more distinct from one another. That update will be out soon but if you want to test it or read the patch notes, you can do so here.

Here's a look at what's coming in The Marshlands Update.

[h2]Brand New Island: The Marshlands[/h2]



In our next update we're introducing a new island complete with new atmosphere, points of interest, loot, and enemies. Just in time for Halloween, you'll be able to occasionally come across a foggy island out at sea called The Marshlands. This island has low visibility and is crawling with spiders and skeletons. Rumor also has it a rare enemy known as The Spider Queen can be found wandering these islands.





With this island type will also come new dungeons, quest, loot, and resources. If you've played Salt 1, you'll be happy to see the return of the Moonrock Ore Vein out in the wild. This rare ore glows under the moonlight and provides moonrock as a resource. We've added new recipes in this update for weapons and other items that can be crafted with moonrock.



[h2]New island Visuals[/h2]


Another new change we have made is adjusted the visuals of some islands already in the game. We've changed the color palette and terrain formation of pirate islands to make them a bit different from natural islands. We've also made Seaport islands more open and flat, and large islands are now much more mountainous with high peaks and valleys.



We'll have more info soon on when you expect this update to be out. Thanks for reading!

Hey everyone! We have received a lot of very helpful feedback during the first week of Early Access. We greatly appreciate you all taking the time to let us know about bugs you've run into, what you find fun and not fun, and what you'd like to see as development continues.

As you play, please keep the feedback coming as it helps us to find issues, and prioritize what we need to work on for upcoming updates.

This update primarily focuses on bug fixes and balancing tweaks, with some additional content sprinkled in. As we get early bugs squashed, we will start to be able to focus more effort on adding missing content such as more map features, talents, and ship models.

One of the more annoying issues that some people have encountered is saves temporarily not loading. If this happens to you, You can find discussion and possible solutions in this thread. This update has some changes to address a potential cause of it, but it's something we are still investigating.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added some extra error handling to hopefully address an issue where some players would not be able to load their saves.
  
• Added descriptions on ships and ship recipes about what base model it uses.
  
• Fixed some of the non-60 target frame-rate options targeting 60 instead of what they are supposed to.
  
• Fixed arrows going through stuff they shouldn't.
  
• You are no longer required to be crouched to land a sneak attack as long as you are undetected.
  
• Added a message when your num lock is on and try to rebind something to an arrow key (until we fix the underlying issue).
  
• You are now more likely to find mining ores at your level on natural islands.
  
• Music now occurs more frequently.
  
• You are no longer required to talk to the Cartographer after buying your crafting stations for the New Craftsman quest in order to complete the quest.
  
• Ancient moss and ancient stone shards now drop more frequently.
  
• The Spirit Blade now does more damage.
  
• Reduced the crafting requirements for ingots.
  
• Reduced the consume chance on some lures.
  
• Increased the amount of food you get from some items.
  
• Fixed an issue with some items being able to be looted in cartographer shops even though they weren't supposed to be.
  
• Fixed an issue with the "New Remedy" quest awarding more money than it was supposed to.
  
• Fixed some typos.
  
• Fixed resetting to default settings not affecting certain settings.
  
• Added help menu section explaining the different types of coins.
  
• Added tutorial popup about coins after you get your first silver.
  
• Fixed target frame-rate drop down selection not updating correctly when you reset to default.
  
• Fixed ship wheel rotation being frame-rate dependent.
  
• Added view recent patch notes button in main menu.
  
• Fixed time not pausing in escape menu if you had previously played and quit to the main menu.
  
• Fixed a bug with clams dropping multiple pearls at once.
  
• Added new ship decoration items.
  
• Reduced the amount of plant fibers required to make arrows and plant oil.
  
• Increased the difficulty of the Skeleton Warlord and Old Tree Guardian Boss.
  
• You can now loot tankards.
  
• You can now read closed books.
  
• Reduced the distance at which some islands can start spawning. Note this means some islands will change types and you may find yourself on a different looking island than when you last played, or potentially under the island geometry. You can swim out or use the return to ship feature in the escape menu if this happens. Your in-game map items will update automatically to reflect new POI locations.
  
• Ships now have increased speed based on their rarity. You can view a ship's speed in the inspection pop up window.
  
• Increased how quickly you level up early in the game.
  
• Increased the amount of experience you get from quests.
  
• Added a Guide NPC to Seaports that offers helpful advice.
  
• Added a quest tutorial popup the first time you interact with a job board quest.
  
• Updated the description on some new ship recipes and lowered their cost.
  
• Reduced the cost of the mailbox ship upgrade item.
  
• Added a "Map Buttons" element on the map UI to make it more obvious you can click the buttons.
  
• Reduced the frequency of pirate and merchant idle sounds.
  
• Increased the amount of healing you get from strong health potions.
  
• Increased the interaction distance on some items.
  
• Increased the amount of mining ores you can find on islands.
  
• Arrows now only require one flint to craft instead of two.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Draught of Vitality potion not having a cooldown.
  
• Fixed an issue with the sleeping bag ship decoration item defaulting to the retrieve action instead of the sleep action.
  
• Fixed an issue with ship decoration candles slightly floating.
  
• Fixed an issue with some pots not being lootable in loot caves.
  
• Updated some caves that were similar to each other to now look a bit different.
  
• Added some rare items to early loot drops.
  
• Improved Warlord's Cleaver stats.
  
• Fixed issue where the force small waves option was not saving.
  
• Updated formatting on load local backup file names displayed in game.
  
• Fixed being able to sneak attack rocks.
  
• Added 60 fps limit to lavaboots logo scene, hopefully to help address some crashes on startup.
  

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Increased damage on basic bows.
  
• Improved the audio quality of the equip sound for the nebula cutlass and spirit blade cutlass.
  
• The home island bear is now a bit more difficult to kill.
  
• Mining ores now have colliders.
  
• You are now less likely to get stuck on stalagmites.
  
• Fixed an issue with the "Drinking Games" quest loot not dropping.
  
• Fixed visual issues in some points of interest.
  
• Fixed some areas in caves you could get stuck in.
  
• Fixed some typos.
  
• Added target frame rate option, which defaults to 60fps in order to help with some heat issues some players were experiencing.
  
• Ship storage now defaults to the all tab.
  
• Fixed "Open in Explorer" button not working in the Restore Save File interface.
  
• Loot and loot all rebindings are now tied to the interact rebinding and fixed it not saving correctly. You may have to rebind your interact key again to get this to work properly if you have previously rebound it.
  
• Fixed interaction rebind not changing the binding for interacting with items in your inventory.
  
• Added tutorial popup when you interact with your ship storage for the first time.
  
• Fixed move rebindings not affecting ship steering and moving while placing an object.
  
• Unequip item sound is now affected by volume settings.
  
• Recipe learned sound is now affected by volume settings.
  

Note if you have previously rebound some key

Also, thanks to everyone who has and continues to take the time to provide us with bug reports and feedback. It is extremely helpful for us to prioritize both fixes and the next content/features that we work on.

Ahoy mateys!

Salt 2 is now available on Steam Early Access. We've been working on this game for over two and a half years and we are so happy to finally have it out. First, we want to say a big thank you to everyone that has helped us test the game over the last few months and to everyone who supported us during our Kickstarter campaign. We are so excited for the future of Salt 2 and have a lot of good updates planned.

Here's a quick look at just a few planned features on our roadmap which you can also view in-game. Of course a huge part of what we add in the game will be based on your feedback and what you'd like to see.

If you encounter any bugs in the game, you can use the in-game bug reporting tool, or you can report them on the Steam discussion forums.

Also, feel free to hop on over to our Discord and chat with other players, provide suggestions, or ask us questions! Thank you all so much and we look forward to seeing you on the high seas!

Current Planned Features:

• More Ships
  
• Additional map features
  
• Talents for skill trees
  
• Talents for your player when you level up
  
• Cooperative multiplayer
  
• Visible player avatar
  
• More island types, quests, loot, and world bosses
  
• Underwater content
  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1574900/Salt_2_Shores_of_Gold/