Salt 2 News

[h3]Sea Fortresses[/h3]
Ancient fortresses dot the seascape, inhabited by pirates and undead. Who originally built them is a mystery mostly lost to time. Gain access to, and explore four variations of fortress dungeons. Note that the addition of these will change the island distribution slightly, meaning it is possible the island you last quit the game on will have changed.

[h3]Visible Avatar[/h3]
You can now select an avatar when creating a new game, which can be viewed in the equipment window. Your appearance can be customized afterwards by interacting with a mirror. These can be found throughout the world, or you can obtain one to place on your ship.

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Added sea fortress islands.
  
• Added visible player avatar in the equipment window. You can set your appearance when starting a new game or by interacting with a mirror in the world.
  
• Added new merchant NPC ships that can be found at sea.
  
• Improved some translations.
  
• Added a hotkey to unequip items from the equipment window.
  
• Holding space bar while hovering over a salvageable item in the inventory will now salvage instead of destroy it.
  
• Added a setting to bypass the confirmation window when destroying and salvaging items.
  
• Added weight loads that some unique talents can take advantage of.
  
• Fixed some inconsistencies in quest texts.
  
• Added level and max level information in the stats window.
  
• Increased the chance for the Queen's Emissary Spider to drop an adventurer's key.
  
• Fixed not being able to leave Hunter merchant dialogue without going through his shop menu.
  
• Increased the duration of some basic meal buffs.
  
• Fixed some exploits in caves and dungeons where you could get out of the level bounds.
  
• Fixed some visual issues in caves.
  
• Added the Ship Supplier merchant to some more POIs.
  
• Fixed not being able to enter the world if crashed for forced quit before a new game had a chance to save.
  
• Deleted save files now save immediately that they are deleted.
  
• Added light and handheld slots to the equipment screen.
  
• Fixed siren's signet item name.
  
• Added subtle camera animation when equipping handheld items.
  
• Fixed an issue where some wood saplings were respawning every time you entered and exited a cave.
  
• Fixed name of coral chest.
  
• Fixed the name of a number of different chests improperly showing as "Storage Chest"
  
• Fixed missing confirmation text when abandoning a quest.
  
• Fixed motion blur setting not being respected in a number of caves and dungeons.
  
• Fixed Master Craftsman achievement requiring the wrong skills to be maxed.
  
• The description on ink items that indicate you have already added that color to your collection is now red, similar to already known recipes.
  
• Fixed executioner weapon talent not being reflected in the item description.
  

Our latest update is now on the beta branch! This update includes a brand new point of interest: The Sea Fortress. These fortresses can be found scattered across the world and have multiple massive dungeons beneath them for you to explore. We've also added in a character avatar system so you can now customize your character and see what you look like in the equipment screen Note that if you already have a character created, you'll need to find a mirror in the world (often at outfitter or merchant shops) and interact with it to update your appearance.

In addition to that, we've implemented multiple bug fixes and balancing changes. Behind the scenes we are also continually working on multiplayer and will have some more updates on that soon.

If you'd like to opt into the Steam Beta branch and help us test the update before public release, you can find instructions on how to do so here.


[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

• Added sea fortress islands.
  
• Added visible player avatar in the inventory window. You can set your appearance when starting a new game or by interacting with a mirror in the world.
  
• Improved some translations.
  
• Added a hotkey to unequip items from the equipment window.
  
• Fixed some inconsistencies in quest texts.
  
• Added level and max level information in the stats window.
  
• Increased the chance for the Queen's Emissary Spider to drop an adventurer's key.
  
• Moonrock ore now continues to glow after being broken.
  
• Fixed not being able to leave Hunter merchant dialogue without going through his ship menu.
  
• Increased the duration of some basic meal buffs.
  
• Fixed some exploits in caves and dungeons where you could get out of the level bounds.
  
• Fixed some visual issues in caves.
  
• Added the Ship Supplier merchant to some more POIs.
  
• Fixed not being able to enter the world if crashed for forced quit before a new game had a chance to save.
  
• Deleted save files now save immediately that they are deleted.
  
• Added light and handheld slots to the equipment screen.
  
• Fixed siren's signet item name.
  
• Added subtle camera animation when equipping handheld items.
  
• Fixed an issue where some wood saplings were respawning every time you entered and exited a cave.
  
• Fixed name of coral chest.
  
• Fixed the name of a number of different chests improperly showing as "Storage Chest"
  
• Fixed missing confirmation text when abandoning a quest.
  
• Fixed motion blur setting not being respected in a number of caves and dungeons.
  
• Fixed Master Craftsman achievement requiring the wrong skills to be maxed.
  
• Increased how often you can find NPC ships at sea.
  

Today we wanted to give you a brief look at what content you can expect in the next update. We plan to release this update to the beta branch hopefully within 3 to 4 weeks.


[h2]Sea Fortress[/h2]



This update will include a brand new point of interest to find: the Sea Fortress. This fortress is a multi-level dungeon that's built and inspired by a more grid-like medieval style dungeon, rather than the more natural caves you can find currently. You'll have to fight your way through multiple dungeon levels avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and killing difficult enemies. At the end you'll be challenged with a boss fight and some unique loot. There will also be multiple variations of this fortress to discover with different enemy types and layouts.


[h2]Character Avatar[/h2]



We're also happy to announce that you'll now be able to create and customize a character when making a new game and by visiting an NPC in-game or buying a mirror for your ship. You'll also be able to see your character in the equipment screen, along with gear you have equipped such as your hat, tunic, boots, and your weapon.


[h2]New Quests, Loot, and Bug Fixes[/h2]



As with most updates, this patch will also include new quests, loot, and bug fixes. We are also consistently making balancing changes to things like level/skill progression, loot rarities, difficulty, and other gameplay elements based on your feedback.


[h2]Co-op Progress[/h2]



We're happy to report co-op is moving along great and we've recently hit some major milestones, bringing cooperative play closer than ever. We're still in the stage of early internal testing but hope to get it ready for beta testing soon. We'll have a better update on when you can expect that within the next few months.


As always we'd love to hear your feedback and hope to see you on the high seas!

While additional content will continue to come your way separate from multiplayer, its addition is the next major milestone for us on the tech side of development. I’d like to briefly go over our plans for multiplayer, what it will look like, what is already implemented, and what work remains to be done.


[h2]What Will Multiplayer Look Like in Salt 2[/h2]
Those of you that have played the first Salt game will already have a good idea of what to expect. The purpose of multiplayer in Salt 2 is to provide a way to share in the adventure with others. This is intended to be the same game experience as single-player mode, but with the addition of your friends.

Games will be player-hosted and have no dedicated servers. You will be able to start a party in the game and invite others through either your Steam friends list or by join code. You can join others on your current save file or you can create a new save file, as long as everyone is using the same world seed. Your progress, whether playing as the host or not, will be saved locally just like in single player mode. This means you can alternate between single player and co-op as much as you please without having to create a new game.

The maximum number of players in a single party will be subject to testing. However, the general idea is to design around having 2 to 4 players.

Our goal is to make the game tailored to the single player / co-op experience. As such, we will not be focusing on player-vs-player mechanics. It is possible we will add a way to allow damage to other players, but you should not expect any complicated modes or other similar content built around that playstyle.


[h2]Progress So Far and What is Left[/h2]
For a while now, we have been making progress on multiplayer implementation in the midst of our other updates. Many of the core features have already been implemented: such as basic syncing of characters in the world, combat, scene transitions, effects, boats, and many more.

What remains are a few major tasks and many smaller ones. For example, character avatar visuals and handling of situations like character disconnections are some of the larger tasks on the to-do list. Additionally, numerous smaller details need to be synced properly across the network, such as boss fights with special mechanics and the various puzzles scattered throughout the world.

Lastly, there is testing and fixing any issues that arise.


[h2]When Will Multiplayer Release?[/h2]
While we still don’t have a specific date, the current state of multiplayer in our internal testing is increasingly playable. It is possible we will have an incomplete yet playable version available by the end of the year, but it could be longer depending on how smooth things go. Like a lot of our updates, multiplayer will likely first go through a lengthy opt-in test stage (probably a specific test branch on Steam) so we can get help from the community to iron out balancing issues and bugs we may have missed before doing an official public release of the update.

We are still working on more content updates that will be released between now and the multiplayer update. During these updates we will also let you know about progress on multiplayer and as soon as we are confident about an ETA on the testing stage, we will let you know.

We really appreciate your support and patience through the multiplayer process.


[h2]Insight into Implementing Multiplayer Later[/h2]
One question that has arisen multiple times is why multiplayer wasn’t implemented from the beginning. Starting with multiplayer is definitely optimal and we hope to do that in future projects. In our case, it was a financial decision. Implementing multiplayer from the start would have required significant additional work, which would have delayed our Early Access release substantially. We needed to ensure that we reached a release stage quickly enough so that both of us could continue to work on the project full-time.


We look forward to bringing you more content updates and progress updates for multiplayer in the future. Thanks for reading!

A new island type has been added to the world. Village islands contain small villages, many with new quests to embark on. Note that your map will change slightly as the addition of new island types changes the procedural island distribution.



Two new handheld items have been added: Throwing knives and bombs. Throwing knives have a natural boost in damage to enemies that are unaware of you. Bombs deal damage in an area so they can be very useful if enemies happen to be close to each other. But don't get too close yourself!

Throwing also comes with its own skill and skill tree that you can customize as you get better at throwing.



We have received many requests to translate the game into various languages so this is a large task that we really want to accomplish during Early Access. The translations are still a work in progress so it is likely that some of them are grammatically incorrect, or that we missed some things. If you notice any of these issues while playing, please use the in-game bug report to let us know about it.

For now, it will not auto-detect your Steam language setting, so in order to change languages, you will have to go into interface tab of the in-game settings to change to your desired language.


[h3]Additional Languages:[/h3]

• Chinese (Simplified)
  
• French
  
• German
  
• Italian
  
• Portuguese (Brazil)
  
• Russian
  
• Spanish (Latin America)
  
• Spanish (Spain)
  

On the tech side of things, multiplayer is the number one priority to get finished, so we'll be working on that to get it to you as soon as we can. There is still no ETA on its completion.



Below is the list of changes for this update.

[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added village islands with new quests to complete.
  
• Added localization. Available languages now include: French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), Russian, and Chinese (Simplified).
  
• Added throwing knife and bomb items and a new throwing skill and talent tree.
  
• Added female models.
  
• Removed randomized prefixes to item names (these didn't work well with localization).
  
• You can now lock the ship wheel in its position if you don't want it to automatically recenter.
  
• Added explosive gunpowder kegs to some campsites and caves.
  
• Added some new talents that can appear on armor and weapon items.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed not being able to craft candle stand and piano at cartographer's station.
  
• Fixed raft turning in mad king's shipwreck.
  
• Fixed Witch Doctor Staff material receiving decals.
  
• Slightly increased the drop rate of Sandstone and reduced the sandstone requirement in sandpaper from 2 to 1
  
• If you have the required materials to craft an item but not the required level, the UI will now indicate that your level is insufficient.
  
• Adjusted herbalism experience so that it doesn't slow down as much based on world tier.
  
• Fixed Veiled Dagger doing slashing instead of piercing damage.
  
• Fixed flare text on gold shovel recipe still calling it a platinum shovel.
  
• Increased woodworking xp gained.
  
• Slightly increased journal font size.
  
• Fixed some UI formatting issues in the Help and Library interfaces for different resolutions.
  
• Loot bags will now appear even if you die and respawn in the same zone.
  
• Fixed weapon swing particles getting stuck on when collecting items during the swing.
  
• Slightly reduced the amount of plant fibers required in some recipes.
  
• Improved wording on some weapon effect descriptions to better indicate who the effect applies to.
  
• Fixed an issue where creating a new game immediately after exiting an old game could spawn you in the wrong position.
  
• Fixed shifting inventory pages when attempting to hotkey an item on gamepad.
  
• Added a pop-up message when you are encumbered.
  
• Fixed places in caves where you can get stuck.
  
• Improved DualSense and DualShock controller support.
  
• Fixed Fire Festivities quest requiring the wrong amount of charcoal.
  
• Merchants no longer have a finite amount of money.
  
• Food that merchants sell now will generally be more fresh. Merchants reset the rotten timer on their food when they spawn.
  
• Fixed typos.