Aloft News

[h3]BUG FIXES[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Melee swing wont trigger leap attacks by default
  
• The leviathan will snap to the right position when flying out of bounds
  
• Fixed snapping issues with wood shingle roof inverted triangle piece
  
• Fixed an issue where the keyboard of UI elements was displaced
  
• Removed the place-holder firefly geo until we have the proper rig
  
• Replaced the plant diversity icons (Emerald Isles and some for Fallen Heights)
  
• Removed unused empty “in construction” states from Trellis construction pieces within the Island Creator
  
• Fixed issue with Opal beam having placeholder material when placed in the Island Creator
  
• The vivariums and habitats can now be unlocked properly
  
• The variants of the Emerald Isle perched tree vivarium are now behaving correctly
  
• Potential Fix: Players can sometimes get stuck in an Infinite loading screen when creating Multiplayer Sessions

[h3]CHANGES THAT WILL ONLY APPLY TO A NEW WORLD[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Amended: New exploration challenges have a chance to spawn on all medium to large Emerald Isle islands.
  
  • Rare resource spawns and animals have been added as challenge rewards
• Fixed an issue where starting cluster chests would appear outside of the starting cluster (which led to disappointing loot)

[h3]KNOWN ISSUES[/h3] [hr][/hr] MAJOR

• Reishi and animals disappearing from player’s Personal Homes
  
• Crashes / file corruption
  
• Potential memory leak that persists through sessions
  
• Some actions are not triggering the Steam achievement

MINOR

• Unlocking the Red Cliffs Habitats also unlocks the Red Cliffs Vivariums
  
• Bats don’t spawn properly. They can be found on terrain instead of their normal habitat
  
• The order in which you unlock the vivariums in a preexisting game doesn’t align correctly with player progression
  
• The difference between what the habitats and vivariums do is not clear enough

[h3]UPCOMING ANIMATION IMPROVEMENTS[/h3] [hr][/hr] List of animations that will come in future patches:

• Bird and bat eating in your hands
  
• Critter interaction in hands (1x per critter)
  
• Critters idle in their habitats (bird house, burrow, etc)
  
• Bat idle on ground
  
• Many idle breaks (bird, jerboa, bat, bugs)
  
• Movement animations while holding critter (jump, run, slide, etc)
  
• Bat wings visual fix
  
• Bird Feed holding position fix
  
• General animation polish

Ahoy, Sky Sailors!

Our first major update is now available!

Say hello to your new best friends in the sky – Critters! In today’s update, the world of Aloft welcomes new life. Take a look at our video showcase below:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Collect all the critters! 🦇🐸 [/h2]

Starting today, critters can be found scattered across the world of Aloft. Bees, butterflies, bats, frogs, lizards – you name it. Pick them up to look at their beauty up-close! These little fellas are key to a healthy ecosystem, and that’s where you come in.

Catch them (carefully!) on any island using the net or lure them with feed in order to bring them with you on your journey across the sky. Wherever they live, the ecosystem benefits so make sure to introduce them to new environments – the more, the merrier! You can even spoil critters by building fancy vivariums for them on your home base.

Players can also build landing pads to ensure animals land safely after sending them home. Additionally, animal bells can be placed to call all or a specific group of animals back to their pen or enclosure – perfect for shear or meal time!

Critters come in all shapes, colours, and rarities – so be on the lookout for unique and uncommon patterns!

[h2]Wonder Islands 💭 [/h2]

During your travels, you may now come across a new kind of island in the sky, called Wonder Islands. These islands are fixed in the world and always offer a unique reward or discovery.

In today’s update, we’ve added two Wonder Islands. Explore them to uncover mysterious ruins, rare treasure, and other secrets. We look forward to adding more of these diverse islands in the future, filling the sky with unique experiences.

[h2]Shared Homes 🤝 [/h2]

After listening to community feedback, we've decided to offer players an easier way to collaborate together on a single island. Now, when placing a Home Kite, you can choose to create either a Personal Home or a Shared Home. Shared Homes allow all players in a multiplayer session to cooperate, build, and teleport to their Shared Home without requiring permissions.

Shared Homes are world-bound, so they cannot be spawned in/out (for now). If you’d like to revert a Shared Home back to a Personal Home later, you can do that too.



For the full list of changes, including a number of quality-of-life, server, and performance improvements, you can check out the changelog here. We want to express our gratitude to all of you for your support and for playing Aloft. We’re always listening to your feedback, and can’t wait to share more of what we have in store!

As always, if you come across a bug (of the technical variety), don’t hesitate to report it and we’ll jump on it like a critter with a treat.

And as a last surprise: starting on March 13th, Aloft will be part of the Steam Spring Sale, making it the perfect time to invite your friends, build your dream skyship, and explore the skies – at a discount!

See you in the clouds! 🌥️

[h3]CRITTERS[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Critters can be found scattered across the world of Aloft with varying spawn points
  
  • Small Animals: frogs, jerboas, lizards, birds, and bats
    
  • Insects: butterflies, bees, moths
    
  • New models for: worms, beetles, and ladybugs
• Critters can be picked up and equipped in the toolbar
  
• New crafting recipes have been added: The Bug Net, Bird Feed, and Bat Feed
  
• Some critters can be lured by holding feed
  
• Some critters can only be collected with the Bug Net tool
  
• Islands now have a new ecosystem need: Small animals diversity, and insect diversity

[h3]NEW BUILDING PIECES[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Beehives
  
  • Used for beekeeping
    
  • Produces honey and wax, and bees will spawn nearby
    
  • Gathering resources from Beenests and Beehives will sometimes give a Queen Bee Larvae which is required to craft a beehive
• Landing Pads
  
  • Can be placed to assign an animal landing spot
    
  • Used for sending animals to another island in a safe and controlled manner
• Animal Bells
  
  • Bells will attract or teleport animals to it when rung
    
  • Affects only tamed animals
    
  • Can assigned to a specific type of farm animal or all farm animals
• Habitats
  
  • Critters can spawn on habitats
    
  • Unlockable via sketching and knowledge stones
• Vivariums
  • Players can build vivariums to showcase their critters
    
  • Unlockable via sketching and knowledge stones

[h3]PERSONAL HOME + SHARED HOME ISLANDS[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Quality-of-life changes to Personal Home islands
  
  • The dedicated server parameter preventing players from importing their home island is gone. Now, you’ll need an explicit authorisation
  • only* to set a new Personal Home island
  • Spawning/Despawning Personal Homes is now automatically allowed, with no way to forbid it.
• Introduction of Shared Homes Islands
  
  
  • Accessed through the Home Island kite
    
  • Allows players to share and collaborate on the same Shared Home
    
  • Allows players to spawn and teleport to the same Shared Home using the Shared Home tab (in the player menu)
    
  • Shared Homes behave as home for the game states (gives ‘at home’ condition, etc.)

[h3]MISC. CHANGES[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Water opals can now be placed in the editor and gathered in-game (grants 1 water opal)
  
• The Opal and Golden Feather decorative pieces can no longer be unlocked through Knowledge Stones. They can now be discovered in Wonder Islands within a new world
  
• Corrupted Animals and Animal Pods have an updated Mykter texture
  
• Removed the Occlusion Box option from the Island Creator
  
• The spinner can now spin fibres (wool/linen) into thread
  
• The loot obtained from chests (wood, stone, hidden, locked) is now based on the biome in which they are placed
  
• Rope baskets now cost waxed rope
  
• Gamepad support for world backup menu
  
• This update techs’ can now be unlocked via Knowledge Stones
  
• Localisation updates
  
• The Field Guide now indicates that the decomposer need requires diversity instead of an amount
  

[h3]BUG FIXES[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Major bug fix with timed parameters in worlds that have existed for a long time. This means that multiple behaviours in the game will now stay consistent over time and behave accordingly (machines will output resources, trees will mature, animals will age)
  
• Major bug fix where memory usage would increase continuously over very long game sessions
  
• Major bug fix where saving/reloading objects (especially home islands) could result in unexpected behaviours, leading to file corruption
  
• Multiple island fixes: spawn points, hidden rewards, missing textures, missing Mykter barriers, clipping and floating assets, collisions
  
• Fixed an issue that caused a problem with dedicated servers that were running in a screen-less environment
  
• Destroying the wormboxes now gives back a worm
  
• Wild veggies are no longer harvestable on unhealthy islands
  
• No loss of resources when failing at repairing a bird house
  
• Smaller islands surrounding heavy islands can now be claimed as homes
  
• Field Guide will no longer show corrupted islands as healthy
  
• Fixed the Field Guide / Pause Menu softlock
  
• Fixed the Gliding / Pause Menu softlock in multiplayer
  
• Fixed an issue where fresco doors could be opened on a corrupted islands
  
• Smaller islands that are part of heavier islands can no longer be claimed as homes
  

[h3]ACCESSIBILITY[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Added a motion sickness preset

[h3]UI/UX[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• Some user interfaces have been improved
  • Sailing UI
    
  • Certain in-game buttons
    
  • Text prompts
    
  • Menu design
• Major Field Guide changes
  • New corruption pages
    
  • New insect diversity pages
    
  • New small animal diversity pages
    
  • Updated icons

[h3]SOUND EFFECTS, VISUAL EFFECTS, AND ANIMATIONS[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• New SFX for critters, animal bells, animal landing pads
  
• New VFX for animals bells, animal landing pads
  
• New animations for critters, interacting with critters, animal bells, bug net

[h3]CHANGES THAT WILL ONLY APPLY TO A NEW WORLD[/h3] [hr][/hr]

• World Design
  • 2 new Wonder Islands that contain rare resources, sketchable building pieces/decor, and hidden rewards. They have been placed in Fallen Heights & Red Cliffs
    
  • 16 new regular islands added
    
  • Variations and small tweaks on starting cluster islands
    
  • New points of interests for all biomes
    
  • New points of interest caves for Emerald Isles
    
  • Trellis construction pieces can no longer be found in points of interest and Emerald Isles fresco islands
    
  • Linen lanterns and linen furniture with darkwood can no longer be found in points of interest, fresco islands, and the Fallen Heights Wonder Islands. The only exception is the sawmill fresco
• NEW critters (jerboas, lizards, butterflies, moths, frogs, bats) will spawn in newly-created worlds and unexplored islands in older worlds
  
• Critters that were already present in the Field Guide will spawn in older worlds as well, even if those islands were already explored

[h3]UPCOMING CHANGES[/h3] [hr][/hr] We will continue to add content to this update over the coming weeks. Among other things, we'll be working on:

• Bug fixing
  
• UX improvements
  
• Complete localization (a few keys are still missing in non-English languages)
  
• Multiple critter animation improvements and added variety
  
• New critter-related building options

Ahoy, Sky Sailors!

🌼 We're kicking off spring with an awesome lineup of community content creators LIVE on our Steam page throughout the week!

📅 Check out the schedule below and join us for some curious encounters, new discoveries, and more!

March 11: LellybeanTV, Murningstar, CozieSweets, Catpiet, and Kodeations!

March 12: Becsters, Cuddlemonster86, XoChop, and Insaneboxx!

March 13: Serenity, Ksan Leon, and State of Survival Podcast!

March 14: BehavingBeardly, SongbirdGaming, Lumibnuuy, and Ellibehr with xoPEACHI!

March 15: Chief Dancing Bear, and The Last Seahorse!

Ahoy, Sky Sailors!

Our first major update will arrive on March 11th!

We’re excited to announce that in the Critters & Wonders update, the world of Aloft will burgeon with new life, as critters inhabit the wilderness of the sky.

Ranging from bats and birds to frogs and lizards, bees and beetles, these lovable creatures strengthen the ecosystem wherever they live, so you’ll be able to collect them and bring them on your journey, as you restore balance to the skies.

We’re also bringing new islands to explore, with unique rewards and hidden secrets for you to discover.

There’s even more to discover in the update, and we’ll share all the details on March 11 when it releases.

This will be our first major update for Aloft, and we hope you’ll love it! Thank you all for your support and feedback, we couldn’t do this without you all!

See you in the clouds! ⛅