Sailwind News

It has been a while since the last update, and many people might be wondering about the development status of the next one. As always, the most up-to-date news and updates are regularly posted on the Sailwind Discord server. For those who missed the recent posts there, here is a quick summary along with preview screenshots.


The next patch will be a big one, featuring a new archipelago with several islands. This will not be an entirely new region - think of it more like an expansion of the current Emerald Archipelago.


The new islands will feature some new unique architecture, as well as new trade goods, other items, and custom sails.



Some new weather effects are also planned.



The update is expected to be ready sometime around September/October 2023.

Before the full update is released, there are plans for an open beta test for the upcoming patch. The new islands will not be available yet, but the beta will feature several improvements mostly related to weather and boat physics (including manually adjustable mooring ropes - no more infinite springs!). Player feedback will be very welcome and useful to get the fine tuning of the new changes just right. More details about the beta will be coming soon!

Major New Features
- Big Ship Customization: you can now customize the sails, masts, stays and more, on all the big ships. Many new large sails are available at the shipyards
- Wind Shadow: Sails will now cast a "wind shadow" on other sails, meaning that a sail will not be able to catch any wind if there is another sail in front of it, blocking the wind. The strength of the shadow effect depends on the area of the sail as well as distance between the sails.

Other New Features
- multiple square sails on one mast will now be automatically linked together, so that you can turn them all with only one set of sheet winches
- the sail area of each sail is now displayed in the shipyard
- the shipyard camera can now be moved by holding right mouse button
- several other shipyard UI improvements
- added a "high precision physics" setting (on by default) which should improve the stability of item physics, especially when stacking several crates on top of each other
- crates and barrels will now make a sound when dropped

Balance Changes
- changed the way sail area is calculated to be more consistent with the real size of the sail
- sail prices are now automatically calculated based on their size and type
- increased the price of hull cleaning and the shipyard fee
- shipyard fee will now be charged only once per visit to the shipyard

Bug fixes
- item crates will now display a hint text about taking items with right mouse button when looked at
- fixed many collision-related bugs when installing sails in the shipyard
- furling/unfurling a sail should now fix any visual cloth glitches
- the cog should no longer have any extra unused winches
- many other minor bug fixes, and performance and stability improvements

A new beta testing build is now available. You can play the beta if you want to test the upcoming features before they are officially released. Please note that the beta version might be less stable and more buggy than the regular version. You can use your existing save files in the beta version, however it is recommended to back them up just to be safe. You can find your save files in C:\Users\(username)\AppData\LocalLow\Raw Lion Workshop\Sailwind


New features to test:

- sanbuq customization: You can now customize the sails, masts and other custom elements on the sanbuq (the large Al'Ankh ship). Several new large sails are also available at the Gold Rock City shipyard. More sails and other customization options will be added later.

- wind shadow: Sails will now cast a "wind shadow" on other sails, meaning that a sail will not be able to catch any wind if there is another sail in front of it, blocking the wind. The strength of the shadow effect depends on the area of the sail as well as distance between the sails.

If you would like to share your feedback about the new features, the best place to do this is on the official Sailwind discord server, in the #beta-general channel. Bugs can be reported in the
#beta-bug-reports channel. Thank you!

- fixed a bug where the tutorial hints would not show up
- fixed a bug where the inventory UI would sometimes show up sideways while the game was loading
- the Gold Rock dock collision should now be slightly more reliable

- fixed a bug causing the shipyard UI to not display properly