Salt News

Hey everyone!

As you know we've been working hard on multiplayer implementation and so we wanted to give you an update as to where we are in that regard and what some of the next steps are going to look like!



One of the first aspects of multiplayer we implemented was an in-game chat system. We felt important to be able to communicate with other players so we've added a nice little chatbox. It even gives you your own unique text color!




Of course, to chat with friends you're going to want to invite them. So we've implemented the ability to see your friends list and invite players to your game.




Say hello to the ghost pirate. Don't worry, we're just using him as a fun placeholder to test other player's characters in the world. You will have a fully formed pirate body when it's all said and done!

Currently we have it to where you can see other players moving around in the world. You can also see other player's boats and ride them. This was a big milestone for us to hit and while we've still got a lot of kinks to work out, it's coming along well.




Salt is making use Steam’s API in order to provide networking functionality. This make it easy to connect and play together with your Steam friends. Steam’s API provides the ability to send simple messages between two Steam clients. We have to write systems within Salt to use this messaging ability in an organized and efficient way that will result in a multiplayer experience within the game. We have now got a lot of these systems written and mostly working. Bug fixes and efficiency tweaks with them are still common at this point in the development.

After these systems are written and in place, the next step is to write code to use these systems to sync the worlds of players playing together. The goal is to provide a seamless multiplayer experience while sending as little data between computers as possible. Everything that syncs across the network must be told when and how to do so. This includes things like the positions of players and boats, what animation to play for a character, the health of an enemy, time of day, ocean waves, etc.

Salt is going to use a server/client model. The player who invites other players into their group is the server host. All players must wait on them to join a game. Once the host joins a game, all other players can then choose any of their created games play as long as it uses the same world seed as the game that the host just entered. You can also choose to create a new game with the correct world seed if you want. All player’s progress is stored locally and not on the host’s computer. This means that you can play single player or multiplayer interchangeably as you desire in any of your games.


It will still be a bit before these changes are put out there for testing, but we will keeping you updated throughout the process.


The next steps are more polishes and bug fixes on the networking systems, and work on syncing more and more things in the world such as enemies, items, and player animations. Also any multiplayer related UIs will need to be created or polished.

Salt now takes advantage of the Steam Cloud for storing save data files. Steam will automatically handle uploading and downloading your latest save file data between computers. Along with this, when the game saves data has been altered slightly. Your inventory and other certain game states are no longer saved constantly. Instead, the state of the game will save both when you manually save, and periodically as an auto-save. By default, loading a game will load the most recent save, but you can chose to load the last manual or last autosave by clicking on the gear icon next to the save slot in the Load menu.

A side effect of the save changes is that the game now requires Steam to be running. However, this does not mean it requires an internet connection as it will work just fine when Steam is in offline mode.

Your current save files will automatically be converted to use the steam cloud. No action is required on your part.



With this update we've also added in some new armor, items, and lore to various places. You can now find new armor sets in both hunting shacks and ancient chests. We've also added a new epic weapon that requires a full set of the new armor to find. In addition to that, we've added some new items to pirate chests and added some new lore books in the game.



This update also includes a new quest line involving the search for a mysterious jewel. There's an item that can be found somewhere in the world that will trigger this quest line when turned in. As with most quests, you'll find yourself going to various islands, defeating some tough enemies, and even uncovering new lore and items.



While we do have boss music in the game, we wanted to add some music for fighting tougher than normal enemies that aren't quite bosses. Now when you encounter any pirate captains or commanders, you will have some music to go along with your battle!

• Integrated saving with the Steam Cloud.
  
• Improved appearance of informational popup messages.
  
• Added new battle music for pirate captains, named captains, and commanders
  
• Replaced some ambient sounds with smoother looping versions.
  
• Added a new armor set to hunting shacks.
  
• Added a new armor set to ancient chests.
  
• Added new items to bronze and silver pirate chests.
  
• Added new lore books to hunting shacks.
  
• Added a new quest line with new items and lore.
  
• Increased the drop rate of ceremonial keys from cultists from 8 to 10%.
  
• Fixed some items having the Armor stat instead of Physical Armor.
  
• Fixed some recipe descriptions.
  
• Fixed missing texture on augmented moonrock sword.
  
• Fixed poacher’s lure. It can now be equipped as bait.
  
• White ink no longer requires a red flower to craft.
  
• Made bamboo on jungle islands consistent with other islands.