Open Beta: Version 1.2

Ahoy, Seafarers!

We’re opening up the next major set of changes for testing with Version 1.2 on the Steam Open Beta branch. Before we dive into the update, we also want to address the recent news about the closure of astragon Development. We know this is difficult news, especially for the people who have dedicated so much time and effort to Seafarer, and we understand that it raises questions about the game's future. As the team navigates this challenging time and prepares for the studio's closure, our current focus remains on Version 1.2. While we don't have further details to share at this time, we want to sincerely thank everyone at astragon Development for their hard work, and our community for your feedback and support along the way.

At the centre of this update is the new Sandbox game mode, giving you more freedom to explore Seafarer and develop your career without the usual reputation requirements restricting access to regular harbours, offers and upgrades.

But Sandbox is only part of what we’re testing.

Version 1.2 also introduces much more flexibility when choosing jobs, clearer rewards and progression, improvements to cargo shifts and mission menus, new vessel handling options, and further changes for both single-player and multiplayer.

Important: This is a highly experimental Open Beta build

Version 1.2 is still actively being developed and this Open Beta should be considered a highly experimental work-in-progress build.

The purpose of making it available now is to let you try these changes early and help us test the new systems before they move towards a regular release.

With that said, let’s take a look at what’s new.

Sandbox: Play and Progress with More Freedom

In Standard mode, your progression gradually opens up additional opportunities throughout the game.

The new Sandbox mode approaches this differently.

Regular harbours as well as level-dependent offers and upgrades are accessible regardless of your current reputation level, giving you much more freedom to decide where you want to go and what you want to work towards.

That doesn’t mean everything is free.

Ships, upgrades, crew expenses and other economic decisions still cost Credits, so managing your finances remains an important part of the experience.

Reputation still matters

We’ve also reworked parts of the reputation and reward balancing:

• Harbour reputation progression has been adjusted.

• Rewards for container and dry bulk jobs have been brought more closely in line with each other.

• Revised displays make reputation gains and level progression easier to understand.

In Sandbox, reputation remains a visible form of progression without acting as an access barrier to content that is already available to you.

Building a good relationship with the contracting harbour can still pay off, too, as higher reputation can result in increased Credit rewards.

Build Jobs Around How You Want to Play

One of the larger changes in Version 1.2 is a new level of control over the work you accept.

These improvements are also available in Standard and Expert modes wherever the respective job supports them.

Choose the parts of a job you want to do

For supported Container Ferry, BigTrip, Dry Bulk and LNG jobs, you can now select individual parts of the job before accepting it.

Depending on the job, you can choose to:

• Only load or unload.

• Take on a specific number of the available shifts.

• Only complete the voyage itself.

• Combine multiple stages of the job.

• Select everything and complete the original full job as before.

The intended work harbours, schedules and order of operations remain unchanged.

Your selection determines how much of the job you take on - it does not automatically move you to the work location or remove the travel required to get there.

In multiplayer, the host makes the selection for the session.

See your expected reward before accepting

The job selection now shows the expected Credit reward for the work you have selected.

If you change the number of shifts or remove parts of the job, the reward preview updates accordingly.

The calculation assumes that you complete all selected work normally yourself.

Reduced jobs receive the appropriate rewards for their selected shifts, but do not receive the additional overall contract bonus awarded for completing the full job.

Finish Container and Dry Bulk Shifts Early

For regular single-player harbour jobs, you can now choose to finish active Container and Dry Bulk shifts early through the Job Log.

When you do:

• The remaining work is completed automatically.

• Credits and reputation are based on the amount of work you personally completed.

• Automatically completed work does not provide additional rewards.

• Your completed share of the work is also reflected in the relevant job bonus.

This option is not available for LNG, multiplayer, campaign missions, tutorials or Quickplay.

Clearer Progression and Job Results

We want it to be easier to understand exactly what you accomplished during a shift and how that affects your progression.

Improved result screens

The result screen now provides more information about your actual contribution:

• Container jobs show how many containers you personally handled.

• Dry Bulk jobs show the number of bucket loads you moved.

• Results remain visible even when no positive reward was earned.

• Revised progression displays make harbour reputation, player level and level-ups clearer.

Improved recovery of active cargo shifts

Saving and loading active Container and Dry Bulk shifts in single-player has also been reworked.

When resuming a shift, the game now takes more of its previous state into account, including completed work, existing cargo, remaining cargo amounts and relevant securing states.

Attached containers and material currently held in the bucket are also considered when restoring the shift.

These improvements apply to single-player. The existing limitations around resuming active multiplayer shifts remain in place.

A Clearer Job Menu

The harbour job list has been reorganised to make available work easier to browse.

Offers are now grouped into:

• Tutorials

• Contracts

• Operations

Empty categories are hidden automatically.

Job cards have also been simplified, including the removal of the previous shift bar. The numerical selection for the desired number of shifts remains available.

Improved shift selection

The controls for selecting the amount of work have also been revised:

• Quantity controls are more compact and easier to read.

• Changes to the selected number of shifts are reflected immediately.

• Controller navigation and prompts have been improved.

• The interaction has been brought more closely in line with the controls used in the Trading menu.

Weekday added to the HUD clock

The in-game clock now also displays the current weekday, for example:

“Mon. 07:30”

This should make it easier to compare upcoming shifts with your job calendar at a glance.

Choose the Vessel Handling You Prefer

Version 1.2 also introduces settings that allow you to influence engine response and how vessel speed develops.

You can choose between:

Arcade

Faster engine response and larger speed increases from upgrades.

Balanced

A middle ground between Arcade and Expert handling.

Expert

Vessel-specific engine response, more restrained speed increases from upgrades and, on selected vessels, calmer steering behaviour while underway.

The handling setting is separate from the Expert game mode. Selecting Expert handling does not mean you are playing an Expert-mode career.

We’ve also adjusted acceleration, steering behaviour and planing lift for Rigid and Gull, while reducing the overall influence of water currents.

Multiplayer: Shared Settings for the Session

The new systems also include several multiplayer changes.

Identifying Standard and Sandbox sessions

The session list now identifies Standard and Sandbox sessions.

When joining, the game checks whether your selected player profile matches the session type.

If the profile type is incompatible or cannot be identified, you’ll receive a corresponding message.

Standard and Expert saves belong to the same session profile type for this purpose.

One handling setting for everyone

In multiplayer, all players use the handling setting selected by the host when the session is started.

The setting cannot be changed while that multiplayer session is active.

We’ve also fixed updates to several vessel displays for multiplayer clients.

Further Improvements

Version 1.2 includes several additional changes alongside the larger new systems:

• Towing and docking service fees now take vessel length into account.

• LNG interactions have received fixes for published game builds.

• Additional translations and revised text have been added for the new features.

Changelog

Cargo shifts saving and rewards

• Fixed lost work progress after saving and loading active container and bulk cargo shifts in singleplayer.

• Improved restoration of loaded and unloaded containers and remaining deliveries to prevent cargo from being recreated or counted incorrectly.

• Fixed restoration of bulk cargo quantities, original work targets and the number of shovel loads already completed.

• Restored attached containers and material held in the shovel when resuming a shift.

• Fixed reward previews in packaged game builds. The calculation could previously refer to files on the build machine that do not exist on the player's system.

• Fixed cargo results with zero credits or reputation being incorrectly hidden.

These save improvements do not extend support for resuming active co-op shifts.

Multiplayer

• Fixed several client-side docking and undocking issues.

• Fixed detection and restoration of the docked state when ship data and position updates reach clients at different times.

• Fixed client teleportation issues.

• Fixed ship displays not updating for multiplayer clients. Engine, rudder and azipod values are now also provided to observing players.

Job menus HUD and controls

• The selected shift quantity now updates immediately after input instead of waiting for another action.

• Added safeguards against accessing unavailable data in job, crew, harbour and task displays.

• Fixed job log initialisation errors.

• Fixed invalid data access in the Quickplay selection.

• Fixed controller focus when editing ship names.

• Options lists can now be fully scrolled with a controller even when they contain disabled entries.

• Fixed issues when switching between keyboard and mouse and controller input, as well as focus issues on monitor interfaces.

• Fixed the anchor display updating incorrectly after switching ships or changing docking state.

• Completed subtasks are hidden after a short delay, and reactivated subtasks are displayed again.

• A neighbouring entry is selected after a job entry is claimed or removed.

• Removed duplicate confirmation or click sounds when accepting jobs and skipping cinematics.

• Fixed localisation of interaction prompts for job monitors.

• Fixed the screensaver remaining stationary when monitor widgets were used on their own.

Ship controls camera and radar

• Fixed the Lancer's rudder not working while planing.

• Corrected erroneously excessive reverse speeds.

• The Salvation's bow thruster can now be used while cruise control is active.

• Added camera protection to reduce the third-person camera dipping beneath waves.

• Fixed scaling and boundary errors in the radar terrain display.

• Aligned a yacht's radar representation with its visible hull.

• Corrected inaccurate range descriptions for radar upgrades.

Crew inspections and challenges

• Fixed crew assignment errors caused by uninitialised ship values.

• Crew are no longer incorrectly shown for ships that have not been purchased in the fleet menu.

• Fixed an issue where removed crew remained visible aboard the ship.

• Added missing saved inspection scoring data.

• Fixed restoration of crew and inspection state after loading.

• Fixed a boundary case in the assessment of inspection documents.

• Successful ship inspections are now recorded in the relevant statistic.

• Corrected completion and unlock conditions for several Duchess and Grace challenges.

• Removed an incorrect DLC designation from Engelbert Strauss clothing items.

World visuals and stability

• Added a safeguard against a crash when opening the crane shovel with an invalid cargo-hold reference. The issue was reported on PS5, but the fix is in shared game code and is therefore also relevant to PC.

• Corrected problematic patrol locations in Stettach.

• Adjusted an escort route that passed too close to an island.

• Fixed incorrect seating animations and clipping with furniture.

• Fixed rendering errors affecting the Gull's seat.

• Fixed flag rotation and alignment errors.

• Fixed partially obscured smoke disappearing incorrectly.

• Fixed vehicle lighting and light controls in specific campaign scenes.

• Partially corrected window-lighting errors on certain buildings.

Other

• Reward previews in installed game builds.

• Switching between keyboard and mouse and controller input.

• Controller navigation and focus corrections.

Changes not classified as bug fixes

New ship-handling profiles, personal job selection, changes to current strength and revised reward balancing are features or tuning changes rather than conventional bug fixes.

Job monitor workaround. Job-list refresh problems were initially mitigated by replacing the job display on affected onboard monitors with a screensaver. This should not be presented as a fully repaired job-monitor feature.

Help Us Test Version 1.2

There are a lot of interconnected changes in this update - particularly around Sandbox progression, job customisation, rewards, cargo shifts and multiplayer.

That is exactly why we’re putting Version 1.2 into Open Beta at this stage.

If you decide to try the experimental build, we’d particularly like to hear how these systems feel in actual play:

• Does Sandbox give you the freedom you expect from the mode?

• Does selecting individual parts of a job make it easier to play the kind of shift you want?

• Are the rewards and progression understandable?

• How do the new handling options feel across different vessels?

Please keep sharing your experiences, bug reports and feedback with us here on Steam.

Thank you for helping us test the next version of Seafarer.

See you on the horizon,

Your Seafarer Team