Greetings scientists!
As per the title, our largest-ever update, “Airship Gardening” is now live for all. Below are some of the key new features and improvements you can expect from EA.1.5.0.
This is by far the largest update we’ve released since the start of Early Access.
Our team have been working hard on this update since the launch of The Frozen Wishes Update back in December, and there is a lot to see!
Saves
We would highly recommend players start a brand new game to fully experience every new change and addition included in the Airship Gardening update. Such as improved story, locations and world improvements. Your old saves will still work, just you will experience the flow of the new content a little differently.
Your rewards from the Frozen Wishes update are no longer tied to your save files. This means if you unlocked the rewards from the festive quest back in December, they will carry over and be unlockable in any new save you create.
Here is a breakdown of the main additions you can expect from this update and the full patch notes…
Airship Gardening Mechanics
Gardening will play an important role in the game loop, but also the story. If you wish to keep your gardening setup simple and just grow a few crops for food and for the story, you can totally do that. But if you want to go all out with these mechanics and make the most of this mechanic, it’s safe to say you should be able to create some really impressive floating greenhouses!
You will be able to add water tanks, a Distiller for different fertilizers, different size pots, a network of pipes, sprinklers and more!
Different pieces of the new gardening tech can be found in several places across our procedurally generated world. Some of the more basic equipment like pots and water tanks are easier to find as they’re placed in more than one location. However, the more advanced technology like Distillers and Water Generators are a tad more rare. Be sure to check your Studies Menu!
In most cases, you will need to plant the seed for the item you want to grow. This process is relatively pain-free as all perishable items like food, medicine and plants now stack in your inventory.
You can increase the speed at which a plant grows by adding a special fertilizer from the Distiller. This fertilizer is made from Rotten Food (yes, it now has a purpose, yay!) Plants that only grow in the Underdust like Breathnuts and more can also be grown, providing you craft the Dust Fertilizer and add it to the garden pot.
Story Chapter 2 - Hunt For The Cure
CHAPTER 1 RECAP / SPOILERS AHEAD!
The first chapter of our story came to an end with the Viral Evolution update. We found what was left of Noah in the Underdust, followed by his research in the Infected Gardens. With that research we were able to craft a hologram which provided the coordinates to the location of the cure that we have been looking for - as was Noah and the previous expedition before us.
As we mentioned before, gardening will play a role in the next section of the story. In addition, we will also be taking our next trip back down to the surface of the planet.
New Underdust Section - Suburbs
This update features a brand new Underdust map for players to explore, The Suburbs. Players will head here during this latest chapter in search of the elusive cure. This map is roughly 4-times larger than the first Underdust map in Chapter 1 and a lot more open. Thankfully, there are a few landmarks to help players get their bearings in this foggy biome AND a Large Oxygen Bottle to make exploration a lot easier.
We hope you have fun down there!
Down here you will find a lot of new useful items to collect and new blueprints to research and craft. Including new plant seeds, organic substances for special fertilizers, blueprints for Gardening technology and a new upgraded version of the knife, the Aircutter.
A side note on combat…
With a new exciting Underdust biome to explore, Im sure that many players were hoping to exchange blows with Mantis enemies and more with this update. However, we made the difficult decision to temporarily hold off on this feature, but only for now…
While we have got combat working in the development stages, we weren’t 100% happy with it and so have decided to spend more time on this feature so it can be better. We keep a watchful eye on other survival games and so we know how passionate survival game players are about this being done right, which is why this decision was made. In addition, we don’t want combat to be isolated in just this one location, we want it to be bigger and better, so some of our team will be focusing on this after the launch of the Airship Gardening update.
Improved World & Story Progression
Not only have we added new story and content with this update, we have also gone back and made improvements to the world and story that already existed in Forever Skies. This was done to make gameplay more fun and make the story easier to understand. The following was done thanks to your incredible feedback:
- Many mission objectives re-written to give players a better and more immersive experience
- Mission Reports - summarizing main quest milestones for the player upon returning to the airship from main quest locations
- More lore scenes added
- Story-related voice lines - from the players "suit AI" added
- New cutscenes
- Design, art and gameplay improvements to existing locations like Radio Towers, Overgrown Radio Towers, Gardens & Descent Lifts.
- City ruins improved visually
Again, we highly recommend players start a fresh save to fully experience all of the above changes. However, if players wish to simply continue from the previous saves and continue the story from where it left off then this is also possible. Your rewards from the Frozen Wishes Update will no longer be affected!
New Airship Module Design - “Bloom Range”
Airship customization is important in Forever Skies. Because of this, we have added our first new Airship modules, the “Bloom Range”.
These modules can be found on our re-worked data card system - more details below in the full patch notes. We are only getting started with new modules. Coming soon we plan to add additional modules like new cockpits, balloons, exterior modules, stairs and more!
Airship Gardening introduces a new cleaner HUD design to players. We decided to update our HUD for a few important reasons:
- With the changes made to Immunity a few months ago thanks to your feedback, the immunity Circle on the HUD became redundant as it was no longer a mechanic you would have to manage. Instead, immunity is now tied to the story and will change as a scripted event. Your current immunity status can now be found on the Inventory screen.
- Cleaner and easier to understand. Certain icons were not explained well in the old design, such as using boosters or diseases. The new HUD displays this in a much clearer manner
- Player parameters with distinguished Stamina/Energy and Radiation Zone alerts.
Please let us know your thoughts on the HUD changes. Do you prefer them? Is it an improvement? We’re listening!
A side note on The Flashlight…
We made some changes to how players acquire the Flashlight in a recent update, EA.1.4.2, and again with this latest update, EA.1.5.0.
We realise that this might have caused some confusion to players over the last few weeks, which we apologize for. So for any players wondering where to find the Flashlight with this new update, to confirm, it can now be found on a dead expedition member on any basic Radio Tower. Check your Studies Menu.
Look out for the signature blue cable, the Flashlight is on top of the corpse.
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The Full Changelog
There are more additions and changes we could go into more detail about, so instead, we have compiled them here in the full patch notes:
NEW CONTENT:
Devices:
- Small Garden Pot
- Small Water Tank
- Sprinkler
- Large Garden Pot
- Large Sprinkler
- Water Tank
- Pipes
- Distiller
- Pipe Water Generator
- Pipe Connected Membrane
Tools:
- Aircutter
- Big Oxygen Tank
- Magnetic Lure - catch other items in addition to food
- Underdust Access Module Item
Plants & seeds:
- Sleeping Lily plant
- Leafire plant
- North Star plant
- Pig Smile plant
- Sleeping Lily seeds
- Leafire seeds
- North Star seeds
- Pig Smile seeds
- Breathnut seeds
- Petit Bruiseflower seeds
- Bruiseflower seeds
- Petit Astre seeds
- Canola Multidoigt seeds
- Coffee Nut seeds
- Dust Daisy seeds
- Green Colander seeds
- Inkbulb seeds
- Lobster Pepper seeds
- Meteor Bean seeds
- Sunmelon seeds
- Seeds Tuber (source of different seeds)
Food:
- Boiled Leafire
- Boiled Pig Smile
Resources:
- Dust Fertilizer
- Sulfur Fertilizer
- Mantis Feces
- Chitin
Paints:
- “Bloom” theme
Decorations:
- Poster “Automatic Irrigation System”
- Poster “Sprinkler”
- Frozen Wishes Event-unlocked recipe rewards are available for the new game slots too
Airship Modules:
- Bloom Wall
- Bloom Window
- Bloom Floor / Ceiling
- Bloom Door
Player:
- Current immunity level can be seen in the Inventory / Backpack menu
- Chronic diseases - when your immunity is Low, diseases become more dangerous and need more specialized ways of treatment (waiting them out no longer works)
- Footsteps sounds for different terrains
Narration:
- Chapter 2 of the story - in order to find a cure for a virus that slowly kills you, you have to travel to the depths of the Underdust to find a century long lost cure
- Mission Reports - summarizing main quest milestones for the player upon returning to the airship from main quest locations
- New lore scenes for second Lift and Underdust locations
- Gardening tutorials in data tablets
- Chronic Diseases tutorial
- New cutscenes added
- World:
- Overgrown Lift - new lift to Underdust location added
- Suburbs - new Underdust second location added
Other:
- Magnetic Fishing Lure - allow catching things other than food
- Some Paint Cartridges can be crafted from plants grown aboard an airship only
- HUD improvements - player parameters with a clearly distinguished Stamina/Energy and radiation zones alerts; Flashlight power status added
- Perishable food, plants and medicine now stack in player's inventory
CHANGED:
Player:
- Flashlight can be found on a corpse on Radio Tower locations
- Immunity reworked - it changes with the story progress only; it affects the probability of infection after getting in touch with virus carriers; you cannot prevent those losses but you can find a ways to improve it temporarily
- All Virus researches displayed in Studies menu after crafting Virus Sample Analyzer
- Fungal Meningitis name changed to Meningitis
- Medical Bed role in disease loop improved (e.g. gives a free Immunity booster)
- Knife central icon is visible as long as hitting an object can give some resource
Narration:
- The main quest path reworked - it should be more immersive and understandable
- Sagittarius expedition dead crew members locations slightly changed - to differentiate them from the remains of the last people living on the Earth centuries ago
- Small story tweaks
- Database entries pictures and texts updated
World:
- Greenhouse Towers - additional gates in radiation sheds
- Overgrown Towers - refactored, paths are more visible, source of early gardening devices and consumables
- Radio Towers - design and art improvements
- Wrecked Automatic Deck Extractor moved to a Greenhouse Tower
- Wrecked Filtering Deck Extractor moved to an Infected garden
- Wrecked Upgrade Station moved to first Underdust
- Wrecked Ship Workstation moved to Descent Under the Dust upper floor
- Slightly reduced amount of small locations to be found in the world
- Underdust Oxygen refillers are more visible
- Epoxy resource was moved to the Underdust; small amounts could be still found on a Greenhouse Tower locations but are now behind a progression gate
- Slightly reduced amount of plants in the world
- Descent Under the Dust - battery next to the computer was removed
- Descent Under the Dust - fuse box added to turn off beacon
- Descent Under the Dust has more visible upper floor path
- Descent Under the dust requires an Access Module instead of Solid State Battery
- Overgrown Lift requires Advanced Access Module
- Infected Gardens have more loot
- Rooftops have more loot
Other:
- Data Cards distribution reworked - you won’t find new paint themes for example unless you’ve researched and crafted the Paint tool; Data Cards will spawns more frequently.
- Crossbow sound effects updated
- Medical Bed / Station animation tweaks
- Many performance tweaks
- Clean Water now gives 30 Water instead of 25
- Canned Water now gives 30 Water instead of 25
- Boiled Moth now gives 25 Food instead of 15
- Boiled Patat now gives 30 Food instead of 25
- Boiled Melon now gives 30 Water
- Basic Lure can catch Rotten Food, Dust Lettuce and Dust Moths
FIXED:
- Mantis Gland now appears in the Studies Menu
- Mantis Gland now appears as a cause of Hemorrhagic Fever in the Studies / Virus Sample Analyzer menu
- The quest for finding Noah’s notes and Mantis Glands has been re-worded for clarity. Changed to “Get” instead of “Find”
- Noah’s Notes will respawn on all Underdust locations until picked up - this ends the “Find traces of Noah in Tunnels Under the Dust” quest
- Glass Shards states are saved properly
- Proper visuals for cooked Green Colander, Canola Multidoigt, Coffee Nut, Dust Daisy and Dust Moth
- A new quest was added for saves that have already completed the first Underdust section. This “backwards compatibility” quest will bring players Immunity Status and Immunity Booster research recipe in line with those players that are playing from a new save.
- Performance issues improved
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Coming up…
We’re now working on our next patch EA.1.5.1, which will add even more new content and is expected to go live in the next few weeks. Keep your eyes on our socials for more info SOON.
SALE & BUNDLES
????Forever Skies is 25% off on Steam! ????
We also have two amazing bundles, both will get you an extra 15% off Forever Skies if you own the other game. Check them out below ⬇️
Green Hell
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33155/
Riftbreaker
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/37896/
Thats all for now, enjoy the new update and get plantin’
Speak soon!
