Today marks the release of the first part of the PvE updates that many of you have been waiting for. Due to exensive back-end changes, starting a new world will be necessary to experience the new content to its fullest. Server administrators will also need to update their server executable before putting up a new world.
Alongside the expected mundane-but-necessary bug fixes, today's update adds NPC outposts that can be discovered by exploring the world. These can be simple resource extraction satellites that players can steal useful resources from, lightly defended outposts to capture, or even heavily protected forts placed in a restricted area best to avoid -- so greater care must now be taken when exploring the world.
Of course to make the challenge of capturing these outposts more meaningful, an all-new loot system has been added to the game. Most NPC outposts have a loot container somewhere containing some useful goodies for players that succeed in capturing them. The items found in containers, looted from defeated NPCs, and sometimes even found lying on the ground may be of higher quality than what can be crafted manually. From faster weapon recharge to stronger shields, you can now better customize your vehicles to match your play style and prepare for Part 2.
After all, this is only the first part of the planned 3-part PvE changes. This first update focused on passive (stationary) threats. The second update will add active threats, making it possible for NPCs to raid your outposts and potentially hunt you out in the wild. The last part will tie all of this together with an active quest system, adding specific goals for players to pursue.
Just keep in mind that if you are going to be checking out this update, be sure to start a new world as old ones are not going to be compatible with some of the changes. They will still work, of course -- should you wish to continue your existing game -- but certain features will be missing.
As usual, to keep an eye on Sightseer's development, Discord is still the best place to do so. There you can ask questions, report bugs, find friends to play with and offer feedback on the potential changes before they happen.
Full list of patch notes can be found at tinyurl.com/p5notes.
Happy adventuring!
-Michael "Aren Mook" Lyashenko
