Hello Everyone, Were continuing our deep dive into The Splintered Sea expansion today, with a look at the new aquatic blocks and how they work! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165710/Besiege_The_Splintered_Sea/ The Splintered Sea introduces 8 new blocks to the game, all designed to help you construct machines that can traverse water and navigate the challenges of an ocean themed campaign.

To help you move your machines through water, weve created three new blocks that each employ a different method of propulsion; the Sail Panel, Aquatic Screw and Paddle.
The Sail Panel provides you with a retractable sail that harnesses wind in order to propel your machine across the oceans surface. Retracting the sail while in simulation will slowly bring your machine to a stop. When the sail block comes in contact with water it becomes wet and ceases to provide propulsion, but regains normal behavior shortly after exiting the water. While underwater, sails also create significantly more drag which can negatively affect the controllability of your machine.
The Aquatic Screw works the same way as a ships propeller, providing either forward or reverse propulsion. Aquatic Screws can be stacked together, forming one continuous unit that spins in unison. Modifying one Aquatic Screw with the Keymapper Tool, modifies any other screw thats stacked together with it.
Due to their shape, Aquatic Screws also function as worm gears that interact with the grooves on Small & Large Cogs, causing them to rotate.
The Paddle block can be used to create oars for rowing or attached to wheels, turning them into Paddle Wheels (a method of propulsion used by early Steam Ships). The Paddle can also be placed on the sides of your machine, acting as a lateral dampener to help keep your machine moving in a straight line.

While many blocks in Besiege provide some degree of buoyancy, the Small & Large Barrel blocks buoyancy is customizable and has an upper limit thats much higher than any other block. Placing and customizing their values allows you to finetune your machines overall buoyancy, whether its to support heavy cannons or balance a submarine.
While in simulation, you can use hotkeys to apply a rise or sink force to the Barrels thatll help you control submersible machines like submarines. The amount of force applied can also be customized using the Keymapper tool.
To help you steer your aquatic machines weve created a Rudder block, which simulates a lateral force and provides more effective steering in water. You can of course create your own steering methods and even rudders out of existing blocks, but we wanted to ensure there was a block specifically designed for use in water as well.

The Harpoon Launcher has been a long requested addition for Besiege and what better place for it than as part of an ocean themed expansion! The block fires a devastating spear bolt attached to a rope, which can be detached or reeled back in at the press of a button. You can use it to pull enemy vessels along, winch your machine toward a target or maybe even do some fishing
Thats it for todays post, but fear not, theres plenty more to talk about in the lead up to launch! In next weeks post well take a deeper dive into building for water, discussing some engineering principles to consider, and demonstrating some tools weve created to help you build ocean faring machines. See you next week! Von If you haven't already, please consider wishlisting the expansion and check out The Splintered Seas steam page for more information! :)