Hey there explorers, the long awaited third PvE update is finally here! As those of you who are familiar with Early Access games know, most studios release updates to their games once or twice a year, but they tend to be pretty big. As those of you familiar with Tasharen know, that was not the case with Windward and Sightseer. I, personally, prefer to release updates with small, tiny daily or semi-daily builds. This update, however... unfortunately didn't make this possible. The problem lied in what I wanted to change -- which was basically everything. I wasn't happy with Unity's built-in terrain system for example, so I wanted to replace it with my own, custom one that wouldn't be so slow and would allow for more impressive looking features.

I didn't like the sky and lighting system I was using and wanted a custom one as well -- something that supported a spherical planet. So the sky had to go too.


With the new terrain and sky came the possibility of dramatically increasing the view distance which make the planet's curvature quite apparent.
To make the game's performance high I replaced the tree placement and drawing system with a GPU-based solution, which allowed for a lot more trees to be visible at once... the list goes on. One thing led to another, and the entire game had to be changed.

If you look at the patch notes, found in their usual place (tinyurl.com/p5notes), and there are 14 pages worth of changes to go through. Since you don't have all day though, I'll point out some notable ones:

• Windward-style instancing has come to Sightseer. You can now run combat instances (simulations) by yourself or with your friends that will always be of appropriate challenge for the player starting the instance.
• The loot system has changed. You will no longer get items as drops. Instead, you will receive upgrade kits that you can apply to your existing items, boosting their quality. The item quality is also no longer limited to +5. You can keep progressing as long as you like.
• The way vehicles and parts get unlocked has changed. You will need to not only acquire the necessary technology, but also upgrade your Mk1 laser to +5 before you can unlock the Mk2 one, for example.
• Basic questing system is in place, and NPCs will start conversations with you and give a clear objective to achieve.
• Most vehicles now have additional slots that unlock as the players progresses along their technology tree.
• You can now transfer power between outposts (once you have the appropriate technology).
• Threat is now a very useful stat that will give a powerful skill that will scale with your threat rating. The skill is different for whether you're going for +threat (tanking) or -threat (dps).
• Completely redesigned many of the biomes. 24 out of 27 biomes were changed, so go out there and explore anew!
• New vehicles, new items, new building types.
• Upgradeable wheels with improved traction
• Voice overs done by FP