Changelog

[Aged Code]

0.98.68 [10.09.2025]
- fix:Dialogue: When a situational picture was displayed and closed during dialogue, the mouse's clickable area was shifted down by one line. This has been fixed; keyboard controls were unaffected by the original bug.
- fix:Story Mode: Fixed an issue where the ship would become unresponsive after leaving Paris and closing the at-sea dialogue. An earlier fix addressed the "Skip Paris introduction" dialogue, but this update resolves the issue for the full dialogue path.

[Aged Code]

0.98.69—0.98.71 [19.09.2025]
- fix:Fixed seabed generating lock in an endless loop when a non-unique seabed option was disabled.

[Aged Code]

0.98.72—0.98.73 [20.11.2025]
- fix:Opening the lower panel during an ongoing chat with an NPC would disable the mouse click zones and prevent selecting an answer (key shortcuts remained unaffected).
- fix:Pressing the escape key in the PIP window would crash the game.
- add:Added an extra check for the drilling sample existence (resolves a very rare crash when drilling with SFX enabled).
- add:Vox PopuliGameplay balance: New Game Sandbox mode starts with the second city, Hamburg, already discovered.
- add:Vox PopuliGameplay balance: New Game (both modes) starts with a modified economy state, allowing Paris and Hamburg to create a few contracts immediately available for the player to take.
- fix:Vox PopuliGameplay balance: Exchange of Hamburg's devices with Old Danzig.
- fix:Vox PopuliGameplay balance: Mining and harvest contracts no longer require player level 1+, which means new players can do it immediately (after purchasing necessary equipment).
- add:Vox Populi New dialogues for bartenders aimed at new players.
- add:"Local prod." and "Next delivery in:" text labels in the market for articles produced locally.
- fix:Added a missing space between the text and the number in the contract description.

[Aged Code]

0.98.74 [22.11.2025]
- fix:Fixed the black upper part of the screen after coming back from in-game options.
- fix:Contract plate in the market is no longer partially cleared by the "Local prod." label.
- fix:Contract tonnage adjustment in the market. The new mouse handling caused longer button presses to incorrectly accelerate the setting to the maximum value, bypassing the contract's required tonnage.

[Aged Code]

The upcoming big update to version 0.99.00 will bring the following:

Main Features

• New city location: Terminal.

  • 

  • (The Terminal background currently features an original preliminary sketch; the final pixel art version is being finished and will replace it in the upcoming release.)
  • This is a completely new game element that allows the player to take passengers on board and transport them between cities. There are two classes of passengers: Standard and Business. Each group has dedicated cabins (with 6 and 2 passenger seats respectively), which can be purchased at any shipyard. The cabins are installed in the same way as cargo modules.
    Transporting Business passengers requires a higher reputation, which depends on the destination. Transporting 20 or more passengers requires a “Transporter” licence.

  • 

  • 

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• New submarine characteristics.
  • Hit Points: The previous method simply converted hull strength into hit points. However, that approach made higher-tier vessels disproportionately strong compared to lower-tier units, especially pirate submarines. To address this issue – and to better balance future submarines not yet discovered by players – a new hit point formula has been introduced. It is still based on hull strength, but it is now significantly more complex. As a result, battles against pirates are much more challenging.
  • Manoeuvrability: This new characteristic influences a submarine’s natural ability to evade incoming projectiles.
  • Passenger Module Capacity: Like cargo module capacity, this property determines how many passenger cabins can be installed. In some cases, the base number can be increased by using available cargo module space.
• New installer and in-game updater.
  • Significantly improved speed and efficiency. Added real-time display of current, average, and peak download speeds.

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• Massive code optimisation.
  • While AMOS is often blamed for performance issues and known and unknown bugs, we believe that programmers are equally responsible for the quality of their code. We have implemented significant optimisations, which we expect will result in much greater stability and overall efficiency.

[Aged Code]

Gameplay

• General
  • - add:Licence "Transporter".
  • - add:New "Passengers" tab on the lower panel.
  • - add:Increased resource deposits by 10% relative to contract requirements (previously too tight).
  • - add:Expanded police patrols/checks within cities.
  • - add:Police inspections now check for passengers and the "Transporter" license.
  • - add:New Game Sandbox mode: Starts with the second city (Hamburg) already discovered.
  • - add:New Game Sandbox mode: Modified starting economy – Paris, Hamburg, and Old Danzig now generate several contracts available immediately for the player.
  • - add:New dialogue options available from the Bartender in any Bar: "Do you know where I can buy a gripper?" and "Can you tell me where to find another city?"
  • - add:Added police dialogues for carrying unlicensed goods without an active contract.
  • - add:Added police dialogue explaining the license system and the penalty structure.
  • - add:Vox Populi Reduced repair costs (initial adjustment, subject to further balancing).
  • - add:Vox Populi Updated penalty system per player feedback – the highest penalty is now applied if multiple offences occur simultaneously.
  • - add:Police and merchant ships now move during the docking sequence.
  • - add:Motor condition is now factored into the ship's speed formula.
  • - add:Clicking a cargo icon in the lower panel while in the Market now automatically switches focus to that specific item.
  • - fix:Mining and harvest contracts no longer require Player Level 1+.
  • - fix:Adjusted Level 9-11 Navigation attribute values and added level 12.
  • - fix:Fixed an issue where penalties for failed contracts were not applied if the failure was due to a missing license.
  
  
  Pirate fight
  • - add:You can now hail other traders at sea and ask them to join your fight against pirates.
  • - add:Pirates are now persistently visible, not just during Pirate Hunt contracts. They will also chase the player if they enter a certain range.
  • - add:Added information displaying the number and types of pirate ships before engaging in combat.
  • - add:Pirate spawns will now always have a different starting position than the player(s).
  • - add:Improved Loot: Defeated pirates are now guaranteed to drop loot, which always consists of luxury goods.
  • - add:Loot is shared with allied traders based on the amount of damage dealt to pirates.
  • - add:Introduced partial bounty payments for eliminating pirates that were not part of an active contract.
  • - add:Tooltips now display as a single two-row window instead of two separate tooltips. Data clarity in these tooltips has also been improved.
  • - fix:Fixed game loading issues after losing a pirate fight.
  • Revised combat rules:
    • Overwatch is now limited to once per turn
    • Launchers are limited to one shot per turn.
    • "Game Over" condition: The mission fails if any allied merchant ship is destroyed.
    • Implemented a new formula for EVADE calculation.
    • Balance: Pirate Sawfish submarine action points reduced from 5 to 4.

[Aged Code]

Technical & Optimization

• - add:Massive Load Speed Increase: Faster game startup and loading times by skipping redundant IFF_PERMANENT reloading if the game was already running.
• - add:Chip RAM Optimisation: Significant memory management improvements.
• - add:Optimised File Verification: Faster CRC calculation and file difference checking; added Esc key support to abort CRC sum calculation.
• - add:Network Improvements: Enhanced client-server communication and updated the network window graphics.
  maximum stability and data integrity.
• - add:Improved loading of market assets.
• - add:Added an extra safety check for drilling samples to resolve rare crashes when drilling with SFX enabled.
• - add:Contract rewards are now rounded for cleaner presentation.
• - add:Statistics: Now tracking "Total Passengers Transported."
• - fix:Main Menu Connectivity: Refactored server connection behaviour; the menu is now hidden/restored instead of closed, eliminating unnecessary resource reloading.
• - fix:Removed redundant condition in the extractor mode, resolving specific save-state crashes.
• - fix:A complete overhaul of procedures for resource checking, seabed generation, and world snapshotting to ensure maximum stability and data integrity.

Interface & UX

• - add:Dynamic UI Panels: The Upper and Lower panels can now be opened by clicking the four corners of the screen.
• - add:Added smooth screen fades when loading games (both for City and Sea views).
• - add:Unified the combat panel's upper bar design for visual symmetry.
• - add:Updated the Load/Save panel visuals to match the main interface style.
• - add:Updated the upper menu: replaced the "Options" text with a crossed-wrench icon and added "pressed" button states.
• - add:Added a "Close" button to the Bar/Guest window.
• - add:Network UI: Added new graphics for the network window.
• - add:Audio: Added a new "Click" sound for UI interactions.
• - add:Added colour-coding to various police dialogues.
• - add:Improved formatting of contract descriptions.
• - add:Visual Polish: Minor cosmetic colour adjustments and pixel-level refinements in the City View.
• - add:Contract UI: Added highlighting for the currently selected contract line for both the city and the player.
• - add:Multilingual UI: Added localised labels for "MORE" (DE: MEHR, PL: WIĘCEJ).
• - fix:The "Dock" button is now active immediately after loading a save and remains available after leaving a city (replacing the SOS button).
• - fix:Vox Populi Changed the "CONTINUE" button to "MORE" to better reflect multi-page dialogues.
• - fix:Adjusted the sepia palette and refined colours/pixels in the City View.
• - fix:Icon Fix: Replaced the "Quill and Document" icon with the "Shaking Hands" icon.
• Shipyard:
  • - add:Passenger module count display while browsing ships.
  • - add:Added Hit Points and Manoeuvrability stats to the ship browsing screen.
  • - fix:Updated shipyard labels: incompatible modules are now clearly marked with a red "INCOMPATIBLE" tag.
  • - fix:Corrected the Hull condition to show 100% (instead of 99%) when at full health.

Tooltip Enhancements:

• - add:Added tooltips for cargo items in the Dock and licenses in the lower panel.
• - add:Vox Populi Hovering over an article in the lower panel's cargo tab now displays its name.
• - add:Tooltips now show the exact amount if the value exceeds the standard display limit.
• - add:Tiered Funds Display: To keep the new UI clean, funds exceeding 1,000,000 are now shortened (e.g., "1.2 M"). In such cases, the exact full amount can still be viewed in the tooltip. Amounts below 1 million will continue to be displayed in full.
• - fix:Improved formatting for XP values and currency amounts within tooltips.
• - fix:Improved tooltip display and clearing logic while at sea.

Dialogues & NPCs:

• - fix:Updated repair cost values and formatting in player dialogues.
• - fix:Story Mode: Fixed mouse-click area offsets when situational pictures were displayed during dialogue.
• - fix:Story Mode: Fixed an issue where the ship would become unresponsive after leaving Paris and closing the at-sea dialogue. While an earlier fix addressed this for the "Skip Paris introduction" path, this update fully resolves the issue for the standard (full) dialogue path.
• - fix:NPC Scheduling: Adjusted Gaius's (Rome) shift to the 2nd shift (he was previously overlapping with Diana on the 1st).

[Aged Code]

Bug Fixes:

• - fix:Fixed incorrect coordinate calculations (Lat/Lon) for values near the 180° limit.
• - fix:Fixed a bug where police would disappear in Hamburg above latitude 57.104.
• - fix:Corrected a visual bug where merchant ships would leave a "black dot" on the map after loading a sea save if their vessel was within radar range.
• - fix:Fixed an issue where deleting the config file prevented the language selection menu from appearing.
• - fix:Cargo Window: General fixes and polish for the Cargo Hold window.
• - fix:Added missing spaces in several English, German, and automated interaction texts (e.g., attitude checks, delivered mined resource).
• - fix:Fixed a crash (Return to Workbench) during refuelling and while using the PIP.
• - fix:Interaction Zones: Fixed several issues where the mouse-click area was shifted or disabled after closing certain dialogue windows (Shipyard, Bar, Police Check).
• - fix:Fixed a bug where loading a save could incorrectly add several hours to the game time due to a missing Timer initialisation.
• - fix:Fixed a visual bug showing a stray digit between hours and minutes on the navigation panel.
• - fix:City Masking: Restored the city mask after closing the dynamic police check dialogue.
• - fix:Resolved an issue where cargo could exceed maximum capacity.
• - fix:Bar: After a pop-up dialogue with an NPC asking about the delivery, the new mask method was not restored, causing the game to quit to WB.
• - fix:Loading Messages: Disabled loading messages (will be added as a toggle in Options).
• - fix:Reputation Formula: Corrected the formula for reputation penalty calculation in the lower panel and docking sequence.
• - fix:Restored correct interaction zones after closing the lower panel or dynamic police check dialogues.
• - fix:Unified the restoration of NPC chat zones in the lower menu closure.
• - fix:Shipyard Zones: Fixed missing zone calls in the shipyard after "OK" or "Y/N" windows.
• - fix:Opening the lower panel during an ongoing chat with an NPC would disable the mouse click zones and prevent selecting an answer (key shortcuts remained unaffected).
• - fix:"Local prod." and "Next delivery in:" in market for articles produced locally.
• - fix:NPC Data: Fixed an issue where the merchant's city status would change incorrectly after loading.