• New terrain. Dive deep below the surface to explore nine new biomes powered by an overhauled terrain generator.
• New caves. Descend into large cave systems that offer branching paths and areas for more freeform spelunking.
• New discoveries. Receive notifications of new discoveries. Return to points of interest anytime with the reworked Fast Travel system.
• Enhanced scanning. Feel the shape of caves and reveal the floor with a redesigned scanner that conveys results in two and three dimensions.
• Proximity cues. Hear nearby obstacles with new proximity cues that react to pilots' position and heading.
• Occlusion filtering. Understand when walls and other obstacles exist between pilots and their loot.

• Audio
  • Added cues for discovering, scanning, and exploring caves
  • Added occlusion filtering to treasure when behind terrain
  • Added proximity cues to the nearest scanned terrain
  • Added unique cue for directly ahead scanner results
  • Added unique cue for scanned cave entrances
  • Reworked terrain sonification cues
  • Reworked terrain frequencies to reflect relative height
  • Reworked underwater soundtrack fader to reflect floor depth
  • Fixed reverb changes around sea level
• Gameplay
  • Added cave discovery system
  • Added heightmap scanning of the floor
  • Increased the amount of terrain revealed by scans
• Graphics
  • Adjusted fade between surface and floor
  • Added animations to newly scanned terrain
  • Added oscillating motion to scanned terrain
  • Improved geometry of scanned terrain colors
  • Improved terrain render performance
• Movement
  • Added movement to fast travel transitions
  • Fixed some stickiness when surfacing
• User interface
  • Added discovered caves as options on Fast Travel screen
  • Added distances to options on Fast Travel screen
  • Added metric for Caves Discovered to Statistics screen
  • Added notifictions and autosaving when caves are discovered
  • Added slider for Static Draw Distance to Graphics screen
  • Added slider for Static Object Limit to Graphics screen
  • Added toggle for Discovery Notifications to Gameplay screen
  • Moved toggle for Treasure Hints from Gameplay to Graphics screen (renamed to HUD Treasure)
  • Reworked items on Gallery screen into a table layout
• World generation
  • Overhauled underwater terrain generation
  • Added nine unique biomes to the floor generator
  • Added branching cave systems that connect the floor to deeper areas
  • Added freeform caverns that intersect the main caves
  • Added a large cave system beneath the origin
• Save game changes due to breaking terrain changes
  • Moved players who would be stuck below the floor
  • Removed all scanned terrain

The treasure cue continues to cause rare audio crashes after a successful scan. Rest assured that the game will attempt to automatically recover. This is definitely one of the hardest issues to track and reproduce. I'm considering waiting until a later roadmap release to completely replace this system rather than continue to troubleshoot it further.

I'm most excited for the changes here that unblock future work on the underwater gameplay. For example, the new Fast Travel system is built to support points of interest beyond cave entrances, and corresponding changes to audio and terrain generation mean that I can begin working on the other set pieces that will populate the sea floor. Likewise, deep inside these areas pilots might find rare loot, which would drive a new economy where treasures can be broken down into raw materials, or sold for gold, and then be applied toward unique progression tracks.