Dear Shipmates,

We're happy to finally announce the release of Floating Sandbox 1.17.0!

As you should know by now, this new release sports a built-in Ship Builder that allows you to make your own ships, using all of the advanced ship features such as electrical layers, rope layers, and textures.

Do however keep in mind that this is only the first release of the builder, containing essential ship-building tools such as pencil, line, and eraser. We have a *plethora* of additional features in store, and we plan to release these quite often in the following months. Some of the planned features include advanced tools (e.g. rectangles, texture transparency maker, copy-and-paste, etc.), aids to ship-building (e.g. real-time waterline analysis, predicting how the ship will list and float once in the simulator), and material improvements (e.g. lighter varieties of existing materials, more colors, etc.). Start building now then, acquire the skills necessary to build nice ships, and be on the lookout for updates that will advance your shipbuilding mastery!

But that's not all. On top of the Ship Builder, this feature also includes physics improvements, such as better wind forces, better water displacement (aka "interactive waves"), and a more balanced response to impacts with the ocean floor.

Here is the full changelist for this release:

• First release with "Ship Builder" - the integrated ship editor which allows players to create and edit ships from within the game

  • This first version already allows for creating ships with all layers (structural, electrical, ropes, and texture)

  • Many more tools and features are planned for subsequent releases

• Improved wind simulation

  • Re-calibrated susceptibility of all materials to wind

  • New settings are more realistic - watch out for ships and aircrafts drifting away with strong winds!

  • Improved influence of wind on flames

• Added "WindMaker" tool

  • It's now possible to generate (radial) winds at will

  • Check out the effect of the SHIFT key on the tool!

• Added new materials for ropes:

  • Metal Chain

  • Rubber Band

• Improved water displacement caused by ships

• Fixed exhaggerated destruction at touchdowns on ocean floor

• Fixed "slice lock"

• Fixed bug with WaveMaker waves sometimes becoming too tall and crashing the game

• Lowered HeatBlaster radius when in ultra-violent mode

• Added "Preferences" setting for starting the game in full-screen mode or as a normal window

• Moved Strength Randomization settings from the "Preferences" window to the "Settings" window

• Improved precision of "Move" tool for tiny movements

• Added 6 new ships

• Musical theme for this release: Aurora, entire discography

...and that's all for this release - stay tuned and be on the lookout for the next update!