Hey everyone,

and first of all let us thank all of you who shared their views regarding our planned priorities. We took that to heart and worked tirelessly to implement Companion Progression, which includes raising the Prowess cap from two to five, introducing Companion-specific traits that increase stats, and much more.

Hi Folks,

Thank you for all the feedback you shared with us in the last few weeks! This was immensely useful from the smallest bug reports to the super-ambitious ideas on how to turn Vagrus into a AAA title [thanks for crediting so grand a potential to our tiny team], and we appreciate you taking the time to help us with your insights.

Lately, we have been working on Crew Combat to further enhance its mechanics and the latest improvement is the 'Flee' feature. Let's check it out!

Flee!

Fleeing will now be added to a selection of Crew Combat encounters with the following considerations:

With the relatively recent arrival of Factions to Vagrus, you guys finally got your hands on a new way to specialize your comitatus. Up until now, this meant some obscure (albeit very welcome - I'm looking at you, road tax) boons and perks but now, with the addition of claimable rewards, Factions are going to become your best friends.

This week marks the addition of Leader Status and Perk Summary panes to the Leader UI. And although it might seem a superfluous gain, these will round out the status effect AI as well as the information provided about Perks, so it is indeed a very important milestone in our march towards completing the game.

One of the last big additions to Vagrus' Open World Campaign that is now coming very close to being released is the character creation sequence at the start of the game. That is the feature that allows you to customize and set up your own vagrus by selecting a variety of options in subsequent steps. To give a quick idea of the many amazing options, here's a little rundown:

• MS 6: Crew Combat Alpha
• MS 14: Unrest and Obedience Mechanics (Partial delivery): Liberate or Discipline Slaves to gain Obedience. Unrest will be added in a later update.
• Butcher beasts or mounts for supplies
• Warning triggers if an action would result in cargo loss

• MS 10: Chart Exploration
• MS 11: Companion Select during Events
• MS 13: Hidden Stash and Smuggling Contraband

• New sound effects for a number of creatures
• Camping without guards decreases Obedience
• Radial menu icons automatically pop up on the campaign map
• Node sizes increased for Point of Interests to better indicate them
• Goods tooltips now show more trade information
• Merged a few perks to make them more impactful

• Passenger destinations are now generated correctly in new games (thanks for catching and reporting this!)! Old saves remain bugged.
• New Day save now works after combat encounters in the Fighting Pit event
• Cargo slot changes are now applied immediately
• Fixed tutorial pins for closing the Journal and the Codex
• Fixed a bug causing Companion conversation portraits to be empty
• Healing companions no longer triggers the incorrect Event result text
• Fixed the Journal entry order for The Black Knight chapter V, Eliminating the Abolitionist Camps
• Clicking on the Journal or Codex during "Hold space..." tutorial/narration is up now does not open them

• More Sound Effects
• Vagrus Creation for the Main Campaign
• Companion Combat tweaks and additions
• Factions UI
• Animations for all characters

• Open World Prototype

This time, we'll revisit the dreaded Scortaur and take a look at their stats and skills in general. These creatures are devious, fierce, and horribly mutated, so you'll have to be prepared to be challenged by their combat abilities when you run into them.

The most apparent stats when it comes to these horrid savages are the high Vitality and Block chance, which often adds a bonus to their already considerable Armor. Additionally, they are quite resistant to many status effects and have great Initiative. Their four Combat Skills make them versatile opponents:

As I am writing these lines, we are actively working on what we call Enduring Effects for the game. What are these? Well, in short and to put it simply, these are all buffs and debuffs that last for several in-game days or are permanent (until removed somehow). They come in a variety of types and can be used for a lot of things to enhance gameplay and narrative alike.