Today, Astragon Entertainment revealed that Seafarer: The Ship Sim Early Access Update 5, aka The Co-op Crew Update, officially went live on the default branch,
Seafarer: The Ship Sim Co-op Crew Update introduces multiplayer support for up to four players, along with new missions, expanded trading options, and a wide range of improvements based on community feedback. For the first time, players can form a crew and operate the same vessel together across selected cargo operations, firefighting missions, rescue missions, and other activities, allowing each player to take on different responsibilities while working toward the same objective.
Container operations offer several ways for crews to cooperate, with players able to divide tasks such as crane operation, handling twist locks and lashing rods, and loading or unloading cargo. At the same time, the Big Trip allows two players to operate both cranes simultaneously for faster cargo operations.
LNG and bulk cargo missions also allow players to divide responsibilities between crane operation and loading or unloading duties. In contrast, firefighting and rescue missions give larger crews more ways to work together, with players steering the vessel, operating fire extinguishers, throwing lifebuoys, or assisting the pilot.
The update introduces two new missions, with Highjacked! becoming available in Mettington after reaching Reputation Level 3 and obtaining either the Rigid or Density, while Exchange and Jump In! have been added to all major harbors and become available after obtaining a tugboat. The Free Trade system has also expanded to include LNG and bulk cargo, allowing both cargo types to be bought and sold between major harbors and giving players more options for building their careers and making better use of their vessels.
Seafarer: The Ship Sim Early Access Update 5 also welcomes Knabe Drinks by HandOfBlood to Seafarer, adding Knabe-branded billboards and containers to harbors alongside a random delivery event featuring Knabe drinks; the collaboration is also showcased at Astragon Entertainment’s Gamescom booth. Several improvements have been made to systems introduced with the Career Update, including clearer trading information, increased cargo availability, improved harbor scheduling, rebalanced Reputation progression, expanded controller support, and adjustments to Work Shifts, mission rewards, and vessel management.
The harbor schedule has expanded from seven days to four weeks, letting players better plan future deliveries, while a new option lets players skip directly to a selected day, and locked harbors now show the global Reputation level required to unlock them.
Trading has received several additional improvements, including clearer cargo compatibility information, support for asymmetric cargo distribution on the Big Trip, market rotation timers, a paid loading service, and significantly increased cargo availability to provide more frequent and larger trading opportunities.
Campaign missions now provide direct Reputation rewards, inspection missions end with a results screen showing the vessel’s status, and players can repair, refill resources, and upgrade equipment on inactive vessels, with numerous additional bug fixes addressing community-reported issues.
The Seafarer: The Ship Sim Co-op Crew Update still includes several known issues, including occasional multiplayer voice chat problems, inspection and mission reward issues, problems with bulk cargo controls, an incorrectly functioning digital clock, and other smaller issues affecting fast travel and challenges.
Seafarer: The Ship Sim Early Access Update 5 is now available on the default branch of Steam. For more information on this and other Ship simulators, be sure to check back to Simulation Daily for updates.
