SAND: Raiders of Sophie opens a recruitment office for finding teammates with Update 11, alongside EMP weapons, a new POI and a reworked gamepad layout.
The developers call it their biggest update yet, and after the bumpy server merge a week earlier it was badly needed.
Recruitment Office: find teammates in game
The Recruitment Office is basically a lobby browser. You can look for players to join your own expedition or hop into someone else's. Tags on your ad let you filter for the right people. You will find it under the blue buttons below the team player list.
For a game built so heavily around teamwork on a trampler, that is a real win. Until now, finding a group meant relying almost entirely on Discord.
EMP weapons and new repair items
Update 11 brings new items that, for now, only show up in Suspicious Piles of Sand:
- EMP Grenade and EMP Rocket
- V1 Repair Patch: instantly fixes damaged patches and pipes.
- Advanced Repair Kit Fuel: repairs compartments faster.
POI Archipelago and more loot
New on the map is the Archipelago POI, which you can spot because, unlike the islands, it has no name. Smaller comfort features come with it:
- Press F when opening a box to take everything at once.
- Rum cars now have loot in their trunks.
- Islands and forts have one-time-use medkits.
- Climbable vines on some islands and forts, recognisable by their brighter green.
Gamepad controls get rebuilt
A beta for the reworked controller layout starts at the same time. Sprint moves to L3, jump to X or A, crouch to O or B and ping to R1. There is also a new option to swap reload and interact, plus a slider for how long you hold long actions, from 1 to 5 seconds. Your keyboard and controller settings may reset after the update.
Before that: a bumpy server merge
A week before the update, the team merged server regions to fill lobbies better:
- Brazil and US Central fold into US East.
- Korea and Australia fold into Asia.
- Great Britain folds into Europe.
- US West stays as it is.
The plan was one to two hours of maintenance. In the end it ran until midday on September 16. Along the way, US Central characters went missing until a fix brought them back. The developers say the split is not final and will be adjusted over Early Access based on feedback. For what happened with matchmaking and trampler combat before that, see our piece on Update 10.
FAQ
What is the Recruitment Office in SAND?
An in-game lobby browser where you look for teammates for expeditions or join other players.
Where do I find the EMP weapons?
For now, only in Suspicious Piles of Sand.
Did the server merge wipe any characters?
No, characters and progression carry over. US Central characters that briefly went missing were restored by a fix.