Captains,

The issue preventing players from teleporting from/to outposts, constructing new buildings, and crafting in existing buildings in Free Towns has been fixed.

All affected towns are now fully functional again.

• Added new Dutch Ocean Fleets patrolling the Deep Waters between La Mona and Curacao (Benedenwinds region on the map).

• The fleets do not attack players for now (unlike the patrolling NPCs on Trincomalee ships).

• It is impossible to join a battle on the side of the Ocean Fleet, and the same applies to initial pulling into the battle — this prevents players from disrupting others’ engagements.

• On Live Servers, these fleets will sail at full strength with 20–25 NPC ships.

• On the Test Server, fleet size is limited to 3 NPC ships for more comfortable small-group testing.

• Sinking these ships provides a chance to loot rare offensive modules (e.g. gun reloading, boarding modules) and rare books for collections, with an increased drop rate.

We are gradually introducing activity-specific loot targeting.
This means different activities now yield different loot types.

Current implementation:

• Ocean Fleets → Rare offensive modules (blue to gold) and rare books for collections.

  • For example: Gun Sights, Marines, Gunners, etc.

• Raiders Port Battles → Rare defensive modules (blue to gold) and rare books for collections.

  • For example: Planking, Reinforced Sails, Reinforced Masts, etc.

We believe this approach will help players determine which activity to focus on in order to collect a desired module or book.

The effectiveness of double shot has been significantly reduced at long ranges:

• Damage now starts to gradually fall off from 250m to 500m.

• Beyond 500m, double shot becomes completely ineffective.

Double shot is now exclusively a close-range ammunition.

• Update on NPC decision-making regarding when to switch broadsides.

• Open World Patrol Trincomalee NPCs are now Dutch, same as the Ocean Fleets.

• Updated localization (conquest missions).

It is currently impossible to teleport from/to outposts, create new buildings, or craft in existing buildings in the following Free Towns:

• Nassau

• La Tortue

• La Mona

• Aves

• Guayaguayare

• Dariena

• Great Corn

• Tumbado

This issue will be resolved in the next hotfix.

UPDATE – The issue was fixed on September 27 and Free Town functionality has been fully restored

Spotlight image by Revard, from the January 2022 screenshot competition.

Captains,

The redeemables provided on Sunday, September 20, have been extended by one week and are once again available in the redeemables box on the Test Server.

Please note that these are not new items, but the same redeemables that were already available earlier. If you have already redeemed them, your redeemables box will remain empty.

Captains,
The following changes were applied on the Test Server today, September 23:

• Chain shot damage to crew and hull reduced

• Mortar damage to crew reduced (to match Live Server values)

• Round shot, double shot, and double charge damage to sails and masts slightly increased

• NPC chain shot behavior adjusted: new minimum/maximum distance thresholds and firing angle

Captains,

As requested by players, the following items have been added to the redeemables on the Test Server to allow everyone to experience large fleet battles:

• L’Ocean with Teak / Teak frame and planking and five slots for modules

• 500,000 gunpowder

• 50,000 cannonballs

• 1,000 hull repairs

• 1,000 rig repairs

• 32 × 42-pdr long guns

• 34 × 24-pdr long guns

• 38 × 12-pdr long guns

• 22 × 9-pdr long guns

How to Claim

1. Ensure you have at least one spare dock slot.

2. While in port, press R (or click the Redeemables button at the top-right of the port UI).

3. Open the Redeemables tab Gifts & Rewards and redeem the items.

4. Once redeemed:

   • The ship will be placed in your port dock.

   • Ammunition and guns will be placed in your Reward Chest, from which you can transfer them to the port warehouse or directly to your ship hold.

We wish you fun and epic battles!

Captains,

The following changes were deployed today, September 2025, on the Test Server:

• Grape damage maximum distance reduced by 100 meters

• Grape damage slightly rebalanced: it now takes 5 broadsides to fully decrew an unarmored enemy ship (up from 4 broadsides on the testbed)

• Grape ricochet angle adjusted to correspond to ball, approximately 45 degrees

• Leak water inflow reduced by 20–25%

• Cannon maximum horizontal aiming arc reduced from 40 degrees to 30 degrees (from 20° to each side to 15° to each side) to increase the importance of ship positioning in battles

• Ship structure increased to 120% of planking

• NPCs will now use battle sails more often

Feedback

Please provide your feedback on Steam Forums or on the Official Forum

• Ship Speed and Flooding
  Ship speed once again affects the amount of incoming water:
  When sailing at 15% of maximum speed or lower, the water intake from leaks is reduced by 25%.

• Crew Damage Updates
  Crew damage values have been updated for:

  • Round Shot

  • Double Shot

  • Grape

  • Double Charge

• Greatly increased grape and splinter damage from cannons.

• Greatly increased the number of cannons destroyed during raking fire.

• Grape shot damage is now effective up to 500 meters.

• Increased bow hitpoints to allow closing distance with more safety 

Previously, raking fire was not a particularly effective tactic. We want to make it viable again. We look forward to your feedback.

• Slightly increased the impact of angling — previously cannons could penetrate armor up to 45 degrees, now they can do so at roughly 40–43 degrees.

• Successfully inflicted leaks from a single broadside can sink a ship if the captain does not react in time and shift the entire crew to Survival Focus.

• Slightly reduced the hitpoints of mast sections.

IMPORTANT: DATABASE RESET FOR TESTBED (TESTBED FULLY WIPED)
The current database on the testbed is from the Caribbean Main Server of September 12 maintenance time.

Changes to Cannon Penetration and Hull Thickness

Improved base angling, which can be further enhanced by stacking thickness.
This is the first step; additional improvements will be introduced next week.

• The penetration values of all cannons have been updated.

• The hull thickness of all ships has been updated.

• Cannons can penetrate the hull at angles up to 45–50 degrees relative to the target.

New penetration pattern:

• Medium Guns – penetrate the hull at distances up to 1500 m.

• Long Guns – penetrate the hull at distances up to 2000 m.

• Carronades – penetrate the hull at distances up to 1000 m.

When firing at a ship with maximum hull thickness bonuses, these distances are reduced by approximately 500 m.

The main goal of these changes is to increase the impact of angling and thickness on combat outcomes.

Bind on Pickup (BoP) Mechanic

• With this update, modules and books become bound to the player who first obtained them.

• These items cannot be sold or transferred to other players, and they cannot be placed on contracts.

• These items cannot be moved into ships that do not belong to their owner (including derelict ships).

• If a player leaves BoP items inside a ship and then makes that ship a derelict, the BoP items will disappear when another player opens the hold of that derelict.

• Privateer perk – the extra module drop (SEARCH) has been removed.

This change will allow us to significantly increase the drop chances of these items in one of the upcoming hotfixes – for example, making it easier to collect a full set of desired books and modules.

Clan Leaderboard and Conquest Missions

• The clan leaderboard has been updated with improved visualization of sorting. Only the top 10 clans are displayed for each sorting criterion.

• To take a conquest mission, a player must belong to a clan that is in the Top 10.

• A ship battle rating requirement has been added to conquest missions, similar to port battles.

• When taking a conquest mission, the ship used by the player is recorded. Losing that ship will cause the mission to fail.

• A conquest mission can only be successfully completed (leading to port battle scheduling) if the player finishes the final battle in the same ship that the player used to accept the mission.

Please note that this is not the final version of the conquest mission system. Final adjustments and balance changes will be released in one of the upcoming patches. We are looking forward to your feedback on these changes.

Other Changes

• The real payout per unit of damage has been increased from 2 to 3.

• The maximum efficiency of trading has been limited to approximately one hour per trade route.

• Crafting recipes have been slightly adjusted.

• The final balance of income will be released in one of the upcoming updates.

Update on the Investigation of the Exploit with Items
During the last week we removed over 50 rare books, modules, and guns that remained on other players after exploiters were banned.

Several improvements have also been made to the exploit system, which should prevent possible duplication issues in the future:

• During trade, items placed in the offer are locked and cannot be moved, split, equipped, or otherwise modified until the trade is completed. Direct trade remains fully available. The only items that cannot be traded under any circumstances are bind-on-pickup ones.

• It is no longer possible to transfer a ship that has items in its hold.

• The ability to install modules and cannons via drag and drop has been removed. To equip them on a ship, you now need to click on the appropriate ship slots and select from the list of available items.

Spotlight image from Captain Malik from the February 2022 screenshot competition.

Captains,

The following changes were applied today on the Testbed Server:

• The Conquest Flag item has been removed from RvR - you can still exchange it for doubloons.

• The right to undertake conquest missions is now granted to the top 10 clans on the national leaderboard, determined by specific Activity Points accumulated during the past 7 days.

• The price of Conquest Missions is tied to the level of activity within the targeted port.

Once you take a conquest mission, the rest of the flow remains the same — you must start the mission within 45 minutes and then survive inside it for another 45 minutes, after which the Port Battle is scheduled for the next day.

These changes aim to eliminate several issues with the previous Conquest Flag mechanic that were reported by players.

• Adjusted rudder turn values based on the kinematic characteristics of ships.

• Updated rudder curve.

• Updated acceleration and deceleration for all ships.

• Updated ship inertia.

• Reworked speed loss mechanics from rudder inertia for all ships.

• Increased ship turning from sails at low speeds.

The purpose of this update is to establish a consistent tacking pattern. For example:

• If a ship begins a tack with sufficient speed, it should retain positive speed by the end of the maneuver.

• If a ship starts a tack from low speed, it will stall and end up moving backwards.

In the current Testbed implementation, speed loss due to rudder inertia only affected ships under Battle Sails, leaving full sails unaffected. With this update:

• Rudder inertia will reduce speed by up to 50% of a ship’s maximum speed, regardless of sail plan.

• After that threshold, the impact of rudder inertia becomes negligible.

• Sail damage caused by chain shot reduced by about 38%, based on player feedback.

• Gun damage increased by about 5% across all guns.

*Spotlight image by Captain Lord Dorian Beckett from the June 2021 screenshot competition.