Captains,

Two loot events will run from daily maintenance on February 16th until daily maintenance on February 19th:

• St. Kitts 5 modules are available in the Admiralty, they can be exchanged for Broad Pennants that occasionally drop from 5th rates and higher
  
• Broad pennant will drop from military NPC ships

TTK (Time To Kill) - Sustained focus fire should kill ships faster. HP of planking and structure slightly lowered for 1st rates, 2nd rates and 3rd rates.
Predictable Rigging and Mast damage. Chain shot from ANY caliber now delivers 1HP damage. This will result in easier understanding of mast and rigging shocks. HP of masts and sails adjusted accordingly.

DATA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ismfxXECgWL3b1T8SuuLsqo4F6ZFhbvXQ3srN5hTOD0/edit#gid=0

The XP required to rank up has been lowered. We want players to get into large scale PvE , PvP, Patrols and Port battles faster.
Together with previous Assists XP increase - levelling up in a group now will also be much faster.

DATA:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ismfxXECgWL3b1T8SuuLsqo4F6ZFhbvXQ3srN5hTOD0/edit#gid=587806980

A player now has a 30-second invisibility period upon spawn from the combat. During this time, the player can look around and choose their direction of movement.
Movement and Invisibility: The moment the player starts moving, their invisibility is cancelled. Immediately after, a 15-second non-aggression timer is activated. During this period, the player cannot be attacked nor can the player initiate an attack on another player.

UI improvement for better clarity on level-based perks.


Spotlight image by komradkoshka from the April 2022 screenshot competition.

Captains,

Two loot events will run from daily maintenance on February 9th until daily maintenance on February 12th:

• Martinique 5 modules are available in the Admiralty, they can be exchanged for Broad Pennants that occasionally drop from 5th rates and higher
  
• Broad pennant will drop from military NPC ships

Spotlight image by Cornelius Escoso from the February 2022 screenshot competition.

• NPC ships will try to aim at the whole hull of the ship (not only waterline)
  
• NPC ships stay the course and wait for reload more often (instead of turning to shoot another broadside)

Please provide feedback on AI further improvements if you have any.

Captains,

Two loot events will run from daily maintenance on February 2nd until daily maintenance on February 5th:

Captains have to find rare ships like Diana, Santa Cecilia and Admiraal de Ruyter in the search areas provided below. These ships may carry a very rare ship notes and special loot coins, rare wood and rare guns:

• Gold Ducat
  
• Gold Rouble
  
• Gold Sultani
  
• Gold Thaler
  
• Strange Gold Bar
  
• Rare wood
  
• Rare guns

Coins might be exchanged in the Academy building to receive:

• Additional outpost permit
  
• Additional dock permit
  
• Diana permit
  
• Admiraal de Ruyter permit

If you already have the Navy Connection using the item will add even more outposts or docks (up to a total limit).

Search locations

• South Antilles - triangle of Aves, La Blanquilla and Saint George ports
  
• Northeast of Tumbado - area between Cuba and Tumbado
  
• South of Hispaniola

In case of capture of certain ports in the area, the nation of ships will change.

Ship of the line crafting resources availability
New source of Lineship material suppliers have been added to Gulf Region.

• San Luis Mast Timber
  
• New Orleans Heavy Rope
  
• Vera Cruz Compass wood
  
• Sisal Frame Timber
  
• El Rancho Cast Iron

New source of lineship material suppliers have been added to Caribbean Sea (all freetowns)

• La Tortue Cast Iron
  
• La Mona Compass wood
  
• Aves Heavy Rope
  
• Guayaguayare Mast Timber
  
• Dariena Frame Timber

Small quantities of ship of the line materials will also drop from sinking NPC 1-2nd rates in the open world.


Former interceptor turn rates.
Turn rates dependency on speed has been improved for former interceptors (trincomalee, surprise etc). They will no longer lose turning at speeds below 50% like all other vessels.


NPC Crafting resource suppliers
Amount of resources available for purchase - increased.

Captains,

We are aware of the bug that causes the loss of crew when you send your main ship to the fleet.

The fix will be deployed tomorrow, January 27th.

Until then, please send ships to the fleet from docked ships. If you want to add your current main ship to the fleet, switch to another ship first

1. NPC AI - 7-5th rates will be less sturdy and will be slightly less accurate
   
2. NPC AI - NPC ships assigned to close range and medium range combat will try to get closer to you than before and will kite at shorter distance, long range kite ships will also try to fight slightly closer.
   
3. Tracking shot is more accurate, tracking shot now has low penetration and lower damage
   
4. All types of teak woods now have a bit more speed and acceleration at the cost of lower HP
   
5. NPC traders who make ship/gun building resources (iron, coal, woods etc.) now produce more resources - especially stone
   
6. Slight rebalances of turning, speed, acceleration, speed loss when turning for many vessels
   
7. Boarding - fixed negative morale bug
   
8. AI Behavior - fixed bots getting stuck in avoidance near land.

We would like to announce a patch and a start of the new season.

Players combat experience, Captain chest, Player Name, ClanTag and Investments are kept and are NOT reset. Naval Service Medal Rewards for the finishing seasonal events Naval Service medals are moved to captain's chest.

All other assets and experience levels are reset (due to significant changes to gameplay and system mechanics).

Combat AI have received full overhaul - here is the list of improvements

• AI will better avoid friendly obstacles
  
• AI accuracy bugs were fixed
  
• AI will better behave near land and will beach less
  
• AI will pick which side to choose for shooting much better and will know when to continue to turn and when to turn back as guns are close to reloading
  
• AI will be able to keep required distance moderately well
  
• AI will no longer stop shooting when avoiding obstacles
  
• AI will try to move out of current position at speed if something is blocking the shot
  
• AI will not stop when passing stationary or slow obstacles to the right or left
  
• AI will no longer get stuck in the wind trying to turn right and left due to bugs with logic
  
• AI will kite, or get close or stay at mid range depending on its role
  
• AI will use perks and books giving improvements to combat
  
• AI will no longer attempt to board the player (as it felt totally random before).
  
• Fleet composition. 1-2nd rates will no longer sail alone
  
• Fleet composition. 1-3rd rate ship variety has been increased
  
• Fleet composition. Heavy fleets will no longer have light ships in them
  
• Overall: AI is now more deadly and interesting.

• Bot locations have been improved to provide smooth leveling experience with less gaps in NPC locations. Early levelling areas will have much more 5th rates. Amount of lineships around Hispaniola and Puerto Rico - increased.
  
• Combat rank visualization in form of insignia added to open world and ship auction to give new players better understanding of the target level compared to his. Blue insignia - it is possible to kill a ship, Red Insignia - it might be hard without experience.
  
• Multiple other minor changes to help new and current players enjoy the game more.

The goal of repairs is to a) help the player to recover from minor mistakes b) give the ability to not interrupt the fun and return to action after successful local engagement in large battles c) help to balance hit-points of ships both for large battles and small engagements d) ship that is repairing should be fighting as well as the ship that is not repairing.

Changes to repairs.

• Hull repairs will fix 50% of armor and 50% of structure
  
• Mast/Sail repairs will fix 75% of sails
  
• Player will only have one repair per hour (cooldown will be increased to 60 mins)
  
• Combat repair PERK will reset the cooldown after you sink a ship granting additional repairs after local tactical victories in battles larger than 1v1. (In group battle to get kill counted your damage to target must be higher than damage of all other shooters)
  
• Amount of crew for repairing is significantly increase - reducing your ability to shoot all guns
  
• Time to repair is increased from 2 to 4 minutes at full crew on repairs (if your crew is lower the time will linearly increase)

As a result. In 1v1 engagement the player can only have 1 repair; in 25v25 players of one side will have 1 repair per ship + up to maximum of 25 additional repairs per fleet based on the number of enemies they sink. This will promote action and naturally balance the speed of large battles. Ships repairing will not have full combat performance due to amount of crew required and time required to repair and will have to disengage and be protected.

To improve incentives to capture and control ports counties will allow clan owners to buy unique resources: currently permits, rare guns, rare woods. These resources will be available for doubloons at moderately low prices.

• Resources will be available in all ports of the county which will reduce the chances to monopolize access by one clan (as it will be hard to keep all ports of the region).
  
• For example Santisima permit currently drops from NPCs, in addition to that all ports in one county of the Caribbean will also deliver Santisima permits for controlling clan in exchange for certain currency. This will give an incentive to capture ports of that region to guarantee supply of permits.
  
  Allied clans should help the port owner if they share these resources, if they dont clans should join another alliance.
  Please provide the feedback on the supply and locations of those resources - also provide ideas on additional resources which we can add to clan barter.

Port battles -
Players leaving the battle before it ends will count as a kill for the enemy and give points.

Amount of ports with safe zones will be decreased but will still allow safe levelling up to heavy frigates.

Ships of the line and heavy guns will now require up to 5 special resources for crafting, requiring logistic planning and some minimal amount hauling.
Resource locations:

• Cartagena de Indias - Frame Timber
  
• Nuevitas - Cast Iron
  
• Santo Domingo - Heavy Rope
  
• San Juan - Compass wood
  
• Cumaná - Mast Timber

There locations will create a lot of traffic and action in the Caribbean Sea. We are going to monitor their supply and traffic and add more locations (for example in the gulf) if needed.
The resources are cheap and abundant, which will not cause tears when losing them to privateers. Clans that want to field large fleets of heavy crafted ships of the line will have to involve more players in either crafting and occasional hauling or in privateering to capture those resources by force.

We also plan to add some resources like gun drills for crafting heavy guns but this feature will appear later after we get feedback on the line ship resources.

Tobacco changes
Tobacco is now 4 times heavier
Tobacco can only be sold in 3 locations

• Vera Cruz
  
• Gibraltar
  
• Kidd's Harbour

NPC Ships of the line - 3rd rates 2nd rates and 1st rates will be almost impossible to capture and all received extensive boarding bonuses. Avoid boarding NPC 3-1st rates at all costs.

• Boarding commands, costs and flow have been reworked and generally improved. Commands received better clear counters and boarding combat overall have been made more fluid and dynamic.
  
• Boarding immunity: Player who successfully defended against boarding will be immune from re-boarding for 1 min (cannot be boarded).
  
• NPC boarding: NPC no longer will attempt to board the player which will especially help lower level new players.

• Tracking shot horizontal accuracy buffs removed!!! to remove the opportunity to shoot masts shot by shot. Tracking shot is still great for judging general distance (angle of shooting) by looking at splashes, but its almost useless to judge the deflection of the target. Long range shooting will require more skill as a result
  
• Critical damage to structure reduced from 6x to 3x.
  
• Critical damage threshold reduced from 10% to 9%
  
• Rudder HP increased
  
• Overall ship structure is now 80% of its side.
  
• Broadside HP rebalanced for all vessels and generally became lower to provide appropriate time for solo battles.
  
• Penetration curves adjusted for all types of guns, accuracy
  
• Gun sector movement is now slower
  
• Medium guns now can penetrate targets at 1000m and are no longer basic trash guns. They have better DPM than long guns and should be used for medium and short range combat
  
• Long guns have lower DPM than medium guns but compensate it with accuracy and penetration at distance - they should be used for long range combat.
  
• All guns including rare guns damage and reload numbers have been rebalanced to improve choices
  
• All cannons (except for carronades) lost accuracy to provide more realistic feeling to combat as we did not like laser guns as only option
  
• Carronade DPM and damage is rebalanced for carronades 32lb and below (32-12pd) to improve carronade/cannon damage balance on 5th rates and below. Vertical dispersion on carronades have been slightly improved (reduced from 17 to 11). But we think they can be improved even further. Please provide feedback on carronades after you tried them.
  
  
  Perk Changes
  
  
  • Perks have been reset for all players
    
  • Perks rebalanced
    
  • New perk lines added
    
  • Cost of perks changed
    
  • Unlocking 5 knowledge slots on the ship now grants 1 perk point. Unlocking knowledge slots on all ships significantly increases your perk selection options.
  
  Multiple other changes and improvements have also been applied.

Please discuss on Steam and Discord. We are looking for your gameplay feedback and suggestions on improvements.

*Spotlight image by Sato

Captains,

Two loot events will run from daily maintenance on January 19th until daily maintenance on January 22nd:

• St. Kitts 5 modules are available in the Admiralty, they can be exchanged for Broad Pennants that occasionally drop from 5th rates and higher
  
• Broad pennant will drop from military NPC ships

Spotlight image by Fezzola from the December 2021 screenshot competition.

Captains.

We would like to announce a patch and a start of the new season. Patch will be deployed somewhere next week. Most likely date is 22nd.

All assets except for special chest (where you can transfer your items you want for the next season) will be reset on the patch date. Player Experience and investments will NOT be reset and will remain as is. All port ownership will be reset.

Combat AI have received full overhaul where we improved the behavior and fixed multiple found bugs
AI will now pick the role for combat (short range, medium range, long range kite), which will improve variety of combat and allow large fleets to behave more like human fleets (some will kite, some will brawl), AI will now pick targets better, maneuver and evade obstacles better. Multiple bugs with aiming, reloading, evasion fixed as well - full list of changes will be provided on the Patch date.

• Bot locations have been improved to provide smooth leveling experience with less gaps in NPC locations
  
• Combat rank visualization added to open world and ship auction to give new players better understanding of the target level compared to his.
  
• Multiple other minor changes to help new and current players enjoy the game more.

We believe that this patch will bring the best implementation of repairs to date

The goal of repairs is to a) help the player to recover from minor mistakes b) give the ability to not interrupt the fun and return to action after successful local engagement in large battles c) help to balance hitpoints of ships both for large battles and small engagements d) ship that is repairing should be fighting as well as the ship that is not repairing.

Unfortunately current implementation was not solving these goals - and instead was increasing the length of many battles especially for lineships.

Changes to repairs.
To solve the problems of current repairs and give natural balance to all battles (1v1 VS 25v25) the following changes will be done to repairs.

• Player will only have one repair per hour (cooldown will be increased to 60 mins)
  
• Player is already able to gain additional repairs by sinking ships (gaining kills - by delivering most damage to enemy vessel). Combat repair perk price will be decreased as it is becoming a key perk for all battles. Combat repairs will reset the cooldown granting additional repairs after local tactical victories in battles larger than 1v1.
  
• Amount of repairs to hull mast and structure will be adjusted to reflect goals listed above.
  
• Amount of crew for repairing will be significantly increased forcing player to move them from other crew focuses
  
• Time to repair will be doubled.

As a result. In 1v1 engagement the player can only have 1 repair; in 25v25 players of one side will have 1 repair per ship + up to maximum of 25 additional repairs per fleet based on the number of enemies they sink. This will promote action and naturally balance the speed of large battles. Ships repairing will not have full combat performance due to amount of crew required and time required to repair and will have to disengage and be protected.

To improve incentives to capture and control ports counties will allow clan owners to buy unique resources like permits, rare guns, rare woods, and other things.

• Some resources will also be available on the NPC market in that port and/or only in clan barter (some will only be available for controlling clans).
  
• Resources will be available in all ports of the county which will reduce the chances to monopolize access by one clan (as it will be hard to keep all ports of the region).
  
• For example Santisima permit currently drops from NPCs, in addition to that all ports in one county of the Caribbean will also deliver Santisima permits for controlling clan in exchange for certain currency. This will give an incentive to capture ports of that region to guarantee supply of permits.

Port battles - Players leaving the battle before it ends will count as a kill for the enemy and give points.

Amount of ports with safe zones will be decreased but will still allow safe levelling up to heavy frigates.

Ships of the line and heavy guns will now require special resources for crafting, requiring logistic planning and some minimal amount hauling. Clans that want to field large fleets of heavy crafted lineships will have to involve more players in either crafting and occasional hauling or in privateering to capture those resources by force.

Admiralty will no longer allow capture of the ships of the line from NPC ships reverting the capture rules to the older naval action version. Only 7th to 4th rates will be capturable from NPCs.

Boarding commands, costs and flow have been reworked and generally improved. Commands received better clear counters and boarding combat overall have been made more fluid and dynamic.
Player who successfully defended against boarding will be immune from re-boarding for 1 min (cannot be boarded).

• Critical damage to structure will be reduced. Overall structure of ships will be modestly increased.
  
• Broadside HP will be reduced for heavy vessels.
  
• Penetration curves adjusted for all types of guns, accuracy

Final full patchnotes will be posted on patch day.

Please discuss on Steam and Discord. We will be visiting the steam forums and discord next week to answer questions and discuss the patch with you.