Ahoy Pathfinders!

I'm Dollie, your new Community Manager with training wheels. I'm excited to be a part of the team, especially working on an MMO title focused on Pirates! I've enjoyed meeting new people via ATLAS on the Discord & Forums, along with seeing familiar people from the ARK community. You’ll definitely hear more from me on those platforms, as well as on Twitter.

As for my background, I've had extended experience with running communities or operating in a leadership role across various gaming platforms. Some of you may recognize me from the Official ARK PVP community. For those of you who aren't familiar with me -- I come from a competitive PvP background and have a love of FPS, Survival, MOBAs, and MMOs along with quirky lil indie games. Other Dollie funfacts include my penchant for anything post-apocalyptic, suffering from an unhealthy addiction to pistachios and an equally unhealthy repertoire of bad jokes and puns.

Don't hesitate to message me with all of the things and I’ll do my best to get back to you...or I’ll just pile it all onto Jat's desk. Real talk though, I'm looking forward to getting more involved with the Community, I do read all of your messages but I may not always have time to respond to each one. Rest assured, Jat and I, as well as the rest of the team, do take note of everyone’s feedback and with your help, we’ll work together to shape and realise the vision for ATLAS as the ultimate fantasy pirate adventure.

Now on to more exciting topics!


On Friday the 18th of January, at 1 PM Pacific Time, the ATLAS team will be hosting our first ever Developer Livestream! Join our crew at Seattle HQ as they unearth a veritable treasure trove of information and news regarding upcoming content, gameplay changes, and future development plans. You'll want to keep your eyes trained on the waves, or perhaps beneath them, as you might just catch a glint of what's to come!  

It's a few days away, so here's a little early look at some upcoming content:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1625892780

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1625867109

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1625866286

With so much more planned to be revealed live on stream! Seriously, you'll not want to miss out.

We'll also be opening the floor to questions from the Community! You can ask almost anything here on our forums or on Reddit. We’ll be selecting an assortment of your questions to answer live on stream.

Whether you’re a twitcher or a mixer(er?), you’ll be able to catch us on both platforms at Twitch and Mixer! See ya scallywags then ;)


Complete Patch Notes

This week is all about performance! Well, that’s not entirely true, there have been a multitude of various fixes. But we’ve made vast improvements to our networking and server performance on our most intense Official Servers has increased by approximately 20% (an in some cases, more). The team are currently working on additional changes which we hope to be able to deploy later this week which will further improve server performance by approximately 25%. Incidentally, we’re not going to stop there! We’re going to keep hammering on server performance so that your grand Naval Battles can take place on the smoothest seas (unless you’re in a storm, of course :P)


We’re going to continue repeating this: it's just the very beginning of our journey. You can expect frequent major (and minor) patches multiple times each week to improve the state of the game - including exploit and bug fixes, QOL improvements, balance and design changes and new content and features. You will always have something to look forward to and the team are already working on some major content & feature additions in tangent with our frequent live game patches, so be sure to tune into Friday’s Stream for more details on that!


In our previous Captain’s Log, we expressed how much of an internal priority it was to crack down on cheaters, exploits and general foulness. We planned out a 3 step process:

• Enable BattlEye
  
• playATLAS Tickets
  
• Additional Detection & Prevention

Since that initial announcement, we have completed the process. We’ll be continuing to work on our anti-cheat measures, including detecting tools, patching out exploits, and expanding our team to tackle cheaters. There will be no room for them on our network. Over the coming days you’ll likely see a number of complaints regarding bans and, should they be necessary, Company wipes. Cheating will not be tolerated on our servers, that said, please make sure you’re using our reporting tools to alert us of those whom you suspect are playing unfairly. None of our decisions regarding bans and/or wipes are taken lightly. We’ll always aim to be thorough with our investigations. Additionally, as a studio, we’ll continue to funnel resources into dealing with exploits and problems via technical implementation as well as through the efforts of our Game Masters.


It’s nearly here! Yes, I know we’ve been saying that for a while but this time we’re so close. We expect to be ready to have the devkit available for pathfinders to download on Thursday or Friday this week. For those of you who have experience working with some of our kits, the ATLAS kit is more robust than anything you would have used prior. It will include a new more powerful map-extensions-type functionality so you'll have a lot of options when creating your server grid. This will facilitate COMBINING multiple Steam Workshop maps ("islands") together in your overall Server Grid OR you can just replace the entire persistent level with a new map. We're excited to get that into your hands and check out all the amazing content you produce.


The ATLAS Dynamic Maps is a system that monitors live in-game territory ownership and indicates which companies dominate over the lands.

Each week with our Captain’s Log, we’ll be including an image to monitor the progress of the maps, taking note of any exits or new arrivals and any drastic changes in the overall claim. 

Those who will come to dominate the ATLAS may very well become clear in the days and weeks ahead, though maintaining a large Empire will likely come with its own longer-term challenges…

The companies that have occupied islands for a certain period of time will soon gain the automatic privilege to name them on the in-game and web maps, as it is their land! 

Remember you can don your tribe’s company flag by stylizing it in the game with a paintbrush! Upload your own images or design it how you like, with the top company flags always being visible on https://map.playatlas.com/

[EU PVP]The Whale’s Wrath



Held: XSM???, French & Ships, Bad Company, BLDX DouYuTV 56876, Chem B, LEGION, ETERNIA, The French Monkeys, and ENSLAVED.

Arrivals: IVANARMY.

Departures: OOOOOOOOOF.

[NA PVP] The Kraken’s Maw



Held: Dynasty, High Seas Booty Bandits, TPG, CSTG, Barry Sails, OWO and The Federation

Arrivals: SNC, No No No, and Destiny

Departures: Order of Freedom, Darkblade Army, and The Late Shift

And whilst there isn’t active PvP on PVE servers, we’d like to recognize the following tribes for their claims!

[EU PVE] The Siren’s Call



Held: Compagnie des Indes, Paragon, Rum ueber Bord, Woelfe des Rudels, Future Company (HUN), Fenrirs Dogs, Tacorsair, and SouL SanD.

Arrivals: Dos Bros$ and SwiftS.RU.

Depatures: Black Lotus and M.E.R.C Spirit.

[NA PVE] The Hydra’s Den



Held: Plunderers, Scales & Sails, Dead Men Floating, The Exiles, Atlas Shrugged, East India Trading Co, CN- adilt supplies, Paragon, and Narcos.

Arrivals: Lotus, and Darksea Dawgs.

Departures: Plunderers and The Salty Seamen.


Check out our PlayATLAS announcement to see the results of our second Show 'n Tell contest!

Alrighty, that’s it for this post. Thank you so much for becoming a part of our crew and we can't wait to show all you scallywags, landlubbers, captains, and seadogs what lies ahead!

Happy Sailing,

Grapeshot Games

🏴‍☠️For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information🏴‍☠️

Hoist ye sails to our Homepage: https://www.playatlas.com/
Natter n' chatter on Discord: https://discord.gg/playatlas
Navigate ye olde Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/playatlas
Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas
Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas
Plus ye can band with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame

Ahoy Pathfinders!

Catching this epic Naval battle with the Late Shift on Twitch put the wind in our sails and inspired us to put together this video of the collated highlights to share with you.

https://youtu.be/uk7Ug5wLK2w

Keep a weather eye open for more grand scale PvP as we continue to work on ATLAS and improve the game, with major server performance gains and new features coming soon!

If you'd like to check out the full battle from the various perspectives, you can check them out here:

Pirate Captain, BurkeBlack (https://twitter.com/0BurkeBlack0):
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/361086462?t=06h56s

Modern Day Knight, Fairlight Excalibur (https://twitter.com/FairlightEx):
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/361091490?t=05h22m06s
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/361091490?t=05h48m30s

Bikiest Biker, BikeMan (https://twitter.com/BikeManStream):
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/361180177?t=02m41s

In other news, we also released major v11 today, a bit earlier than expected due to the need to resolve some critical game exploits which you may have seen being abused over some livestreams earlier today. We know how detrimental these can be, and we'll be keeping a lookout from the crow's nest to patch this out as soon as they arise!

Ahoy Pathfinders!

We hope you had a great weekend filled with adventure, action, and bountiful booty! The seas were much calmer for us as we put our heads down to work on the major update v10, which is now live on Steam!


We won’t go into too much detail about this patch, as we covered it quite extensively in our last Captain’s Log:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/834910/announcements/detail/1701698220979264823

This is our biggest update thus far, taking into account various feedback we’ve received over the last 2.5 weeks since the game’s launch, as well as making design changes based on what we’ve experienced and witnessed ourselves. The patch notes have grown tremendously since we first put them up on Friday, and the full list of changes can be seen here (as well as on our dedicated patch note threads):

Current Version: v10.42

Claim Flags Changes

- Claim Flags now have settings which allow other companies or players to build within them, with the specified tax rate applied to them.
- You are also able to define an inclusion or exclusion list to these, to only allow or exclude specific company IDs (also used by players without companies). To grab someone's ID for the inclusion/exclusion list, you'll need to look at a structure they've placed which will list their Company ID; this number can be input into the flag's list system to prevent/enable building. Please note that exclusion/inclusion lists are not saved when altering building permissions, so switching from 'Everyone' can build to 'Company & Alliances' only will clear your list should you wish to return to 'Everyone' can build.
- All claim flags will use the 'Everyone can build' as a default setting when placed, and this will also be a retroactive change. However, it will not function until Thursday the 10th of January, where we will release another server update to make this setting active. This means you will have two days, from Tuesday to Thursday, to decide and adjust the settings on your claim flag before the change is live.
- Only admins and above will be able to make changes to company claims.
- Claim Flags will have icons above them to represent their owner and setting. Your claim flags have a green icon. Claim Flags belonging to your allies that do not permit you to build, have a blue icon, or purple if they do belong to your allies and allow you to build. Claim Flags which belong to your enemies and do not allow you to build have red icons, or yellow if they belong to your enemies and enable you to build within them.- Fixed some bugs related to Sea Claims.
- Enemy Claim Flags can now be directly pinged to identify any contesting enemies nearby
- The time required to steal an enemy claim now decreases the more Claims that enemy team has.
- Looking at your Claim Flag will show you how many land claims you have, and looking at an enemy one will show you how many land flags they have, note that this does not update dynamically on the client for server performance reasons. To always have the latest number, you can relog or re-enter stasis range of the Claim Flag.

General Changes

- Server performance improvements
- All Cannons/Turrets can now be pin code protected for lever activation/deactivation
- There are 4x as many trade ships on the seas, and they now also sell commodity types for gold, as do NPC's at Freeports.
- Lawless servers can no longer be specified as Homesevers. If your Homeserver was a lawless server, you'll be required to pick a new (Freeport) Homeserver upon respawn. This does not mean that land will be claimable on these servers, just that they cannot be selected as a server to respawn on.
- You can now buy a "Ramshackle Sloop" from the NPC Shipyardsman at Freeports. The "Ramshackle Sloop" is a pre-built sloop which has permanently lower plank HP, carry weight, and crew limit, but is cheaper and faster to acquire if you want to get into sailing faster.
- "Favorites" server selection drop-down is added for Unofficial
- Joining through Steam browser server list with password now properly caches the password for ATLAS travel
- Fixed up some temperature scalings and Weather events are now indicated on the HUD
- Armour effectiveness and some values have been adjusted so that firearms are more useful in PVP
- Fixed some bugs related to Sea Claims, Enemy Claim Flags can now be directly pinged to identify any contesting enemies nearby, and the time required to steal an enemy claim now decreases the more Claims that enemy team has.
- Farming rebalances to be easier; water can now pipe uphill, region requirements for growing crops are more forgiving, and crop growth & yield is much faster and higher. Crops now take much longer to spoil when placed in a preserving bag.
- Reduced shovel stamina cost.
- You can now fill waterskins/jars from ground spouts.
- Metal Tools can no longer damage the planks of anchored ships.
- 50 more player levels added, and Skill Points per level increased.
- Loot stat scaling has been boosted (retroactively) by 60%
- Some ship costs have been adjusted, and in some cases reduced by approximately about 50%
- Animals health regen rebalanced, so they're not regenerating high amounts whilst in combat!
- Eating poop is now instant-death
- Fixed an issue where you couldn't kill yourself by exhaustion (for stuck situations)
- Pipes can now move water upwards and the vertical limit on underground junctions has been eliminated. Also, pipes can go farther without foundation requirement, and underground junctions can now be snapped onto existing pipes.
- Guns and melee weapons have had their damage and penetration values adjusted to make them more effective against armour
- Throwing Knife does significantly more damage when thrown to unarmoured targets (body and headshot)
- Armour penetration has been reduced on spear throw to make it less effective versus higher armoured targets
- Explosive Barrel weight has been increased
- Stone Arrows now stack to 60 and a bow can fire them 60 times before breaking
- Fire Arrows now stack to 40 and a bow can fire them 40 times before breaking
- Puckle damage has been increased and also been made more effective against armour
- Fixed Salted Animal & Fish Meat so that they naturally generate when placed in an active preserving bag (must use raw meats)
- Updated some legacy sounds and icons
- Updated stair collision on shipyards
- Fixed a bug which prevented passive feats from applying after death
- Fixed a bug with the torch which caused it to repair endlessly
- Lighthouses can now be lit even if they are touching water
- Using a bucket on a tamed cow now causes the bucket to lose durability
- Fixed a bug where players would get stuck in the crouched position
- Fixed a bug which sometimes would occur where players would disconnection when being invited to a company
- Fixed a bug which prevented creatures from receiving experience points above a certain level
- Fixed a bug which would cause NPC Crew to sink into foundations when exiting stasis range
- Rewrote structure destruction logic to avoid cases of floating structures
- Inventory ranks per structure and creature will now work for companies
- Fixed a bug which prevented admins from accessing remote inventories with the F key when changing group ranks.
- Autolock all structures in 'PvE only' with an inventory, except campfires and similar structures which can be placed without a claimflag. Unofficial Servers can run this with PvE enabled & ?ForceAllStructureLocking=true
- Gunmounts are now colorizable
- Gates and Gateway costs have been adjusted and now include metals (wood) and alloy (stone)
- Gateways and Gates are now crafted in smithy instead of player inventory
- Fixed an exploit with Prying Eyes
- Can no longer glide up mountains with the glide suit
- Fixed an exploit which allowed you to gain massive height when using the zipline
- Fixed a building exploit which allowed you to float structures and fortify walls with floors

Creature Related Changes

- Sea Monsters' damage has been reduced by 66%
- Tamed Creatures take 20% less damage
- Wild Alpha creatures HP and Damage reduced by 20%
- Tames HP and Damage scaling nerfed by about 40%, and Cannons/Explosions damage to tames increased 50% due to level increase and scaling possibility
- Killing the Monsterous Sperm Whale or Blue Whales (as they're now named) provides (one-time) 50 Discovery Points each to everyone within 100k units of that event.
- Penguin AoE insulation now scales by level, the higher the level, the more insulation.
- Updated Mounted and Rider buffs to display icon while active, to better inform players the source of stat boosts.
- Dolphins now periodically leap out of the water. If you're nearby to witness that at close-range, you'll gain a temporary Intelligence buff!
- Updated affinity ineffectiveness values based on the recent x2 taming increase
- Updated creature specific buffs and ability value clamps to be scaled across 130 levels, due to recent extra 30 level ups for tames.
- Increased Wolf attack destination offset and increased some physics bounds to reduce clipping into players. Temporarily increased Wolf saddle scale in the engine to limit fur clipping.
- Updated taming ineffectiveness values to allow the highest efficiency to only be achieved with Taming Proficiency skill 3.
- Updated some undesired movement speed bonuses on tamed creatures
- Adjusted Seagull and Crow aggro speeds (Would previously take a long time to de-aggro). Updated collision to allow player attacks to land more consistently.
- Updated Vulture AI to only target sleeping humans if the player is connected. Updated attack logic to better harvest corpses, while reducing its melee swing radius (Was previously hitting from very far away)
- Reduced Bee movement to allow player attacks to land. Reduced sting buff duration to better reflect its size.
- Increased harvest amount of fur and milk from Sheep and Cow to incentivise taming and better compete with natural resource gathering amounts. Updated max yield timings to scale with creature level, similar to other creature abilities, instead of food value.
- Added durability decreased to the bucket when milking.
- Clamped amount of fur gained from harvesting wild sheep, again to incentivise taming. Wild sheep will also flee and may attack players after excessive shearing. We'll be adding recipes in an upcoming update which can be used to heal your creatures!
- Added Lion roar animation.
- Fixed fur stretching on Wolf's face and hind leg
- Decreased Crocodile swim speed.
- Creature health regen rebalanced and changed so that they no longer regen health when forcefed or from consuming corpses. With the exception of Wild Carnos, which still can consume corpses to heal at a reduced rate.
- Baby breeding balance changes to compensate for the overall creature regen changes.
- Wild Scorpions will no longer target large creatures, will no longer be aggressive towards Elephants, Giraffes, etc.
- Lion will only dismount players that are on medium and less sized creatures, will no longer dismount players from Elephants, Giraffes, etc.
- Updated taming foods to allow a variety of items to be used in taming creatures.

Effectiveness left(more) to right(less):




As mentioned previously, this is just the very beginning of our journey. We’ll continue to frequently pump out major patches every week to improve the state of the game, introducing QOL changes, bug and exploit fixes, rebalance adjustments, redesigns, and new content. ATLAS fans will have a lot to look forward to and we’re so excited for the future. We’re already working on some major content & feature additions in tangent with our frequent live game patches, so stay tuned for more information on that!

As for what’s in the immediate future, well in addition to a current hot topic we’ll go into below, Pathfinders can expect to see a tremendous increase in server performance over the coming weeks. We are confident that we will be able to double it incrementally over forthcoming updates. Plus, you’ll be able to change your tattoos in freeports at your local Tattoo Artist NPC! And we have major changes incoming related to how you’ll be able to manage and benefit from the territories that you own, improvements and additions to sailing and crew mechanics, player-run shops and Freeport interactions, and much more. Finally, the biggest news is the ATLAS Dev Kit is finally nearly ready to release, and we intend to have it in your hands at the start of this coming week -- get your creative juices flowing to help make ATLAS bigger and better than it is! We’ll have more notes to come in the next Log, so please make sure you bookmark the page below to keep up to date with our latest changes!

Complete Patch Notes


It goes without saying that cracking down on cheaters, exploits, and general misconduct is a priority of ours. One of the many items on a list which we are working to address over the time ahead, and here’s how we’re going to do it:

Basics of Anti Cheat & Support: BattlEye Implementation

Now that v10 is out the door, outside of dealing with critical issues that arise from that patch or are otherwise discovered, we’ll be working on intensely on enabling BattlEye Anti Cheat on our Official Network, as well as for Unofficial Servers to use, plus other underlying data-driven systems, to help put a stop to cheaters.

Secrets of Anti Cheat & Support: playATLAS Tickets

As of today, we’ll have launched our first phase of customer support. We will be (and have already done so) providing in-game assistance to players who have lost ownership of their companies, and players who have found themselves in a sticky situation that they cannot escape (outside of intended game mechanics). Additionally, we’ll be providing an option that players can use to report other users who have broken our Official Network’s Code of Conduct. Please note that this list isn’t entirely exhaustive and this is just the first phase of what we’d like to tackle as the game grows.

Code of Conduct

You can click here if you’re seeking some assistance! Please be patient as we work through the kinks and get these under control, we’re expecting a heavy influx of requests day one and there might be some lead time in responses, however, we plan to tackle these as quickly as possible in cases where we are providing assistance.

We’ll be using these systems, in addition to general feedback, to help us identify what problems people are facing and how we can tackle them from a technical point of view. To be transparent and speak realistically, as a small studio, we’re better equipped to funnel our resources into dealing with game problems that arise through technical implementation rather than customer service, however, we do see the need for it and wanted to provide an option in some cases. Over time, these options will grow and expand as both the team and game do to address the needs of you guys and tackle some of your in-game problems which aren’t viably resolved with a technical change.

Esotery of Anti-Cheat & Support: Additional Cheat Detection & Prevention

Following the implementation of BattlEye and ensuring smooth seas on BE protected networks, we’ll be exploring additional internal options to help identify, track and catch cheaters as well as general player concerns and problems. We’re not going to go into too many details, it’s important to keep these bits close to our chest, however, we just wanted to iterate that BattlEye would just be the beginning and over time our team will continue to invest resources into sinking the ships of cheaters!


The ATLAS Dynamic Maps is a system that monitors live in-game territory ownership and indicates which companies dominate over the lands.

Each week with our Captain’s Log, we’ll be including an image to monitor the progress of the maps, taking note of any exits or new arrivals and any drastic changes in the overall claim.

Who will come to dominate the ATLAS may very well become clear in the days and weeks ahead, though maintaining a large Empire will likely come with its own longer-term challenges…

Soon, the companies that have occupied islands for a certain period of time will gain the automatic privilege to name them on the in-game and web maps, as it is their land!

Remember you can don your tribe’s company flag by stylizing it in the game with a paintbrush! Upload your own images or design it how you like, with the top company flags always being visible on https://map.playatlas.com/

[EU PVP]The Whale’s Wrath



Held: XSM???, Cobra, French & Ships, Bad Company, BLDX DOUYU56876, and Chem B

Arrivals: LEGION, Enslaved, The French Monkeys, ETERNIA, and OOOOOOOOOF.

Departures: PUBG GOLDEN HORDE, La Flotte Ancestrale, and Blackwater Company.

[NA PVP] The Kraken’s Maw



Held: Dynasty, High Seas Booty Bandits, Order of Freedom, TPG, CSTG, and Barry Sails.

Arrivals: OwO, The Federation, and The Late Shift.

Departures: MAGA, INFINITE, The Goodship Misery, Radium,

And whilst there isn’t active PvP on PVE servers, we’d like to recognize the following tribes for their claims!

[EU PVE] The Siren’s Call



Held: Compagnie des Indes, M.E.R.C Spirit, Paragon, Rum ueber Bord, Woelfe des Rudels, Future Company (HUN), and Fenrirs Dogs

Arrivals: Black Lotus, Tacorsair, and SouL SanD.

Depatures: Forlorn Hope, I.C.E, PIRATES, Unlucky,

[NA PVE] The Hydra’s Den



Held: Plunderers, Scales & Sails, The Salty Seamen, Dead Men Floating,The Exiles, Atlas Shrugged, East India Trading Co.

Arrivals: CN-adilt supplies, Paragon, Narcos,

Departures: Biz Enton Company, blublublu, and Sail, Fail, Repeat.


Check out our PlayATLAS announcement to see the results of our first Show 'n Tell contest!

Alrighty, that’s it for this post. Thank you so much for becoming a part of our crew and we can't wait to show all you scallywags, landlubbers, captains, and seadogs what lies ahead!

Happy Sailing,

Grapeshot Games

🏴‍☠️For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information🏴‍☠️

Hoist ye sails to our Homepage: https://www.playatlas.com/
Natter n' chatter on Discord: https://discord.gg/playatlas
Navigate ye olde Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/playatlas
Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas
Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas
Plus ye can band with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame

Ahoy Pathfinders!

Hang on... Captain’s Log on a Friday? Yes, it’s a little earlier than we had planned (first for everything, amirite?) but earlier this week we released a significant update based on the Community feedback we had received as the game has now been available for two weeks.

We’re going to do a quick rundown of the updates leading to v9.3, as well as discuss our huge incoming patch, v10 which will drop anchor on Monday Noon EST (or around then at least, we’ll keep you posted on social media!)


If you wanna skip the meal and just check out the changelog, you can do so here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/834910/discussions/0/1742229167204313065/

As highlighted in previous Captain’s Log, our number one priority was making sure that the game was stable from a client and server perspective, that there would be minimum connection issues, and we’d be handling data issues with a broadside of fixes! Since the launch itself, the game has tremendously improved in all 3 of these areas. Our crashes have statistically reduced by 97%+, players can get in and fully experience the ATLAS, and as of v9.3, we had solved many critical cases where Company and Alliance data would have been lost. There are still many more things we want to do in this area in the coming days and weeks ahead -- you can expect us not to rest until server baseline performance and hitches are much further improved.



However, that’s not all that we wanted to address! Since the launch, we have received so much support and feedback from our Community Hub, Steam Forums, Reddit, Discord, and social media. The team have been working hard on development, whilst watching with our prying eyes to see which to determine what needs addressing. Patches up to v9.3 and the incoming v10 have been planned to improve ATLAS’ as a game from its core based on most impactful, important, and how immediately we could see results. We won’t go into the thought-process details for each specific note, but we’ll try to give you guys a general idea around our decision making.

Please note: these changes are not the only thing we’re going to do. There will be a boatload of updates following v10 too, every few days another major drop. ATLAS launched as an Early Access title, and we are a highly iterative development team. We’ll continue to pump out patches to improve the game and get it where it needs to be! So if there’s something in here you feel like we’ve missed, let us know on our Community Hub, Reddit, Discord, Twitter, etc. We’re watching like hawks and consuming like hogs; we will make adjustments; whether that’s introducing new things, tweaking, or taking a step back and redesigning. That’s what this development process is all about, shaping and growing the game rapidly with your input. It’s gonna get chaotic and messy at times, but we appreciate you weathering the storm as we sail into calmer waters! <3




So two things. One of the coolest aspects, without a doubt, is that you can be a fully fledged pirate. You can captain a crew, sail one of many boats, have a fleet, hunt for treasure, explore and discover islands, pillage, plunder, salvage -- the list goes on! However, at launch, we perhaps made this a bit more difficult and tedious than it needed to be. We love being a bit hardcore but it was clear to us that adjustments were necessary. In no particular order...



We believe that these first steps will help us get players to experience the epic piracy side of the game much sooner, whilst overall not having too much of a heavy impact on our balance and design.


Well, you know what they say… pain is love and love makes the world go ‘round. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)



But in all seriousness, we can be a bit overzealous at times, what can we say? We like it a little rough but we understand when things go too far, sometimes it just takes the fun out and that’s when we need to consider, is this piece of the puzzle really worth it?

Sometimes aye, but also, sometimes nay! At times we should consider not punching people in the face when all they want to do is sail their raft and build a thatched home. What are some of the nays? Cooking, land ownership, survivalism, progression, and creature balance. Here are some of the adjustments we’re going to make to deal with the nay;






Yes, there are still a number of things we plan to address and change going forward. This isn’t the be-all end-all of our updates. There are more fixes, balance changes, new game features and content just beyond the horizon (basically daily) so if there’s something which you feel is important and we haven’t addressed, let us know. It might have been something we’ve overlooked, it might be something we’re tackling in an upcoming patch, it might be something we’re still sitting on to see how things fair, guess you could call us seafarers XD!

You can be reassured that as each night passes, we’re fully dedicated to ensuring that ATLAS gets one step closer to becoming one of the most ambitious online worlds of all time and fulfilling its destiny as the ultimate fantasy pirate adventure! And on that note, here are some additional patch notes that we’ve made up to v9.3 or will be making in v10 such as addressing fire-from-the-depths-of-hell arrows and gatling mortars. These notes are pretty miscellaneous and tackle many things at once.




Hear ye, hear ye!

We be seekin’ fer the finest of ATLAS community creations! Show us yer mighty fleets, paint pieces, flags & sails, impenetrable forts, hellish tats, scenic screenshots, 'n entertainin' videos! Each week, we'll be runnin' a contest where we'll select th' best o' th' bunch 'n award tha winners wit' a cash prize!



Entries can be posted in the Creative Section, the Steam Workshop, or shared via social media! We’ve created a dedicated thread for submissions, don’t hesitate to show us what you’ve got cause we’ve seen some pretty cool stuff so far!

Show ‘n Tell #1! Deadline: Monday 7th Jan

Alrighty, that’s it for this post. We will have a general Captain’s Log on Monday, most likely late night as that’ll be patch day. Next week we’re also looking forward to getting the ATLAS Dev Kit into your content creator hands and seeing what amazing new gameplay mechanics and environments the community can come up with! Thank you so much for becoming a part of our crew and we can't wait to show all you scallywags, landlubbers, captains, and seadogs what lies ahead!

Happy Sailing,

Grapeshot Games

🏴‍☠️For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information🏴‍☠️

Hoist ye sails to our Homepage: https://www.playatlas.com/
Natter n' chatter on Discord: https://discord.gg/playatlas
Navigate ye olde Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/playatlas
Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas
Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas
Plus ye can band with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame