Ahoy, Pathfinders!

June marks the 6-month anniversary since ATLAS’ initial launch to Steam Early Access. We’d just like to take a moment to say “Thank you!” to all of our players and fans for your support over the last 6 months and to reaffirm to all of you now that the development team is still committed to making ATLAS the best game it can possibly be. Especially with the help of your continued feedback and support; please keep your ideas, concerns, complaints, and reports coming.

For this Captain's Log, we'd like to give you an early glance at some of the content that'll be making its way ashore with the upcoming Mega-Update!

Head to the shooting range and pull out your pistols, it's time to brush up on your marksmanship!

Introducing our latest weapon, the Hydra Revolver!



This new and improved revolver allows for up to 6 shots before reloading! So if your aim sucks, or you have multiple targets, this will be your weapon of choice.

Curious about what else we'll be adding? Careful, you might just kill the...

Cat!


You can pick up the high-quality wallpaper here

Found in caves, the cat makes a purrfect pet for contaminating enemy pirates! It can be tamed by hand-feeding, but you better be sneaky, as they’re known to be quite skittish. After a cat has been tamed, order it to ‘hunt’ and wait for your tamed feline friend to catch a rodent, either a rat or a mouse. Each offering the pathfinder something different:

• The mouse can be used to create a powerful delicacy and makes players temporarily immune to catching the plague.
  
• The rat, infected by the contagious bubonic plague, can be loaded into catapults and launched at your enemies. The plague is a temporary debuff which can spread to others if you’re not careful!

We realize this may not be everyone's tankard of grog, but don't worry, there’s more to come and we can’t wait to share it with all of you. Stay tuned!

Bug Report Channels

We have added a bug reporting channel to the ATLAS Official Discord. We appreciate your bug reports and we aim to collate and act upon them as efficiently as possible. In order to facilitate this further, we have shared some guidelines there on how to how to make a clear bug report including information that is relevant to maximizing the way in which we sort, investigate, and debug.

We’ll continue to keep an eye on Bug Reports posted on our Official Forums but we are finding Discord is very conducive to investigating and resolving them.

Boosting Info

We have enabled Nitro Server Boosting for the Official ATLAS Discord. Fellow pirates of the Discord who boost the server will find treasure awaiting them!

What do you receive for boosting the Atlas Discord?

• A special icon next to your name.
  
• A new unique role and colour on the Official Atlas Discord
  
• Access to our Booty Bay VIP channel
  
• Members will get the opportunity to add an emoji of their choosing to the atlas Discord. (Pending Approval) Those who boost the server can submit their request by messaging ModMail with the emoji. Once approved by the Discord staff, the emoji will be added to the Official Atlas Discord and will remain for the duration of the active boost!

For those of you unfamiliar with the new server boost feature, you can find out more about it here.

Join the ATLAS Discord: discord.gg/playatlas


While working on the upcoming Mega-Update, we are still continuing to iterate on the live game. These are the updates that the game has seen since our last Captain's Log.



We will be putting a spotlight on Community initiatives in future Captain’s Logs. Please reach out if you run a community website, trading group or other Community as we'd love to hear about it!


The new ATLAS Devkit update, including all of the latest content from Mega-Update 2 is now available! Information including links to download the Update and the optional Ocean map sublevels can be found here.


Check out our PlayATLAS announcement to see the results of our latest 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!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pXqX73FGFY
The time has come for challenging the enraged boss in his icy lair, exploring new and previously unchartered islands and putting your mark on the ATLAS with new items, creatures, and quality of life additions; the Mega Update 2 is here!

The Public Test Realm heavily facilitated our getting the Mega Update 2 ready to push to our Official Network and ready for everyone to jump into and explore. Thank you to those of you who contributed through playing on the PTR and being enthusiastic about reporting bugs and issues and offering feedback.

We look forward to hearing about your experiences and seeing you explore all the new content that Mega Update 2 has introduced to the ATLAS. As always, we will continue to monitor and rapidly iterate on the game!

For those of you who haven’t yet set sail on the high seas, worry not as during the next 48-hours ATLAS is available on Steam Early Access for the promotional price of $14.99 ($29.99 Early Access S.R.P). Come on in, the water’s fine!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/834910/ATLAS/


New Quests

• Into the Ice: When you have collected all the Power Stones, head deep into a Polar Ice Dungeon to discover what lies beneath...

• Master Cartographer: And with a thundering swell, the heaving ocean rose and fell beckoning avid explorers to uncover her secrets. Get at least 40% of the ATLAS Discovery Zones

Skills and Feats

• Feat: Instant Hotbar Equip, unlocked after completing "Master Cartographer" quest.
  
• Feat: Harvest boost, unlocked after completing "Into the Ice" quest.

New Levels

• Ice Dungeon: Traverse the depths of the new Ice Cave as you navigate foreboding chasms, expansive halls, and abandoned mines to reach the lair of the abomination which lies beneath awaiting your crew. Found in the polar region, the dungeon can only be entered if players have unlocked all the 9 power stones.

• New Islands: Multiple equatorial and polar islands added to the ATLAS!

New Boss Fight

• Snowman - Activated lights in the boss arena now power a shield that maintains the Snowman's ice armor. Killing a round of minions will disable the shield, and prevent minion spawns for a short duration, which allow the ice armor to receive damage. When the minion cooldown is over, the shield reactivates. When the ice armor reaches 0, the Snowman's health can be damaged directly and no more minions will spawn until the next health state.

• 
  Upon entering each new health state, one extra minion will spawn at a time, and an increased amount of minions will be required to be killed for the shield to be deactivated. When in the last health state and ice armor is destroyed for the final time, chaos ensues, and will continue until the boss is killed!

New Structures

• Offensive Structure: Torpedo Launcher and torpedoes. Master the waves with this heavy artillery projectile designed to detonate on contact with its target. Skill is obtained after completing "Into the Ice" quest.

• Building Structure: 3x4 Medium Gates further allow customization within the comprehensive building system.
  
• Utility Structure: Ice Box - a high-insulation box for generating ice in cold areas. Has “active” mode that will drain ice but reduce surrounding temperature (reverse fire). Consumes less ice if “indoors”. New Resource: Ice - Generates over time in cold zones inside of the Ice Box. Decays relatively quickly if not in “insulated” storage. Can be consumed to reduce temperature and the half negative effects of armour weight debuffs for a short duration (15s per ice cube, max of 5 mins). Ice, which is relatively heavy, can be placed inside preserving bags to extend spoil times, and also lasts much longer in preserving bags. Keep it frosty.

New Cosmetics

• Player: Adopt a menacing tribal-esque countenance with the Hydra Hide Armour Set or don the Cyclops Heavy Armour Set for a streamlined and foreboding Stygian look.
  
• Ship: Further customize your ship with the new Hydra Steering Wheel, and Bone Skin Steering Wheel

New Attachments

• Boat Attachment: Cargo Racks offer more options to the discerning Captain! This large hangar-based crate can carry a ton of resources at a massively reduced weight, but can only be accessed when anchored, and slows down the speed of the ship which carries it (at maximum cargo carrier attachments, a boat's speed will be reduced by a total of 40%). It can also be dropped into the water if your boat needs to make a hasty getaway, and recovered later into its hangar!
  
• Cart Attachment: Transport goods more efficiently! The large storage box can now be placed on the back of a bear or horse’s field-harness saddle, where it becomes a special “freight box” that provides reduced weight for the items it contains when on land. And now you can ferry around your items while looking like a proper traveling merchant!

New Items

• Fishing Net: Bide your time chasing that catch whilst on long journeys with the new fishing net. Can only be used when sitting. Equips on the back slot. Will begin automatically catch fish when boat has met minimum sailing minimum velocity.

New Weapons and Ammo types

• Ballista Ammo Type: Boat Harpoon. Stop fleeing enemies in their tracks by using this formidable weapon to attach to and reel in their vessels.

• Weapon: Master the aquatic depths armed with the Speargun. Can only be used underwater.

• Weapon: Up the ante with the new crossbow boasting the ability to load up to five projectiles and higher accuracy. Cannot be used underwater.

New Creatures

• Olfend: This quirky looking creature narrowly avoided being burdened with the moniker: the Camelephant. The unique Olfend possesses some utilitarian attributes based around water. Water can be collected as you ride it across fertile land or by drinking from lakes and the considerate Olfend will store it, distribute it amongst water containers or...spit it in a friend’s eye. The delicately-legged creature also has the potential to be more heroic than it may appear by being put to use in extinguishing fires.

• Giant Tortugar: In some ways, the Tortuga, or carrier turtle, acts as an organic armored personnel carrier and, in others, it is similar to an organic submarine. Nestle under its’ sectioned shell for protection or stay sheltered as it plunges into the depths and affords its passengers reduced oxygen consumption.

New Features

• Company: Map markers
  
• Company: Announcements
  
• Boats: Can now be unclaimed and claimed
  
• Controls: Full gamepad support

New Quality of Life Improvements

• UX: Revamped Skill Tree UI
  
• UX: Adjusted 3rd person aiming so there is less likelihood of foliage clipping
  
• UX: Sextant Buff Corner Mini Map is now hidden by default and can be revealed by pressing the H key. Sextant Mini Map can be permanently enabled by turning on the option in Advanced Settings
  
• Combat: Players now have the option to turn dual wielding weapons off by holding the TAB key and the hotbar key to equip the new pistol, rather than duel wield it.
  
• Combat: Gun hotbar equip time now scales (improves) with the various reloading skills
  
• Combat: You can now attack from the run-state (but not whilst running). Previously when attempting to attack whilst running, you would have had to pause, then attack. Now you can go straight from a run into an attack.
  
• Structures: The grill can now be attached to water pipes
  
• Controls: You can now use the F key as an option to pick up all items from the floor within a certain radius
  
• Ship: Pressing the F key whilst driving the ship, now allows you to access its inventory menu

Bug Fixes

• Skills: Fixed skills showing up in the wrong order on the skill tree
  
• Ships: Fixed a bug which prevented ships from reversing when they bumped into shores
  
• Ships: Fixed pressing right click to zoom in on the compass when sitting at a wheel of a ship
  
• Ships: Can no longer place a Steering Wheel inside the sail mast
  
• Building: Fixed a bug which prevented Water Reservoirs from irrigating grills if gathering water from a non-lake source
  
• Building: Fixed vertical encroachment check on the bookcase so it fits in 1-high wall rooms
  
• Resources: Fixed a bug where brain coral and fire coral were incorrectly labeled
  
• Map: Multiple level fixes (holes, waterfall transitions, soil types, etc)
  
• Creatures: Fixed a case where creatures would be stuck in the flee state whilst bola'd
  
• Creatures Fixed a case where creatures would appear to stand up briefly just after being bola'd
  
• UX: Fixed a bug which prevented you from seeing the HUD of a dropped item
  
• UX: Scaled the size of ammo texts on ammo containers to make them more readable and changed CanisterShot to Canister Shot
  
• Misc: Fixed icons for: Cooked Prime Fish Meat, Explosive Barrels, and Instant Equip
  
• Misc: Disabled male voice on female characters when using a repair hammer on damaged planks
  
• Misc: Fixed multiple cases where players shoulder disappears when harvesting with new anims
  
• Misc: Fixed manual targeting aim location not replicating to clients

Balance Changes

• Combat: Reduced sickle damage against creatures and players
  
• Combat: Sprint/Charge weapons have been disabled and will be re-added to the game as enhanced feats
  
• Ships: Small Weight Sail weight bonus increased from 515 to 1000
  
• Ships: Medium Weight Sail weight bonus increased from 920 to 2500
  
• Ships: Large Weight Sail weight bonus increased from 1300 to 4000
  
• Ships: Small Handling Sail wind effectiveness increased from 101 to 118
  
• Ships: Medium Handling Sail wind effectiveness increased from 101 to 118
  
• Ships: Large Handling Sail wind effectiveness increased from 101 to 118

🏴‍☠️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!

Our Public Test Realm is now live with our latest update, ready to be explored! This Captain’s Log will cut straight to it and provide details on how to join the fun and what to expect with this mega update.




First things first, this update adds some new explorable islands to the ATLAS, in addition to the Ice Dungeon. We’ll be placing these islands onto the existing ATLAS, without shifting any of the current islands or biomes around, which means a wipe will not be necessary.

However, we advise anyone who has currently left their boats afloat in these areas to set sail or risk your ship being grounded! We’ll update the current LIVE in-game ATLAS map later today with a clear visual marker highlighting where these islands will be, so you can safely navigate your ships away.

We’re adding a total of 5 unique islands across the entire ATLAS (with more to come in the future). These islands will make their way onto the PTR later today and will be home to the new Giant Tortugar, carrier turtle.



If you haven’t checked out all of the content, features and QoL changes we have coming to the PTR, dive into the patch notes below:

• New Cosmetics: Hydra Steering Wheel, Hydra Hide Armour Set, and Cyclops Heavy Armour Set!
  
• New Offensive Structure: Torpedo Launcher (and torpedoes!)
  
• New Boat Attachment: Cargo Racks!
  
• New Cart Attachment: Large Storage Box!
  
• New Tool: Fishing Net!
  
• New Ballista Ammo Type: Boat Harpoon
  
• New Weapon: Spear Gun!
  
• New Creature: Olfend
  
• New Creature: Giant Tortugar
  
• New Level: Ice Dungeon
  
• New Weapon: Crossbow
  
• New Structure: 3x4 Medium Gates
  
• New Structure: Ice Box - a high-insulation box for transporting ice. Has “active” mode that will drain ice but reduce surrounding temperature (reverse fire). Consumes less ice if “indoors”.
  
• New Resource: Ice - Generates over time in cold zones inside of the Ice Box. Decays relatively quickly if not in “insulated” storage. Can be consumed to reduce temperature and the half negative effects of armour weight debuffs for a short duration (15s per ice cube, max of 5 mins). Ice can be placed inside preserving bags to extend spoil times, and also lasts much longer in preserving bags. Relatively heavy.
  
• New Feature: Company-wide map markers
  
• New Feature: Company-wide announcement
  
• New Feature: Boats can now be unclaimed and claimed
  
• New Feature: Full gamepad support
  
• New Feat: Instant Hotbar Equip
  
• New Feat: Double Harvesting
  
• QOL: Revamped Skill Tree UI
  
• QOL: Players now have the option to turn dual wielding weapons off by holding the TAB key and the hotbar key to equip the new pistol, rather than duel wield it.
  
• QOL: The grill can now be attached to water pipes
  
• QOL: You can now use the F key as an option to pick up all items from the floor within a certain radius
  
• QOL: Gun hotbar equip time now scales (improves) with the various reloading skills
  
• QOL: Pressing the F key whilst driving the ship, now allows you to access it's inventory menu
  
• QOL: Adjusted 3rd person aiming so there is less likelihood of foliage clipping
  
• Fixed skills showing up in the wrong order on the skill tree
  
• Fixed a bug which prevented ships from reversing when they bumped into shores
  
• Fixed a bug where brain coral and fire coral were incorrectly labeled
  
• Reduced sickle damage against creatures and players

For those who want to join in on the fun, follow the steps on our Community Hub to connect to our Official PTR Network. Please note that this will be a PvP realm with boosted 8x rates, with all skills unlocked. Including quest skills such as the submarine, torpedo, harvest boost and instant equip feat.

PTR Instructions

While working on the mega patch, we are still continuing to iterate on the live game. These are the updates that the game has seen since our last Captain's Log.


We’re still collecting entries for the Show ‘n Tell! So you have a little longer to astound us with your creations, be they your fleets, building designs, imaginative tatts, entertaining videos, original fan art or scenic screenshots. Don’t be shy and head to the submission thread for a chance to win some booty in the form of a cash prize!

Show ‘n Tell #8 Submissions!

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!

We've had our heads down and we just wanted to give you a quick update on where we're at with our upcoming Public Test Realm and major version release!

Public Test Realm

The team has been running the latest update through its paces via our internal testing and bug fixing prior to releasing it to all of you on the PTR for more wide-scale extensive testing. We've found the Public Test realm to be highly beneficial for our team thanks to your enthusiasm in helping us to identify issues and bugs.

We're excited to relaunch the PTR next week prior to the update officially launching on our main network. We will keep you posted in regards to the exact date!



Magic Mythos Event

We will be holding a special Magic Mythos Event in tandem with the extended weekend from now until Tuesday. Bonus 3x rates across the ATLAS to EXP, harvesting, taming, gold, crop growth, and as a special bonus, breeding and raising creatures!



We really appreciate your patience and look forward to sharing all our Mega Update has to offer with you!

Ahoy Pathfinders!

Today's log will just be a brief update on our current status with our upcoming Mega patch touching on where we are!

The team are currently working on wrapping up the patch for internal review and we expect it to enter our QA process later today. Following that, we'll be hitting it hard and barring any fires, we should be in a good state to get the update released onto our new Public Test Realm soon. This means that we're currently planning for the Public Test Realm to be available around the end of next week. As we get closer to the date, we'll be able to provide you with a more specific timeline. So far it's been smooth sailing, and we're on track for our end of the month release date.

For those who have been away at sea, in our last Captain's Log, we covered our most recent Developer Livestream, as well as spoke about the content that's coming in the latest update. If you've not had a chance to watch the stream, you can do so here for some in-game footage of what's to come:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/420002173

But for those just after the nitty-gritty details of the patch, here's what you can expect:

• New Cosmetics: Hydra Steering Wheel, Hydra Hide Armour Set, and Cyclops Heavy Armour Set!
  
• New Offensive Structure: Torpedo Launcher (and torpedoes!)
  
• New Boat Attachment: Cargo Racks!
  
• New Cart Attachment: Large Storage Box!
  
• New Tool: Fishing Net!
  
• New Ballista Ammo Type: Boat Harpoon
  
• New Weapon: Spear Gun!
  
• New Creature: Olfend
  
• New Creature: Giant Tortugar
  
• New Level: Ice Dungeon
  
• New Weapon: Crossbow
  
• New Structure: 3x4 Medium Gates
  
• New Structure: Ice Box - a high-insulation box for transporting ice. Has “active” mode that will drain ice but reduce surrounding temperature (reverse fire). Consumes less ice if “indoors”. Extends spoil time of things inside, but greatly extends the storage time of ice. Also has an option to turn ice into water to consume.
  
• New Resource: Ice - Must be harvested from cold zones. Decays relatively quickly if not in “insulated” storage. Can be consumed to reduce temperature for a short duration (15s per ice cube, max of 5 mins). Relatively heavy.
  
• New Feature: Company-wide map markers
  
• New Feat: Instant Hotbar Equip
  
• QOL: Structure Weights now displayed on items
  
• QOL: Revamped Skill Tree UI (first pass has already made it in!)

With more still to come!

Whilst working on the mega patch, we are still continuing to iterate on the live game. These are the updates that the game has seen since our last Captain's Log.


For a full rundown of our patches since launch, check out this thread!

Check out our PlayATLAS announcement to see the results of our sixth 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!

Well, it’s been a few weeks since ATLAS 1.5 went live and we’re pleased with the progress thus far. Thank you again for all of the support and feedback - especially during the PTR and beyond.

This Captain’s Log comes straight off the back of today’s Livestream and we’d like to offer a recap for those who may have missed it. The purpose of the Livestream was to answer questions asked by the Community and to discuss some of the things you care about along with showing off our upcoming content slated for the May mega-patch. We collated questions on our Community Hub, but, in the interest of time, we focused on answering a few big topic ones initially. We will be pulling more from the community’s responses and addressing those throughout more Captain’s Log and general outreach on social and our community hub.

If you didn’t have a chance to watch the steam, worry not as you can check out the entire VOD here!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/420002173

Before we begin going through the content in the mega update, we want to cover some topics that frequently came up in our Q&A thread. Please keep in mind that we’re not going to be able to cover everything, however, we will be looking over the thread at your suggestions, feedback, and try to cover more in the coming weeks through these logs and additions to our patch.

No. We have no plans to wipe the networks with the next mega update. The game is in Early Access and we don’t want to be afraid to make big changes for the betterment of the game in the long-run, but we balance that with the time you guys have invested and the feedback you’ve provided. Adding new content, including exploring areas doesn’t necessarily mean that a wipe will be necessary. The last mega update required a wipe as we were making some grand changes to the core game like claiming and ownership of islands, and we look at that type of situation as an extreme case which would advance the game’s development.

The world of ATLAS has a history and lore that we are building through the environments and things like discovery zones and notes. We’re handling this similarly to the early days of ARK, where the lore was sprinkled in but none of the dots could really be connected. Over the course of development, as we solidify our game mechanics and technical features, you might start to see more of this lore introduced into the world in various ways that ties everything together. We have some really fun stuff planned for the future in terms of quest lines and world building.

We know this is a question that has been raised a lot, and especially recently with this update’s reveal of content that may not be as pirate focused as some would like. We are interested in how these various pieces of content play out and it’s important to state that what is in the current game may not be in the ultimate game. This means we’re going to try different things and experiment a lot, especially throughout early access. Over the weeks and months ahead, the game will continue to evolve as we sail towards our goal of making the most fun pirate fantasy game, as opposed to the most realistic pirate game. On that note, this upcoming mega patch does introduce a fair bit of content related to seafaring and the pirate playstyle, and we’ll continue to look into ways we can further establish this via new multidimensional gameplay mechanics as well as rebalancing and tweaking existing systems.

It’s coming! Between addressing bugs and server performance along with working on the mega patch, it kinda got stuck in our pipeline! Yes, we will give you all your fancy hats soon, sorry for the wait.

We’re going to have some very exciting Xbox news for you in the coming months. We’re thrilled to have you aboard, our plans haven’t changed and can’t wait to bring it to you this year. Stay tuned!

And now...onto the update itself!

Unlike the last Mega Patch, this one is more content focused and less systemic. We still plan to make more systemic changes, however, we want to give our previous changes some time to settle, so we can see how they play out and decide what steps we’d like to take next. That means this for this patch, we’ll be introducing some new weapons/combat related items for players and ships, structures, items to generally improve QOL, cosmetics, creatures, and an explorable area, the Ice Dungeon!




Similarly to our other skins, these will be purchasable at your local Freeport.



It’ll be the first time we’ll have skinned a steering wheel, and it’s applied by accessing it’s inventory and equipping it in the skin slot. The skins will be able to be painted and we plan to have many more exotic wheel skins in the future.



Torpedo Launchers are a new Golden Age ruin item which allows crew and captains to fire torpedos at their targets. The launcher must be snapped to a Gunport location and can be used manually or via the Captain’s Firing mode. Shooting a torpedo at or above the water’s surface will make it follow that path on the surface, and angling it downwards will have it follow that trajectory, like a missile. We can assure you that we are aware of the ways in which Torpedo’s could be problematic in terms of the meta and we’ll be keeping a close eye on their balance.



A new storage option for medium and large boats. The cargo rack is snapped to dingy hangar locations and will significantly reduce the weight of any item inside of its inventory. The cargo rack can only be accessed when the boat has anchored, and if the boat is sunk, the cargo rack will turn into a special-flotsam which contains the inventory floating out at sea, providing the potential for it to be stolen by another pirate crew!



Cargo Carts now own up to their namesake and can carry additional cargo! Attach a large storage chest to a cargo cart will automatically reduce the weight of the items (this effect will be disabled on ships), to help players transport resources more easily on land.

Pleasantly pass the time at sea on long journeys, as you cast your new fishing net to satisfy your hunger and deepen your pockets!

Stop your fleeing enemies in their tracks and reel them in with the new Boat Ballista Harpoon! Load up your ballistic and fire the projectile, if it successfully attaches you and your target will be unable to move. Reel them in before they destroy the harpoon. You can only successfully harpoon same-or-smaller ship classes.



With a highly accurate piercing projectile, a rapid reload rate, and the ability to reuse ammo
the Spear Gun is the best choice for your underwater weaponry!



This quirky looking creature narrowly avoided being burdened with the moniker: the Camelephant. The unique Olfend possesses some utilitarian attributes based around water. Water can be collected as you ride it across fertile land or by drinking from lakes and the considerate Olfend will store it, distribute it amongst water containers or...spit it in a friend’s eye. The delicately-legged creature also has the potential to be more heroic than it may appear by being put to use in extinguishing fires.



We’re pretty fond of this creature and the aspects it can bring to player’s experience of the game. In some ways the Tortuga acts like an armoured personnel carrier and, in others, it is similar to an organic submarine. Nestle under its’ sectioned shell for protection or stay sheltered as it plunges into the depths and affords its passengers reduced oxygen consumption.



An enormous dungeon found deep in the depths of the polar region. We can see that this was clearly once occupied by pathfinders but now deserted. Rumour has it that they were slaughtered or their fear of a legendary and elusive mythical beast steered them away.

• New Weapon: Crossbow
  
• New Structure: 3x4 Medium Gates
  
• New Structure: Ice Box - a high-insulation box for transporting ice. Has “active” mode that will drain ice but reduce surrounding temperature (reverse fire). Consumes less ice if “indoors”. Extends spoil time of things inside, but greatly extends the storage time of ice. Also has an option to turn ice into water to consume.
  
• New Resource: Ice - Must be harvested from cold zones. Decays relatively quickly if not in “insulated” storage. Can be consumed to reduce temperature for a short duration (15s per ice cube, max of 5 mins). Relatively heavy.
  
• New Feature: Company-wide map markers
  
• New Feat: Instant Hotbar Equip
  
• QOL: Structure Weights now displayed on items
  
• QOL: Revamped Skill Tree UI
  
• QOL: Breeding Temperature Gate adjustments
  
• QOL: Faster Reload skills now also scale the corresponding equip time

With more notes still to come!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzdLqsTVa58

Prepare for a dark twist on the Equatorial biome with ISO Blackwood. Dark jungles, caves, alcoves, villages, homes, and farms, an interesting array of animals and a new concept; The Mire. Wade through thick green waters teeming with dangerous creatures, rare plant life, and the occasional Gorgon to find buried treasure, lost corpses and even the giant and ancient snake boss Anacython.



In early June we expect to be able to release our special mod-map, Blackwood, created by Iso, the level designer behind ARK’s popular mod-map Crystal Isles. This is not something we’ll be supporting specifically on our Official Network, as it was designed and intended to be used for single servers an example of a stunning mod map that can be hosted unofficially. This specific map will be set up so that you can still enjoy all the mechanics that ATLAS has to offer, whilst hosting it as a standalone server with no additional database setup required!

Current Version: v103

- Player Shops only cost upkeep on Non-Lawless PvE-style Homeservers. (Technically in Official PvP too, but only on the non-lawless homeservers that are effectively PvE regions)
- Servers can use this server config value to scale the player shop upkeep:

Game.ini:
[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]
PlayerShopGoldUpkeepMultiplier=0.08

Default value is 0.08, for a 92% reduction from the previous rate.

- Player Shops are now limited to 70 slots
- You are now allowed to build more than one player shop per team on an official homeserver, now you can build as many as you want to pay the upkeep for.
- War Declaration cost has been reduced to 40k gold and 500 of each additional material, rather than 1000.
- Ability to respawn on your current server when you die on a lawless/freeport server that isn't set to be your home server.
- Water creatures will no longer lose their targets close to the water surface.
- Magic Mythos is now enabled on Official Servers: bonus 2x Harvest, XP, Taming, and Gold rates for the weekend.

v102.62

- Fixed a client-side crash

v102.61

- Optimizations for creature food consumption and structure tagging

v102.5

- Fixed some rare crashes.
- Stationed NPCs (on boats and land) no longer take damage from guns on Official Servers.
- Added a new Game.ini ShooterGameMode config bool: bSeatedNPCIgnoreGunDamage=1

v102.47

- You can now reveal unconscious targets contesting your own claimflag (pinwheel option activated on your claimflag)

v102.46

- Magic Mythos is now enabled on Official Servers: bonus 2x Harvest, XP, Taming, and Gold rates for the weekend.

Complete Patch Notes

We’re still collecting entries for the Show ‘n Tell! So you have a little longer to astound us with your creations, be they your fleets, building designs, imaginative tatts, entertaining videos, original fan art or scenic screenshots. Don’t be shy and head to the submission thread for a chance to win some booty in the form of a cash prize!

https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/forums/topic/70200-show-n-tell-7-deadline-7th-may/

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 on the horizon!

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!

Now that the flux of development related to ATLAS 1.5 has settled, we have made a return to our regularly scheduled patches to address stability, bugs, and balance whilst we prepare our next Mega-Update. This is a good time to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring ATLAS continues moving towards its ambition of becoming the ultimate fantasy pirate adventure. This Captain's Log will give you a sneak preview of what we're currently working on for our May Mega Patch whilst maintaining the live game on the side.

But before we get into that... save the date, as next Friday, the 3rd of May at 2 PM PT we’ll be live streaming some of our upcoming content and revealing more details about the next Mega-Update!

The stream will be hosted on both Twitch and Mixer, so be sure to tune in!

twitch.tv/sailtheatlas
mixer.com/playatlas

We’ll also be collecting questions from the community which we’ll be answering live. If you’ve got something on your mind, whether it’s about future development plans, upcoming content, decisions regarding features, or how we feel about Endgame, submit your questions to this thread!

Submit your questions!

Now that our first large milestone has made it out the door, the team has been working hard on our next major content update. This will include new playable areas, creatures, weapons, items, ship mechanics and more -- much of which we’ll be covering in our upcoming Live Stream!

Please keep in mind that this update is an evolving work-in-progress and thus, isn’t set in stone. This means that it’s open to change, whether it’s the visual appearance or the actual intended gameplay purpose it serves.

But without further ado, here’s a little peek of the content to come!

Icebox



A high insulation box for transporting ice! Can be used to reduce surrounding temperature, extend the spoil time of perishables, and quench your thirst -- assuming it’s fully stocked. ;)

Spear Gun



An underwater weapon that players can use to launch a piercing spearbolt with power and accuracy.

Torpedo



An underwater missile fired from a torpedo launcher (snapped to gunports), which can be aimed down into the ocean to destroy structures built underwater, or shot across the water surface (cannot travel or be shot above the water surface).

Heavy Cyclops Cosmetic



The heavy armor edition of our Cyclops Armour opens the door to intimidating your foes in our tribal-themed skin with a little extra heavy...metal :D

This Mega-Update will be loaded with new features and content and we’re excited to get it into your hands. There’s a lot to come with it and even more planned for the months ahead which we will be displaying and discussing in the stream next week. As always, thank you very much for all of your feedback and reports; this community is very involved and passionate and you guys directly facilitate the evolution and development of ATLAS along with our ability to address issues and bugs.






In early June we expect to be able to release our special mod-map, Blackwood, created by Iso, the level designer behind ARK’s popular mod-map Crystal Isles. This is not something we’ll be supporting specifically on our Official Network, as it was designed and intended to be used for single servers an example of a stunning mod map that can be hosted unofficially. This specific map will be set up so that you can still enjoy all the mechanics that ATLAS has to offer, whilst hosting it as a standalone server with no additional database setup required!





The community’s contributions throughout early access, whether that’s bug reports, feedback on features, and content suggestion have been highly helpful in ATLAS’ development. Thanks to your reports, we were able to identify and resolve one of our more frequent server crashes. Additionally, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the core technical aspect of the game and have significantly optimized crew attached to stations, movement on ships, and resolved some outstanding bugs.



The effect on our servers after eliminating that crash. The dip you see on Wednesday and Early Thursday was because we had temporarily disabled a feature which had a high chance of causing the crash and then further dropped Late Thursday onward after we fixed the issue and re-enabled the feature. We couldn’t have done it without your report, so please keep them coming!

You can submit a bug report to our forums here:

https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/forums/forum/75-bug-reports/

Please have a read through of our guidelines thread to help us get all the information we need:

https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/forums/topic/70209-bug-report-guidelines/

And we’re currently collating information regarding ‘vanishing’ structure pieces, so if you’ve experienced it please post a response in this thread with any information that you can provide, we’ve included a guideline that’ll help us identify the problem.

https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/forums/topic/70509-vanishing-structure-piecesceilings/

Current Version: v102.45

- Fixed issue where tames could be given move-onto-ship points that were outside the bounds of the ship, or nearly outside.
- Fixed issue where tames could potentially fall endlessly and drown when moving-onto-ship.
- Made 'move-to-ship' pinwheel option more accurate on clients, so it will check to see whether a creature can truly fit on its side nearby. Offset creatures on boats were the culprit for them floating off/sinking through the world!

v102.4

- Fixed a server crash
- Re-enabled Red Alert and the ability to return the crew to their previous seat following a Red Alert (can be activated using Right Shift) on Official Servers

v102.38

- Fixed creature "drift" on ships for client
- Fixed issue where creatures could disappear or erroneously die in some cases when moved onto ships, re-enabled move to ship functionality for Officials.
- Added cooldowns to activate or reset Red Alert state (clients get a corresponding message onscreen when they try to execute the order during the cooldowns).
- Fixed issue where crew melee swings on ships couldn't hit their targets.
- Red Alert temporarily disabled on Official Servers whilst we investigate an issue related to its stability.

v102.1

- Hand Harvesting Skills now affect tool usage as well.
- Fixed Climbing Picks sometimes sending the player off into infinity.
- Ended the Easter Event. Bunny hat skin applications and skinned items will still exist.
- Significantly optimized the networking of character movement on ships
- Fixed a bug where you couldn't see another player turning their character on a ship if they weren't moving.
- Fixed a server crash.
- Fixed issue with resources not respawning near shipyards/docks.
- Fixed an issue where mortars and lighthouses may not have had their activity tags updated properly
- Fixed issue that would cause characters (including creatures) based on a ship to "drift" off the ship over time.

v101.33

- Possible fix for shoulder creatures disappearing or flickering post-transition.
- Placed Water Reservoirs will now show their water richness percentage on the HUD.
- Water Reservoirs will now gain water from rain.
- Fixed Treasure Maps generating locations stuck in the world. Will not affect existing Treasure Maps.
- Empires PvE mode will now have a 2 week declaim tag period of claim flags (was previously 6 hours for test purposes).
- Disabled 'Move To Ship' pinwheel action for non-crew tames on Official Servers until we have resolved issues related to the feature.
- Fixed Island Points totals getting de-synced/displaying incorrectly for Companies.

Complete Patch Notes

We’re still collecting entries for the Show ‘n Tell! So you have a little longer to astound us with your creations, be they your fleets, building designs, imaginative tatts, entertaining videos, original fan art or scenic screenshots. Don’t be shy and head to the submission thread for a chance to win some booty in the form of a cash prize!

Show ‘n Tell #7 Submissions!

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!

One week has passed since the launch of our Mega-update 1.5 (ATLAS v100), and what a crazy voyage it’s been! As mentioned in our previous announcement, this update has been one of the largest we’ve ever worked on as a team and we are incredibly proud of the results. The last few days have shown us that these changes have been a step in the right direction to help fulfill ATLAS’ ambition of becoming the ultimate fantasy pirate adventure.

Since the patch launched, we have been continuing to iterate daily based on your feedback and reports, and have plenty more being cooked up as we speak. This log will talk about some of the new content you’ll get to experience in our upcoming mega update, our Easter Event, as well as the future of Empires.


After careful consideration, we have decided that we will be shutting down the Empire network as it has been demonstrated by the players that the Colonies & Settlement system is much more favored. We suspected this to be the case prior to the launch of these servers, but we believe in trying out and testing new systems and want to make the best use of Early Access as we can.

The results speak for themselves, so as of tomorrow, Friday the 19th, at 7 PM Eastern the Empire Server will be shut down. This network will be replaced with a North American PvE network using the existing Colonies system.

We still believe that there is a place in the game for ambitious PvP players, and we believe that open-ended PvP is a really important and fun part of ATLAS. We want to find a way we can still support those goals whilst still keeping our more controlled and rule-based PvP.


This weekend, the ATLAS will be paid a visit by the Magical Easter Bunny! They’ve struck a deal with the Cosmetic Vendor at your local Freeport and will be giving away their specially branded Bunny Ears for a small donation of Easter Eggs! So hop on into the ATLAS this weekend and join the hunt for eggs which are buried in treasure or can be collected from chickens. Before you know it, you too could be standing proud--or at least standing--with your very own Bunny Ears!

If ears don’t float your boat, you could always be a scallywag and throw the egg at passers-by, yolking their vision or slowing down wild creatures. Get yolked!

The Hoppening Patch Notes (v101)

• Treasure Chests now include Easter Eggs and Chickens (both wild/tamed) will drop them over time.
  
• Easter Eggs can be used to purchase crafts of a Bunny Hat (they stack, so you can purchase multiple crafts and keep them even after the event ends!)
  
• Eggs can be thrown at players to cause a post-process ‘yolk’ effect and at wild creatures to slow them down.
  
• Increase player speed by 10% across-the-board
  
• Water Reservoirs now automatically generate water if they are placed on fertile soil. How quickly they generate water depends on the soil type and biome, indicated on the HUD when you place or look at the water reservoir.
  
• You can now self-heal with the medkit. How much healing you get is dependent on a new Self-Healing Skill (though you can Heal yourself without the Skill, you'll only get 10% effectiveness)
  
• Killing the Krakens now completes the respective Quest for everyone in the combat zone, not just the people who have got all the Power Stones / Essences. (not retroactive)
  
• Fixed Treasure Maps sometimes generating stuck into the world geometry (not retroactive)
  
• Spikeshot now has a 15-second Defuse timer that begins upon impact
  
• Company limit on PvP server has been increased to 75.
  
• Mermaids should now properly target players on ships (they should then sing to lure the players off the ships).

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more about our next mega update which we have planned for ATLAS. It’ll be a similar scope to that of the one that launched in April, here’s a little sneak peek at what’s to come!

An enormous dungeon found deep in the depths of the polar region. We can see that this was clearly once occupied by pathfinders but now deserted.



Rumour has it that they were slaughtered or their fear of a legendary and elusive mythical beast steered them away.



We’ve also got a lot more plans for combat, including new weapons! Here’s something we’re working on currently, with more details on other weapons to come soon:



More islands will soon be emerging their way onto the ATLAS network early this summer, and they’re going to be large and higher quality than ever before!







And as always, we’ll be continuing to iterate on your reports and feedback on a regular basis. Since the Mega-Update 1.5 launched, we’ve had over 10 patches fixing bugs, adding in new features, and making adjustments. You can expect that to continue over the coming days, weeks, and months ahead!


and you can check out our entire Patch List since release, here!


Check out our PlayATLAS announcement to see the results of our sixth 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