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    CAPTAIN’S LOG 25: TEST AHOY!

    Ahoy Pathfinders!

    It’s here! Our Public Test Realm is now live and ready for all of you to dive into. This Captain’s Log will cut straight to it and provide more detail on our new claiming systems along with some information on our PTR. 

    We appreciate your patience as we prepared this megapatch to go out on the PTR: ATLAS 1.5 is an ambitious new chapter and we recognize that it has taken us some time, but as we’ve said before, we’re hardened adventurers and we’re looking forward to the fun and challenges that we’ll experience alongside you!

    large.sea_4-1.jpg

         :anchor: Claim Systems Overview :anchor:

    First we will revisit the three modes which will be implemented for ATLAS 1.5 and their respective claim systems in a brief overview:

    Colonies PvP: Freeform building, with more progress-protecting and time-enforced PvP rules creating a cooperative atmosphere, and limits to ensure the game is more oriented towards single players and small to mid-sized groups.

    Empires PvP: This is our previous PvP mode with which our PvP players are familiar. Some changes have been made to the declaim timers to mitigate griefing and water claims have been eliminated. Companies have a high member limit of 250 members. Alliances are limited to four. 

    PvE: A modified version of our Colonies system. There will be a limit on the amount of Islands one Company can claim via a points system. 

     

         :anchor: Public Test Realm :anchor:

    Our Public Test Realm will run the Colonies system on a full 15x15 grid. This is the most important mode for us to have players test currently and we’re excited to see how players interact with it.

    THE COLONIES SYSTEM

    Please bear in mind that the values described below may be subject to change pending our observations and player feedback during the PTR. We've implemented some test values which we'll be using for the Settlement system throughout the PTR.

    • Islands will be delineated and ranked through a points system predominantly based on size. A Company will have a total of 200 accumulative points to “spend” on claiming and settling islands. 
    • One claim flag per island (claim flag owner is the Owner of the island)
    • An owned island is called a Settlement
    • An Island can be claimed by placing the claim flag skill which has a cost equal to the island's initial base upkeep.
    • Claim flags are no longer mergeable
    • There will be no sea claims.
    • Upkeep scales based on: 
      • Size of island and its rank (summarised by an Island’s point value)
      • How many different Companies are on the island (more Companies = lower cost)
    • To steal an Island, you must unclaim an enemies’ flag by placing your own flag within range of theirs. It is a smaller radius that can be visualized by pressing the “H” key.
    • A Settlement’s upkeep cost will scale in relation to its points ie: the upkeep cost of a 30 point island will be significantly less than that of a 100 point island.
    • Upkeep costs will be deposited in the island’s Claim Flag.
    • Tax rates and taxes themselves will be collected within the Claim Flag.
    • The tax bank is utilized to transport resources that will be used in the Claim Flag from different locations on the same Island.
    • Other companies may build on a Settlement. The company holding ownership of the island can attack others built upon their island at all times. The Settlement owner can only be attacked during combat or war.
    • A claimed Island/Settlement can be in one of three different states: Peace, Combat and At War.
    • The World Map will display an Islands: point value, current ownership, the tax rate on the island, and its current war status along with its raidable hours. An Island’s standing will also be displayed ie: Own/Ally/Enemy.
    • The Settlement Owner can select building options as follows:
      • Cannons can only be built during combat/war phase
      • Allies can build cannons freely
      • Everyone can build cannons
    • Other companies can build defense structures (puckle) any time.
    • Ships will now receive invulnerability when docked at their companies’ settlement for 15 minutes during peace phase.
    • The Settlement owner chooses a non-optional 9-hour window of vulnerability from a 24-hour cycle in which their Island is raidable. This window can be changed once a week, but for PTR will be able to be changed once every 2 days. 
    • A War Declaration can be purchased during PTR for 50k gold (100k when ATLAS 1.5 releases) plus some uncommon items in order to circumvent raiding windows altogether. An item is given upon purchase. To declare war this item is dragged from the hotbar onto the island upon which you want to declare war.
    • Once a War Declaration is made against an enemy Island, the attacker must set a time that is at least 2 days (12 hours on PTR) and as far as 4 days (24 hours in PTR) to commence the war and the duration of the war period is 24 hours, but for the duration of PTR will be 12 hours.
    • Cannons now have an initializing timer which will vary dependent on the cannon type. 
    • An island has a 5 day (1 day for PTR) cooldown before another War Declaration can be made on it. 
    • A War Declaration is per-island, so it is possible to declare war against multiple Settlements simultaneously.

         :anchor: Joining the PTR :anchor:

    The ATLAS Public Test Realm is available to all players by opting into the Steam Beta branch. You can join the PTR by following these steps: 

    1) Right click on the ATLAS game in your steam library and select "properties"

    large.ptrproperties.png

    2) Select the "Beta" tab on the popup as indicated below: 

    large.publictestrealm.PNG

    3) Locate publictestrealm in the drop down menu and select that.

    4) Select close then launch ATLAS.

    You may need to restart your Steam Clients to make sure you see the publictestrealm branch as a beta option.

     

    Server Grid Editor 

    New Server Grid Editor, JSON, and Unofficial Servers are already available on GitHub. Unofficial Server files will be made available later this weekend once we've confirmed there are no critical issues we need to deal with. Linux hosts will have to wait until early next week. We'd recommend folks play on our test servers as we won't be providing direct support to any servers hosting their own version of the branch, though we'll look into issues you report.

     

         :anchor: Upcoming Patch Notes :anchor:

    If you haven’t checked out all of the content, features and QoL changes we have coming to the PTR (and the ATLAS 1.5 launch) jump into the patch notes below:


    New Features and Content

    - Redesign: ATLAS World - 40% more islands/landmass & new world map layout.
    - Redesign: Claim System - Colonies: Freeform building, with more progress-protecting and time-enforced PvP rules creating a cooperative atmosphere, and limits to ensure the game is more oriented towards single players or smaller groups. Previous mode now known as Empires and PvE will be a modified version of colonies.
    - New Environment: Deep Ocean Trench. A new area to explore, guarded by powerful underwater creatures and home to the new Giant Crab
    - New Environment: Eastern Tundra now has its own visual design, no longer using the Western Tundra style
    - New Weather: 'Snow' weather systems for Polar and Tundra
    - New World Phenomenon: Aurora Borealis light display which will result in a harvesting bonus, visible in particular regions.
    - New Vehicle: Submarine. Explore the depths of the ocean in this small scouting submarine. Use the claw arms to help harvest the ocean floor and explore (demolish) player shipwrecks. Also equipped with a harpoon (uses ballista bolts) as a new underwater weapon which will ramp up oceanic combat.
    - New Creature: Giant Crab. It can carry heavy loads, along with players, tames and wild creatures
    - New Item: "Guillotine". Hanging your foes in a noose taking too long? Off with their heads! 
    - New Item: "Large Wall". Equipped with parapets and ladder snaps so you can now build a proper defensive perimeter!
    - New Item: "Small Gates". 2-wall high gate structures for wood and stone.
    - New Item: "Player Shops". Players can set up automated shops, listing loot for sale and naming their own gold coin prices.
    - New Item: "Settlement War Declaration". Tied to the War System. Drag over a settlement on the ATLAS map to declare war on them!
    - New Item: More tame tokens for more mythical creatures! Allowing players to have limited-time tames of the Fire Elemental, Rock Elemental, and Gorgon. BONUS: Rock Elemental and Cyclops are rideable!
    - New Feature: War System - Declare war on your enemies!
    - New Feature: 1 'Mainline Quest' involving gathering 9 trench stones and defeating the hardmode Kraken!
    - New Feature: 7 more ‘Quests’ which upon successful completion will provide their own unique Skill unlock
    - New Feature: Curses. Tied to the execution of players
    - New Feature: Player-to-Player secure trading system
    - New Feature: Procedurally Generated Shipwrecks which players can explore for items and blueprints. They can be found by diving deep into the ocean, or looking out for their visual indicator on the surface of the water, or successfully completing the sextant mini-game which will point you in the direction of nearby shipwrecks.
    - New Feature: Human Catapult. Player characters can now be deployed into battle using a catapult.
    - New Cosmetics: Peg Legs, Hook Hands, and Multiple Armor sets to customize the look of your company and crew! Can be purchased at the cosmetics vendor.
    - Redesign: Squads (Ship) of the Damned will now come in multiple size variations with different stats and difficulty levels.
    - Redesign: Grappling Hook has been revamped, better physics & rappelling mechanics, and players will be able to realistically swing using them.
    - Redesign: Explosive Barrels. Can now be carried in hand, thrown overboard to sink and will explode when they collide with anything underwater (Depth Charge!).

    Balance Changes

    - The higher quality shipyard used when building a ship, the more level ups a ship will be able to obtain.
    - Ships can now level up their total damage output (which effects all cannons on a ship) and their total resistance, as new upgradable stats.
    - All tamable creatures made breedable, with no exceptions except for Mythical Creatures.
    - Various spawner adjustments & fixes across all islands
    - Reloading now changed to have the mini-game appear back to back, rather than through various points of the animation.
    - Vitamin debuffs have been removed and will only cause health loss when a player has a vitamin surplus or deficiency.
    - Increased smithy inventory slots to 130.
    - Increased weight of catapult from 12 to 84.
    - Adjusted the crafting quantities on higher tier blueprints so they don't require as many resources as before.

    QOL Changes

    - Territory map will now display allies as teal-coloured
    - Character creator now has a Height slider to make it easier to set your character's desired height
    - Any dead ships (shipwrecks) from your Company appear with a unique icon on your map now, so you can find the wrecks
    - Global territory message updating
    - Currently contested claims will be indicated on the minimap
    - Players can now mount a sail to directly control the sail's open/close amount and rotation settings in a more intuitive way.
    - Toggle ladders button for ship captain, defaults to L key. 
    - Company Groups have been increased to 10
    - Players cannot accept alliance invites unless they're an admin
    - Company Log can now be sorted
    - New group permission which acts as an effective 'company owner'. Only the true company owner can set/unset that specific group rank.

    Misc

    - Improved Server and Client performance
    - Visual feedback for players being unable to board unallied boats on PvE
    - Full body animations for harvesting
    - More realistic old age wrinkles
    - Additional face sliders for character customization
    - Dive suit overlay has been adjusted so it's easier to see when underwater
    - Commodities trader can only be found on the Merchant Ship on PvP servers
    - Respec potion has been moved to the Crew Recruiter on Freeports

     

           :anchor: Discord Webhook Notifications :anchor:

    This update comes with Discord Notifcations which you can set up pretty easily! All you have to do is grab your webhook URL and copy it into your Company's Manage Notifications UI. For more info on how to get your webhook URL, check out Discord's how to guide here: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/228383668-Intro-to-Webhooks

    large.easterntundra.jpg

     

    Please note that we have opened Public Test Realm-related subforums here on the playATLAS forums along with new specific channels on the Discord. We look forward to your thoughts, experiences and feedback. The Discord channels can be accessed by assigning yourself the PTR role in the #role-assignment channel and links to the PTR subforums are below.

    General Public Test Realm Subforum

    PTR Bug report Forum

     

    :wheel:

    Alrighty, that ’s it for this log! 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🏴☠️

    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

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    12 hours ago, Bulldogg50 said:

    I made a post about this as well its in F8 i believe, in that area. all four ports (Pathfinder (square)) has blocked in the NPC buyer. this guy needs to be banded, utterly ridiculous how this sort of thing can happen, NO building on the Freeports, NONE, even in test mode should you be allowed to build in a Freeport....its just that a FREEPORT.  I just love how this guy can get away with it and will be allowed into the next game to screw everyone over again.

     

    These will get away with it, even after the wipe. There's not a single admin/dev/Jat who will do something about it.

    Griefers will have freeplay all over, they just gonna wipe it all again in like 3/6 months and hope they'll not return.

    Lost hope if you ask me.

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    My expectations for this EA game was bug fixing and content updates,not pvp tweaking or server reboots. I wish now we were told the EXACT intent of this game because MANY of us joined for PVE and never expected PVP to influence PVE server wipes or even have PVE settings catered to pvp.

    OFFLINE<<<keyword.How are game settings going to affect players when they are offline,nobody can game or wants to play 24/7.So a group of friends in a different time zone than a larger alliance is all offline,every last player offline,how are the settings going  to help them and the game ?

    Gamer's cannot cater to game settings,they have lives to live,so the settings MUST cater to the players.If you are going to focus on pvp make sure it does not affect or alienate pve players which is likely half the community.PVP should have safe areas and be VERY restricted because of two very keywords "unbalance" and "offline".

     

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    28 minutes ago, zubov56 said:

    My expectations for this EA game was bug fixing and content updates,not pvp tweaking or server reboots. I wish now we were told the EXACT intent of this game because MANY of us joined for PVE and never expected PVP to influence PVE server wipes or even have PVE settings catered to pvp.

    OFFLINE<<<keyword.How are game settings going to affect players when they are offline,nobody can game or wants to play 24/7.So a group of friends in a different time zone than a larger alliance is all offline,every last player offline,how are the settings going  to help them and the game ?

    Gamer's cannot cater to game settings,they have lives to live,so the settings MUST cater to the players.If you are going to focus on pvp make sure it does not affect or alienate pve players which is likely half the community.PVP should have safe areas and be VERY restricted because of two very keywords "unbalance" and "offline".

     

    Like thousands,  had the same expectations.

    Like thousands, we wanted this company to learn from ARK.

    Like thousands, we're being let down. 

    Again.

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    23 hours ago, vaylain said:

    Can we get an updated, Official Word on the new "ATLAS: 1.5 Launch" please Grapeshot? I would like to plan ahead and prepare, thank you.

    Hello, Grapeshot?

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    4 hours ago, Cpt.Yarrr said:

    Like thousands,  had the same expectations.

    Like thousands, we wanted this company to learn from ARK.

    Like thousands, we're being let down. 

    Again.

    and looking at the little increase in numbers with the test server release it doesn't look like the thousands are eager to come back or just noone wants to test the new stuff 😞

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    10 hours ago, vaylain said:

    Can we get an updated, Official Word on the new "ATLAS: 1.5 Launch" please Grapeshot? I would like to plan ahead and prepare, thank you.

    FREAKING A GRAPESHOT, GIVE US SOME FEEDBACK, WHEN ARE THE ATLAS: 1.5 SERVERS GOING LIVE?

     

    I just want to get back and play on the EMPIRE mode in the Lawless lands, as that mode WAS just fine before all of this crappy arsed, server wipe BS...

    Edited by vaylain

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    11 hours ago, mckie said:

    Just release the damn game already. This PTR is pointless.

    It's not totally pointless. They know everyone is pissed about the wipe. They are making so many changes in this mega update that I think they are trying to avoid having to wipe again a few weeks after they release it. They can test these systems with a small group of people before we get content, but knowing how it will affect thousands of people on a map of this scale does take time. I'm not saying they did a good job with the release; the concept for the game and the claiming system was a nightmare at launch. Considering how bad the launch was though, and considering how many things needed to be fixed, I think a PTR is a healthy decision for introducing this new claim system since they are walking on eggshells. It will need to be tweaked a few times before 1.5. 

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    1 hour ago, Quadsteak said:

    It's not totally pointless. They know everyone is pissed about the wipe. They are making so many changes in this mega update that I think they are trying to avoid having to wipe again a few weeks after they release it. They can test these systems with a small group of people before we get content, but knowing how it will affect thousands of people on a map of this scale does take time. I'm not saying they did a good job with the release; the concept for the game and the claiming system was a nightmare at launch. Considering how bad the launch was though, and considering how many things needed to be fixed, I think a PTR is a healthy decision for introducing this new claim system since they are walking on eggshells. It will need to be tweaked a few times before 1.5. 

    Not to all of us.  Many of us found the game perfectly fine before all of this "mega" patch and "wipe" B.S. and yet we had to endure. We paid our money, we waited more than a month to play, and we are growing weary of waiting to play it once more.

    13 hours ago, vaylain said:

    Can we get an updated, Official Word on the new "ATLAS: 1.5 Launch" please Grapeshot? I would like to plan ahead and prepare, thank you.

    BUMP once again for an Official response.

    Edited by vaylain

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    14 hours ago, vaylain said:

    Not to all of us.  Many of us found the game perfectly fine before all of this "mega" patch and "wipe" B.S. and yet we had to endure. We paid our money, we waited more than a month to play, and we are growing weary of waiting to play it once more.

    BUMP once again for an Official response.

    My opinion is that this didn't need to be a mega update in the first place. They could of dished it out to us over time in smaller  increments . It has been some time now sense they announced this update. The problem is that some of us are paying for servers that nobody is playing on because of the wipe announcement. and we just would like to know what is going on so we can make a decision on whether or not we need to  dump the server or not. if it was another game it wouldn't be that big of a deal,  but to run a decent server for this particular game the cost is quite high.

    Edited by mckie

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    They are NEVER going to get the numbers they want on the test, no one wants to put any time into yet another imminent wipe....

     

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    It's sad how horrible this team is. All they were good at was scamming us out of our $.

    Z

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    it was only 25 bucks it was well worth the price.  I spend more on coffee in a day.  I do agree the ptr was unnecessary just launch and fix as we go.

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    34 minutes ago, Ravenx said:

    it was only 25 bucks it was well worth the price.  I spend more on coffee in a day.  I do agree the ptr was unnecessary just launch and fix as we go.

    You may want to re-evaluate your coffee expenses. At $25.00 a day, you are wasting a hell of a lot of money. I'd recommend that you consider to buy your coffee in bulk and make it at home. =p

    Yes, I agree. Let's launch ATLAS: 1.5 and just make micro-updates as we go. We all knew that we were "test-dummies" to begin with, so, let's get to it!.

    GRAPESHOT - 

    Can we get an updated, Official Word about the "ATLAS: 1.5 Launch" please? There are many of us that would like to plan ahead and prepare. We are afraid that we will miss the launch and allow OTHERS to claim all of the islands before we get our own equal chance at a land claim. Thank you.

    Edited by vaylain

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    On 4/10/2019 at 7:35 AM, vaylain said:

    Not to all of us.  Many of us found the game perfectly fine before all of this "mega" patch and "wipe" B.S. and yet we had to endure. We paid our money, we waited more than a month to play, and we are growing weary of waiting to play it once more.

    BUMP once again for an Official response.

    Bro I am on the same page as you, I was playing and enjoying the game just fine before the wipe announcement. My only point was that after they decided to screw with the game a PTR to ensure the game doesn't implode on day 1 of the launch is a decent idea. Remember day 1 of the original launch...

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