HighwaymanEd

Hey guys, For the past few months, I've been experiencing a really annoying bug where any time I raise, lower or turn my sails, they jerk around for a good 30 seconds or so before eventually stopping. It also happens if another player moves the sails on my boat, but never if an AI crewman moves them. I've tried changing the RB Sync setting up and down, but it makes no difference. I am located in Australia, connecting to the NA PVE server, but I'm using a 100/40 Mbps fibre optic connection with a ping of around 200ms which isn't great, and much higher than it was prior to the server wipe, where I rarely ever saw this issue, now it's constant. Excuse the crappy video captured on my phone, but you get the point... Video

I had the same thing again today. Can't interact, can't drain stamina, can't take damage, can't drown... The only thing you CAN do is starve to death or die of thirst. I've had this many times with Atlas from time to time, it's been happening for a long time, and always after fast travel. Logging out doesn't do it, switching to a single-player game and back doesn't help. Deleting your local player cache doesn't work, nor does validating your Atlas game files help anything. The ONLY thing you can do is sit and wait for your hunger or thirst to eventually tick down and then you'll start taking damage and eventually die... After that everything comes good again, but it's amazing how long your hunger and thirst meters take to go down without any stamina drain or injury! Yesterday's occurrence happened when fast travelling from Grid D7 to Grid D11 to a bed on a ship that hadn't been launched yet if that helps the Dev's.

Solved. Somebody has abandoned an anchored (Green) raft near our base, and we can not longer build anything that's bottom touches the sea bed within about 500 meters of that raft. We ran around trying to find a space to build and we could place down our Large Shipyard a good ways away from our existing base. I guess we have to wait for them to either move it or for it to decay... What makes this issue worse is that it seems to be the new "pillar spamming" system. I've passed a few islands on the map on the NA PVE server where rafts have been anchored along the coastline of an island to prevent anyone from building structures on the water.

I had the same issue, it seems that you can't build within about 500 meters of another boat. In my case, somebody has abandoned a raft near our base, and we can not longer build anything thats base touches the sea bed. What makes this issue worse is that it seems to be the new "pillar spamming" system. I've passed a few islands on the map on the NA PVE server where rafts have been placed along the coastline of an island to prevent the island owners from building structures on the water.

We've established a small base on the PvE NA server on Latchgrave Ait in D11 and everything has been working out well. We've extended our base out, but want to add some more Jetty areas to make unloading the ships easier, but cannot do so. We're trying to place down some more pillars to extend our jetty's out onto, but whenever the base of a wooden pillar that we are trying to place is in the water, we get the message "Can't Place Wood Pillar: Too close to an enemy Foundation or Gate." Here are some screenshots to highlight it taken right next to our camp facing North, with no other player-owned structures, except our own anywhere near us. In the centre, in Water: 1 step to the East, on land: 1 Step to the West, on Land: 1 Step to the North, on Land: 1 Step to the South, on Land: We have no idea what would cause this, although it's not our island, we're paying the tax to live there. Are we missing something simple?

This is where an NPC crewman on ‘look out’ in the crows nest equipped with a telescope could come in handy for a voyage. Enemy’s spotted? He rings the bell well before you’re within range of their guns to alert you to get back on deck and triggers a discord webhook message letting you know. Island in your path? He should shout ‘Land Ho!’ and the AI Captain on the wheel equipped with a sextant on Autopilot should be able to steer around the island. Tie this in with another mini game with a map table and compass to plot a course for the AI Navigator to follow across a single grid square and the player doesn’t need to be present on the ship for that course to be sailed and the tedium goes away. These should be priorities for the Sailing changes coming with NPC crew skills they can individually be ‘upgraded’ with and specialise the AI crew after unlocking a few advanced ‘Captaining’ skills in the tech tree. AI lookout, AI navigator, AI Captain skills for example. BUT, whilst there is no human crew on board the ship, it becomes vulnerable to other players on the PvE servers adding an element risk and adding more chances for actual Piracy! Say a 3 minute timer after the human crew leaves it, expiring after a 3 minute timer when the human crew are back on board...

45 was just an arbitrary number I picked, but what do we class as a good island? 1, something that doesn’t cost too much (sure, let’s say up to 46) to maintain. 2, somewhere I can grow the crops we want to cook with. 3, somewhere on the boundary between a few biomes to mix up the resources within a couple of grids 4, somewhere that doesn’t consist of mostly 500ft rock pillars with no level(ish) land 5, somewhere that numbskulls can’t pillar spam us into a slideshow! (Not lawless) I know we’re being picky here, but that’s what we’re hunting for and so far it’s been slim pickings, although we’ve stacked up the discovery points looking And i stand by my point, I don’t know if there will or there won’t be a wipe, and reading between the lines and arguing the points is futile, but would I be against it if it happened? Not at all. I have a list of about 15 islands we’ll be gunning for if there is and sure, I’d like the devs to know what we’re thinking. Hell, I’d even be in favor of them polling the community to see what we think.

I’m playing on NA PvE and I’m expecting a wipe, and frankly, bring it on. I’m not taking any sides in this debate of if there will or if there won’t, but I’m for it, my little group and I (4 of us) have been sailing around and around looking for a half decent sub 45 island to claim for over a month. Sure some things are decaying, but I can still see clans owning several islands spread throughout the map. I think it would be more than unfair to introduce console players into a map with little but scraps, cast offs and the unwanted islands with little to offer being available. Of course they could always live in lawless until some numbskull comes along and surrounds their base with pillars and buoys until they get frustrated and leave... oh wait, that was us...

The past few times that I have fast travelled to a new location, I get a severe rubber banding. It's like taking 2 steps forward and snapping back 1 step, jumping has the same issue and I cannot interact with things other than to open an inventory. I can however crawl. Once I've got this problem, the only way to get rid of it is to kill myself and re-spawn. Fast travelling back or to another location doesn't get rid of the problem, only death. It's happened in several locations without any one particular location or bed causing the problem.

One of the things that I love about the game is the creativity that the building system unleashes, but at the same time, it can get a little out of control... Looking around on the PVP servers, the sailing ships that we have resemble more of the Ironclads of the 19th century with all of the Walls, ramps and ceilings adorning them, and they're bristling with 2 or 3 stories of rear and forward-facing cannons, and this needs to be curtailed. Cannons should be mountable on Gunports, and gunports only, or introduce a block and tackle type building block that would prevent them from being placed anywhere except on a Ship deck, a Floor block, or a stone ceiling (to allow for use on forts). Fighting a battle with another ship has almost nothing to do with manoeuvring skills, tactical use of the winds and bringing guns to bear, it's all about running at or away from your foe with a Frankenstein's monster of a sailing vessel belching cannonballs from its bow... It's also an easy exploit to get around the ship slowing down when the gunports are opened (still not quite sure why that is).

Just my 2 cents into the topic to say I’d actually like to see less dependency on tames, more pirate, less dog and pony show...! i get domestication for the farmers, but not the giant crabs and turtles...

I for one liked what I saw. I personally think the game is too heavily dependant on blueprints & resource gathering because there is just no alternative. I love the building side of the game, and the resource gathering is a necessary evil, which I don't mind, but we need some alternatives and this is where the economy comes in. 1. Develop trading hubs As simple as it may seem, developing the trading aspect of the game would open up a whole range of gameplay options to get people out at sea and onto their ships. Running cargo to buy, sell or to fulfill an order gives you a reason to set sail to different places on the map. It also gives the Pirates something to pillage and a reason to! Need wood? Chop down some trees, head to a trading hub to buy some, or open a contract for somebody else to bring you some instead... Got Wood? Setup Shop. Pay some Gold at one of the trading hubs to open a store and sell what you've got. Hire an AI shop keeper to be available 24/7 to sell your wares whilst you're offline. Get Wood! Somebody needs some wood but can't get it themselves? Take that contract, pick up the shipment and deliver it for a bag of gold... Steal Wood! Why spend time chopping down trees or sailing off to buy the wood to fulfill a contract. Take somebody else's and claim the contract payment for yourself! 2. Role Play, not Jack of all trades. Along with the skill tree re-work, I think there should specializations which could then further enhance the Player driven economy. Let's take Gunsmiths, for example, if the skill tree is such that nobody can ever do everything, it will force players to specialize. That, in turn, leads to opportunities to make some money from your chosen skill tree. You want to be the best Cannon maker in all of the high seas, go for it. Set up shop, buy the rare blueprints (specialization still required to understand them), put out the contracts to buy all of the special metals required to make them and then sell them at the trading hub! This could then be repeated for shipbuilders, armorers, Blacksmiths. 3. Rework the flotsam Without fail, get a blueprint, a piece of music, a number of a food item and a few coins. Make the flotsam a crate of goods, it could be wood (adrift from a player that was sunk running wood for a contract), it could be Coconuts, it could be part of a fine sail, but make them more interesting and for the love of God, not so many of them and stop them glowing! I'm playing right now sailing through I2 and I swear there are at least 30+ surrounding me as I sit adrift after diving a wreck. Which leads me nicely to point 4. 4. Make Wrecks Great Again! As above, wrecks are hardly worth it... They drop a couple of blueprints, a little Gold and some food. Wrecks should be just that, wrecks. Salvage Physical items from them like cannons, ammunition, crates of goods and of course the obligatory Gold Chest! I like that they can be hard to navigate as they are right now, but they also shouldn't de-spawn as soon as the loot is picked up. Leave the wreck in place, make it difficult to get in AND out of it to get to the Gold Chest and leave it on the bottom of the ocean until the players have sailed out of render range and it can be cleaned up nice and neatly by the server. 5. Intelligent AI crew OK, this one is tough, but the AI crew should be able to do more than just stand there on a Cannon. For 10 straight weeks Mary One Legged Nine toes (not quite sure what's going on there) has been holding onto that cannon for all she is worth... Doesn't she get tired? Doesn't she need to eat or go to the bathroom? My point being that the crew shouldn't just stand there like lemons their entire life, let's add some bunks and maybe some fatigue... 30 minutes on the gun at a time before needing a break? Sounds fair to me, send her to her bunk for 10 minutes to re-fill her stamina... And make us need bunks in the bowels of our ships... You want 10 crew? You need 5 bunks or you're not getting them. Oh, and by the way, a scurvy dog told me that there is a trader in H5 that sells hammocks that are so comfortable, they regenerate your sailors' stamina at double the normal speed! The bowels of our ships need something else to fill the empty voids that they have become. Maybe some cargo crates that we've picked up from that wreck eh? Add more variety to what they can do as well. Put someone on the crows' nest to ring the bell if enemy ships are sighted so that I'm not caught with my pants down crafting a new set below decks at the tannery, give us a ships cook to keep the crew fed with better meals than just the basic fruits that are allowed in the crew larder ;) , and get the bosun to fix that damned leaky ceiling in the Captain's quarters whilst were underway, I don't care if it takes him 20 minutes to do it, just get it done. OK, I have to stop there because the ideas just keep flowing and the post is getting TLDR...!

Still an issue that carried over from Ark, but it’s still possible to get ‘stuck’ hovering in space when dismounting a tame. earlier I rode my bear back to my ship, dismounted and... Unable to get back on the bear, unable to whistle the bear to go anywhere else, only option is to demolish the ship plank, or scuttle the ship!

+1, these should be removable when anchored.

+1 same here, “upgrading” floors with items on them should be a feature.

Same with bailing out ships, I was expecting some kind of mini game when a ship was sinking to bail it out and slow the sinking rate, but alas, they’re for Daisy’s milking, and only daisy’s Milking...

I’m all for marking hazards near your encampment or somewhere you visit frequently, but how about dropping a few to mark the safe passage if there are a lot of hazards. There are a couple of islands I’ve visited on NA PVE where there are HUNDREDS surrounding the islands and I’m not sure if they just really like them, are trying to build an island extension, or create so much lag that everyone avoids their base.

Balance is as always the key and appeasing all is never going to happen. That said, as has been mentioned by others, I’d like to see the two modes rolled up into one server hub with PVP and PVE zones with the power stone zones belonging to the Damned and the Freeports belonging to A.I. Navies of various nationalities and the Lawless Zones belonging to A.I. pirates. Get a reputation system going to align you with an A.I. Nation and Navy or A.I. Pirate band, then make the rare resources a little more scarce and spread out around the map to give you a reason to travel 15 Grid squares and kick off proper trade routes and hubs in the aforementioned A.I. hubs. Want the safe route? Yep, 15 squares, want the shortcut of 7 squares, you’ll be needing to transit PvP and or Pirate zones matey! This also lets the casual PvE’s try out PvP without committing to a server though, win win! Certainly the wildlife needs to be more lethal, I should be running and squealing like a little girl when I see a 20ft Cobra not waltzing up to it and casually poking it with a sharp stick, but an Alpha bunny? Really? That said, whilst the Fountain of youth quest shouldn’t be an easy stroll through the daisy’s, it seems that a lucky nudie run is the only way to do it as I certainly don’t see how the hell else you’re supposed to do it!

As the title suggests, I’d like to see other AI sailing ships out there sailing with the Jolly Roger and crewed by AI that will attempt to disable your ship and board you, and just like we have free ports, add some pirate ports to the map that are hostile waters. If you’re boarded and fail to defend your ship, they take it and your crew and make you walk the plank out in the ocean. Ships of the damned should be rare and fearsome ships that appear in the night or in fog banks only and be the things of legends

+1 on the whole range of weather effects, there should be some randomness to the type and strength of the rainfall for example, and I’m 100% up for seasons to really mix things up, then the monsoon type rain we get could have it’s place in the tropics in the right seasons. I’m not saying that we should have a full annual cycle based on 365 game days for the seasons to roll around, maybe only 30 game days per season, but a little bit of planning could then be brought into the game and we get to to say “Winter is coming!” and prepare. Hell, even tames could the suffer in the extreme hot and cold if they’re not provided with shade, water and or shelter.

I’m surprised the Croc we have in Atlas isn’t more like the Kaprosuchus from Ark actually, it seems a little bit huge!

+1 Having this issue too, moving around and spamming Q helped me fit about 80% of the troublesome pieces, but some are just complete show stoppers... Edit: Found that after I launched the ship, I could place all of the remaining floors and cannons.

I agree with this idea and would like to see some other sizes and classes, even if it’s based on the number of gun ports and even reducing the Schooner for 10 to 6 the make the step between it and the Brig better and something between the Brig and the Galleon with say 18 and another at 30 guns

An idea from another game (Empyrion) that would work well here are PvP zones on the map. Like we have Freeport zones now, we could also have PvP zones too where anything goes, say 40% of the full map, without blocking or forcing players to cross PvP to get to other PvE zones, but you might have to take a longer route to get around them... Then on the flip side of that, islands in PvE zones should not be claimable, anyone can build a ‘limited’ size base with gold required to support bases over x size on a sliding scale to make a large safe haven quite expensive to maintain. Rare resources should be very rare in PvE zones giving another reason for players to venture into the PvP areas, risk vs reward and all that... Islands in PvP zones would then be claimable and be contested as they are now, but claiming an area should be free, this enticing players to venture out there and stake their claim. i feel that this would give the player base the best of both worlds where the meek players can dip their toe in the shark infested PvP waters once in a while without fear of being relentlessly hunted across the entire map. PvP can be daunting for those that are new to it, or singletons and this would give players a chance to try it out without having to fully commit the PvP.