ATLAS

Ahoy Pathfinders! Today we finally get to answer some of your questions once again. With the recent patch/wipe and contests announced, we didn’t want your answers to get lost in the wake. Now that the waters have calmed, we’re back to provide you answers. Please check out the contest here to submit your videos and have the opportunity to win up to a $25 Amazon gift card. As a reminder, the answers below only reflect the current timeframe and are subject to change. While we can provide current insight on the game and what we hope to do, what is destined we can’t foresee. We appreciate your support and understanding. So ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. Without further ado, here’s our Q&A! Hang out at our Discord for a chance to get your questions answered in the next Q&A! Q&A Any plans to address shield stun duration or overhead mace torpor damage to make melee combat more entertaining and challenging, rather than stun-lock-and-torpor combat? Damage during land combat is something we are only loosely balancing right now as we continue to work through Early Access. We will be revisiting it closer to the 1.0 release. With barrel bombs (even shot from catapults) still dictating the "meta game," is there a plan to remove them from ship combat totally? We are working on new ways for players to counter dominant strategies in ship combat. We recognize that ship combat is not in a good place right now and are focused on the long term health of the game. Look out for new defensive modules when we expand the module crafting system in the next major patch. Are there any plans to limit structures per island, reducing the lag associated with the spam we have currently? We are coming at this from a couple different angles. * Some memory management improvements are in testing that will allow clients to load and unload structures faster. * Some new structure types that are larger are in the works so players don't have to build massive structures out of many small pieces. * We are working through some ideas with claiming to help undercut the motivations for placing lots of small structures for meta reasons such as making landing tames hard or preventing others from building nearby. Do you plan to limit the number of armored docks a company or island can have being used at any given time? Not directly. Armored Docks require gold to operate. As we develop the economy, we are looking for more ways to sink gold and keep it scarce so that placing an Armored Dock costs you the opportunity to do something else important with that gold. Are there any inbound flag claim (Height, Radius, etc) or Island changes (i.e.- Lawless Areas On Island Outside of Claim Radius)? We definitely had some significant changes to this in the last major patch! We'd like to see how the meta adjusts before we commit to other changes. We are also spending effort making these configurations more customizable and exposing that to unofficial server owners so you can try out what combinations of ruleset you think are most interesting. Long term we would like to make fighting over valuable locations in the game take a concerted, multi-day effort. We'll talk more about that as features related to it are closer to being rolled out. Are there any plans to add upgradeable end-game gear as a needed gold sink. Any chance on this being added back with the new BP crafting system you have hinted at? We would love to make the crafting system more customizable and interesting. We have to balance this with other goals we have for the game. This particular area is not one of our primary focuses and so it's coming along in the free time, after hours, and weekends between other higher priority work. Is there any way you guys will add a hull bigger than a brig with 4 large sails. But smaller than a galley? Our plans for updating the modular ship system are full speed ahead and this is on the horizon. Our next major patch is planned to be focused on getting our core customization options out for ships. Immediately following that we will be working on making modular ships craftable in the Shipyard and introducing a dozen or more ship sizes. One of the great benefits of this new ship system is that we can make an entirely new ship completely out of existing parts and we are only a couple months away from unleashing that power! Can we get an upgrade that increases the level (and rewards) of SotDs, allowing SotDs to be relevant in more than 8 out of 121 tiles in the game? Check out the latest patch! Ships of the Damned are much more prevalent and have a much wider variety of difficulty on the map now! Will the wipe affect the Unofficial Servers? There are new features that unofficial servers may want to take advantage of. Our goal is to not require unofficials to wipe to support our changes, when possible. Early Access means that some changes in the future may be so transformative that this is unavoidable. When will crew resource silos hold other food besides berries? Thanks for the suggestion. This seems like an easy fix that will improve quality of life a little. We always try to fit these sorts of things in along side our larger features. What does Atlas' long-term monetization strategy look like? Do you think it will be an Ark-like direction where you release multiple expansions? Subscription model? Mtx? Right now we are focused on improving the game and making it something you want to bring your friends into play. Of those options, the most likely is expansions. There's not any interest with the team right now to do subscriptions or microtransactions. What are some strategies you're working on for long-term player retention? Improving the game. Seriously. We are trying to build a game where you want to gather a bunch of friends and try to carve out your place in the world and compete against other companies. That's the sort of game you can play with people for years and still have fresh experiences. What are your thoughts on Armored Docks now that they have been in game for a while? They have added some really cool elements to the game but I also believe they have been abused by larger companies. Armored Docks still are not where we want them to be. As the meta changes, their role within it will also change. Right now we want to focus on fixing any abuses or exploits using the Armored Docks. After we get some other changes in we'll revisit Armored Docks as a whole and see if they are fitting the way we want them to into the meta. Is the current trade system completed in the devs opinion? Seems to not quite be everything it was advertised to become. It's not at all complete. We got it roughed in and then moved onto roughing in some other things. We'll be coming back to working on it when we get some of our other large systems in order. Any plans to improve how torpor works in general? Maybe make torpor do something like mess with the camera like the drunk debuff, torpor wouldn’t be such an instantaneous end to fights. This is one of the approaches we have discussed for addressing the current land combat meta if we spent time on it. Land Combat is a major undertaking and requires a ton of continuous work on balance, so we are mostly leaving it as is right now until we have enough free resources to give it our full, undivided attention. Is there a plan to address the lack of craft charges mainly on Gunports, Planks, and Cannons currently in the game? These were addressed in the recent patch. Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

Ahoy Pathfinders! If you've been to the ATLAS Steam Store Page lately, you may have noticed that we've been broadcasting ATLAS Gameplay! We think it would be awesome if we could showcase videos and content from our community! We’d like to especially thank content creators ThaiJetEye and decoyy whose videos we’ve showcased on the store page! Be sure to give them a like, follow, and subscribe! If you haven’t seen them, ThaiJetEye’s Kraken Fight and Private Server tutorial can be found here: Decoyy specially edited some footage together, and you can find many PVP fights and other content on his channel! Here are a couple of his recent videos: We hope you’re enjoying the Tradewinds update and the start of the new season! Now that the seas a bit more familiar, we’re looking to showcase the latest gameplay, tutorials, fun edits and content from the latest update! How to Get Featured & Win At this time, we are looking to accept a wide variety of videos - whether it is gameplay footage, a streaming session, a discussion video, a how-to/tutorial, a fun/creative video, or even a trailer for your private server - whatever it is, we'd love to feature it! We encourage you to overlay your videos with your gamertag and/or social media so that viewers who come by know where to find you! All videos that we feature will be eligible for a community vote in June where the top 3 videos with the most votes will win an Amazon Giftcard! First Prize: $25 Amazon Giftcard Second Prize: $15 Amazon Giftcard Third Prize: $10 Amazon Giftcard General Guidelines for submission: No NSFW or inappropriate language or content Harassment, abuse, hate speech or any kind of discriminatory speech will not be tolerated. Footage must abide by the ATLAS CoC which can be found here: https://www.playatlas.com/index.php?/code-of-conduct/ No copyrighted music or audio Video must be ATLAS related only and must not feature or reference other games You may submit videos of content that you have already created or uploaded elsewhere, or create new ones! You may submit multiple videos if you'd like as well! If you are interested, please email your submissions to us at communityteam@playatlas.com with the subject "ATLAS Broadcast Video Submission" Only .mp4 files will be considered. Please provide a downloadable link to your video(s)- Google drive links are preferred. Please also include a youtube mirror link for each of the video(s) you submit In the case that we choose to showcase your submissions on our other platforms - please also include links to any of your channels or social media so that we can promote you and your content! Video Submissions are due by May 28th 11:59:59 PM PST. Please note: Submission of your videos does not guarantee that your content will be featured. Although as long as your content is appropriate, it is very likely that we will feature it. For full Terms and Conditions see here Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns as well. Thank you for your interest! We look forward to seeing your creativity! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

Ahoy Pathfinders! For Private Server owners, or anyone just tinkering with the ATLAS server Grid Editor, this map export feature is now available! To change the file size of the map exports in SGE The settings for the dimension of your exported map images can be seen in the screenshot below To change the size of the cell images, set the number in “Cell Image Size” to the desired dimension before Export To change the size of the world map image, set the number in “Atlas Image Size” to the desired dimension before Export The defaults are: Cell Image Size: 2048; Atlas Image Size: 4096 We hope everyone is enjoying the Tradewinds Update so far! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

The Tradewinds Update will go live tonight, 4/29 at 7:00 PM PT. We will bring the old servers down around 5:30 PM PT. PC will be able to download the patch at that time. Please note that the client update was pushed early for XBOX. Due to the mismatch, Xbox is unable to access until the servers actually go live again at 7:00 PM PT. The updated wipe Servers will be live for everyone at 7:00 PM PT. Ahoy Pathfinders! Well, ladies and gentle pirates, it’s finally here. With the new update and wipe of our servers, players will find the winds of adventure have shifted dramatically and the world of Atlas forever changed. The most significant differences can be seen on the map in the form of Tradewinds. Tradewinds are predictable sailing routes throughout the new map, providing ships with a wind boost when traveling along the wind’s trajectory. Even the most veteran of captains will need to learn a few new techniques to master these new travel corridors and fully utilize their strategic potential. Maps have been altered to accommodate these new Tradewinds, as well as provide new strategic zones and opportunities for satisfying engagement. These changes are further detailed in the notes below. Along with these macro changes that will significantly change up the current state of play, we have also included several fun additions on a micro level (tames, structures, items) to spice up your next chapter of adventures. - Is that an earthquake or the impending sound of doom? Platform saddles for the Elephant, Crab, and Grand Tortugar have been added, allowing your giant tames to load up with cannons, torpedos and other armaments to wreak maximum havoc on your foes. - A new set of troublesome creatures are now roaming Atlas for you to battle and tame. The crocodile, yeti, and spider, each with their own unique set of useful characteristics, will be available on update but engage at your own risk. - The first set of modular railing customizations will be available for pathfinders to pick and choose the best loadout before each voyage. Need extra firepower? Slap on a few cannons. Going to do some salvaging? Add the diving board or cargo railing. Want to mess around? Grab a few friends, add some dinghies on the rails and watch hilarity ensue. These are just a few of the exciting additions coming with the patch with the rest in the notes below. All this and we still haven’t mentioned the large number of balance changes and bug fixes, to streamline the game. As you can see, the Atlas team has put in a lot of effort into making this patch the start of something new and exciting, for both newer and older players alike. We hope you enjoy this fresh start and once settled in, feel free to let us know how you feel. As always, we, the Atlas team, appreciate your support and ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. Although originally scheduled for later today at 7PM PDT, we will be postponing the Trade Winds patch to verify the quality of the update. Meanwhile, we will provide the Patch Notes later today along with an updated release time. Thank you for your patience. While we await the patch, we will be temporarily opening up the PTR on Steam for general playtesting. To access the beta, please follow the steps below: 1. In your Steam library, right-click on Atlas and select Properties 2. Select the Betas tab on the left 3. Enter the password EdwardTeachBlackbeard 4. Select the "test2021 - recruit testers" realm 5. Atlas will now launch into the PTR 6. To join, be sure to select New ATLAS and join the PVP server Polly's Cracker To switch back to the main build, follow the steps 1 & 2, and then select "None" to return to the main build. We are also re-opening the PTR Channel on our Official Discord. Please join us in those channels for discussions and bug-reporting regarding related to the PTR! Released Patch Notes v524.10 New Saddle Type: Platform Saddles for Elephant, Crab, and Grand Tortugar Platform Saddles can be constructed at the Tannery after learning to Riding Tier 3 skill in the Beastmastery tree. Creatures with a Platform Saddle equipped move 20% slower NPCs may be moved onto the platform and can man weapons Elephant Platform Saddle Cannons, Large Cannons, Catapults, Puckles, Ammo Containers, and Wooden Chairs may be placed on the platform Up to 8 structures may be placed on the platform Crafting Resources: 50 Alloy, 200 Fiber, 320 Hide, 50 Organic Paste, 200 Wood Crab Platform Saddle Cannons, Large Cannons, Catapults, Ballistas, Ammo Containers, and Wooden Chairs may be placed on the platform Harpoons may be launched from Ballistas placed on the platform Up to 12 structures may be placed on the platform Crafting Resources: 70 Alloy, 200 Fiber, 320 Hide, 50 Organic Paste, 250 Wood Grand Tortugar Platform Saddle Cannons, Large Cannons, Catapults, Torpedo Launchers, Ammo Containers, and Wooden Chairs may be placed on the platform Up to 12 structures may be placed on the platform Crafting Resources: 80 Alloy, 200 Fiber, 320 Hide, 50 Organic Paste, 300 Wood New Tame: Crocodile A new mount that can be used for navigating both land and sea, the Crocodile can be tamed after learning the Taming Tier 3 skill in the Beastmastery tree. Favorite Food: Prime Shark Meat Taming Style: Bola Saddle: None Primary Attack: Bite New Tame: Yeti The Yeti is a fearsome beast that can be tamed after learning the Taming Tier 3 skill in the Beastmastery tree. Yetis may equip hats Favorite Food: Ice Taming Style: Bola Saddle: None Primary Attack: Punch Secondary Attack: Ground Pound The Yeti pounds the ground, dealing a low amount of damage and applying the Chilled debuff which slows nearby enemies New Tame: Spider Spiders can be tamed after learning the Taming Tier 3 skill in the Beastmastery tree. Favorite Food: Insect Meat Taming Style: Bola Saddle: Tier 3 Primary Attack: Bite Secondary Attack: Web Shooter Will produce silk if fed favorite food New Meat: Prime Shark Meat Prime Shark Meat can be harvested from a Shark's corpse Cooking the meat creates Cooked Prime Fish Meat New Meat: Insect Meat Insect Meat can be harvested from Giant Ants, Giant Bees, and Scorpions corpses Cooking the meat creates cooked Animal Meat New Defensive Weapon: Puckle Tower The Puckle Tower is an automated weapon that can be crafted in the Smithy after learning the Gatling Studies skill in the Artillery tree. Requires Puckle Bullets and fuel (Oil or Coal) to function 20,000 Health Deals 400 damage per shot Approximately 4m (4 Walls) tall Crafting Resources: 200 Alloy, 300 FIber, 300 Hide, 400 Wood New Container: Munitions Storage Munitions Storage can be crafted in the Smithy after learning the Ammunition Storage skill in the Artillery tree. Moving ammunition out of storage must be done manually. Any ammo stored in Munitions Storage has its weight reduced by 88% Cannon Balls, Large Cannon Balls, Grapeshot, Bar Shot, Canister Shot, Spike Shot, Greek Fire, Ballista Bolts, Flame Ballista Bolts, Harpoons, Torpedoes, Boulders, Puckle Bullets, Mortar Shot, Stone Arrows, Flame Arrows, Tranq Arrows, Zip-Line Anchors, Crossbow Bolts, Simple Bullets, Minni Balls, and Simple Shot can be placed in Munitions Storage Crafting Resources: 250 Wood, 100 Thatch, 120 Fiber, 40 Metal New Structure: Large Stone Foundation Large Stone Foundations can be crafted in the Smithy after learning the Esotery of Building skill in the Construction & Mercantilism tree. Large building pieces that are 4m wide and 3m tall The height of the bottom Stone Foundation may be modified with the scroll wheel Crafting Resources: 150 Alloy, 350 Fiber, 950 Stone, 350 Thatch, 500 Wood New System: Tradewinds Tradewinds are predictable sailing routes throughout the new map. Ships gain a wind boost when traveling within a Tradewind in the direction it is going. Sailors will be alerted via HUD to Tradewind effects Wind boost will be constant and predictable along Tradewind path An overlay of Tradewind locations can be seen on map when zoomed out New System: Modular Ship Railing Customization The first step of the Modular Ship Customization system allows pathfinders to swap Railing Modules on the Ramming Galley and Majestic Kraken. All Railing Modules can be crafted in the Smithy after learning the required skill. Each type of Railing Module costs a certain number of Module Points to place. Placing a Railing Module will consume points from the ship's Module Point Pool. If a less expensive Railing Module replaces a more costly one, the unused points are made available for use in the ship's Module Point Pool. In future patches, higher quality railing blueprints may be found. A ship must be anchored in order to swap modules Total Module Points Ramming Galley: 43 Majestic Kraken: 40 Railing Modules Ship Railing and Ship Railing (Kraken) Standard Railing Module with no additional functionality Health: Undamageable Module Point Cost: 0 Required Skill: Intermediate Shipwright Crafting Resources: 100 Wood, 85 Thatch, 50 Fiber Ship Cannon Railing and Ship Cannon Railing (Kraken) Railing Module armed with two standard Cannons Health: 5,000 Module Point Cost: 3 Required Skill: Gunports Crafting Resources: 150 Wood, 100 Thatch, 70 Fiber, 60 Alloy, 50 Hide Ship Large Cannon Railing and Ship Large Cannon Railing (Kraken) Railing Module armed with one Large Cannon Health: 5,000 Module Point Cost: 3 Required Skill: Bigger Cannon Studies Crafting Resources: 180 Wood, 85 Thatch, 75 Fiber, 48 Alloy, 35 Hide Ship Ballista Railing and Ship Ballista Railing (Kraken) Railing Module armed with two Ballistas Health: 5,000 Module Point Cost: 3 Required Skill: Siege Studies Crafting Resources: 550 Wood, 225 Thatch, 250 Fiber, 98 Alloy, 180 Stone Ship Catapult Railing and Ship Catapult Railing (Kraken) Railing Module armed with one Catapult Health: 5,000 Module Point Cost: 3 Required Skill: Siege Studies Crafting Resources: 500 Wood, 180 Thatch, 50 Fiber, 140 Alloy, 340 Stone, 70 Hide Cargo Rack Ship Railing and Cargo Rack Ship Railing (Kraken) Health: 16,000 Module Point Cost: 2 Required Skill: Secrets of Building Crafting Resources: 450 Wood, 85 Thatch, 350 Fiber, 68 Metal, 72 Hide Diving Platform Ship Railing and Diving Platform Ship Railing (Kraken) Health: 12,000 Module Point Cost: 1 Required Skill: Secrets of Piracy Crafting Resources: 360 Wood, 85 Thatch, 190 Fiber, 62 Metal, 46 Hide Dinghy Hangar Ship Railing and Dinghy Hangar Ship Railing (Kraken) Health: 12,000 Module Point Cost: 1 Required Skill: Dinghy Dock Crafting Resources: 310 Wood, 85 Thatch, 130 Fiber, 14 Metal, 28 Hide NOTE: Currently, Kraken Railing Modules are only compatible with the Majestic Kraken and Standard Railing Modules are only compatible with the Ramming Galley Armored Docks Fully constructed Armored Docks will no longer be found in loot drops Armored Docks may no longer be placed near Sea Forts Bug Fix: Gold cost now properly scales with Blueprint quality Bug Fix: Ships anchored outside of Armored Docks are no longer protected NOTE: Ships may now need to be anchored closer to the center of an Armored Dock to receive protection. (Protection indicators accurately show whether a ship is protected) Trade Warehouses have placement restriction radius has been reduced by 1/3 Markets and warehouses are limited to 1 per company per island Max Sea Fort Tax is reduced from 50% to 40% Trade Shipment Cooldown doubled (Trade Ships launch half as frequently) Trade Shipment Weight Doubled (shipments carry twice as much) Trade value per grid reduced by 20% Net reduction of Trade gold generation based on these changes is 60% Lawless Claim System Claim Tower icons viewed through the Spyglass are now only visible for towers within 100m Other pathfinder claims can only be seen within 200m on the map Your company's claim towers in other grids may now be seen on the map Bug Fix: Server reboots should no longer cause parts of ships to be claimed Bug Fix: Ships may no longer be claimed with Land Claim Towers Bug Fix: Weapons on Cargo Saddles can no longer be claimed Bug Fix: Buoys can now be claimed Bug Fix: Claim Towers may no longer be placed on Shipyards Bug Fix: Fixed some instances of ships exploding on release from shipyard Bug Fix: Resolved issue where remaining island points could get out of sync between different servers NPCs on armored dock can no longer contest island claims New Map Layout Island Positions have been moved to account for Tradewinds. Harvesting Resources have been overhauled Most Resource nodes now have a chance to give some type of common base resource Examples include Straw from plants, resin from trees, stone from crystal and gem nodes Freeport islands no longer provide metal Grid Specific Settings have been redistributed Freeports are only in the south. Lawless areas now surround Freeports and give common resources Golden Age and Kraken have moved north 2 grids Claim Islands only exist around the edges of the map. "Lawless" Area Claim take up the remaining maps. Weather Conditions and Ship of the Damned have been made more harsh in the north. Server Grid Editor - Data Driven tools for adding Resource Templates and applying them to islands have been added to the Server Grid Editor for use on unofficial servers. Visit the Git project for more information. Patch Kits Repair Bonus skills from the Construction & Mercantilism tree now apply to Patch Kit healing The Repair Fiend ability now applies to Patch Kit healing Ships The Ramming Galley and Majestic Kraken can now be painted Removed blue tint from Majestic Kraken to support pathfinder painting Ships now take less damage from land sources A new War Drum song is available to increase the resistance from land damage Hold Fast, Ye Dogs! Easy: decrease damage from land sources a further 30% for one vessel Normal: decrease damage from land sources a further 30% for all vessels within 300m Hard: decrease damage from land sources a further 30% for all vessels within 300m and apply Repair Speed buff. Bug Fix: Puckles may no longer be placed on ships Tames and Creatures Sea tames will now follow a ship if they are following one of the pathfinders on the ship Seagulls can now equip hats Treasure Maps Treasure Map spawns may no longer be blocked with structures Bug Fix: Fixed some occurrences of blank Treasure Maps in Single Player Misc Farmhouse collects Vegetables, Fiber, Cooking Herbs and berries. No metal, stone or wood is intended. Blackjacks may now be crafted at the Smithy Upon special request, beans now give a small amount of vitamin B when eaten, recipes in later patches will be coming to incorporate these changes Wall Hooks, Canvases, Preserving Bags, and Mortar and Pestles may now be placed on Wooden Tables possible issue: placing objects on top of one another Bug Fix: Resolved issue where beds couldn't be placed in PvE Lawless servers if a non-allied pathfinder was nearby Bug Fix: Stats are visible on placed structures and weapons Bug Fix: Resolved issue where some variables in Game.ini couldn't be modified in private servers Bug Fix: Beds may now be placed on lawless PvE servers when non-allied pathfinders are nearby Bug Fix: Quality Farmhouses no longer lose stats after restarting in Single Player Bug Fix: Certain blueprints had an incorrect crafting count Bug Fix: Fixed some instances of unintended ladder interactions There is now a max building height - This affects claims, beds, or weapon structures Bug Fix: Geodes can be gathered once again Increased Geode Stack size from 5 to 25 Removed Manned Puckles (the other manned structures remain) Ships now pause for a limited amount of time when transitioning between servers to allow the occupants to load in. Server Redeploy Changes .10 --> .11 Prevent spawning near control points Land to ship damage modification Increased puckle building prevention radius Fixed decay for land claim towers Reduced the size of tradewinds map images to workaround streaming problems (which also caused client crashes) Fixed tradewinds not working on some servers Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

Ahoy Pathfinders! With the release of the Trade Winds update right around the corner, we have prepared some instructions for those on Private Servers to make sure they are ready to set sail when the patch drops. For the most part, existing private servers should still work "as-is" once the update occurs. However, existing map images/assets need to be changed from jpg to PNG, either manually or by re-exporting from the SGE. Below you will find the link to the latest SGE: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/cdn.atlasdedicated.com/ServerGridEditor_04-26-21.zip If you need further assistance, we will be providing detailed screenshots and step-by-step instructions a little later. Thank you for your patience and we can wait to sail the Trade Winds with you soon! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas d with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame View full article

Ahoy Pathfinders! Get ready to set sail and begin your adventure anew as big changes are hitting the shores of ATLAS! On April 28th 7:00 PM PT, we'll be wiping for an exciting fresh start with the new Tradewinds Update! Let's take a look at a few of the new features on the horizon: - A whole new map to explore, featuring Tradewinds - special waterway canals to get you traveling around the world faster for some high speed action! - New Railing Modules - the first line of customizations for the Modular Ships system! - Platform Saddles - ride in style while laying waste to your enemies Note: Private Server owners - we will have further information about configurations and recommendations so you can prepare for this update. Stay tuned! We still have more updates underway sailing along the Tradewinds! We'll also be extending our Spring Rate-Up event until then! Go wild and end things with a bang before beginning a new chapter in your journey! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

Ahoy Pathfinders! We know some of you have been waiting and we're happy to bring another update to the Dev Kit! Private Server owners and modders will also see that the build includes the modular ship system so players will be able to make new ships based off of the system that we are currently working on. We're excited to see what cool ideas the community comes up with! Share your creations with us on Twitter for a retweet, or on our other platforms below! Get the Dev Kit here: http://bit.ly/atlasmodkit Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

Ahoy Pathfinders! We’re back with another edition of Dev Q&A. We have info on PvE, game balance, and even a few cosmetics in the works. So thanks to all the pathfinders that submitted questions in the Discord. The Atlas team is dedicated to provide as much transparency as we can since we feel the community is also a part of the team. Often the loudest of the members, you provide us with feedback, suggestions, and even a compliment or two. Therefore, we feel it is necessary to be open with the community in all facets. We hope you will continue to support us through rough (and calm) seas. Until next time, we appreciate your support and ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. Without further ado, here’s our Q&A! Hang out at our Discord for a chance to get your questions answered in the next Q&A! Q&A Can you confirm if there will still be island claiming system or will it be lawless everywhere after the wipe? We are still making updates to the area claim system and are going to focus on that. The Island claim system is likely to stick around after the wipe, but the map changes are still being finalized so that is subject to change. Either way the Island Claim System should be available for private servers. Can we get some details of the theme and vision? We're not planning to overhaul the game. We are planning to lean into things we have and reinforce them more with new content. So you might see Army of the Damned themed things in the world more, or Atlantis... We're also talking about introducing some pre WW1 dirty industrial content. How are small companies and solo players going to work into the game? Just like they do in the real world. Seriously. Large behemoth companies can't do everything on their own, and they can't protect everything at once. As we move towards having Wonders that companies build, it's going to require a massive amount of trade, logistics and war to get one built. This creates opportunities for smaller groups to be part of the wheels of progress or engage in acts of piracy as large amounts of resources need to be shipped on the water. When can we expect balance changes? Balance changes are happening continuously in small amounts. We don't have a focus on getting balance "right" because so many things are still getting added to the game. We want to get all of our changes in to get a better understanding of the big picture and then will come back and tighten the balance. Can we get some form of roadmap even if it has a disclaimer that the plans could change anytime? Right now we are focused on getting ready for a larger summer release. This will include more ships and some of the ship customization system talked about in another question. In addition to that, we are working on multiple maps that connect different parts of the world, rather than one large, uniform map. We also are laying the foundation for Wonders that players can build in the world by creating a general system for giving buffs to your company based on buildings you've built. The content we are working on generally will support these systems as we move towards a world where companies have more long-term goals and reasons to compete over specific land. That pretty much covers the major things we are working on for the next six months to a year. ...we all know the focus is on pvp but PVE players are still generally curious what the long term thoughts and ideas really are while lots of them generally feel marginalized and pushed aside. We are focused on making Atlas one of the best and most unique pvp games out there. We want to be able to support PVE and Private servers so that other players can also enjoy what we create. Some of our changes are specifically driving PVP goals and do not fit well with PVE. We are looking at ways we can do a better job keeping PVP changes from creating bad experiences in the PVE community without having to spend a lot of time working on it to support two different play styles. In some cases, that means we need to not put those PVP systems on PVE. It also means we need to give unofficial server owners better tools for choosing how they want their world to be configured. Right now we are working on an overhauled configuration system that lets us do this with less disruption to our development cycle. Right now many things are hard-coded to work under certain conditions. Are the new claim towers going to be modified for PVE? Will the mechanic change at all? We would like to hear what PVE players think about this. While the disruption of adding the claim towers was painful because of the point in the season it occurred, generally we think it's better to be able to lay claim to an area and not have to build fence posts to prevent anyone else from building there. We do need to figure out some issues like decay times. Weight Sail buff or changes, when? All sails are getting updated and a new system is coming for changing the stats on sail blueprints. When is a harder question. We have some larger commitments that take priority right now and are taking a “time out” on some of the smaller things we've been working on to take care of some other business, like updating the mod kit, overhauling configurations, cleaning up a lot of bugs, and growing the team. What tweaks do the team have for the new claim system, we are testing on Lawless islands? We're still in the process of seeing how the meta changes from the new claims before making tweaks. As far as in the long term, we're planning to add some unique buildings and locations that must be captured with this system to get the benefit. The intention is for players to have strategic points on islands that give them an offensive or defensive benefit. Capturing an entire island might be a multiple day process as you have to take over these locations, build your own buildings, and wait for the benefits to kick in. When will you add side quests? Maybe ones that earn players gold, loot, and xp? Other ones aside from the skill tree achievements/ pve bosses? In the past there have been some MMORPG elements added to the game and we have decided this is not the best use of our time because this does not fit the kind of game we are making. Atlas is a sandbox survival game and we are fully committed to spending our dev effort on making tools for players to create their own interesting stories. Are you guys gonna make more tames/bosses? More tames are in the works! Our current focus (within the taming system) is making more existing creatures tameable. Crocodiles are next on the list and will be released soon. We don't plan to add new bosses. Our current boss fights didn't work well and were easily exploited, so we'd like to clean those up, and ultimately we want to focus on player stories rather than PVE content. When will we see further information about the new ship system and further adjustments? We are continuously making balance changes to the new ship system and the customization features described in this post are currently in development. The first customization feature will be released soon and will allow players to craft and swap a variety of railing types. The railings available with the launch of this feature will include Standard Railings, Cannon Railings, Cargo Rack Railings, Diving Attachment Railings, and Dinghy Hangar Railings. We know everyone loves the ability to paint their ships and we are also working to make the new ship system compatible with the painting system. Will the current ship system still be available to build next season or is it just going to be these new modular ships? There is no plan to remove the original ship system. That wouldn't even be a possibility until the other system is fully implemented. We would like the two systems to exist side by side unless something changes that makes this no longer possible. This poses some balance issues that we are going to have to address at some point. Will there be a new map implemented? Some changes to the map layout will be coming with the wipe in order to support Tradewinds. Later this year, you'll see a much larger overhaul of the map with portals to new areas. Is there any plan to add a farmhouse-like structure that could also feed tames? Or the ability for tames on wandering to feed themselves from wild berries/ food? We would like to eventually introduce a Stable structure where players can store their tames. We plan to add a similar module for the new ship system that allows easier tame transport. When will we get cosmetic hat microtransactions/vendor? We don't currently plan to add microtransactions for cosmetics or anything else even. Most of our art effort is focused on making new ships right now, but we do have one new hat coming soon! Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

Ahoy Pathfinders! With this patch, we will be altering some mechanics and improving some features in preparation for changes to come in following patches. Mainly, we are introducing a new claim system for all lawless regions. Find some land, stake your claim tower, and defend your territory. Also in this patch, a new Seahorse saddle to ease the ride on our spiny friends, buffs to our latest ships, and other QOL adjustments. Lastly, we felt it best to provide an explanation regarding the latest server outages. Due to a read-only trigger, it seems our databases could no longer store information during the time of the incident and became desynced from the play servers. While our initial fix solved the problem on the master, the issue remained on the secondary and took a bit longer to remedy than anticipated. We apologize for any inconvenience but again, thank you all for your patience and understanding during this time. To remedy the unfortunate side effects, we have decided that this will be the final patch before the wipe. This will allow us to work out any kinks with the new claim system before wiping. As always, we appreciate your support and ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. Released Patch Notes v523.8 New System: Area Claiming New Tower types have been added to claim land in lawless regions. Claiming gives ownership over an area, preventing any other companies from building there. A new claim also gives ownership over any buildings in its area. Destroying the tower removes the build prevention and allows anyone else to claim the area and its contents. The claimed area is visible on the map Claim Towers may be seen through concealment with the spyglass Claim Towers cost Island points, starting at 4 and maxing around 8 May claim Armored Docks and the ships inside them New Structure: Land Claim Tower This Tower must be placed on land. When first placed, it will start at 10% health, and slowly repairs itself and upon reaching 100% health will lay claim to the surrounding area of land. Claiming takes about 45 minutes without interference Enemies may damage the claim tower while it is building to slow its progress or destroy it Players may "repair" the tower for 2% health every 5 seconds (costs 100g) If a competing tower is built within the radius before this tower is complete, it is immediately destroyed New Structure: Water Claim Tower This Tower must be placed within already-claimed water. It extends the claim radius out to sea to protect your harbors. Claiming takes about 30 minutes without interference May be repaired like the Land Claim Tower New Saddle: Seahorse Saddle The Seahorse Saddle can be crafted in the Tannery after learning the Underwater Taming skill in the Beastmastery tree. An equipped Seahorse Saddle is now required to ride a Seahorse Crafting Resources: 40 Fiber, 75 Hide, 20 Organic Paste Majestic Kraken Cannon damage increased from 150% to 160% Starting crew increased from 14 to 22 Dried Tentacle cost reduced from 75 to 50 Bug Fix: Deck widened on the middle level of the Majestic Kraken to cover the gap between the outer walls and deck Bug Fix: Cosmetic kraken meshes should no longer disappear Ramming Galley Cannon damage increased from 125% to 140% Starting crew increased from 14 to 18 Front Castle, Rear Castle, and Gunport Railings now appear damaged when at low health Bug Fix: 'Leaking' HUD text no longer appears when Gunport Railings are heavily damaged Ships A Ship Respec option is now available in the ship stat menu Ship Respecs costs 2,500 Gold which is consumed from the player's inventory Ships can be respec’d once every 48 hours A ship must be fully anchored in order to respec Increased the height of the lowermost deck on the Ramming Galley and Majestic Kraken. This allows taller structures (such as the Food Larder) to be placed Rope Ladders and Wall Hooks may now be placed on sails on the Ramming Galley and Majestic Kraken Markets Trade preferences of other Markets can now be viewed by selecting the 'View Trade Offers' option in the settings dropdown for each available Market Bug Fix: Markets can no longer be placed on ships Tames & Creatures Increased feeding radius for bola entrapped Elephants Crows can now equip hats Bug Fix: Heavy Cyclops Helmet is now positioned correctly on Parrots Misc NPCs will no longer target Grenades Some Blueprint Craft Counts increased at higher quality tiers The Single Player map on PC has been updated to include Sea Forts and Ship Salesman Island Bug Fix: Army of the Damned Treasure Guards should no longer spawn underneath structures Bug Fix: Antidote no longer disappears from the Mortar and Pestle Bug Fix: Crossing grids in Single Player should no longer cause the game to crash Bug Fix: Resolved issue where properties in GameUserSettings.ini were reverted to their default settings on private servers Known Issues Majestic Kraken Ships obtained prior to this patch lost the blue tint on most of their pieces It can be difficult for colorblind players to differentiate friendly and enemy Claim Tower icons when viewing them through the Spyglass Flag on top of the Water Claim Tower doesn't raise The Single Player map on Xbox has not yet been updated with Sea Forts and the Ship Salesman Island Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

We’ve got a pretty jam-packed post for you today! Because of your amazing participation, providing tons of questions for our team, we’ve decided to split responses into two posts. Since we received a large amount of inquiries regarding PvP balances, we’ll be discussing those questions separately in a later post. Because today, we have a few special topics we’ll be addressing first. Our first entry is a reply from the dev team regarding the inclusion of a new ship building system. Next, we have a new survey for you all to provide feedback on Ships and we can’t wait to hear your responses. Finally, we finish up with Q&A, excluding PVP questions previously mentioned. In an effort to provide more transparency between the team and the community, we continue to look for more ways to blend the goals of the two entities to make Atlas as great as we both know it can be. We appreciate your support and ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. New lawless Land Claim Changes In the patch dropping early next week, we’ll be introducing a new claim system to the lawless regions of Atlas. Moving forward, Pathfinders will now be able to claim land in these areas using a claim tower that will claim everything within its radius after it reaches full health. This takes about 45 minutes and may be sped up with gold. These changes will take effect immediately with the release of the new update and will make your structures be vulnerable to being claimed by others. Armored Docks may be claimed in this manner, and that includes the ships docked there! Previously we mentioned that there may be a wipe with the new claim system if it becomes necessary. However, we are able to implement this without requiring it, so please note that there is NO WIPE at this time. Note to Private Server Owners: Private servers will be unaffected by this change - functionality to make this change to your server will come in the patch after. Without further ado, here’s our Q&A! Hang out at our Discord for a chance to get your questions answered in the next Q&A! Q&A What are long term visions for the balance of island defense. I personally like that it's currently incredibly difficult to steal islands (contesting needs a lot of work). But a large contributor to why it's currently so hard comes from my question in #1--how easy it is to spam islands. If we suddenly had to think very carefully about structure count throughout the island, how are companies going to keep themselves properly protected without leaning on structure count? We agree that islands are incredibly hard to assault right now when facing an entrenched, knowledgeable defender. There are a variety of reasons for this, from the layout of the islands such as massive pillars, to unintended strategies such as spamming structures all over the place to prevent others from building or bringing in tames easily. We are focused on long-term solutions rather than quick fixes. Ideally, we want players to be forced into making choices about how they spend their limited resources. This means they should have to pick which places they are going to spend their effort to defend. The answer should not be that they can defend everything. We’re moving towards a game where you need to have a strong navy if you want to defend your shoreline. Cannonball physics are currently pretty bad. They travel incredibly slowly, to the point that these massive warships can actively dodge them like we're in some sort of space simulator. Additionally, there is no forward momentum physics so things like chaser cannons don't work. Is the team looking at adjusting these things? Shooting any of the ship-mounted weapons forwards results in some unrealistic behaviors that we'd like to eliminate. We're looking at solutions for this. Are alliances going to get reduced again (they should, or should have some sort of settler mechanic)? Atlas is about interactions, both positive and negative, with other players and Companies. We would like those stories to be told and dictated by players rather than by a heavy-handed developer approach. This means giving players lots of opportunities to cooperate and fight over limited resources. A single megacorp is not good for the game and yet we have large goals for Companies in mind that will require massive efforts from many players to accomplish. Keep listening and we'll be talking about those plans soon enough. In the meantime, we do not plan to mess with the balance of Companies and Alliances without fully addressing the overall ecosystem. What are some more solo XP grinding opportunities the team is looking at so smaller companies don't get left in the dust with no way to catch up? This is a great question. We really want to support lone wolves and small companies as a vital part of the game world. Compared to a lot of the other games we have played or worked on, Atlas XP seems to be in a really weird place and is frankly pretty broken. Large, organized death squads farm ridiculous amounts of XP with little real effort and hit level cap within a few days of a wipe, while players who are new or are in small companies are playing what feels like a completely different game. This creates a lot of power disparity between different groups of players and contributes to making it very difficult for players not in companies to feel like they can compete. XP is like a holdover from RPGs that this game has inherited, and it’s tied into a lot of different systems in the game. We want new players to have their options slowly rolled out to them so they aren't overwhelmed, and at the same time we don't want to create a grindy experience for veterans. Ultimately, we'd rather this game be focused on player expertise rather than character level, and long term are looking at how we can move towards that. Some of the specific things we are considering are ways to spread leveling out over the entire season while not making it grindy, or giving tools to everyone to get to the level cap early and creating more ways to increase your cap through actions in the game that are interesting, and again not grindy. Let us know your thoughts. Will there be more options in ship PvP? Yes! One of the goals of the new ship system is to provide players with more meaningful choices when constructing ships. As we expand the system, players will need to decide which pieces will provide the most value for their strategy. We intend to provide a variety of equally viable options that expand the meta and support a variety of playstyles. Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

Ahoy Pathfinders! We’ve got a pretty jam-packed post for you today! Because of your amazing participation, providing tons of questions for our team, we’ve decided to split responses into two posts. Since we received a large amount of inquiries regarding PvP balances, we’ll be discussing those questions separately in a later post. Because today, we have a few special topics we’ll be addressing first. Our first entry is a reply from the dev team regarding the inclusion of a new ship building system. Next, we have a new survey for you all to provide feedback on Ships and we can’t wait to hear your responses. Finally, we finish up with Q&A, excluding PVP questions previously mentioned. In an effort to provide more transparency between the team and the community, we continue to look for more ways to blend the goals of the two entities to make Atlas as great as we both know it can be. We appreciate your support and ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. From the Captain's Quarters We have heard your concerns regarding the new ship system and we would like to discuss our goals for it to help set expectations. We love the level of customization the original ship system provides and we will continue to support it for as long as possible. Currently, there are no plans to remove the original ship system. Early Access gives us the unique opportunity to share new systems while they are still early in development. The modular ship system is one of these new systems, and it will be released in three main stages, the first of which has already begun. In the first stage, we used the new system to create pre-built ships, like the Ramming Galley and the Majestic Kraken. Our goal with this stage is to give players a sneak peek of the system while also providing a quicker option for obtaining new ships. While the ability to purchase pre-built ships isn’t going anywhere, it’s not the end goal for the new system. The next stage of the modular ship system is coming soon and will introduce customization options to pre-built ships through module swapping. We will be introducing a system similar to ‘Sail Points’ called ‘Module Points.’ Each ship will have a pool of Module Points, and every module placed on the ship’s ribbing will cost a set number of points. Higher impact modules will cost more points. As a simple example, a Midship Gunport Module with two Gunports will cost more than a Midship Gunport Module with one Gunport. We will be rolling this system out piece by piece, starting with the ability to craft and swap Railing Modules. As we expand the customization system, our goal is to introduce a variety of modules that provide meaningful choices when building ships. Players will need to decide which pieces are most valuable to their strategy and budget their points accordingly. We feel that the original ship system had little room for choice and expression because the meta was so defined. Our goal is to expand the meta to include a variety of different builds and strategies supported by the new system. Initially, we will be releasing tactically-focused modules, but eventually we will also release cosmetically-focused modules. These could include things like different Railing types or a Midship Module with windows. Cosmetic modules provide no advantage in combat but would allow players to make their ship their own. (Cosmetic modules won’t cost additional Module Points.) The final stage of the system will allow players to build modular ships from the ground up. After choosing a ship hull size, players will be able to plug in modules from a variety of available choices. (As long as they have enough Module Points!) Our goal is to eventually have enough modules that the new system will have the same level of customization as the original system. This final stage of development won’t be complete for a while, but we hope you’ll stick with us for this journey! New Survey - Ships We're back with another Community Survey! Remember, surveys will cover a specific topic, so if we haven't pushed out a survey relevant to your interests yet, please know that there will be more! If there are any topics or changes you would like to see from us in future surveys, please let us know! We're only beginning this initiative, and hope to improve our process as we continue to develop ATLAS hand in hand with the community! This month's survey is focused on collecting early feedback to our New Ship System / Ships for Gold System. So far, we currently have the Ramming Galley and the Majestic Kraken out, with plans for many new and unique ships on the way. The goal is to create a highly customizable and modular ship system where players can make meaningful choices when building their ships. Before you complete the survey - if you haven't already, please make sure you have read the latest about our goal for this new Ships system in the Captain’s Quarters section above, as it will provide more details. Please find the link to the survey here Although we cannot promise to commit any specific change, we would want to be able to quantify which issues players care about most by using this survey to reach as broad an audience as possible. We appreciate your support! Thank you! Without further ado, here’s our Q&A! Hang out at our Discord for a chance to get your questions answered in the next Q&A! Q&A Will the new claim system address the long-standing problems many islands have of "lawless" areas in what should be Island-owned territory? We have been getting a lot of great data about claiming since Early Access started. Each system has had some good aspects and bad aspects. Every player has different needs and ideas about what they want. The new Area Claim system is meant to fill in some gaps and for now will live side by side with the existing island claim system. The island system still has some flaws and bugs and will be looking to address that in the future when we decide how it fits into the big picture. With the new theme and vision, will single player still be part of that? While PvP is our primary focus when designing content, we want to ensure new features are also supported in our other game modes. (Including Single Player!) Are patches being tested in single player or are they only tested for multiplayer purposes? Recent patches have addressed some Single Player specific bugs and we plan to continue this in future patches. Your reports speed up the bug squishing process, so please continue reporting any bugs you come across. Can you enable the market system on single player? The Trade System runs on a separate server from the game to allow Markets on different servers to talk to each other. When it comes to single player, it will have to be same-server trading only. This change will require some engineering work and we do not know yet when we are going to make that happen. Will there be factions or AI? It would make PVE more interesting. What do you think of having PVP only at sea while land is PVE? Our direction for Atlas is to make rich player interactions, whether that is through conflict or cooperation, and that is where we will spend most of our development effort. We have talked about factions and think those fit better with an MMORPG style game rather than a massively multiplayer sandbox game focused on PVP. When will there be a massive Structure limit for land bases? How do you intend to prevent massive Structure spam that was used in PVP as defense meta on any island and in PVE to claim land on lawless? Spamming structures is not fun gameplay and we would like to get it out of the game. We have some tools available, such as restricting the number of structures that can be built. Each of those options come with drawbacks. We'd like to find a solution that feels good within the world, is good for performance, and isn't so ugly. One of the things we are working on is giving players more choices when building. For example, rather than having to spam 100 walls, we are adopting some of the modding community's solutions and making large stone blocks so that larger defensive structures can be made with fewer pieces. We are also looking at making more automated structures that are designed specifically for defense. When can we take exact amounts of resources out of a resource box? Can we please have a keybind to pull one single stack of something from a ship resources chest? Thank you for the suggestion! We'll look into this. We love hearing ideas that make Atlas a smoother experience. What Holidays are to be recognized going forward? So far with the new team we've enjoyed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s and then skipped over Valentine’s. Is there a list, or is it just if there's time given the more frequent Updates? We don't have a formal list of events, but we like to celebrate as many holidays as our development schedule allows. Our primary focus is on new features, quality of life changes, balance, and bug fixes, so most holidays will be celebrated with rate up events. However, the Winter Event was a lot of fun to prepare, so you may see something similar in the future. (Anyone want a pair of Bunny Ears?) Do you plan to make any changes to the current economic system? Gold is pretty abundant on PVP, and absurdly worthless on PVE due to the lack of any major goldsinks. Do you have any plans to change gold cost settings between PVP and PVE? PVP sinks gold into war-dec tokens, drakes, and 1000s of defensive npcs. PVE has none of this and island costs are minimal - there is little chance of islands changing ownership on PVE until the owner doesn't log in for 10 days. This is one of our core focuses on the game right now. We definitely have some more gold sinks in mind and would love to hear your ideas. Please note that with our small team, at this stage in development, we are focused on balancing PVP first. Gold is only one aspect of the economy. We would also like to see a thriving and competitive resource economy. Right now it's very hard for small companies to get a variety of resources, and very easy for large companies to get nearly all of the resources. Since this is tied so closely to competitive balance, it accentuates the gaps between these player groups. We have started working on the next map, and it will give you more reasons to value different islands for the unique characteristics they contain. This is something we’ll talk more about in the future. Question, will more gear for the players (like new swords, guns, and armor) be added as time goes on? Atlas is a game about telling player stories. Custom gear or content is one of the places we would like to reinforce that. Rather than take the standard RPG approach where the devs craft thousands of items, we'd rather give the tools to players to let them craft unique and interesting items within the game, so we will be working on those sorts of systems instead. That said, most of our art effort in the next year is focused on creating awesome new ships, so new visuals for player gear are not likely to be added soon. Does the team envision that it could be viable to just sail 24-7 and totally avoid land from the beginning of the game? With the introduction of new ships, Sea Forts, and water tames, the ocean is more alive than ever before and we will continue developing content that pulls people towards the sea. We have a variety of features in development including physical trade ships that can be intercepted to steal resources. We are moving towards a world in which a strong navy will be required even if you have a base on land. That said, land will always have a place in Atlas and the majority of players will want to explore both the land and the sea. We would like to hear more about direction on loot. The loot in this game is so bad right now we are seeing no crafts on bps, and are not seeing more of those bps dropping. We would just like a long write up of what direction you would like to take loot. Also why was loot changed mid season, crippling companies who now do not have the bps to replace boats? What data has been collected on the loot change? Most of us are still seeing low % items at the MW and above scale. Is there more loot balance coming this season? We have started making changes to loot focused on blueprints and will continue to do so. We are making multiple changes simultaneously to support some transformative changes and that means sometimes things will get out of balance for a while. Recently with blueprint crafts there were some errors in the math which made the number of crafts significantly lower than was intended, and we'll be fixing that. To be clear on the intention - we are moving BP drops to happen in higher frequency with lower craft counts. This means you will see interesting and unique BPs more often, and will not be able to sustain as long on a single good find. Regarding our long term plans, rather than make this a strict RNG loot experience, we're also working on a set of blueprint crafting, merging, and upgrading systems. This will be initially focused on sails as we prototype the system. This should allow you to get closer to the sort of customized, hand-crafted blueprints you want while still providing an element of skill and luck for getting there. We will reveal more on that system as it comes along, but look for sail BP crafting in the coming months. Will we see increased reasons to sail in our home grids? Currently the only place to sail for content is GA. Is there talk of making more local grid content that would incentivize players to sail to other grids other than GA? Our goal is to get more player interaction, especially on the water. Adding in Sea Forts is an example of an objective you need to sail to and compete over. Sailing can be obnoxious if you have to go long distances and that's why we're addressing that problem with the upcoming Tradewinds and after that we plan to introduce a portal system. Tradewinds is in final testing, and the portal system is still being worked out in design. Atlas is primarily a game about interactions with other players, so new water objectives we create are not going to be single-player experiences, but rather ways of drawing players together in conflict. What are your long-term game performance optimization strategies (realistic ones)? It seems pretty clear that from a technology perspective, it's not possible to support islands with 100s of thousands of structures on them and maintain enjoyable gameplay. How is this being addressed and how can players provide detailed feedback as you discuss potential strategies for dealing with this? We're looking to consolidate some larger multi-piece structures into chunkier single-piece structures. The overall structure count has a huge impact on performance. We don't want to remove the customization that is a hallmark of Atlas, so we're looking for ways to add new options rather than cull existing choices. Are there any plans to rework the chat system to give players a better method of communication? Not for a while. We'd love to eventually implement a mail system that allows players to communicate across servers. Would the ability to salvage ship parts of sunken enemy ships be possible? A skill with a chance on salvage to get the item at a low percentage. This will help provide an incentive for players to pvp for loot in ship combat. We're definitely looking at ways to bring more conflict to the ocean. Winning a difficult battle only to receive some resources can certainly be frustrating and we'd love to implement a system that allows you to receive a greater reward for your efforts. Will players who have been playing since Early Access be rewarded with something special when the game goes to Full Release? We will be looking for some ways to reward our long time loyal fans as we leave early access. It is a bit too early to commit to anything specific. What are some immersion goals on the horizon? While performance-related, it's currently boring/problematic to have ships rendering when they are almost within firing distance (versus spotting sails far into the distance). This is on our radar. We agree that the render distance should be increased to prevent ships popping in and out of view during combat, but we want to ensure any changes we make won't come at the cost of performance. Weather mechanics are currently very one dimensional and don't offer any actual strategic value (you can't choose to head into a storm to lose chasers, for example). We're planning to flesh out the weather system in the future. Some early ideas include allowing players to control the weather to make certain islands more inhabitable (or uninhabitable if you're an attacker). We'd also like to make storms more interesting by adding new encounters and resources inside them. Also, smaller things like allowing lanterns to burn indefinitely and automatically turn on/off at dusk/dawn. We always love hearing quality of life suggestions! Keep them coming! Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article

2/10/21 8PM PST- We are aware of some server issues with the latest update and are actively working on a fix. We appreciate your patience as we troubleshoot this incident. 2/11/21 1AM PST - The fix for the servers has been released and after a couple hours of careful monitoring we have determined the servers are operating normally. Thank you again for your patience and understanding. Ahoy Pathfinders! A new ship will be sailing into harbor with the new patch. The “Majestic Kraken” will be available from the ship salesman, it's a streamlined vessel that not only looks deadly but packs quite the punch if she gets her tentacles on you. That's because she's touting 24 cannons that provide 50% more damage. The Kraken will be similar to the previous Ramming Galley, with custom ship compartment load outs and repairable via the Patch Kit. So gather up your doubloons and release the… you know the rest. In other highlights of the patch, along with a few more bug fixes, we've also taken another pass at the glider suit so you can sail the skies, for a reasonable amount of time. You get a blueprint, you get a blueprint, you get a blueprint... You guessed it, blueprint drops will be doubling and counts required are going down. So, go get your craft on. Lastly, accordion music will wake creatures up faster after being tranquilized. Lederhosen and polka dancing are not required, but it couldn't hurt. Community Surveys Last patch, we asked our fellow pathfinders to take part in a community survey that would help the Atlas team gain better insight on the wants and needs of our community. Needless to say, we were overwhelmed by your participation and feedback and will be taking a lot of it into consideration. We would like to genuinely thank all who participated. To continue this series of engagement, we will have another community survey in the near future, this one will address recent concerns around ship construction and customization. We look forward to hearing more of your input and appreciate your support. Released Patch Notes v522.3 New Ship: The Majestic Kraken The Ship Salesman's inventory is expanding! His latest offering, the Majestic Kraken, features two rows of Gunports armed with 150% damage Cannons. Cost: 22,000 Gold, 75 Dried Squid Tentacles Weapons: 24 Standard Cannons (150% Damage) Max Level: 60 Sail Points: 6.0 Repair Resource: Patch Kit Accordion Playing the Accordion in Free Play Mode quickly reduces the torpidity of nearby wild creatures, allowing them to wake up much faster after being tranquilized The radius of effect can be increased by unlocking the Inspiring Music skills in the Music and Dance tree Armored Docks Quality Blueprints for Small and Large Armored Docks have been added to loot drops These have two stats: Durability (Total Health) and Effectiveness (Damage Resistance) Decreased stack size from 100 to 1 Blueprints Increased the drop rate of Blueprints about double across all sources Blueprints for Sails, Cannons, Planks, Decks, and Gunports now have much lower craft counts Updated how quality is derived on Cannons Quality is determined primarily based on Damage Percent Durability contributes to quality at a much lower ratio Stat values rolled are unchanged (same values should be generated, but quality of BP may be different) Glider Suit Added a Stamina Drain Debuff Max Pitch is now limited by stamina. At low stamina the glider can only go down Camera Angle has been altered downward Bug Fix: Dive functionality via the run button has now been fully removed Harvesting Stone Harvesting nodes in the the remaining regions have been rebalanced to match the Copper Regions changed last patch Iron is the most common metal now, and may be found in rocks Other metals are no longer found in stone but may still be mined from metal nodes Geodes may now drop from rock in all areas. Using a Geode will destroy it and may give some limestone, rock salt, and/or a small amount of different gems and crystals. Geodes may only be gathered by hand or with Tames, not with the Quarry or Farmhouse Bug Fix: An icon for the Geode has been added Ships Patch Kit repair time reduced from 5 to 3 seconds Projectiles fired from Cannons in Gunports no longer explode if they hit the water's surface immediately after firing Enlarged Gunports on the upper level of the Ramming Galley's front castle to prevent clipping Bug Fix: Cannons in Gunports now correctly deal damage when ships are near one another Bug Fix: Ship components can be demolished after crossing grids Bug Fix: Resolved issue where all of the Ramming Galley's components were sometimes marked as Demolished Bug Fix: Ship wake effects are now positioned correctly for the Ramming Galley Tames and Creatures Added Enable/Disable Breeding option to tame command wheel Breeding must be enabled to allow creatures to mate Wandering is no longer required for mating Following must still be disabled for mating Unconscious or dead Horses and Bears can now be dragged Bug Fix: A tamed Dolphin's rider now always receives the Dolphin Intellect buff when jumping Bug Fix: Tamed Dolphins are now always able to jump after crossing grids Bug Fix: Removed option to move NPCs onto Cargo Saddles Trade Increased the Warehouse inventory cap to 120 stacks Trades of the same resources may no longer occur (e.g. iron for iron) Bug Fix: Agate (Flint) added to the Market so it may now be traded Bug Fix: Resources tradeable in the Market should all now be able to be placed in the Warehouse Misc Tranq Arrow torpor damage increased by 50% Sea Fort walls no longer give resources when demolished Updated the drop tables of a few sea creatures to give more stuff Bug Fix: The Seed Vendor's inventory is now accessible in Single Player Bug Fix: Resolved issue where some Warehouses and Markets would cause crashes Known Issues Cannon wheels clip through the floor on the Majestic Kraken's lowermost deck Painting has not been implemented for the Ramming Galley and Majestic Kraken and attempting to do so will result in some cosmetic errors. Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew 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 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 View full article