wildbill

I'm seeing this too, now that I've tried to do a few. I can see that the way in is through the bottom, but try as hard as I can, I can't quite get under the hole to enter because I'm colliding with the sea floor.

Actually, it is not, there are in for example Florida: Operator inexperience, lack of proper look-out, operator inattention, excessive speed, machinery failure, navigational rules failure (collisions with other boats), careless/reckless behavior and hull failure, followed by hazardous waters, alcohol use, weather. No mention of hitting a rock or reef in the search I did, but that probably is the result from some of the above.

In modern times, not really. All rocks tend to have a bouy to mark their location if they are not close to shore, but of course the Atlas game is not in modern times. I think there are different types of rocks in Atlas, and we are not all talking about the same ones: 1) The rock close to shore in shallow water that you can see just under the surface. 2) The rock close to shore in not so shallow water that you may or may not be able to see. 3) The rare rock not close to shore, not in shallow water, not marked on the map. So we can all probably agree, if you hit 1 or 2 at high speed (although a new player probably won't know this) it will try and sink your ship. But #3, is not expected and when it happens, may just cause some people to take a break from the game or never return. This is a part of the game I think we could do without. The other problem I see with the current mechanic is the way the ship jumps around and bounces all over the place when it does hit an obstruction. This is so not like how a ship should behave that it confuses all but the most experienced Atlas players. They lose precious time figuring out what just happened. I think there is a message that says what happened, but are you reading all the messages on the screen when your ship is acting like a jumping bean? 2nd aspect of this is that not only does your ship sink, but there is no way to raise it again. In actual boating, a ship seldom sinks when hitting a rock, unless there is a severe storm involved. It generally gets a small hole and is able to ground itself or patch the hole and then repair it. In Atlas if you fail to be able to repair the ship in a short amount of time, that it, you lose your ship. No 2nd chance. You can salvage a part of the ship, but that is difficult and not always very practical.

If you do run a PvPvE type of server, don't fool yourself into thinking this will be a place where both PvP and PvE players can play. It is a server for PvP players. Many PvP players also like a safe place where their base will not be raided and where they can gather resources. Once ready they can move to or travel to the PvP area which is usually set for higher danger and rewards. Most PvE players do not want to play on a PvPvE server. They play on a PvE server to avoid the drama, the competition, the destruction made by PvP players. A server that is half PvE and half PvP is a server that a PvE player can only play on one half of. And even in the PvE section, they will have to see the drama and toxic behavior in chat and other places from the PvP players.

I didn't watch the video, but read the Q&A article that I found. It sounds more like they removed the typical player vs base, high level player vs low level player type of PvP that many toxic PvP players seem to enjoy. Actual PvP between willing participants, they seem to have improved on the ability to have and the rewards you can get from it. I hope they will be a success. It could give other companies a clue as to the proper way to implement PvP in a persistent game world.

I think all PvP includes PvE. So if you can declare war, then you are playing PvP. I don't play PvP, but if I understand the current rules, you claim an island and set an allowed PvP time for each day. Other parts of the day are PvE only. You can use the Settlement War Declaration to over-rule the designated PvP times for the island. It is not cheap to do that though, says in the wiki, 500 x 3 crystal, 500 x 3 gem, 40,000 gold.

Well this particular bug is documented fairly well. Is only on Blackwood servers, all modes of play. There is an easy workaround too. That is also documented and discussed a few times already in this forum and others. The response from Grapeshot Games does feel lacking. I've read a lot about this one bug, but never seen one response from the devs as to when it will be fixed. I'm giving this game another month or two to start getting some attention. If that doesn't happen, I'm looking for another game to play. The game is playable, but only if you chose how you play it carefully. Currently, Blackwood does not look like the best choice for how to play Atlas.

I've read that ice preserves stuff in the preserving bag longer, but I have never used it. Seems like a lot of work is involved to make and transport something that is just going to melt.

Does anyone else think the sinking of ships by hitting a rock, however unlikely, is a bad feature of the game? So I've not tested it, but if you do hit a rock and your ship says it is sinking, you should be able to lower the anchor and patch the hull and save it. This assumes you have a spare plank or two and remembered to stock the ship resource box. The most ironic thing about this mechanic, is that it is least likely to happen to a sloop, most likely to happen to a galleon. So the more you invest in the ship, materials and time wise, the more likely it will sink because the draft is so much deeper for a galleon. The deeper the rock, the less likely you are to see it, so the more likely you will hit one. Also there are more rocks you can hit if you include the ones in all the different depths of water it could be at. So you could reply, just get good, but that doesn't help all the new players (and there are a lot after the $5 sale), that hit a rock for the first time and don't know what to do and didn't even realize it was a thing, that it could sink their ship. This reverse kind of Atlas logic (more time and resources spent on something doesn't necessarily make it better at all things), is what in my opinion holds this game back from being played more. It is things like this that cause a player to rage quit and then forever after not recommend the game.

In some ways this makes me feel better. I've only tried to do one of these. I could see from the on screen indicator that I was close to the chest, but could not see it, so did not get it. Now I'm guessing this was because of what you are pointing out here.

If you play Official PvP, the bigger question is even if you do find some island that some mega company somehow forgot to claim, and you do claim it, how would you keep that claim? Once the mega company realizes its mistake, it is bound to come in wipe you out and claim the island and maybe thank you for pointing out the error of their ways

Good luck with that. I wouldn't play on the official servers unless someone paid me.

Not sure if you are done. Looks really good, bit surprised no one has replied to this. I like almost all of it. Especially, the food system, the towns, the ships. We do need a feature like you describe to get your ship back if destroyed. Also you should be able to buy a horse (ya, you can trade for one, but it is not built into the game). The horse should be something you get maybe even before you get a ship in Altas. As it is, they are extremely hard to tame, so I usually get one after I have a few other tames. Also making the islands closer together reduces travel times, which we also need. One trade-off the devs made was to have things like tannery and smithy fairly small and not a building so the same item can be constructed at your base or on your ship. You don't mention if there are ships that can be configured as a base. You obviously can't build a tavern on a ship, so how would this sort of thing work on the ship? One thing that would go along well with the towns is the ability to take a job as a seaman for hire. This could be a special class of company member or you could hire yourself out to a new type of NPC ship. Maybe these ships would be involved in trade or possible some sea battles with you as crew being vital to their success.

There is a mod that has huge walls the same size as the behemoth gates. I'm not sure, but they might have a few other sizes, each matching other gate sizes.

Pretty easy for a private server to setup this as a couple of hour event that occurs every few weeks and some do. Ask around, it shouldn't take you too long to find a server that has this event. The events like this that I've seen make it just a sea battle thing, no bases involved. Although there was a server that did bases too and then after the event was over, they rolled back the whole server so no one actually lost their base.

Plenty of islands on private servers, although most of them use the older method where you just can claim a circle of land around the flag and not the whole island. Interesting how this new "improved" method has almost no adoption when the players get to chose which method of claim they want to use.

First time I every respec'd was a few days ago at a freeport. It went fine, but it was also a PvE private server.

Sure, a lot of people play this game for the sailing, although that is not the focus, nor I think what the majority of people want. The game had more realistic sailing originally. It sucked, and a lot of players complained. The devs listened and made it easier. They added a bit more speed in reverse and forward progress straight into the wind. I've actually owned a few sailboats and like sailing, but this is game, and not even remotely a good sailing simulator, so personally I like the sailing about how it is, but would just like to spend less time doing it, because honestly it isn't that interesting. Hopefully in Phase II the the road map, they would add stuff to make it more fun to be out on your ship. I might change my mind then, but right now, I'm just wanting to get somewhere to do something that is more interesting.

I don't think the topic is about sailing properly. Tacking is not a quick way to get somewhere. It is slow for two reasons. If your desired direction and the wind direction is exactly coming from that direction, you will take twice as long at least to get there. Also you lose speed on a tack, because it is faster sailing when not at an angle to the wind. The topic is about a suggestion of how to get where you are going faster. This one is a good one, but there have been many others. Apparently a lot of people want to spend less time going to their destination and more time at their destination.

Ya, respawn to level vitamins is not a good design, but neither are the vitamins.

And from what I've read, a brig seems to be up to the job. Takes just 3 large cannon shots to destroy a tentacle. I haven't built a brig in awhile, but I think you can put large cannon in the gun ports. And more than 3 a side, so it is plenty powerful enough to join the fight.

I haven't fought the kraken yet, but the videos I watched had mostly brigs (like at least 5) fighting it. I'd like to see some comments on how to design a brigantine for fighting the kraken.

So private servers suck, but then you go on to explain how apparently the official servers suck even more Ya, there are literally 1000 private servers out there, if you played on the ones run by 12 year olds, that would certainly suck. There are some run by adults that actually care about you having fun playing the game though. Way better than the officials, where no one cares what you do.

I use the grappling hook to get the floating treasure and also the loot from killing a SotD. Too bad the grappling hook can't just pull the whale up to the ship and you harvest it from the ship. I used to jump in the water, but when I found a grappling hook works, no more jumping in with the sharks

Just give yourself a permanent harvest bonus. Move off the official servers and on to a private server with 2x, 5x, or 10x harvest rates. The current rate is actually a 2x rate. If you played the first few weeks Atlas was out, that was brutal. It was 1/2 the current rate. But I agree, 2x the default feels about right.