ReaperUK

They seem to be on higher ground the same as in ARK. Look for small rocks covered in rust and use a pick to harvest them. Each rock can yield maybe 30 units.

It's certainly advertised as a soloable game. eg. Quotes from their Steam store page: "Stake your claim in this endless open world as you conquer territory, construct ships, search for buried treasure, assemble forts, plunder settlements and hire crew to join your powerful growing armada." "Wage battle against enemy fleets as you singlehandedly command large ships of war using the captaining system (or divide up to the responsibilities among your trusted lieutenants)" "Build drydocks and start with a dinghy rowboat, basic raft, tiny sloop or nimble schooner, moving on up to your own versatile brigantine or titanic galleon capable of transporting hundreds of crew and extensive cargo. Name your ship in big bold letters, paint and copy your own pirate flag" "Recruit real players and AI crew from freeports or rescue seasoned crew from destroyed “Army of the Damned” shipwrecks to man distinct stations on your boat" "Form a company, claim territory and apply taxation and behavior rules to that which you own: " That's the only place on the whole page where the word "company" appears and that sounds pretty much like a solo activity to me..........

With any mmo, most character data has to be stored server side or people could just modify it to their advantage. The data that's kept on your PC therefore is usually just personal preferences such as UI layout. You could always copy the config data from your steamapps folder to a flash drive but I doubt it's needed.

I agree 100% with the original post. What surprises me is that if this game is a spin off from ARK, why reinvent the wheel? ARK's systems have been fine tuned over time and when I played it for a few months earlier this year, the survival mechanics worked fairly well with the need to spend time on food and water etc well balanced with being able to spend time on other, more enjoyable things. I think the vitamin system is completely unfun and not needed. Food and water should last longer, decay should be slower. The worst thing of all is the decay on things when people are offline I don't think there should be any decay on major assets such as boats, especially the starter rafts when people are offline. At least for a few days. Not everyone can spend hours every day playing a game. If having unused assets sitting around when their owners are offline is a problem for server loads then a system where they are packed away into escrow like many other games use may be the answer.

I'm only lvl2 so haven't reached the raft stage yet but as I understand it, you don't make a raft, you obtain it from an NPC at the docks.

Yeah. Can't join any of them either even though they're empty. Just get a connection timed out message.