RyuujinZERO

Targetone hit the correct answer. Toggle Light Bloom to off Turning down your gamma and stuff is treating the symptom rather than the cause, the hyper-aggressive glare from bright snow, and especially sheet ice is a product of light bloom and will stop completely when toggled off. You won't need to touch the gamma if you do that. Source: I live in polar

Ship despawn times seem kind've weird and finicky. I don't think there is a "timer" persay in the same way as structures, rather the server does a mass cleanup script of ships that are unused on a perhaps monthly basis. I had 2 old ships I'd abandoned near my harbour that were collecting dust for a whole month and another ship i hadn't used in several days. Then one day I logged in and all 3 ships had vanished simultaneously, while the two other ships that saw regular use were fine. If the player is still logging in every now and then that will also stop the cleanup

Yup, someone stuck a bunch of boxes like that on my island and can confirm they have an insane 40 day timer, just log in once every 40 days and the timer refreshes. Obviously this only applies to PvE. In PvP you'd have to hide the box really well lest someone find and smash it

We just claimed another island today in Western temperate of all places on NA PvE, in middle of prime time on a weekend. If people spent as much time finding an island as they do lamenting how hard it is to find one, out they'd have one by now

Probably just RNG. I've encountered a few mean whales and several passive ones in the last few days just by accident

Cooked food like pies and stuff last for 2 weeks in a preserving bag per item - A full stack 30 will last just over a year before it spoils completely. Even if your issue is keeping animals fed, fresh vegetables like potatoes, placed in a feed trough last a week or more per stack and are trivial to farm in bulk. Meat is the only nuisance case, for keeping carnivores fed, even then, you can cook or salt the meat to make it last much longer if you know you'll have to be away for long periods. Living hand-to-mouth, with wild vegetables and berries from the bushes is, like in real life, not ideal for sustaining a society on your island - Think less like a scurvy pirate and more like a colonial governor if you want to maintain a colony.

I don't know which button corresponds to which on XBox, but here's a breakdown of the process and what you might be missing. It sounds like you have it all set up right and gunports open so that's good. At the bottom of the screen are your weapon groupings. You will need to make sure the groups you want to use are actually selected, when a grouping is selected it will have a purple hue instead of just being black, and will be ready to receive commands. There are 3 main firing modes of interest, Fire at Will, Attack Target and Manual Fire: Fire at will, (V on PC) will change the icon on the weapon group to a cannon firing. The AI will open fire automatically at hostile targets if they have a clear shot in this mode. Remember your cannons only have a ~15 degree arc of fire, and large cannons can't swivel sideways at all! Manual Fire (LMB on PC) will give you a targeting reticle as long as you hold the button and hold the reticle in a position they can actually hit. If you are doing this correctly, it will draw the grey/yellow tracer lines to help you aim the shot. They will fire once you release the button. Attack target (RMB on PC), will also give you a targeting reticle as long as you hold the button, however instead of drawing any line, you instead drop the reticle on the target you wish to attack. If you do it right the weapon group icon will change to a crosshair, and a large red reticle will ping the target you selected to confirm it worked, and your gunners will focus fire on that target as long as they can get a clear shot. I suspect the mistake you might be making is releasing the button too soon. Most attack commands aim while you hold the button, and activate when you release it in the correct location.

I saw a sailless schooner today too and wondered what was up. I've encountered some bugs in Singleplayer where NPC ships would rendered without their sails, but still be able to move, but have never encountered it in Multiplayer or affecting a player owned and built ship before now. There's nothing in the patch notes about there being a new 'motor' style sail component. Was this on an official server?

Have you left the freeport? Freeports you don't drop bags and stuff to avoid issues with clutter. You're not supposed to stay on the freeport longer than it takes to grab some starter gear, a raft and some supplies.

I need to get myself a giant pile of bunny ear skins (And the breeding bonus wouldn't hurt either) =:3 (For those out of the loop, the 'Hoppening' was the Easter event starting April 19th last year, which had a breeding bonus for the duration, and dropped special 'funky egg' tokens from treasure and chickens that could be traded in for cosmetic bunny ears and some other stuff)

Much like ark, enemies feel like they were tuned to be fought on mounts, and once mounted most combat becomes entirely trivial. Still with proper weapons and armor like a pike and stuff, you can reasonably kill most enemies on foot in melee. But still, i just recommend pursuing taming early

NA PvE most the claimed islands are like 75% wilderness, space for miles. Especially in less popular biomes like tundra and polar. Hell those biomes often have entire unclaimed islands

I live in polar, no berries at all. But i only have to go 1 zone to hit tundra, fill a crate up with berries, and bam. Crew fed for weeks. It's only an issue if you are trying to play atlas without a boat

WTB Bee grenades to throw at enemy defences

The box is functionally a structure, aim at it, hold the use key and choose demolish If that isnt viable, like maybe the box didn't flip ownership properly, try getting an sotd to shoot at it, or let an elephant smack it about a bit, it'll eventually break