Guru Drew

My entire island is covered with Company-Only claim flags. Despite that fact, an enemy came to our island today and was able to immediately place a mortar down and begin firing on our base. They were also able to place down a structure (though I don't think they were able to place a bed). I have submitted a support ticket, but no response was given while they wiped our base out and zerged our island. The cherry on top: The game updates, my guys get back in game and can't kill or loot their sleeping bodies.

https://www.reddit.com/r/playatlas/comments/aet1gr/factions_freeport_rework_sea_claims_and_more/

Pirate Faction Ports would be unconcerned with murder, vandalism, piracy, thievery, etc... while the other ports would take offense to such actions, forcing aggressive players to become pirates and share a Faction Port where PvP is tolerated in certain areas. Perhaps certain Faction Ports would be in mostly-PvP zones and could be contested and claimed by companies, allowing large companies to focus on fighting eachother for the right to call themselves a faction. Ownership of these ports would be similar to sea ownership, where the most powerful fleet in the harbor controls the port and collects a fixed tax. The land immediately surrounding the Faction Port and the sea to one direction would be PvE. If this was the case I think the PVP and PVE portions of these ports would need to be instanced so they do not effect eachother in player count or performance, allowing new players to farm and utilize the port while a battle rages for control.

The golden age of piracy occurred during a time when war and commerce were exploding on the sea. The English, French, and Spanish were in constant disputes over land. These nations often hunted and punished pirates (if they could find them). Trade was everything during the golden age of piracy. Without merchant ships to attack, there could have been no privateers or pirates. With that in mind, I would like to make the following suggestions that I think would appease and encompass several of the most active suggestion threads on the forums. Territory at Sea The sea in a given map sector belongs to the company with the largest non-anchored fleet. Ownership is determined every 30 minutes and lasts for 30 minutes. Upon taking control of the sea and when interacting while in or looking at the sea, the company that has an active claim has the option to set tax rates for trade and salvage and the bank to receive the tax. Tax payments take time based on the distance of the trade/salvage from the bank. This means no more sea claim flags. Trade When interacting with another player (E) or through the whistle menu, you are given the option to trade. Once two participants confirm their desire to trade, a pseudo-inventory appears for each player, allowing them to offer goods while also seeing the goods offered by the other player. A private chat channel is opened for the trade and accessible while trading. Each player has the option to "Accept" or "Decline" the offered trade. Both players must accept in order for the trade to complete. Any changes to the offered goods revokes the acceptance of a trade. Claim owners are able to establish a special tax rate for trade. Factions and Faction Ports Freeports are replaced by Faction Ports. A Faction Port is owned by one of four factions: Pirates, English, Spanish, or French (or something entirely new and dripping in lore). Each Faction Port is frequented by guard ships on the lookout for players with reputation that is considered undesirable by that Faction and will attack on sight. By default a player and company have no faction or allegiance. Trade ships and Ships of the Damned are replaced by faction-specific merchant and military vessels that can be sunk for large amounts of gold/resources. Ships of the Damned become a perk of Piracy that can only be "discovered" with a skill activation and are boosted in value and strength. By joining a given faction, a company or player gains access to: In-faction auction houses for trade Faction specific skins and items The ability to dock ships in the Faction Port The ability to purchase storage space for resources and items. Spend reputation and gold to request the aid of NPC-controlled faction ships for use against ghost ships or protection from other factions (follows for a given period of time, paid by the hour). Privateers and Quests Players are given the option to go on quests in Faction Ports ranging from privateering missions, salvage missions, whale hunting, and more. Missions requiring the player to track or attack a ship would provide a general area to search for on the players' map, and appearing in that area would spawn the ship. Reputation Interactions with players and NPC can cause one to develop a reputation. Killing a player that has not first damaged you would result in a reputation for murder. Destroying structures would result in a reputation for vandalism. Taking items from an enemy container: thievery. Attacking ships: piracy. Successful trades: trading. Defeating ghost ships: Captaineering. Taming animals: Beastmastery.... and so on. Factions would have their own interpretation of a players' reputation based on the faction of the victim or benefactor of these actions. Faction Ports would respond differently to each reputation, depending on faction. "Positive" reputation would result in additional NPC offerings and reduced prices. Reduced Visible Name Range & Flying Enemy Colors Each ship flies flag(s) on the rear mast. If in a faction and a company, both the faction flag and company flag are flown. The visible name range of players is reduced significantly. The current UI ship names are not visible at all. Instead the name of the ship is painted on the hull (high contrast based on paint color). Players can temporarily paint over the name of their ship. Upon sacking an enemy ship, the player is given the option to steal the enemy flags. The player can then fly these flags on their own mast for a limited time (perhaps 2 hours?) to confuse players and NPC ships.

You're assuming that all server instances will be run on the same machine, which is not the case for most servers. I could see the potential value in an asset agent that runs per-machine and provides in-memory assets to local gameservers, but who knows how that might impact performance... Regardless, I doubt you'll get any attention from the devs by calling their work "terrible".

Agreed.

I made the mistake of leaving crew on the deck of a Schooner and came back the next day to find it had been sunk by a normal croc. I then proceeded to rebuild the ship, only to rubber band (lag) into a sandbar and see it fly up into the air and immediately sink. I've also lost a ship to an alpha wolf who climbed on the deck and chewed all of the structures up as I attempted to respawn. And I lost a ship to a server transition where a SotD sunk the ship before I'd even loaded in. I've lost 0 ships to PvP and 4 to bugs in the environment. Not exactly happy about it.

This is actually a really cool idea. I dig it.

As a captain of a vessel, I'd like to be able to easily dock my vessel at my base and access bays that have bridges across them to allow easy transportation of shipped goods back to my base. The dock should be a structure that, when on a ship within a predetermined range, when using the interact menu on my ship, I am given the option to "Dock on Port" or "Dock on Starboard", which would automatically pull my ship up to the platform and extend a plank to allow one to walk while encumbered, transfer tames, etc... The drawbridge would not open while a player or tame is on the surface, would automatically stop and transition approaching ships, and should support pin coding. Perhaps a crew member or player must operate the draw bridge. If made, I think there should be multiple sizes of each structure.

Drag the raft by hand and crank the anchor line to pull larger ships out of the shallows.

I was preparing to post something very similar. I figured I'd post it here to further the discussion in a single thread. I like your ideas for the chests and freeports. I had the following thoughts that I think would play nicely with and extend these changes: I'd like to be able to 'stash' my boat in the world (hide it using thatch and fiber netting). This would require quite a bit of resources and would take some time (between 1 and 30 minutes depending on the size of the ship) to apply to and remove from the ship. Larger ships would require larger netting and more time. I'd like to be able to draw on my map in various colors and "Finalize" my map. Finalize would craft a paper map that can be held to show what was drawn. I'd like to be able to "Study" treasure maps and player maps. Study would apply the drawings on a held map to my in-game map. I also like the idea of being able to redraw my own maps from memory within a week. Perhaps treasure maps require the player to check several locations nearby with strange symbols known only to the map maker. I'd like to be able to "Discover" hidden loot. A new skill in the piracy would reveal hidden player loot and ships when observed with a spyglass. I think these changes would give solo players & small groups without land a way to survive in very pirate-like fashion. It might also improve server performance by de-instancing hidden boats.

We were on our way back to base when the patch rolled out. I logged in to the following: After a long swim back... We decided to try again (we're looking for wheat, of course): There were times when we saw 6-7 ghost ships at once. They are basically everywhere on the open sea. They form a chain so closely linked that you cannot pass between them without causing aggro. It is the very blockade we were assured wouldn't be possible for players to pull off, and now we see why. With a favorable wind we can outrun them, but server crossings and restarts are not safe. The ghost ship spawns, the crocodile and wolf spawns (both of which have found ways to get on top of my Sloops and destroy everything), the lack of timely resource spawning, and exotic metal scarcity is making the game outright unplayable.