Kast

Where did they mention the next update? Also, I'm pretty sure that spiders are ride-able now since I've ridden one this season - granted, I might just have been drunk and imagined that.

On PvP, armored docks should not be place-able on enemy islands.As most folks know, the current meta for island conquest is to place an armored dock at the target island and anchor a ship filled with beds, kit and tames. This gives the attackers an effectively indestructible FoB from which to siege the island for the duration of the combat timer. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that armored docks were never intended to be used offensively. The main defense against this strategy is to spam the entire island perimeter with underwater fence foundations. Conversely, the attacker will also typically try to do the same in order to make sure that they can place the armored dock. So, in both cases the tactic involves massive building spam. Armored docks should not exist on enemy islands. I say "should not exist" rather than "should not be place-able" because we all know that, if it was just not place-able, there will be inevitable shenanigans where allies with docks switch allegiances and bypass the "not place-able" restriction. Basically, they should not be place-able and they should instantly demo if the owner is no longer allied with the island owners.

The idea that wipes only happen when there's some big update is a fallacy. They wipe when the population drops in order to reinvigorate the player base, and "big updates" are just the excuse they use to justify the wipe. IMO, they were going to wipe on or around August 24th to coincide with the launch of New World. So with NW being pushed back to late September, I think we can say that the wipe will happen in late September...

Admins stole my bike.

Galleons are already faster than schooners and brigs with equivalent sail types and weight percentages. Speed is the only advantage a schooner has over a brig, so what's the reasoning for transferring that advantage to the brig? And your "large margin" idea - I'm not sure whether you're legitimately trying to improve your own situation at the expense of game health, or if you're just trolling these forums.

Empower large alliances to exterminate smaller groups with even greater efficiency and ease. They could have just gone with that one line in the dev blog and spent the rest of the day at Dave and Buster's.

From the 6/2 Dev Blog: What is the plan for PvP combat and balancing? Is there a philosophy that dictates what gets buffed, nerfed or removed? We feel that PVP conflict should consist of interesting challenges and opportunities for both sea and land combat. We want to drive the focus first towards fleet battles and provide ways to effectively defend your holdings with the ships you customize and build. The ships you build will be able to blockade your island, with your opponents first having to deal with those defenses before they can safely make landfall. Your fleet will also be your main weapon of attack – both to defeat your enemies blockade and to soften their land defenses. That's not how land-based PvP happens. Ever. Island attacks rarely if ever involve actual ship vs.ship battles. The standard procedure is to land as many players and tames as possible, build a FoB and kill/blow up everything. Typically, the landing ships retreat afterwards if there's any real chance of a naval counter-attack. Any organized attack will make landfall LONG before there can be any meaningful naval response. In fact, quickly destroying ships at anchor with tames is a favorite tactic. Add to that the fact the gold cost of ships, and no smart defender will ever un-anchor a green-anchored ship in an armored shipyard during an attack unless the defending side is guaranteed to win. The stated vision of PvP in this blog is pure fantasy. In general our PVP philosophy focus is on counterplay – to provide options that are deadly and effective but can be countered with the proper tactic. We want to see powerful options that players can use to attack their enemies, and equally powerful options the defender can access to counter them and fight back. Ideally this allows for and encourages players to have different tactics available to them instead of always relying on one mainstay ability that works best in every situation. Attackers will always have the initial advantage in any island attack for no other reason than because they're prepared and have a plan, while the defenders have to scramble. And I'm curious, what "powerful defenses" are available for defenders when tame-towed guns will always out-range NPC defenses? ...Or manned defenses for that matter, since a tame-mounted cannon can be angled on a rock or hill to fire higher and further than a mortar placed at the same level? Bottom line: the only advantage possible for a defender is to 'be-more' or 'be-better'. What more are we going to see in the upcoming patches? Are we done with map/macro enhancements in favor of micro adjustments and additions? Is there new content that we can look forward to? Updates are on the horizon for the game map, such as separating the map into regions with different geographical theming. Piracy happens all over the world in Atlas, and players will be able to experience this more when they travel from an area of arid desert isles to a region of the world with tropical islands and crystal blue waters. There is a system in design to allow for the capture and control of strategic resource points placed in the world. These will unlock many capabilities for the companies who control them, such as structures which provide server-wide buffs you can share with all of your allies. Some of these structures will require monumental levels of materials and time. This all leads towards a long term goal of having large projects with huge collaborative efforts that companies compete over. In the upcoming patches there will also be many new ship options. Players will be able to customize more of their ship, starting with the midship portion of their modular ships – adding options such as gun ports, rowing banks, armor and more to the broadside sections of your vessel. In future updates there will be more options for other components of the ship, such as new sail types and front and rear castle varieties. There will be additional pre-built ships coming to the game, as well as a larger modular hull class that players can build. Players will have the ability to craft fleets that consist of vessels with different roles in combat and utility. When two enemy fleets clash there should be a variety of ships and tactics at play, each one effective unless properly countered. In the next major update we will see two new ship types – the Mortar Ship and the Turtle Ship. The Mortar Ship will add a long range artillery option to ship combat, while the Turtle Ship is armored up to break through blockades. You will be able to construct and customize these new classes of modular ships as well as the existing types in the shipyard. New BPs will drop in the world to allow the crafting of the railings, midship tiles, and ship types being added. We want Atlas to become known for large, collaborative fleet battles that require the coordination of multiple players and companies. Mortar Ships. I'm not even sure how to respond to that. I think that we can safely assume they'll out-range NPC-manned harbor towers, so yeah. Honestly, it's not any one "vision" for the game; it's a cumulative thing, ever-repeating evidence that Grapeshot fundamentally doesn't understand its own game.

Is there a mouse in your pocket? I ask because I'm not sure with whom you're agreeing.

A 20 million hitpoint dock protected by a 400k hitpoint claim tower? No one thought that one through, eh? So, add a recipe for an "Armored Dock:Claim" (1 armored dock + 1 claim tower) that make a dock that is also a claim tower. You're welcome, Atlas.

Two players can place two different gathering buildings right next to each other if they coordinate: 3..2..1..place, etc..

Atlantean Spire: - Provides Buff: Sailing Speed +15% The other tower buffs are fine, this one is not: 15% defense or offense is a decent buff, but 15% speed is the difference between life and death in naval combat. And let's face facts, who's going to hold the forts most of the time? The megas, obviously. In most cases, the only defense a smaller company or solo has on the sea is to be light and fast; but now it doesn't matter, whoever owns the tower will always be faster than you. The speed buff needs to go. It doesn't need to be reduced to 10%, or 5% or 1%. It needs to be gone. Gone and replaced with an entirely different buff. Speed on the sea is the last surviving beating heart of viable naval combat - don't screw with it.

Do docked ships decay when docked? If so, and you had a damaged plank, that might explain it. Decay might also account for the damaged dock too.

That's fine. As long as cannonball fire rate is also reduced to one shot every 40 minutes.

I'll admit that I initially though that claimable lawless was an interesting idea. But no, no... like so much of the newer content, it's a train-wreck on PvP. Everything within a claim tower's radius is owned (or becomes owned) by the owner of the claim tower. So if you have a primary base, that central claim tower not only doesn't help you at all, it's actually a HUGE liability! It's a womp rat-sized exhaust port on your Death Star base. Add in saddle platforms on jumping crabs, and the fact that you can mount LARGE cannons on them (you can't even mount large cannons on the deck of a galleon...) and the bed/artillery building height restriction, and attackers can safely chew through your defenses from a mile away - if you can build a bed and puckles on it, a saddle mounted large cannon can hit it. You'd be far far better off building that same base on a normal lawless and spamming building blocks. Armored docks on claimable lawless. There's perhaps no bigger mistake made since King Olaf the Viking ordered 20,000 helmets with horns on the inside. A 20 million hitpoint dock protected by a 400k hitpoint claim tower? Good luck with that. So, we have two newish content updates (armored shipyards and claim towers)... that should never ever ever be used together. Brilliant! You know, as I wrote this, I had an epiphany: armored docks were designed with PvP servers in mind, and claim towers were designed for PvE servers. The fact that claim towers have 400k and 500k hitpoints was an afterthought when they remembered that they'd be used on PvP servers too... and that's pretty much all the thought that was put into it.

Enlighten us? And punctuate. Please?