NoobieDooz

Great to see that you are starting the game - I hope you'll have fun! @Realist I am a PVE player who has played from the very start, so I'll try to give a bit of advice for a start-up nomad pirate, like you said you wanna be. Sorry if my reply gets lengthy, I've been out at sea a long time in single player now, so I am a bit weary of sailing at the moment, heh. Ship: You might have to start out with a ramshackle sloop which you buy from freeport, with materials you gather there. But then it's on to the nearest lawless island to build a real ship. From what you're describing, I'd go for a schooner with 1 large and 1 small speed sail. I know some people say that brig and galleon might be "faster" in testing or whatever. But, somehow, I've tried all 3 of them, and I've found the schooner to be the fastest "explorer". It is also very easy to turn around, and easier to park near islands with shallow shores/reefs, I've found. This is only anecdotal evidence but it is my feeling, after sailing quite a lot. Absolutely spend the extra time for a schooner, rather than a sloop. A sloop is crazy slow. Please note that I make an exception for the polar regions, ( 1 and 15 grids). I prefer not to go with schooner there, cause there are aggressive whales there and also hidden ice bergs, and somehow it just feels safer with a brig, sailing around there. You might wanna hold off on polar regions anyway, since they are very harsh for beginner players. I'd recommend a bit more fortitude and/or at least green quality fur clothes, for any extended stays in polar regions. Also, there are yetis on those islands, and they are quite hard to kill when you're low level w/o a good tamed bear. I'd really recommend you to pick up a couple crew from a free port, as soon as you can get some gold (you can fish up gold from flotsam, using a grappling hook). Ship "necessities" etc: The no. 1 things are: 1. A bed. 2. A smithy. 3. A box to keep the most necessary stuff in. 4. A water barre. In my humble opinion. Other good things to have on a ship (especially if you're gonna use it a lot on the sea), is: A few spare planks/gun ports, (if one breaks), repair hammer, bucket, Large storage boxes, Cooking pot (later: grill), Preserving bags (and preserving salt. Or ice box, but this one will be harder since it doesnt produce ice in hotter regions). Loom, Tannery, mortar and pestle, Grappling Hooks (several), Climbing picks, Book shelves (for maps/blueprints etc).Mess table/larder for crew. Feeding trough for animals. Ship resource chest for repairs (so you dont have to carry repair mats on you) and gold for crew. This little list will also give you a clue on how to spec. Preserving bags (with the pres.salt / or ice), really makes a huge difference, it gets a lot easier once you have that and don't have to worry about the fast spoiling of all the food you gather. Very useful talent/talents! A general tip for an explorer ship is to spec its levelling points a lot into resistance, and also into weight. (You probably won't want any cannons/damage stats, since cannons weigh you down a lot). As soon as you start going over around half the ship's max weight, you start losing speed, So keep an eye on the ship's weight, a lot. Resistance is really good for if you suddenly get caught near Ships of the damned, so they don't damage you too much. Don't panic but just look where the wind is heading, turn the ship to there, and escape with the wind. Nothing sucks as much as losing the first schooner you worked really hard for. Food: Since you won't be doing any crops/farm right now, I'd highly recommend to spec into the diving attachment ASAP. Apart from quite nice gold, you get lots of food from the ship wrecks (salted meat/fish, berries, and longer lasting vegetables) from looting ship wrecks with the diving attachment, which will be helpful for both you and your hired crew members. Also, even if you don't wanna spec far down the beast mastery tree, I'd highly recommend specing into tier 2 taming. Just so you can have a cow on the ship. It really helps a LOT with the blue vitamin, so you don't have to worry about getting fish all the time. Also, it helps a lot if you really need more blue vitamin, but you're full at the moment, then you can often drink a milk or two. This really helps quite a lot with vitamin management! And cow is an easy animal to tame (just feed it rushes thatch, or in lack thereof, berries/veggies). I wish I'd known about this from the beginning, how much it helped with the cow. Other than this, just gather a little of what you find on islands, berries, veggies, meat etc. Overeating and vitamin skills do help a lot, but they are also valuable points to "waste" in beginning, so this is your own call... Taming: If you don't wanna spend the energy on taming a bear right now, that is understandable, it takes a bit of practice/time, usually. A "poor man's bear" , is instead a fast taming of a little "army" of pigs. ( 3 or 4 pigs of a higher level, at least 15 or up. spec them into health/stamina primarily). Very easy to tame with just feeding them berries. (Maize even easier, but that is not readily available). With a little pig army you can more easily defend yourself on very low levels in the beginning, and you can also likely do some of the very easiest treasure maps, if you wish. Useful talents/ talent trees to look at for spending a lot of time at sea: Fortitude and health, is what I'd go for first. Captaineering and Piracy. Both of these have RLY nice talents for a nomad pirate!! As an example, who doesn't want cheaper crew payments, etc. Check it all out and decide what's best for you. I didn't mention Seamanship, but that one is a bit obvious, heh. For other talents, I've mostly talked about them above, as a side note. I'd worry a lot about fast getting to smithy - shovel - grappling hook - climbing pick - preserving bags and salt - taming tier 2. Tips for a "new" pirate: In most of the desert grids, there are usually no rain storms / cyclones. It might be advisable to actually start sailing here. Sure, you might die a bit from heat, or mobs, before you get more fortitude/health, but, you dying is nothing compared to the agony of losing the schooner you took time to build, (maybe even paint!), to the cyclone storms... H13 is a nice freeport and from there you can go right or left to desert grids. ( The grid to the right, I13, has a lot of salt, which is nice for preserving salt!). You might wanna check in general which islands have lions/tigers, as these are very, very annoying for a new player. (At least when going solo). You might wanna stay clear of those islands, or just jump ashore and then back on ship. Resources and beasts on islands, can be checked out at exploreatlas website. It's a little bit off now after new update in game, but largely still quite relevant, I'd say. Don't forget to put rope ladders around the ship as soon as you released it - for schooner I usually put them on 3 or 4 places around the ship, so that it's easy to get up from all sides etc. Sharks are a very real (annoying) thing, and you might need to get up, fast. Don't forget to really check the depth when you place your shipyard - if it is too shallow, your ship will blow up when you release it after building it. Make sure there are no huge rocks inside shipyard. You will have to swim down under surface level and check the bottom before you place the shipyard. Also, you can look on map, to see the water color where you wanna place the shipyard. If the map shows it as a very light blue color, it's probably too shallow. If insecure, try to swim out a few meters more to place it. It's better to have to build a small walkway out to the shipyard, than have to gather all the materials for a new ship! That's all for now - and I guess that's plenty! Lol. Feel free to ask any questions you could think of. I've made ALL the mistakes from the beginning, hehehe. Have fun! Smooth sailing.

I don't know how I will ever be able to rebuild all my large and small bases

Nice pics! Sorry if I hi-jack your thread by posting several pics, but I am so bored waiting for EU pve to come back up.. Hope it's ok. It's some pics of our main base and then my summer house and winter house.. They are gone now lol..

Thanks for all the replies, guys! It is excellent that people reply so the devs can see that it happens to several people. @Guybrush Threepwood yeah I understand how you mean, but the sub doesn't seem to be the reason in my mind, since it was several ships without subs, too. The mystery goes on, for now. Thanks for the input.

@Guybrush Threepwood Yes, 1 of the ships had a sub on it. That ship disappeared, aswell as 2 ships on either side of it. But, also a ship further away disappeared too. One ship in between all of these ships, stayed intact. Also one other ship a bit even further away in same harbor, stayed intact.

Thanks for the replies guys. Appreciate it!

Hello, The other day our Company had 4 ships go "poof" suddenly... I have been guarding these ships for people in vacation etc so have made sure I: Fast travel to them at least every 4 Days, raise the anchor and move the ship a little bit back and forth, and then lower the anchor again. In the official version it is said to be enough to refresh the timer every 14 Days... then how is it that ships can decay after only a few days? I will make a bug report for this too on yer discord later, but I wanna raise awareness that this game breaking bug is very real. I don't really care about minor bugs but this is a huge one that needs to be addressed quickly, in my opinion. If there is never any way to make sure our ships are there, then how can we play a sailing game? I can rebuild, no worries. This time. But if it keeps happening, it will probably take away my enjoyment of the game. I know it's EA and all and that is why I wanted to give feedback on this crucial part of the game. I hope you guys look into this problem (I have read of others having same problem). If anyone else reads this thread and have same problem, feel free to mention it so the devs might see it's not just one person. Thanks!

I agree that handling the vitamins and especially blue vitamin, is very hard for beginners. Overall, the game was extremely hard for me to get Into, as a new player. Especially if the devs are interested in attracting new players, they might wanna make it a little less of a steep learning curve in the beginning. I lost my stuff over and over and over in the beginning and died constantly from vitamins/overeating/ heat wave/thirst etc etc. If I weren't a very patient person, I would have turned the game off after a few hours of that. Luckily I stuck with it But with a tendency of maybe many people having a bit of a shorter attention span today, it might be a good idea to be just a little bit kinder to noobies. Spoken by a noobie Some way to easier handle vitamins from start, would be a good idea. It might not be as realistic as fish or cow, but just for kindness to noobies, they could probably quite easily add a berry type that would give vitamin D. All this said, I still want cooking on higher levels to pay off in the form of really nice buffs etc.

Oh Yeah that the "regular" ships need to be unanchored I am pretty aware of, but I am just unclear about if we need to do anything at all with the subs themselves to keep them "refreshed" aswell.. anyway, I haven't done anything with the sub, only raised the anchor of the ship itself so I guess it's fine... @kummba

I hope it turns around with people cause I really love the game. But yes, I agree with all posters who say that it needs to be less like a chore with all the upkeep. Also I have suggested before, I really think that more in the way of easier quests for easier xp, Gold and gear, would make the game more interesting and keep people sucked in for longer. It doesn't have to be extremely easy but just manageable for solo players and really small crews. If there were a bunch of interesting quests given out by npc pirates, and the quests changed weekly or monthly, there you have your Golden ticket right there for keeping peoples' interest alive. Just spoken as an old WoW player.

@Kummba is it really true that you need to use the sub so the ship it is attached to doesn't decay? Asking cause I haven't used the sub the last month or so, only raised the anchor of the ship itself, and the ship and sub are still intact.... thanks for any more info if you have.

I agree with @krazmuze in what he says that a combined pve pvp server will drive away a lot of the more "pure" pve and / or pvp people. And I will add that a forced combined pve/pvp server certainly would make me (pure pve player), want to quit. Especially if that was the only option to get access to a big world/map the size that it is today. It is precisely the possibility of having the world of atlas free from pvp that makes me love the game. I can build and farm and explore in peace and quiet and don't have to deal with people ruining all my stuff. I also agree with what krazmuze said that a combined pvp/pve server would Most likely have the best resources gated behind a pvp "gate". So no thanks, I love pure pve.

(PS if you are in EU pve and want a bear for free, and find D11 very far, I also have other bases spread out on map so just direct message me, if so.)

Sorry to hear that. I remember what it was like before having better tames, it was a real uphill struggle for sure. If you are playing solo, taming can be even more annoying. It is Always better to have a second person as "guard' to help out with unwanted predators disturbing. Other tip is to wear plate armor if possible. Also I have noticed that some Islands are a bit more difficult in terms of more predator spawns and more alphas spawning (sometimes it even seems bugged). I haven't written down which Islands I have found "easier", but you could try a few different ones. On our very small island there are very rarely predators and alphas, I have seen alpha rattle snake and wolf only once, in a months time or so. I usually run around naked without weapon or bear. there are a few bees but i can run from them or carry a sword. On the beach there usually no bees at all. There are bears there so if you wanna try that island you could. You might have to kill bears to make high level spawn tho but maybe you know that. It is in D11, on the East side in grid, the third island up, if you count/see from bottom grid line. If you are in EU pve I might even be able to give you a nice bear, I have quite a few of them. Just the other day I found 2 abandoned hugh lvl ones on a Beach. The other day I found abandoned elephant and rhino. That is Another tip, sail around doing treasure maps and you are likely to find abandoned tames. Good luck, I know it can be tough but hang in there. Once you have your tames get them a Nice solid shelter (built in stone) if ye want to reduce risk for them getting killed. )

Am not an expert on the babies thing since I don't do breeding. But I Believe all my adult tamed animals eat all the farmed/cultivated vegetables I put in their trough. The farmed veggies last a lot longer than berries. Best of all is celery though (gathered out in nature), celery lasts a lot longer than any of the farmed vegetables, from what I have seen. A trough full of celery will probably keep your adult animals fed for anywhere between 5 Days up to a week or more. Don't remember exactly. But celery is not found in many places so you will have to look for it on exploreatlas website and then travel there. I did a celery run a couple days ago, 5 - 6 troughs full of celery, will keep my animals happy throughout this upcoming work week. * the above does ot apply to carnivores that is, (lion, tiger, etc ). Those meat-eating animals need raw meat very often. Good luck

Yeah I think our experiences might be quite different, I am owner of a Company and have responsibility 2 bring in Gold for upkeep of 2 islands and that is a bit rough sometimes. Even more so since almost everyone else is away on holiday. Also we have tons of tames to look after. The weekdays mon - fri being lower rates don't bother me - I always have tons to do then anyway - transport rare resources, take care of tames, do our big gardens, look after and keep our islands clean from spam, etc. But if there werent 2x rates on weekend I don't Think I would be as interested in the game - cause everything just takes too da*n long already, as it is... If they removed 2x, they would have to make sailing way way faster or something, for it being worth it, to me. Perhaps up the minimum wind speed by 100 %. Just upkeep alone, when you're an island owner, takes up lots of time. Aswell as trying to recruit new people etc. I almost never have time to go out and just explore stuff, it's mostly upkeep and farming materials i spend time on, as slow as everything already goes in this game. I don't have any numbers to support it but my thought is that I have seen far more people talking about what a time sink this game is, and that that makes them bored, rather than the other way around. Just my opinion though, just as you are allowed yours ofc.

The 2x weekends is imo the only thing that enables some players to actually keep playing. I am away 13h / day for work during the weeks so weekend is only time i can really farm and play more etc. If it was 1x rates on weekends I would lose interest very very fast. Those rates are way, way too low for people with busy real lives, (which should be a lot of people these days). I've never messed with breeding for same reason, I don't have infinite time to put into game. Often I have to choose on the weekends too: farm materials or go out for Gold upkeep etc. To conclude: to take away 2x weekends would probably results in many more people fleeing this game, feeling they don't have time for this game anymore, since everything becomes (even more) a time sink. Long live 2x weekends!

I hope they change this so that we can fully use the abandoned tames we claim. If they don't want us to use the cargo saddle from previous owner, maybe it could auto decay upon someone claiming the animal. Either that or let us claim the cargo saddle and storage box also. It is a bit annoying not to be able to use the tame fully when we are lucky enough to find one.

I think the claim system is ok. Sure, in my opinion the best claim system would be like the old system, with flags for a small territory, but with a cap on flags so the whole map isn't owned by a couple of companies. That said, I am ok with the current system. So my main suggestion would be to evolve the lore a lot. That can entail a lot. Im gonna focus on one aspect. I mean they should include some quests Into the game. By quests I mean easy to medium level quests, that are doable for solo and very small crews. Perhaps even some sort of daily/weekly quest (a selection of 20 quests that gets swapped eveey week so that it is not the same quest every week). The "quests" they have now aren't really quests at all, imo. It's just a mess with the powerstones, hydras etc. And way too hard level for casuals and/or very small crews etc. What I mean by quests is, you go to a freeport and meet some npc guys there, and they have a bunch of quests for you. The quests can be interesting and tell you something about the lore (go kill pirate X because... ), or some of them could be fun and silly, just to get a little exp and / or gold. I come from a WoW background and therefore is disappointed by the lack of quests, since there were thousands in WoW. While they might have had too many, Atlas has none. (At least in the sense of the word quest that I mean). I don't know if it is possible for them to incorporate quests in this way or not since I know nothing about programming, just throwing the idea out there, since I have heard a lot of people say it gets boring after a while with "nothing to do". This could hopefully be implemented in steps and without needing to wipe. Cause whatever they do, they can't wipe again for a good long while, I think that would be a death sentence for this game. I am pve by the way, but I guess that might be clear from my suggestion.

There are so many opportunities for more and better recipes for cooking. I love the cooking and farming in game but we need more of it! Coconut is not used for anything I Believe, why not be able to make a nice coconut smoothie for example. Am sure there are tons of other possibilities to use all the ingredients in more ways, with some imagination. It could be possible to buy spices from freeports for example. Cultivate your own apple trees etc. (Nice for decoration for a base too) Also as a way to help solos and small groups, make the cooking buffs significantly better, as in: they get some real importance on powerstone Islands for example, by upping our damage to creatures there and / or reducing incoming damage, significantly. We need the equivalent of like healing potions/ strong food buffs from other games, to help with harder mobs etc. Thanks

I have encountered this problem both on settlements and on lawless in the last few days. That something says Demolish Allowed but I cant demo it. Relogging or going out of render distance and back did not help. In our settlement there is one thing that has been labelled Demolish Allowed for quite some time now. I reported it as a bug, I hope they notice it.... It would be nice to be able to keep cleaning up abandoned stuff and sometimes get a little reward for it in the form of some resources found in some abandoned box.. @Jatheish

I do not usually die in storms but I agree they are a complete garbage game mechanic and an extreme nuisance! I agree with someone in thread posting about that storm frequence seems to have gone up by a lot these last few weeks. The usual scenario with storm for me is that cyclones are on all sides, that is, all around my ship, and I do my best to steer away to the next grid asap, since I know the ship can quite easily sink if it gets hit more than once or twice directly by the cyclones. Storms need to be fixed asap as they are a huge nuisance. The cyclones/water spouts themselves should be reduced in their number by about 70%, and they need to be much, much easier to navigate away from. As it is now, if you get Into a cyclone, it "keeps" you there, keeping you sucked in, hitting your ship repeatedly, which can be catastrophic when solo sailing. One of the worst game mechanics.

On EU PVE, grid: i 14, Torcester Cay (jackie sparrow island / settlement). We can not place the tax bank, have no idea why. It shows as "blue" ( as if it would be able to be put down properly), but then it simply doesn't get placed on the floors. It "refuses" to be placed, simply put. There is no other tax bank on island, and we own the island... Would be grateful if someone could look into this. We are Jackie Sparrow company. Thanks. have tried 2 different locations on our base, on stone floors, but none of those locations will work, for unknown reason.

I don't mean to be rude or anything but how can you be so sure of this? Why would the tames auto decay rules work differently on land, than on ships... I cant see a timer on my animals nor have I read any official clarifications on this. I am not prepared to take that risk so I have to touch all animals until I know for a fact they are all safe. Also, the problem still remains with the crew on the ships. It's very common that we get extra crew standing around on ships since we wanna transport them to another ship later on for example. Or have them standing around sweeping (repairing) is also convenient. But right now can't do any of that cause any idle crew gets stolen immediately. Before I knew about the whole ship change, around 20 crew got stolen.

Agree! This is making the game almost unplayable for me, very, very sad! We have tons of tames and there is NO way that I will be able to touch every single one, all the time, everywhere. The last few days several have been claimed by someone cause I didn't know about this change. I've always gotten by just fine with feeding them and being in rendering range from them, have never ever had an animal claimed by someone by using "render in" method. And now suddenly, it seems like animals are "free for all", unless you touch every single animal. (Just imagine picking up and throwing down 20 chickens every day, not to mention all the giraffes, elephants, bears, cows, pigs, etc. This has to change very fast, this won't work for companies with multiple tames. Feeding animals and fast travelling to all bases is enough work..... thanks if you guys can check this, devs, truly thanks, cause I don't wanna have to quite the game over this sudden massive new work load... thanks again for checking this. @Jatheish