George Catcher

Today I for the 1st time went there solo and tried to destroy hydra. NW spawn point of Hydra in E7 is in the middle of the woods and she simply can not pass through trees. There are alot of big rocks there, and... it is a way to kill hydra solo. Just hide behind the rock and shoot. I use crossbow. In order to keep Hydra engaged, there are at least 6 crossbows and at least 600 bolts needed. You just wait behind the stone until hydra attack, then step back, shoot and hide behind stone again. Pretty simple. The only problem was - I had cyclops came, and while I dealt with him, hydra got her heads back. And yeah. As far as I understand we can kill just one hydra on one island 8 times and within an hour after each kill, go to every powerstone we want. But yeah I agree. This hi-end content made totally wrong way. We have to find exploits, run naked, climb cliffs etc. No matter what type of armor we wear - it wont help us survive there. No matter how mythic weapon we hold - it wont help us to defeat mythic creatures. I doubt DEVs ever had their vision of how we should deal with these goldens. It looks like they made a temporary unbalanced version and then... new team, do all weird stuff etc.

Aaaaand little update to Voyage of Power solo. I found the place where I could damage hydra hiding behind the stone in forest. I took my crossbow, and... well. Each head required 100 bolts and 80% of crossbow health. Fighting hydra hiding behind the stone, I was able to take out 2 of her heads. Then cyclopus appeared. I had to step back to my ship, to deal with cyclopus. By the time I've done this, hydras heads were regained. So... it didn't take that long to destroy cyclopus (I mean it was faster than I deal with single hydra head). So. Does it mean I can not kill hydra solo, because I'll just won't take out all 5 heads in time, before all head will be restored??? Any info about hydras head restoration is welcome here. p.s. - First attempt was to lure hydra to my boat, but do it solo is extremely hard, because there are tons of mythic creatures around, and I just keep running and dying, for like 140 times. Then game start to stall. I've got: - Random pathfinder slowdowns with no reason. - Random respawn point changes. I had to click my boat each time on a map after I died. - Random health my pathfinder was respawn with. Sometimes it was 100%. Sometimes it was 100 health. - Random respawn timers. Sometimes this 1 minute cooldown was starting only after I was killed. And of course this is totally not fun to run naked and die for like 4 hours in a row (why devs hate players that much...).

Well... I still don't understand how those tradings works. - I set 1x1 wood for wood, fibers for fibers, thatches for thatches and stones for stones. - I get for trading: gems, gunpowder, cannonballs, ingots, parrot eggs. I didn't set all of that. Why I get that? I don't know. - Sometimes it brings me around 1600 gold a day. Sometimes it 1000 gold. Or 800 gold. Or 400 gold. Or 150 gold. Or NO gold at all. Last few days I didn't get a single coin as income. Why? I don't know. It just works this way. Devs made this stuff dramatically unclear. I do believe there is a way for solo players. I just didn't find one yet. I asked alot here and in game chats, about the best way to farm them solo. And all I've got is: - You check between trench and ocean depths. When trench lights up - you look up and search tentacles lights. I did that and didn't find a single squids there. In 2 days I found 3 squids at the middle part of trench. I spent like hours and hours diving with dolphin and swim whole trench from left to right and back. And there were no squids at all. Maybe I should check those arctic H10 or far from every freeport E1 trench? I have to compete with other players searching for squids. There are usually from 3 to 5 another players swimming through trenches. - And I need somehow to kill squid. I've got an advice to use high level spear gun and search for low level squids but... It's just making things even more complicated due to lack of choice who to kill. I still up to any advise for that : ))

I'm looking forward to check it out : ))

Well... you know, I farm SOTDs a lot. And I have NO back cannons. Due to huge fan of sailing age ships, I do it old fashion way - board side sail by fighting. I use just common brig for that with additional 4 guns on my deck (so it's 10 cannons each side). I even already came up best design for that. And this is really challenging and fun. Approach from right angle, use right wind direction and "dance" with damned ships. I took down hundreds of them already, even lvl-60 and lvl-54 galleys at once. Fought 11 damned ships at once as well, etc. So... personally for me no back cannons is not a problem. But this new module system, and repair patch kit stuff, and this tiny ladder hole to lower decks - those are need testing and comparing to regular brig. Especially in real high level battles. That's why I really do wanna test this thing in PVE.

I just wanna sum my last couple of days playing. I was back to atlas to test this Majestic Kraken ship, because I really wanna all battles in Atlas go to this real boardside fight state (no shotguns, no kiting etc), and both Ramming Galley and Majestic Kraken - good step to that (even tho Ramming Galley still useless in PVE). Unfortunately those 75 squid tentacles for this ship was some kind of "brickwall" preventing me from buying one. So I just wanna ask devs. 1) - Is this new Majestic Kraken - not for Solo players and small companies? 2) - If you wanna solo/smalls obtain one - HOW DO YOU SEE THEY DO IT? How do I obtain those squid tentacles playing solo? Lets check some numbers. Buying 75 tentacles from players. - Current PVE Official price for those 75 tentacles is 50 000 gold. My market with 8 active routes since Jan-16 produced me 21 000 gold. So... should I stay inland for 3.5 months, and wait until my market generate enough gold? Or you said you wanna us to go to the ocean? (and don't forget that most of player don't set their trading routes due to huge warehouse limit radius). - Average purple bottle brings 1000 golds (most of them are lvl-8-10 or so, it's 700-800 golds and some can be up to lvl-20 but these are rare, I've got lvl20 twice this season) so you wanna us to ride a Schooner for couple of months and do all that digging, for more than 70 high level bottles??? (it's more because 20% of those maps leads to inaccessible spawn points). Trying to hunt squids solo with NO submarine. So... there are some ways I guess, but again. Let me get straight. Squids are in trenches. So we need to dive there. Squids are REALLY RARE!!! I spent 2 days diving in different trenches. 2 times in G7, three times in G5 and once in I3. And in those couple of days I met just 3 squids and around 20 ppl who do their hunt for them as well. Some say - squids are hiding between trench and ocean depths, and all you need to do is to dive and when trench lights up, watch up. But I didn't meet a single squid there. And even more. They are invisible with no healthbar outside the trench. - Diving as is with spear gun is pointless. You soon be facing eels. They'll kill you and you'll spend next 15 minutes trying to kite eels from your corpse, in order to bring your stuff back. There is a huge chance you wont and sail back to base naked. - Diving suit is useless too, due to small radius from ship. You need to explore whole trench, not just small area around the boat. - Tortugar is useless due to lack of stamina that not regains in swimming state. - The only option you have left is dolphin (and possible seahorse). Dolphin. - They are actually really easy to capture. You need skill in beastmastery for underwater taming. You need all in oxygen skill and all in swimming speed. Also you need a spear gun. You dive, watching shark come to you. Kill it with spear gun. Gather primal fish meat. Then you dive to where it turns dark and search dolphin there. While in surface dolphins are swimming from you, in dark depths they will swim close to you and try to stay this way. Just hold still, watch your oxygen and tame. - Trenches are cool. Trenches are beautiful. You'll get a lot of discoveries swimming near bottom and around trench structures. There are cold down there (from -5 to -20) so you'll need to swim to the surface to regain health. I have 50 fortitude, rejuvenation lvl-2, equilibrium buff and 1 skill in water temperature resistance. This is not enough to not experience freezing. You drive dolphin with "shift" watch your oxygen and health and have some fun. - And yeah, when you riding a dolphin - you not attacked by most of underwater creatures, unless you swim too close to them. Dolphin dramatically reduces aggro radius. Unfortunately dolphins are NOT for squids killing. Lvl-1 dolphin do 15 damage per hit. Lvl-15 do like 23 damage. Lvl-15 Squid has 1 000 hp, and kills your dolphin fast. Common Spear Gun has 138 damage. I couldn't shoot from dolphin back, because this way spear gun damage a dolphin. I had to jump of dolphin and shoot. Squids are really fast. The best I could is to hit squid 3 times before he get melee. In melee squid grabs you and kills you in 2 hits. So... I guess if you lucky enough to get good 150%+ damage spear launcher and meet a single lvl-1 squid, you'll be success. Otherwise - you dead, and squid won't allow you to gather your stuff back. Oh, and don't forget - there are a lot of ppl do their hunt. So. If you spot squid and didn't kill it the very moment you spotted one - then some1 else will do that. And after you done - release dolphin to the wild. He won't follow your boat anyway. Seahorse. I didn't try this one. If I can tame one with sea grapes or seaweed, I'll probably give it a try. But I doubt it will be able to land 1 000 damage to squid and don't die in melee combat. Submarine. So far the best way to search and fight squids is submarine. So... cool question here is - how do I complete "Voyage of power" solo? Is there a way? Using exploits maybe? That's what devs are wanna from us? Anyway. I saw guy easily killed 2 squids at once with a single submarine. And... grinding. In 2 days I've met just 3 squids. They are really rare and each trenches I explored, I met from 3 to 5 guys at once, do the same. Do their diving around and searching squids. Guys said each squid gives you 5-8 tentacles, so you need 10-15 to be killed. It's around couple of weeks exploring depths of trenches with submarine. - You just spending hours and weeks diving around and do nothing. - Or few months riding a dolphins, and searching for lvl-1 squids. - Or you spend a month sailing through empty ocean, farming bottles. - Or you spend 3.5 month in your base, waiting for trading route generate enough gold. All ways are so long and boring!!! You, Grape Guys, really meant that??? I only wanna say to DEVS - this Majestic Kraken should be really cool. And I mean it. REALLY COOL and WORTH all efforts you made players to put in to obtaining one. Because if it is same useless, glitchy as Ramming Galley, then... it wont be just mockery of players. It will be a bullying of players. Evil taunting the players. The best way to make players sad and unhappy I've ever seen. p.s. - You try to check some statistic numbers, related to Ramming Galley and Majestic Kraken. You'll notice that there are so few ppl bought those (it's possible that there is actually NO ONE bought Kraken yet. Or it less than 10 ppl whole officials. You don't wanna release some stuff you put so many efforts in to, for just 10 players, don't you?

I'm on PC. Today I sail half atlas and got 2 crashes and huge 255+ lag most servers. Something broken again. Game was smooth until today.

If you interested, I have like maximum 8 trading routes since Jan-16, and within a month my market produced 21 000 gold. So... in order to buy this new Kraken ship for 22K and 75 squid tentacles for 50K - I should wait inland for almost 3.5 months : ))

And one more update from me related to this Majestic Kraken. As I told above - there is a way to buy 75 tentacles from some players. So... the ship will cost you 22K gold. In PVE Official 75 tentacles will cost you additional 50K gold. (I never had this amount of money even in most active treasure hunting season). The reason is simple. Squids are extremely rare (in 2 days I met just 3 squids). Each gives 5-8 tentacles. They difficult to kill, and alot of ppl hunting them for seahorse taming (I wonder if someone will buy this Majestic Kraken, and then it'll turn out the ship same useless as Ramming Galley lol).

If you use just a simple wooden spear, you can damage lion even if he grabs you : ) Same when you stuck inside wild animal.

Aliright, quick update from me here. No Majestic Kraken before voyage of power is done. In last couples days I visited trench at G7 twice, trench at G5 three times, and trench at I3 once, searching for squids. At I3, after server reload, I finally found couple of squids. I was using a dolphin to explore the trench, and after I found a squid, I tried to shoot my spear gun from the back of dolphin. Unfortunately dolphins made the way, so if you shoot from the back of dolphin, you shoot at the dolphin. I jump off the dolphin and tried to shoot squid myself. Common spear gun has 138 damage. Squid lvl-15 has around 1K hp,and really fast swim speed. I was able to shot 3 times before he got to mele radius to me (so to kill single lvl-15 squid I need spear gun with at least 333 damage, it's... well around 241% damage, highest level mythic, and it's no use if there will be 2 squids and more). If he go mele, then grab you and kill in 2 hits. Also there is an issue, when squid grabs you it then teleport you aside. I once found myself inside the wall. After I fail, I couldn't get to my corpse, because I was always grabbed by squid and killed in 2 hits (they have insane aggro radius, and yet another issue - they invisible outside trench and even healthbar doesn't show up). I had this 15 corpses with crab wheel cosmetic issue, and then all my stuff decayed and gone. I really don't see the way to kill those squids with no submarine. Before I left - I saw guy in submarine, who easily killed both. So in order to test this new ship, I somehow need to learn how to complete voyage of power solo, using all exploits and stupid tactics (or search for other players to join the party, even tho - game has NO instruments to search and form groups). Or... there might be a way to get this new ship, by buying 75 tentacles, but... I asked about it, and no one selling them. Every1 wanna just buy them, like 2K golds for 200 tentacles. So... yet another 2 days of efforts and I'm saling back to base. Empty handed (yeah wit crab wheel cosmetic in my inventory). Sad. Naked with lots of stuff gone. Grapes did gr8 job to make ppl sad, you know!

I'm now asking grapeshot dev guys. Currently we have 3 ppl in thench G5, looking for squids. One guy told that in last hour he met just a single one. I met one in last 2 days. From what I heard - each one give 6-8 tentacles, so for 75 tentacles we need to spend like a week in trench right? Or maybe a couple weeks? A month? Hours and hours just swimming around and waiting until yet another poor squid respawn? You really meant that? You really planned that obtain this majestic kraken should be that... long and purposeless? So we need to just swim around our submarine or dolphin for like 200 hours?

Alright guys, I really wish to test this Kraken boat, but the problem is - those 75 squid parts. In 2 days in 2 trenches (in G7 and G5) I've met just a single squid. I've tried to kill it with brand new dolphin I just tamed, but squid just immobilized my dolphin with tentacle, so I couldn't move, and couldn't land a single damage. All I could do is just watch the squid killing my dolphin. Playing solo, I didn't do this voyage of power, meanin no submarine for me. So... any advice where to find lots of squids and how to hunt them with no submarine???

Right, lets continue with game WRONGS. Right now I play solo (due to all my pals drop the game and don't ever wanna back). Right now I'm on my way to test this Kraken ship, and trying to get those squid parts. With no success in 2 days. I didn't do this power voyage (not sure how to do it solo and there is no instrument it game to gather a group for that). There is lack info about where to find those squids. Atlas wiki sais - it's in every trench, in Goldens. I have to dive there with just myself, all skills in swimming speed, oxygen rate and spear rifle in my hands. An here is a problem. 20) - Each death leave a corpse with crab wheel. I face Eels. I'm not sure how do they work, but sometimes I face one, then in shows +6 above it and suddenly there are like 10-20 Eels attacking me at once. After I die, they stay at my corpse, so the only way to bring my stuff back is: - To dive. - To pull them aside from my corpse. - To die. - To dive again. - To pull them farther aside from my corpse. - To die. Repeat until I can safely loot my first corpse. And all would be fine but... with lack of visibility in waters out of trench, it's hard to navigate there, and each my corpse leaves a backpack with brand new generated crab wheel cosmetic. If I die 5 times there will be 5 light pillars lead to 5 corpses with 5 new crab wheels. If I die like 20 times - I'll get 20 corpses with 20 new crab wheels. In those dark waters with like 40 Eels, 10 sharks, 5 sperm whales hunting me I see 20 corpses around. And then I just unable to find the very corpse with my stuff. Because of 20 crab wheels. And yeah. You know what? Thanks, but I don't need this crab wheel. It doesn't match every design, I don't like it and never wanna use it. P.S. - In 2 days I met just a single squid in trench. I tried to hunt it with a dolphin I just tamed, and I couldn't kill it, because it just hold my dolphin in tentacle, and dolphin couldn't move, couldn't lend a single damage to squid, and only could do is to stay immobilized and watch squid killing it. So... any advice of where to find bunch of squids and how to hunt them without submarine are welcome.

I'm sailing now 20 knots whit my schooner, and I've noticed that my tiger-tame keep staying on the deck. He no more travels outside the vessel! If devs made some fixes to this issue - really huge thx for that! This is gr8! UPD: A-a-a-and it's outside. So no fixes : ))

Oh, yeah, btw guys, check how "cool" is painting works with this new "kraken ship" : ((( (It's a shame). (same as Ramming Galley).

I do understand that it's fun to do custom ship building, to set your design etc, but current ship building system leads to this: I mean it also some king of fun, but... as for me, totally wrong, and ruin all sailing age romance. Most of all - current ship system made the way, that we just need 3 ships. - Small and fast one - Schooner. - Battle ship - Brig. - Large carrier and fast one - Galley. All different purposes of ships made by our customs. Wanna more armor - add roofs, walls and ceilings armor as in picture above. Need more firepower - add some guns to deck and custom floors, etc. So we have like base (Schooner, Brig and Galley) and infinite amount of ship types - all your imagination came to. BUT!!! All of this: "I make ship for my playstyle" will anyway lead to only meta. And if you wanna survive, you'll anyway need to build a meta design. Usually it stupid looking. New ship system with modules leads us to more real like ships. I mean from the picture above to these: The only thing DEVs made wrong with Ramming Galley is made it all from "blocks". What they should do is: a) - Keep current frame, planks/gunports, decks (and current way to paint all). b) - Instead of separate sails - introduce "rigging". One piece of equipment, contain all masts, cables, ropes, ladders, flags, AND SAIL SPOTS were we then put sails of our choice (square or triangles). No more weight sails. c) - Each deck should have square holes - those are spots for modules. The modules I see: - Cockpit - wide back part of ship with our room (bed for respawn, chest for gold, steering wheel on top of it) - Berth (for crew, the more we have, then more crew we can hire). - Cargo hold (for all our stuff. More we have - more cargo we can carry. All cargo holds connected together AND CONNECTED TO DINGHY. We can easily oneclick transfer cargo from ship to dinghy, which also have storage box). - Ammunition - just one requires. Storage box for all our firearms balls, bolts, etc. - Supply - just one requires. Small room with mess table, grille, food storage bags and water barrel. - Small and large cages for tames transfer. No more tames in decks and no more elephants in sloop (also no more tames loosing in waters). - Masterworks - just one requires. Small room contains smithy, mortar and pestle, and some kind of small forge. - Outside attachements. Maybe some pirate stuff, like armored room for valuables. Prison - for hostages, etc. I dunno. Just because each ship has limited size of deck - we can not put all... I mean, with large frigate we can, but smaller ship, requires us to think - what do we need. So all our customization will be within our choice. Wither we need fast cargo vessel (then we have just few berth for sails crew, and else in cargo holds), or war machine (then - alot of berths for gun crew, and gunports) etc.. d) - Add some beautification layer (like lanterns set, some figures set, head figure etc). And most important for DEVS. All those modules, rigging, beautifications might be in different styles. Like southern style. Nordic style. Etc. And DEVs can either sell addition styles as DLCs (I would buy all), or even put them to "lootboxes" and sell lootboxes. So more real income will come for game support. That Atlas I would gladly play. With NO shotguns ships. NO roof covered rhombus ships. NO six masts vessels. Yes to jib and mizzen sails. Yes to boardside battles. Definitely NO to this!

I personally would like to see couple of ships features related to this subject. First one is design. You build your ship. You add custom structures, cannons etc. You paint all. Then you save what you've got as some kind of "design" file and release ship to the ocean. Second one is repair dock. Structure where you can park you ship nearby then open this design file you've got. And then repair dock shows how many resources (also paints) you need to repair all damaged parts and restore missing parts as well. You bring all to repair dock and then in some short period of time - repair process happens. Also repair dock could serve as some kind of ship improving facility, within your design you can add either blueprints or crafted parts better quality, bring resources and it replace old parts of your choice to new better ones.

errr... are you in C6 norht-east island? : )) There is enormous wild animals spawn there. There are few more islands this like. But most of islands are fine. Like in my island in (NE island G8) I meet couple of wolves in my base - just once a week or so : ) So check few other islands to settle.

I had few ideas earlier as "atlas of my dream" thread. - To save a gold - there should be banks in freeports where we can store our coins (more sailing from base to freeport, btw. But for that freeports should became point of interest with shops, markets, some messages boards, maybe some quest givers etc). - As for inland PVP war - I would change all concept of land owning. 1) - Each island has peaceful shore and dangerous middle part with dangerous animals, alphas nests, damned army spawns, and if there ever be a quests - all of them leads there. 2) - Shoreline separated to claiming zones. Single\Small company can capture one. Average company - couple of zones. Megas - like up to third part of island (depend on island size). You can build only in captured zone (maybe in the middle part of island as well, but with extreme decay timers). 3) - Each zone can be in 5 states: Available to claim (every1 can go and claim it), Under construction (after claimed for some time all buildings are indestructible, all doors are locked). Claimed (all buildings can be damaged, all defense lines - destroyed). Ruined - after successful attack from other players. (All building damaged, all doors and boxes unlocked, beds don't do respawn, all defenses lines are destroyed). Abandoned (same as ruined but with no damaged building and with defenses line no operating). After some time in Ruined state - zone goes to Under construction. After Abandoned - it goes to Available to claim (with all buildings are destroyed). 4) - There should be "forts" introduced. As heavy defense fortress with enough friepower to deal with single average ship. So before go ashore player should destroy one with his ships cannons. Also there are destructible defense towers, walls and gates introduced - players need to deal inland. 5) - Only after player destroys all defenses - all other buildings can be damaged (not destroyed) to get doors and boxes open.

You know what's weird here? It perfectly match this whole game concept: "So many efforts - so little reward". It's like you need to earn almost 40k extra golds for... just +5 levels. It means you'll have... just +10% to all you add to your ship. I mean - you put all in weight you get +30600 and have like 60600 weight in total. You spend 40k extra golds and get 63600 in total. Oh and all of that - after you level your ship up to the max (there is a story of a guy who spent a month ashore gaining gold by trading and after he got his galley he spent an hour in ocean and bein killed my damned ships camping a border).

It's really gr8 to see that we've got updates once a week. It means DEVs are with us, and didn't drop the game. As for a ship above I just wanna repeat what I said earlier. Ship looks cool. Sails looks wrong, due to lack of cables from forward to backward of ship. In past times there were a lot of cables connect all masts altogether and ship from forward to backward part of a ship. Like here: I mean we not necessary need this kind of net, but I really do hope, that one day we'll have this rigging equipment with ladders, masts, ropes cables, flags and sailspots alltogether. And if ship building system will turn to something this-like: I'll be glad, but... well... those ramming and new one prefab ships will be out of this system, so... maybe you introduce all "new ship system" and "sails overhaul" first, and then work new ships??? And yeah. Wipe guys. Can you at least tell us, will it be soon, or a bit later?

Maybe some king of 3rd party mods? Didn't see anything this picture related and... jeez, how BAD sails looks like!!! In those sail-ages, all masts were attached to a ship by complex cable system, preventing mast from falling left/right by those cable nets we have now! And from falling forward and backward by also cable system connected to all masts toghether! And those nose figures were not just cosmetic, but also for cable attachment. I so much wanna they replace separate sails with just one piece of rigging (with all masts, ropes, cables, ladders and flags altogether) and within each rigging there is a sail spots for square/triangle sails of our choice.

Most problem here - it requires you to apply each kit one by one, waiting 3 sec. each one. So it just makes ship unrepairable during the battle. It means - useless.

With lasers in her eyes Also probably some non animated and non paintable gathering building fiber/thatches related. Dolphins, seahorses AND GLIGER SUIT more balancing...