Sheepshooter

Well that is the problem, isn't it? Everyone thinks they need a claim to do anything. What you really need is a (small) base as a start-/return point for your ships to explorer the world. That is the intended concept of the game. But the advertisement for Atlas is still different. They wanted to cater to the competitive companies to have something to play over - conquest of claims. But they advertise it in a way that everyone, even the single-player, needs a claim to do "anything". Even thought this is totally not true, most people believe it, look at the map, can't see a free island to claim, and "rage-quit" to a lawless where they live like they had no claim anyway... So better to get on a claimed island - as intended - and finally play the game "But the toxic landowners...!!!" Yeah?!?! Find one that is good... Or - for the Devs - make changes to make land claims more beneficial for everyone: - Most PVP people want to get back online to their ships intact, to continue play the game as intended, with ships. Most people who loose their ship on the high seas, want to get back to where they can build a new ship in peace. But with the raid times - which are too long - your chances are high you still loose everything 'daily'. So make it that claimed islands are always protected and just make the Claim Flag Radius PVP - anything in it can be destroyed by anyone anytime. If the flag gets declaimed the island becomes lawless and therefore PVP everywhere. That will give max protection in peace time, and incentivise everyone (owner and tenants) to help setup defenses around the Claim Flag and help when the island is attacked. - The Tax problem is also easy, if it gets incentivised for the owner. Just make it that the taxes are a % of the harvest which the owner just gets, but are not reduced from the harvester. Set them at a fixed value like 10% or lower to incentivise owners to have more people harvesting on the island. So for every 100% harvested the harvester gets 100% and the owner get additional 10%. No Tax griefing and landowners loving visitors. - The Problem with land owners deleting structures is also easy. Make it so that deleting a structure starts a timer of a few days. When the timer runs out the structure (including all items in it) is deleted - so no stealing stuff by the land owner. Notify the owner of the structure that a timer has started. He can either take his structures down - getting some resources back - or loose it, because maybe he is no longer playing the game.

I think the problem - apart from my PC not installing the PTR... - is that it is not very clear what Atlas is and/or should be. Right now it is 'Raft-ARK', were the rafts mechanic is better working (npc crew) and somewhat more realistic (wind). But still it is highly focused on land bases and resources - tames included. They tried to get rid of the foundation spam problem with the claim (spam) system. With most of the player base coming from ARK, they ARK-ified Atlas ASAP... claiming everything, building giant (laggy) bases as usual and kicking everyone out if possible, which was made much easier because of the claim system... So under the hood Atlas is ARK for Rafts, but the intend - as can be seen playing all other parts of the game, apart from the ARK stuff - is this 'living on the sea', travelling the world. They tried to enforce it with the resource scarcity and blueprint system. They tried to enforce it with the level cap by exploration points. With the tames biome scarcity. With the quest line. It failed because of the non-PVP (aka offlining aka 'Hard-Core'PVP) and other griefing mechanics, which resulted in ships lost in port while offline. Without ships no living (as in being online with ship) on the sea - back to the usual ARK game play. As we see already on the PTR, all islands are already claimed. Taxes can be set to even higher griefing values (50%?) or you just get destroyed by 'the owner' in non-PVP. So even if you just want to have your ship and get out to sea it is still hard. Would be nice to have a place called home, sure. But if the intend of the game design is to get you out on the ocean, how 'much' base do you need? Basically you need a small place to put stuff, which should not sink with your ship (in case you encounter actual PVP) and resources around it to get back on your feet again. Oh yeah and some safe space for your tames (as in not a giant behemoth gate circle...). Who needs a whole island for himself for that? No-one... But because Atlas is ARK you cannot get the 'pirate haven' and if you try you have to just protect that all the time and cannot leave on an adventure. So they try to tweak the game mechanic to promote live and let live on the islands. Raid timers and upkeep. Just so you might be allowed - welcomed? - to use an island and maybe get online with your ship still there. But the problem is the incentives towards the type of players. As long it is not negative enough to grief you and not positive enough (as in needed for survival) to keep you around, the game stays toxic. Sure make upkeep so high that no-one can hold claim to an island alone. Maybe that will get landlords thinking. Maybe the just setup some dummy corps and have those within their clan to keep cost down, while still kicking everyone else out... And griefers, as long as they can grief you they will... maybe atleast with some form of ORP griefers would have to look you in the eye doing it, unlike how the 'hardCore'-PVP crowd likes it... What could be the solution? I don't know, but I have my own ideas... But before first it is understood what type of game play is intended for Atlas - exploring the high sea as pathfinders - and second understanding the incentives for griefing other players that a trying to enjoy that game play nothing will change basically... If that means getting rid of the ARK game play to finally get an Atlas game play, yes please. PS: Ideas - Maybe make it so, that anyone on an island is fully raid protected, but the land owner or even just the claim flag area. Meaning that the owner or the flag can be attacked at any time - no need for war tokens. But when the claim falls the island becomes raid able for a set amount of time and no one living there is save anymore. This would promote 1. the owner wanting to have 24/7 as many people on deck to hold the fort and help in the defense, meaning to have as many inhabitants as possible on his island and his side ; 2. which means he has to keep them happy - low taxes, no griefing from his side; 3. giving the inhabitants the incentive to help in the defense of the claim, to keep their stuff save as well; 4. or maybe helping the attacker in getting rid of the current owner. There would have to be some form of protection against insiders, so the fort is not opened to the enemy from the inside, etc. - or maybe that could be part of the fun... Anyway I think this could be a way to have raid protection for your stuff, while it is still possible under certain conditions that you can loose it in battle. - For the problem with landlords griefing inhabitants by being able to destroy their stuff, this could be fixed positive for both sides, by not allowing the owner to attack anyone (as per the raid protection rules above), but giving the owner the option to put an 'eviction timer' on any structure part and or connected building and or player/company structure. That timer/s should be something between one hour (for foundation spam) to one week (for complete player/company eviction). When the timer runs out the structure, including any loot in it, disappears. The owner of the structure gets informed by the game when such a timer is started on him. He than has the option to take out his stuff and/or take the structure down for the resources. As no one gets any loot from the structure owner, their is no incentive to do it from the side of the claim owner to do it for loot. And because there is a 'fair warning' timer griefing can be at a minimum - you just have to leave, but not get annihilated, just for fun.

same...

And there I was thinking ATLAS is what happened after ARK... As in the Element powered ARKs in orbit crashed onto Earth and bring back life to Earth after the Element corruption on earth was destroyed by HomoDeus and H2O was brought back to Earth for recolonization... And because everyone on TheIsland loved their raft bases, battles with it and living on the sea (until they introduced the Leedsichthys), ATLAS became a Pirate themed ARK-rafting game... Somewhat coincides with the time when they started working on ATLAS - at the time of the golden age of ARK raft sailing - that is why the original ATLAS code seems to be from that time in ARK development...

PVP = Player vs Player So called "HardCore / No Rules" PVP = CounterStrike with no one on the other team online... In Atlas it is basically TowerDefense with the "HardCore PVPer" the stupid Zerg running towards the towers, while the defender has to await the results of his defence design when he comes back online... "HardCore PVP" in Atlas is "Player Vs Player Made Enviroment", not PVP That is why players that like real PVP (unlike the "HardCore" crowd-ardice) are either not playing this game or go PVE and play the sandbox that Atlas is.

The problem with too "simple" rules is the way it promotes unintended behavior. For example so called "Full PVP" rules promote the opposite as in PVOfflineP, because that is were the attacker has the advantage over the defender. This would not be the problem if everyone is online all the time. But as this is a game this is not going to happen for most of the game customers = bad for business... seems someone at WC/GS figured this out now: It is one thing to have one ARK server controlled by bad overlords pushing everyone out. Customers just go to other servers and the overlords start crying when their now low population 'legacy' server gets removed. It is another thing if there is basically only one giant server, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and falling population of customers locked out from most of the game content. So they have to promote real Player Vs Player by forcing all the so called 'Full-PVPler' to can only attack online player. With the changes - as reported by the Devs - we already can see were there will be the next best griefing opportunities... Here it is the problem that the landowner can demolish anything at will on his island. The idea behind it is obviously so that the owner can manage his peasants, their building spot and resource spawns. All good with that. Problem is the possibility - with this ARK-type community I say 100% - that if the owner can just destroy anything he wants he will do. His unintended incentive would/could be that by destroying the containers he can get the loot inside. And of course he could just do it for fun and grief also. So not a good idea to allow this unintended consequences. Suggestion: How about the owner can mark any building for destruction (parts, complete building/ships and/or all the player has in the owners claim) which would start a decay timer of say one week. When the timer runs out the objects just disappear - no resources back and no loot from the containers. That way the owner has no incentive to just destruct for the loot. And because the marked player has some time to get his loot out and/or destruct his own structure (for the resources) the possible griefing would be at a minimum in that the player has to move in time. If the claim owner would like to get the loot from someone on the island, he can do it the same way as anyone else during raid times - invest in the attack and get the loot on victory Unfortunately he will be the only one with artillery, which should not be... Also the owner would be better of if his peasants can defend themselves during raid times and he should provide help. Because if he is a good overlord his peasants are more willing to defend him and the island rule during war. To have more control over the defense of the island there should be an additional temporary 'island alliance' available which the claim owner can add the peasant companies during the war-time that want to help and are trustworthy. As far as I see it war-time is much more save for everyone than raid-time. In the time between declaration of war and start of war anyone can bug out with his loot - war is for the island claim, not for the loot. Of course the attacker would be better of to not harm the peasants (at least the ones that not resist) to keep them as peasants. But this being ARK after the TEK space stations have fallen from the sky to become islands, the attacker will most likely ransack anything and everyone... But again with war coming to the island everyone will have enough time to get anything of value out of the way. For the attacker to stop that he would have to setup and hold a blockade of the island to prevent anyone from fleeing with the loot before the war starts. The problem is raid-times. As there is a raid-time most likely every day it would be not feasible to move your loot out of the way every time. As no one but the owner can build anything but the Puckles it could be OK, as the raiders cannot make a offensive FOB with artillery. Maybe that works. But maybe the owner can allow - using the company-IDs - to allow trustworthy peasants to also build all possible defense items like cannons, etc. - maybe so they are better prepared to help defend the island in war and not run away like the rest?

Well that would be a different topic. This here is about when you already payed whatever it costs to make a ship. I understand your reasoning from older discussions. I think the problem was the PVPCE (PlayerVsPlayerCreatedEnviroment) aka offlining ships. Sinking ships when the other player is offline is "cheap", hence they made ships cheaper so you would get more real PVP by more likely sinking with your ship when your online. Maybe with the claim protection / raid timer ships could become more expensive again - or set the resource multiplier back to 1x maybe..!?!?

If you mean making the 'free placed' cannon more expensive would mean they are a different type of cannons, as you build them before you place them ?!?! Again, my suggestion is not that the Devs have to do anything - limiting cannons to snap points, although I would prefer it - but if they want to make changes in that direction, now (wipe) would be the right opportunity to get it going in the right direction 'from the start'. The discussion about the pros and cons for changes to ship cannon meta is going on since the start. In here I just give my reasoning for why it (whatever it may be) should happen with the wipe.

Leveled a Galleon from level 1 to 51 all in the 'Accommodations' attribute to see the effect per level on crew payment time. Past level 40 in Accommodations there was no more change in crew payment time. Not tested it for any other ship typ or attribute yet, but it seems that you raised the overall level of ships but not included the additional 10 levels possible for the ship attributes.

(because 'Feedback&Suggestions' seems to be worthless for making suggestions...) With the wipe coming up it would be the best time to make changes to the ship building, mainly cannon placement. The wipe would get rid of any old ship designs out there and everyone would start design ships to the change – no old shotgun ships that cannot be removed outside of a wipe. One of the main concerns with how ships are being build with guns is, that people mount guns in front and/or back in such numbers and ugly designs it not only is unrealistic but also plain ugly. You have made such nice ship designs with gun ports and everything. For that you definitively looked at real world ships of the era. I for my part never saw a real world ship of those times with such one-sided gun placements. Having the same gun numbers on port and starboard is obvious, as you never know on what side the enemy will come in range. You would be at an disadvantage being one-sided. I am not a specialist in ship design, but I would guess that if it would be technically feasible to build a ship with all guns in the front or back some navy (more than one ship) would have done so and used it. A tactical maneuver in the real world for gun boats is to 'cross the T' on the enemy, whereby your ships would face the enemy in a line with their broadside, while the enemy line is moving towards you with their front. Thereby all your ships and guns will face the enemy while only the enemy's first ship in the line can only use it's front cannons on you. If the current Atlas shotgun ships would be a real thing, getting ones T crossed would be not a tactical disadvantage, but desired - hence current ship meta in Atlas. My suggestion would be for the wipe to limit cannon placements on ships to the gun ports ~ no placement without snap points. In a next step you should add more snap points to the ship hulls/planks. I would suggest making every blank above the water line able to be a gun port. Also make the most upper plank (gun port or not) have a snap point at the railing above deck – same as with the snap points for dinghy and diving station already. Mainly to have the sloop able to mount guns at all, but to also have more guns to add to the other ship classes. Finally make the most front and back gun port blanks of the ship to have different switchable designs (pressing T) – the normal gun port facing to the side and one that faces to the front/back to allow guns in that direction. This would come down to: Sloop – 12 guns (all on deck) with max 2 to the front and back. Schooner – 28 guns (14 on deck) with max 4 to the front and back. Brigantine – 40 guns (20 on deck) with max of 4 to the front and back. Galleon – 74 guns ( 22 on deck) with max 6 to the front and 10 to the back. Another thing I would suggest is to allow the mounting of the large cannons on the same snap points as the medium. Otherwise with this changes large cannons could no longer be put on ships. As we would get rid of any gun not placed in a snap point you could reverse the weight reduction of guns in gun ports. As far as I understand it this was introduced to promote the use of gun ports vs. the ugly gun walls. This would help in promoting different ship designs for different uses. A gunboat with all (large) cannons mounted will not be a good cargo ship. A cargo ship will have only minimum number of cannons (maybe only in the back to shoot while fleeing). Multipurpose will be something in between. Basically you would double the number of ship classes (armed and un-/less-armed version) without adding new ships. This would promote having multi-ship operations – warships protecting cargo ships, etc. Not so sure about the Ballista with this idea, but I guess giving them only the deck snap points would be enough, or not? Oh and by the way, could we get rid of building material being used as armor platting? It looks ugly, has no real world comparison – the ships planks are its armor. Maybe make a armored version of the current planks with more hit points and more weight? I would also suggest to not make much change to the current base crew and weight numbers. You should have to customize the ship towards it's use. Having enough additional crew to use the deck guns should need leveling towards that. If needed only adjust cannon weight, so that a full large cannon ship design (with armored blanks?) is at the extreme low end of cargo capacity, or will be slowed down if it is having cargo. One optional suggestion to better help in the customization is (as suggested already somewhere else) to be able to put ships back into shipyards for re-design (maybe even for wrecking operation giving back the planks and or full (?) material cost) and maybe also to re-spec the levels for a gold cost, etc ? Again - in short - please consider with the coming wipe to limit cannon placements on ships to snap points (gun ports) only. With that you have every option to 'add' more guns later to your ship designs without antagonize anyone later by taking things away from anyone or not being able to get rid of unwanted designs without a server wipe.

Wipe is best time for ship build changes With the wipe coming up it would be the best time to make changes to the ship building, mainly cannon placement. The wipe would get rid of any old ship designs out there and everyone would start design ships to the change – no old shotgun ships that cannot be removed outside a wipe. One of the main concerns with how ships are being build with guns is, that people mount guns in front and/or back in such numbers and ugly designs it not only is unrealistic but also plain ugly. You have made such nice ship designs with gun ports and everything. For that you definitively looked at real world ships of the era. I for my part never saw a real world ship of those times with such one-sided gun placements. Having the same gun numbers on port and starboard is obvious, as you never know on what side the enemy will come in range. You would be at an disadvantage being one-sided. I am not a specialist in ship design, but I would guess that if it would be technically feasible to build a ship with all guns in the front or back some navy (more than one ship) would have done so and used it. A tactical maneuver in the real world for gun boats is to 'cross the T' on the enemy, whereby your ships would face the enemy in a line with their broadside, while the enemy line is moving towards you with their front. Thereby all your ships and their guns will face the enemy while only the enemy's first ship in the line can only use it's front cannons on you. If the current Atlas shotgun ships would be a real thing, getting ones T crossed would be not a tactical disadvantage, but desired - hence current ship meta in Atlas. My suggestion would be for the wipe to limit cannon placements on ships to the gun ports ~ no placement without snap points. In a next step you should add more snap points to the ship hulls/planks. I would suggest making every blank above the water line able to be a gun port. Also make the most upper plank (gun port or not) have a snap point at the railing above deck – same as with the dinghy and diving station already. Mainly to have the sloop able to mount guns at all, but to also have more guns to add to the other ship classes. Finally make the most front and back gun port blanks of the ship to have different switchable designs (pressing T) – the normal gun port facing to the side and one that faces front/back to allow guns in that direction. This would come down to: Sloop – 12 guns (all on deck) with max 2 to the front and back. Schooner – 28 guns (14 on deck) with max 4 to the front and back. Brigantine – 40 guns (20 on deck) with max of 4 to the front and back. Galleon – 76 guns ( 24 on deck) with max 6 to the front and 10 to the back. Another thing I would suggest is to allow the mounting of the large cannons on the same snap points as the medium. Otherwise with this changes large cannons could no longer be put on ships. As we would get rid of any gun not placed in a snap point you could reverse the weight reduction of guns in gun ports. This would help in promoting different ship designs for different uses. A gunboat with all (large) cannons mounted will not be a good cargo ship. A cargo ship will have only minimum number of cannons (maybe only in the back to shoot while fleeing). Multipurpose will be something in between. Basically you would double the number of ship classes without adding new ships. This would promote having multiple ships operations – warships protecting cargo ships, etc. Not so sure about the Ballista with this idea, but I guess giving them only the deck snap points would be enough, or not? Oh and by the way, could we get rid of building material being used as armor platting? It looks ugly, has no real world comparison – the ships planks are its armor. Maybe make a armored version of the current planks with more hit points and more weight? I would also suggest to not make much change to the current base crew and weight numbers. You should have to customize the ship towards it's use. Having enough additional crew to use the deck guns should need leveling towards that. If needed only adjust cannon weight, so that a full large cannon ship design is at the extreme low end of cargo capacity, or will be slowed down if it is having cargo. One optional suggestion to better help in the customization is (as suggested already somewhere else) to be able to put ships back into shipyards for re-design (maybe even for wrecking operation giving back the planks and or full (?) material cost) and maybe also to re-spec the levels for a gold cost? Again - in short - please consider with the coming wipe to limit cannon placements on ships to snap points (gun ports) only. With that you have every option to 'add' more guns later to your ship designs without antagonize anyone later by taking things away from anyone or not being able to get rid of unwanted designs without a server wipe.