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This is my idea. I will talk about the pvp aspect. This game have to be played by cycles or seasons just like travian (browser game based on grids). The game needs a end game because is not sustainable playing this game for months without being tired of doing the same stuff, the lack of content and the nature of a pvp game when a lot of players are wiped or destroyed and stop playing after another wipe or more content. Let's copy the idea of building the wonder to 100%. Just like travian. Once one of the tribe make the wonder, the company who built it win the server. The wonder that won will have a top ranking 100 of who made more contributions I will explain it later. And another general ranking of the top 100 players for players of other tribes that lost the server but dont want to feel shitty about it. The rules are simple, the wonder can only be constructed using blueprints of construction of wonder. And there will be a limited amount of blue prints of construction, a tribe need 1 blue print of construction to build a wonde from level 0 to level 50, after that level you will need to have another blue print of construction to build from 50 to 100. The blue prints of construction will spawn after 100 days of game in a random lawless island for each region. Maybe we can set a timer for this and we can define it the blue print will appear in a flotsam, in the beach inside a bottle map, or in the island, no one will know where it is until someone pick it. After someone pick it. Everyone will be able to check the map and know the current position in real time, just like the ghost ship ( if worked as intended). If the construction blue print is destroyed it will respawn again in a lawless area of the grid area it was from. The golden ages ruins can be taken after the day 130. You will need to clean the island with land troops to take it, killing some mini bosses in the process, you will need people. Once the golden age Island is in your hands, you will be able to start the construction of the wonder, the first 50 levels will require only 1 type of resources of wood, tatch, stone and metal per level. And will require different resources, like 2 types from 60 to 70, 3 types 70 to 80, 4 types 80 to 90, 5 types from 90 to 95, 6 types for the last 5 levels. This event will take weeks or months to complete. There will be 9 wonders of different tribes and a ranking system to check who is leading with more % in the wonder. Different tribes will use different strategy to level up their wonders, for example resistance, food, storage space to be able to set more resources in the wonder, this will be decided by the admin of the wonder. What attributes to level up in the wonder is something we can discuss. There will be multiple ways to stop a wonder, one could be stole the construction Blue prints ( the cant queue levels once they lose the construction blue print, there will only be allowed to have one level in progress and another in queue). If you lose the construction blue prints you cant level up levels of the wonder, but you can level up other stuff like storage for more resources in the wonder, resistance in the wonder, food for troops, I dont know we can think about this later. With a end server event like this we have 100 days (or less) to fool around, prove new stuff, and after that big company's will focus in leveling up the wonders, and average Joe's are not going to be harassed in the meantime. Big tribes will need to focus on the wonder and forget other random stuff like islands and wars. All the attention will go to who make it faster. Big tribes will fight each other to prevent other tribes of "winning the server". Megas will be forced to fight each other instead of making alliances and harassing new players or small company's. We will talk about the rewards later for the winners and the top 100 contributors in different areas, like sinking ships, resources, gold, kills, tames killed and so on. After the server is done you need to give people at least a month to rest mentally an physically. You can have at least one server open for no lifers or people who was destroyed and want to start flesh in another server. We can define what attributes can be level up in the wonder apart from levels, like bonus for the island you control if you level up something. We can discuss if the wonder can lose levels or completely destroyed if is attacked. How you attack a wonder. If the wonder can lose levels if is attacked we need to discuss how to prevent players for destroying all wonders and avoid a stalemate ( like increasing the resistance of the wonder over time, eventually the server have to end, trolling players shouldn't be able to stake infinite time). The endgame shouldn't be mythical guys destroying new players, taking all the islands and destroying every base. The end game should be achieving a goal, with group effort, farming work, strategy and some luck to complete, everyone can win when there are like 4 or 5 different groups trying to win. Certain restrictions should be made in order to prevent a group for monopolizing everything.

Sorry In Game AH are a Band Aid System for games with a crap Economy!!! And yes I count World of Warcraft among games that have a CRAP economy!!! Vendors are the only way to foster an economy inside of a Sandbox MMORPG. There is no reason that Freeports need to become trade hubs but I and others recommend Freeports because of the safezone that goes along with them. If your going to have a successful, shop its going to be more likely to prosper inside of a zone of safety! Problem is there are no game mechanics that allow players to put Vendors at Freeports, so they need to put them out in the normal world... Problem with this is = Atlas is a group of islands with mangy dogs who run around marking there tree's constantly and waiting to attack the first thing that steps foot on there island. Yes there could infact be Players who are indeed inclined to set up a nice port with vendors and attempt to make coin via trade, but who is going to risk dropping anchor at every island in the world till you find these places?!? So yes the simple fix is an AH for an environment like that one we have in atlas! But that doesn't fix the problem, and the problem is all the mangy dogs who mark there territory daily that are ready to rip the face off of the first person that steps foot on there island. ^^^^ That is what needs to be fixed, we need game systems that create law and order. Game systems that punish players for mindless violence! Game systems that allow for a sense of safety in locations that people may want to turn into a trade hub! NPC ships that hunt pirates down, would be far better then silly ships of the damned which should not be everywhere but only in the golden age ruins zones as they don't belong everywhere they don't make sense to be everywhere! The game needs to learn the concept of Yin and Yan, Good and Evil, without one the other can't exist, a good game strives for balance and promotes the game play of all, from solo explorers and crafters to the large groups of adventures. I could never promote an Auction House system every in any game because they only lower the quality of the game! Vendors are always superior because of Yin and Yan, Good an Evil, Crafters and Consumers, Merchants and Sellers... Most of the pvp inclined are not Crafters and they are not Sellers they are Consumers and a Consumer will always want an Auction House because its the peak of a Lazy consumer economy!!! Perfect for Mindless PvP players.... But Vendors, require the commitment of those that run them, they require strategys from Selling at a high price and always have stock to selling at a discount price and always being sold out, and balancing the reputation of your vendor as being one that is Cheep or one that is Reliable and in stock or one that is somehow cheep and reliable! This gives other play styles avenues to play the game, but auction houses don't foster good game play for the online business man or crafter they make the game far less fun for people who want to create an online business! Nope I could never support an auction house system inside of a game I want to succeed. Because they are wanting and lacking and the easy way out.... Atlas needs to make alot of tough choices it needs a face lift and it needs to rise above being a mindless game for griefers into something that is more akin with what the masses would enjoy!

No. Pvp and pve won’t wipe so they can merge. I do see na and Eu merging but not pvp and pve. The way I said does not require a wipe. the way you said it not only requires a wipe but it would require a complete rework. That won’t happen. i agree with you on everything accept that one point.

I would like to see power stone islands only contain a certain type of resource, that cannot be found anywhere else on the map. This would promote players to actively go to the power stone islands to not only SOTD farm but to resource farm as well. It would greatly promote pvp in this grid (for not only BPs but good resources). It would also require companies to bring shipment ships which would require protection. The stakes will always be high in this grid, which they should be.

Some suggestions on things that could be add during Early Access besides balancing and bug fixing. Update: I integrated all ideas into the first post for better readability. Ships Brig The current brig is just an expensive schooner. It needs a bit more gunports, there are still planks left that could fit a gunport and maybe they can be moved a bit closer together to at least have 10 gunports per side. Also the ships rail need to be lower so the deck guns don’t stick through it. Frigate A medium ship to fill the Gap between Schooner/Brig and Galleon. Having one or two gundecks with a total of 20 gunports per side. Ship of the Line A Flagship having about 3 or 4 complete gundecks and are extremely expensive even compared to the Galleon. Large companies need some kind of flagships as the normal galleon have become quiet common. Huge Sails The Large sails in the game are the right size for a brig but they are way too small for galleons and look rather stupid on them. The mast above the deck should atleast have a height of about the length of the ship. Sail Crew Ability to have more crew assigned to a sail. Open/close and turn much slower with one crew and faster with multiple crew, also having a speed buff for multiple crew on the sails or player manning the sail. Multiple Sails You should be at least able to add different sails to the same mast, like a handling sail and a speed sail on one mast. Ship details Besides planks and gunports there should be windows and balconies to design your ship especially at the stern like the real ships. Also when placing walls inside a ship hull they should fill the gap to the hull. Man stations by demand Option to set npc crew to man stations by demand. If you anchor they should unman stations and repair if you issue orders to an unmanned sail or cannon they will man the station or switch from another station that has no orders issued right now. Weather forecast Give a warning a few minutes before the weather changes and add skills that increase the warning period. Ship sinking Besides removing ways a ship should not sink. Ships should be more resistant to sinking, so you can shoot them to pieces and loot them more often than sinking them. For this there should be a general resistance for planks so you don’t sink by a single plank been hit two times. If a plank looses hp it will gain damage resistance. If it lost 50% hp it will have 50% resistance if it lost 99% hp it will have 99% resistance. But resistance will be reduced by a modifier resembling your ships condititon. All planks hp together will be the ships condition and if you lost for example 50% of the overall hp on all planks your ships condition will be 50% which will reduce all resistances your planks have by 50%. So the more damage your ship has taken the more easier it is to break a plank or damage it further but if your ship is in perfect condition planks will be very resistant to breaking. (would also require to adjust repair speed) Suggestion: (All ideas need to be applied together to work correctly, given numbers are not set in stone and need to be tested and balanced) Planks Planks need to take more damage they are destroyed far too easy by any means. Planks should be able to take a lot more shots including all sources be it from player weapons or SoD. Considering a wooden wall taking 80 wood having 8.000 hp it wouldnt be wrong if a large plank taking 1500 wood would have 150.000 hp. So atleast bit more hp on planks would make a lot of sense. Ship Health / Resistance The ship health will no longer resemble the amount of water the ship has taken in but the ships condition (The sum of all planks HP). The ships condition grants a resistance buff to planks and reduces when damage to planks is taken. Resistance Buff / Sturdiness Planks have a damage resistance with the following formula: Ship HP% - Plank HP% + Sturdiness Bonus - Example: Ships Condition at 100%, Plank at 100%, Sturdiness 0% = Resistance 0% - Example: Ships Condition at 90%, Plank at 10%, Sturdiness 0% = Resistance 80% - Example: Ships Condition at 10%, Plank at 100%, Sturdiness 10% = Resistance -80% - Example: Ships Condition at 80%, Plank at 40%, Sturdiness 10% = Resistance 50% Ship Weight / Water Weight If a ship takes in water the water will be added to the weight. Also the weight will have more influence how fast a ship can turn, accelerate and move. Draught / Load Draft The weight of the ship no matter if it is from resources, cannons or water will make the ship go deeper and raise the water line. Obviously the ship will sink when the waterline raises above the bulwark. Water Leaks The ship can only take in water from leaks below the water line. If a plank is partially below the water line the inflow of water will be slower. Bulkhead You should be able to build bulkheads that divide the ship into sections and prevent water inflow from the front section to reach the mid or aft sections. Also a fully closed deck will prevent water from reaching the upper deck. To have water inflow on the mid deck the waterline need to be high enough to reach said deck and leaks need to be present on the planks. Repairing Planks Planks can no longer be destroyed. If a plank reaches 0 HP it will be turned into a burst plank. A burst plank will take 3 successful hits with the repair hammer to start repairing again and will take a reasonable amount of resources with every try. Only fully repaired planks can be replaced with a new plank or demolished. Burst planks will make a damaged ship look a lot better and act like a missing plank in case of shots going through them and water leaking in but dont allow a new plank to be placed for easy repair. Visible Damage If bulkheads and decks stopping water inflow planks can have more conditions to make combat look better and easily tell the their condition: <50% light visible damage and tiny water leak <25% visible damage and small water leak <10% heavy visible damage and medium water leak 0% visible burst plank with large water leak Ship Sails Once a mast gets destroyed it gets replaced with a broken mast that has like a 10 minute cooldown before it can be repaired. Same if a sail gets completely ripped it will have a 5 minute cooldown before it can be repaired again to allow boarding actions. The same applies as to planks and it takes 3 successful repair hammer hits to start repairing once the cooldown is over and you cannot demolish or replace a sail/mast until it is fully repaired. Wind Sails do take damage from strong winds, starting at 50% of the max wind strength they will have a tiny wear effect and at 100% it will be quit noticeable. Cyclones of course deal a lot damage to sails but less to planks so you can lower sails if you cannot avoid them. Cannon Balls Since battles last longer now they should be a bit cheaper and reasonably lighter to carry enough. Avoiding abuse of the weight mechanic On anchored ships the weight that a player can add to a ship is limited to two times his carry weight. Should the ship lift the anchor the full weight is applied. On PVE you can remove sleeping players if you own the ship, they will be moved to the end of the emergency ladder if selecting to remove some overweight sleeper that tries to stall your ship indefinitely. Repair All Add an option for ships to repair everything at a very low speed using materials from the ship inventory if you hit it with a hammer it will increase the speed. World Island diversity Additional Island to expand the world and give more room and options for players. Free Islands Civilian Islands with a neutral NPC claim for everyone to live on and maybe a NPC settlement for trading etc. Exploration Islands Islands you cant build on, just for exploring and the real pirate feeling. Claimable Islands Normal Islands to fight for. Pirate Nest Starter Islands for Pirates no protection and no limitations. Map rearrangement or special server (PVP/PVE Merge) All starter areas are on the west side. The farther you move east the higher level the enemies and the better the rewards and the rarer the resources get. First rows are lawless areas, next rows are PVE, then some rows with PVP with offline protection and last full PVP sectors. Could also add an exploration sector where you cannot build and find rarest stuff on expeditions to truly uninhabited islands. Golden Age Islands are mixed into this map with different difficulties as well. NPC Factions Having some factions to liven up the world. (All using real ships/versions of the playerships) Civilian NPC Trader ships and Settlements. Offering buildspots in the city or free building on the rest of the island. Navy Having forts and military ports. Guarding the sea from pirates and ships of the damned. Pirates NPC pirates attacking players and traders. You can yield and they take your wares or a bribe and don’t sink your ship for no reason, unless you fight back. Having pirate nests where player pirates can get services and stuff also sell slaves or stolen goods. Damnation Ships of the damned turned into real ships and only appearing during night time Faction Areas and settlements Factions have areas in which they are more numerous and the farther away from their area the rarer they appear. Ships of the damned for example only appear in certain areas at night while in the other areas there are npc pirates and in some areas there are only few hostile ships and a strong navy presence. Underwater “Islands” (Additional world layers) There should be natural air bubbles(caves) and player made domes under water where you can live. Also ancient cultures could have left artificial or magic domes that provide a place to live. Similar to an island with resource spawns and wildlife etc. these will expand the space to live in the game and bring more life to the sea bed as well as base of operation for the upcoming subs. There could be bigger subs (comparable to the surface ships) for traveling and transporting that launch the mini subs for resource collection and other under water tasks. Should airships be added some day the same could be done with floating islands to expand the space to live into the sky. The battlefields and playfields should be mainly separated so that sea, air, land and underwater battles not significantly interfere with each other: Surface Ships – strong hull, can carry heavy weapons and lots of resources, get new weapons like basic depth charges that are very effective against submarines and basic anti-air cannons that easily down airships. Of course more ship types here is a primary goal. Land – large fortifications and heavy weapons also can use anti-air cannons Submerged – have weak hulls and can only carry light weapons that cause little damage to surface ships planks but good damage to other subs. Can also use small deck guns when not diving to participate in surface battles but still way weaker than surface ships. Floating – lightweight airships, cannot carry much stuff and only lighter weapons good for air combat and reaching floating islands but with low effect on surface ships. 4 different experiences and battlefields to master and expand the game content and many more cool places to visit. Quests and World Tasks Add NPC in Towns that give Quests for a Gold reward. As well as quests on the fly you can find in the world. Exploration Quest Visit a certain island and cartograph it. Return to Questgiver for reward. Exploration Tasks World tasks, pieces of a (exploration) treasure maps are appearing on one island. If you explore the island you will randomly find the pieces if you have enough pieces to combine into a map it will lead to a treasure chest on this island. If you picked up the treasure chest it will have a long cooldown but you can do the same on every island to encourage exploration. Trading Quest Deliver certain materials to a faraway NPC town for a Gold reward. Special Trading Quest Transport a certain item or person from one Port to another. Salvage Quest Bring certain item found on a shipwreck to questgiver. Salvage Task Find a treasure Map that points toward a shipwreck for salvage. Rescue Task Find shipwrecked npcs and bring them to any town for a small reward, or enslave them and sell them in a pirate nest. And many more like combat quests, creature hunt, boarding trader ships or capturing civilian/navy ships… Dungeons: Player limit for dungeons. The game has everything from single players up to 400ppl tribes, its impossible to balance so there should be dungeons for different team sizes. The limit allows only so many people inside the dungeon at the same time and the content inside is balanced on that number. (max 2) Tiny dungeon - small with basic loot and suitable for one or two persons. Low chance for specials like fountain of youth, gold or rare stuff (including all mechanics of the game so everyone can take part and is not excluded). Many of these do exist on all islands. (max 4) Small dungeon - normal dungeon for a small group, hard but doable alone. Normal chance for specials. Many of these do exist on all islands. (max Normal dungeon - normal dungeon for a medium group. Normal chance for specials. Many of these do exist on all islands. (max 16) Large dungeon - large dungeon with strong bosses for large groups. High chances for specials and rare loot. They only exist on special islands or zones. (max 32) Huge dungeon - large dungeon with strong bosses for large groups. High chances for specials and rare loot. They only exist on special islands or zones. (max 64) Raid dungeon - large dungeon with world bosses for huge crews. Very high chances for specials and rare loot. They only exist on special islands or zones. More versatile dungeons (instances) Different Caves (like in game already) Under Water Caves (having air to breath once inside but also parts that are under water) Shipwreck (in shallow water or deep in the ocean) Ghostship (once disabled you can go inside or drifting ships with enemies) Tempel or other buildings Hostile Settlements or island counting as open dungeon Under water city inside an air bubble ... Law System If you kill other players outside of company wars (add company wars of course) you will get a bounty on your head depending on what you did, a little for killing a player and more for sinking a ship or stealing a claim. If you live like a pirate you will be flagged as one. Bounties can be collected by players that capture you and hand you to the navy or you get attacked by navy ships. Bounty will only decline if you are imprisoned but not from dying and respawning. Of course you can escape relatively easy if you don’t want to stay imprisoned for a long time but you keep your bounty that way. Also include special starter islands/ pirate nests for players with a high bounty on their head. Player condition Green - Everyone is a green player from the start. Yellow - When you attack a green or yellow player you will turn into a yellow player. Yellow players turn green again a few minutes after they last did damage to other players. Red - When you have a significant bounty by a npc faction on your head you will turn red. Only by loosing the bounty you can turn green again. Red players can only use Homeservers in pirate territory. Note that player bounties alone will not make a player turn red. So player bounties on green players can only be turned in by red players, pirates. Bounty (What is a bounty) Bounty is a gold amount on your head set by either the npc faction in which territory you commit a crime or by a player. Different factions do consider different things a crime. Crime (What gives you a bounty) - Killing green player, tiny bounty. (Except pirate territory) - Destroying building parts of others, tiny bounty. (Except pirate territory) - Stealing from locked containers, small bounty. (Except pirate territory) - Attacking ship, small bounty. (Except pirate territory) (Medium bounty in Trader faction territory) - Sinking ship, huge bounty. (Except pirate territory) (Medium bounty in Navy faction territory) - Taking green or yellow players as prisoner, large bounty. (Except pirate territory) (Medium bounty in Navy faction territory) - Player placing bounty on your head. - Killing yellow and red players, no bounty - Attacking red ships (ships of red players), no bounty - Sinking red ships, small bounty (Only in pirate territory) - Escaping a cage, small bounty (Except pirate territory) Jail & Debuff (How to loose bounties) A bounty will reduce when the player is online and sitting in a cage owned by the npc faction, player or company that placed the bounty. You can relatively easy escape a cage after a short while if you don’t want to sit idle but your bounty will no longer decline and you get a small amount added on top of it for escaping. You have to flee the area as well so your company rescuing you would be an option. If their head is delivered instead and the bounty is paid they will receive a debuff that reduces xp, damage the player deals, harvest and taming rates significantly. The debuff will contain the amount of bounty that got paid doubled and every goldcoin the player picks up will automatically be used to pay of the debuff until it is gone. Players remain red while they have the debuff. Bounties will also reduce naturally with time but very slow. Payment (How to get paid) Obviously the debuff or jail time must hit significantly harder than the bounty is worth to prevent misuse. Deliver the head or the player alive to a npc faction headquarter to receive the bounty placed by the npc faction. Bonus money for alive players. Deliver the head or player alive to the player or company that placed a bounty on its head. Be aware that players or companies can refuse to pay the bounty, so skilled bounty hunters need some measures to bargain That’s about the basic bounty system for players. I like the idea of company or ship bounties. On top of this there could be more bounty systems: Company bounty The company bounty is the cumulated bounty of its players and will decide if a company will turn red as a whole including all members. If player looses its bounty or is removed from the company it will also be removed from the company bounty. Ship bounty If you earn a bounty while a ship owned by you or your company is close by the ship will earn the same bounty, plus players can also add bounties on a ship directly. If a ship with a bounty is sunk you will earn this bounty. Again the owner of the ship will receive a debuff that will take gold from ship boxes the player owns to pay off the debuff. The amount of gold to pay of the debuff is always twice the amount of the bounty that is paid to prevent companies to profit from bounties set on them. Unlike player bounties, ship bounties can be paid off with the normal gold cost at the npc factions. Flags (Yield mechanic) Flag Basic You can raise a flag on your ship that also influences faction and pvp. It’s especially handy for pvp but also for pve server or areas. Flags have a cooldown before they can be changed again. Flags can also be applied to npc settlements and player claims and have the same rules. Available flags are: Trader Flag Is a neutral flag and has no special effect. Hostiles like pirates or factions you have a bad reputation will target you. Company Flag You represent your company and your deeds will affect its reputation and the standing towards other companies, factions and players and their reputation towards your company if they that take actions against you. You can take actions against hostile companies (declared company war) without earning a bounty on your head. Faction Flag You represent an NPC faction and can sail their waters and use their ports but are hunted by their enemies. Flags of factions are only available if you have a good enough standing with that faction. (Your reputations with said faction will increase from doing quests for npcs in ports and your reputation will decline if attacking faction ships or npcs.) Pirate Flag You will go hostile to all around you including unallied pirates and can take pirate actions but will earn a bounty on your head if you do so. No one will get a bounty for attacking a pirate, you cannot lower the flag for a while after raising it. The pirate flag will be forced if your bounty is too high making you a well-known pirate. Navy Flag You will be hostile to pirates and players with bounties, while everyone can attack pirates without a penalty, pirates can fight of navy ships without a penalty. Navy ships have an escape blocking aura. If you die within the aura around a hostile navy ship you will be forced to respawn in a bed that is also within this aura if you don’t have a bed in range you will pass out and can be taken prisoner. White Flag Raising the white flag will yield to enemies, npcs and players alike. Your sails will be closed and all abroad will be forced to kneel down so you cannot fight. Attacking a ship or npc that has yielded and sinking it will have very high bounty penalty excluding pirate ships. A yielded ship will unlock all containers and doors and can be looted by player pirates as much as they like to. Hostile NPCs will come alongside yielded ships and transfer a part or all content of boxes and inventories depending on reputation and faction, npc pirates and the legion of the damned will also take your crew. Player pirates can take over yielded ships and enslave the crew but it will earn them a very high bounty that’s not worth the gain unless you are among the few most famous pirates that can keep fighting of everything that will be after you. (Ships should not be sunk for no reason, that very important to make the world evolve) Reputation You should be able to trade even with a neutral standing and earn a bit of reputation depending on the faction. Trader factions give more reputation for trading but another source of reputation are the quest npc in towns that can give you trade runs but also combat, salvage or exploration missions which earn you a bigger reputation and gold reward on completing. The local market in npc towns having different prices allows to play as a trader if you want and earn gold if you reach a port with the right wares to sell with a bargain. Unlike civil flags of course a combat faction like the navy or pirates do require you to fight their enemies to earn their flag and makes you enemies with the other faction from sinking their ships. Upkeep & Decay & Taxes New item resource-stack (like the ship resource-box). Repair hammer will automatically use resources from the resource-stack in the building. Like ships every building can have one resource-stack. Ships and buildings will now decay very fast. The resource-box and resource-stack will automatically use resources to counter that decay (upkeep). There is a minimum upkeep for every box or stack to maintain itself, additional it will charge a cost for the amount of pieces the ship or building has attached. Zones mechanics: Freeport – No building, cannot anchor ships in the port area. No de-spawn timer or faster decay needed. Lawless – Upkeep cost will keep buildings from decaying. Claimed Citizen – The upkeep cost will go towards the taxes and the ship or building stays in shape. No or low taxes on basic resource collection, normal taxes on gold treasures. Claimed Owner – No building and ship decay or upkeep for the owner and allies. Significant gold upkeep for the claim itself. Exploration Zones – No building, ships upkeep like in lawless. This will allow the server to get cleared fast from abandoned stuff including ships. It will also allow player that want to go on vacation to put enough resources into the box for whatever time frame they will be away. Foundation spamming is effectively countered as they will decay fast and it is costly to put a resource-stack for every foundation and keep it filled with the minimum upkeep. This versatile system, will allow to avoid bad experiences with de-spawn timers, foundation spamming, too expensive, cheap, long or short upkeep phases. And allows new players easy access as in all Zones the same system applies, upkeep & decay always at the same rates. Trading, crafting and resources Quality Crafting stuff will result in different quality. Better skill and higher tier resources will produce better results -> a ship plank from strong wood is better than one from soft wood. Crafting skills Add crafting skills that slightly reduce the required mats. Maybe different skills for every kind of material like metal or wood. Containers Containers have a maximum weight limit so you actually cant throw everything into one container. Containers can be moved, smalls ones by hand and carts and big ones with cranes(add cranes for this) and large carts. Trader counter A build and placeable counter where you can place items and set a price on them to buy or sell works when manned by player or npc crew. Freight Box When you access a player shop or trade hub you will have access and can select all inventories of your freight boxes in the vicinity of the shop to trade the wares or buy them. For example your ship needs to be in the harbor and every trade will take a while to commence (unloading). Trade Hub/Port The trade hub/port is a central coastal building that will show all offers of player shops in the vicinity and will also allow players to put their wares up for sale without upkeep but paying a tax when it is sold. The sales tax can be set by the owner and is limited to 30%. Every day the offer is not sold the tax will increase by 5% when it reaches 100% the offer is taken down and the wares belong to the owner of the trade hub. The trade hub has a reasonable upkeep for the owner. While the player shops/shacks will have far less upkeep, preferable they should decay and need to be repaired with resources not gold. Renting and Trading Allow to rent rooms or buy content of chests by asking a gold amount to unlock a door or chest. Npc settlements Liven up trade buy having npc cities with traders that buy and sell with different prices and demand and might give trade requests to players that are rewarded with extra gold upon delivery. Workstations A new basic workstation that is easily build and move most none primitive part from inventory crafting to this station and the smithy. Crafting stations now take more time to produce parts and do not manufacture until manned by a player or npc crew. Faster crafting skills affecting crafting tasks set by the player with the skill, npc manufacture much slower than the player when using the stations. NPC workforce Possibility to set hired npcs to slowly collect resources independently in a certain area around a collection box. As long as you can protect them you will be able to skip on the most boring part of the game and get mats for a new ship with enough time. Backpacks and stuff Craftable backpacks that increase carry capacity. Items in backpacks have their weight reduced. Bags to be placed in inventories reducing weight of items inside. Can also be placed on the ground, carts... Saddlebags increasing carry capacity and reduce weight of items inside. Normal inventory reduced carry capacity but include very basic bags and backpacks that can already be crafted on starter islands and boost it to about the current basic level. Creatures Normal Creatures - Reduced Size to real size - Normal wildlife, plentiful, less aggressive - normal behavior, wolves hunt at night rest during the day etc. - tameable, some smaller versions like wolves are not rideable, can be tamed faster than the current taming speed - levelrange, every creature can spawn at levels considering their strength and size: chicken lv 1-20 wolf lv 20-60 tiger lv 50-100 elephant lv 50-80 Alpha Creatures - using the current size(oversized) of creatures - tameable, but take more time to be tamed - rideable, for example alpha wolves are rideable unlike the normal sized ones - creatures picked to spawn as alpha will double their level and receive a health buff (health buff does not carry over to tamed ones) - alphas can be accompanied by a pack of normal creatures, for example a pack of wolves following an alpha wolf - only appropriate alphas, no alpha chickens and stuff Omega Creatures - rare and strong monsters of large size like dragons and other beasts. if you come across one while exploring the jungle you be running for your life - only hunt them in groups (introduce a tracking skill so they can remain rare sights) - if one is found trigger an local event everyone can join in to fight together (separate loot for all participants) Titan Creatures - like the kraken, only for massive groups - big monsters or large group of enemies like an undead army - unlike the kraken they also appear randomly triggering world events for everyone to attend - can attack islands and all need to band together to fend them off, will disappear after a while if not defeated (there will be a warning a few days before the creature attacks like dead fish on the beach, bubbles in the water, strange weather or an undead armada on the horizon...) - is a natural replacement for decay, instead of buildings and ships getting deleted after a while they will get damaged or destroyed by titan attacks and are more likely to happen on heavily inhabited islands but no more than once a month per island Behavior - attack delay, for example a shark will not attack as soon as you contact the water surface but start circling you for a bit bevor attacking, a wolf will tail you and team up with nearby wolves and is more likely to attack when turning your back on it, etc. General - need more creatures to liven up the world in the long term - tameable LotD with tarot skills, give us undead breeding, be the first Taming New taming mechanic optional or replacement however you see fit. Activate taming skill and hold out the food. This will prevent creatures you look at from getting aggro on you or fleeing from you, does only work if they dont reacted to you already so you have to start from far away with agressive creatures and always look at them to keep them from reacting in the normal way(aggro/flee). Creatures will also flee or attack with a certain chance that depends on your sneaking skill and how fast you move towards them. Once you reach them there is a chance they will eat the food depending on its quality and what kind of food you are offering. Agressive creatures will attack when rejecting the food. You have to repeat until the taming bar is full, if attacked you have to flee and loose aggro to continue taming or if it stays in the game you continue with the bola method. Weapons and Armor Dual Wield Dual wield swords and daggers and add daggers. Cant do something wrong with this its an always welcomed feature. You should also be able to dual wield every one handed item. Like a grappling hock in one hand and a sword in the other so you can attack when you swing over to an enemy ship. Also it would make guns more viable as you are not defenseless against meele while holding one. Maybe with a meele rebalance that does allow for less slashing and more parrying it will feel even more authentic and fun. Unarmed/martial arts Add kicks and combo moves to make unarmed fighting more viable with knockbacks and combos for some additional effects like stunning or knock down. + Ability to disarm enemies. Job armor and clothes Every job should have appropriate clothing, light and warm version. For example dancers shouldn’t be dancing around in fur armor or ship builders in metal armor. Outfits give bonuses to the corresponding profession and liven up the world. Magic Since magic will be added some ideas for magic types and purposes Necromancy – Recruiting/summoning and controlling an army of the dead crew. Transforming into an undead yourself -> undead don’t need air and can live under water. Able to resurrect dead players and npc crew as undead crew. Turn your ship into a ghost ship, able to dive (cannons don’t work under water thou but good for surprise appearance) Voodoo – Cursing weapons, ships, players and animals and lifting curses, changing the weather/wind (bad) Divine – Blessing weapons, ships, players, animals or harvest, changing the weather/wind (good) SkilltreeAs a long time goal a rework of the xp system would be preferable.  There will be different XP for the different skill trees. For example building a ship gives you seamanship xp and sailing a ship gives captaineering xp or hitting with a meele weapon gives meele weaponry xp… -> If you build ships you become a better ship builder, if you fight a lot you become a better fighter and so on. This comes along with a rework of xp amounts so you make some worthy progress with each action, where building a ship for 8 hours gives you as much progress with seamanship as killing creatures for 8 hours gives weapon xp. Also the skill-trees are expanded to give more passive bonuses and active skills with every tree for a more in depth specialization above the basics. Player Conditions Player wounds and weight Introduce heavy wounds, heavy overweight - both force you to crawl so you cannot interact with for example ladders with heavy overweighting and stuff.Limb damage effects - reducing meele damage (arms), accuracy (head), stamina (chest) or walking/dodging (legs). Aging When you die of old age you will have to make a new character but keep your progress level and exploration and ships etc. and get to respect your character once. (No respect on level up anymore) When you die of old age and have a child you can choose to play as the child and will also keep levels, exploration and ships etc. with a free respect. Depending on how well the child was raised you will get a permanent stat bonus to your lineage like more health or stamina. When using the fountain of youth you will get a free respect and are young again.

Ahoy Pathfinders! We’re back with another edition of Dev Q&A. We have info on PvE, game balance, and even a few cosmetics in the works. So thanks to all the pathfinders that submitted questions in the Discord. The Atlas team is dedicated to provide as much transparency as we can since we feel the community is also a part of the team. Often the loudest of the members, you provide us with feedback, suggestions, and even a compliment or two. Therefore, we feel it is necessary to be open with the community in all facets. We hope you will continue to support us through rough (and calm) seas. Until next time, we appreciate your support and ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. Without further ado, here’s our Q&A! Hang out at our Discord for a chance to get your questions answered in the next Q&A! Q&A Can you confirm if there will still be island claiming system or will it be lawless everywhere after the wipe? We are still making updates to the area claim system and are going to focus on that. The Island claim system is likely to stick around after the wipe, but the map changes are still being finalized so that is subject to change. Either way the Island Claim System should be available for private servers. Can we get some details of the theme and vision? We're not planning to overhaul the game. We are planning to lean into things we have and reinforce them more with new content. So you might see Army of the Damned themed things in the world more, or Atlantis... We're also talking about introducing some pre WW1 dirty industrial content. How are small companies and solo players going to work into the game? Just like they do in the real world. Seriously. Large behemoth companies can't do everything on their own, and they can't protect everything at once. As we move towards having Wonders that companies build, it's going to require a massive amount of trade, logistics and war to get one built. This creates opportunities for smaller groups to be part of the wheels of progress or engage in acts of piracy as large amounts of resources need to be shipped on the water. When can we expect balance changes? Balance changes are happening continuously in small amounts. We don't have a focus on getting balance "right" because so many things are still getting added to the game. We want to get all of our changes in to get a better understanding of the big picture and then will come back and tighten the balance. Can we get some form of roadmap even if it has a disclaimer that the plans could change anytime? Right now we are focused on getting ready for a larger summer release. This will include more ships and some of the ship customization system talked about in another question. In addition to that, we are working on multiple maps that connect different parts of the world, rather than one large, uniform map. We also are laying the foundation for Wonders that players can build in the world by creating a general system for giving buffs to your company based on buildings you've built. The content we are working on generally will support these systems as we move towards a world where companies have more long-term goals and reasons to compete over specific land. That pretty much covers the major things we are working on for the next six months to a year. ...we all know the focus is on pvp but PVE players are still generally curious what the long term thoughts and ideas really are while lots of them generally feel marginalized and pushed aside. We are focused on making Atlas one of the best and most unique pvp games out there. We want to be able to support PVE and Private servers so that other players can also enjoy what we create. Some of our changes are specifically driving PVP goals and do not fit well with PVE. We are looking at ways we can do a better job keeping PVP changes from creating bad experiences in the PVE community without having to spend a lot of time working on it to support two different play styles. In some cases, that means we need to not put those PVP systems on PVE. It also means we need to give unofficial server owners better tools for choosing how they want their world to be configured. Right now we are working on an overhauled configuration system that lets us do this with less disruption to our development cycle. Right now many things are hard-coded to work under certain conditions. Are the new claim towers going to be modified for PVE? Will the mechanic change at all? We would like to hear what PVE players think about this. While the disruption of adding the claim towers was painful because of the point in the season it occurred, generally we think it's better to be able to lay claim to an area and not have to build fence posts to prevent anyone else from building there. We do need to figure out some issues like decay times. Weight Sail buff or changes, when? All sails are getting updated and a new system is coming for changing the stats on sail blueprints. When is a harder question. We have some larger commitments that take priority right now and are taking a “time out” on some of the smaller things we've been working on to take care of some other business, like updating the mod kit, overhauling configurations, cleaning up a lot of bugs, and growing the team. What tweaks do the team have for the new claim system, we are testing on Lawless islands? We're still in the process of seeing how the meta changes from the new claims before making tweaks. As far as in the long term, we're planning to add some unique buildings and locations that must be captured with this system to get the benefit. The intention is for players to have strategic points on islands that give them an offensive or defensive benefit. Capturing an entire island might be a multiple day process as you have to take over these locations, build your own buildings, and wait for the benefits to kick in. When will you add side quests? Maybe ones that earn players gold, loot, and xp? Other ones aside from the skill tree achievements/ pve bosses? In the past there have been some MMORPG elements added to the game and we have decided this is not the best use of our time because this does not fit the kind of game we are making. Atlas is a sandbox survival game and we are fully committed to spending our dev effort on making tools for players to create their own interesting stories. Are you guys gonna make more tames/bosses? More tames are in the works! Our current focus (within the taming system) is making more existing creatures tameable. Crocodiles are next on the list and will be released soon. We don't plan to add new bosses. Our current boss fights didn't work well and were easily exploited, so we'd like to clean those up, and ultimately we want to focus on player stories rather than PVE content. When will we see further information about the new ship system and further adjustments? We are continuously making balance changes to the new ship system and the customization features described in this post are currently in development. The first customization feature will be released soon and will allow players to craft and swap a variety of railing types. The railings available with the launch of this feature will include Standard Railings, Cannon Railings, Cargo Rack Railings, Diving Attachment Railings, and Dinghy Hangar Railings. We know everyone loves the ability to paint their ships and we are also working to make the new ship system compatible with the painting system. Will the current ship system still be available to build next season or is it just going to be these new modular ships? There is no plan to remove the original ship system. That wouldn't even be a possibility until the other system is fully implemented. We would like the two systems to exist side by side unless something changes that makes this no longer possible. This poses some balance issues that we are going to have to address at some point. Will there be a new map implemented? Some changes to the map layout will be coming with the wipe in order to support Tradewinds. Later this year, you'll see a much larger overhaul of the map with portals to new areas. Is there any plan to add a farmhouse-like structure that could also feed tames? Or the ability for tames on wandering to feed themselves from wild berries/ food? We would like to eventually introduce a Stable structure where players can store their tames. We plan to add a similar module for the new ship system that allows easier tame transport. When will we get cosmetic hat microtransactions/vendor? We don't currently plan to add microtransactions for cosmetics or anything else even. Most of our art effort is focused on making new ships right now, but we do have one new hat coming soon! Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information Natter n' chatter on Discord: https://discord.gg/playatlas Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas Plus ye can band with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame View full article

Hi team, More discussion tonight around the water barrel, about keeping the game interesting for more than a few weeks. It seems odd that "flag fights" such as the kraken and ice cave have basically no prerequisite other than being there. Only one person needs to have the 9 powerstones to trigger the kraken. Everyone else in a wide area gets the flag simply for being in the vicinity when the kraken dies. This means that a scrub on a raft sitting outside the kraken arena can get their flag with no effort, then go to the ice cave. I don't know that fight, but I'm sure it's possible for said scrub to simply be in the area and they'll also get the 2x harvesting feat. Obviously for those people who are risking their lives, gear and ships, this is unfair. But there's a second aspect. Currently, you can hit the end game with very little effort and time. A company can have just one person get their powerstones, have everyone come along for the fight, and everyone gets their submarine without having to put in any work. You get 60 or so DP for each one, but that's once-off, I believe. Suggestion: * Require at least 7 or 8 powerstones to get the Kraken flag. Require at least 7 or 8 powerstones and the kraken flag to enter the ice cave. * Have the kraken fight give a decent hit of XP and drop loot (ideally actual items rather than blueprints) to encourage and reward all participants, even those who won't be getting their flag on this particular fight. See also my posts on consumable powerstones

So what was the objective with the island point changes? I'm guessing you want to encourage more people to settle the unclaimed islands. That's great except that I fear you've misunderstood why players claim islands. The problem is not the cost. It's the islands themselves. All those 69+ point islands are unclaimed because there are no resources. The size of bases relative to islands is inconsequential for the most part. IMO the order of priority for most players choosing a home base is: 1. Availability of resources 2. Proximity to other resources 3. Accessibility of land and resources 4. Environmental factors (climate, beauty, animal spawns, breeding restrictions, etc.) As metal is required in such great quantities, an island without pure metal nodes is pretty much worthless. Everything else is either lighter (thus more easily transported) or only required in small quantities (gems, crystal). There are some cheap islands in the polar regions but no one wants them because they're terrible places to live. Plenty of pure metal, sure but sparse wood, zero fibre, weather that wants to kill you, yetis and heavy spawns of wolves, and a bleak and dreary appearance that's just plain depressing. After the update tonight that introduced the point changes, we found just one 35 pointer and a handful of 57s. The rest are 69-122 pts. We checked out about 8 of them. Most had no pure metal or just a few scattered nodes. Most had stupid amounts of shallows that would require very long piers in order to service schooners and above. Almost all had really obnoxious terrain that made moving around the island just plain painful. Many were just tiny beaches stuck to the feet of massive cliffs. Based on the dozen or so plateaus that I've climbed in the last month, they will have nothing up top except trees and bushes that completely obscure vision, whether you're on foot or bear-back. There's no reason to climb up there. 80% of these islands is thus a complete waste of space and artist's time. Why would I choose to own one of these islands? I don't need acres of space. Tax income will be negligible because there are no resources to attract settlers. I can't prevent anyone from building, even if someone did come. Yet it costs me money to maintain the title. Far better to simply become a settler on a more accessible island with decent resources. --- Suggestions: From the perspective of making all islands attractive to potential leasees... Short term: (should be achievable w/o major work) * Recalculate island cost (points and upkeep), based on the resources available, not the physical size. - Sparse/Average/Dense (pure metal): 5/10/15 pts. - Sparse/Average/Dense (metal traces / crystal / gem): 2/4/6 pts. - Sparse/Average/Dense (wood / thatch / fibre /etc.): 1/2/3 pts. My island has dense pure silver, sparse pure cobalt. 15+5 Two dense woods & thatches, average fibre and sugars. Sparse crystal, no gems. 3+3+3+3+2+2+2 Total: 38 points. By contrast, most of the 122 pt islands I've seen have no pure metal, one trace metal, one or two woods, one fibre, no gems, maybe crystal. They're 10 point islands under my numbers, and that's why no one lives there! * Tame the damn weather so that living outside Temperate doesn't require legendary hot/cold gear. * Remove the biome restrictions on breeding. * Give the less attractive biomes a boost to harvesting. Longer term: (presumably next map wipe) * Rework all island resources to have more or less the same resource value (per the calcs above). At minimum, all should have some pure metal. * Other resources, crystal, gems, salt, etc. should be no more than 2 zones away from any point. etc. * Players should be able to get 3-4 types of each resource within 4 or 5 zones. * The sixth resources should only be on powerstone islands. * All islands should have a nice mix of shallows and deepwater ports. * Giant rock pillars with no reason to climb them other than the very occasional map, do not add value. They're a great place to put 2nd metals or 2nd woods, etc. --- It's 1am now and I've been looking at this missive for too long but that should explain the core of the idea. If you want to get all the islands populated, make them equally attractive in the eyes of the player, not the people writing the game lore. Cheers Perhaps this post I made yesterday resulted in this latest change. If not, you might want to have a look.

Definitely needed. Perhaps a Mutiny button could be added to the company panel. If the owner account is active, mutiny from 'admin' ranked members would require a simple majority, with ownership being transferred to randomly to one of the admins that pushed the Mutiny button. If a majority of admins isn't achieved, mutiny from non-admins would require 75% of membership to click the Mutiny button and ownership would be transferred randomly to an admin who voted in favour, or to a non-admin if no admins voted in favour. The owner should get a constant big fuck off red text "Your crewmates are mutinying!" while a mutiny is active. They should have a 'suppress mutiny' button that cancels the current leadership challenge and prevents further challenges for two weeks. If the owner account hasn't logged in for 2 weeks, those numbers should be reduced. For the purposes of calculating majorities, any accounts that haven't logged in for 2 weeks should not be counted.

It's also an issue in PvE. The issues are a little different, but they're there. You're still supposed to do the same things if you are solo or in a mega. Same goals, same rewards. I see a lot of people yelling in these threads that smalls and solos just can't expect to achieve the same things that megas can, but the problem is they've not given them anything else to achieve! It's not a one to one matchup between smalls/megas and casual/hardcore players, but they align a good bit. Hardcore players can do things that take more than a couple hours in the game, like organizing huge raids with big groups and breeding animals that require someone be online for insane amounts of time. They can do things that must be done with no interruptions. Casuals require things to do that can be done in smaller amounts of time, and most are happy to do that, even if it takes them weeks to complete. Those things usually bore hardcore players, and they consider them "grind" or useless chores they need to do to get to the fun parts. They're happy to have those kinds of things put into easy mode while asking for the things they like to do to be put in harder mode. Games attempting to cater to the smalls/solos/casuals often use skills like crafting, exploration or speciality farming to appeal to those players, but this game has not done that so far, with weak and shallow crafting lines, exploration rewards of xp only, and farming mats en masse. Hopefully that will change.

@ScarlettSwagger Few more tidbits... 1. The meat consumption is insane going from juvenile to adult. Can't remember if its 5 or 7 imprints, anyway, i would FILL 2 troughs with salted meat every 8 hours (12000 meat) for cub batches of ~8, still lost several batches due to starvation just by oversleeping a couple of hours. I was just hobby breeding but I'm 100% serious, 3 or more filled troughs recommended per 8 hours depending on litter size. 2. I parked my breeding females out of range with the bears also for the most part, once they're mature the food requirement isn't bad at all. 3. Can't remember if i raised the bottom floor/ campfire area EXACTLY 2 foundations but I think that's what it was. The important part is getting the campfires right below the mating/ birthing area to radiate upwards though... So basically just be aware they require ridiculous amounts of food growing from juvenile to adult. Was VERY fun though, some had ~750 HP, STAM, WT, w 200+ melee. Some of my dedicated sidekicks had 1000+HPS (all pretty much fully imprinted). Also I was just a part time breeder, fyi. Once again good luck, warned ya atleast TWICE about the food

Ok, after reading all your points, you do raise a couple of interesting points, like number 4. That could be fleshed out a bit more and be a positive addition to the game, but I disagree pretty much with everything else you say. let me elaborate why. This is a long term survival game and not everything g is meant to be easy, not everything is meant to be done solo, not everything is meant to require minimum effort. Why not I hear you ask.. well, if breeding was doable, solo, with a mediocre amount of effort, then 2 months in we would all be riding around on godly tames levelling the playing field and making the whole system pointless. As it stands now, a godly tame takes a lot of time, effort and preparation. That being said, the tools are there for you to overcome this obstacle. It’s called gold! As we all are different and enjoy different things, Those who are that way inclined devote a lot of time to breeding, and they’re damn good at it. As they devote a lot less time to the things solo/smaller companies do, (like treasure maps or loading a ship with resources) they are usually willing to trade. The amount of gold a solo/small company can accumulate is ridiculous, so buying a bad ass tame is easily within your means as a casual gamer. With respect, you clearly didn’t do your homework on breeding. It can be done solo, but it’s much easier with teamwork of at least 2 of you. But the fact remains that too many people expect to be able to do everything themselves with minimal effort and prep. Some things in this game require either teamwork, or effort, as if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have a great deal of gameplay beyond the first 2 weeks. And this is how it should be, sorry to say. If you really do expect everything to be simple, then there’s private servers for that.

Ahoy Pathfinders! Today's log will just be a brief update on our current status with our upcoming Mega patch touching on where we are! MAY MEGA UPDATE The team are currently working on wrapping up the patch for internal review and we expect it to enter our QA process later today. Following that, we'll be hitting it hard and barring any fires, we should be in a good state to get the update released onto our new Public Test Realm soon. This means that we're currently planning for the Public Test Realm to be available around the end of next week. As we get closer to the date, we'll be able to provide you with a more specific timeline. So far it's been smooth sailing, and we're on track for our end of the month release date. For those who have been away at sea, in our last Captain's Log, we covered our most recent Developer Livestream, as well as spoke about the content that's coming in the latest update. If you've not had a chance to watch the stream, you can do so here for some in-game footage of what's to come: But for those just after the nitty gritty of the patch, here's what you can expect: New Cosmetics: Hydra Steering Wheel, Hydra Hide Armour Set, and Cyclops Heavy Armour Set! New Offensive Structure: Torpedo Launcher (and torpedoes!) New Boat Attachment: Cargo Racks! New Cart Attachment: Large Storage Box! New Tool: Fishing Net! New Ballista Ammo Type: Boat Harpoon New Weapon: Spear Gun! New Creature: Olfend New Creature: Giant Tortugar New Level: Ice Dungeon New Weapon: Crossbow New Structure: 3x4 Medium Gates New Structure: Ice Box - a high-insulation box for transporting ice. Has “active” mode that will drain ice but reduce surrounding temperature (reverse fire). Consumes less ice if “indoors”. Extends spoil time of things inside, but greatly extends the storage time of ice. Also has an option to turn ice into water to consume. New Resource: Ice - Must be harvested from cold zones. Decays relatively quickly if not in “insulated” storage. Can be consumed to reduce temperature for a short duration (15s per ice cube, max of 5 mins). Relatively heavy. New Feature: Company-wide map markers New Feat: Instant Hotbar Equip QOL: Structure Weights now displayed on items QOL: Revamped Skill Tree UI (first pass has already made it in!) With more still to come! latest Patch notes While working on the mega patch, we are still continuing to iterate on the live game. These are the updates that the game has seen since our last Captain's Log. 104.56 - Skill UI redesign (first pass, more work to come with it!) - Fixed misalignment with female first person hand view v104.55 - Ending Magic Mythos event on Official Servers v104.52 - Large Cannons not snapped onto Gunports on Servers using bDontRequireLargeCannonsToSnapOnShips=true will now fire correctly. v104.51 - RMB or Middle Mouse Button will now "drop" a grenade - Grenade physics tweaked slightly be weightier, damage radius increased 15%, and grenade explosions now move with ships properly - Stationed NPC's aside from puckle are now properly melee-damageable - Added server option to allow large cannons to not require snap on ship: Game.ini ShooterGameMode bDontRequireLargeCannonsToSnapOnShips=true - Fixes for cyclops Cloth boots and Kraken Hat not being rewarded - Switched from Add New Item to Increment Item Quantity for Milk and Wool from Cow and Sheep to prevent being limited to Max Item Quantity if the player had no exiting stacks of the item given. - Increased max amounts at full yield from 60 to 80 for Cow and 100 to 200 for Sheep. - Melee Combat, fixing two bugs related to blocking: Setting traces to use zero instead of complex collision groups on clients so that clients properly see hits Fixing mistaken/unclear orderings for block determination that led to servers failing to correctly identify and pass along a block if the client-based block didn't succeed (such as in the cases where the client couldn't land a hit due to the collision group) - Added a "turn off" option to ballista and catapult - Fixed floating characters on standable tames such as elephants - Fixed a bug where clients would see characters that had been grapple pulled off tame still move with their tames as if they were mounted resulting in a weird flight-like state. - Added option to hide the pause menu's Server Info Panel 104.33 - Fixed an issue with leatherwing's grab - Large cannons should now properly snap to all gunports - Large cannon snaps now require floor/deck underneath - Nature's touch cooldown now has unique icon - Coral item now has correct coal-type item category icon - Reduced Golden Age creature spawns by 60% and increased their respawn interval by a factor of 3 - The extra Water-structure foundation checks now only check against other Water-structures, and do not apply for Settlement Owners - Item Skins are no longer eliminated when Trading v104.2 - Hid the unclaim boat button as it's not ready for public release yet - Fixed an issue where Large Cannons were being destroyed on the destruction of a gunport they were snapped to - When demolishing a non-ship/core type structures on a non-fully-anchored boat, resources will not be returned to you. This will be indicated to you via the demolish HUD. The boat must be fully anchored to get resources back for non-ship/core type structures. v104.14 Balance Changes - Crab can no longer grab crew off stations - Ship claim time reduced by 5x when a ship is unanchored. - Large Cannons can now only be placed in gun ports when on ships. Existing Large Cannons that have been placed on decks or ceilings will not be functional and will need to be demolished. - Small reduction in Large Cannon damage - One-time doubling of acquired Discovery Points for all previously existing player profiles - Players will now get 2 Discovery Points per regular discovery rather than 1 - Quest Discovery Points have also increased by approximately 2x - Lighthouses will check for nearby enemy players before being able to be successfully placed - Large Gateways, Gates, and Large walls will check for nearby online players before being able to be placed unless on Settlements during peacetime. - Core Structures will check for nearby online players before being able to be placed during Combat Phase on Settlements - Flotsam gold reward gold increased by 20% - Crew Payment Interval doubled (this means that you'll need to pay them less gold) - Shipwreck Gold Reward doubled - Creatures able to be equipped with armour along with Crew are now able to equip gear above common quality. - Any structure that checks for enemy foundations when placed in water now has a 4x enemy foundation check radius (such as pillars and shipyards) - There is now a creature specific cooldown on Nature's Touch QoL Changes - Increased spoil timer on SotD loot. - Reduction in Blizzard Sound Effect volume - Crewmembers will no longer eat Water Jars from the food larder or their inventories - Transferring materials with a filter on now transfers all children types too. For example, filtering HIDE will transfer Leather, Fur, Hair, etc. - Transferring items of a higher than base quality will now automatically go into the hotbar space Bug Fixes -The Accordion song, “A Mockatoo Once Told Me” will now appropriately apply the buff to players in the area - Fix to the movement of elevator when manually operated - Fixed a crash on transition - Submarine now consumes fuel consistently after crossing a world border - Kracken should no longer aggro onto ships/players outside of the barrier - Fixed an issue related to ships transitioning with players when a catapult was used - Fixed a basing issue which could occur when crabs jumped off ships - Fixed an issue caused by opening the feats wheel then pressing “i” which caused the mouse cursor to be placed on screen. - An unraised noose on a ship will no longer cause a player to take damage upon transferring - Fixed an exploit related to harvesting from crop plots - Fixed an issue with crop plots unintentionally being able to be stacked - A player’s bag will no longer spawn above the cave if they die completing the Powerstone quest - Items inside a loot bag will now register the correct weight - Fixed a visual bug related to the cloth Cyclops Helmet skin - Cannons can no longer be placed right beside another (to address stacking three cannons inside a gun port) - The sextant compass buff will no longer be removed upon logging out - Fixed Hydra Spawn on H6 - Cleaned up levels from Mnt_R_PVE and reworked spawns on Cay_H - Cannonballs will no longer pass through own collision - Gateways and Gates can no longer be placed in Freeports or Golden Age Ruin servers - Alloy will now be correctly detected from a resource repair box Misc - Settlement Owners on our PvE Networks can no longer set rules on building offensive structures - Rectified an inconsistency when painting decks and ceilings on ships - Adjusted the Chest Width slider for females in the character creation screen - Corrected Hide Cyclops Armour name in BP description v103.32 - Improved logic for fixes related to items/blueprints changing into Engrams. v103.31 - Fixed another case where items/blueprints could change into Engrams. v103.3 - Fixed a bug which would have caused items/blueprints to change into Engrams. v103.2 - Fixed a bug which would have caused items/blueprints to change into Engrams. Complete Patch Notes: SHOW 'N' TELL #7 We loved looking over the entries for Show 'n Tell 7 and we're excited to showcase this collection so you can check out player's creative endeavours and piratey adventures! Feast yer eyes on th' best o' th' bunch below! WINNERS ATLASGENESIS I...have no words...this made me laugh. Fantastic editing and shots also. Congratulations, you take first place! GLOBYTHEOLDPIRATE Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow OTAWA72 Otawa is at it again with stunning composition and quality. KNIVET This unique perspective on an elephant shrouded in firelight caught our eye. HONOURABLE MENTIONS ENKI ANNUNAKI XXVISIONARYXX Alrighty, that ’s it for this log! Thank you so much for becoming a part of our crew and we can't wait to show all you scallywags, landlubbers, captains, and seadogs what lies ahead! Happy Sailing, Grapeshot Games For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information Natter n' chatter on Discord: https://discord.gg/playatlas Navigate ye olde Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/playatlas Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas Plus ye can band with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame View full article

We’ve got a pretty jam-packed post for you today! Because of your amazing participation, providing tons of questions for our team, we’ve decided to split responses into two posts. Since we received a large amount of inquiries regarding PvP balances, we’ll be discussing those questions separately in a later post. Because today, we have a few special topics we’ll be addressing first. Our first entry is a reply from the dev team regarding the inclusion of a new ship building system. Next, we have a new survey for you all to provide feedback on Ships and we can’t wait to hear your responses. Finally, we finish up with Q&A, excluding PVP questions previously mentioned. In an effort to provide more transparency between the team and the community, we continue to look for more ways to blend the goals of the two entities to make Atlas as great as we both know it can be. We appreciate your support and ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. New lawless Land Claim Changes In the patch dropping early next week, we’ll be introducing a new claim system to the lawless regions of Atlas. Moving forward, Pathfinders will now be able to claim land in these areas using a claim tower that will claim everything within its radius after it reaches full health. This takes about 45 minutes and may be sped up with gold. These changes will take effect immediately with the release of the new update and will make your structures be vulnerable to being claimed by others. Armored Docks may be claimed in this manner, and that includes the ships docked there! Previously we mentioned that there may be a wipe with the new claim system if it becomes necessary. However, we are able to implement this without requiring it, so please note that there is NO WIPE at this time. Note to Private Server Owners: Private servers will be unaffected by this change - functionality to make this change to your server will come in the patch after. Without further ado, here’s our Q&A! Hang out at our Discord for a chance to get your questions answered in the next Q&A! Q&A What are long term visions for the balance of island defense. I personally like that it's currently incredibly difficult to steal islands (contesting needs a lot of work). But a large contributor to why it's currently so hard comes from my question in #1--how easy it is to spam islands. If we suddenly had to think very carefully about structure count throughout the island, how are companies going to keep themselves properly protected without leaning on structure count? We agree that islands are incredibly hard to assault right now when facing an entrenched, knowledgeable defender. There are a variety of reasons for this, from the layout of the islands such as massive pillars, to unintended strategies such as spamming structures all over the place to prevent others from building or bringing in tames easily. We are focused on long-term solutions rather than quick fixes. Ideally, we want players to be forced into making choices about how they spend their limited resources. This means they should have to pick which places they are going to spend their effort to defend. The answer should not be that they can defend everything. We’re moving towards a game where you need to have a strong navy if you want to defend your shoreline. Cannonball physics are currently pretty bad. They travel incredibly slowly, to the point that these massive warships can actively dodge them like we're in some sort of space simulator. Additionally, there is no forward momentum physics so things like chaser cannons don't work. Is the team looking at adjusting these things? Shooting any of the ship-mounted weapons forwards results in some unrealistic behaviors that we'd like to eliminate. We're looking at solutions for this. Are alliances going to get reduced again (they should, or should have some sort of settler mechanic)? Atlas is about interactions, both positive and negative, with other players and Companies. We would like those stories to be told and dictated by players rather than by a heavy-handed developer approach. This means giving players lots of opportunities to cooperate and fight over limited resources. A single megacorp is not good for the game and yet we have large goals for Companies in mind that will require massive efforts from many players to accomplish. Keep listening and we'll be talking about those plans soon enough. In the meantime, we do not plan to mess with the balance of Companies and Alliances without fully addressing the overall ecosystem. What are some more solo XP grinding opportunities the team is looking at so smaller companies don't get left in the dust with no way to catch up? This is a great question. We really want to support lone wolves and small companies as a vital part of the game world. Compared to a lot of the other games we have played or worked on, Atlas XP seems to be in a really weird place and is frankly pretty broken. Large, organized death squads farm ridiculous amounts of XP with little real effort and hit level cap within a few days of a wipe, while players who are new or are in small companies are playing what feels like a completely different game. This creates a lot of power disparity between different groups of players and contributes to making it very difficult for players not in companies to feel like they can compete. XP is like a holdover from RPGs that this game has inherited, and it’s tied into a lot of different systems in the game. We want new players to have their options slowly rolled out to them so they aren't overwhelmed, and at the same time we don't want to create a grindy experience for veterans. Ultimately, we'd rather this game be focused on player expertise rather than character level, and long term are looking at how we can move towards that. Some of the specific things we are considering are ways to spread leveling out over the entire season while not making it grindy, or giving tools to everyone to get to the level cap early and creating more ways to increase your cap through actions in the game that are interesting, and again not grindy. Let us know your thoughts. Will there be more options in ship PvP? Yes! One of the goals of the new ship system is to provide players with more meaningful choices when constructing ships. As we expand the system, players will need to decide which pieces will provide the most value for their strategy. We intend to provide a variety of equally viable options that expand the meta and support a variety of playstyles. Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information Natter n' chatter on Discord: https://discord.gg/playatlas Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas Plus ye can band with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame View full article

If your game is actively going towards pvp and forcing PVE to go to private or unofficial servers (some of which require a fee) I want my money back. I will not be forced to go to PVP A part of the game I had no interest in. I bought this game for PVE AND PVE ALONE! If your forcing a change in the game I’m going to start forcing you to give me a refund. let the games begin. G

Ahoy Pathfinders! We’ve got a pretty jam-packed post for you today! Because of your amazing participation, providing tons of questions for our team, we’ve decided to split responses into two posts. Since we received a large amount of inquiries regarding PvP balances, we’ll be discussing those questions separately in a later post. Because today, we have a few special topics we’ll be addressing first. Our first entry is a reply from the dev team regarding the inclusion of a new ship building system. Next, we have a new survey for you all to provide feedback on Ships and we can’t wait to hear your responses. Finally, we finish up with Q&A, excluding PVP questions previously mentioned. In an effort to provide more transparency between the team and the community, we continue to look for more ways to blend the goals of the two entities to make Atlas as great as we both know it can be. We appreciate your support and ‘til next time, may your skies be clear, waters calm, and sails full in whichever way you roam. From the Captain's Quarters We have heard your concerns regarding the new ship system and we would like to discuss our goals for it to help set expectations. We love the level of customization the original ship system provides and we will continue to support it for as long as possible. Currently, there are no plans to remove the original ship system. Early Access gives us the unique opportunity to share new systems while they are still early in development. The modular ship system is one of these new systems, and it will be released in three main stages, the first of which has already begun. In the first stage, we used the new system to create pre-built ships, like the Ramming Galley and the Majestic Kraken. Our goal with this stage is to give players a sneak peek of the system while also providing a quicker option for obtaining new ships. While the ability to purchase pre-built ships isn’t going anywhere, it’s not the end goal for the new system. The next stage of the modular ship system is coming soon and will introduce customization options to pre-built ships through module swapping. We will be introducing a system similar to ‘Sail Points’ called ‘Module Points.’ Each ship will have a pool of Module Points, and every module placed on the ship’s ribbing will cost a set number of points. Higher impact modules will cost more points. As a simple example, a Midship Gunport Module with two Gunports will cost more than a Midship Gunport Module with one Gunport. We will be rolling this system out piece by piece, starting with the ability to craft and swap Railing Modules. As we expand the customization system, our goal is to introduce a variety of modules that provide meaningful choices when building ships. Players will need to decide which pieces are most valuable to their strategy and budget their points accordingly. We feel that the original ship system had little room for choice and expression because the meta was so defined. Our goal is to expand the meta to include a variety of different builds and strategies supported by the new system. Initially, we will be releasing tactically-focused modules, but eventually we will also release cosmetically-focused modules. These could include things like different Railing types or a Midship Module with windows. Cosmetic modules provide no advantage in combat but would allow players to make their ship their own. (Cosmetic modules won’t cost additional Module Points.) The final stage of the system will allow players to build modular ships from the ground up. After choosing a ship hull size, players will be able to plug in modules from a variety of available choices. (As long as they have enough Module Points!) Our goal is to eventually have enough modules that the new system will have the same level of customization as the original system. This final stage of development won’t be complete for a while, but we hope you’ll stick with us for this journey! New Survey - Ships We're back with another Community Survey! Remember, surveys will cover a specific topic, so if we haven't pushed out a survey relevant to your interests yet, please know that there will be more! If there are any topics or changes you would like to see from us in future surveys, please let us know! We're only beginning this initiative, and hope to improve our process as we continue to develop ATLAS hand in hand with the community! This month's survey is focused on collecting early feedback to our New Ship System / Ships for Gold System. So far, we currently have the Ramming Galley and the Majestic Kraken out, with plans for many new and unique ships on the way. The goal is to create a highly customizable and modular ship system where players can make meaningful choices when building their ships. Before you complete the survey - if you haven't already, please make sure you have read the latest about our goal for this new Ships system in the Captain’s Quarters section above, as it will provide more details. Please find the link to the survey here Although we cannot promise to commit any specific change, we would want to be able to quantify which issues players care about most by using this survey to reach as broad an audience as possible. We appreciate your support! Thank you! Without further ado, here’s our Q&A! Hang out at our Discord for a chance to get your questions answered in the next Q&A! Q&A Will the new claim system address the long-standing problems many islands have of "lawless" areas in what should be Island-owned territory? We have been getting a lot of great data about claiming since Early Access started. Each system has had some good aspects and bad aspects. Every player has different needs and ideas about what they want. The new Area Claim system is meant to fill in some gaps and for now will live side by side with the existing island claim system. The island system still has some flaws and bugs and will be looking to address that in the future when we decide how it fits into the big picture. With the new theme and vision, will single player still be part of that? While PvP is our primary focus when designing content, we want to ensure new features are also supported in our other game modes. (Including Single Player!) Are patches being tested in single player or are they only tested for multiplayer purposes? Recent patches have addressed some Single Player specific bugs and we plan to continue this in future patches. Your reports speed up the bug squishing process, so please continue reporting any bugs you come across. Can you enable the market system on single player? The Trade System runs on a separate server from the game to allow Markets on different servers to talk to each other. When it comes to single player, it will have to be same-server trading only. This change will require some engineering work and we do not know yet when we are going to make that happen. Will there be factions or AI? It would make PVE more interesting. What do you think of having PVP only at sea while land is PVE? Our direction for Atlas is to make rich player interactions, whether that is through conflict or cooperation, and that is where we will spend most of our development effort. We have talked about factions and think those fit better with an MMORPG style game rather than a massively multiplayer sandbox game focused on PVP. When will there be a massive Structure limit for land bases? How do you intend to prevent massive Structure spam that was used in PVP as defense meta on any island and in PVE to claim land on lawless? Spamming structures is not fun gameplay and we would like to get it out of the game. We have some tools available, such as restricting the number of structures that can be built. Each of those options come with drawbacks. We'd like to find a solution that feels good within the world, is good for performance, and isn't so ugly. One of the things we are working on is giving players more choices when building. For example, rather than having to spam 100 walls, we are adopting some of the modding community's solutions and making large stone blocks so that larger defensive structures can be made with fewer pieces. We are also looking at making more automated structures that are designed specifically for defense. When can we take exact amounts of resources out of a resource box? Can we please have a keybind to pull one single stack of something from a ship resources chest? Thank you for the suggestion! We'll look into this. We love hearing ideas that make Atlas a smoother experience. What Holidays are to be recognized going forward? So far with the new team we've enjoyed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s and then skipped over Valentine’s. Is there a list, or is it just if there's time given the more frequent Updates? We don't have a formal list of events, but we like to celebrate as many holidays as our development schedule allows. Our primary focus is on new features, quality of life changes, balance, and bug fixes, so most holidays will be celebrated with rate up events. However, the Winter Event was a lot of fun to prepare, so you may see something similar in the future. (Anyone want a pair of Bunny Ears?) Do you plan to make any changes to the current economic system? Gold is pretty abundant on PVP, and absurdly worthless on PVE due to the lack of any major goldsinks. Do you have any plans to change gold cost settings between PVP and PVE? PVP sinks gold into war-dec tokens, drakes, and 1000s of defensive npcs. PVE has none of this and island costs are minimal - there is little chance of islands changing ownership on PVE until the owner doesn't log in for 10 days. This is one of our core focuses on the game right now. We definitely have some more gold sinks in mind and would love to hear your ideas. Please note that with our small team, at this stage in development, we are focused on balancing PVP first. Gold is only one aspect of the economy. We would also like to see a thriving and competitive resource economy. Right now it's very hard for small companies to get a variety of resources, and very easy for large companies to get nearly all of the resources. Since this is tied so closely to competitive balance, it accentuates the gaps between these player groups. We have started working on the next map, and it will give you more reasons to value different islands for the unique characteristics they contain. This is something we’ll talk more about in the future. Question, will more gear for the players (like new swords, guns, and armor) be added as time goes on? Atlas is a game about telling player stories. Custom gear or content is one of the places we would like to reinforce that. Rather than take the standard RPG approach where the devs craft thousands of items, we'd rather give the tools to players to let them craft unique and interesting items within the game, so we will be working on those sorts of systems instead. That said, most of our art effort in the next year is focused on creating awesome new ships, so new visuals for player gear are not likely to be added soon. Does the team envision that it could be viable to just sail 24-7 and totally avoid land from the beginning of the game? With the introduction of new ships, Sea Forts, and water tames, the ocean is more alive than ever before and we will continue developing content that pulls people towards the sea. We have a variety of features in development including physical trade ships that can be intercepted to steal resources. We are moving towards a world in which a strong navy will be required even if you have a base on land. That said, land will always have a place in Atlas and the majority of players will want to explore both the land and the sea. We would like to hear more about direction on loot. The loot in this game is so bad right now we are seeing no crafts on bps, and are not seeing more of those bps dropping. We would just like a long write up of what direction you would like to take loot. Also why was loot changed mid season, crippling companies who now do not have the bps to replace boats? What data has been collected on the loot change? Most of us are still seeing low % items at the MW and above scale. Is there more loot balance coming this season? We have started making changes to loot focused on blueprints and will continue to do so. We are making multiple changes simultaneously to support some transformative changes and that means sometimes things will get out of balance for a while. Recently with blueprint crafts there were some errors in the math which made the number of crafts significantly lower than was intended, and we'll be fixing that. To be clear on the intention - we are moving BP drops to happen in higher frequency with lower craft counts. This means you will see interesting and unique BPs more often, and will not be able to sustain as long on a single good find. Regarding our long term plans, rather than make this a strict RNG loot experience, we're also working on a set of blueprint crafting, merging, and upgrading systems. This will be initially focused on sails as we prototype the system. This should allow you to get closer to the sort of customized, hand-crafted blueprints you want while still providing an element of skill and luck for getting there. We will reveal more on that system as it comes along, but look for sail BP crafting in the coming months. Will we see increased reasons to sail in our home grids? Currently the only place to sail for content is GA. Is there talk of making more local grid content that would incentivize players to sail to other grids other than GA? Our goal is to get more player interaction, especially on the water. Adding in Sea Forts is an example of an objective you need to sail to and compete over. Sailing can be obnoxious if you have to go long distances and that's why we're addressing that problem with the upcoming Tradewinds and after that we plan to introduce a portal system. Tradewinds is in final testing, and the portal system is still being worked out in design. Atlas is primarily a game about interactions with other players, so new water objectives we create are not going to be single-player experiences, but rather ways of drawing players together in conflict. What are your long-term game performance optimization strategies (realistic ones)? It seems pretty clear that from a technology perspective, it's not possible to support islands with 100s of thousands of structures on them and maintain enjoyable gameplay. How is this being addressed and how can players provide detailed feedback as you discuss potential strategies for dealing with this? We're looking to consolidate some larger multi-piece structures into chunkier single-piece structures. The overall structure count has a huge impact on performance. We don't want to remove the customization that is a hallmark of Atlas, so we're looking for ways to add new options rather than cull existing choices. Are there any plans to rework the chat system to give players a better method of communication? Not for a while. We'd love to eventually implement a mail system that allows players to communicate across servers. Would the ability to salvage ship parts of sunken enemy ships be possible? A skill with a chance on salvage to get the item at a low percentage. This will help provide an incentive for players to pvp for loot in ship combat. We're definitely looking at ways to bring more conflict to the ocean. Winning a difficult battle only to receive some resources can certainly be frustrating and we'd love to implement a system that allows you to receive a greater reward for your efforts. Will players who have been playing since Early Access be rewarded with something special when the game goes to Full Release? We will be looking for some ways to reward our long time loyal fans as we leave early access. It is a bit too early to commit to anything specific. What are some immersion goals on the horizon? While performance-related, it's currently boring/problematic to have ships rendering when they are almost within firing distance (versus spotting sails far into the distance). This is on our radar. We agree that the render distance should be increased to prevent ships popping in and out of view during combat, but we want to ensure any changes we make won't come at the cost of performance. Weather mechanics are currently very one dimensional and don't offer any actual strategic value (you can't choose to head into a storm to lose chasers, for example). We're planning to flesh out the weather system in the future. Some early ideas include allowing players to control the weather to make certain islands more inhabitable (or uninhabitable if you're an attacker). We'd also like to make storms more interesting by adding new encounters and resources inside them. Also, smaller things like allowing lanterns to burn indefinitely and automatically turn on/off at dusk/dawn. We always love hearing quality of life suggestions! Keep them coming! Final Note Again, we would like to emphasize that ATLAS is still in Early Access, meaning many things can and will likely continue to drastically change - even in the middle of development. Anything discussed is only up to date as of the moment it is posted. Features and changes that ultimately make it to the next patch, as well as timing, may be different from what was previously discussed. As always, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback from the community. Please keep them coming! Thank you for all of your support! Happy Sailing, - ATLAS Crew For the latest dispatch on #playATLAS keep yer one good eye trained on this here information Natter n' chatter on Discord: https://discord.gg/playatlas Hear ye, hear ye on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sailtheatlas Watch us scallywags on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/sailtheatlas Plus ye can band with us Pirates on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playatlasgame View full article

Well that is often where he and I disagree. Commenting on things like insane shop player rent doesn’t require any play experience, other things like basic visual layout and appeal can be garnered reasonably well through watching streams or YT videos, but some things really require actual play experience to be able to comment on meaningfully. Besides, do you know many people who have a good perspective? On anything?

Very poor reference here. WoW used to and still does lock all it's best gear and Legendaries behind boundaries that require larger raid GROUPS and a higher time investment, none of it's best gear is accessible to a small group of players. It's actually worse then what it was, WoW had MORE players back when raids used to require more coordinated and organized groups before the LFR system. Either way NONE of the best gear or content in WoW is solo/small group based. The sub is NOT required for you to do anything, therefore it does not need to be opened up to every player automatically.

so I had walls all the way back on my Gallion, I had to break some of them down because some wher facing the wrong way, but after the patch I cant place them back, only getting "Require nerby Foundation" WTF require foundation on a ship!!?? FIX THIS BUG! I dont want to sail around with a ship that is missing almost all the back walls, it makes it look like shit

Some of the skill trees require considerable changes as some of the skills are entirely useless or in some cases misleading or flat out incorrect Hand harvesting is totally useless it applies ONLY to harvesting barehanded who does that after those first 6 wood and few stone on their lvl 1 character. Flotsam visibility talents... Useless they are entirely negated by using the sextant which gives unlimited visibility of flotsam after completion of the mini game. Pistol reloading 20% in the title but the description reads 10% faster pistol reloading. These are just some examples, the skill trees and point costs really need to be re examined. The game design as a whole seems to be highly schizophrenic the ship art assets and sea are excellent but the game mechanics result in fleets of lego shotguns being the successful way to fight. The state of pvp ship battles seems to have nothing to do with the wind, the sails, or ship speed and everything to do with who can put out the highest amount of damage in the shortest time and who has the most base building pieces attached to their ship. Melee weapons exist but seem to be cosmetic items as land combat is all about tames towing cannons that require no set up time to fire and are instantly mobile if they need to move. Treasure map hunting is nothing to do with pirate combat but all about riding up on an animal and curbstomping the army of the dead with the tame. Additional players present are window dressing and tames incidentally negate another skill "knowledge of the dead" granting increased damage to the army of the dead. This skill is a complete waste of skill points. Perhaps this is all according to the game you want to make but if so then populate the skill trees according to what the game is actually about and how it is actually played. Save time on creating art assets for ships that are rendered useless or invisible by the way the game is actually played. Why would I pay 400 gold for a figurehead that is overshadowed by all the lego hanging off the ship, a figurehead that within minutes of a pvp naval battle will most likely be on the bottom of the ocean. I hear you are looking at making it easier to capture ships.... Be careful with that...

100% this. After every battle, having to slowly comb over every single built structure to see if they're damaged and repair is valuable time that we could be spending at sea instead. Absolutely would love a blueprint feature. This can even cost gold to create, and require gold (in addition to resourecs) to recreate. Again, less time on land and more time on sea. Thematically it can be done via a shipwright type NPC, or saved in a shipyard.

So between the announcement made on Friday about new islands coming in the Summer, and today there has been a video stating it WILL require a wipe? Or are you just assuming that based on old videos that mention wipes that the addition of new island WILL require a wipe?