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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

You want to remove; Armored Docks BPs SoTD Peace time Freeports Stuns Feats for most melee weps level bonuses aging Ship customization Structures (or at least any remaining usefulness of them) Ownership of structures Rewarding players who prosper bar shots All gold sinks handcuffs Reload timers Player announcement for entering or leaving a server Ship weight penalty company size caps Did I miss anything? You want to have; Ships be equal in stats Players be equal in stats All gear and weps be equal in stats Ships be free No bases (proved by your wanting to tear them down so fast no one would bother building them) Very little PvE and a heavy focus on PvP @chukiki Dude, honestly, you are wanting to play "Sea of Thieves". You take ALL of this out and get what you want, you basically have a shitty version of Sea of Thieves.

@George Catcher Trust me, I GET IT. It's like trying to turn a planet . Pro tip- the turning felt much more responsive if i cut sails down to ~30% However, after this last few month I'll pick a galley over brig for solo PvE everytime. Remember, just back up to get the loot, put a diving attachment at the rear on both sides. Naked swim the last bit if you have to. De-equip the diving suit by throwing your grapple. The extra HP and firepower is game changing. Especially if your gonna solo the Kraken. The extra cannons plus the range of a few heavy cannons may seal it for ya. If a bunch of mats fall in your lap, reconsider it. One more thing, leave off the very bottom deck and just use wooden ladders for access to the bottom planks. Thats also how i accessed the 10 tail cannons. I think I only used 4 decks total. Ok I'll shut up now, I know ya got your own way you enjoy playing... Good luck, have fun

@George Catcher I preferred brigs on PvE forever. I hated Galleys. However the last few months though I switched to running a solo galley. 1 Tons of extra HP 2 Tons more firepower 3 Greater haul weight so its faster 4 With the new increased reverse speed when i wrecked a bunch of SotD I simply backed up to grab my loot insted of taking 20minutes to turn it around My basic build I referred to as a "gally light", ~10 cannons across the back with high damage resist (same for the support walls), then bottem sides filled with 7 medium and 4 heavy cannon each side yielding 32 cannons out the gate and tons of extra crew space. Gradually added some front and side-rear cannons as I leveled up the weight. Even with 6 handling sails i could pull ~16knots.Even w a terrible headwind i usually stayed over 8knots. Carried 20+ spare planks/gunpports. Just my 2 cents. Even if you used a common shipyard to save on gold it's kind of worth it.

again you are right but it is a good feature in regards to balance sea battles. If you follow an other ship and it does not slow down while shooting on you while you can't shoot forward there wouldn't be a point in following others. Also as George mentioned it works in PvP. Most players use gunport cannons to be faster than heavy rear facing build. Only for ship leveling and BP hunt you play the "kite" design besides Speed Sail shooners with bar shots.

Alright, today I've made first SOLO KRAKEN attempt. I didn't know what to expect, so I was sailing there ready to loose 18k gold (I mean my Brig), but I survived. I didn't make any special prep so here some thoughts about the battle. - My BRIG now 38. 260% resistance. 140 Sturdiness (needs for SOTD battles). 126% damage. Most of cannons are fine 112% damage. Most of planks are fine 6700 health. - The battle was last for 28 minutes, and I was about to take down last tentacle to do 4th damage to Kraken (low him below 50%) so I've got enough time I guess. - 10 cannons (112% cannon damage +126% damage in stats) are enough to down tentacle with one volley. - About 1200 cannonballs needed for whole fight!!! With stuff for repairs - my ship is around 70% loaded. It heavy and slow. Now what I did wrong: - Speedsails are bad choice for fight. It's rain there, and wind rotates fast clockwise. I didn't try to do counterclockwise, but sailing clockwise, you either move upwind all the time, because you'll sail around kraken along with wind rotation. Or if you move downwind, you then overtake wind rotation and anyway get in to upwind. - Sailing fast, you receive bunch of 40 damages from each charged bolt from Kraken. Staying still, or sailing slow upwind will brings occasional 1200 damage hits. One hit like this killed my guy in last gunport, and destroyed cannon in there. Other guys in gunports were at 100% health. Overall damage is not that big. The problem is - it steady and battle goes for an hour. - If you don't stop - most of damage lands in to ship's stern or even in water behind stern. There are guys staying in my stern. After almost 30 minutes all of them received around 100 damage. So generic guys from freeport won't last whole fight, as @Nacona mentioned above. There are guys from high level damned ships needed (i've got some lvl-126, they don't level, and got 500hp each. I put them to sails). - You really should watch for sparky tentacles, because one of that thing killed me. I was approaching it, and didn't make to stop in time. Remember, if you turn sails from downwind to upwind position - your ship will slow down really fast. And on PC: "Space" by default is for opening full sails. "Z" by default to full close sails. - If you able to get med-kit - it'll definitely help. So I guess I'll hunt damned galleys more, to get all my crew around 90+lvl, and possible good handling sails bps (already have journeyman with 110% acceleration). Then I'll give it another try.

You can craft it after you completed the quest into the Ice. Which means you have to find the Ice Dungeon (there are 3 or 4 of them i think). Discover the dungeon and fight the Boss in the battle arena. To enter the dungeon you need all 9 Power Stones to pass the magic barrier. If you don't know the way trhough the dungeon to the arena you may die before getting there. Spoiler: You should be teamed up with more than 15 players >lvl 50 and equipped corectly to be able to kill it. Carabine is the most common weapon to use(legendary or myst). Head shot damage got nerfed 50% - maybe this affects also creatures... Feel free to test grenades, oil yars with fire arrows or mace. Make sure you have lots of healing. Plate Armor protects you but it can be really cold there... you may go in with active vitamin buff. Fun fact. With oil yarr you could make it solo maybe(against the minions)... but you can't make any mistates for about 30 minutes and i am not sure if the boss takes damage from fire like the minions do... Your reward is 0 XP as the devs removed the reward due to a bug. Once it was possible to get from level 40 to 90 with one kill using XP song played in band. Th bug was that the earned XP was shared with surround players who earned the XP too. So level 1-20 you can kill creatures and alpha animals. Level 20-60/70 you may use treasure maps Level 70+ -> well i quite the game because bosses do not work anymore(as one reason) What can you do with torpedos? They are used to destroy under water defence structures to enter enemy harbor for a harbor run. They hit structures about to 10m depth. Their damage vs ships is low, they are very heavy to transport and kind of expensive in production.(Or used to be) Their range is a little more than large cannon fired from a ship gunport.

@Ranger1k If you play PvP and you are in a ship fight you are happy to have so much parts for repairing when you are playing the repair man. Also a good captain can avoid combat for some seconds to give his repair man the time to repair. Of course in a "fleet fight" you are doomed if you are the one that gets grappled. THis is because of the lag of tactics and naval knowledge of the players. If you consider the fil "Master & Commander" those two ships hunted each other over month... or if they face each other they need hours to get in attack range if one does not want to start fight with an disadvantage. If you look at large sea battles in the 18th/19th century for example in the Napoleonic wars Britains vs Nether Lands you can see line tactics the british introduced and the nether lands improved with ship signal flags to turn aginst the british. But we don't want to play a game like the real life battles happened. So i think we all are happy with out survival and farm game which gives us also the content of ship battles. I like the 3 class system so far. A fast agile small ship, a medium agile and fast ship and a heavy fortress with worse turning. As explained on PvP only noobs start with this youtube best ship builds but expirienced players just lough about those and drive fast - mostly with handling sails. Is there an exploit in the current ships? Maybe one. You can reduce weight by don't carry repair material. You carry diving attachments and spare planks. If you run out of metal you add and remove the diving attachment. If you run out of wood, fibre and thatch you delete one lower deck full life plank and place a new one. You may safe 1000-1500 kg by this knowledge. What happens with the new ships? you have less lags because of less structures, ok i may agree. But regarding repairs you have the kit with close to no weight -> hugh exploit? You don't need that much repair hammers(only a few kg). Some think the NPCs cause more lag than structures. I think it's more than a year ago when there was an anouncement that stated the old 3 ship types used to take about 1 year of modelling as every plank along the ship has different geometry. This is an issue that may can be solved by less modules but it is a big change in the game mechanis of a sea fight. The balancing will be difficult. I think in about 1 year shooner, Brig and Galleon will be removed from game. Until than we have to deal with both ship types... alpha testing the new once and playing with the old. I hope we still have the option to build ships without gunports for transport but why do that if you get all resources by trading. I also liked the option to make special purpose ships like whale hunters, harbor run shooner with turtle roof for sneaky attacks, graple gallys with low weight speed build, combat gallys with small cannons for cutting sails, combat/attack gallys with large cannon, harbor run gally with turtle design to brake into harbors, special torpedo brig/gally, transport brig/gally for weight and tames, brigs with large cannon for long range heavy damage, brigs with only 3-4 cannons boradside for speed,... Everybody who says there is no diversity is completely wrong. Best sample was Season 4 start when american mega joined the EU PvP with their meta speed sails large cannon gally builds and speed sails stern cannon brigs learning that they can only run on EU Server with handling sails and small cannon bar shot design. PvP players remove all rear cannons on EU once the ship is max level. Also i had arguments against the increased ship level but it's now more fair. The gab between lvl 52 common and lvl 62 max ships is less than before. You are not forced to hunt those rare shipyard blueprints anymore. What the game is missing is fair battles regarding the amount of ships facing each other. But this is up to the players. You can ask others for a 1:1 or 2:2 fight and they may accept.... but of course they can send also 10 vs you or deny the battle at all.

That means you’re loading your boat way to heavy with the wrong setups. Your boats are most likely specced role play because if someone barrels me I laugh at them and take off their broadsides or sails. I would be happy to give you some pointers I just feel like you’re doing some very common mistakes that can be fixed pretty easily. If I see a barrel boat and they happen to be faster than me I ain’t shooting cannon balls I’m going for sails because they have to get close to be effective. With the fire bolts now doing damage to sails it is something they have to address and it’s very easy to prevent a barrel boat for coming in close enough to barrel you. If their sails are burning they have to address it right away or they are a easy sink. So either they have to grid, drop sails entirely, or use water barrels to put them out and while they are messing with their sails they become a easy distracted target. If someone is using their speed against me and they are much faster than me well in playing slow game. That means I’m turning my sails out of the wind and moving very slow so either they give up and go on their way or they get greedy and get close enough. If someone is faster than you then simply don’t play the speed game and slow down the fight. What I mean by turning sails out of the wind is just turning the sails to yellow, orange, or red but keeping them at full open. You can turn your speed sails back into the wind much faster than you can open or close sails and will give you pretty quick acceleration to avoid or dodge. way too often I see players trying to play the speed battle with a ship that is faster than them and you will lose that fight almost every time. Slow down the fight keep your broadsides aimed in their direction since you know they have to get close and you don’t.

@Sheepshooter Speed was more important than weight, generally, in PvP in my experience also.. Several reasons 1. When you enter a grid the entire grid gets an announcement that you've entered and since red often equals dead best if you can move swift 2. A fast, sleek ship is easier to engage and disengage with, as shooter stated 3. When your sailing, and take damage, its easier to repair. Less sorting, and more room for planks, repair mats etc., cleaner LoS for swivels on deck etc.. Heavy ships were used for covering land attacks and they were heavy from all the cannons and ammunition. They were used for knocking out cannon towers and land based defensive structures primarily. The exception was the occasional BP supership with 200%+ planks, but even then, they often ran with sleek schooners carrying barshot and greek fire. The schooner kills your sails, then once out of range, members who fast traveled to the schooner, would be geared up and swimming over to board your ship. Finally the BPed Heavy would come lumbering in to sink ya.. Specifically regarding modular ships, they still need the ability to be significantly customizable or the library of modules should atleast be vast. Pirate ships should reflect the pirates aboard... 1. Some were pretty and clean, masquerading as merchants 2.. Others were ugly guerilla ships, modified heavily, with cannon ports hand sawed into place. They instilled fear and sometimes won without fighting. They hid in the vastness of the ocean.. 3. Scan YouTube and look up a modern Somali pirate ship and work backwards to the Caribbean... some of these ships masqueraded as fishing ships during the day then simply conducted boarding attacks at night or with the small, possibily desperate, army of locals below deck. 4. Other pirate ships, especially privateers, were like the ones @George Catcher depicts. What one nation calls a terrorist another may call a freedom fighter, things were no different back then. One side called their crews sailors, soldiers and privateers the other side called the same humans pirates, invaders, infidels, etc.. 5. Finally we have the rogue hybrid. Those who mutineed and became outlaws. Those ships which were stolen or captured, etc.. The small time hoodlum who scored big and the veteran seamen who grinded taking calculated risks.. These ships would also be covered by Georges illustration.. Obviously this is a video game, not a historical reenactment, but as a general principle for development, the less Meta the better.

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

this game is CPU heavy even for Graphics

Please, Kind and Insightful Developers! Remove the ability to fly gliders with a barrel in hand. By all laws, this would be logical, because you cannot control the glider if you have a large and heavy barrel in your hands. Now the game is returning to what it was in the second season. 8 hours of daily flight with barrels to the enemy base. With trade, making a million barrels is no problem. Even the ability to shoot cannon barrels was not as destructive to the game as the combination of a glider with controlled height and barrels in hand.

one of the more frustrating things if you choose an island to settle down... if you can not find metal nodes or if they are on top of the mountain... if the tames you want "early bear" or "late elephant" are xx grids away... most of the time i just try to find an island where the most heavy resources are easy to get... oil or similiar light stuff can be shipped... can you still put tames in freeport with your gold? the sad thing is you could still kill the tames in a freeport...

Real nice. A pvp base building game and heavy collecting of materials and blueprints.... and I can't defend from pc players? TF? Goodbye potentially to all my stuff I guess. Real smooth.....

Seriously, go out and do a load of dives, put some ballista on the back and get into Artic waters and kill some whales and you will very quickly get the money to build a Brig, Which has loads of room to place a full set of crafting kit. But remember the more you carry the slower you sail. That is the main reason crafting is best left on shore. I love using my schooner as a exploratory scout ship I keep it light as possible and head for a zone I have not yet visited and visit every Island and do every dive on the way. It performs really well in this. It is not suited for heavy carrying it is slowed to much by weight which makes it incredibly vulnerable to ships of the Damned as it is is very fragile.

hello everyone, I am writing this post to reflect on some important topics. the developers would like to take the players' lives overboard. the idea is very nice but the essential elements are missing: - the weight of the objects to be reviewed (eggs, fibers, straw, cannon balls, oven) are essential objects for the repair of the boat and for the defense too heavy to be transported in large quantities. the new oven added weighs 400 kilos. - dimensions of objects: tannery, wooden table, forge, loom. in particular, the loom requires a very high ceiling to be able to place it even in a schooner. these 3 objects must be resized giving the possibility to those who want to make a small boat to be able to insert them inside. to review the width / height dimension. the Smithy has that annoying anvil that takes up a lot of space inside the boat. _the crew must repair all the structures and not just the plank of the ship

hello everyone, I am writing this post to reflect on some important topics. the developers would like to take the players' lives overboard. the idea is very nice but the essential elements are missing: - the weight of the objects to be reviewed (eggs, fibers, straw, cannon balls, oven) are essential objects for the repair of the boat and for the defense too heavy to be transported in large quantities. the new oven added weighs 400 kilos. - dimensions of objects: tannery, wooden table, forge, loom. in particular, the loom requires a very high ceiling to be able to place it even in a schooner. these 3 objects must be resized giving the possibility to those who want to make a small boat to be able to insert them inside. to review the width / height dimension. the Smithy has that annoying anvil that takes up a lot of space inside the boat. -the crew must repair all the structures and not just the plank of the ship

Just wanna share my experience of this brand new RAMMING GALLEY. But if you ask to describe it simple, I would tell this. It named a Galley. It has Schooner's size and sturdiness. It has Sloop's speed. But first - buying one. 1) - How to buy it? I mean it might sound simple, just get gold, go to the shop and buy one right? But even this was a challenge for me. Gold is heavy. 22K gold weight 1600 pounds, while my pathfinder can carry just 390. There is a way, of course, if we drop everything on the ground then pick all up, we will pick all no matter how heavy is that, but... isn't this exploit usage? If yes - then dev's made this ship buyable for ppl lvl-100+ with all stats in weight. If it should work this way then why we have weight stat anyway, if we can carry any weight? Oh and... well if you play company, then some pal can just give you a ride to the shop. If you play solo - then it should be one way ship, which will be scuttled on arrival. Simple Sloop with 22K gold onboard have 70% loaded weight, and ride 4 KNOTS if it calm. It slower than any damned ship, so if any will aggro - then you and your gold is done. And some stairs needed, to be able to get out of ship. Because with 22K gold you can't jump. One more thing. I live in Tundra. And I have my Tundra freeport. But this ship seller have "Tropic" island and it's +30C (+86F) in there. When I departure and sail 100 meter away - Tundra is back and it's 0C (32F). This is WEIRD. 2) - Customisation. It's premade. It has no decks, planks, walls, ceilings, etc. The only old stuff there is one ladder, couple of doors, 2 medium speed sails, and cannons. Any other part made from huge blocks. Like top back part of ship. Low back part of the ship, etc. There were a lot of those parts and this is REALLY confusing, because in battles - they receive damage, and you need to repair them, and you just don't know what parts do you have, how many etc. You can replace sails, and put some stuff inside, like boxes, grille, mess table etc. YOU CAN NOT REPLACE CANNONS. So basic cannons + leveling = all we've got. Ship goes with 200% quality. And with all sails and cannons - it shows it carry 0 weight. Max weight in the beginning is 9000 (like Schooner). It has 14 crew capacity but with 2 sails, 20 cannons your crew should consist of 22 ppl. So you'll have to spend some points to x-tra beds. Painting made really RAW and RUDE. You can paint just whole block with just one color. No stripes. No double and triple color scheme. Some block can not be painted fully, and you able to paint just part of it. So your ship will be just one color with some parts unpainted. After I changed 2 mid speed sails to 1 large and 1 small one - I've got invisible part of large sail on lower deck. It doesn't show up, but block the way. Oh and lower deck have so low ceilings so large storage box just go through in and visible from top deck. Also you can not attach anything to your ship. Meaning - no rope ladders outside and to the crownests. No wallhooks with lanterns. 3) - Speed. When I was sailing this - I had a feeling like I drive WERY SLOW Schooner. It runs from 8 to 10 knots downwind. And changing sails from 2 mid speed sails to 1 large and 1 small speed sails, didn't make any difference. Here new game mechanic comes in. You press SHIFT+Q by default and oars released. You press it again and you got +4 knots for 20 sec. Then goes on cooldown for 30 sec and you can repeat this. It means in long term you've got +1.6 knots to you max speed. This is way slow anyway. Sometimes you press SHIFT+Q and it sais: "Oars released" but animation shows that there are no oars yet. Or there are just some from one side of the ship. But you can press SHIFT+Q again and ship will have boosted speed. Even if there is no animation for that. 4) - Ramming. I play PVE. Ramming doesn't affect damned ships. I saw a video where guy rammed enemy's Galleon. He landed 3K damage to enemy's planks, and received 4K to himself for impact. 5) - Repairs. Because there are blocks - you need repair them with special patches you create in smithy. One repair procedure lasts for 5 second and heals part of the ship for 1K. You can not hit you hammer and then run to another damaged part. You need to repair each block one by one, waiting 5 seconds every time. If you apply patch to part that damaged for 4995/5000 - it'll heal for just 5 points and one patch will be consumed. So it's best to wait until block is damaged for at least 1K to avoid wasting resources. And yeah. You can not put patches in to resources box. You need to brings them with you. 10 patches (10K damage) weight 35 pounds. For me biggest problem was - I couldn't figure out how many parts I have, and how severely they damaged. When my ship started do drown - I had to run through the hold with water, and guess which part should I repair first. There is no leaking signs anymore. 6) - Few other issues I found. It doesn't turn when you move backwards. Sometimes you can anchor but anchor sign doesn't show up. Overall - I couldn't figure out how to use it in PVE. Brig is just faster, more durable, can be maintained fast during the battle. It's cheaper and provides a lot of room for customization. Ramming galley - slow, impossible to repair in battle, hard to maintain, no customization, standard cannons, low HP. The only advantage it has - is boost speed for +4 knots, but... I doubt it covers all bad about this ship. So if you play PVE - don't waste your gold. I mean you buy it if you just wanna check this out. The only thing I really like - this is just first REAL ship in a game. It looks cool (I mean if there was rigging it could be way cooler). And there is NO WAY players will turn it to this:

Devs, (please at least read ideas 1 & 5 at least) Just a few humble ideas I believe most people would appreciate. Perhaps even draw more players to the game. If anyone reading likes any or all of these ideas, reply to show support/interest, or use the number to reference and build on the idea. Please keep it positive. Devs don't need swearing, saracasm, or hostility, nor do I. This is in beta. We all have opinions. This is simply a few of mine. 1. More ships, More Ships, More ships! More choice! Frigate, Catamaran, Clipper, Cutter, Barge, Ironclad, Man O war, etc.. Hell maybe even a Viking vessel that has increased durability if the sides are covered with shields. Trade/market, etc. All interesting (long-term). But if you want to KEEP + encourage players to join. Focusing on your core product. That is.. SAILING & SHIPS! 2. Poll your community to identify + Fix the most "common/frequent" bugs. Sure, lag/performance are always cried about but often that can also be on use side. I'm taking about inherit graphic items...examples.. Ships constantly submerging under the water. Animals "drifting" off the ship. Ship ladder bug where you repeatedly try to climb, and you always pass through the ladder (unless you jump up and grab on). etc. Ask the users so you can focus on the most annoying. Many have been around since the beginning. They need to be tabled before some of the long-term items if you want players to enjoy the experience. 3. Stop adding "administration" / grind to play. Armored shipyards for example. Why do they have upkeep cost? You are removing grind out of farming (with farms), and now replacing it with grind to get gold to pay for shipyards. Sure you can use markets (eventually - still in development). Until trade is farther along ...I think make them free. Armored shipyards are a single graphic object that likely helps reduces every player spamming harbors with shipyard covered in large stone walls . They are are good idea to reduce lag/graphic challenges. I just don't think there is a reason to make them cost money. (only for the ship "protected" feature which is I guess your version of "offline safety" perhaps). Just an opinion. 4. Decide to focus on MEGA COMPANIES, or smaller groups of players. Difficult to cater to both and keep player base. If focus is smaller groups. Limit company sizes to only a small number like 20, and limit number of alliances (actual number of alliances a company is listed in). Currently megatribes just make alliance with other mega tribes and pummel the solo/lawless. Which is why your new players are leaving. Another option perhaps - consider making 4-6 specific factions. Every company (large or small) must be a faction. A concept that worked for many years for Blizzard. Then as a solo player - you join a faction so not EVERYONE necessarily wants to kill you (even though they still could). That works still in promoting massive faction vs faction ship battles when people are called to arms impromptu to assist. 5. Possible new ideas for the use of natural resources. (be kind - just consider how this change, would make gameplay different). Today, to pimp out a ship... You use blueprints that require a certain number of each resource type (like 3x wood, 3x metal, etc.) For that reason there are about 6-8 of each resource in the world (like...light wood, strong wood, aged wood, wet wood, etc.). What if... the boat durability and weight are a calculation based on the types of materials you built it with (at least for metal/wood types). How would this work? Well...If I build planks using lightwood, tin, twigs, straw - it's light but less durable. Similarly, if I made a ship from strong wood, iron, it would be "heavy", and have more durability. Just assign to each resource a base weight & durability. Each object made (plank/deck/cannon/box, smithy, etc.) gets is own durability + weight set based on that calculated result. So...if I build "some" planks with heavy materials and build a few planks with lighter materials it gives the player the ability to make SECTIONS of the boat have higher durability (like back planks), and can use lighter mats to build lighter planks in other areas. Still... the overall ship weight (a calculation of all the objects its comprised of & carrying) impact the vessels TOP SPEED (factored still with wind of course). This modification gives players a reason to sail to an island if I want TIN or IRON for a specific purpose. This in turn gives a reason to fight for islands. This gives players the flexibility to make a super fast boat to go around the world quick or scout. Or they can make a super tank, tough as hell (but naturally slow). It creates a lot more variety and gives players more options to make ships that fit a specific purpose or their playstyle. 6. For now at least, consider increasing the default weight of sloop to 5000. Now paying for ships, many are opting to use sloops. All points go into weight to make it remotely useful. Just upping it to 5000 (half a schooner) would allow players to put points into resistance or damage instead making them have a fighting chance. 7. Since it's a sailing game, why not give a small experience buff if out at sea (during cyclones)? Now paying for ships, many are opting to use sloops. All points go into weight to make it remotely useful. Just upping it to 5000 (half a schooner) would allow players to put points into r Thanks for reading and considering. Sorry it's a bit lengthy. Wanted to make it clear.

Why even 5k then? I think this new cost is about nothing but server performance and those that build too many ships. I'm sure there are many better ways for those issues. I find it not only game breaking but game ending. I was a heavy player since Atlas started, now I log on every 3 days to feed beasts. My interest is gone. 5K for a ship I don't want after using brigs all this time and 25K for a brig. I loved this game... but not that much. Not enough to farm gold at that level. For a ship that could be lost just crossing a grid line at the wrong point. I'm only still feeding while I wait to see if these new gold costs are reverted.

I just got back into the game. Now that i know the cost of the bigger ships (I saw the $5K a couple days ago), I might just quit. I play with the family, but do all the heavy lifting... RIP

I haven't really played since season one, and the lack of a core theme is one of the primary reasons I haven't come back. I remember one time looking in on the game's progress. I saw a crab jump hundreds of feet into the air with a rider on its back; I NOPE'd right out of there. "I'll check back in another six months." For myself, I hope you settle on a theme that puts realistic-seeming boats (not architectural monstrosities) at its core. Focus on the boat in the same way Star Trek focuses on the Enterprise. There's space and all it contains. There are planets and their inhabitants. Adventure found with both. But everything comes back to the ship. Any feature/mechanic that diminishes the focus or supremacy of the boat should raise a red flag. As for an element of fantasy, I can certainly envision ways it could work. Again... augmenting what matters most rather than becoming what matters most. Have any of you read Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series? The main character, of course, is blown to fantastical heights. But, rather than dominating the experience of the commoners, the fantasy element simply makes it a richer, more interesting experience. I'm not familiar with the proposed Tradewinds feature, so perhaps my concerns have already been addressed. But, in my gaming experience, allowing easy travel commonly leads to some very undesirable outcomes. Dominant factions can project their power over greater distances, and those who choose to harass others are more able to do it without repercussion because they aren't a known quantity to those they harass. I.e., they can easily travel far afield and harass people who don't know who they are or where they come from. Similarly, just as more than traders can take advantage of tradewinds, large companies can take advantage of mechanics intended for small companies unless they are, by design, prohibited or disincentivized from doing so. I wouldn't mind seeing Freeports extended into full-fledged NPC-controlled territory. Companies could lease designated plots of land with strict construction budgets (assets) in exchange for tribute and/or service (e.g. coastal defense). If you live there, you live by their rules (e.g., no piracy). In turn, the government provides some defensive advantages in terms of infrastructure (e.g., protected harbors with "parking spaces" assigned to leases) and automated coastal reconnaissance. Through short-term leases, this territory could provide refuge for those recently displaced as well as long-term leases and a livelihood for those too small or who simply don't care to constantly scrap over territory. These NPC-controlled territories can also be tools in the toolbox of the devs to affect happenings in the world they feel need to be addressed without resorting to a heavy-handed approach. The actions of the governments can be adapted to fit the circumstances. For example, NPC authorities could issue Letters of Marque against specific targets or impose tariffs on trades between residents and specific non-resident companies. Resources, services, and protected sea lanes within these territories are examples of features with the built-in large/small company bias I mention with the previous quotation. These territories would be the Santo Domingo, Havana, and Santiago of the Spanish Main contrasting with the players' efforts to build their various little Tortugas. The life and livelihoods in these territories aren't the same as elsewhere only with an NPC landlord. It's a different piece of the puzzle built to complement and balance the experiences of those who choose to fight for land of their own. I hope you'll take a moment to read my end-of-Season 1 post on creating beachhead mechanics. I elaborate on an idea with what you propose here at its core.

Hmm, you obviously don't live in low rent social housing eh? The only thing that isn't too heavy for these walls is a poster! and that's pushing it.

I think he only wrote one about pyrates, sometimes under the name of captain charles johnson. You have to be committed to reading though for it, it is very fact heavy, my version is called, ' A general history of the robberies and murders of the most notorious pyrates' catchy title eh? first published 1724 I think. Happy reading.