Contents of the patch

• Wind patches
  
  
  
  • Wind is the movement of air from high pressure to low pressure areas. When sailing you will encounter an open world representation of uneven pressure systems existing across waters around the world from lakes to oceans. By sailing into or close to a wind gust you will be able to get a wind boost and gain extra speed. This will dramatically affect gameplay, travel and accessibility. This is not the last feature we plan to add in terms of wind, but it is one of the most important ones as it saves time, yet still logical and realistic, even if a little bit exaggerated.
  
  
• NPC Port Battles
  
  
  
  • Raiders will attack ports on all Servers.
    
    
    
    • On war server - for testing purposes - for a week, NPC Raiders will just probe ports and will not take control even if they win the port battles. This will give some time to practice and prepare for the real raids that will start in a week or two.
      
    • On Peace server raiders will start trying to take control of the national ports (belonging to the NPC governments, giving in 2-3 days the chance for player to recapture them to their clan control.
    
    
  • This feature is extremely important as it brings
    
    
    
    • Peace server attacking port battles against NPC
      
    • Peace server investments
      
    • Peace server taxation and clan control
      
    • Peace server defensive port battles against NPC
  
  
• Player Raids for Peace and War servers
  
  
  
  • Some ports will give missions to raid rich enemy ports in the vicinity. Your goal would be to take 3-6 captains with you, and steal the chest from the trading ship with escort located in a mission near the port that you have to raid (all escorts must be killed). Once you get the chest you must bring it back to the mission giver. If you want to open the chest elsewhere you will have to find a special key. Chest will contain a portion of tax income, and portion of all investments in the raided port. If you do not have a good mission in the vicinity - find somebody who is raiding another port and steal their cargo. Player raid rewards are fully player driven. If all ports are poor, all missions are going to be poor. If ports are developed rewards will make you rich.
  
  
• Fire
  
  
  
  • Fire and fire shock mechanics improved. Curves added to control the amount of crew firefighting. Small fires will not require a lot of crew to put down, where 1 meter fire will need maybe 2 crew members, but let the fire grow and crew requirement grows exponentially. If 30% of the ship is in flames = more than 80% of the crew will be firefighting (or running).
  
  
• Loki Rune
  
• Ship Logbooks
  
• Other changes
  
  
  
  • Due to travel speed increases - rewards for delivery quests was lowered
    
  • Mortar brig damage increased by 30%
    
  • Clan allies limit increased 2x
    
  • Attack timer slightly lowered to 8 seconds
    
  • Overloading is not allowed in battle instances
  
  
• Localization
  
  
  
  • Ukrainian language added
    
  • Chinese community translation added.
    
  • Russian community translation added.
  
  
• Of course - New Bugs and issues were introduced
  

Main changes

• All ships (with the exception of imported ships) will be allowed to capture by the Admiralty on the War server.
  
• Oak, Fir, Mahogany, Sabicu planking has been allowed for NPC captured ships
  
• NPC captured ships will have from 1 to 4 upgrade slots (compared to previous 3).
  
• Increased the probability to get a better ship from the admiralty notes and for premium ships
  
  
  
  • crafted ships still have a 3x higher probability to get a better ship
    
  
  
• Added the following ships to NPC fleets compositions
  
  
  
  • Niagara, Rattlesnake, Pirate Frigate, Trincomalee
    
  
  
• Removed the following ships from NPC fleets
  
  
  
  • Bellona, Santisima Trinidad
    
  
  

Other changes

• Fire shock bug fixed - it is now correctly showing when ship is in fire shock, and is not showing when ship is not in fire shock.
  
• Increased the amount of people required to fight the fire from 6 to 15 per square meter of fire
  
• Increased the size of the fire that causes ship to go into fire shock.
  
• Speed for all ships of the line with the exception of bellona, christian and santisima (rare lineships) slightly reduced
  

• Changed Patrol ROE
  
  
  
  • OW roe was a success and is now spread to all battles even in Patrols (with the exception of 1V1 Zone)
    
  • 1v1 Patrol mission now works for ALL vessels in the center of the zone with the exception of basic cutters
    
  
  
• Pirate nation no longer can enter both sides of the battle
  
• Fixed bugs with delivery missions (that stopped you from delivering the delivery)
  
• Fixed bugs with Christian Paints
  
• Fixed bugs with rattlesnake heavy and Le Requin paints
  
• Fixed sail transparency bugs after applying paints on some ships
  
• Fixed bugs that affected behaviour of NPC Combat vessels if you were on the Trading ship (allowing fast xp on indiamans for example)
  
• Changed shroud cay mission distribution to rookie missions (1-3 star complexity)
  
• Several gold sellers were banned permanently
  

• Battle open for first 2 mins for all to enter
  
• After 2 mins battle will still be open but only for weaker side - lower BR- with possibility of alternating the weaker side.
  
• Once Battle ratings become equal (difference lower than 13%) - the battle will close for all sides.
  

On previous update

• Massive update with more than 240+ paints and skins was a success and Painter is now the best selling DLC overcoming Rattvisan.
  
• Around 5-10 paints will move to refits and Navy editions in this forthcoming update.
  
• We plan to continue adding new paints but the process will be slow. It takes a lot of time to prepare a good paints as it not only requires taste and lots of experiments (paints should look ok in all weather and light conditions), but also lots hard technical work from texturing and paint/material creation to memory management (they all have to fit into texture memory limits) to LOD generation (simplified visuals for long distance images to save memory).
  
• Please propose new paints in the relevant topics that we posted.
  

Information on 3 main features of the update

NPC Port battles will come to Peace server.

• NPC will try to capture rich ports from large clans using unique raiding mechanics on both Peace and War servers. If NPC's manage to capture the ports the port will then have to be recaptured. We do not know the intentions of NPC raiders on the port assets (yet).
  
• Most importantly this means that ports could be recaptured from NPCs, which will open clan control, taxation and investments for the Peace server, and long overdue map fluidity.
  

NSFW Leopard

Raids

• Small groups will be able to raid rich ports for profit and glory. They could become a second or maybe first source of admiralty rewards and money for adventurers like you. They are oriented for all segments of players and will be accessible even to those who only have 1.5 hours in the evening.
  

• Fixed Bug that sometimes increased horizontal angle of fire for cannons for NPC ships
  
• Improved loot table drop system to remove rare cases of same items dropping in consequential opening of chests
  
• Fixed 3 potential exploits thanks to @qw569 research
  
• Fixed bug with labor hours for upgrade manufacturing
  
• Fixed bug with perk requirement for Wasa and United states shipbuilding
  
• Fixed bug that did not generate proper knowledge slots for trader ships
  

• Fixed labor hours bug for hull repair, rum and rig repair manufacturing
  
• Added Admiralty flags for several nations
  
• Improved bot distribution on the OW map (some areas did not have bots generated)
  
• Fixed certain bugs in localization (typos and placements)
  

Main feature of the patch - Port investments.

• Investments.
  
  
  
  • Clan alliances can now expand production of resources in ports
    
  • Clan alliances can now expand shipbuilding in ports
    
  • Clan alliances can now improve defenses in ports
    
  • Investments will drop their level after you lose the port, multiple losses of ports will lose all investments (to remove port trading)
    
  • Forts destroyed in port battles will have to be rebuilt
    
  • Clans will be able to decide who can access the facilities and build them
    
  • Once you build the facility you will be able to use it even if you are kicked from clan or alliance (provided you are in the same nation).
    
  • Other nations WILL NOT use the facilities and investment benefits
    
  • Ship building bonuses are created by clan alliance only if they build ships in their city. Other captains (who are not part of the alliance are not going to be able to hire artisans trained by clans).
    
    
    
    • Due to limited investment points some cities will have to specialize – in the first iteration there are going to be 2 types of towns
      
    • Resource base
      
    • Shipbuilding base
      
    • Or a mix of two
      
    
    
  • There is a limited number of ports that can build amazing ships with all the possible bonuses. Nations will have to fight for them.
    
  • This is a first iteration of the feature so expect bugs and problems
    
  
  
• Map wipe
  
  
  
  • All forts on map were removed (they can be rebuilt by clans)
    
  • Map was reset
    
  • Lord protectors were reset,
    
  • National leaderboards were reset
    
  
  
• Hostility mission changes
  
  
  
  • Hostility now can be gained only using missions.
    
  • OW hostility points are no longer granted to avoid exploits.
    
  • Hostility generation in missions will feel much faster
    
  • Defense timer cost is 250k Reals per day (might go up even more)
    
  • County capital and capitals give missions to capture 2 nearest county capitals
    
  • Free towns give missions for 2 nearest county capitals
    
  • Once you taken the county capital you can take its regional cities.
    
  • Marsh Harbor also gives an option to take Treasure Island, Treasure island capital gives an option to capture Bermuda.
    

Other changes

• Forts were buffed
  
• BR limits for ports have changed
  
  
  
  • Largest towns (55 investment points) have 25000 BR limit
    
  • All other county capitals have 20000 BR limit
    
  • Regional towns have 10,000 BR limit
    
  • Shallow capitals 3000 BR limit
    
  • Shallow towns 2000 BR limit
    
  
  
• Lord protectors are no longer have tiered rewards for VMs
  
  
  
  • you get what you hold (but not more than 15VMs per week – lets see how it goes and maybe increase this limit later)
    
  
  
• Hostility points for port battle creation have changed
  
  
  
  • County Capital deep – 10000 pts
    
  • Regional town deep – 4500 pts
    
  • County Capital shallow – 2500 pts
    
  • Regional town shallow – 1000 pts
    
  
  
• Peace server changes
  
  
  
  • Historical peaceful map applied (this will change bot routes and bot nationalities)
    
  • Admiralty can now be used in ALL peaceful cities
    
  • Peaceful outposts and buildings can now be built in all cities
    
  • Peaceful PVE missions can now be taken in all cities too
    
  • You can enter and exit enemy ports in all ships including combat vessels.
    
  • Top class ships on the PVE can still be built in towns that are capturable on War server.
    

Other changes

• Combat medals are now only granted for mission and patrol completion.
  
• Improved FPS performance in instances and port battles
  
• Added additional item descriptions
  
• Bots now use universal ranks to help judge their difficulty easier
  
• Added an option to make more books and upgrades in production run
  
• Added inverted mouse to options
  
• Added tooltips to clan warehouse
  
• Permit prices and requirements rebalanced
  
• New ship notes added to admiralty
  
• Pandora lost ability to use stern carronades due to placement of ports
  
• Epic chest now drops in Epic events a lot more often
  
• Grape damage distance slightly increased
  
• Grape min damage from raking slightly increased
  
• Port name changes and other minor beautifications
  
  
  
  • Some ports have their name changed or improved.
    
  • Spanish town (a city of striking contrasts) is now a capital of the Virgin islands
    
  • Sisal is now a capital of Merida
    
  • Some counties were rebalanced.
    

Fixed bugs

• Fixed bug that did not build 5/5 ships in some ports that became capturable recently. Apologies for the inconvenience.
  
• Fixed bug that was visually showing wrong ammo type (for example ball was flying instead of chain or vice versa) in instances for new players who just joined instance or relogged in into instance
  
• Fixed stationary bots in OW
  
• Fixed bug that cut your speed if you switched to a fleet ship
  
• Fixed bug that did not update your map if you switched from Peace to war server after AFK kick
  
• Multiple other bugs fixed
  

Localization has been officially added.

• You can change the language of the game in the options menu.
  
• Localization is not complete!– as new content has been added in the last 1.5 months – this will be translated soon
  
• Custom files for all languages has been added. They can be used by community translators or yourself to improve things you do not like to completely change language
  
• There are issues in some translations due to the fact that outside firm was - but they will eventually be fixed, with help of community.
  

Battle UI

• Battle UI has been freshened up.
  
• All Battle UI has been moved to one technology set (slightly increasing FPS in battles)
  
• Boarding is no longer showing enemy commands.
  
  
  
  • Boarding UI might need another pass of improvements based on your general feedback.
    
  
  
• You can now use buttons [ ] during boarding that will allow your ship to fire point blank broadsides.
  
• All buttons have received informational tooltips, which you can read by putting your mouse over the buttons
  

Combat model

• Ships of the line will now rule the seas. No longer ships of the line will fear light corvettes.
  
• Damage model has been adjusted.
  
• Inverse DPS problems has been fixed (previously 4lb guns had higher DPS than 42lb guns)
  
• Reload shocks issues were fixed. You will get them regularly if you maximize damage in short periods of time.
  
• Lower rank NPCs turning has been adjusted (previously they turned like experienced rear admirals when they should not have).
  
  
  
  • Additional tunings to NPC combat will be applied soon.
    
  
  
• Turn rates were lowered across the board for most vessels, to support the precise deliberate combat model (low level ships turned like they were on drugs)
  
• Additional improvements to speeds and turning will be deployed next week.
  

PVP and ROE changes (rules of engagement)

• To increase number of PVP opportunities the following change has been made.
  
• Open world battles for the weaker side (based on BR) are open for 20 minutes. You can reinforce the weaker side if you are sailing by. The mission will close and swords disappear once BR evens out (with certain % threshold)
  
  
  
  • if you want to get help stay closer to friendly entry points.
    
  • If you are ganked, call for help in chat, people can help you. Of course just like tracers in ww2 this feature works both ways. If you attack in force your target might get reinforcements, changing the course of the battle.
    
  
  
• Overall goal is to give more pvp opportunities to captains
  
• Combat Medals were introduced. Combat medals will be granted for PVP activities, and will give access to pvp rewards.
  

Port importance for clans and rare resource spawns

• Changes to rare woods spawns and access
  
  
  
  • Rare woods resources now only have limited trading spawns in the Carribean.
    
  • Rare woods forests can now randomly spawn somewhere in the Caribbean in limited quantities. (can be fully exhausted)
    
  • These rare woods now can be received by clans using delivery missions
    
  • Сlans and clans on their allies list have access to these missions
    
  • Getting rare woods by using missions reduces their supply. One supply is fully cut down the forest will spawn elsewhere in another port.
    
  • Rare woods are: Live oak, white oak, bermuda cedar, teak, mahogany, caguarian, sabicu.
    

Protected areas

• Redundant protections removed from secondary protected areas (like Louisiana or Vera Cruz and Belize)
  
• Additional improvements of the protected areas will be done next patch
  

Trading

• Trading will be more available
  
• Resources spawn distribution is now better and ability to place contracts on trading goods removed.
  
• Additional regional goods added
  
• Selling goods far from the purchase place will make more money (buying something in Trinidad and selling it in the gulf will make a lot of money
  
  
  
  • This of course means that short distance routes will no longer make too much money
    
  
  
• Barter added (but not yet tuned properly – will be fixed in the next hotfix). It will increase supply of trading goods
  

Missions

• PVP hunt missions added
  
• Solo PVP patrol zone added
  
  
  
  • In the solo patrol zone you can only be attacked by the ship of the same class and battle will close immediately.
    
  
  
• Passenger delivery missions added
  
• Letter delivery missions added
  
• Clan delivery missions added
  
• Mission rewards increased
  

Better PVE – More accessible PVE

• NPC fleet placements slightly adjusted (gulf suffered, but all other regions will generally see more NPCs – we will fix the gulf problem later)
  
• Missions are now based on regions (less on port type)
  
  
  
  • For example Hispaniola is a 1-3rdrate region. It will only give missions for 1-3rdrate.
    
  
  
• Missions are now unlimited – if you finish your initial set of missions you can take new ones. No longer we will force you waste time on sailing to another to find additional supply of missions.
  
• Missions spawns are significantly improved – time is precious - you will no longer spend 20-30 mins reaching the mission. Missions will no longer spawn on other sides of large land masses.
  
• Group missions added (enemy types and rewards are not yet fully balanced- some missions might be very hard)
  

Other changes

• Sextant perk is now provided automatically by default to all new accounts
  
• Fleet perk for 1 ship is now added to all accounts by default (so new players can go straight to capping and looting)
  
• Small amount of low level NPC enemies were added around Capitals to provide additional opportunities for new players
  
• UI scaling options added to the game
  
• Additional flags added to DLC for some nations
  
• 1 flag was added to admiralty store for some nations, in the next couple of patches all nations will have 1 flag in the admiralty available for doubloons.
  
• Prices for basic resources were adjusted, blueprints for ships were adjusted to support the new damage model. Some balance issues with blueprints were fixed.
  
• Labor hours will be adjusted too in the next hot fix (did not get in this patch).
  
  
  
  • NEXT HOTFIX Labor hours spent on crafting frigates and below will be significantly reduced. Labor hours generation WILL be increased 2.5times.
    

• Kiritimati Masts made from the strongest trees found in the famous Christmas island.
  
• Edinorog guns that will make your opponents fear your ship.
  
• Rare Christmas gift – Danish 2nd rate Christian.