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Ahoy Pathfinders!
In this Captain’s Log, we aim to give you an update on some new and exciting features that will be making their way to the ATLAS, as well as a brief status update on the next Mega Update.
Before we begin, we’d like to give each and every one of you a huge thanks for the support you’ve shown ATLAS. Over the course of ATLAS’ development, our recent review scores on Steam have jumped considerably. We just wanted to express our thanks and show our gratitude for your support. We know that our work is far from over and that ATLAS still has a long journey ahead. There are many more changes we plan to make and features we would like to introduce. Keep your eye on the horizon, there is much to look forward to, some coming sooner than you might expect ;)!
Mega Update 3!
It’s been a while since we’ve spoken about our next Mega Update 3. There have been questions about the release date, and how it’s progressing. The update is still coming together, our team of developers is actively working on getting it ready to release. When we’ve got something to share about the launch date, additional features, it’s availability on the PTR, we will let you know.
Though, we won’t leave you guys empty handed! Here’s an update on our Hydra Six-Shooter Pistol! In an earlier log, we revealed it’s concept art, now we can actually show you what it looks like in game as it’s going through its implementation. This pistol, as the name indicates, allows for up to 6 shots before reloading -- though it is significantly weaker than the single-shot flintlock! So if your aim sucks, or you have multiple targets, this will be a great weapon of choice.
Wild Pirate Encampments!
We’re excited to reveal to you a new system we’ve been working on, which will be released for Single Player, Non-Dedicated Multiplayer (more on that later!), Unofficial Dedicated Servers (optional), and potentially expanded onto the Official Networks in the future.
This is how the new feature will function on Non-Dedicated Multiplayer and Single Player mode:
“Wild Pirate Encampments” (WPE) are collections of enemy NPC characters, defensive fleets, and fortifications which inhabit claimable islands. They have varying weapons (melee and ranged), defenses (various cannons/turret types), and live in pre-built forts. They’ll also have AI ships representing all 4 classes (Sloop through to Galleon) patrolling the shoreline of their islands. The placement of Encampments will be randomized along the islands, and they can also include inland encampments without ships. You’ll have to explore an island to discover all the encampments which inhabit it, and the number can vary based on the island size, with larger islands having bigger and more Encampments. Each region will also have a WPE Level visible to players, some being higher than others resulting in better loot but a more challenging task.
In order to claim an island, Pathfinders must destroy the WPE that currently live on it. This includes their patrolling ships and any enemy NPC within range of the Encampment center. Players will be able to use the Encampment claimflag to reveal nearby enemy NPCs. After claiming an Encampment, all Encampment structures transferred to the new settlement owner, and an Encampment Loot Box will be spawned. Once defeated, an Encampment will never respawn, and you cannot unclaim an Encampment. However, if the Encampment has not been fully defeated, it will reset to full strength if sufficient time has transpired without it being rendered.
Players will have the option to disable WPE entirely via the Host Settings UI, or scale the difficulty of Encampments (this will not affect the loot quality).
If you decide to enable WPE on an Unofficial Dedicated Server please note that:
Encampments will only spawn (and can respawn) on unsettled islands when no players/tames/structures are nearby at all, over a long period of time.
An island can only have Claim Flags placed on it when no Encampments are present on the island, indicated on the HUD when the system is enabled.
With the implementation of this togglable content, we’ll be nerfing the traversal capability of Gliders on Non-Dedicated Multiplayer and Single Player, with an option to use the original values in Non-Dedicated Multiplayer.
We’re excited to introduce this type of encounter to the ATLAS and we expect to have it ready in the very near future.
Non-Dedicated Multiplayer!
Following the positive response to Single Player and after evaluating the relatively small amount of technical bandwidth required to make this a possibility, we’re excited to announce that a new game mode will be making its way to players!
Non-Dedicated Multiplayer will facilitate playing as a client whilst also hosting the server at the same time. It will allow up to 8 players to play simultaneously on the server. Similarly to Single player, the host will be able to make use of the host settings UI to adjust server settings to your group’s needs, as well as additional enhancements in your .ini files.
We expect to have this game mode available next week (the week of July 14), and the “Wild Pirate Encampments” Beta towards the end of the month.
ISO: Blackwood
We are working on final touches and testing for ISO: Blackwood and we expect to have it ready to play later this month.
Explore the heart of the jungle or settle in rolling farmland. Silent eddies run before your boat as you make your way through the slick reeds of The Mire. Wade through thick green waters teeming with dangerous creatures, rare plant life, and the occasional Gorgon to find buried treasure and lost corpses. Approach the ancient serpent boss, Anacython, if you dare!
For those not familiar with Blackwood, this is not something we’ll be supporting specifically on our Official Network, as it was designed and intended to be used for single servers an example of a mod map that can be hosted unofficially. This specific map will be set up so that you can still enjoy all the mechanics that ATLAS has to offer, whilst hosting it as a standalone server with no database setup required!
Live Game Patches
Since the last Captain's Log, our live game updates have taken a look at some more long term issues we’d like to address with the game in addition to our general focus towards bugs, performance, and QOL.
We released an update which was shortly reverted with the aim of tackling sky high Claim Flags. Our initial attempt involved setting a maximum height for flags to be placed at, but we recognize this one-stop solution doesn’t work for all islands, so we’ll be looking at a more island-specific approach in the future. We understand why these locations are chosen for flags, and how they relate to some of the more frustrating mechanics involved in contesting claims for both attackers/defenders, which we also plan to improve in the future.
An additional patch focused on the implementation of Fast Decay on our Official Network in order to tackle the structure spam that is present on islands. We understand that this doesn’t resolve the root issue and it can be worked around, however, it’s an initial measure we wanted to put in place whilst we explore proper long term solutions.
With today's patch, we'll be deploying a measure to help new settlement owners clear out existing structures on their island. A frustrating part of the game, after claiming an island from someone else, is dealing with the remains of their structures, whether that's a large base, or where that's multiple pillars and foundations littered around the island. With the latest patch, new settlement owners will now have a 12-hour window to activate a one-time razing of an island. This will destroy all structures on that island, including their own. It can only be used during peacetime, and will notify everyone on that specific grid, as well as log into any companies that had wiped structures on that island.
And finally, crew changes! So, of course, you guys may remember our mention of the I.W.C.R.S, now dubbed the Silo - a structure which can store gold and berries and is capable of feeding and paying crew from anywhere on the island - a much needed QOL change!
Another crew focused change we made recently, was to sync up the costs of both stationed and idle crew. This was because we wanted to encourage players to keep their crew stationed when possible, and the primary reason for that is for performance. Stationed crew are a lot more cost efficient on our servers due to specialized logic. So it’s a win-win for everyone here!
Further changes involved allowing the stationed crew to repair boats, but that change was shortly reverted due to players requiring the choice of whether or not they wanted their crew to repair their boat. Having all crew capable of repairing meant resources were being used up a lot more rapidly than some intended due to natural boat decay, but changing it back to idle only, means players have a partial choice in determining how often those resources are being used up. It's clear this system could use some improvements, and it’ll likely be something that's touched on in the future.
We wanted to highlight that sometimes we’ll make changes and they may not pan out, but we’re not afraid to pull those back, give them some more time in the oven or tackle problems from a different point of view. We appreciate your feedback as always and will continue to iterate on solving these problems and more!
And now for the rest of the patch notes:
209.499
- Fast Decay has now been enabled for Settlement Owners
- Fixed Reservoir and Waterpipes being from being falsely flagged by Fast Decay
- Fixed some edge-case 3-5 structure builds from being falsely flagged by Fast Decay
209.497
- Fast Structure Decay has been enabled on our Official Network. This means that core foundation structures (floors, pillars, and fence supports), which are not snapped (connected) to more than 2 pieces or do not have a valid structure on top will have rapid decay which will result in their destruction after 12 hours of not being rendered in. Unofficials can enable this setting with the following command parameter: ?FastDecayUnsnappedCoreStructures=true
- Reverted the change to Stationed Crew repairing anchored boats in order to control the amount of materials that are being consumed when a boat has been anchored. Idle crew will still repair boats.
v209.491
- Magic Mythos bonus rates have been disabled
- Fast Structure Decay has been disabled on our Official Network (needs more tweaks before we can set this live)
v209.48
- Fixed a bug which would cause bears and horses from not basing on ships when they had storage carts attached to their harness (this would cause them to fall off ships when sailing)
- Non Seamless Grid maps now save and load player/ship locations properly (notable on mod maps such as OceanTest)
- Stationed crew can now repair anchored boats
- Stationed Crew and Idle Crew now have the same gold cost requirements on land and on ships (Client will need to be updated to visualize this change, it's inc!)
- Fast Structure Decay is now enabled on non-snapped core structures. This means that they will decay within 12 hours.
v209.46
- Shipwrecks and their icons should now correctly vanish on the map after 5 days. We're still investigating legacy wrecks and however they may clear with this change after 5 days, as company data is loaded
- Fixed "leave Company" button
v209.43
- Fixed a bug which would sometimes cause the Wall Hook to not remember whether a light source was active after loading a saved game
- Fixed a bug where players would temporarily enter combat state upon transition
v209.4
- Fixed a bug which prevented players from gaining experience at level 149 (Max is level 150)
- Companies are now enabled and force-created on Single Player so players have access to their Company Log. If you had a pre-existing savefile, you will be able to create a company, however it will only pull in boats/structures/creatures for the grid you're currently on. We recommend creating your company on your most active grid. You can use the cheat command 'cheat givetome' to pull boats/structures/creatures into your new company
- Added an Admin Command to Single Player: cheat DoLeaveTribe
- Forest Colouring can now be crafted and applied to items
- Renamed one of the Purple colours to 'Dark Violet' as there were two of the same name
- Demolishing buoys will no longer leave the sign floating behind
209.36
- Fixed a bug which caused silos to pay crew that weren't on the same team
v209.35
- Reverted the Claim Flag height limit on Official Servers
v209.34
- When replacing invalid claimflags, you can now place them within the green ring of your original flag
- Claim flag height limit has been increased to 6500 units above sea level
v209.31
- Magic Mythos is enabled on our Official Network: 4x Harvesting, 4x Taming, 4x XP, 2x Gold, 2x Egg Hatching, 2x Baby Maturing, 2x Crop Growth, and 50% less mating interval!
- Company Island Point Limit has been increased by 100
- Tax Banks can only be placed by Admins or above in companies.
- Fixed certain level creatures not receiving experience points in Single Player
- Fixed underwater trenches not loading properly in Single Player
- Fixed a bug which caused Pistols to have a bullet loaded after being repaired from a broken state
- Discovery Zones on the map can now be hidden using the Toggle Island Info button on the ATLAS map
- Discovery on the map now temporarily disappear beyond a certain zoon distance on the map (zooming back in will have them reappear)
- Important: Claim Flags now have a maximum height limit when being placed. Claim Flags that were previously placed which exceed this limit will indicate as such on the HUD. Those which exceed the limit will be able to place a 2nd claim flag in a viable location. This will destroy your old flag and drop it's entire inventory into a loot cache (2 hour expiration time) on the ground. Next Wednesday, we'll be deploying an update which will force destroy any legacy flags which exceed the height limit. The limit is 4k units above sea level which is approximately 16/17 walls and only admins or above will be able to replace the flag.
- New configurable ini setting for Claim Flag height limit
[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]
MaxSettlementFlagZ=4000 // you can set this number to 999999 to have no height restrictions.
v209.1
- Added activate sail turning as a keybind (default: Left Shift)
- Crew Members will now take food/gold from the following structures in this priority (it goes to the 2nd/3rd if the first does not have gold).
Crew on Land:
1st priority: Resource Box and Food larder
2nd priority: Silo
3rd priority: Claim Flags
Crew on Fully Anchored Boats:
1st priority: Silo
2nd priority: Claim Flags
3rd priority: Resource Box and Food larder
- New placeable land structure 'Crew Resources Silo' which allows storage of food and gold to feed crew. Note this will also function on lawless servers, but to do so we've had to have them display island points on the map, however they still will not be able to be claimed.
- New option on claim flag which allows turning off crew gold and food payment
- Fixed an edge case which allowed you to fire cannons through walls
- Fixed a bug where Crew was taking gold/food from a flag before they took it from a resource box/larder when dealing with Crew on Land.
- Fixed a bug which prevented harvesting on creatures/using tools in Singleplayer
- Fixed a bug which would sometimes cause the resource override to stop functioning, therefore provide players with a different resource than intended
Show 'N Tell #9
We loved looking over the entries for Show 'n Tell and we're excited to showcase our favourites so everyone can check out player's creative endeavours and piratey adventures! Feast yer eyes on th' best o' th' bunch below!
LUNNINGSTOOKS
This shows some dedication to aligning and individually painting each canvas. Love it!
GUNSLINGER
Kudos to the builder, this is meticulously designed and executed.
OTAWA72
Otawa never fails to impress with well-framed and creative shots.
Honourable mentions
MESCALIN
PIRATESS
Congratulations to all of the winners who will receive some real life cash booty! We look forward to the next round of Show n' Tell!
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
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