Naval Action: Patches/Updates

[Asid]

26 January Hot Fix: PvP One Clone/Mirror opened!

Captains

We have deployed the minor patch today on all servers. It contains the following:

1. Full clone/Mirror of PvP one opened today.

To provide a partial solution to queues we have opened a new full copy of the PvP One server.

Temporary name for the server: PvP 3 EU Mirror

Rank, Gold, Ships and assets counted at 12am 26th Jan will be copied to the new server from PvP One server. Other servers were not affected.

What this means:
If you don't like the queues on PvP one you can just relog to the new EU server and have all the assets you had on the 26th Jan.

What it does not mean:
It will only be mirrored once. So if you continue playing on another server only rank will be synchronized as usual. If you acquire a lot of new assets after 26th they will only be present on the server where you acquired them.

2. Fixes
•   Server caps increased to 2200 simultaneous players
•   Carronades have been improved and their close range penetration increased (it was too low).
•   Cayo Romano, Gibraltar, and 2 bermuda port mission problems fixed. Ports mission representatives no longer give quests. In the future mission spawns will be improved and these ports will grant missions again. Right now you might need to find another port.
•   Several server optimization features implemented.
•   Number of unnecessary packets sent to players reduced.
•   Assist XP/Kill XP slightly increased. We are going to increase group xp even further once we close the loophole with the abnormal kill xp granted in one case that could be exploited.


Thank you Captains for your attention.
Good luck at Sea!

[Asid]

Minor patch v 9.62
28 January

What's new:
Afk timers has been added to all servers. If the player is inactive in game for 30 mins he will be auto-kicked from the server.

Bug fixes
•   Tower target selection fixed. Towers in port battles now fire at targets even if they are partially blocked by other ships
•   Bot deceleration bug fixed – it will reduce the number of collisions between bots and players.
•   US server bugs with connections to instances fixed.

Tuning
•   Niagara was a new ship and some mistakes sneaked in: as a result
Turn rate increased.
Planking increased and its class improved (it was too weak for its class)
The ship is still in testing and will be added to the game at a later stage.
•   NPC Ships of the line can now carry heavier weaponry on the stern and bow, to provide better protection against stern camping. (players will get this ability next patch)

Leftovers.
•   Group xp awards are also improved in the internal build. It needs additional checking and might be deployed on Friday (but this is not a promise).
•   Niagara battle rating (BR) and other ship battle rating tuning will be done in the next patch

[Asid]

Patch 9.63: The Iron Crisis
03/02/16

What's new:
•   Chat now tries to reconnect if you lost the connection to chat servers
•   Empty messages now do not affect spam filters
•   Attacking a friendly now has several warning windows to reduce accidental piracy acts
•   Missions can only be joined by your group members and enemies of your nation. We will continue to update Rules of engagements going forward affecting timers, reinforcements and battle pull.
•   Group invite will now notify if the player declined your request

Fixed bugs:
•   Rhea is now properly called Yard
•   Several synchronization bugs fixed in relation to ship and player states
•   Fixed bug with locking controls when connecting to chat
•   Fixed bug with locking controls when switching instances
•   Fixed stacking bug causing lost resources if the stack is bigger than 10000

Tunings:
•   Kill will be granted only if enemy ship is sufficiently damaged to sink her.
•   Kill XP now awards 80% of the battle rating to the person who delivered max damage (3x increase)
•   Assist XP now awards gives 50% of the ship battle rating. (2x increase)
•   PvP bonuses increased from 150% to 200% to promote more pvp activities.
•   Small battle events XP reduced by 50% to compensate significant increases in PvP XP
•   Friendly kill penalties increased 10x

Iron crisis fixes:
•   Iron ore now produces 2x more ingots (100% increase) - to not affect the prices of other items ore prices increased - price per ingot will stay the same.
•   Iron ore production increased 2x
•   Carriage blueprints now produce more carriages
Large - 2x increase
Medium - 3x increase
Small - 4x increase
These changes will dramatically reduce the iron/oak logs requirements in production of ships and other manufacturing goods.

Other fixes
•   Low and mid ranked bots have lost upgrades for speed and turning
•   Bots cannot disengage from boarding

[Asid]

Hotfix deployed: Fir, Oak, Gold and other fixes
09/02/16

Hello Captains
We have deployed a small patch today

•   Open sea repairs increased to 40% from 25% - we hated that I needed to click repair button 4 times after every battle
•   Privateer speed increased by 0.5 knots
•   Prices to sell ships to port for lower level ships increased (will help in crafting and provide more options in selling crafting ships that no-one buys from the market.
•   Mission XP and monetary compensation increased
•   Trading ships speed reduced by 1 knots for every vessel
•   Gun loss chance increased
•   European traders now sell goods at slightly better prices
•   Gold production increased 2x
•   Fir production increased 3x
•   Oak production increased 3x

Good luck at sea Captains!

[Asid]

Patch 9.64 - deployed 12th February
11 February - Admin


Hello Captains. We are deploying a new patch tomorrow 12 Feb. We think it is a last minor patch before new content starts getting in.

Due to XP rework the deployment will take longer and maintenance will start at 11-30am kiev time

What's new:

New account XP system
Old system had a lot of problems and confusion. It did not give enough flexibility and was causing a tornado of bug reports. New system is elegant and solves many player problems letting us focus on development more.

Rules of the system
•   Rank, Craft level and Labor hours are synchronized on steam account (learnt blueprints are not)
•   Steam account sync is independent of the player name
•   You can have different nations on different servers
•   You can have different names on different servers
•   In summary you can delete a player and create another one with another name keeping XP

We know some players will say it can lead to this and that but we are not worried. It solves a lot more problems than it creates. In the future it might change but right now it is the best choice.

New small battles/large battle timers
A lot of players had problems when both sides did not want to lose the ship in events. Causing long waits and claims of trolling. Small and large battles have received battle and exit timers. This will allow players to exit the battle if both sides do not want to wait until the end.
•   Battle timer is 30 mins
•   Exit timer is 2 mins
You still cannot exit during first 30 mins. But if the battle is not resolved during that time after that you can exit the event using the exit timer rules from the open world.

Other fixes
•   Port battles with no damage bug fixed
•   A lot of players were trolling others by destroying friendly derelicts. You cannot destroy the friendly derelicts any more.
•   Damage calculations are more optimized in large battles.
•   Battle exit logic is improved and several bugs fixed
•   Ship no longer dissapears when sank enemy exits the battle
•   Mission rewards fixed - missions now give fixed 5000 gold: favoring young players and giving no advantage for higher levels who have other options to make money
•   4th rates and higher vessels repair prices increased 50%
•   Assault flags prices upper price level increased
•   Compass wood supply tuned
•   Carriages production levels decreased
•   Small events no longer feature bots that are unavailable at open sea.
•   Certain server tech was replaced - server crash like yesterday will happen a lot less now

[Asid]

Forthcoming content patch information.

 Hello Captains and Gentlemen

This is a first attempt at a devblog. We are planning to deploy a big content patch within next 10-14 days. We will freeze the build for the hot fixes on friday and start testing new content. Last hot fix could happen on Wednesday and will provide chat fix, in game mod colors, and port battles trolling fixes. After that no tunings and hot fixes will be possible until the big patch is out. If the patch is delayed everything is delayed.

Content patch discussion

New store interface.
We wanted to improve the store information for players making purchase/sale decisions and improve usability a bit.

In the new interface you will be able to see the amount of goods bought and sold at that price level and will be able to purchase everything in one block (no more unnecessary clicks if you wanted to buy 2000 of something - if someone is selling 2000 items you can buy it in one block). In addition to that you will be able to see top contracts and player names placing those contracts in case you want to trade with them in private.

New battle crew management - BIG CHANGE
Crew focuses have been reworked completely and became more realistic. They will now work as toggles – instead of absolute choices. Previously all tasks were fulfilled with penalties starting from zero penalty to 100% penalty in a linear progression, and you could only improve a certain task while reducing the benefits on another independently of your crew size.



In the new system:

All main tasks have a certain allocation of crew depending on ship type.
All main tasks have a minimum and optimal size of crew required.

• Optimal crew – task will be fulfilled at max speed
• Minimal crew – task will be fulfilled with penalties
• Less than minimal crew – task wont be fulfilled at all.

Sailing, Gun reloads, Repairs, Leak fixing is atomized and all of them require a min or optimal squad. The crew requirement is the sum of individual crew requirements. Switches between crew focuses take time and the bigger your crew the more time it takes to reposition the squads from task to task. If you have full crew you can toggle optimal performance for all tasks.

The main differences lie in the changes to gunnery. We will try to explain it in simple English – if we fail please rephrase for us in comments and we will update the text.

Previously all guns were reloaded simultaneously. If you did not have enough crew it affected ALL guns. It was unrealistic and unhistorical. In the new system every gun works separately and has a gun crew allocation. All guns are loaded gun by gun if you have minimal gun crew.

How it will work. Example: You first rate have lost most of the men and has 20 men left

Current old system: Ship suffers enormous penalty depending on a crew focus. All decks are affected. If you have switched on the gunnery crew focus you never reload anyway.

New system: Penalties and reload will depend on the gun composition of cannons for this particular vessel. If you have 20 men left and switched to a gunnery crew focus it will be enough to reload 2 heavy guns per minute allowing you to fire them individually. All guns have a minimum and optimal crew requirements and the gun composition for the vessel will become extremely important in battle.

• Equip lighter guns – you will have more flexibility in choices when you start losing crew.
• Equip heavier guns – you will have to manage the crew.

Certain ships will become impossible to sail without extra crew management.

Repairs/Survival changes
Survival will also start working differently. If you have only 1 leak it will take only 5 men to repair and will not affect other sailor/gunner crew composition. If you have 90 leaking holes you will have to find 450 men to plug them in.
Repairs also will be affected. If you are repairing Victory you might need up to 30% of crew to repair 15% of the integrity (number is arbitrary at this stage).

These changes will also allow for interesting options in improving repairs in a realistic way.

Sailing
Sailing is simple and works similar to guns. You have a % of crew required to work sails and if you don't do any other tasks you will not suffer any penalties to speeds of raising sails or turning yards. If you have enough crew you can work sails and man guns at the same time.

Boarding
Boarding crew has to be allocated before the boarding. And the main difference with the old system is this: if you have enough men you can shoot guns and have boarders ready at the same time. Some ships with low number of guns will shine as a result – lynx is the best example. And it will allow you to board when you are sinking (sending some men to repairs and the rest to boarding party).

We also would like to discuss the following potential changes to the boarding – but they wont get in next patch.

• Only prepared boarding crew will fight in boarding for both sides
• Fire deck guns will be moved out of the boarding interface and you will be shooting actual guns with their real reloads and performance. If you don't have crew allocated to guns you will not be able to fire during boarding.
• Disengage duration will be affected by several commands and factors. Players wont be able to disengage in certain situations unless they are pulled away from the vessel by friendly ramming.

Production buildings
Production buildings are still tentative and might not get in next patch. Please leave your feedback on how you want production buildings to work in the following topic http://forum.game-la...gs-discussions/. We will of course try hard to make them happen in Feb but not sure about it.

New ships
2-3 new ships will be delivered after the patch – as they need more time to be tested and fine tuned. Most likely candidates are improved Niagara that will be boosted in certain areas based on the player feedback and Essex Frigate.

All other changes and proposed tunings are described in more detail on our forums. Please discuss here... http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/10571-1st-big-content-patch-information/

[Asid]

1st Big content patch information.

Posted 15 February 2016

Hello Captains and Gentlemen

This is a first attempt at a devblog. We are planning to deploy a big content patch within next 10-14 days. We will freeze the build for the hot fixes on friday and start testing new content. Last hot fix could happen on Wednesday and will provide chat fix, in game mod colors, and port battles trolling fixes. After that no tunings and hot fixes will be possible until the big patch is out. If the patch is delayed everything is delayed.

 
Content patch discussion: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/10571-1st-big-content-patch-information/

[Don_prince]

Patchnotes:

Patch 9.65 - Crew management and resource production
Community Announcements - Admin
Hello Captains.
After 2 week delay caused by the physics rework and additional work required by new crew management the patch has been finally deployed.

Contents

Trading and crafting
Niagara Blueprint added to the game
Crafting notes were renamed to High Grade Notes
New crafting note types added to the game: low grade notes, mid grade notes. New notes are made by paying copper or silver coins to the researchers (imaginary scientists)
BP is renamed to Blueprint
Resource store interface reworked
Resource production buildings added – buildings can be built only in national towns
Ship construction building added – shipyard – shipyards can be built in all towns which you can enter
NPC production will stay on its current level and will be gradually decreased over time to fully player dependent economy
Blueprint learning chance now depends on the quality of the ship you are making
Better upgrades now can be made by using mid grade crafting notes
Compass wood requirements in ship construction are changed (more wood needed)

ROE and attack mechanics
Battle over timer now lets you stay in battle for only 5 minutes (to solve the pre maintenance port battle bugs that did not transfer the port to the winner if someone stayed in the battle)
Battle entry timers reduced to 2 minutes. This is a very important change - you will be able to pick the place of attack better and if you don't see enemy sails on the horizon you will be safer
Invulnerability timer does not let you enter battles anymore

XP rewards and statistics
Additional trackers are added in battle UI for better debug
PVP XP for kill and assist are increased 50%
Reward manager was reworked completely and now allows better slicing and dicing of damage and crits allowing better and more detailed rewards and achievements in battles.
Kill and Assists now grant monetary rewards which are doubled in PVP
Traders now give full loot if they carried any – previously because of the bug if you captured a trader it did not award full loot.
NPC Traders now can carry national resources

Port battles
Shallow water port towers now carry 12lb guns
Assault flag now weights 100 to not allow yachts and cutters to be a flag carrier

Combat
Niagara is now a better ship
Crew management completely reworked – remember that it is an early version and it will be improved based on the community feedback.
Sail repairs now repairs masts (if you did not have broken masts before). Previously if you repaired sails it did not recover masts HP if you had them damaged but not destroyed.
Camera bugs are fixed on Snow, Pavel, Pickle and Renommee.
Friendly derelicts now cannot catch fire from friendly damage
Exit timer now resets if the ship is on fire
Fast explosions on snow – fixed
In battle physics completely reworked and we now have better integration of Physx in game. It solved the collisions issues (and flipping) almost completely
Ship heel from damage eliminated – it was unhistorical and extremely annoying.
Sail furling and yard turning speed curves updated and should be more realistic now – falling first gradually then suddenly.
Crucial bug with cannon influence on speeds fixed (some ships UI speed indicated previously did not take the cannon weight into account).
Ships now cannot turn with 0 speed – this is extremely important and potentially game changing
Frigates are now less comfortable sailers in very narrow angles to wind
Bots stopped shooting chain temporarily
Fires now do more damage
Fires now are extinguished 10% slower

Boarding changes
Marines now work differently. They are not part of the crew anymore and affect your performance depending on their number. Marine upgrade now determines which % of your crew is allocated to marines. This is done in preparation for crew and officer hiring. Please review which marines you have as they WILL affect how you fight in battles.
Fixed bug with incorrect musket counts in certain rare cases
Brace now costs 5 preparation
Preparation per round growth is increased by 5
Certain formulas are reworked for boarding and if you have decisive advantange it will be easier to win during assaults.
Boarding now requires 50 preparation to initiate
Boarding pulling is improved and will suffer less random interruptions.
Expect other significant changes to boarding in the next 1-2 patches

Other fixes
Maintenance time moved 2 hours earlier required some heroic sacrifices from our QA
Some graphical assets were improved for the open world. Some players might not like them but changes were needed in preparation for land in battles. To enable better variety of trees enable Render Decorators function in options
Family sharing is now impossible
Ship report letter is taken out from loot
Battle sail mistakes fixed for Niagara
Victory model upgraded
More than 100 other minor bugs and problems fixed thanks to your report
Several rare exploits were fixed and closed thanks to qw569 research

Potential problems
With better physx integration possible bugs could happen – including visual problems with turning and heel to bow on certain ship models.
Some NPC bots became dumber – we are working on it
Several other marvelous bugs are probably introduced

[Asid]

Hotfix - 9.66 - Changing changes + some other things

Posted 17 March 2016

What's new:
•   Certain FPS Improvements were achieved (if you still have low fps in the OW switch to medium settings and increase level of detail to high - it will give a good boost while keeping visuals on good level)
•   Ship turning was reworked due to a lot of graphical and physx artifacts - ship turning returned to 9.64 state (but on new physx)
•   Lower sail HP now does not reduce crew requirement for sailing (as happened before)
•   Sailing crew is now affected only if masts fall down

Fixed bugs:
•   Extra bow heel now fixed on several vessels
•   Several technical problems fixed

Tunings:
•   Bug causing fast leaks repairs now fixed
•   HMS Bellona visuals slightly improved
•   Cannon mass changed to historical weights
•   NPC Resource production reduced by 20%
•   NPC Resource consumption increased by 2x to provide more trading opportunities
•   Production buildings labor hour requirements normalized at 150LH per 3 days of production
•   Player production levels changed (mostly increased for all resources)
•   Upgraded production buildings now give more LH discount (increase from 10% to 20%)
•   Boarding crew requirement to achieve 100 preparation lowered from 80% of crew to 50% of crew
•   Boarding crew focus priority now equals sailing and gunnery - it will be more evenly distributed if all crew focuses are switched on
•   Third rate turn rates slightly reduced
•   Cerberus turn rate slightly increased
•   Keep in mind that turning/accel/decel changes will continue to happen over the next month as we are not fully satisfied with them

[Asid]

Hotfix - 9.67

Posted Yesterday, 11:15 AM

Captains! Minor hotfix was deployed today.
 
What's new:
•   Flags updated for several countries
•   Reinforcements were disabled temporarily for rework
•   Captains no longer can enter battles from invisibility/invulnerability to avoid port hopping and hiding in battles for the purpose of ganking
 
Fixed bugs:
•   Boarding parties upgrade bug fixed
•   Unsynced gun sounds for several ships fixed
•   Several typos in gun tooltips fixed

[Asid]

Patch 9.68 - New ships
31 March -


Hello Captains: New patch has been deployed

What's new
•   New ship added: Le Gros Ventre
•   New ship added: Ingermanland

Fixed bugs
•   Battle spawns fixed - joining ships no longer can spawn closer or even ahead of you if you are being attacked.
•   AI marines fixed - they gave no bonuses to the AI ship causing easy wins in boarding

Gameplay Tuning
•   Crew requirements slightly reduced for frigates and higher
•   Cannon crew requirements slightly reduced as well
•   Light ship planking integrity increased for all vessels up to a brig
•   Surprise speed slightly increased
•   Frigate speed slightly increased

More announcements will follow with detailed ship descriptions

[Asid]

Patch 9.7 - Land sighted
13 April

What's new:

Main and the most exciting feature: Land in battles
We developed an amazing tech fully replicating open world land in battle instances. This will bring an extra dimension to combat visually and in gameplay (especially when fighting close to land). Expect multiple bugs with this feature including performance related issues. Very large battles close to land will most likely lower your FPS. To minimize the problem we suggest tweaking the settings.

Rules of engagement changes
•   Land in battles changed Rules of Engagement.
•   Players who are pulled into instance will spawn in exact positions form the open world.
•   If you have enemies ahead of you they will be ahead of you in battle.
•   Please be more careful when engaging enemies and avoid situation where you can spawn surrounded.
•   Lag compensation visual circle is added. When you select a ship you will see a small circle around it. If you attack the enemy within that small circle your spawn positions are not guaranteed. If you want to guarantee exact position for spawns attack outside of that small circle.
•   The land in battles spawning has not been tested in large player base environment and we will need your feedback.

Reinforcements changes
•   Player reinforcements are now positional, but they always come a good distance away from the main engagement.
•   Because spawns are now fully positional and you can place yourself very close to the enemy – ships now start the battles with guns unloaded (as it was some time before in early testing)
•   Important: Port battles will continue to be played in separate instances (old system) until their full rework in the next content patches.

Soften the ganking.
•   Ganking is considered a main problem by a large portion of the community and needs to be lessened a bit. We are bringing back an old feature FOR TESTING that was in game before the release. Initial attack does not have any limitations as before. But entering the battle cannot change the balance in battle for more than 1.5x BR difference. In this case if you got yourself into an even fight enemies close by will not be able to unbalance the battle. Of course if you see a large fleet on the horizon its still better to run.
•   Attacks in the protected areas are now prohibited by design (even on NPCs) to avoid pulling your fleets into battles by hidden alts or by mistakes
•   We are aware of the counter-tag issues and ROE will be addressed eventually.

Mortar brig added
•   Historically accurate mortar vessel has been added to NPC Stores in the game. Its main purpose is to destroy land fortifications and stationary ships. It is not fully tuned gameplay wise and we expect you to provide a lot of feedback on the mortar brig gameplay and potential improvements.
•   Mortars are switched on by pressing K. Min fire distance is 1.5 km. Ball takes 30 seconds on average to reach the target.
•   Blueprint will be added at a later stage

Duel room added
If you enter the duel room the combat will automatically start with another player waiting in the lobby if he has the same ship as you. In the future the threshold might be increased. Please provide feedback on the battle timers and exit timers in duels.

PvE content
•   Large NPC fleets added to open world
•   Generated Epic events adjusted to your group size have been added to the open world (randomly placed)
•   Fleet orders added to mission list – allowing players to participate in group NPC battles
•   Fleet orders can be entered as a group
•   You can now take missions of every level (both fleet and single ship missions)
•   Important: Combat NPC ships are now transferred to the admiralty after capture – admiralty immediately provides the compensation for the captured ship durability. But you cannot capture NPC ships any more. Trading ships can be captured.

Other changes
•   You can now disable reload (by keeping the ability to fire) for the whole broadside by pressing F5 - this will free up men if you don't plan to use that side of the ship in combat
•   Leak system reworked. If you shoot at the right places when ship or waves are in the right heel or position you can sink the ship by just generating enough leaks.
•   Group size has been increased to 12 people for the open world combat and events. Small and large battle events only accept groups up to 6 men to avoid un-balanced fights in the events.
•   All ships up to heavy frigates have been added to NPC stores.
•   Extra notifications added for creating new characters and for deleting the outposts. Hopefully this will reduce the accidental deletion of outposts
•   Clan officers can change the clan descriptions and kick members from the clan.
•   When installing cannons you will see their effect on speed in the port ship description.
•   Known blueprints no longer drop for the crafter
•   Enable/Disable enemy communications option now works in instances
•   Ignore list now does not allow trade invite spam
•   Extra graphical options are added for land visual settings (to lessen the land effect in large battles close to the shores)
•   Disengage command now cost 45 preparation (works both ways)
•   Unprepared ships start with 25 preparation when boarding begins (you are in battle and are somewhat prepared to boarding fight anyway)
•   Price movements are disabled for NPCs - producing ports make and sell goods at one price, purchasing ports buy goods at one price to fix several minor bugs allowing random high income in several cases.
•   NPC resource consumption increased for several goods
•   NPC purchase price bonuses removed
•   Bot behavior bugs fixed before major overhaul in the future - no work on bots will be done for 1-2 months
•   Penetration systems slightly improved
•   Hammocks bonuses increased
•   Grind has been somewhat addressed by lowering the XP thresholds

Fixed bugs:
•   Several redundant messages removed
•   Battle circle of death synchronization bug fixed
•   Ingermanland is now a proper 4th rate
•   Steel tool box now gives absolute bonus not % bonus
•   Several bugs for NPC behavior fixed
•   Several boarding visualization bugs fixed
•   Several repair time bugs fixed
•   Several graphical bugs fixed on Le Gros Ventre
•   FXAA can now be switched off forever (it was enabled every time you launched a client)
•   Several minor bugs with crew management fixed
•   Bot reload bugs fixed
•   Cutter positioning on water in the OW somewhat improved
•   Multiple bugs and problems probably introduced.

[Asid]

Patch 9.8 Damage model, New ships and other things
19 May - Admin

What's new:
 
Closing server PVP 3 EU mirror
•   PvP 3 EU Mirror will be closed down during patch deployment.
•   Player assets will be moved to accounts on PVP EU 1
•   Most assets and currency will be given to players as redeemables.
•   More information and details on the process are posted here

Damage model 5.0 
•   Penetration models were completely overhauled
•   All last remains of random factors and probabilities were cleared out of the code base to make damage purely skill based.
•   Cannons have penetration numbers based on historical data (very close to admiralty test tables)
•   Armor width is added to ship parameters and effective armor based on angle of hit is added as well.
•   Masts have received thickness (in addition to hp) - no more 1km demasting
•   Modifiers of wood types have changed
o   Fir = -10cm
o   Oak = standard
o   Teak = +5cm
o   Live oak = +10cm
•   Detailed description is in this topic: http://steamcommunity.com/app/311310/discussions/1/364041517009836870/
New damage system was extensively tested by our QA and us, but of course it still requires final tuning based on player feedback and results. Expect potential problems and unbalanced ships or gun types. 
 
New ships added
•   Player voted ship: Rattlesnake - sloop of war
•   Player voted ship: Chapman's Indiaman - combat trader

Rattlesnake


Indiaman


Changes in port battles 
•   There are 3 types of port battles now. To give frigates more intensive testing of the damage model and to give more options for frigate captains.
•   Shallow water ports - no changes
•   Medium depth port battles - Cerberus to Ingermanland/Constitution
•   Regional port battles - Cerberus to Santisima 
•   Defense timers cannot be changed by defenders after they were picked the first time. Choose them wisely.

Changes in battle entry, reinforcements, and capital waters 
•   Captains wont be able to enter battles immediately after log in, port exit or sitting in battle result screens. To do that the system of invis/invul has beend changed. After login or port exit or battle exit you will not be able attack or be attacked for 30 seconds. 120 sec invulnerability timer wont let you enter battles. This will completely solve hiding in battles issues. 
•   Positional reinforcements system has changed closer to the old method. Captains wont be able to position themselves ahead of the enemy. Captains can only reinforce battles from defined zones that will be visualized on the map. 
•   Capital water protection system changed. You can attack enemy ships in your capital waters. Not only that. That battle will be opened for 1.5 hours and will be fully positional during the whole battle time. 

Other changes
•   Spyglass added to open world
•   Clan warehouse added to the game
•   Clan tag is now showing on the open world
•   Ports will sometimes purchase ships from players on the auctions
•   Fleet orders will now scale based on your group size
•   All orders after their start will be open for your nation for 2 mins to allow bigger engagements 
•   We are doing certain experiments for xp for travel for future exploration and other features
•   System allowing a much stronger side to exit battle has been reworked. We now take into account only starting battle rating difference situation at the start of the battle (previously it was dynamic). The rest works as before. If you were attacked by a weaker force - stronger side could deny battle and exit during first 2 mins (this is a legacy feature somewhat reducing the effect of trolling by light ships).
•   Exit timer is now going to reset if you are taking water. This will help in group battles where you always had to keep destroyed enemy tagged.
•   Mortar brig hits will now generate leaks under waterline if it penetrates
•   Teleport between outposts(docks) is now without cooldown
•   Teleport to capital (unstuck) is now possible only with the empty cargo hold 

Fixed bugs:
•   Certain CPU load optimization was implemented.
•   Fixed camera bugs on Essex
•   Fixed bug with time bonus on Steel Toolbox
•   Fixed main camera bugs on the Mortar Brig
•   Fixed reload bugs on Mortar brig
•   Fixed several lightning issues on Mortar brig
•   Fixed bugs causing distance problems on mixed decks
•   Several sound bugs fixed

Tunings:
•   Ingermanland и Constitution are now built on 2nd level shipyards (because they are 4th rates)
•   Ports will stop buying resources if NPC stock exceeds 25000 - further changes to economy will be done in the next patch
•   Broken rudder bug fixed (it was not giving enough penalties)
•   Repair kits are removed from loot
•   Minor changes in pricing of blueprints and ships were done to allow faster tuning and design changes 
•   Num Enter on keyboards can also send messages now
•   2 important exploits were fixed thanks to the Captain qw569
•   Multiple headspinning bugs were introduced

Next content patch will be deployed in a month. Before that we plan to issue 1-2 hot fixed to finalize damage model and several other things.

[Asid]

Hotfix 9.82 - Grape fixes and other tunings
27 May - Admin
Patch will be deployed today on Friday 27th May
 
What's new:
•   Fixed the bug that did not increase crew damage when shooting at top deck of the ship on the boarding crew focus.
•   Officers cannot close clan warehouse now (to avoid extremely painful mistakes)

Fixed bugs:
•   Grape bugs fixed. Grape damage now depend on planking state and distance
•   Grape now affects exit timers again
•   Fixed bug that did not allow exit from the contested port

Tunings:
•   Ramming leaks are disabled - we considered them unhistorical because ships collide above the waterline and by the time underwater parts hit most energy is lost due to water friction and bow destruction. This also fixed several game breaking exploits like using cheap ships to disable heavy vessels by ramming.
•   Cannonball damage to crew slightly reduced
•   As a start of anti inflationary changes monetary rewards for port battles are now 1x
•   The ability of cannonballs to destroy cannons through stern is slightly reduced to include cannons that are destroyed but are still blocking the shots.
•   HP of masts rebalanced a bit. Approximate number of shots to destroy the mast based on the max possible caliber for that ship is 7 for the lower section 3 for mid section and 2 for upper section of the mast. Mast thickness still works so it is still going to be impossible to demast from 1km. (previous mast thickness was 10/5/3 for respective sections)
•   Chain damage increased significantly

[Asid]

Hotfix 9.83 - Patch notes
3 June - Admin

What new:
•   Boarding upgrade - Marines - no longer gives insta preparation. The speed of reaching 50 now depends on your marines %. 
•   Fixed bug artificially reducing the penetration for all guns if distance is above 200 meters

Tunings:
•   Live oak wood type now gives 7cm instead of 10
•   Teak wood type now gives 4cm instead of 5
•   Fir wood penalty is now -7cm instead of -10
•   Armor values adjusted for all ships from Rattlesnake to Victory
•   Cannons and carronades penetration adjusted
•   Slight changes for mast hp and thickness - additional changes might be required
•   Grape damage adjusted - crew damage through stern somewhat improved.
•   Penetrating leaks under waterline take slightly more water