Correct, these changes are all server side, but they require significant testing.

There are some server side changes we can make pretty trivially, provide a single number in an override file and restart the servers. We don't like doing that, however, because it's not very stable and very hard to maintain. Obviously for critical situations we will do it, but it's something we try to avoid unless there's a real crisis.

There will be more Open Sea spawn revisions in 1.4, and, likely, in 1.5 as well. While we can, and do, test the functionality of these changes quite thoroughly, it is very difficult to test the actual impact of the changes on live gameplay. I can, and do, sit outside a port on an internal test server and kill NPCs to test the rate of incoming ships, however without 800 other players in the world killing some of those ships on the way, it's very hard to predict how many ships you'll actually see.

While I am reducing the number of Evil Pirate Gangs that each port calls for, you will still see a large number of them at any given port. This is particularly true because Evil Pirate Gangs generally spawn much closer to their destination port than other ship types.

I know that many players avoid killing NPC merchants to preserve their faction with that nation, and while I respect that, I want to make that a difficult choice. I want you to actually give up something by choosing to maintain your standing with a faction you're at war with. While I am certainly not trying to create a situation where those are the only NPC ships available to kill on the Open Sea, I do want players who are willing to take the war to their enemies to gain an advantage from it. Personally, I tend to level on the Open Sea (more experience per kill, and I get to fight higher level ships), so I am sympathetic to your concerns.

Finally, I wanted to note a couple of things for your information:

-Ports change the composition of the ships they call for when they change states, but ships already on the way do not change. This makes it entirely possible that you will see ships of a third party nation show up to a port that has just moved into Unrest, or that has moved back and forth between Unrest and normal.

-Ports call for many more ships during the Unrest phase (5000 unrest to port flip). This is the phase where I feel it is most important for players to have access to ships of the appropriate nations.

Ok, I have the scoop:

First, we have a new process we'll be working through for doing biulds from here on out. We revised it for this build, and that was part of the slow down.

Second, we're going to wait until tomorrow to push the latest 1.3 build which has a couple of fixes (especially for port battles). We'll be pushing that tommorow.

Sorry for the delay. We should have this polished out now.

DR is damage reduction.

You can find specifics of how the combat mechanics work in the ship combat subforum. DR is applied first.

First, I'd like to point out that posting official correspondance from FLS staffers sent via private messages is against the forum rules.

Misrepresenting FLS staffers is also a violation of our rules.

I was going to remove this thread, but I felt that making this clarification and locking the thread was a better course of action.

Bigdogcush? You can expect some additional discussion to occur between you and I in short order.

Lucky guy.

Best,
Aether

We were just discussing this today. The problem is that sometimes a problem that everybody thinks is well defined isn't. The problem reports we had didn't really point to a clear problem. With this last report, we found the problem, did some checking to make sure it wasn't in any of the other landmark rooms (I was really sure there would be some other problems, but I was wrong), and are doing the fix for it. The time to take to fix it is relatively small, which is particularly aggravating considering how much grief it caused.

If there's a capture deed (which there is for everything except some NPC ships and pirate-only ships) then it can give a capture deed when you scavenge it.

While I wish I had an answer for your question, all I can say at this point is that we are working with Big Pond to coordinate the patching process. Clearly this situation is less than idea, and we are actively working to remedy the problem.

Our Australian customers are quite important to us, which makes this situation doubly frustrating for all involved.

Best,
Aether

Hello folks- we discussed this issue at length during today's live issues meeting, and we are working with our friends at Big Pond to lock down a date for the update to the latest version of our 1.3 build.

I know it is frustrating, but as soon as we have more information, we will share it with you directly.

Best,
Aether

No. You can keep it up permanently, with some overlap to give you leeway.

They aren't gated by the in combat effect. You can use them any time.

They have access to careening camp specific ships and capture deeds, which gives them cheaper access overall.


The higher the max count, the less useful it is in smaller ships.

They aren't. Each command skill applies a self buff and a group buff. The most recent command takes precedence. However, other players cannot overwrite your self command.