[u]Sea Activity
[/u] To put it simply, ATLAS is a pirate game. Player activities should focus on the sea and, well, pirating! To that end we are introducing some new features to encourage leaving your home base, taking part in sea combat, and increasing conflicts with opposing players and factions. Modular ships were introduced, in part, to supply a quick and straightforward way to get out to sea. We’ve made it no secret we’re not entirely happy with how they’ve turned out, so we’ll be exploring ways to improve their looks with new art and how sails work on them. Any major changes to modular ships will likely not happen mid-season, if only to prevent any issues with ships crafted prior to any changes.Floating Operating Bases
Floating Operating Bases (FOBs) will introduce a whole new strategic system into Atlas where players will be able to build temporary floating bases to stage their fleet. The foundation of the FOB will be a large square with a hollow center. Along each side of the foundation will be snap points for Sea Docks, where player ships can be docked and protected. The foundation will provide support for all structures placed on it or connected to it up to 16 connections away, with no weight limit. There will, of course, be limits on where FOB foundations can be placed to avoid potential griefing. Placement Restrictions:- Companies will be limited to one FOB per grid.
- Must be placed in the open ocean.
- Can’t be placed near Tradewinds, portals, islands or other FOBs (being allied will not reduce the placement distance restriction).
- Can’t be placed in Golden Age, Kraken or Maw grids.
- [u] Island Claim Grids[/u]: The foundation will decay after 36 hours and can only be extended if a War Declaration changes the grid into combat phase after the first 12 hours of the foundation's existence, meaning the foundation will be extended until the completion of the war declaration.
- [u]Lawless and Lawless Claim Grids[/u]: The foundation will decay after 36 hours.
- [u]PvE Specific[/u]: All FOB foundations will start with a 7-day decay timer which can be extended by 12 hours for 5,000 gold, with no limit on the number of extensions.
Factions
Fighting against Ship of the Damned and ships from other player companies is fun and all, but the rewards for doing so can seem underwhelming at times. A new faction-based system will be introduced that allows players to sail their ships under the flag of the faction of their choosing! While we’re still designing the specifics on exactly how factions will play their part in the game, you can expect to see ships from each of the available factions roaming the open seas, special faction-based rewards, and pve quest line progression. More information will be shared as we get closer to implementing these new features. [u]Trading System
[/u] It’s been a couple of years now since we first started building a more automated and robust trading system, so we’ve had some time to evaluate how these systems are being used, their effectiveness, and enjoyability. The multiple types of auto-farm buildings, warehouses, markets, and sea forts all have an interconnected role in the current trading system, and we have several plans to improve many aspects of these. A few of our planned improvements:- A new interface (UI) for Markets
- Physical trade ships
- Tame trading
- Improved Sea Forts
Tame Utilization
[/u] While creatures and tames may not be the main theme of ATLAS, they still play an integral part in current gameplay. With that in mind, we’ve been looking to improve how tames are being used. We’ve already introduced Tame Houses, Tame Hatcheries, and Tame Cargo Railings to improve breeding and transporting of tames, but there is still more we can do to improve their storage and utility. We’ve also received a lot of feedback from the community on Tame Houses/Hatcheries, with one of the main critiques being the current UI used to view what tames are currently being stored inside. Having to go through the radial menu can become quite cumbersome when there are more than a few tames inside, not to mention the available information displayed is quite lacking. We’ll be working on providing a much better user interface to display tames and their relevant information.Tame Barn
While the Tame Houses/Hatcheries can be used to simply store tames, their unwieldy size and limited capacity do not always make doing so an ideal choice. The Tame Barn will be a new structure used for the sole purpose of storing mass amounts of tames. Tames within the barn will not reproduce or require food, they will simply be in stasis.Swarm House
The Swarm House offers a way of obtaining new companion tames with the added benefit of passive resource generation. Swarm Houses provide the perfect habitat for Bees, Ants, Bats, Rattlesnakes and Mini Crabs. Nearby wild tames of the acceptable type will be drawn to the Swarm House where they will be captured and tamed. Creatures tamed this way will not be rideable or breedable. Passive Resource Generation:- Bee: Honey
- Rattlesnake: Venom
- Bat: Nitro Fertilizer
- Ant: Toxic Flora
- Mini Crab: Crustacean Meat
