PATCH: May 12 – Ship People Expansion!

Luthius has managed to make naval combat in the Outlands even more impressive with a massive expansion for Ship People! Read below for the latest patch notes!

PATCH NOTES:

Speed Bonuses
Ships can only have one Speed Increase Ability in effect at any given time

Speed Bonuses for the following abilities have been adjusted as such:

• Hard to Port ability now increases speed by 20% for 15 seconds
• Beat to Quarters ability now increases speed by 15% for 30 seconds
• Ride the Waves ability now increases speed by 10% for 60 seconds (now regardless of Sail Hit Points)

Ability Speed Effects

• Tanglevine Ammunition will reduce a target ship’s speed by 30% for 15 seconds
• Chainshot Ammunition will reduce a target ship’s speed by 20% for 15 seconds

Sail Damage Speed Effect

• Ship Speed penalty for Player Ships from taking Sail Hit Points Damage now scales between 0% to 25% as the ship’s Sail Hit Points approaches 0 (previously scaled between 0% to 50%)
• Ship Speed penalty for NPC Ships from taking Sail Hit Points Damage remains between 0% to 50% as the ship’s Sail Hit Points approaches 0

Ship Upgrade and Crew Bonus Reductions
Ship Bonuses from Ship Upgrades and Crewmembers for the following Bonus Types have been reduced to 50% of their previous base amounts:

• Movement Speed
• Cannon Accuracy
• Cannon Damage
• Doubloons Earned
• Crew Wrestling Bonus
• Crew Damage Bonus
• Spyglass Search Distance Bonus
• Crew Recovery Cooldown / Crew Healing Bonus

Firing Angles

• Firing angles for ship cannons have been significantly widened and AI has been updated to make it much, much more difficult for player ships to catch NPC Ships in a “blindspot” / “deadzone” orientation where they will not fire on the player nor attempt to move

Cannon Auto-Correct

• Any time a player fires a cannon and places the cursor onto another ship, 50% of the shots fired will “auto-correct” and will retarget the center of the ship, even while either ship is moving
• Auto-Correct does not mean “auto-hit”; as each cannon shot still requires an accuracy check per individual cannon ball in order to hit their target

NPC Ship AI

• A number of improvements have been made to the NPC ship navigation and pathfinding AI, and NPC ships will continuously attempt to try to move to get themselves out of “stuck/blocked” locations while in combat
• Overhauled the handling on NPC crewmember targeting AI for combat, and NPC crewmembers will prioritize attacking player crewmembers on ships over players/tamed/summoned creatures

Area-of-Effect Mechanics

• Any Explosion Potions, player-casted Spells, or Pet Abilities that utilize an Area-of-Effect radius will now only affect up to at most 2 targets while on a ship

Boarding Damage Bonus

• The Boarding Damage Bonus stat on ships has been removed from the ship system (previously was linked to Boarding Success chance bonus)

Crew Hit Points Bonus

• The Crew Health Bonus stat on ships has been renamed to Crew Hit Points Bonus

Crew Healing Bonus

• The Crew Recovery stat on ships has been renamed to Crew Healing Bonus and now increases how much health is restored whenever a ship Crewmember is healed (by any source)

Begging Motivation

• A player using the Begging skill while on board a ship will automatically attempt to use the Crewmember Motivation mechanic (and will not need to manually target crewmembers any longer)
• Players must be members of their ship’s Fighting Party to use the Crewmember Begging Motivation mechanic, and if they leave the fighting party, crewmembers will not receive that player’s Motivation bonus any longer
• Players will now receive a system message notification when their Begging Motivation effect expires (5 minutes duration)

Readying Crew / Sending Crew Below Decks

• The cooldown between Readying Crew and Sending Crew Below Decks is now a flat 10 minutes and not affect by any upgrades

Ship Anger Sounds

• Added a randomized 30-90 second delay between “Anger Sounds” being played for creatures at sea (due to the nature of how ship combat works, creatures change “Combants” a lot and normally each time results in an Anger Sound being played)

Misc Stats

• Fixed a number of incorrect display values in the Ship Stats gump page

Recall / Magical Travel

• Players are no longer able to Recall, Gate, Hike away from ships (cannot leave by normal means unless thrown overboard)
• Players using the Help Stuck feature to leave a ship will be killed, similarly to using Help Stuck inside a dungeon
• Players can still recall to a ship using the blue Ship Recall Rune they receive on ship placement

Ship Holds

• Ship Holds will no longer be locked
• Players may access the Hold of a ship if they are an Owner or Co-Owner of that ship OR that ship has no living friendly players/crewmembers on board (this includes both player and NPC ships)
• Ship Tillermans will still notify players when a nearby NPC is now devoid of crewmembers and the hold is now accessible

Ship Salvage

• Ship Deeds are no longer Capturable/Ransomable (players may only Capture/Ransom Ship Upgrade deeds now)
• Players can now at most lose one Ship Upgrade to any other player when their ship sinks

Ship Flags

• Each ship now has a Flag that they fly under, which is depicted in the upper-right corner of the Ship Overview menu page
• Players can choose between a Pirate Flag (default setting) or a Civilian Flag
• As long as their ship is NOT yet in the water, players can change their ship’s flag by clicking the Change Flag button, which will give a description of what that flag represents
• While flying a Pirate Flag (default settings) ships have no penalties or special handling
• While flying a Civilian Flag, a ship cannot lose their Upgrade Deeds to other players
• Additionally, while flying a Civilian Flag, that ship earns 25% less gold and doubloons, has a 25% less chance at finding special or rare loot (including Ship Upgrades), and cannot acquire other player ship’s Upgrade Deeds (via Ransom)
• If a ship flying a Civilian Flag initiates an attack against another player ship (who has not yet attacked them) their flag will revert to Pirate Flag and the tillerman will announce it as such

Civilian Ship Blocking

• If players make a habit of using Civilian flagging for “PvP” purposes by using Civilian-flagged ships to surround and block other player ships (with no intention of attacking them) we will consider implementing punitive measures for players who engage in such behavior: possible punishments may include temporary or even permanent lockout of the Ship System for that player’s entire IP address
• We consider players using ships to block other player’s ships (while refusing to fire on them) to be similar to players placing movement-blocking objects in the front of dungeon entrances/moongates/etc in regards to being “abusive/griefing” gameplay mechanics: as such, please do not engage in these activities. We do not want to have to add punitive measure for this behavior, but will if we feel the need exists and punish the players involved

Crew Attack / Crew Stop

Players now are in full control over which Ship or Sea Creature that their crewmembers will attack

In order for ship crewmembers to fight, players MUST give commands to them telling them whom to attack via the Crew Attack command or to stop fighting via the Crew Stop command

Crew Attack
Crew Attack tells a ship’s crewmembers to attack a target ship, which can include their own ship to focus on fighting enemy boarders, or they can target a sea creature to attack

Crewmembers will NOT single out and attack specific players or “land-based” creatures via Crew Attack; they will simply attack any valid targets on board that ship
Additionally, when targeting an Ocean Mini-Boss or Ocean Boss, crewmembers will first direct their attention towards “boss spawns” accompanying the mini-boss/boss

Players can select a ship or sea creature for their crewmembers to attack via the following methods:

Clicking the Crew Attack button on the main ship page
Clicking the Bullseye + Axe + Crew icons in any of the hotbars
Saying “Crew Attack” or “Crew Target” out loud
Typing [CrewAttack or [CrewTarget

Crew Stop
Players can tell their crewmembers to stop fighting their current target via the following methods:

Clicking the Crew Stop button on the main ship page
Clicking the Red X + Crew icons in any of the hotbars
Saying “Crew Stop” or “Crew Halt” out loud
Typing [CrewStop or [CrewHalt

Clear of the Fray

• When the 60 second ship combat timer expires, the tillerman will now announce “We’re clear of the fray!” which notifies players that they can now repair freely/dock freely/ etc

Fighting Party

• Each ship now has a Fighting Party made up of players, chosen by the Captain, who are allowed to participate in fighting on the ship
• While on a ship, only Players and their Followers who have been selected as members of the Fighting Party are allowed to perform Harmful or Beneficial Actions to other players/creatures
• Players will receive a system message notification if they try to perform a Harmful or Beneficial action onboard a ship that they have not been made members of the fighting party for
• The maximum size of a ship’s Fighting Party is determined by the ship type (listed below)
• The History Tab of the Ship Menu has been changed to Roles Tab
• On Roles page, the Captain of the ship can chose which players will make up the ship’s Fighting Party
• If the Ship’s Fighting Party has room available, the Captain will automatically be added to it when he or she places the ship in the water
• The captain will also be notified if their Fighting Party has additional room available upon placement

• Players can preemptively select members for their Fighting Party on land (while the ship is in deed form) and the list of players added to a fighting party persists even after a player docks the ship (the settings are always saved after any change)
• The Friendly Players section of the page contains a list of all friendly players (Captain, Co-Owners, and all Friends) of the ship
• Players will show up with Green Text for their names if they are currently on board the ship
• Clicking on the button next to a player in the Friendly Players section will add them to the Fighting Party if room is available
• Clicking on the button next to a player in the Fighting Party section will remove them from the Fighting Party
• Players can not add new members to the Fighting Party while the ship is currently in combat

The Maximum Size of a ship’s Fighting Party is determined by the ship type, as follows:

Small Ship / Small Dragon Ship: 2 Players
Medium Ship / Medium Dragon Ship: 2 Players
Large Ship / Large Dragon Ship: 2 Players
Carrack: 3 Players
Galleon: 4 Players

Boarding Parties

• Players may now only launch Boarding Parties from ships if they are part of that ship’s Fighting Party
• Other players not in the ship’s Fighting Party will no longer automatically join with boarding parties for their ship

Ship Ramming

• Ships now have a new mechanic called Ram Ship
• Players may only activate Ram Ship when their ship is stuck or has its movement blocked in 6 or more directions (such as North / Up / West / Left / etc)
• Players may only activate a Ram Ship action once every 10 seconds (and there is a 3 second cooldown between activation attempts, in order to conserve system CPU usage)
• When a player activates Ram Ship, they must then select another ship within 4 Tiles of their ship as the target

Activating Ram Ship
Players can activate the Ship Ram action via the following methods:

Clicking the Ram Ship button on the main ship page
Clicking the Two Ships + Explosion icons in any of the hotbars
Saying “Ram Ship” or “Ram Their Ship” out loud
Typing [Ram or [Ram Ship

Ram Ship Damage
Ship Ramming inflicts Hull damage on the target ship, based on the ship type of the ramming ship
Ship Ramming can also inflict bonus Hull Damage if their Size value is higher than the Size of the target ship’s

Ship Sizes and Ram Damages for each Ship Type are as follows:

Small Ship / Small Dragon Ship
Size 1
250 Hull Damage

Medium Ship / Medium Dragon Ship
Size 2
300 Hull Damage

Large Ship / Large Dragon Ship
Size 3
350 Hull Damage

Carrack
Size 4
400 Hull Damage

Galleon
Size 5
450 Hull Damage

If the ramming ship has a larger Size than the target ship, it will inflict an additional ((Size – Target Size) x 50) Hull Damage

For example, a Carrack ramming a Small Ship would inflict 400 + ( (4 – 1) x 50) = 550 Hull Damage
Conversely, a Small Ship ramming a Large Ship would inflict only 250 Hull Damage

Collateral Damage
Whenever a ship uses the Ship Ram mechanic against another ship, the ramming ship also receives 25% of the Hull Damage that was inflicted to the rammed ship

NPC Ship Ramming
NPC Ships will now also attempt to ram nearby player ships if they become stuck/blocked OR if they become trapped in a location where they are unable to fire upon the player ship (and are within 4 tiles)

Hostiles on Ships

• Fixed an issue that was allowing players to continue to move ships while hostile players/creatures on board (this shouldnt be allowed)

Ship’s Wake Scalar

• Wake Scalar is a new stat on all ships, that represents how easy the ship is to Track by players and how easily the ship Escapes enemy NPC ships
• Wake Scalar is represented as a % scalar value, such as 50% or 150%
• A 100% Wake Scalar represens a completely average wake that offers no adjustments to mechanics
• Each Ship Type has a baseline Wake Scalar value, and players can improve (by reducing) their Wake stat with Ship Upgrades, Ship Crewmembers, and Ship Abilities
• Ships cannot reduce their Wake Scalar below 50% by any means (upgrades, abilities, crewmembers, etc)

Baseline Ship Wake values are as follows

Small Ship / Small Dragon Ship: 100% Wake
Medium Ship / Medium Dragon Ship: 125% Wake
Large Ship / Large Dragon Ship: 150% Wake
Carrack: 175% Wake
Galleon: 200% Wake

Tracking

• When tracking ships, players will now have two ranges: NPC Ships and Player Ships
• Player Ships are by default tracked at a 50% distance reduction compared to NPC ships
• However, the actual effective range for discovering Player Ships takes into account other player ship’s Wake stat which adjusts the the maximum search range for any searches involving that ship
• Players always have a minimum search range of 50 for any NPC or player ship (even including Wake Scalar)

A 50% Wake represents a 0.5x multiplier to search range against that ship
A 100% Wake represents a 1.0x multiplier to search range against that ship (i.e. no change)
A 150% Wake represents a 1.5x multiplier to search range against that ship
A 200% Wake represents a 2.0x multiplier to search range against that ship

For example:

• A player is using a spyglass to track ships, and their maximum tracking distance for player ships is 75 Tiles
• A Player Galleon with a 200% Wake is on the ocean and is 100 Tiles away from that searching player
• Normally that Player Galleon would be 25 tiles outside of the Spyglass player’s search range and not show up in the search results
• However, with a 200% Wake the Galleon effectively multiplies the maximum distance of all Spyglass searches involving it by 2.0x
• As such, the searching player now has a effective search radius of 75 x 2 = 150 Tiles against the galleon, which would in fact put it within range and add it to the search results
• Conversely, a ship with a 50% Wake would reduce the trackable range of other players towards their ship to 0.5x normal
• So a player with a normal search range of 75 Tiles would only spot a player ship that has a 50% Wake if the ship was within 50 Tiles or closer (normally would be reduced to 75 * .5 = 37.5 range, but ships always have a minimum of 50 search range)

Escaping

Tethering

• When NPC ships spawn, they are “Tethered” to their spawn location and will not move more than 100 tiles away from their initial spawn location no matter what, even if in combat
• Tethering exists to prevent players from luring dozens, if not hundreds, of ships all to one particular location

Pursuit

• NPC ships also have what is known as a maximum Pursuit distance, which is their (Cannon Range x 4)
• If an NPC ship is fighting a player ship, and if the distance between the two ships exceeds the NPC ship’s Pursuit distance, they will stop pursuing the player ship
• A ship’s Wake stat adjusts the maximum Pursuit distance NPC ships will consider towards player ships

For example:

• An enemy ship normally that has a Pursuit range of 48 tiles is pursuing a Galleon with a Wake of 200%
• In this case, the effective Pursuit range for the NPC ship will be increased from 48 Tiles to 96 Tiles due to the Galleon’s Wake
• Alternatively, if an enemy ship with a Pursuit range of 48 tiles is pursuing a Small Ship that has with a Wake of 50%, the effective Pursuit range will be reduced from 48 Tiles to 24 Tiles

Ship Themes

• 8 New Ship Themes are now available as Upgrade Deeds for players to install on their ships

Derelict Theme

Sorcerous Theme

Slime Theme

Ancient Theme

Gore Theme

Overgrown Theme

Tradesman Theme

Submerged Theme

Ship Abilities

• 9 New Ship Abilities are now available as Upgrade Deeds for players to install on their ships
• Ship Abilities that directly harm or hinder another ship, but do not directly use cannons (such as the new Grenade or Eye of the Storm abilities) will now require the ship to be “ready to fire” in terms of cannon cooldown and reloading complete before being usable
• Using these abilities will start the normal 10 second cannon usage cooldown just as if they fired cannons (but no ammunition will be spent)
• Ship Abilities that can be instantly activated, and not trigger the cannon cooldown, will now be listed as [No Cannon Cooldown] in their “Info” description for the ability

Lesser Abilities

Powder Mishap

Targets nearest other ship within 25 tiles that is currently reloading. For each cannon your ship has per side, adds 5 seconds to target ship’s reloading time, deals 150 Gun damage, and inflicts 15 damage to every target on board (ability cannot be stacked)

Sea Change

Cancels all negative status effects on ship and cures poison, bleed, and disease for all targets on board

Depth Charges

For each cannon your ship has per side, deploys 1 depth charge, which are placed behind the tillerman. Any ship moving over a depth charge will detonate it and take 150 Hull damage. Depth charges last 60 seconds

Regular Abilities

Razorwire

For next 180 seconds, anyone boarding this ship takes 33% of their total hit points as Bleed damage over 15 seconds (ability cannot be stacked)

Grenades

Targets nearest other ship within 25 tiles. Each crewmember on board throws a grenade at target ship that deals 100 Hull damage and 50 damage to targets within 2 tiles

Bad Rations

Targets nearest other ship within 25 tiles. Reduces Accuracy and Defense of all targets on ship by 15% for 30 seconds (ability cannot be stacked)

Greater Abilities

Eye of the Storm

Targets nearest other ship within 25 tiles. Spawns a storm eye, lasting 30 seconds, that follows the target ship and activates every 5 seconds. For each cannon your ship has per side, the storm eye activation will inflict 75 damage to whichever ship damage type (Hulls, Sails, Guns) the target ship current has the highest hit points of (ability cannot be stacked)

Low Profile

Reduces the ship’s Wake Scalar by 25% for 120 seconds

Sargasso

Targets nearest other ship within 25 tiles. For each cannon your ship has per side, spawns 4 sargasso seaweed tiles randomly in a 12 tile radius around target ship lasting 60 seconds. Any ship that moves over a sargasso tile will have its movement speed reduced by 80% for 5 seconds

Ship Upgrades

Outfitting Upgrades

• We have added 2 new Outfitting Upgrades available for players: Sentry and Skirmisher

Special Item Upgrades

• We have added 4 new Special Item Upgrades available for players: Weathervane, Telescope, Signal Pigeons, and Blast Furnace

Crew Item Upgrades

• We have added 4 new Crew Item Upgrades available for players: Smoke Bombs, Intercepted Orders, Crew Hatches, and Dueling Rapiers

Ship Crewmembers

New Crewmembers

• Five new crewmember types are now available for players to recruit and place on their ships: Hedge Mage, Paviseman, Spy, Pilgrim, and Powder Monkey

Hedge Mage
Low Health, Average Damage, Low Wrestling, Low Armor
Ship Upgrades: Wake, Crew Health, Greater Ability Cooldown
Ability: Curse

Paviseman
Low Health, Average Damage, Average Wrestling, High Armor
Ship Upgrades: Crew Health, Cannon Accuracy, Doubloons Earned

Spy
Low Health, Average Damage, High Wrestling, Average Armor
Ship Upgrades: Wake, Hold Capacity, Lesser Ability Cooldown
Ability: Poisoned Weapons

Pilgrim
Low Health, Low Damage, Low Wrestling, Low Armor
Ship Upgrades: Wake, Fishing Skill, Movement Speed
Ability: Prayer

Powder Monkey
Average Health, Average Damage, Low Wrestling, Low Armor
Ship Upgrades: Cannon Reload Time, Cannon Damage, Regular Ability Cooldown
Ability: Powderkeg

Crewmember Abilities

• A number of Ship Crewmembers now have abilities they will sporadically use, in order to balance out some of the “weaker” crewmember types who have less desirable Upgrade Bonuses and Combat Stats than others
• Crewmembers with abilities will have a listing and button for them when viewing their profile, and players can click that button to read a brief description of the ability

Crewmember Abilities are as follows:

Carpenter
Maintenance: Every 30-60 seconds will repair a randomized ship damage type (2% for Hull, 4% for Sails and Guns)

Cook
Food Ration: Every 30-60 seconds in combat will randomly provide a 15% Wrestling and 15% Damage bonus to a random Crewmember for 30 seconds

Medic
First Aid: Every 30-60 seconds will heal a random Crewmember for 15% Health

Engineer
Tinker: Every 30-60 seconds will reduce a random ability cooldown by 3% of its normal cooldown

Fisherman
Net: Every 30-60 seconds will Hinder their current combat target for 10 seconds (duration reduced by 50% for players and will not stack with existing Hinder effects)

Spy
Poisoned Weapons: Has a 25% chance on Weapon hits to inflict Deadly Poison

Powder Monkey
Powderkeg: Improves the damage of any Ship Bombs placed by players from this ship by 20%

Hedge Mage
Curse: Every 30-60 seconds will apply a 25% Damage penalty to their current combat target for 30 seconds (effect will not stack)

Pilgrim
Prayer: Every 30-60 seconds will heal all Crewmembers for 3% Health

Merchant
Commerce: Increases Special and Rare loot drop chances by 1%

NPC Ships

• We have updated our existing NPC Ship Factions (such as Pirate, Raider, Explorer) to use Ship Abilities more inline with their respective themes
• All NPC ships now have 1 Lesser, 1 Regular, and 1 Greater ability for their ship
• There are 8 new “Special” NPC Ship Factions for players to encounter on the sea, each with new creatures and crewmembers on board
• Some of the creatures on board the Special ship factions may seem familiar, but have new and adjusted abilities/skills to reflect their altered role in ship combat

We have done another rebalance for the stats, skills, and abilities of all NPC Crew/Creatures based on the feedback given from players
Most of the new NPC crewmembers attacks/abilities now do a Weapon Hit check against their targets include AoE attacks (in which case a Weapon Hit check is made against each target in the AoE area)
NPC Crewmembers with AoE attacks (such as Ossuarian Sightless Seer’s ability) will now at most hit 2 targets, similar to our limitation added on players/pets for AoE effects

Vile Faction

Tradesman Faction

Tidecaller Faction

Submerged Faction

Ossuarian Faction

Lizardman Faction

Druidic Faction

Daemon Faction

Ship Spawns

• Ship Spawners have been overhauled and a large number of new spawners have been placed
• Each Ship Spawner has a different spawn radius, with spawn amounts and spawn frequencies scaling dramatically based on that radius

Society Jobs

• Society Jobs are now available for the Special Ship factions, and the amount of doubloons required for jobs requiring sinking a specific Faction ship or boarding and killing