POOP DECK Playtest · published
## New
- **Four new wizard abilities.** Witchwind, Teleport, Phantom Battery and Ghostwake are now
castable in live matches, each with an icon and a clear aim preview for the ones you point
at the sea. Ghostwake hides your ship from enemy crews for five seconds behind a decoy that
looks exactly like the real thing, so watch what you chase. Teleport drops you along your
aim line and refunds the cast if the arrival spot is blocked.
- **Ships now hurt each other when they collide.** Ramming damage scales with how fast you are
closing and how heavy the ships are. Buy the new **Bow Ram** upgrade (300 gold before
discounts) and your own hull takes no collision damage, while bow-first hits on enemies
deal 25% extra.
- **Choose a lane for every Tug of War fleet spawner.** When you buy a spawner you now pick the
North, Middle or South lane, and it keeps that lane until you sell it. The outer lanes have
been moved out to open water, so all three fleets fight on their own routes instead of
crowding the middle.
- **Las Tortugas.** A reef-maze island group now fills the north-west of the Caribbean map,
with a small free port that only shallow-draft ships can reach.
- **Spanish-Caribbean strongholds.** The Twin Forts bases are rebuilt as proper stone
fortresses with a sea battery, bastions, a sea gate, garitas and a flag-topped cavalier. The
west fort has a chapel and barracks, the east fort a lighthouse and powder magazine.
- **A painted Caribbean.** Both maps now have a hand-painted look for their land, with richer
islands, new flora and softly rounded coastlines everywhere instead of hard angles.
- **Twin Forts is bigger.** The map has grown north and south, with two carved coves along the
centre line.
- **My Ship and My Fleet.** The shop is reorganised: My Ship holds Buy Ship and Upgrades, and
in Tug of War My Fleet holds Buy Spawner and Owned Fleet, grouped by lane. Selling a
spawner now asks you to confirm first.
- **Choose your cannonball engine.** The host can pick the new faster Native cannonball engine
or the classic one from the lobby. Native is on by default and runs noticeably lighter.
## Changes & Balance
- **No more Ready check.** The host can set sail whenever they like, in every game mode, as
long as everyone has the right wizard content loaded.
- **Tug of War starts are open.** You can start solo, with a same-crew couch pair, or with
everyone on one crew.
- **No Tug forfeits.** An empty crew no longer ends a Tug of War match. Only a destroyed
fortress, the time limit or the host ending it does.
- **Whole-fortress damage.** Shots that hit any part of a Tug stronghold now count, not just
the two towers, so a fort falls faster than before. Mortar blasts and the Solar Lance count
too.
- Every menu you open during a match now uses the parchment look from the main menu: the dock
shop, sell prompt, respawn chooser, pause and settings, scores and result screens.
- Wizard tuning: Kraken Attack deals 20% more damage, Rimewake recharges in 25 seconds instead
of 30, and Hellfire Broadside reaches 25% farther.
- Cannonballs now use far less network traffic in big fights, which should keep busy battles
smoother for everyone.
- Rimewake's casting time is now fixed, so a hit caster can wait slightly longer before the
freeze takes hold.
- Several behind-the-scenes improvements to build tooling and the project's test setup.
## Fixes
- Tug of War towers no longer look like they are floating: their stone bases now reach down
beneath the waves.
- Closed a gap in the Twin Forts south-east shoals that let large ships slip through where they
should not.
- Rounded the Twin Forts middle cays and softened the fort-base coastlines so ships and shores
line up cleanly.
- Fixed a leftover prompt in the fleet shop that could reappear after you sold a spawner, and
a purchase message that could read wrongly after reconnecting.
- Props that used to hover in mid-air on painted islands are gone.