Project Seaborne Playtest · published · build 26282143
Everything new in the playtest since the last playtest build, v0.2.22.17.
The playtest sea is bigger
The fence is open to the north: the whole North Atlantic and the Arctic from Greenland's east coast and Iceland across to Novaya Zemlya, with the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov now open past the Dardanelles.
The sea also runs much further west of Portugal, so a fleeing sloop can be run down instead of dragging you into the boundary.
The Four Horsemen are open in the playtest.
New
Every town now taxes your trade. A crown's customs depend on how your flag stands with it, and your reputation with that crown moves the rate up or down:
your own crown or an ally: about 5% (2–8%)
a neutral crown: about 8% (5–11%)
a rival: about 15% (10–20%)
a crown at war with you: 25%
free ports: 8%
The tax is built into both the price he asks and the price he bids, and the merchant's ledger tells you who is taking it and why. Expect thinner margins on every run than before.
Faction towns set their own taxes. The head chooses, from "Taxes in our towns" on the faction desk (in port or at sea):
one rate for captains' trade
one for the NPC merchant ships' trade, including the trade nobody sees
a monthly rate on warehouse funds over a line of gold the head picks
Everything taken, plus warehouse upkeep in your towns, goes into the faction's chest. The HQ treasury shows the running total.
Burning ships can go up with their magazine when they sink: heavy blasts, the hull thrown over and gone in under a second. It happens to roughly one burning ship in four, more often when she's well ablaze. Anything close alongside takes damage.
The Crooked King's Prison: a rare black-and-gilt pirate, 50-plus guns in three tiers, crews at the top of their rating. She comes out of roughly one night thunderstorm in twelve and leaves when the storm passes or the sun rises. She can be fought, boarded and taken. Her lines were drawn by Elite_watermelon, credited on her Codex page.
Towns take real damage from your guns:
Houses scorch, catch fire and fall to rubble heaps.
Fort batteries burn for a while after the last ball, then die down.
Damaged batteries and houses get scaffolding and are rebuilt over the following days, including while you're away.
House damage is shared in multiplayer.
Crowns at war guard their capitals: 2–4 warships put out of each capital ready to fight, and go back in when peace comes. Crowns already at war at the start are guarded from day one.
Fleet divisions sail as one unit, in a formation of their own. If one ship is attacked the whole division defends her, and the division keeps to its slowest ship's pace so nobody is left behind. A ship posted to a division takes only the division's orders (the First Division is exempt).
Fleet traders waiting on prices no longer sit idle. They run short buy-and-sell errands near their station until their own job pays again.
A fleet ship captured by buccaneers isn't gone:
Her prize crew runs her for a refuge, and the taproom will tell you where she went.
Your spyglass names her as one of yours, and she sails in her own paint and canvas.
Taking her back is never piracy.
Ships lost to raiders before this update are traced once too.
Warehouses: a "Needed: pay any price" button on the keep list sends your supply ships to buy what's short whatever it costs. It turns itself off once nothing is short.
Captain's Tally on the Escape menu: miles sailed, days at sea, best speed, ships sunk, prizes, hit rate, whales, ports found, stars charted, your richest purse, and more.
Fog is its own weather: light wind, grey cloud, about 1.5 km of sight, a bank on the horizon. It's commonest in quiet seas like the Mediterranean. Fog also rolls in when one of the Four Horsemen has a quarry.
The chart opens in port too, with the same key as at sea. There's a new setting, Gameplay → "Chart on a toggle": M opens the chart and a second M closes it.
The whole map can be charted now. Survey parties walk inland from your camp, cross pack ice and row across lakes. The foot of the chart shows what share of the world you've charted.
Faction HQ: the head, any officer, or the captain who posted a job can cancel it.
Improved
Divisions and ports on the chart: only the one under the pointer is lettered, so Europe no longer turns into an ink blot.
The chase camera doesn't pull out as far (about 40% closer at full zoom-out).
Radial wheel text is far easier to read: dark outlines, larger small lines, and long labels no longer cut off.
Broaching bites. A wheel left amidships won't save her: she slews toward the trough and loses way unless you meet her with hard wheel. Rourke calls it sooner and says which way to put the wheel.
Rogue waves are aimed where your ship will be, are wider and stand much higher. If one will pass clear, the lookout says so.
The rainy murk comes up about one turn in twelve instead of one in five, and rain darkens the distance rather than whiting it out.
Buccaneers turn up more often.
Traders strike their colours a little sooner once badly mauled.
The spyglass names what it sees: patrol, war fleet, explorer, buccaneer, Horseman.
Titles you earn are kept on your Steam account, so any captain you start can wear them.
Fixed
A white line where land tiles meet, with the sky showing through, is gone.
Forts battered in a fight no longer stay down after days away.
Joining a host whose date was behind yours, then having them leave, could run a month of days in one frame and kill your crew of thirst.
Chart fog you'd cleared past a hidden limit vanished on reload. The chart now saves it with no limit.
The ruler-straight ridge of hills in the Baltic north of the Hel peninsula is gone.
Painted sails no longer show the anchor device through bare patches.
Your ships keep their yard dye when you shift your flag to a consort.
Prologue voice lines no longer echo over themselves.
Prologue, chapter five: the arrows stay up until you've stopped over the sounding mark.
Prologue: Rourke's order to take the glass stays on screen until you've put it on the Crimson Hound.
Prologue, chapter ten: the ship's guns can no longer be worked from the cell.
The Gray Lady's cove door no longer reads "Not in this test".
The death screen no longer writes "The the" before a ship already named "The …".