Major Update- 2 Months in Early Access!

Howdy folks!

Today we celebrate 2 months in Early Access! I really wanted to make update 40 extra special so I tried my best to make it as feature rich with the things most heavily requested by you folks.

Manage Settlement

Some great progress has been made on the Manage Settlement feature - this was one of the most heavily requested items and has been in planning for a long time. I've managed to get a few sections of this ready, and made some great progress on the overall system. In this initial version, I've added some functionality allowing you to assign armies and defense fleets, change the tax level, production and some other small pieces. This is still early days on this functionality and I'm looking forward to the feedback, things are going well so far!

Customize Difficulty

Another heavily requested and discussed features is the all encompassing difficulty settings! This includes scaling, balancing, and means so many different things to different folks. As its such a polarizing item with so many clashing opinions on how things should be, I've decided to take an approach that I hope will cover off all the various types of player we have by adding customization panel for new campaigns. Options are limited for now, but with many more planned.

You can change these difficulty settings at any time using the new button in the Pause menu of the Campaign. As we progress through development - more options will be available as I release patches, so you'll be able to take advantage of the changes by choice during your playthroughs - without having to start over.

Auto-Range

For this patch I've also added a nice QOL feature, which is enabled by default for all campaigns. Auto-ranging is now available during battles. This feature can be toggled on and off at any time while in the sailing mode. It allows you to fire at ships without having to worry about elevation or powder settings to range them. The ship will automatically work these out and you'll have a good chance of landing some hits. You can still hold right click to switch to the old aiming mode for when you need full control. You can turn this feature off in the "Campaign Difficulty Settings" if you'd prefer not to have it, or just not use the J key.

Localization

Some more localization coverage was added but a quick reminder that Localization was never meant to be focused at this stage of the development and coverage and accuracy are very limited. Treat it as an experimental feature that you can enable/disable - I only hope it enables some folks to enjoy the game who couldn't previously.

Localization will be focused on in the future heavily during Early Access and will roll out gradually.

There has been a good few bug fixes and improvements across the board also. I'm glad folks seem to be enjoying the Letter of Marque updates & recent patches and changes. Thank you to everyone reporting in on these with issues and observations.

Thanks to everyone sharing their screenshots on the Steam community & Discord!

Here is a full list of all changes this patch:

New

• Manage Settlement progress:

  • Governance - Change Tax Level, View happiness and effects, Assign Mayor / Governor (Locked until Mayors/Captains update)

  • Defense - Manage Armies, Fleets and Coastal Defenses

• Updated the main menu Version display for default and test branches.

• Difficulty Customization (Early pass)

  • Hit the cog on the New Campaign screen to modify some of the difficulty properties for your campaign. More of these options will arrive in the upcoming patches.

  • A new Change Difficulty button now exists in the Pause menu of Campaigns so you can modify your existing playthrough.

• Added light Localization support for Ukrainian translations

• Added light Localization support for Russian translations

• Auto-ranging is now available. When aiming at a target or looking into one direction - if there is an enemy in that direction, the game will automatically adjust your power and elevation to hit targets. For more granular control - you can disable this functionality.

• Added a new control (Default is J) and UI for auto-ranging.

• Holding RMB disables the Auto Ranging for the duration its held if Auto Ranging is enabled. This is so that you can still have granular control at a moments need.

• Auto-Ranging settings will persist through sessions and battles.

• Added hint arrow to the Campaign Tutorial "Time Controls".

• Added new Button to the Campaign Tutorial that shows if tutorial hasn't advanced during an "Informational" step.

Fixes

• Fixed some close range firing issues with some ships.

• Fixed issue with potential corruption of campaign files when Transport fleets would exist too early.

• Fixed brawler wording for ship size limits showing in Level Up popup.

• Removed some old wording from the Admiral start description.

• Fixed issue with the Objective naming on a medium port in Gaullinet.

• Fixed issue where the scale of some falling trees would change after being hit.

• Fixed issue where sometimes a fleet definition would bug causing ships to spawn incorrectly from their definitions - often times causing duplicate flagships & incorrect claiming.

• Fixed issue where aggression in encounter was incorrectly calculated.

• Occupy button will no longer be available if an Honor Mission for that faction exists.

• Fixed issue where sometimes a faction in which you share a marque will not ally you in battle.

• Fixed issue where enemies could not see friendly ships accurately enough in their Line of Sight checks.

• Fixed incorrect cursor issue on the Time controls.

• Fixed issue with Empty Markets sometimes causing errors (mostly unseen by players).

• Fixed issue with rounding numbers on the Upgrades display.

• Fixed issue where claimed / captured / moved ships would not retain their Upgrades.

• Defending army is now accurately checking troop counts.

• Fixed issue with Offsets of the preview area sometimes becoming off-centre.

• Fixed Sloop flag ordering and positioning

• Fixed issue with Tooltips sometimes showing incorrectly until 2nd pass with the mouse.

• Fixed Negative amounts in the Withdraw / invest functionality.

• Fixed Transaction Completions being logged as part of Withdraw/Invest.

• Fixed issue with spawning in the Invasion Tutorial.

• Boarding UI no longer can be modified.

Changes

• Changed the Grape shot to a more condensed grouping

• Changed some Lighting changes across the board.

• Improved some of the Order line logic & made it a bit easier to modify later for the upcoming RTS control improvements.

• Various balance & statistical changes.

• Occupying a settlement no longer clears its Markets & grants everything to the player.

• Occupying a settlement no longer clears its wealth.

• Added scroll-wheel functionality to the Drydock fleet ship list.

• Removed default flag from ship previews

• Increased aggression of enemy fleets in Hard and Impossible difficulties.

• Hard and Impossible difficulty now adds upgrades to enemy fleets.

• Added a arrow-hint to the Cannon in Invasion Tutorial.

A lot of the features releasing today are larger tasks that will evolve over time, expect changes & improvements in the upcoming regular updates that I'm planning on releasing every Week, or every 2 weeks.

If you have suggestions / improvements on what you'd like to see in these updates, be sure to use the Discord or Steam Forum - I do my best to respond to every post, and all suggestions / critique and feedback is considered :)

Thank you!

Today's update was heavily influenced heavily by discord discussion & steam forum posts. Do consider getting involved in the discussions and suggestions on the Discord here: https://discord.gg/Ws9fjmHP5U

Thank you to everyone of you! I'm delighted players are enjoying the game & leaving reviews! Its incredibly motivating to see folks getting on board with the vision. Rise of Piracy is improving every day thanks to the players and that's what Early Access is all about :)

Until next time, happy hunting!

John