Major Update - 4 Months in Early Access!

Ahoy Mateys!

4 Months in Early Access!

Time is flying! Today's update is mostly driven by feedback from you fine folks! A bunch of QOL suggestions, improvements, and fixes have been included. I appreciate everyone taking the time to report issues as they encounter them! With all of the major changes this month, the workflow has improved drastically and allowed me to improve balancing, tweak some mechanics, and track down to fix issues much easier than before.

Rise of Piracy remains on Sale at 20% off until the end of the Summer Sale!

Rise of Piracy

Reload Visuals

RTS mode gets a small enhancement with the addition of a Reload indicator. Now you'll be able to see when a ships guns are coming up or ready, and adjust accordingly. Additionally, when changing shot type for a ship, they will require a reload before being able to fire again.

Diplomacy Detail View

A new screen detailing every major faction's relationship with eachother is now available under the Diplomacy tab. This should give you a nicer look into the various relationships between the factions allowing you to make better decisions when it matters.

Difficulty Settings

A new difficulty setting was introduced this patch. For Easy and Medium difficulty, you will still be awarded Gold and Renown when leveling up, but for harder difficulties you won't receive any. This setting is customizable so you can choose the options that best fit your desired experience at any time during your campaign.

Audio Improvements

The artist behind RoP's musical score, Jor, has improved some of the existing tracks in the game, and added some nice new ones. As well as adding some new sound bytes for various events that happen in the campaign.

QOL Improvements

There has been some nice additions to notifications, improvements to information given on various screens, improvements to the RTS controls, and some jank removal this patch.

Manage Settlement

Some improvements were made to the existing systems that have been put in place this month. With the most major section being the Construction tab, we now have the ability to add improvements to the lands we conquer.

This will continue to improve over time as early access progresses, and will have a major impact on island defense, and specialization.

Bug Fixes

Some gigantic issues were identified and obliterated this patch! Some that have been in place since before Early Access began but continued to elude me are finally vanquished. The work I completed this month has made it possible to identify and improve issues much easier in future.

Some new issues arisen this past month from that work have also been solved, with a few more still outstanding. I'll be working towards fixing these issues as my top priority for the upcoming patches.

Here' a full list of the items completed since the last Update.

New

• Island info screen now lists off all enemies instead of just the first one in the War section.

• A new button was added to the Diplomacy popup to open up a more detailed overview of the relations between the factions.

• Campaign Objectives screen now displays the player relationship color for each faction listed.

• RemovedNew Difficulty settingBonus Gold and Renown toggle. Enabled by default but now togglable in the difficulty settings. Disabled in new campaigns on Hard or higher difficulty.

• Trees now make a sound when falling.

• New audio tracks have been added, some existing tracks updated.

• A new Tavern ambience will now play whilst in the Tavern screen.

• Ships in pursuit of the player now trigger a new audio sequence.

• New option added for "Purchase & Add to Defence Fleet" from Shipyard in one motion - QOL especially for Brawlers.

• Ship Reload indicators. You can now see the "loaded" status of your ships cannons in the RTS ship identity UI when selected, hovered or Shift-held.

Fixes

• Fixed major issue with spawning that would sometimes direct players to incorrect locations for Missions.

• Fixed major pathing issue that was causing ships to cross through terrain on the Campaign Map. This issue may still occur on rare occasions but major progress was made in tracking it down and putting safety in place to protect against it.

• Fixed issue that would cause an error when transport fleets escape the player in pursuit.

• Fixed incorrect ship types and comparisons when initially opening the Loot screen.

• Fixed issue where ships in combat would sometimes spawn in the sky and never reset to a correct position.

• Fixed issue where Objective list would not refresh and sometimes show with bad information.

• Fixed issue where the screen would freeze up if controlled ship was sunk and other flagships existed.

• Fixed flagship button issue where control would not fully transfer to new ship.

• Fixed issue where sometimes allied ship sinking would appear as enemy ship.

• Fixed issue preventing Sailing UI updates when flagship changed until player re-entered sailing states.

• Fixed issue with 3rd Person sailing causing boarding targets to be incorrect.

• Fixed issue preventing Defensive Ships damage being persisted.

• Sunken Defensive ships now correctly disappear from islands fleets.

• Fixed issue where the incorrect number of defending ships would be displayed in the Island screen and subsequent popups.

• Fixed rounding error on Upgrades screen preventing level 6 from showing on some upgrades.

• Fixed levelling issues with Buildings and their costs not scaling correctly.

• Fixed sporadic & rare Difficulty settings persistence issue.

• Fixed issue with the appearance of Red Barrels / destructible gunpowder crates having a different appearance when destroyed.

• Fixed issue preventing destroyable barrels being targeted.

• Fixed issue preventing Flagship switching after being sunk in Sailing mode.

• Fixed RTS camera jolt when switching flagship.

• Fixed issues with the Danish capital having a lack of Gunpowder barrels and Towers of the wrong scale / appearing without colliders.

• Fixed input issue for tablets and drawing devices during the Flag Customization screen.

• Fixed issue with Auto-firing not showing when switching to Sailing state.

• Fixed a crash happening after the final Mutiny stage has passed.

Changes

• Increased Encounter Amount

• Rebalanced the enemy fleet aggression with players - should be more frequent now depending on difficulty and player Level.

• Added an alert for Allied ships sinking.

• Islands being at war with Pirates is now not declared in the Island info screen.

• RTS Camera no longer moves when CTRL is being held.

• Rebalanced some campaign fleet aggression settings.

• Changing cannon shot type now causes your ship to reload cannons.

Thank you!

We've crossed 450 Reviews! Never believed we'd get to 450, let alone in just 4 short months, incredible, truly thank you all.

Again, thank you to everyone providing valuable feedback on Discord and through the Steam Forums. As a solo developer, it helps a bunch to see the constructive feedback rolling in, allowing me to check in on priorities and make sure we're on the right course. Community is at the core of what Early Access is all about so thank you to everyone contributing to that end and helping to grow and protect it.

Here is a link to the discord: https://discord.gg/Ws9fjmHP5U

Until next time folks! Happy hunting,

• John