The Log

What changed, and the day it changed. Newest first.

  1. The fog comes in

    • The sea keeps more to itself. You see the row you are on and the water straight ahead of you, and what lies either side of that you find out by drawing level with it, or by sailing in. The Bailiff, the Actuary, the still water and the Maw are where they always were, and you can still see them from port.
    • A sloop still sees further than anything else afloat: the whole of the next row, and straight ahead beyond it.
    • A Sounding Lead shows you what is behind every ? in sight, rather than every ? on the chart.

  2. The number on the tell is the number

    • The figures on a tell are now what the blow comes in at, before your dodge and a little luck. On the turn it got angrier, the tell used to show you its old temper. It shows you the new one.
    • With Siren's Wax fitted, an acid blow shows you what the Wax leaves of it, and the tell stops warning you about acid you have no reason to fear.
    • Acid has always eaten three of your turns. It now says three.
    • A galleon that puts her helm over as something dives comes round as promised, rather than thinking better of it.
    • Think better of a voyage before you have sailed a step, and the same water is waiting when you put out again. Backing out used to roll you a fresh chart for nothing, and that has stopped. A new chart now means sailing somewhere first. What you see of the old one still depends on the ship you take.
    • Swap a fitting out at sea and what it left goes with it. A replaced Saint will not save you, replaced Chum takes its barrels, and a replaced Surgeon takes his extra rack and whatever was on it.
    • A sunk Daily Charter now reads the same for everyone. It used to mention how many voyages your own ship had made, on a ship that was not yours.
    • Nobody's career was touched. Whatever you had, you have.

  3. One sea, three hulls, and every career starts again

    • The menu of places to go is gone. There is one chart now, out from Saltmouth through the coast, the Broken Reef and the Abyss, and you pick your way down it a row at a time.
    • Gold found at sea rides in the hold, and it is not yours until she makes port. It slows the ship. It goes down with her. If she does go down, what she was carrying waits on your next chart until somebody goes and gets it.
    • Everything in the water now shows you its next move, and what that move would do to you at each range. What you do about it is still your problem. The longer you take, the angrier it gets.
    • Turning for home is a decision and not an arrival. The deeper you turned, the more open water there is between you and the harbour, up to three legs from the far end of the Abyss.
    • The sloop, the brigantine and the galleon now play as three different ships: she runs, she hunts, she hauls. Ships you buy stay at their moorings. Nobody will sell you the galleon until you have been past the Actuary, and it is nothing personal.
    • Two things now sit across the chart and collect. The Bailiff holds the way to the Reef and the Actuary the way to the Abyss. Break one and you know the way for good, whatever later happens to the ship.
    • The Maw is at the bottom. It is not a metaphor.
    • Sinking costs the ship you were on and everything on her, the whole of the hold, and 15% of your purse. Moored ships and broken gates survive it. So do you, more or less.
    • Also new: fittings to find, things that want a decision from you, the Harbour Board, and a Daily Charter with one chart for everyone and nothing to lose.

    This one ends every career, and it is the third time.

    The reason is plainer than the last two. Those changed what a ship meant. This one changes what the game is, and a galleon bought in the old one could not be carried across without pretending otherwise. Whatever you sailed, whatever you sank and whatever you were owed is struck from the book, and nothing is converted into anything.

    It is happening now because hardly anyone has heard of this place yet, and that is the only excuse on offer. You will see one line about it the first time you load in, and that line is the whole ceremony.

  4. Three hulls, and the sea takes one of them

    • The sloop, the brigantine and the galleon are three different ships on screen now, drawn to scale against each other and against whatever you are fighting. A sloop reads as prey beside a kraken. A galleon reads as its peer.
    • Going down finally looks like going down. The hull settles, the water closes over it, and the harbour stays where it is instead of cutting straight to the bill.
    • The drydock shows you each hull in the water before you buy it, rather than describing it and hoping.
    • The Play button at the foot of the front page did nothing whatsoever if you were already on the front page. It works.

  5. Setting sail no longer leaves you reading the brochure

    • On a narrow screen, pressing Set Sail put you somewhere in the middle of the page rather than on the deck — the sea is a much shorter screen than the harbour, and the page stayed exactly where it was. It comes to you now.

  6. The harbour got a front door

    • Arriving no longer drops you straight onto the deck. There is a dock in front of it now, with the bestiary, the rules, and a Set Sail button.
    • Press it, or come back with a career already in your hold, and you are at sea exactly the way you always were. Nothing about a save, a ship or a fight changed — only the planks on the pier.

  7. Weight is real, and every career starts again

    • Ramming is about size. Your ship weighs its hull plus everything bolted to it, and so does the thing in front of you. Ram something your own size and the recoil is what it always was; ram something much bigger and it climbs steeply. The Ram button tells you the number before you commit.
    • Ram levels buy damage, not safety. They used to cut the recoil at every level. They do not any more.
    • Running away is about size too. The parting blow scales with how much bigger your attacker was — fleeing a kraken in a bare sloop is a genuinely bad way to survive, and fleeing something smaller than you is now slightly safer than it was.
    • A sloop should probably stop ramming things in deep water. A galleon can keep doing it. That difference is the point.

    This one ends every career, and it is the second time.

    The reason is the same one as last time, which is the only defence we have. The Ram upgrade used to make ramming safer as well as harder-hitting. Anyone who bought ram levels for the safety bought something this version does not sell, and we would rather end the epoch than quietly hand you a ship that means something different from what it meant when you paid for it.

    If it helps: a reset is cheaper for us to do than it used to be, which is exactly why you should be suspicious of us doing it but reset is a tool enforcing a rule, not as an intention.

  8. A pressed button stays pressed

    • Actions hold the screen still for a moment while they resolve, and nothing fires twice from a press you made before the last one finished.

  9. The sea is far from home, and every career starts again

    • Going home is a voyage. Coastal Waters is still one press; the Broken Reef is one leg of open sea between you and the harbour, and the Abyss is two. A leg can be quiet, turn up a chest, or turn up something with teeth — and a fight on the way home is fought with whatever hull you have left.
    • Winning a leg covers it. Running away does not, and turning back out to sea throws away the whole voyage rather than the leg you were on.
    • Patch kits are cargo, not a gift. Plating buys you the rack — five slots at full plating — and you buy the kits, at 20 gold, in port. Nothing refills them. Not docking, not sinking, not goodwill.
    • Repairs take what you can pay instead of turning you away. The price per hull point has not moved; a short purse now buys some hull rather than none.
    • Sinking costs you the ship. It breaks up under you, the surgeon takes 35% of your gold, and what is left of your name buys a sloop. Your upgrades go with the hull. Your gold and your trophies survive.

    The tide turned while you slept. Whatever you sailed before this is gone — the ship, the plating, the guns, the gold, and the trophies with them.

    This changes what a career is. A galleon bought under the old rules was bought in a game that no longer exists, and carrying it across would have been carrying an artefact rather than an achievement. You will see one line about it the first time you load in, and that line is the whole ceremony.

  10. Bracing costs something

    • Brace & Patch now spends a patch kit. Hull Plating grants them, docking restocks them, and an empty rack means the button politely refuses.
    • It was free hull, and it was most free on the biggest ship — which meant no reason to dock and no reason to sail carefully. Hull is a resource again.

  11. The first sea

    • Broken Reefs opened. Three zones, seven things living in them, and five things you can do about it.

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