Pirates of the Burning Sea

Extract from Joe Ludwig's FLS Producers devlog:

In 1.5, we’re introducing the first steps towards addressing the level of risk in our PvP. The largest of these steps is the Insurance system. Insurance works very simply: when you lose a durability point, you receive an insurance payment that partially compensates you for your loss. The amount of the payment is set on a per-ship basis, and will be related to the production cost of a single durability point on that ship. It’s a direct cash payout, so if you don’t really want a replacement ship, you can invest that money in a different ship, or a different area of the game entirely.

There are limitations on insurance payouts, of course. If you’re sailing a captured ship, you dont get the payout. This is true even if youre a pirate who built the ship in a Careening Camp; not only are those ships extremely cheap to produce, but they’re also not exactly the kind of thing that Lloyd’s of London is interested in providing coverage on. Also, if you’re sailing a fallback ship, or your new player starter ship, you don’t receive the payout. For all other ships, insurance happens automatically; it is assumed that you have coverage at all time.

Sounds good to me - will liven up PvP & the economy!

Nothing will liven up pvp until they do something to discourage the six man gank squads that roam the red circles carefully ignoring each other while they wait for the lone newbie to enter. It only takes one or two times before the newbie gives up the game in disgust and then the gankers come to the forum crying because they have no targets. Actually most of the really vocal gankers have already quit the game.

Originally posted by RayRay77

Nothing will liven up pvp until they do something to discourage the six man gank squads that roam the red circles carefully ignoring each other while they wait for the lone newbie to enter. It only takes one or two times before the newbie gives up the game in disgust and then the gankers come to the forum crying because they have no targets. Actually most of the really vocal gankers have already quit the game.

Agreed that will need to be looked at but nobody should not look a gift horse in the mouth except  crazy fools & masochists.

R1.5 also increases the number of points that the Pirates earn to more than 3/port will greatly improve their chances of a map win. Pirate pillaging will be included- The first two towns full of pillaging are in 1.5. It's not clear yet if town #3 will make it in time.
Plus more end-game content,  a second Epic Mission. Fortaleza da Luz is a level 50 environment along the line of Bey’s Retreat. This series of missions has been in the works for a few months and we’re excited to finally be able to show it to you. Fortaleza will be the subject of a pair of devlogs in the coming week.

All in all a great patch!

Eta - about two weeks from now on testbed.

Glad to see FLS is still introducing new content at a steady rate. I still think this game could find itself a nice niche like EVE online did if they can just keep the doors open long enough to get it up to speed.

Ship insurance is a great start, will be interesting to see what else they come up with.