Today, IrishJohnGames released Rise of Piracy patch 44, celebrating three months of its Early Access release by focusing on improving difficulty scaling, spawning mechanics, and major combat balancing.
Capture points have received considerable polish, updated the colors of capture points, and heavily improved player spawn stability, so you always spawn into battle in the exact intended locations. Formation overhauls will make it so that defending fleets will now sometimes hide after spawning, while enemy fleets will dynamically auto-join formations with other friendly ships in the surrounding area.
One of the most notable updates in Rise of Piracy patch 44 is the balance changes implemented to combat and fleet mechanics. Scaling slider options for Gold, Renown, Experience, Treasure, and Level-Up requirements, aggression scaling, and separated difficulty selectors into distinct Ship Combat and Ground Combat settings make it so that any player can customize their difficulty experience accordingly.
Flagships in a Hard campaign will now start with pre-equipped upgrades, and aggressive enemy fleets will choose different formations; grenadier damage has also been buffed, while grape shot damage has been nerfed and scaled with ship combat difficulty. The newly introduced Partial Looting mechanic allows players to loot cargo directly from surrendered fleets without being forced to take over or claim the entire ship.
The Retreat or Flee mechanic has changed, making it so that if you want to leave mid-battle, then the game will assess your threat level. If your threat level is low enough, you can safely leave the battle and return to the campaign map while also keeping all that you’ve acquired. Items that influence the threat level are:
- Enemy ships nearby
- Enemy Towers
- The time you’ve spent in the battle
- The last moment a ship in your fleet has received damage
Fleet Victory Conditions have changed as well, as defeating pirate fleets requires subduing every ship, while colonial defense fleets only require defeating the flagship. Other improvements include damage reduction for surrendered and unoccupied ships, buffed Grenadier damage, decreased reload times for defensive towers at greater difficulties, the chance of crew death from Round Shot, and a nerf for Grape Shot damage.
The UI and visuals will look noticeably better thanks to Rise of Piracy patch 44, as compass items have been added for friendly ships, enemy ships, and Capture Points, and on-screen indicators and reduced unit card UI scaling have been removed to enhance real-time strategy (RTS) performance. Real-time changing seasons, campaign cheats to swap Character Classes instantly, and hidden indicators to quickly identify ships and active Capture Points were also introduced.
Rise of Piracy is currently in Early Access for PC on Steam. The developer aims for a major patch every 2-3 months as it nears its Early Access release on PC. For more information on this and other ship simulation titles, like Ships at Sea and Seafarer: The Ship Sim, be sure to check back to Simulation Daily for updates.
