Ship repair

Ships may be repaired but it will be a lengthier process than in other games.

• Ships can be repaired at sea if players have the correct materials.

• Ships that are completely destroyed will incur great costs to restore, and may only be re-launched from land.

Harbors

Alpha-1 harbor early preview concept.

Harbors that are located in specific areas around the world along the coast and those are points of interest that get adopted by a node when they reach certain levels in proximity to that harbor, or if the node gets vasseled by a parent or sovereign node in relationship to their vassal owning that harbor. – Steven Sharif

Harbors are initially dilapidated points of interest that appear in coastal areas. Harbors have a significant amount of influence over the waters.

Harbors are where ships get built and launched and harbors are essentially dilapidated points of interest that progress when a node nearby, coastal or not, adopts that point of interest or that harbor. Then the node can contribute towards building up the harbor; and players who may not be citizens of that node can still go to that harbor and access its services. – Steven Sharif

• A nearby node, coastal or not, will adopt the harbor point of interest and will contribute to its progression.
  • Ship building, ship upgrades, and other services offered by the harbor can be utilized by citizens and non-citizens of the node.
  • Previously it was stated that harbors would be controlled by a nearby Village (stage 3) (or higher) coastal node. It was also stated that ship workstations are only unlocked by the advancement of that coastal node.

• Harbors have a disembarkation zone that merchant ships can cross to be guided into the harbor.
  • Merchant ships can only be launched and received at harbors in a similar way that land caravans can only be launched and received at a caravansary.

• Harbors will grant quests that are related to naval content.

• Coastal nodes are not directly siegeable by sea. Instead, harbors offer objective-based naval gameplay during node sieges.

Ship building

Naval concept art.

Ships are going to also have classes. Those classes are going to dictate the type of of attachments that can be applied and in what quantity. A military vessel type may have more capacity for weapon based attachments. A transport ship might have more capacity for defensive based attachments. And then you'll have more versatile ships that can share across those types. So in that sense you are constructing a componentized ship for the types of activities you intend to do: Are you a raider? Are you a mover of goods? Are you an adventurer? These types of things are going to inform your decision of what the attachments you're going to have in those three categories. – Steven Sharif

Ship building can be carried out by any player in possession of the right components, recipes, and an advanced enough node, coastal or not, with a harbor.

• Various professions (such as Arcane Engineering, and Carpentry) can craft ship components. These components can be sold to other players.

There's definitely going to be interfacing with a number of different artisanship professions in order to create all the components necessary 1) to completely craft a ship, but also 2) to equip the ship in its equipment slots. We will have more details on that as we grow closer to the naval systems coming online and being testable for A2. Right now there is still some design discussion around where certain components are going to live, but things like Arcane Engineering, things like Carpentry, absolutely are going to be sources of those. – Steven Sharif

• Ships may only be crafted or upgraded in harbor ship workstations that are unlocked by the advancement of nearby nodes. Previously this was stated to be coastal nodes.

• Players can choose which "joints" get populated with either offensive weaponry, defensive, or utility attachments they want on their ship prior to construction completion. The types of attachments that are available are dictated by the ship's class.
  • Movement, Durability, Speed, Turn rate, Hit points, Defensive and Damage abilities.
  • Weapon slots.
  • Aesthetic customization.

• Ships will likely not have closed spaces or internal compartments such as Captain's quarters.

We are trying to stay away from internal compartments within the ships because that presents a whole different type of user interface and flow that can be a bit cumbersome and problematic, especially in combat and in closed spaces. So we're trying to stay away from that under deck aspect and keep things all on deck for better readability on the player side. – Steven Sharif

Ship destructibility

Ship destruction assets.

Players have to be careful about their ships, because losing a ship is something that is very very important- very costly, has a lot of resource requirements in sink, and it sets your raid or your group back to the start, which makes the ocean engagements definitive. – Steven Sharif

Ship destruction at sea will leave its crew stranded, since ships (excluding raft caravans) may only be summoned from a port or harbor.

• Ships that are completely destroyed will incur great costs to restore, and may only be re-launched from land.

• There is no "recall" (fast-travel) option to return to shore, however death by drowning will respawn the player on shore but will incur experience debt (and other death penalties). Players on destroyed ships may respawn at the nearest harbor.

We don't have a recall... There is consequence for you losing the means of your mobility and if you lost the means of that mobility then those consequences are it's going to take you longer to get to where you need to go, or you're going to have to suffer some experience debt. – Steven Sharif

• If a ship's navigator is killed or otherwise removed from the ship then any player will be able to navigate the ship for a period of 15 to 20 minutes before the ship despawns and becomes a wreckage.

• Merchant ships that are destroyed or despawned will become a wreckage that contains a portion of the cargo it was transporting (in the same way as destroyed caravans).

• Dynamic destructibility of ships is under consideration.

See also

• Ship building
• Item repair