Friday small update

Captains
We are starting to prepare for a series of pre-Arsenal updates that will culminate with the Arsenal patch.

Today we deploy the loot overhaul hotfix:

• New items and drops – that will last for 1 week (weeklong event)
  
• St Kitts 5 new modules added to admiralty, they can be exchanged for Broad Pennants that now occasionally drop from 5th rates and higher.
  
• Broad pennant will drop from military NPC ships

[h3]Bot distribution[/h3]

• Bot distribution and fleet numbers improved to give small group and solo players more hunting opportunities.
  
• You will see more solo and 1-2 ship fleets
  
• You will see better distribution of 2-5 ship fleets
  
• Frigates will no longer sail in large packs (only line-ships will have large fleets)
  
• Bahamas will no longer have 8-12 ship packs
  
• Certain bugs and mistakes in bot distribution were also fixed. Additional rare ships added to NPCs for the duration of the event.

[h3]Loot changes[/h3]

• NPC Military ships will now drop more upgrades and items depending on rank
  
• PvP loot table changed – PVP kills will no longer grant drop of gold coins until further notice to reduce extensive alt farming
  
• Books will now drop from Bookshelves that Captains of NPC combat vessels will sometimes carry to read in their leasure time

On Tuesday/Wednesday (September 14th/15th) the following update will deploy the rebalance hotfix for live servers

[h3]Trader loot overhaul[/h3]
Traders will drop more useful resources that can be used in crafting, shipbuilding, cannon making to provide alternative route to getting resources from buildings.

[h3]Woods rebalance[/h3]

• Rare woods will remain the same - best woods for hp, thickness or speed.
  But we address some of the issues with other woods to make them more viable in choices for planking or frame.
  
• Softwoods buff
  
• Oaks small buff
  
• Minor rebalance of mast bonuses and mast thickness bonuses on frames
  
• Removal of the amount and time to repair from frame woods
  
• Removal of structure bonus from planking
  
• Ship notes, DLC ships will now only provide seasoned woods options when selecting frame or planking

[h3]Cannon and damage overhaul[/h3]

• General gun changes
  • We are changing stat progression for all cannons for the Arsenal Patch. These changes will be deployed before the arsenal to finalize and tune the gun levels. Medium guns will become the base guns and all other guns will be better than medium in one or another role. The 3 roles will remain (crew damage, dps, or sniping). There will be 4 tier of guns
    • Medium – Tier 1
      
    • Carronades, Long guns – Tier 2
      
    • Obusier, Congreve, Edinorog, Blomfield, Navy Long – Tier 3
      
    • Some calibers of tier 3 guns will also have an elite version
  • The rebalance will significantly affect carronades and obusiers
• Carronade changes
  • Carronade damage was lowered to compensate
    
  • Carronade penetration increased to correspond to a same energy and velocity of the cannonball
    
  • Carronade crew damage from splinters significantly increased due to lower impact velocity.
    • Example: 24lb carronade due to 2x shorter barrel than 12lb gun but 2x heavier cannonball will have similar penetration to a 12lb gun and similar damage but higher crew damage
• Dispersion changes
  • Dispersion of the gun itself is determined by a cannon chamber quality; violence of recoil does not affect the dispersion because the cannonball is already out of the chamber. As a result, vertical recoil was lowered and all cannonball accuracy was rebalanced around the length of the barrel and weight of the cannonball. Vertical dispersion now always equals horizontal dispersion.

[h3]Raking fire rework[/h3]

• Raking fire (stern/bow damage) mechanics will change the following way
  
• Smaller damage will work as before (for example occasional hits or shooting into the stern by bow guns). Larger damage when full broadside gets into stern at proper angle will have a devastating effect on ship structure.

[h3]NPC stat changes[/h3]

• NPC stats overhauled and slightly improved to be a fun and interesting opponent.

Additional information if any will be added with the deployment of the hotfix on Tuesday/Wednesday.