Public BETA V2. A New Coastal Siege Map!

We’ve been plenty busy this week getting the relatively sizeable naval update up to speed. Even though there’s more that needs doing, progress has been smooth-sailing. With the latest BETA release, you’ll find various iterations to existing naval-oriented mechanics, multiple bug fixes, and a new coastal siege map!
Have a read of our latest blog post to join us in our testing.
What’s New? Public BETA V2
Here’s a list of all the changes and additions that we have undergone during this update. The sooner we get the testing done, the faster our update release schedule goes so please do join us in the BETA! If you haven’t set sail on the 50-Gun Frigate yet, do take up the chance.
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New Additions
- Balamor Bay. A new coastal siege map!
- Causeways makes it back into the game as it could prove useful for roleplay scenarios due to its size.
- An indicator identifying the ship you’ve spawned on in the status top bar has been included.
- Players will now receive a score for damaging or destroying fort walls and various other objects.
- Ring-able bells. Because it’s now a thing.
- A user interface to aid Captains better distinguish the sail groups they have risen or lowered.
» Be sure to take down square-rigged sails when going against the wind. It’ll improve the ship’s manoeuvrability. - Included more tips to inform players on various features within the game.
- Server administrators can now configure the global health points for each and every vessel type by using override commands.
- Server administrators can now define the classes spawned on ships and their limits by using override commands.
» We’ve also made it possible to allow army-based classes such as the Line Infantryman to spawn on ships if you so desire.

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Game Balance & Changes
- Redesigned the way cannon trajectory’s function when round or chain shot is fired from cannons aboard ships or along the coast. This was done so players don’t have to aim too high with a cannon in order to reach the maximum effective range providing better visibility when firing.
» Increased the range and velocity of the chain shot to match that of the round shot.
» The trajectory for artillery shots fired from Field Guns remains as is. - Slightly reduced the time it takes to reload a coastal artillery gun.
Increased the overall health points of the 50-Gun Frigate. - You can now sail for a longer distance before reaching the border in the Naval Battlefield game mode.
» Players aboard a ship will also receive the notification that they’re going out of battlefield much earlier.
» A sound queue to notify the player when the warning pops up has been included. - Coastal fortifications can now take more shots before they’re destroyed. This was done to make up for the fact that the 2-Gun Schooner’s gun now deals upwards to 150 damage per shot being one of the largest calibre guns present on ships.
- Unique names for the British and French 50-Gun Frigates in the spawn menu have been included.
- The same goes for French Gunboats and Rocketboats.
- Lowered the volume of the naval announcer.
- You will now find more lanterns on the 50-Gun Frigate.
Graphical - Adjusted the water splash particle effects on various ships.
- Decreased the size of the captain’s wheel on the 50-Gun Frigate.
- Improved the animation of the pennants atop a ship’s mast.
- Improved the looks of the initial camera spawn location on South Sea Castle.
- Solved an issue with textures on one of the sandbags present on Fort Christina.
- New map loading screen for the Open Waters map.
Performance - Reflections no longer cast on low quality water. This was done to gather some additional performance.
Bug Fixes - Solved an issue that was causing players to get stuck on a black loading screen until the map is switched.
- Solved an issue that was causing players not to receive any score when they damage other naval vessels.
- Solved an instance which was causing an error to appear on the server when players spawn.
- Solved an issue within the ocean shader that was causing errors to appear on the server.
- Solved an exception that was being outputted when a player shot a cannon, rocket or mortar.
- Solved an occurrence which was causing the rocket’s model to remain following a naval vessel after the rocket explodes.
- Solved a bug that which was causing the audio played while the rocket is mid-flight to continue playing after the rocket hits the water.
- Solved a bug which was causing rocket trails to immediately disappear after the rocket hits the water.
- Solved a recurring error that was sometimes being outputted when a player interacts with one of the four rowing positions on the rowboat.
- Solved an error that was sometimes causing names of damaged ships to not be displayed correctly.
- Solved a bug which was limiting firearm aiming movement in both 1st and 3rd person views.
- Solved an issue were players rowing the rowboat could be seen rowing the boat even if the rowboat wasn’t being rowed (Just a little bit of a tongue twister).
- Enlarged the size of the wind direction indicator on the minimap to make it more prominent. Wind plays a huge role in naval scenarios!
- Attempted fix towards an issue that causes other players to be seen slightly floating when interacting with one of the rowing positions on the rowboat.
- Solved various issues with localisation on spawn-able interactable objects.
- Solved an issue that caused various weapons inside the weapon rack model to spawn inside one another.
- Solved an issue which caused one of the user interface assets to improperly appear when other players interacted with a weapon rack.
- Solved an issue which caused the player to receive a false positive message that the spawn is obstructed if they double tap the ‘E’ button while trying to launch a rowboat.
- Solved an issue with the naval map border shader when playing on the lower quality game modes.
- Solved an issue which caused other players to vibrate significantly when standing to the very front of the 50-Gun Frigate.
- Solved an issue which caused the player’s look direction to automatically change when aboard a naval vessel and switching between 1st and 3rd person views.
- Solved an issue that caused players to fall to the lower deck on the 50-Gun Frigate when walking near one of the masts.
- Solved an issue that caused some of the sails to remain in place when the foremast was destroyed on the 50-Gun Frigate.
- Fixed the position of the main entrance door on South Sea Castle.
- Solved an issue with a warning being outputted when hitting the shrine present on the Martello Tower map.


Participate In The BETA!
Would you like to have a go at what’s to come? Join us in the BETA! Hop in on our Community Discord to do so. You'll find all the details on the #announcements channel. It’s a great chance for you to provide us with feedback before the update sees a full release and help us make sure that everything is working as intended while you’re at it.
Everything present in this BETA is still a work in progress and bugs are to be expected.
https://discordapp.com/invite/holdfastgame

We’re also planning on releasing a little something next week before we head off with the release of the relatively sizable naval update. A big thanks to all those good fellows who joined us in our testing.
Once again, we thank you for your support and until next time, may good health be yours.
We’re working on the next update.
- Anvil Game Studios