Improvements
Controls
Tap and hold bindings
- You can now assign different actions to tapping and holding the same button. For example: tap X to drink the selected potion, or hold X to switch potions. This works with keyboard keys, mouse buttons, and Steam Deck buttons.
To bind an action to a held button, select the action in the controls settings and hold the button while assigning it. For a regular press, press and release it. Hold bindings are marked accordingly.
If both actions are assigned to the same button, the tap action triggers when you release it, while the hold action triggers once you have held it long enough. Each input triggers only one action: holding a button will not perform a normal attack followed by an additional one.
Alternative combat controls
- Added an alternative combat control scheme, enabled by default. It lets you perform all four attacks without the Shift modifier:
- Left mouse button — Slash attack.
- Hold left mouse button — Group attack.
- Right mouse button — Fast attack.
- Hold right mouse button — Heavy attack.
- Left mouse button — Slash attack.
Independent attack bindings
Each attack can now be rebound independently to a separate key, a side mouse button, or a held button. You do not have to use the suggested pairs.
This means you can finally bind Group attack and parrying to separate buttons and set up combat controls just the way you like them.
How to bring back the familiar Shift controls
Open Options → Controls and set Alternative Combat Controls to Off.
This restores the classic combat scheme with an attack modifier, which is Shift by default. The Keyboard layout setting is selected separately.
You can still bind other actions, such as switching potions, to held buttons while using classic combat controls.
Naval aiming
Naval combat has received its final major aiming update: you can now select and lock targets in both camera modes.
Third-person fire
Previously, you gave the order to fire and each battery picked its own target. Now you select a particular ship or fort, and the salvo is directed only at that target.
- Press Shift to cycle through targets. The selected target is highlighted.
- The guns aim and calculate the lead automatically. Bring the enemy into the right battery's firing arc, wait for the guns to line up, and give the order to fire.
- The indicator beside the target shows firing readiness. It flashes green when the guns are lined up and ready.
- Your target stays selected even if you turn the camera away. If the enemy leaves the firing arc, turn your ship to bring the guns to bear again.
First-person fire
The camera now follows the selected enemy automatically. You still adjust your aim with the mouse, lead the target, and choose when to fire.
- Move the mouse sideways to adjust your lead, and up or down to choose the height of impact.
- The circles show where each gun is currently aimed. After you move the mouse, the guns take time to line up with the new point. You can fire sooner, but the salvo will follow the circles' current positions.
- Here, Shift toggles target lock. To change targets, press Shift, move your aim towards the new target, and press Shift again. With target lock off, you can aim freely.
- If the target moves into another battery's arc as you turn the ship, the camera switches to that battery automatically. You no longer need to leave and re-enter aiming mode.
- The arrow beside the circles shows the guns' firing order if you have the Broadside Control perk.
Other changes
- The selected target's panel shows the information available through your spyglass. All spyglasses now show hull and sail condition.
- The crew bar has been removed, and hull and sail bars above ships are disabled by default in the settings.
- Outside combat, you can select any ship or fort. In combat, you can only select enemies.
- Firing arcs have been slightly narrowed.
You will spend less time fighting the camera, but the waves are still there. Picking the right moment for a good salvo still matters.
When better to experiment than during the beta? Try both modes and tell us what you think of the new gunnery.
Trade
- Buying and selling now use separate trade capacities, each with its own depletion and recovery.
- Stores now display separate bars for the available buying and selling capacity.
- When you select a quantity of goods, the bar previews how much trade capacity the deal will use, and the tooltip shows how much will remain afterwards.
Boarding
- Crew experience and morale now improve sailors' survivability in deck combat.
- Having a higher Boarding skill than the enemy captain now gives your sailors an advantage over the opposing crew.
- A ship's doctor can now save some sailors hit by a musket volley, provided you have medicine.
- Added notifications for sailors saved and those lost due to a lack of medicine.
- These notifications now also include sailors saved after boarding. That mechanic was already in the game; it simply was not shown before.
- Reworked the random variation in musket volley casualties.
Ships and economy
- Ships' combat stocks of weapons and gunpowder in squadrons now reflect crew size, armament, and the vessel's role.
- Sinking ships with cannon fire or after boarding now awards Repair skill experience.
- Rebalanced payments for freight, escort, and goods delivery contracts based on the captain's rank and cargo value.
Isla Mona
- Halved the time needed to rebuild the settlement and construct the pier, tavern, trading post, and church.
- Fast travel around Isla Mona now unlocks as the settlement develops.
- Doubled ironwood production to 40 logs per month.
- Added notifications when construction is completed and when the ironwood trading post's warehouse is full.
Quests and journal
- Reworked the Regatta journal: it now provides more detail on the route, events along the way, prize collection, and collecting your betting winnings.
- Reworked the A Place to Call Home journal: construction, supplies, defence, and the development of Isla Mona now have distinct objectives and stages.
- Reworked The Former Knight of the Order journal, adding intermediate objectives and separate entries for different outcomes.
- Reworked the Black Mark journal, with more detail on meetings, assignments, and the conclusions of different branches.
- Reworked the Vile Little God journal, adding intermediate objectives, deal terms, and alternative outcomes.
- Reduced the wait for the next stage of Durand's quest after recruiting him from six months to two.
- Improved quest allies' preparations for combat, including equipment, ammunition, and health recovery.
Graphics and effects
- Added temporal anti-aliasing (TAA).
- Improved the sea's appearance, including refraction and smoother transitions between shallow and deep water.
- Added a sea quality setting. It is still experimental, so please share your feedback!
- Improved the appearance of projectiles in flight. Their lighting still needs further work.
- Added muzzle smoke effects and tracers for firearms, including grapeshot.
- Added camera recoil and shake when firing, with separate settings for one-handed and two-handed firearms.
Locations
- Saint-Pierre has been brought close to its final appearance.
- Updated residences in Caracas, Santiago, Santo Domingo, Bridgetown, and Belize, as well as on Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Antigua, and in other colonies.
Fixes
Stability and compatibility
- Removed unnecessary system load and excessive video memory use caused by large numbers of saves, including issues that could lead to crashes.
- Fixed an intermittent crash caused by excessive RAM use when loading locations.
- Restored all control buttons on Steam Deck.
Graphics and interface
- Fixed planar reflections.
- Fixed interface layouts so that larger deadweight values no longer overflow their UI elements.
Trade and supplies
- Fixed excessive combined payments for escorting a ship while also carrying an additional freight contract.
- Fixed freight cargo being issued beyond the available cargo hold capacity.
- Ships no longer receive extra random batches of weapons and gunpowder on top of their combat stocks.
Boarding and crew
- Weapons lost when sailors die are now accounted for consistently for both the player and enemies, including musket volleys and auto-resolved battles.
- Fixed musket volley losses exceeding their maximum after bonuses were applied.
- Fixed the Memento trait: sailors' deaths now increase the crew's current morale and experience instead of building up a permanent bonus.
Isla Mona
- Fixed items being lost when chest contents were moved after the pier was built.
- Fixed placing ships in storage: shore reserve capacity and the experience and morale of transferred sailors are now taken into account.
Quests and dialogue
- Fixed a progression blocker caused by being unable to start a quest dialogue.
- Fixed a progression blocker caused by required key characters being absent from a location.
- Fixed the window exit not working in The Turtle Soup.
- Removed the restriction in Dishonest Competition that blocked progress more than five days after receiving the assignment.
- Fixed Albalate's rank and combat preparation in Grandee Albalate: injuries from the tavern no longer carry over into the final fight.
- Fixed quest timers and character health recovery that used incorrect internal names.
- Fixed exchanging weapons for amulets and charms with the Caribs.
- Fixed the handling of the Utrecht's captain in a pirate storyline quest.
- Fixed certain dialogue conditions and conditions for increasing quest delivery quantities.
- In Vile Little God, the restriction on a Pink now applies only to the selected ship, rather than the entire squadron.
- Fixed duplicate entries, outdated objectives, and ending handling in the reworked quest journals.
- Fixed the handling of an absent officer Woodrow in the Regatta.
- Fixed extra brackets in merchant escort objectives.
- Fixed dialogue references about enterprises when speaking to the craftsman and the governor.
