Patch Notes: Naval Combat

The guns - new, on by default

• Boats with guns can now fight. The Large Boat carries swivel guns. The Small Ship and the Carrack carry long guns, chain-shot chasers in the bow and fire barrels at the stern. The Large Galley carries long guns along her sides and great guns over her bow.
• To fire, look to a side at the helm and hold Attack. The guns on that side are aimed where you look, and their arcs and the splash zone are drawn on the water. Let go to fire the whole broadside.
• Look over the bow to aim the chasers. Look astern to roll a fire barrel over the side, where it floats until a ship runs into it.
• Look higher to fire further. The aim shows the range, and turns red when your guns will hit a ship.
• Each side reloads on its own, and a thin crew reloads slower. A boat with no crew reloads slowest of all. Hold Crouch at the helm to brace behind the rail: you take less damage, but your guns hold fire.
• Cannon balls hole the hull, cut the sails and kill crew. A hit below the waterline does the most damage, and a ship can catch fire.
• Needs Come Sail Away.

Ships at sea

• Pirates, merchantmen and the navies of Daggerfall, Wayrest and Sentinel now sail the Iliac Bay, on the same boats you can own. Each ship has a name and a captain.
• Pirates attack anything. Merchantmen run from a fight. A navy hunts pirates, and it will hunt you once your notoriety is high enough.
• Ships sail by the wind, keep off the rocks and fight broadside to broadside. A galley turns her bow toward you to fire her great guns.
• Near ports you meet more merchantmen and navy ships. Out on the open bay you meet more pirates. Pirate flagships only appear once you are a seasoned captain.
• Warm Ashes' raiders from the Overworld map are now real ships at sea. A raider close by is a pirate sloop, brigantine or galley with her own name and captain, sailing the course the map shows. When her lookout sights you (farther by day than by night), she closes to fight and board, and her boarding is Warm Ashes' raid on your own deck. Outsail her and she gives up and sheers off.
• A hostile ship nearby counts as an enemy nearby. You cannot fast travel or rest while one is close, and a Travel Options journey stops for her, including a crossing by sea.

Boarding and plunder

• Batter a ship until she strikes her colours. Come alongside her, slow right down and press Activate to throw the grapples. She is hauled in and you go over her rail.
• Her crew and her captain fight you on her deck. If your ship has a crew, some of your crew come with you. Kill her captain and most of her crew and she is yours.
• A taken ship opens a plunder window. You can take her whole hold into your own ship's hold, or open it to pick through it.
• You also take one thing for your ship: her timber to repair yours, her powder to reload every gun, or her crew to make up your own losses. Then scuttle her or cast her adrift.
• A sunk ship leaves floating casks of her cargo. Sail through one to haul it aboard.
• Pirates board you too. If your ship has a crew, you face Warm Ashes' own pirate raid on your deck, and a pirate flagship brings its raid with a captain at its head. Throw them back and their ship lies alongside for you to board.
• When you beat Warm Ashes' voyage ambush, you can plunder the raiders' hold before you sail on.
• Only one pirate raid runs at a time. Pirates who board you during another raid fight you as a boarding party instead, and raiders on the Overworld leave you alone until it is over.

Seamanship - the ships sail like ships

• Ships now sail at your own boat's pace. A pirate brigantine is nearly as quick as your Small Ship: running free you can outsail her, but beating into the wind or rowing, she will catch you. Navy cutters are the swiftest ships at sea.
• Ships no longer sail into the wind and stall. They tack up to windward, and a ship without enough way wears round instead.
• Ships turn in wide, eased turns on their own turning circle, as your boat does, and heel into the turn and away from the wind.
• Ships give each other room and keep to the rule of the road. They no longer pass through each other or through your boat.
• Ships keep off the land. They no longer cut across spits and headlands, scrape along islands or run aground, and a ship boxed in at the end of a channel turns round where she lies.
• A ship in a fight shows you the broadside that will fire soonest, holds you square on her beam while it is loaded and closes the range while it reloads. Near a coast she keeps to the open-water side.
• Pirates come alongside to board a boat that is crippled, badly holed or lying still, holding their broadsides as they close. No ship keeps firing on a crippled boat, and one that will not board it leaves it be.
• Close to a boat lying still, a boarding pirate gets out her sweeps (long oars) and pulls herself round and alongside from any quarter of the wind. Before, one could circle a wreck for minutes and never close, leaving you unable to travel or rest with her in sight.
• A pirate who cannot catch you gives up the chase.
• War galleys and corsair galleys ram. Brace to take half the blow.
• Taking prizes no longer empties the sea: new ships keep coming over the horizon, and a prize you cast adrift drifts away on the wind.
• When you speed up time at the helm, the ships at sea keep pace with you.

Gunnery - a broadside you can see coming

• Enemy ships now run out their guns before they fire. Their gun ports glow along the side, you hear the gun carriages rumble across the water, and when those guns bear on you BROADSIDE appears over your crosshair with the key to brace. The warning stays up until the balls land, so that is the moment to brace, or to turn out of her line.
• Bracing now stops your reload while you hold it. It is an answer to a broadside, not something to hold all the time.
• Enemy gunners are more accurate and wait for a good shot: they hold fire until your ship is across their line, fire close in and far out, and lay chain shot high to shred your sails. Better crews wait for your middle, worse ones fire as you come on, and their shots at long range fall short and long.
• Enemy ships keep station alongside a moving boat instead of dropping astern, tack round when the wind won't let one broadside bear, and no longer pound you hull to hull.
• Ships hold fire when a friend is in the way, and a stray ball no longer starts a fight between ships of the same side.
• A ship that strikes her colours can't be sunk by the rest of the broadside that made her strike, and her crew puts out her fires. You have to fire a new broadside to sink a prize.
• Guns can now aim lower, so you can hit a sloop that has come alongside to board you. Ships won't waste a broadside that would fly over you.
• Sails are now a target. Balls through the rigging tear the canvas and fly on, and chain shot is the ammunition for it. A ball through the deck now damages the hull.
• Fires are fiercer. Several can burn at once, they burn sails and crew as well as the hull, and a fire barrel's burns hotter and longer. Only a hit above the waterline can start one.
• Fire barrels and floating cargo drift with the wind.
• A galley's great guns now outrange her broadside.
• After each of your broadsides, a line under the crosshair counts how many balls struck, how many holed her below the waterline and how many went through her rigging.
• Fixed: the last guns of a moving ship's broadside no longer fire from behind their ports.

Aiming - put the crosshair on her

• Put your crosshair on an enemy ship's hull and the guns are aimed at that exact spot, so the broadside goes into her side instead of flying over her. Aim at her sails and your cannon still hit the hull, while chain shot goes for the sails.
• Aiming at the water is smoother: nearby, the balls land right under your crosshair, and farther out each mouse movement shifts the range by a steady amount, not jumping tens of metres.
• The aim turns red only when your guns will really hit a ship, based on where she will be when the balls arrive. It checks every ship, not just the one under your crosshair, and her name comes up while you're on her.
• Each gun's arc now ends where its ball will stop: at a mark on her side, or at a splash on the water with a post of light over it so you can see it at a distance.
• When your guns can't fire yet, the aim line says why: reloading (with the seconds left), braced, out of fire barrels, or guns silent on a crippled ship. The aim goes grey and never turns red.
• A new broadside camera: while you aim a broadside, the view moves out over that side of your ship so your gun ports, the splash zone and the enemy are all on screen together. Letting go brings the view back. You can turn it off in Features > Naval Combat > Broadside camera.
• Firing while braced now tells you to let go of the brace first, and the reload message gives the seconds left.

At the helm

• Bracing no longer leaves you crouched after you let go of the key, which also knocked your aim short.
• On a phone or tablet, your ship's panel has its own Brace button: hold it to brace.
• Ramming now works. Hit a ship with your bow at speed to damage her, and you take some damage back (less when braced). A galley's ram hits three times as hard.
• Damage now affects how your ship sails: torn sails slow you down, and a crippled ship can only row, slowly. When your rigging is shot away you're told once instead of every time you try to raise the sails.
• Coming up on a ship that has struck her colours too fast to board? The ship's name shows "heave to". Press the board key to drop sail and brake hard, and once you're slow enough you can board.
• Nearby ships now show on the compass: red for enemies, pale for other ships and grey for ships that have struck their colours.
• A fire on your own ship now shows flames on deck, with the sound of burning and its glow.
• Your gunners are less accurate as your crew is killed.

Repairs - the shipwright

• Ports now have a shipwright. Stop your ship in a port town's waters with no enemy ships around, and your ship's panel shows the key to visit him.
• He mends your hull and sails, hires new crew and sells fire barrels, each priced per piece. Buy as much as you can afford, or press "Make her whole" to fix everything at once.
• Between fights your crew slowly patches the hull and sails, up to half strength, once no enemy is near and nothing has hit you for a while. Your panel shows "Mending" while they work. A crippled ship floats again once they have patched enough, so you can sail it to a shipwright. Crew can only be hired, not patched.

Boarding - the fight and its end

• Warm Ashes' pirate raids now start anywhere at sea, not only in coastal waters, whether pirates board you in a sea fight or catch up with you on the Overworld.
• When your crewed ship is boarded and the raid can't run (another raid is already under way, or Warm Ashes is off), your crew still fights beside you.
• The pirate flagship's attack no longer hangs. It ends the moment its leader falls, and if you're too slow the pirates fall back to their ship and cast off.
• Pirates who give up, or whose raid runs out of time, now go back to their ship and sail away. They don't grapple you again for five minutes, and the raid's waves stop coming.
• Swim away from your boarded ship and the pirates fall back and cast off, instead of vanishing and grappling you again at once.
• When a boarded ship's crew surrenders, the survivors throw down their arms before the plunder window opens.
• A ship finished off by fire now strikes her colours and goes down like one sunk by shot: you hear her bell, her cargo floats free, and the law and rewards count. A fire you didn't start isn't counted against you.
• If the ship you boarded starts sinking under the fight, you're sent back to your own deck.
• Throwing the grapples puts out a ship's fires.
• A boarding fight now shows on screen: whose deck you're on, whether her captain still stands, how many of her crew are down and how many more before the rest surrender. Her captain is named on the target bar.
• Boarders and crews no longer pile onto the same few spots on a deck.
• When you've dealt with a prize, or press "Leave her", you're put back at your own ship's wheel. Escape still just closes the window, so you can walk her deck.
• A prize has a fourth choice: burn her papers (a lawful ship), or hand her crew to the crown (a pirate). Either lowers your notoriety in those waters, like lowering your wanted level.
• You can't save during a boarding or while standing on another ship's deck, because loading would have dropped you into the sea with the ship gone.
• Ships keep fighting your ship while you're away from the wheel, a cask can be hauled in while swimming, and a rowboat's powder choice now says "No guns aboard".

Going down

• A sunk ship now goes all the way under before she disappears. She lists, goes down by the bow or the stern, and her masts slide beneath the waves. Big ships used to vanish with their masts still standing.
• In online play, everyone sees a ship sink. Before, only the player whose game ran that ship saw her go down; everyone else saw her disappear from the surface.
• A burning ship keeps burning as she sinks, and each fire goes out as the water reaches it. A scuttled prize burns to the waterline and no further, and no smoke or embers rise from under the sea.
• A sinking ship's flag goes down with her.

Hits, reloads and colours

• Your hits land with a crunch you can hear from the helm, and the splinters are big enough to see at range. The target's hull bar now shows the damage the way an enemy's health bar does: a pale strip where it was, a piece breaking off, and the panel flashing on each hit.
• When a side of your guns finishes reloading, you hear the gun captain's rap and its gauge flashes. A loaded side's gauge stays full instead of emptying.
• A ship's flag follows her state. Her own colours fly while she sails, come down when she strikes, and a prize you take flies your orange. The pirate flagship and merchant carracks now fly colours at all.
• A hostile ship's name is always red on the target panel, whatever her trade.
• Broadsides no longer distort. Each gun sounds a little different, and a distant broadside rolls in as one rumble instead of a pile of copies. There's no longer a jump in loudness at the distance where a nearby broadside turns into a distant one.
• Each of your guns kicks the camera as it fires, so a broadside rolls down the ship. A powder barrel going off on your deck now shakes harder than a cannonball.

The helm's panels on every screen

• On a phone, the helm no longer buries the view. Come Sail Away's helm buttons fit in two rows beside the menu button instead of covering it, your ship's panel packs itself small under them, and the target's panel sits at the bottom beside it instead of over the crosshair.
• The Brace button on a phone stays full finger size at any HUD scale, beside your ship's panel. The broadside warning says "Broadside - Brace".
• The aim line and the volley count sit together under the crosshair and wrap instead of running under your ship's panel. On a small screen the aim line shows just the range and whether you're on target.
• At larger HUD scales your ship's panel stands above the health bars instead of covering them, and the target's panel and the aim line grow with your HUD scale too, as far as the screen allows.
• On the classic interface, your ship's panel stands above the compass instead of covering it, and uses the proper pixel font.
• With a controller in hand, the hints name your controller's buttons ("Hold RT to aim - LB: brace"), and the button bar at the helm shows fire, brace and board.
• Words are easier to read on the Stone theme, and a greyed-out plunder choice still shows why. Fixed "The Crimson Gannet are coming alongside" and made the prize's hold hint read the same everywhere.

The sea at a glance

• Every ship in sight, out to 700 metres, has a tag over her masts: her name, a small hull bar, and whether her colours are struck, she's taken, boarded or going down. A hostile ship's name is red, and the ship on your target panel is ringed. Tags hide behind land, under any window and when the HUD is hidden.
• Your lookout calls "Sail ho!" when a ship turns hostile within 900 metres, naming her and where she lies ("off the port bow", "on the starboard beam").
• The arcs of your aim are now clean lines that read the same at any range, instead of a ribbon that vanished at 150 metres and filled the screen beside your ship. A dash runs out along each ball's flight.
• A battered ship shows it. Below 60% hull she smokes along her deck, below 40% she starts to list toward the side she'll sink on, her sails come down as they're shot away (the highest first), and planks break off and float where your balls hole her.
• A ship going down groans as the sea rushes in, right up until she's gone. Before, one gurgle as she started to sink was all you heard.
• Ships far away cost much less to animate, so a busy bay runs smoother.

Smoother at sea

• A bay with several ships in it runs much smoother. Ships no longer rebuild their collision every frame as they sail and roll on the swell, your own boat at the helm included, and working out who stands on which deck, or which ship you're pointing at, skips the ships nowhere near.
• Ships behind you or off screen are no longer drawn, though their shadows still fall where you can see them, and neither are details smaller than a pixel. The parts of a ship that aren't moving, like a war galley's 107 oars at rest, are drawn as one piece.
• Smoke, splashes and sparks are drawn in a few passes instead of one per kind of effect. In a fight big enough to hit the effect limit, splash spray and sparkles make way first and the broadside's smoke stays longest. Before, the oldest effects vanished first, smoke included.

The law

• Firing on a merchantman or a navy ship is piracy, and that kingdom's law hears of it. Your notoriety in its waters rises, shown as anchors on your ship's panel, and it fades day by day.
• Sinking or taking a pirate earns you standing with that kingdom and the knightly orders. A pirate flagship earns you standing with the temples too.

On screen

• At the helm, a panel shows your ship's hull, sails and crew, your guns reloading side by side, the waters you are in and your notoriety.
• The ship you are looking at is named at the top of the screen, with her hull and sails and what she is doing. When you can board her, the panel names the key to press.
• The ship's name sits below Come Sail Away's helm panel, and below the enemy health bar when one is showing. Both panels follow your HUD scale.
• On a phone or tablet, your ship's panel sits above the touch buttons, and its hints describe taps and drags instead of keys.
• Everything uses the Enhanced Plus look, on the classic interface too.

Sound and sight

• Cannon fire can be heard across the bay, along with splintering hulls, exploding fire barrels and the grapples biting. A ship's bell rings when she strikes her colours.
• Gun smoke hangs over the water and drifts with the wind. Burning ships trail smoke and embers, and a ship's flag flies her colours.
• Fixed: the splashes of Come Sail Away boats no longer show as white squares on the water.

Online

• Everyone nearby shares one sea: the same ships, the same broadsides and the same sinking.
• The sea no longer vanishes when the player running it dies, goes indoors or drops out. Another player nearby takes over its ships where they are, and the fight goes on.
• Boarding a ship another player's game is running now happens in one world. The ship is hauled alongside, fought over, taken and scuttled the same way on every screen, and the prize no longer slides out from under you.
• Two groups meeting at sea no longer double the ships for good, and two players in the same waters no longer meet identical twin ships.
• Other players' ships sail smoothly between updates instead of stepping, and a ship's name, captain and crown are the same for everyone.
• The navy judges each player by their own notoriety. Before, it judged everyone by the notoriety of the player whose game ran it, so it could sail past a wanted player and attack a lawful one. A navy ship that sees any player fire on a merchantman now turns on them.
• Pirates attack every player's boat. Players cannot hurt each other's boats.
• A pirate's fire barrel now hurts any player's boat that sails onto it. Before, it only hurt the player whose game ran the pirate.
• Pirates now come alongside and board any player's crippled or stopped boat, and that player fights the boarders on their own deck. Before, a pirate would sit beside another player's wreck for good, and they could neither travel nor rest. Turn off Features > Naval Combat > Pirates board you and they leave you be.
• The floating cargo of a sunk ship now shows for every player, and any player can haul it in by sailing through it. Each cask goes to whoever reaches it first. Before, only the player whose game ran the ship saw the casks, so a player who sank her got nothing.
• Other players' broadsides now fly in time with their guns. Before, they could land up to a second and a half late on your screen, where their target no longer was.
• A hit on another player's ship is no longer lost when the connection hiccups. It is sent again a moment later.
• When players share a sea, it has the fewest ships any of them chose under Ships at sea. Before, the choice of the player whose game ran the sea applied to everyone.
• Features > Naval Combat has settings for how many ships sail, whether pirates board you, the raiders' plunder and the broadside camera.

Fixes from player reports (2026-09-29)

• Other players now stand on their ship's deck as it sails and rocks. Before, a player at their own wheel trailed behind it, and a passenger drifted off the deck as it rolled.
• Other players standing still on a moving ship no longer look like they are walking.
• Sea creatures no longer get caught inside your ship when you sail over them.
• At the helm you can zoom out much farther, far enough to see your whole ship. The camera no longer gets stuck against your own masts and rails. On foot the zoom is unchanged.
• The breaking waves along the coast no longer shimmer and flicker in the distance, and the far beach no longer flickers when you zoom out at sea. Up close the waves look exactly as before.
• The Test Room has a new Sea battle option: you start at the helm of an armed ship on the open Bay with a pirate brig coming in to fight. It turns on Come Sail Away and Naval Combat.

What's Changed

• Naval combat: broadsides, the Bay's ships, boarding and plunder, one sea online (NAV-A to NAV-H, NAV-R, AUDIT NAV1) by @Lattymoy in #426

Full Changelog: app-v0.1.4858...app-v0.1.4897