Pirates of the Burning Sea devlog: toning down the Ships of the Line

Avast, ye landlubbers! The developers from Flying Lab Software have come up with their latest update to the Pirates of the Burning Sea devlog. Today’s focus plays on the unexpected exploiting of the “kings of the sea”, namely the Ships of the Line (SOL).

Read more about it in the full article after the jump!

Avast, ye landlubbers! The developers from Flying Lab Software have come up with their latest update to the Pirates of the Burning Sea devlog. Today’s focus plays on the unexpected exploiting of the “kings of the sea”, namely the Ships of the Line (SOLs).

Originally, the developers planned for the SOLs to be very rare and very hard to earn. Developer Taelorn describes SOLs as: “the equivalent of Death Stars: massive, resource-intensive projects that required coordination on a national scale, and that were deployed only when it would make a decisive contribution to the national interest”.

However, during the beta testing phase of the game, there were an unexpected number of SOLs littering the oceans, thanks to single-player grinding tactics. So far, the only requirement to obtain a SOL is to get a writ by fulfilling level requirements and a quest from a high-level NPC. Since leveling in the game is relatively easy, many port battles have been seen with swarms of SOLs lining up the high seas.

To correct this, the developers plan to change the requirements on obtaining a SOL. Instead of writ-grinding, building a SOL will be replaced with a large-scale, coordinated economic activity on a faction level instead of an individual one. Also, by making them harder to obtain, players will have a much wider choice of other not-so-powerful ships to choose from to build their naval career.

So for those of you with SOLs, make sure to savor your last few moments with them before the commercial version of PotBS comes out. I suggest raiding a port town or two so that you can give your naval juggernaut a proper sendoff. Taelorn discusses several other points that you can view through the spurce link below.