A big patch for Naval Action dropped this week. There are some significant changes. As expected when I made the first tutorial video, there was a good chance it would go out of date rather quickly. I’ve only managed to play an hour or so worth of the new patch, so my brief observations are:
- If you are at 0 knots, you cannot turn (in battle). This is brilliant. It means missing your stays is now to be avoided at all costs. It was already pretty bad – a ship in reverse is like trying to back a trailer on a car – now it’s even more punishing. Beware.
- The crew management makes more sense. By toggling stations on and off, crew will run between tasks. There are crew counters associated to each, so you can quickly see who’s doing what.
- The damage markers are a great addition. Now you can get a clear picture of what your shot actually did. They’re at the very top of the screen when in battle.
- Production in ports. I haven’t splashed the cash on a building yet, but being able to auto-gen things while away from the game is obviously going to be handy. They plan to reduce and then remove AI driven production so that, by the end of it, it will be a pure player economy.
- Massive boost for XP gained in PVP encounters.
For the full details check out the patch notes here.
Simply put, this game keeps getting better! We suspect the next big patch will focus more on the visuals – I think they’ve done the right thing by getting the core mechanics down first. The image used on this article is a sample one that was put on their blog last week. Head over there to check out some more.
Set sail!
