2026-09-28
The Cabal's ships got captains who sail and fight them, and members can now fight each other in multiplayer rooms.
The Cabal's captains
Until today an enemy ship only sat and fired. Now every Cabal ship in an engagement has a captain who presses the same controls you do. Once a second the captain picks a target, a heading and a side to fight, steering clear of the wind's dead zone, the shoals and collisions. Every moment in between, the captain steers, trims sail and works the guns. The captain wears ship rather than tacking, keeps the staysails set, and reverses the helm under sternway. In the Frigate Duel the enemy now comes to you.
Engagements can also give you allies, captained the same way. The map rings and tracks them in blue, yours in red and the Cabal in ink. A captain's name and a morale bar hang over every ship but yours. A gun holds fire while a friendly ship fouls the range.
Multiplayer rooms
Members can host a room from the engagements page and send the link to friends. In the lobby, players claim ships, and the host starts the battle. Every ship nobody claims is captained. If a player drops out, the ship lies idle for ten seconds and then a captain takes over; coming back takes it back. In a room a ship carries its player's name. By the end of the day rooms were running on the live site. A fix late in the evening made ships glide smoothly in rooms instead of moving in small steps.
The crew, man by man
Every man aboard is now counted at a station, and the station bar adds up to the crew. Orders send men walking between the sails and the guns, a gun crew's worth every few seconds. Spare hands wait at the stood-down guns. Clearing for action no longer takes forty-five seconds. The gun order now cycles through Loading, Firing and Stood down. A side's port lids are up while it's manned or any gun is loaded.
On screen
- A minimap in the lower right, north-up round your ship, showing every hull to scale. R steps its range through 0.5, 1.5 and 3 km.
- The HUD lost the heading, wind angle and clock, and it now scales with the window.
- Cabal ships wear their own livery: their bands and carved work are painted red on a deeper black.
A merchant brigantine
A new rig, half square and half fore-and-aft: square yards on the fore, a gaff mainsail and headsails. It points higher than a brig. It's a merchantman with eight six-pounders and fifty men, sailable in Sea Trials. Its numbers are guesses. The hulls got names too: First Rate, Seventy-four, Frigate, Brig, Cutter and Brigantine.
The bow
The warships' bows were redrawn after period draughts: round at the rail, fine and slightly hollow at the water, and the stem curving forward to its head. The merchant brigantine keeps a full, bluff bow.