Ice Ocean changelog/2026

Ice Release 2026-10-06

Auction House updates

• Building deeds can no longer be sold at the Auction House. Any still listed are handed back to their owners, with a note saying why.
• Ships: wrapped gifts aboard now go back to their owner when she is listed, rather than being sold with her, as does anything of the seller's resting on another pirate's furniture that is going back. The questions before listing name these, and count only what really goes with the ship.
• Ship listings name the colours of the furniture sold with her, and a long list is kept to a few lines, with a See all button for the rest.
• Visitors to a listed ship can no longer play at her tables, and nobody can forage into a listed ship's hold. The visit message now says "However ye disembark".
• A party at a building now ends when the building changes hands.
• Pictures in the Booty's Auctioned section no longer drift away from their names after visiting a ship.
• A chroma sought in a buy offer is drawn in the colour sought, or plain white for any colour, rather than pink.
• The Sell tab now says why it won't take an item. Items that degrade every day rather than only on login days, such as wayfinders, compasses and expedition maps, can't be sold, since they would keep aging while the house held them.
• Buttons that can't be used yet, such as Post sell offer before an item is chosen, now have readable labels.

The Purser's Tally

• Pete now picks his moments more kindly. A tally no longer stops a vessel leaving port, nor catches her partway along a voyage. It comes instead before a battle is joined, before a crew goes ashore on an expedition, and in a lull once a skirmish is under way.
• In a skirmish he waits at least a minute into play after a break rather than asking as the break ends, so a pirate back a little late is at their station before anyone is asked.
• An answer is owed until ye give one. Right or wrong makes no odds, but ye must answer all of it, and until ye do, Pete will stand between ye and a duty station.

• Booty search accepts colours, and multiple fields (comma separated) - Same as tailor rack searches.
• Made Chromas stackable (Up to 20).
• Chromas and Designs have their own sections in the inventory.
• Pet inventory section moved up to follow attire.
• For pets, "trash" now reads "release".
• Sealed deeds can no longer be trashed.
• More categories added to the trinkets section. Improved categorization.
• "Fetch" at the TP now fills from open categories first.

Ice Release 2026-10-02

New feature: Island Forecast

• Those watching a blockade from the shore can now wager on it. When a buoy comes under threat a forecast opens on it: will the team holding it still hold it a few turns on? The ship's bell rings, and the buoy in question wears a white ring on the board.
• Put yer pieces of eight on Hold or Flip, from 10 up to 5,000. Each side keeps one shared pool, and when the buoy is read the whole of it is split among the winning side in proportion to what each pirate staked. The house seeds both sides, so neither is ever empty, and that seed is all the house itself risks.
• Wagering stays open for a turn and ye may change yer stake until it closes. The result is read a few turns later, and the card tells ye what it meant for ye.
• A forecast belongs to those watching when it opens; arrive while one is running and ye wait for the next. None are offered on event blockades.

Auction House

• Buy offers can now seek any kind of item, show pictures of what they seek, and list exact colour offers before those that will take any colour. A seller filling one chooses which of their items goes.
• Items ye have listed are now marked in yer Booty.
• Ships: a seller may keep their furniture, and whatever does go with the ship is listed for the buyer. Deeds now say what does not come with a property, and say why one cannot be listed.
• Stacks and potions are priced by the piece.
• A price can be corrected just after posting.
• Searches read item names as ye would say them, no longer match against the game's internal names, and the recent ones are remembered. Sold and stale rows are dropped from Browse.
• Listings say how an item has been personalized, name only the colour slots it actually has, and colour its age as Booty does. Typed letters pick from an open colour list.
• The day of wear that listing costs is explained, and warned of only when renewing actually costs one. A worn item cannot be renewed until it leaves the rack.
• Furniture that props up another piece now names what is resting on it, and warns when a worn out piece is holding something up.
• Sale notices give the price, the fee and what ye actually take home, and history includes trades made by taking up an offer.
• Wrapped gifts are refused with an explanation, listed snow furniture melts out of escrow as it would anywhere else, and offers are kept out of slots that expire before they do.
• Trade buttons are set apart from the controls for managing yer own offers, confirmations match the rest of the client, "colour" is spelled as it is elsewhere, and a good deal of the wording is shorter.
• Listings follow pirates who rename themselves, and survive ones who are deleted.

The game window

• The window now remembers its size for each account on this machine, so pirates running several accounts no longer find them all opening at whichever size was set last. The logon screens keep a size of their own, and logging off returns to it.
• If ye would rather they all matched, Options has a new "Lock all accounts on this machine to this resolution" checkbox under the screen size row.
• The Graphics tab's size list shows nothing picked when yer window is some other size, with the window's actual size on a line beneath it, and picking a size now resizes the window at once. With HD art on, each screen size is listed once rather than twice.
• A puzzle larger than the window will now grow the window to show the board whole, as far as the screen allows. The grown size is not remembered as yer own, so the next launch opens where ye left it.
• Puzzle Size says plainly what is waiting on a restart: the panel, the Options tab and the first puzzle ye open all say which size ye are actually playing at until ye restart.
• Dialogs in a small window now scroll across as well as down, instead of being cut off at the edges.

The Purser's Tally

• Pete will now show ye a challenge type before he ever checks ye on it. Until ye have tried each type in rotation once, the voyages board offers those instead of the work, so nobody meets a new kind of tally for the first time with their pay resting on it.
• Where there is a duty report to be had, it is shown after a check rather than being lost behind it.
• Fixed a check failing to appear while ye were at the battle navigation station.

• Blockade watching: ships no longer jump backwards after moving, the header rolls onto two lines in a narrow window, and a second mark on the same square replaces yer first rather than piling up.
• Unique enemies in frays now wear a purple name.
• The duty performance log now covers labour as well, and names where the work was done, such as "Cursed Isles".
• Cursed Isles foraging is now always at full difficulty; joining by hand could previously leave it easier than joining the run properly.
• Collection case grids scale with their icons, and the employed-at icons are fixed for bazaar stalls.
• The trading post now fetches trinkets from the categories ye have open first, and only then goes looking through the rest.
• Fixed pets turning invisible.
• Fixed Swordfight tiles getting stuck behind one another, and the piece under the mouse not rotating.
• More fixes for overlapping sprites.
• Fixed inconsistent click and scaling arithmetic across several puzzles.
• Fixed island map category labels wrapping when hovered.
• Fixed the window shifting about while logging on.
• Login: the back arrow on the check-your-email page returns ye to entering yer email.
• Fixed opening links in the default browser on Linux.
• A further fix for the client not exiting when ye quit.

Ice Release 2026-09-28

Puzzle Size

• The Display size panel ye meet on logging on, and can reopen from pirate selection, is now called Puzzle Size and has one selector in place of two. Every size is listed, but those too large for yer screen are greyed and cannot be chosen, and the one picked for ye is marked as such. The in-game settings are untouched.
• The sizes on offer are the ones whose whole game window fits: the puzzle, the Ahoy panel beside it at its narrowest, and a little room below. The game window is sized to match as soon as the panel opens and whenever ye change the size, and Cancel puts the window and the size back as they were.
• The preview draws the puzzle at that size with "Yer Piratey business" outlined in gold beside it, laid out as the window will hold them.

Login pages

• The frame is now as large as the window allows, from 100% to 200%, and refits itself once ye stop dragging the window about.
• A larger frame shows more accounts rather than larger ones. The list fills the room in the frame, and the names step up a point at 125% and again at 175%.
• The heading is centred over the list, and the list and its Logon button sit on the page's centre line. The search controls and the ocean button grow with the frame, and the status message and the pinning hint share the line above the gilding.
• Pick yer pirate now fits a whole row of pirates inside even the smallest frame.
• Blockade watching:
  • When a round is played out the header says so, so ye see the result, and the watch then ends and puts ye back ashore rather than leaving ye on an empty board. A round already over is no longer offered to watch.
  • The island's watch panel now gives the wait in blocks: more than 24 hours, less than 24 hours, then counting down in hours and minutes as it nears.
  • The header shows the turn and the seconds to the next one during play, the time left during a break, and a warning in the last 30 seconds before the blockade restarts. A spectator joining during a break no longer sees "turn -2".
  • Teams present but not contesting are marked "(not contending)" in the legend.
• The blockade score panel, the sabotage status panel and the Ahoy! tab's sections now fold away with the same plus and minus control.
• The aqua Swordfight pieces have been re-tinted to tell them apart from the green ones more readily.
• Darkened the vampirate Carpentry backdrop, now that its background is lighter.
• Fixed the puzzle timer at larger scales, and the item image cache used by scaled artwork.
• Clicking the bird view of the island from the notice board now returns ye to the island the same way whether ye had just logged on or opened the board afterwards.
• Another fix for the minimap sticking while it loads, and some guards against errors around furniture.
• A shoppe or building changing hands now reaches everyone: its new owner and managers show on the isle map and in its info straight away, instead of the old ones lingering until the next server restart. Most visible when a blockade hands an island over.
• Embiggening: Patching bonus tokens and help images, Alchemistry special pieces and tutorial images, and the missing tutorial images for Shipwrightery and Navigating.

Ice Release 2026-09-25

The Purser's Tally

• A tally will no longer interrupt a fray. If a swordfight is under way on any deck when one falls due, it is held back and put to the crew the moment the decks are clear, not sprung on a pirate with a saboteur still swinging at them.
• The cursed isles have their pause ashore rather than at sea, so a tally there is called in the lull before the next fray begins.
• Pete is trying a new style of tally. Rather than watching a scene change and then choosing from a list of names, ye are shown a single picture and asked to click what it asks ye for. Ye can clear yer marks and place them again before answering if ye make a mistake.

• Blockade watching:
  • The legend in the header now carries each team's score, with the defenders on a line to themselves and the attackers two abreast.
  • The header says how to zoom.
  • A command typed into Spectators chat now runs as a command, instead of being said aloud from the shore.

• Login pages:
  • A new gilded frame, shown at 100%, 150% or 200% to suit yer screen.
  • Gold headings and text on the blue, and the account filter tucked behind a magnifier icon.
  • The waiting and fetching messages are twice the size and in the same gold as the rest of the frame, and the account card now sits below the logo.
  • The find field only appears when ye have accounts enough to want it.
• Ctrl+O opens Options from anywhere in case yer scaling settings leave ye marooned otherwise.
• Swordfight table settings are now remembered between games.
• Auto-resize now switches "Lock panel sizes" off, so the panels can be resized to fit the selected layout.
• Double UI scaling will no longer run off the edge of the screen.
• Swords, inventory icons, and player faces now scale with the rest of the UI.
• The updated 2x Swordfight artwork is now used by default.
• Placing an order larger than the allowed quantity in one go now says so, instead of being taken and delivered as a nonsense quantity.
• Auction House: fixed the names shown for framed portraits in buy offers.
• Event blockades no longer require a vessel's voyage type to be set to "Blockade".
• Fixed some instances of the client hanging when ye try to quit.

Ice Release 2026-09-24

Auction House updates

• Clothing no longer ages while listed in the Auction House, including when renewing an offer.
• Fixed clothing listings showing secondary colours that the item does not use.
• Fixed unnecessary horizontal scrolling and off-screen scrollbars on the Browse tab.
• Stacked Buy Offers colour selectors vertically and gave the item list more room, keeping its width steady when changing items.
• Corrected punctuation in the sale fee description.

Ice Release 2026-09-23

Auction House updates

• Added a History tab showing your completed, cancelled and expired Auction House offers from the past 30 days.
• Fixed Auction House controls being cut off on smaller screens. Horizontal scrolling now appears when needed.
• Disabled the Sell and Buy Offers tabs when no slots are available, and added clearer messages explaining slot requirements and restrictions for green-name pirates.
• Expired slots no longer count toward the slot purchase limit, allowing players to buy replacements.

Ice Release 2026-09-22

Auction House updates

• Sell items by dragging or Shift-clicking them from Booty into the new Sell-tab slot.
• Improved deed ownership checks and transfers, and prevented duplicate property listings. Government-building deeds and ships at sea cannot be listed.
• Administrators can now cancel listings or remove their promotion.
• Improved fee breakdowns and blocked prices that leave no proceeds after sale and promotion fees.
• Promoted offers rotate each minute, showing at most one per account. Click Refresh to see the current selection.
• Seller and buyer names are now hidden from public listings and sale history.
• Disabled the withdrawal slot cooldown on Ice to make testing easier.
• Ships cannot set sail while their deeds are listed for sale.
• Yer slots now shows available and used totals with expiry information, instead of individual slot numbers.
• Price fields clear when changing items or after a successful posting, to prevent accidentally reusing a previous price.
• Hidden colour details for items without colour variations.
• Listings show remaining item lifetime or condition percentage instead of new/good/old.
• Ship deeds show their current port, and shop deeds show their island.
• Stale or invalid listings are marked unavailable and no longer show a Buy now button.
• Sale receipts now appear in Ahoy!, including at next login if an item sells while ye are offline.

Ice Release 2026-09-21

New feature: Watch a blockade from the shore

• Any pirate standing on an island under blockade can now watch it, with no ship and no need to be in the fray. Notice Board → Blockades, under the island's blockade information, has a "Watch from the shore" section giving the round and turn and how many ships are at sea; between rounds it tells ye when the next one begins.
• "Stop watching" in the header puts ye back on the island. Boarding a ship, entering a building, or the round ending will also end the watch.
• A "Board only" checkbox beside it hides the sidebar and the chat band so the blockade has the whole window. It lasts only as long as the watch.
• Spectators get a chat of their own: a Spectators mode (or /shore), heard by everyone spectating that blockade and never by the ships in the fight. It is what the chat control starts on while ye watch.
• Watchers also hear the blockade's battle chat. It does not carry the other way: the ships in the fight hear nothing from the shore.
• Spectator Shout Outs on the Ahoy! tab: Bravo!, Bingo, Yarr, Rumjuggled, Booched and Megabooched. Click one, then click the board to place it, and every spectator sees it over that spot for a few seconds with yer name above it. A mark landing on or beside one still showing joins it and counts up instead. Five seconds to recharge between marks, and "Don't show shout outs" turns them off for ye, yer own and everyone else's.
• Options → Graphics → Blockade view: Standard, Large (2x) or Huge (3x) sets the size blockades open at, whether ye are sailing in one or watching from the shore. Ctrl + mouse-wheel zooms on top of it as it always has, and will now go as far as 3x. Changing the setting forgets any zoom ye had dialled in over the old one, so the new choice is what shows next time.
• Blockades now remember their zoom on their own, rather than sharing it with the rest of the sea, so a pirate who likes a large blockade is not also handed a large sea battle.
• Double-size art to go with it: water, whirlpools, gusts and rocks, and every hull a pirate can sail into a blockade, sinking included.

New feature: The Purser's Tally

• Purser Pete has taken to checking manifests. At a battle break, a vessel about to leave port, or a ship sailing from a league point. he may call for a tally: watch the scene for a few seconds, then answer a couple of short questions about what ye saw.
• The whole crew is tallied at once, so nobody is singled out and everybody gets to solve the challenge. It runs its full length either way: answering promptly will not cut it short, and declining will not drag it out.
• Pete may slip ye something for yer trouble.
• For testing on Ice, this check will happen at every possible chance. This will be less frequent in normal play.

Login screen:

• The account list gains a Find field and a Recent / A-Z chooser at its head. The find matches nicknames as well as account names.
• Ctrl-click an account (command-click on a Mac) to pin it to the top of the list, where it is marked with a star.
• Accounts can be given a nickname, shown beside the name in grey — "Goldtooth (trade alt)". Set it in Options → General while logged on to that account. Nicknames and pins are both kept on that computer rather than on the account, so they do not follow ye to another machine.
• Logon now runs the full width beneath the list with "Yer Ocean" beside it, and the frame stretches to fill the window so that more of the list shows at once. Double-clicking an account, or pressing Enter, logs on.
• The "2x" button has gone from the top bar; the same setting lives in Options → Graphics.
• Ocean picker: one list in place of the three columns, with yer current ocean first under "Yer Ocean" and the rest under "Other oceans", each with a word about it alongside.
• Pirate selection gains an Ocean select button beside Display size, so a pirate handed an ocean can move to another before creating anyone. Picking a different ocean takes ye to that ocean's pirate selection; cancelling comes straight back.
• Pirate creation has been tidied: the intro heading is gone, "Pick yer pirate's appearance" sits with the pirate box and Play Now below it. Pirate names on the selection page are now yellow.
• New splash artwork on the English client: the hero water texture within the gold filigree, and a new logo to go with it.
• Booty: Unopened presents, potions and other openable items can no longer be trashed.
• Racks: The rack dialog now shows how full the rack is.
• Yer vessels: Added a search field and an archipelago/island filter, and gathered "Lock All", "Unlock All" and "Battle Ready All" into a single "Set Lock" menu.
• Islands: Buildings and stalls ye're employed at now carry a small trade icon on the island map, on building labels and in job listings, and shoppe job lists name the trade in their title.
• Fixed being unable to use racks, game tables and tournament boards that are part of a scene rather than placed furniture.
• Fixed an error when a trinket was missing its information.
• Sound now follows yer system's default playback device: switching to a headset part-way through a session takes the game's sound with it, instead of waiting for a restart.
• Embiggening: Navigation star animations, activity feedback and tips; Distilling pieces, furnace and background; the Alchemistry squirts; vampirate Treasure Haul coins and gems; Blacksmithing hammer and tongs; the Weaving shuttle; the Shipwrightery flag; Foraging help images.

Auction House (accessible from Shatterstone palace)

This is an initial first draft, and we are actively looking for player feedback and suggestions! Please try it out and tell us what works well, what is confusing, and which Auction House features and improvements you would most like to see. Share your feedback in the Ice section of Discord to help shape what comes next.

• Browse: Buy listed items at fixed prices; this first draft has no timed bidding.
• Sell or request items: List eligible, unequipped items in Sell, or post offers for items you want in Buy Offers. Compatible offers can match automatically, even while you are offline.
• Posting needs a slot: Each open offer uses one slot. Slots last a year and cost PoE on Ice; reuse them as offers finish. Browsing and accepting existing offers do not need a slot.
• Items and PoE are held: Listed items or offered PoE stay with the Auction House while an offer is open. They are returned if you withdraw the offer or it expires.
• Manage offers: Use My Offers to renew or withdraw listings, which normally last 30 days. Withdrawing an offer gives its slot a short cooldown before reuse.
• Fees: A sale fee is deducted from the seller's proceeds. Promoting a sell offer costs extra. The panel shows the current fees and slot price.

Display Size defaults

We're testing new automatic display defaults on Ice and would like your feedback!

• One-time reset: The client will choose a game-window size and puzzle scale based on your monitor, even if you previously chose your own settings. This reset is remembered on your computer and will not repeat each time you log in.
• Review before playing: The Display Size panel will open once after account login, before you select or enter a pirate. Adjust the preview and click Apply to keep your choices. Cancel discards changes made in the panel; it does not undo the initial reset.
• Change your mind later: You can reopen Display Size from pirate selection. Changes to puzzle scale require a client restart before they take effect in-game.
• Improved layout: The panel now fits better with large fonts and 2x scaling, keeping the text and buttons visible.
• Help us evaluate the defaults: On Ice, we record the display settings you choose when you click Apply or Cancel. Please also tell us in the Ice section of Discord whether the suggested sizes are comfortable, and what settings you prefer if they are not.

Ice Release 2026-09-14

Blockades:

• A vessel must have its voyage type set to "Blockade" before it may enter a blockade.
  • Vessels whose flag is not contesting a blockade can now port and deport as if the blockade were not happening.
  • Boarding a vessel during a battle break now applies the same entry requirements as sailing in, consistently across blockades, flotillas and sea monster encounters.
• Collection cases: Shows a preview of how the case will look when customising its collection.
• Login screen: Panels keep a sensible width and stay centered, and the account picker grows with taller windows.
• Parlour games: Puzzle backdrop stays visible when using "restart".
• Embiggening: Foraging pieces, crates, critters, cursors and debris; Vampirate Carpentry textures.
• Renamed the "Berry pie" trinket to "Hearty berry pie" and one of the duplicate "Dog plushie" to "Small dog plushie".
• Fixed accessing Obsidian from the classic Puzzle Pirates client.

Ice Release 2026-09-11

• Patching: Stop allowing tiles to be placed off the board.
• Vessel tooltip in shoppes: Fixed mass capacity.
• Navigation: Fix for sometimes getting no targets.
• Trading post: Re-worded "Only fetch duplicates" for clarity, added a tooltip description and fixed a minor bug.
• Made Sunshine panel's booty content expand when the panel is expanded.
• Greatly improved loading of large amounts of inventory.
• Portrait background setup:
  • Added filter for minimum pirates.
  • Sorted by size then name.
  • Shows a thumbnail of the selected background.
• Embiggening: Fixed carpentry textures, Pufferfish and Haul chests at certain sizes.
• Made puzzle tutorial dialogs scale with world font, fixed sprites.
• Tutorial arrow pointing to "Missions" tab now points to "Missions" tab.
• Updated "New Pirate Help" links.
• Fixed logging of performance in expos.
• Added "Score" for lair Carpentry and CI haul tooltips.

Ice Release 2026-09-04

• Added preference for exported data directory.
• Fixed rigging piece names in difficulty option tooltips.
• Stop rack dialog boxes from growing over the chat band.
• Fix for word-wrapping of chat history.
• "Houses" list on noticeboard;
  • Added stalls.
  • Ensured locations within ferry reach of yer home/current island do not consume a whisk.
• Potential fix for a crash.
• Added backdrops around puzzle frames.

Ice Release 2026-08-29

• Added option to only "fetch duplicate trinkets" at the Trading Post.
• Added notification when a pirate enters/leaves a house or crew hall.
• Pending orders can be delivered by double-clicking them.
• Pending order table grows with orders, a bit.
• Potential fix for a disconnect when trading out a large volume of items.
• Added a "hearty who" command: /hwho
• Increased max number of hearties
• Buildings that have gone dark, or are not "open for business" have their labels display faded on the map.
• Stalls that have gone dark, or are not "open for business" have their labels display faded on entry panel in the bazaar.
• A stall managed by you is shown underlined in the list.
• Stall and house entry dialog boxes grow with content.
• Added labor totals to lines in shoppe labor log.
• Rack interface grows vertically if possible.

Ice Release 2026-08-24

• Swordfight Dueling mode has been expanded to tournaments and table games, and now defaults to enabled for eligible Swordfights.
• A new "Duels" page on the Notice Board lists active Duels across the ocean and lets you spectate them from anywhere. Match listings include each pirate's face, sword, Swordfighting standing, and the current number of spectators.
• The Duels page also shows the 30 most recently completed Duels, newest first, including who won and when each Duel ended.

Ice Release 2026-08-23

• Added a means to export a pirates inventory to json via double-click on the "Booty" tab in the pirates info panel.
• Added option to log pirates own duty performance. Found in the "general" options tab.
• Put 1 minute back in as a turbo TD option.
• Added vessel class to engaged/intercept messages.
• Fixed some trinkets not showing their inscriptions.
• Fixed ghostly familiars ghostliness in yoweb.
• Made greedy purses untrashable.
• Added a search bar to tailor racks.
• Fix for Blacksmithing clicks getting lost to the puzzling gods.

Ice Release 2026-08-18

• Trinket collection cases for testing:
  • Cases can hold 1 of each variant of each relevant trinket.
  • Two cases available at this point; BK and SMH.
  • Before placing, cases can be "customized" to show a sub-collection.
  • Cases can share a scene, if they have different collections set. Eg 1 x Admiral Finius collection.
  • Cases can share a scene with a regular display case.
  • Currently using placeholder images.

• Hopeful fix for misaligned patching tiles in certain situations, and removed snapping on rotate.
• Another fix for shortcut keys choking sometimes.
• Tweaked chart view to make nodes clearer and indicate colonized islands.
• Show featured job in bold if already employed there.
• Fixed dismiss button to footer of featured jobs pop up.
• Shows labour types in job panel.

Testing importing of CSV in shoppe management prices tables:

• Import/export through clipboard for now. Double-click tab label to export, Shift-Double-click tab label to import.
• Added a "Cancel Changes" button, closing the tab commits the changes as usual.
• Pending changes are shown in bold.
• Issues from importing (such as min stock > max stock) are not entered, but are highlighted as an Issue.

Ice Release 2026-08-14

New feature: Swordfight Duels!

• When challenging a player to a swordfight, there is a new checkbox for "Dueling" mode that allows you and your opponent to see each other's full puzzle boards during the swordfight.

Ice Release 2026-08-13

• Fix for Sailing not obeying the chosen difficulty.
• Fix for chosen max difficulty being ignored in some other cases.
• Set the minimum experience required to choose a difficulty to Narrow for testing purposes. Final landing point is undecided.
• "Houses" button on notice board now shows all buildings you own/manage. With the option to use a whisking potion where applicable.
• Bid tickets now show percentage filled.
• Allow time choices in Treasure Drop turbo mode.

Ice Release 2026-08-04

• You can now choose your own puzzle difficulty. A new "Difficulties" tab in the options panel provides a slider with tooltips describing what changes at each level.
• If your experience in a puzzle is too low, your chosen difficulty is capped at your normal calculated difficulty.
• Choosing a difficulty lower than your calculated one reduces your score slightly.
• Duty report tooltips now include maneuver tokens and cannons loaded.
• Double-clicking a duty report copies it to the clipboard.
• Fixed the hold inventory export, which now copies to the clipboard.
• Shoppe managers can double-click the pricing tab to copy current prices as CSV.
• The chart has a new export button that copies the visible league points.
• Monthly paints now have a tooltip showing which month they can be ordered in.
• Vessels for sale in shipyards now show their mass and volume capacity.
• The league tracker now has a tooltip showing how far you are from your charted destination.
• Added /cheer and /cry commands, which emote and strike the matching pose for everyone in the room.
• Fixed some inconsistencies between duty indicators and duty reports.
• Fixed chat shortcuts being disabled after opening the options panel.

Ice Release 2026-07-27

• Flotillas spawn times are now evenly distributed, rotating every week.
• Fixed bugs affecting the iron and steel blockade trophies.
• Roulette can no longer be advertised in global chat.

Ice Release 2026-07-22

• Transferring stock is now searchable: type part of a name to quickly find the destination vessel or shoppe instead of having to type the name exactly.
• More scaling fixes at larger UI scales: the doubloon purchase screens and the place-order screens now lay out correctly.
• Fixed a crash in the Foraging puzzle when a combo gets too big.

Ice Release 2026-07-21

• More interface and scaling polish: fixed notice board text wrapping and alignment, buy/sell table column widths, crafting duty report product names wrapping when needed, and doubloon exchange scaling; made sidebar width limits more consistent; and reduced flicker in the blockade status panel.
• On the vessel tab, the list of pirates and their duties now shrinks smoothly with the panel instead of snapping to full height and showing a second scroll bar; it shrinks to four rows before the tab itself starts to scroll.
• Chat resize handles are now hidden in favor of letting the cursor indicate the edge.
• Made room for error messages on the Steam login screen so they do not overflow.
• The login warning message for overdue shop taxes now includes the island name.
• Shop order logs now include color (only for new orders).

Ice Release 2026-07-09

• The fixed standing curves have been fine-tuned for each puzzle: the lower tiers are spaced more consistently and the upper tiers are pulled closer together without collapsing into one another. Ultimate is unchanged.
• For this test, the standing curves have been set to mimic a real ocean. The goal is to not have any dead zones where it takes excessively long to rank up, or walls where many standings stack up nearly touching each other.
• Shipwright duty reports have been adjusted to make incredible more difficult so it more accurately reflects the standing you should expect from it.

Ice Release 2026-07-05

• Added /w as a shortcut for the /who command.
• The vessel, island, and Ye tabs now scroll when their contents do not fit, so nothing is cut off at larger UI scales.
• Fixed a rounding error in puzzle scaling and restored the broken Gunning arrow image.

Ice Release 2026-07-04

• Added a /whisk command: type /whisk followed by an island's name to drink a whisking potion and travel straight there.
• Badges can now be extended, banking the extra time rather than wasting it, up to a maximum of double the original duration.
• The rating curve already used to score labor puzzles is now being extended to the duty puzzles as well. Most notably, incredible patching should be attainable again.
• Fixed rating inflation in the parlor games (Drinking, Hearts, and Spades). This does not change existing ranks, but does prevent further inflation. Further action to address already inflated ranks will be considered.
• Limited-edition and monthly paints that are no longer on sale can still be applied, and shoppes can still adjust their prices.
• Made hiring while on a break behave more consistently across different skirmish types.
• More scaling fixes: pirate creation text, trophy buttons, the booty tab, job status, the "configure house" screen, and item context menus now scale correctly, and the map preview is centered.
• Refreshed more high-resolution puzzle art, including additional Bilging pieces.

Ice Release 2026-07-01

• Crew and flag portraits now stay sharp when enlarged at larger UI scales.
• The island map icons now re-lay out cleanly when the island view is resized.
• Many more scaling fixes across the interface: the trading post, the missions sidebar width, scene news, notice board buttons, the puzzles tab, and the pirate-select screen spacing now scale correctly.
• Fixed the weekly tax label being clipped.

Ice Release 2026-06-30

• More of the interface now scales with your world font settings: pop-up dialogs, checkboxes and radio buttons, the money bar, and the puzzles tab.
• Scaled artwork now uses smoother bicubic sampling, so enlarged images look cleaner.
• Fixed the alignment of the pirate-select screen and tidied the top edge of the sunshine tabs.
• The mercenary pay rate is now shown even when there is no blockade currently running.
• Behind the scenes, we have sped up ocean startup by batching the database work that loads buildings and houses, labor, and badges. Behavior should be unchanged, but if you notice anything odd in shops, houses, or employment, please let us know.

Ice Release 2026-06-28

• Blockade ship budgets, mercenary pay, and bid ranges now scale with the size of the island being contested, using a more stable formula. These will no longer be directly impacted by island population.
• Brigand King strength is now capped according to the size of the island under attack.
• The blockade spectator view now remembers the map center.
• Fixed the distance to the nearest island shown for flotillas on the yoweb flotilla page.
• More puzzle fixes: the Bilging pufferfish animates correctly, Patching stars are placed properly, Gunning arrows no longer show transparency artifacts, and the puzzle frame behaves correctly when resized. Bilging, pulley, and help art have also been adjusted.
• Vessel inspector text now moves to the center as the panel grows wider.

Ice Release 2026-06-25

• Added an option under Graphics to lock the panel sizes, so you can't accidentally drag the sidebar, chat box, or bird's-eye view to a new size once you have them the way you like.
• Grouped the checkbox settings together on the options tabs for easier scanning.
• The chat box now remembers its height separately for each place it appears, and the world-view chat keeps its own maximum height.
• More scaling fixes: notice board text now follows your font setting as you change it, tooltips scale correctly, and familiar and trophy images on yoweb pages are kept at their native size rather than blurred by upscaling.
• Fixed the mug preview rendering on the order panel when using upscaled art.
• When a puzzle is wider than the game window, it now overflows to the left rather than the right. This prevents it from trying to render over the sidebar.
• Polished the shop management window: the pending orders table now fits the panel width instead of clipping its columns, and the transfer controls beside it scroll rather than being cut off at larger font sizes.
• Removed the email-reminder and weak-password nag messages.

Ice Release 2026-06-23

• On the pirate, crew, and flag information pages shown inside the client, portraits and their frames are now kept at their native size instead of being blurred by upscaling when the page is font-scaled.
• Refreshed several puzzles' high-resolution art, including Bilging, Carpentry, and Gunning.
• Fixed pending blockades disappearing from the yoweb blockade page once an active blockade was listed.
• The /version endpoint has been replaced with /latest. This was necessary to make the recent breaking update send a helpful error message to old clients rather than them updating and breaking themselves.

Ice Release 2026-06-18

• The sunshine tabs at the top of the sidebar (Crew, Island, Ye, Booty, Ahoy!) are now drawn fresh at your chosen size instead of from a fixed-size image, so they stay crisp at any sidebar width and UI scale rather than blurring when enlarged.
• The ship status indicators have had a similar touchup so they do not get blurry when enlarged.
• The bird's-eye view can now be resized by dragging its lower edge. Its height is remembered separately for the world and for puzzles and parlor games.
• The sidebar, bird's-eye, and chat resize handles no longer show a permanent grip; the resize cursor appears when you hover the edge. The chat handle is shown only while your pointer is over the chat.
• The chat box and the bird's-eye view can each grow to at most half the window height.
• Tooltips and the login screen now scale with your world font settings.
• Fixed a bug that left the Alchemistry puzzle unplayable.
• Further colorization fixes for Rumble gloves and Drinking mugs when using upscaled art.
• Yoweb can now track active flotillas at /yoweb/flotilla/status.wm, showing each flotilla's location, whether it is sinking, and the ships fielded by each flag and team. Both the blockade and flotilla pages also offer a JSON download of their data.
• Further polish to how sidebar panels, backgrounds, and gauges scale and fill at larger sizes.

Ice Release 2026-06-16

• Continued polish for scalable puzzles: animations now play at the intended speed in more puzzle areas, including Rumble.
• Fixed several high-resolution puzzle display issues: Gunning arrow previews no longer appear in odd edge positions, Swordfighting name panels no longer leave extra space, Bilging pufferfish animations are aligned again, Weaving beads line up with their strings, and Rigging tar splats use the correct colors.
• Fixed Drinking piece and placement-preview colorization when using upscaled art.
• Fixed inventory mug icons not showing their colors and growing with the puzzle scale setting.
• Fixed Treasure Haul chest visuals appearing from the wrong board position while spawning or animating.

Ice Release 2026-06-15

• Added a new options category for graphics related settings.
• You can now enlarge the game's text under Options > Graphics. The chat, the sunshine sidebar, the puzzle sidebar, and in-world text each scale independently, and panels and dialogs throughout the game now resize to fit the larger text.
• The sidebar and chat box can be resized by clicking and dragging on the edge.

Ice Release 2026-06-14

• Sea battle chat is now prefixed with the speaker's ship name so you can tell who is talking; spectators show as <Spectator> and a marker highlights messages from the pirate at the helm.
• The sea monster score panel now breaks down each chest type in a tooltip (hauled, fray bonus, mercenary's cut, shared in/out, and currently in hold) and shows your own ship's shots hit and taken.
• The blockade bid panel now shows the per-team ship budget for islands that have a cap.
• Yoweb now has a page to track blockades: /yoweb/blockade/status.wm.
• Polish for scalable puzzles: title text is now drawn directly in HD mode; the 2x title images, puzzle backgrounds, and shipwright art have been refreshed with cleaner high-resolution assets; rumble player art and Shipwrightery flag art now render correctly when scaled; animations play at a consistent speed across scales; and the puzzle-scale confirmation prompt no longer repeats.

Ice Release 2026-06-07

• A new type of "sealed war" has been introduced. This allows you to place a bid on blockades without revealing your intentions to other players before the window closes.
• The notice board blockades tab now shows accurate information about the blockade conditions on sealed-bid islands.
• Sealed-bid blockade declarations now give you any relevant error messages before submission.
• Logging in at the wrong time no longer gives false messages about overdue taxes.

Ice Release 2026-05-29

• Bnav hotkeys: you can now hover a move slot and press W/A/S/D or the arrow keys to set that move (S or Down clears it), as though you had dropped the token there. Hovering a cannon slot, W/A/D (or the arrows) loads a cannon and S (or Down) erases the slot. This is off by default; turn it on under Options > Puzzle Keys > Battle navigation.
• Fill multiple cannons at once: Shift-click a cannon slot to fill that side from the clicked slot downward (Shift-click again to clear it), or Ctrl/Cmd+Shift-click to fill both sides of the whole hand. Both gestures can be toggled under Options > Puzzle Keys > Battle navigation.
• Added a search box to the inventory panel that filters your items by name.
• Adjusted the 'ruinwallscross' Atlantis map pattern. There was a spot that was significantly safer than the rest. This spot is now slightly more risky to encourage more creative driving.
• The restock cut cap added last release now only applies once restock exceeds a minimum value, so small restocks will not be reduced.

Ice Release 2026-05-28

• Ship restock cut is now limited to 3 times the value of stock consumed. The restock percent is effectively lowered when exceeding this limit, so the excess is distributed to the crew.
• Ship moves are now automatically hidden when setting the voyage to "blockade".
• Station performance is now erased when you do not appear on a duty report, rather than preserved for an entire sea monster encounter.
• Various popups (settings, event blockades, etc) now have a scroll bar when their height would exceed available space.
• Fleet swabbie no longer allows you to send from a blockaded island.
• Island job listings now hide shops that do not need any labor.
• Island job listings can now be sorted by pay at each tier.
• Order list while puzzling is now scrollable.
• Sea battle spawns are now filtered more carefully to avoid rock traps.
• Booty division is now more efficient and should not cause the whole server to lag. This will be monitored to see if further improvements are needed.
• There is now a message when you log in warning you of shops and stalls that have overdue taxes.

Ice Release 2026-05-22

New /freeflag command added to assist in blockade testing. You must be captain of your crew or not in a crew to use it.

Ice Release 2026-05-20

• Sealed-bid blockades: a new 1v1 contention blockade format is now live on Ice! During the declaration window, multiple flags may submit secret bids on a contestable island. The highest bid wins the right to attack; ties at the maximum bid are broken randomly. Losing bidders are refunded automatically. Extra declaration windows will be set so you have a chance to try it out without waiting for the regular window.
• Bid window and limits: bids must fall between a per-island-size minimum and a maximum cap. Bids may be raised at any time while the window is open, but never lowered. While bidding, you see only your own bid amount and preferred start time. No other bidders are visible, not even a count. This keeps the format resistant to alt-flag shield-dropping. The initial values are set much lower than the final numbers to ease testing cost.
• Pick your blockade time: when placing or raising a bid, you also choose a preferred blockade start time from an hourly slot list inside the schedulable window (the declaration window translated forward by the configured lead time). Slots that conflict with an already-scheduled blockade on the same island are filtered out. If you win, your preferred slot becomes the blockade start time.
• The bid funds skilled-swabbie pay: the winning bid is moved into an island-locked defense-buffer purse owned by the attacking flag. During the blockade, this buffer is drawn first to pay skilled swabbies before falling through to the regular flag-funded job offer purse. Flag treasurers still fund their own war chest for player jobbers as usual; the buffer only covers skilled-swabbie wages.
• Defense-buffer carryover: when a sealed-bid blockade ends, unspent skilled-swabbie funding can carry forward:
  • Attacker wins: up to 50% of their original bid stays in their buffer for the island they just took. Any excess above 50% is consumed.
  • Defender holds: the defender's buffer ends at the larger of (a) what they already had after spending in this blockade, or (b) up to 50% of the attacker's bid.
  • If a flag loses the island, their buffer on that island is forfeited.
• 100% to mercenary pay: the winning bid is entirely allocated to skilled-swabbie wages and carryover; none of it goes to the island governance's coffers. The legacy war-chest fee paid to the defender's palace on a successful defense does not apply to sealed-bid blockades.
• Flag financials: the flag info page now shows a “Flag financials” section to the flag's monarch and royalty, listing any non-zero defense buffers and any in-flight active bids the flag holds. The blockade job offer panel also displays the flag's defense buffer balance for that island. The buffer is read-only, so flags cannot deposit to or withdraw from it.
• Notifications: the winning bidder receives an in-game message at resolution (or queued for next login if offline) confirming the win and the scheduled start time. Losing bidders are notified when their refund arrives, with the reason for the refund.

Ice Release 2026-05-06

• Added a warning message about the upcoming requirement to have a valid email address linked to your account to log in to the standalone (non-steam) client.
• Fixed a bug that could cause ships to wrongly receive the golden citadel rewards.
• Fixed the haul bounty not being granted when the "Skip Golden Citadel" checkbox was already checked at the moment infamy maxed out.

Ice Release 2026-04-27

• Logging into the game now uses a new "email a login link" authentication system.

Ice Release 2026-04-19

• Atlantis now grants chests more frequently during haul bounty when you skip the golden citadel.
• If a golden citadel fails to spawn, the haul bounty is granted instead.
• Citadels can no longer despawn on the same turn you move into them.
• Citadels are now more difficult the more pirates you send into them.

Ice Release 2026-04-12 v2

• Atlantis now has a disclaimer about being actively balanced when you enter.
• CI spawns should now behave closer to how they did before the Atlantis update.
• Planking should now work in vampire lairs.

Ice Release 2026-04-12

• MAA panel collapse now works more consistently.
• Haul reserve can now grant chests even if the ship is not next to the treasure.
• Added a "Skip Golden Citadel" checkbox to the sabotage panel in Atlantis. When enabled, the golden citadel is forfeited and the bounty is granted immediately, while the full back-off period still runs.
• The post-backoff wanted level is now capped at 75% maximum.

Ice Release 2026-04-07

• Group citadel treasure sharing now gives the ships who did not enter the citadel a smaller reward.
• Ships that enter after a golden citadel spawns no longer get a reward from it.
• Break time display format is adjusted slightly.

Ice Release 2026-03-29

• Ignoring the citadel is now a rewarded choice: if you wait out the regrouping period without entering the citadel, you receive a haul boost and half your boarders are cleared. No new boarders can join during regrouping, so there is no rush to clear them if you do not intend to engage the citadel.
• Defeating the citadel no longer grants the haul boost; the citadel's treasure is the reward for engaging it.
• The golden citadel will now sink if you do not engage with it before regrouping ends.
• Monster kills during regrouping now contribute to your infamy.

Ice Release 2026-03-25

• CI jobbing while at the island is no longer possible.
• Monsters that despawn now play a sinking animation instead of vanishing.
• Swabbies that were not removed due to being in a fray are now trimmed when the fray ends.
• Citadel placement is now more reliable on tight maps.
• Atlantis maps are no longer less likely to be awarded than other sea monster maps.

Ice Release 2026-03-24

• Increased break time text size.
• Tokens no longer carry over across breaks.
• It should be harder to overfill a ship with players now.

Ice Release 2026-03-10

• Added a forfeit button to the fray panel, allowing you to surrender an active fray early. This should be used before entering a citadel, as you will be ejected from it if you have an ongoing fray.
• Boss citadels now have a more distinct visual appearance.
• Steam purchases now open in a browser window instead of the Steam overlay.
• Boarding and departing messages are now batched together instead of spamming one per person.
• Reduced swabbie chat spam when searching for duty stations.
• Fray participants can no longer take a duty station until the fray ends.
• Magic water repair spots now expire after several turns.
• Fixed swabbie share messages being sent to the wrong ship.
• Fixed all stations not appearing on the duty report.
• Fixed various treasure haul buffer UI issues.

Ice Release 2026-03-07

• Experimental: Treasure hauling no longer requires staying parked next to sunken treasure for a full turn. Sailing near or through treasure spots now builds a reserve that lets you haul while maneuvering. Navigators can see the reserve gauge on the score panel.
• Vessels are now more eagerly ejected from citadels if they are not ready to participate. This includes vessels with an active fray in progress and stray sea monsters.
• MAA selected volunteers now persist between the nav view and the ahoy tab.
• Nautilus: Reduced collision damage and rams now only apply once per target per move, preventing excessive damage from multi-step maneuvers.
• Turtle: Sharp turn wave bilge reduced. Chain shots no longer strip the last of any movement token type. Turtles no longer passively repair damage between engagements.
• Narwhal: Special maneuver tokens now take longer to generate.
• Citadels are set to spawn the turn after they go away for easier testing. This will be set to a more realistic value later for the payout balancing phase.

Ice Release 2026-03-04

Patrol group spawning and zone boundaries have been reworked for better pacing.

• Respawn Delay: Wiped patrol groups now wait several turns before respawning, giving you a breather after clearing a group.
• Zone Boundaries: Patrol groups now stick closer to their own ring instead of chasing deep into neighboring zones.
• Inner Ring Density: Reduced monster spawn targets in the two inner rings to better match their smaller area. Outer rings are unchanged.
• Wanted Citadels: Wanted citadels now spawn closer to your ship and are restricted to the inner rings.
• Updated wanted level text to be more thematic (Infamy, Monsters Regrouping, Atlantean Spoils).
• Mercenary Stock Reimbursement: Skilled swabbies (mercenaries) now reimburse a share of ship stock (rum, rum spice, cannonballs) consumed during sea monster encounters. The reimbursement is proportional to the mercenaries' share of the crew and is paid directly to the vessel coffers. Mercenaries must have earned enough treasure to be satisfied before they'll chip in.

Ice Release 2026-03-01

Atlantis Batch 3: Alliance Groups. Ships from the same flag or allied flags now share wanted level, citadel rewards, and back-off state as a group.

• Shared Wanted: Allied ships in the same battle share a single wanted bar. The wanted cap scales with total group firepower, so each kill is worth more toward a smaller group's cap. A larger group needs more kills to hit max, but earns a bigger citadel payout.
• Citadel Ownership: When a group hits max wanted, the citadel that spawns is locked to that group. Your group's citadel glows golden; other groups' citadels appear red. Non-members are ejected on entry.
• Citadel Candidates: Only ships present when max wanted triggers can enter and earn rewards from that citadel. Latecomers who join the group afterward share the wanted bar but cannot leech the citadel.
• Group Citadel Rewards: Treasure from your group's citadel is split across all candidates, with each member's share capped to the defeating vessel's crew count. Random-spawned citadels still pay out only to the single ship that beats them.
• Group-Owned Bonus: Your group's citadel always gives the full wanted bonus regardless of how long it takes to beat, since the bonus is tied to the citadel itself.
• Flagless Ships: Ships without a flag get their own solo group and function the same as before.
• The MAA panel is now visible to navigators below the score info.
• The MAA panel now has select all checkboxes for each duty category.

Ice Release 2026-02-28

• The /blockade and /flotilla chat commands have been combined into a single /battle command that works in any battle type. The old command names still work as aliases.
• You can now click a swabbie and select "Watch game" to watch their fray.
• Hovering over the break timer now shows how long your vessel has been in the battle.
• Wanted level no longer decays while in a citadel.
• The MAA can now choose which crew members enter a citadel fray. When a ship enters a citadel, the crew has 60 seconds to volunteer before the fight begins automatically. Non-participants stay at their stations and continue puzzling. Citadel plunder bonus scales by how many crew enter the fight. The MAA also has an "All Hands" button to force the full crew in.
• Ships inside a citadel now continue generating sail tokens, repairing damage, and draining bilge at normal rates. Damage and bilge can only decrease, not increase, while in the citadel safe zone.
• Entering a citadel while boarders are already aboard forfeits the active fray and carries the existing boarders into the citadel fight. The citadel enemy count is at minimum however many boarders are already on board.
• Ships being overtaken by boarders (ship at stake) are now ejected from a citadel instead of entering, since forfeiting would lose the ship.

Ice Release 2026-02-27

• Wanted Stages: Wanted level now has defined thresholds. Turtles only spawn once you hit 50+ wanted. At 75+ wanted, all monsters spawn at +1 difficulty (elite narwhals in the second ring).
• Zone Borders: The two inner zone boundaries are now marked with subtle warm-colored edge lines on the map, making it easier to see where you are.
• Plunder Bonus: Defeating a citadel grants a plunder bonus for several turns, boosting treasure from monster kills. Shown on the score panel alongside the wanted bar.
• Patrol Spawning: Patrol groups locked onto a player no longer directly respawn individual monsters, the whole group must be wiped before it respawns.
• Disabled the fortress map template for now.
• Fixed an animation jump bug caused by wanted level updates interfering with vessel state broadcasts.

Ice Release 2026-02-26

Atlantis Batch 2: Wanted Level. A per-vessel escalation system that rewards aggression without punishing a cautious approach.

• Wanted Level: Every monster you sink raises your wanted level, shown by a new color-coded bar on the score panel (green to red). Tougher monsters give more wanted. The bar has a tooltip explaining the mechanic.
• Escalation: Higher wanted draws tougher monsters and increases their spawn rate around you. Citadel treasure payouts scale with wanted level, up to 50% bonus at max.
• Zone Cap: Wanted level caps at 75% in the easier outer zones. You need to push into the two hardest zones to reach max and trigger the payoff.
• Max Wanted: Hitting max wanted triggers a back-off window: a citadel spawns near you, monsters disengage and actively avoid your ship, half your boarders bail out, and you're immune to new boarders for several turns. Use the window to crack the citadel or haul what you've got.
• Decay: Wanted decays naturally after a few idle turns. Retreating to the edge safe zone resets it instantly.
• Spawn Rebalancing: Base monster spawns reduced by 30% so the wanted-driven boost doesn't snowball. Monsters that push a zone over budget now despawn naturally.
• Kill Credit: Monster kill credit (wanted level, scoreboard, stats) now goes to the vessel that dealt the most total damage, not the one that landed the killing blow. Applies to all sea monster encounters.

Ice Release 2026-02-19

• Reduced saboteur counts from archelons.
• Atlantis monster spawning now maintains better class variety across zones.
• Free ships now have the same starting tokens as normal ships (2 4 2).
• Free ships now generate special tokens passively.
• Skilled swabbies can now fill the whole ship, rather than being limited to number of stations.

Ice Release 2026-02-17

• Fixed various rendering issues when using 2x UI scale.
• Fixed border offset on Rumble attack indicators.

Ice Release 2026-02-16

• Fixed screen flickering when playing at 2x UI scale. Also significantly improved rendering performance on Linux.
• Tuned Atlantis encounters: monsters now patrol more naturally instead of teleporting, with better coordination between zones and more Narwhals in harder zones.
• Fixed voyage type sometimes displaying incorrectly when entering a sea monster battle. Fixed a potential crash when hiring crew during a sea monster break.
• Fixed swabbies not being removed when a player joins a vessel during a sea monster break, which could result in an oversized crew.
• Another attempt at fixing the black screen bug.
• Added a subtle top border to the sea monster break timer for better visual separation.

Ice Release 2026-02-15 v2

• Added even more puzzle start timing protection to prevent blue screens.
• Fixed some timing issues that could cause a flickery black screen when starting a fray.

Ice Release 2026-02-15

• Crew members who leave during a break are now replaced.
• Monsters now only teleport once if their spawn is too far from their group.
• Abandon messages are hopefully fully filtered to skip players involved in a fray now.
• Fixed saboteur panel race condition that caused it to only sometimes show when joining on break.

Ice Release 2026-02-14 v2

• Three square map variants now rotate randomly, each with a different centerpiece: whirltemple, fortress, or ruinwalls.
• The map will now regenerate every time it is emptied, to allow testing of different templates.
• Reduced spawn rings from 5 to 4, making each ring wider.
• Minimum monster difficulty on the outer ring increased from 1 to 2.
• Citadel monsters now defend a zone around their citadel instead of wandering the ring. They are sunk when the citadel is defeated or expires.
• Monster respawns now maintain class variety instead of always producing the smallest type.
• Posting a jobbing offer on break no longer gives an error.
• Ordering a ship defence fray no longer spams abandon station messages.

Ice Release 2026-02-14

Atlantis Batch 1: Map layout, monster behavior, and quality of life improvements. See the thread in the Ice section of Discord for full details and feedback.

• Map: The map is now a 50x50 square instead of the original 100x25 rectangle. Difficulty increases toward the center in concentric rings, with safe zones around all edges for entry and exit.
• Monster Behavior: Monsters now patrol their rings in rotating groups, creating wave-like encounter phases with windows of safety between sweeps. Each patrol group only engages nearby targets.
• Citadels now spawn close enough to be reached before they despawn.
• Citadel monsters do not count towards the ring cap.
• You can now rejob inside Atlantis during breaks.
• Puzzle indicators are now preserved across breaks and when leaving duty stations to treasure haul.
• TH contributions now decay slowly over time instead of dropping to zero instantly.
• Time until the next break is now shown while puzzling.

Ice Release 2026-02-13

• The port view stock info has been simplified to an icon indicating if a ship has stock. You still get the full info by hovering the ship.
• From and to island names added to swabbie transport logs.

Ice Release 2026-02-11

• Fix for long distance fleet swabbie transport. The ships should no longer port before their destination.
• Possible fix for linux client lag in various puzzles.
• Enabled Direct3D acceleration by default on Windows. This fixes the Steam overlay and may improve rendering performance. If you notice any new visual glitches, please report them and try disabling the setting in Options > General.

Ice Release 2026-02-10

• Treasure share now gives the hauling ship a larger configurable share. The exact value is subject to change, but this gives us another lever to balance treasure sharing.
• Potential fix for blue screen errors when spam clicking to start a puzzle. This was most common in lairs.
• Players who already have all four injuries will now receive the new "all injuries" trophy automatically on login.

Ice Release 2026-02-07

• In-Game Poll System: A new polling system allows gathering player feedback directly from testers.
  • Polls appear as a new tab on the Notice Board when active.
  • Players are notified of new polls with an 'Ahoy' panel notification.
  • Recent polls remain visible for 7 days after closing for transparency.
• Deed holder name added to fleet management panel when available.
• Fleet swabbie payment now has a confirm dialog.

Ice Release 2026-02-06

• Fleet swabbie transfer now makes sure your destination is an island before taking payment.
• Ships set to swabbie transport now empty when abandoned in port as they used to.

Ice Release 2026-02-05

• Changed "swabby" to "swabbie" for consistency with existing terminology.
• Fixed a bug where bulk swabbie transport required PoE in the ship's coffers.
• Fleet transfers no longer work on locked ships you do not own, or sunken ships.
• Port and Fleet Transfers panels now share the same search and sort options.
• Added "Lock Status" sort option (battle ready first, then unlocked, then locked).
• Ship class sorting now sorts from smallest to largest rather than alphabetically.
• Port panel now shows more ships per row based on window width.
• Fleet transfers no longer duplicate stock.

Ice Release 2026-02-04

• Bulk Swabby Transport: The Fleet Transfers panel now has a "Swabby Transport" button to send multiple empty ships sailing to your charted destination at once.
• Bulk swabby will take the money from your pocket instead of the ship's hold, but it will still show up in the vessel logs for traceability.
• Ctrl+f (Cmd+f on Mac) focuses the search field in any panel with a search box.

Ice Release 2026-02-03

Thanks for the helpful feedback on the recent port view improvements!

• Fleet Transfers: Senior Officers can now transfer stock to multiple ships at once from the ship hold panel.
  • New "Fleet Transfers" tab in the ship hold panel (SO+ only).
  • Define a stock template with up to 4 commodity types and target quantities.
  • Select multiple vessels docked at the same port to transfer to. Ctrl+click to select multiple. Shift+click to select a range.
  • Transfer fills each ship up to the template amount (doesn't remove existing stock).
  • Recall pulls selected commodity types back from fleet ships to your current vessel.
  • Search and filter vessels by name, class, or current stock.
  • Hover over vessels to see their current stock levels.
  • Rate limited to 1 second per ship to prevent abuse.
• Vessel Report lock controls: The "Where are my vessels?" panel now lets you change lock status without boarding each ship.
  • Click the lock icon on any in-port vessel to change its status (Lock/Unlock/Battle Ready).
  • Bulk buttons to lock, unlock, or set battle ready for all your vessels at once.
  • Island filter to scope bulk operations to a specific island.
• Further port view improvements:
  • Added "my ships first" sort option.
  • Fixed case on "Show all x ships" button.
  • Added help icon with tooltip beside search bar.
  • Reworded filter status text to be more clear.
  • To clarify, "Default" sort shows active vessels first; vessels that are at sea, have players on them, etc.
• Commodity market search: Added a search box to the Buy/Sell Commodities panel that filters by commodity name or store name.

Ice Release 2026-02-02

• Port view improvements:
  • Ship stock is now visible (FO+ only for crew vessels).
  • Search bar filters by vessel name, class, and stock contents.
  • Sort dropdown to order by name, class, or stock quantity.
  • Only shows first 10 vessels by default, with "show all" option for crowded islands.
• Broken island previews now kick themselves back into shape, rather than waiting for an OM.
• Edge fog now has some variation, not a straight edge on the outside of the map.

Ice Release 2026-01-28

• Treasure share clarifications:
  • If a vessel sinks before treasure is hauled, their share is forfeited. The remaining ships are free to share it as if the sank ship was never there.
  • Vessels that leave the map before treasure is hauled will have their share consumed by the void. It would be too easy to exploit otherwise.
  • The vessel doing the actual hauling is guaranteed a share even if they were not part of the original shares.
• Blockade payment overhaul: The payment system for blockade jobbers has been restructured to be more predictable and fair.
  • Skilled swabbies now receive exactly their advertised pay rate, instead of up to 320% due to performance multipliers being incorrectly applied.
  • Total payment budgets are now fixed based on headcount: if you hire 10 jobbers at 1,000 PoE per segment, the total cost is exactly 10,000 PoE, regardless of performance variation.
  • Performance still matters - better performers receive a larger share of the fixed pool, while underperformers receive less.
  • This makes it much easier to budget for blockades, as costs are predictable based on the number of jobbers hired.
  • Elite pays 5 shares for incredible, 4 for excellent, 3 for good, etc.
  • Performance is the same as elite but starts at 10 shares for incredible, 9 for excellent, 8 for good, etc. This makes it a less aggressive version of elite as lower performance has a slower pay dropoff.

Ice Release 2026-01-24

• New treasure sharing mechanic introduced as a possible replacement for mercenary mutiny. When a treasure spot is generated, it notes all player vessels within 4 tiles of it. When treasure is hauled from that spot, the treasure is shared among those vessels. Each vessel receives a share proportional to the number of crew on that vessel.
• Atlantis and HS now have more appropriate fog colors. The fog appearance will be adjusted further in an upcoming update.
• Free ships no longer recover from fog at an accelerated rate.
• Citadels now match your current crew count rather than what you entered with.

Ice Release 2026-01-21

• Fog now sits outside of the map and only moves in if you sit near it for a few turns.
• Pause swabby mutiny for special actions (like citadels).
• Pause swabby mutiny timer when in the safe zone.
• Limit HS + Atlantis fog to a more reasonable damage and bilge value per turn.

To clarify how mercenary loyalty works:

All treasure that is taken by the mercs is saved for the entire entry. The calculation of how much treasure is needed for the mercs to remain loyal only considers the number of mercs currently on the vessel, how much treasure they have taken in total, and how long you have been in the map. This means that when a merc turns against you, they forfeit their share of the treasure and you can sustain the rest of them for longer.

Ice Release 2026-01-20

This is an experimental update to address balance issues that turn some SMH runs into PoE fountains. These are not the final systems or configurations, so constructive feedback is welcome in the Ice section of the Discord server.

• There is now damaging fog at the back and sides of Atlantis and HS boards.
• The fog currently behaves the same as CI fog, minus the movement.
• Skilled swabbies now gradually trend towards mutiny if you take them into an Atlantis or HS map without bringing enough treasure in.
• It is currently configured to give you 10 minutes before they expect treasure. They will join the saboteurs two per turn after that if you still haven't given them enough treasure.
• They are paid by treasure haul and chests taken aboard and expect 100 PoE per swabby per minute. NOTE: This comes from the cut they already take, it is not in addition to their normal pay.
• There is a warning before swabbies start to mutiny, so you always have a chance to adjust your strategy.
• Announce who triggered a ship defense fray.

Ice Release 2026-01-17

• Fixed yoweb css.
• Used ship budget now resets when a new round starts.
• The notice board now lags less when opening.
• The old client will now close more reliably when an update is triggered.
• The client will now check for an update before you try to log in. This will only be noticeable on the next update because you need this update for it to work.
• Battles should no longer freeze for up to a minute randomly.

Ice Release 2026-01-04

This is mainly a behind the scenes update, so if you don't notice anything different, that's great!

• Pirate info pages should no longer blank out randomly when clicking links.
• The buy/sell csv is now properly escaped and gzip compressed if your client supports it.