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Blockade Bidding:
The blockade window for the weekend of 06/06 will be shortened to help facilitate our observations of how these changes are working. Blockades this weekend can only be on Saturday 12 noon - 3 pm pirate time. Bidding will be on Friday 12-3 pirate time. For more details, the Ice discussion thread for these changes can be found here.
- Sealed-bid blockades: A new 1v1 contention blockade format is now moving from Ice to the main oceans! 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.
Other Changes:
- Bnav hotkeys: You can now hover a move slot and press configurable keys to enter moves without clicking. 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. 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.
- When the restock cut exceeds 1 million PoE, it is now limited to 4 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".
- 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.
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