• Skirmish improvements:
• • Boarding works now.
  • You can switch ships to any ship in your Dockyard, regardless of where it's located, while in the Skirmish Lobby.
  • And there's a new battle type: Point Battles. Instead of limiting the battle solely on how many people can attend, you can limit it by points, leading to a wider variety of ships and play-styles to try. See Taelorn's devlog for details.

We are hoping to go live with Skirmish in this milestone - let us know if you see any reason we shouldn't. Historically, boarding while in a ship skirmish and making lobby changes have been areas where bugs were easy to find.

• Black Flags and Dread Saints: This fourth installment includes treasure hunts! See Pramas' devlog for details.
• 6 new ships - The Bloody Dagger Refit Frigate, Khan Flute, Macedon Hunting Fourth Rate, and Vengeance Privateer Frigate are Testbed-only in M15 but we expect the Poseidon and the Alymer to go live with 1.15.

Release Notes for 1.14.63.0 are here.

Known Issues:

• We haven't been able to animate females doing treasure map missions as well as we'd like. There are some limitations to our internal tools that make this process more difficult than it should be. We hope to resolve this in a future release.
• We also haven't animated digging as well as we'd like. Should be good by the time 1.15 goes live.
• When you zoom out from the Poseidon, it disappears. That and other graphical issues with that ship will be resolved before we go live with 1.15.

Differences between 1.14.57.0 and 1.15.27.0 include but aren't limited to:

Ships / Outfitting:

• Achilles: 10x7lb -> 10x8lb, 34x12lb -> 34x13lb. Armor/Structure Bonus 45% -> 50%, Sail Bonus 25% -> 30%, Running 90% -> 93%, Close Haul 75% -> 77.5%, Beam Reach 87.5 -> 90%. Reduced gun loss rate.
• Agamemnon: Speed 14.5 -> 15 (16.5 -> 16.75 for the Reaper's Grasp).
• Alexander: Turning Decel 8.85 -> 7.85, Slow Turn Rate 2.15 -> 2.5, Fast Turn Rate 6.32 -> 7.12, Speed 14.6 -> 15.5, Running 80% -> 90%
• Alymer: A new, level 1 tiny ship.
• Arcadia: Broad Reach 80% -> 83.5%, Running 70% -> 80%, Speed 15.95 -> 16.1, Beam Reach 95% -> 97.5.
• 'Bloody Dagger' Refit Frigate: Cutthroat only, a blend of the Defiant and Tigre with a tight battery range. This ship is available only on Testbed - it will not being going live with 1.15. But give her a spin and let us know what you think.
• Cursed Blade: Max Speed 16.4 -> 16.3. Armor/Structure Bonus 60% -> 55%, Sail Bonus 25% -> 20%, 12x8lb -> 10x8lb.
• Dauntless: Sails 2600 -> 2950
• Defiant (base only): Cargo Capacity 150 -> 160.
• Hellbrand: Now available as a FT refit. Reduced level to 28, added 10% reload. Speed 15 -> 15.75.
• Hercules (Heavy) Now available to all careers.
• Hercules (Sleek): Now available to all careers.
• Intrepid: Max Crew 300 -> 330
• 'Khan' Flute: Freetrader-only level 50 ship. This ship is available only on Testbed - it will not being going live with 1.15. But give her a spin and let us know what you think.
• 'Macedon' Hunter's Fourth Rate: Navy only, fast version of the Alexander. This ship is available only on Testbed - it will not being going live with 1.15. But give her a spin and let us know what you think.
• Mignone: Reduced gun loss rate.
• Monarch: Reload Bonus 15% -> 20%
• Mont Blanc: 8x6lb -> 8x7lb
• Mordaunt: 10x4lb -> 10x6lb, Speed 14.7 -> 15.3, Running 80% -> 90%
• Poseidon: A new, level 50 Fourth Rate that costs one lineship bundle.
• Prince: 28x12lb -> 28x14lb
• Raa: 20x9lb -> 20x8lb.
• Sultan: The wind indicator was showing a larger upwind radius than appropriate. Fixed.
• Trinidad: +1 accuracy, Sail Bonus 15% -> 25%, Acceleration 1.48 -> 1.58, Turning Accel 7.5 -> 8.5, Sail Defense 22 -> 26, 30x14lb -> 30x15lb.
• Triumphant: 4x4lb -> 4x6lb.
• 'Vengeance' Privateer Frigate is a level 50 bundleboat. It will be available on testbed but not live in M15. Give it a whirl and let us know your feedback.
• Increased the battle speed of tiny ships.
• Acceleration can no longer drop below 0.25.
• After winning boarding combat, your Ship Stats UI didn't always reflect changes from modifications to your ship. Fixed.

Ship Combat / Skills:

• If you declined to auto-join a groupmate when they went into battle, if they later threw a flare and you tried to join, you'd be prevented. Fixed.
• If you're in a stormy room and board another ship, you should now be fighting on the deck in the storm as opposed to having the sun suddenly come out and the skies mysteriously clear.

Buccaneer

• Career, Survivor, Battle Logistics: Changed Resist, All to Resist, Armor & Structure.
• Bloody Minds: Crew Resist 50% -> 40%.
• Buccaneer: Crew Resist 10% -> 5%.
• Command Evasion: Removed All Resist.
• Inspiration: All Resist 5% -> Armor / Structure Resist 4%.
• Jugular: -1.5% DR per hit -> -0.15 DR per hit (changed from relative to absolute).
• Repair Under Fire: Resist Timer 12min -> 18min.
• Survivor: Resist 10% -> 8%, Duration 5 min -> 4 min.
• Whistle Down the Wind: Resist 30% -> 25%.
• Wolf Pack Prowlers: All Resist -> Armor Resist.

Freetrader

• Battle Preparations (Defense): All Resist changed to Armor/Structure Resist.

Navy

• Battle Doctrine Defense, Defender Resist, Last Stand, Scatter Shot: Changed Resist, All to Resist, Armor & Structure.
• Focused Fire: -40% DR -> -3 DR.
• Pirate Hunter: Added 7% acceleration.

Swashbuckling:

• Duelist NPCs now have unique animations so it's easier to distinguish the various types of enemies you're fighting.
• We now send less data across the Internet during avatar combat. This should help performance a bit. We're continuing to work to improve performance, though.
• NPCs no longer drop loot in boarding combat. They weren't supposed to in the first place.

Missions:

• We nerfed loot dropped by NPCs in missions to diminish the incentive to grind them. Daily missions and Open Sea NPCs are unaffected. Special pirate gang loot such as the Hammered Copper Pot and Monkey Island Rum no longer drop from ships in missions. Look for ships carrying these items on the Open Sea instead.
• British Tutorial: Fixed some barrels that were sunk into the ground.
• A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing: Text wasn't appearing correctly for group members. Fixed. Similarly for A Barbadian's Head.
• A Barbadian's Head: If you failed the mission, you still got a new Encounter Objective to reach the escape point. Tweaked the objectives so they make more sense in failure cases.
• Frog Brothers: The doors in the sewers didn't glow blue as they should. Fixed.
• Unhappy Meals: Fixed a bug caused by a race condition.
• The Expected, Opposite Reaction: Fixed a problem in the ship room used by this and other missions where the map didn't match the room itself.
• Crocodile Tears: Fixed some logic that could cause this mission to end badly. Or not end at all.
• Economy Tutorial: Freetrader Moran's name was being left out of the text. Fixed.
• When the word "Any" is localized, it doesn't necessarily start with the first letter in the alphabet and so doesn't necessarily sort at the top of the dropdown. Added a hyphen before "Any" and also before "All" in order to ensure they sort at the top, regardless of language.

Economy:

• If you only had a regional warehouse, you couldn't access it via the Econ UI while in the Open Sea. Fixed.
• If an auction item sold while you were in a mission, the notification would leave out the name of the port where the item was listed. Fixed.
• Added the Mastercraft El Dragon, van Hoorn, Mastercraft van Hoorn, and the Mastercraft Minerva to the Careening Camp.
• Added the 'Hellbrand' Indiaman as a level 25 Freetrader Refit. Added the Refit item for the 'Hellbrand' Indiaman to the Mark of Victory exchange for 20 Marks of Trade.
• Added Pillaged Plans to the loot tables, as well as the Pirate Mark of Victory exchange.
• Freetraders can now exchange Royal Encomiums for Writs to the Prince, Invincible, Trinity, Triumphant, Valiant, Wenden, and Mastercraft Hercules. Freetraders may also turn these Writs in along with an appropriate Uncertified Deed to create a Ship Deed of the same type.
• Reduced the cost of the Valiant from 3 LSB to 2.
• Reduced the cost of the Wenden from 8 LSB to 6.
• Reduced the cost of the Couronne from 8 LSB to 6.
• Adjusted the insurance values for the Valiant, Wenden, Poseidon, Couronne, and Mastercraft Couronne.
• Decreased the cost of the Writ for the Heavy Hercules from 30 to 25.
• Decreased the cost of the Writ for the Mastercraft Hercules from 60 to 50.
• Slightly increased the chance to get a Royal Commendation, or Royal Encomium when claiming a derelict.
• Reduced the cost to Draft the Assembly Yard from 24,000db to 10,000db.
• Reduced the cost to Construct the Assembly Yard from 10,000db to 5,000db.
• Reduced the Upkeep cost on the Assembly Yard from 5,000db to 1,000db..
• Mission Items was not supposed to be in the Item Category dropdown in the Auction House. Fixed.
• Trial accounts are no longer allowed to trade.

Open Sea:

• Fixed another one of the bugs that could cause empty battle markers on the Open Sea.
• Fixed a number of graphical issues in the Open Sea such as floaty names or the ports themselves being misaligned. 
• A single ship was called Lost Ironsides (3). Now he's just Lost Ironsides.

PvP / Port Contention:

• We've added Point Battles to Skirmish. You can now limit a battle based on "points" rather than by number of players on a side. In this way, you can have a more interesting mix of ships and player levels than you might otherwise. Points are shown on ship deeds and in the Switch Ship UI in Skirmish.
• You can now choose a different ship to use during a Skirmish from your Dockyard when you're in a Skirmish Lobby (except when the battle is in progress or the Skirmish is awaiting renewal). When you leave the lobby, you return to the ship you have docked in this port. Switching ships marks you as Not Ready so don't forget to click I'm Ready when you're all set to play. :)
• If you're in the midst of boarding combat when the Skirmish timer runs out, we used to tell you that you were defeated, which wasn't entirely accurate. Now boarding combat ends and you get the expected Skirmish results UI.
• Fixed a bug where spawning into the Pit (swashbuckling Skirmish room), you wouldn't see the other avatars for a couple seconds.
• All Participants in a Port Battle now receive 5 Marks of Victory, 5 Marks of Trade, and 5000db. The Winners receive an additional 3 Marks of Victory, 3 Marks of Trade, and 2500db. To be a "participant", you must have been in the Port Battle for 30 minutes, have died in the Port Battle, have killed someone in the Port Battle, or be present at the in the Port Battle when it ends.
• There was a bug where, sometimes when a ship sunk, its ghost would continue to haunt the battle by blocking shots at other ships. Fixed.

Art / Sound:

• If you received a mask by doing Mime is Money or the like, the mask is now a clothing item you can wear. The masks weren't fitting well and making them clothing enabled us to fix them properly. Go into Character Info and Customize Outfit and select it from the eye options. You only have the mask available if you had previously earned it - it's not available to all players.
• Males can now wear "small gloves" like female avatars.
• Added the striped variant of the female short skirt per your request.
• Improved the animations used by most violinists.
• We've added variations of the Shop to various towns.
• Guanica: Improved the lighting.
• BSharp tweaked the lighting in a few other rooms including some shops and some mission rooms. Now they should be more pleasant places to be.
• Pointe-a-Pitre: The Chaise Rental Agent now has a horse and buggy. 
• Whitby (and towns that look like it): Corrected the lighting on the hanging pallet. Also fixed some graphical issues with tents and canopies.
• Fixed a bug that caused the rigging on the Mordaunt to disappear when you zoomed away from it.
• Added metal wind chimes to various towns. This is the first pass - expect different wind chimes in different towns in later versions.

UI:

• Group rewards now show up in the "Rewards" channel instead of the "Group" channel.
• Reworded the text in the crash dump UI to clarify the fact that sending a crash dump is not the same as logging a support request. If you need us to respond to you, you need to log a support request.
• When interacting with an NPC in ship space, we were showing you an empty portrait because we don't have access to the avatar of that captain at that point. Now, we show you the text without the empty portrait box.

Stability / Performance:

• Made some changes that should improve our startup time.
• Tweaked the way we log errors in an attempt to improve the likelihood that the cause of a crash gets written to your log file before the game goes down.
• Fixed a game crash that could occur when using Alt-Enter to switch between windowed and full screen mode.

Misc:

• GMs were having difficulty with certain name changes. Fixed.
• Added some names to the Russian reserved name list per Akella.