XN3 Technologies

Letters of Marque

Release notes

What is new in each version, newest first. The game is in beta: the Windows app updates itself from a server in Frankfurt, and your saved games and settings carry over. It is coming soon to itch.io.

Version 0.18.90 beta

26 October 2026

  • Your captain's portrait looks natural with every outfit: the coats and collars now sit on the shoulders and under the chin, and a hood frames the hair.
  • A lone stand can be won in the wider worlds: with your men broken or fallen, beat their captain with a few clean hits before time runs out. At Apprentice and Journeyman the game asks before you back away alone.
  • Practice sword fighting adds a fight in a town's streets and a lone stand, five to one down.
  • A captain who loses his fleet sails on in a small ship of the nation where he is, not a Moluccan kora kora everywhere.
  • Native peoples no longer fly the pirates' flag. Isla del Gallo can be sailed round, and Drake can water and careen at Isla Mocha.
  • Going back to change your role now changes the outfit to match, and a Famous Expedition's captain looks the same in the portrait and the sword fight.
  • At the largest text size the sword fight notices, the status panel, the battle cards and the captain designer's help all fit.
  • Smaller fixes: discovery and wreck notices no longer hide each other, the Fleet page's Scuttle works with the X key, and convoy goals name their place one way.
  • New text appears in English in the other languages until the next translation pass.

Version 0.18.88 beta

22 October 2026

  • Design your captain in the wider worlds: man or woman, skin tone, hair color, 12 faces, 12 hair styles, beards and mustaches, 12 period hats and 11 outfits. Your portrait appears on your Personal page, before governors, in taverns, at retirement and in the Hall of Fame, and your duel figure matches it.
  • Sword fights: the rapier is quicker than the longsword and the longsword than the cutlass. At the easier levels the enemy's quick blows show long enough to parry, and you have more time to strike back after a parry.
  • An outnumbered crew may break and throw down its arms, but its captain fights on alone for a few seconds to turn the tide. Win alone at sea and her men offer to join you.
  • Street fights in towns without a fort are fairer for a small crew, and are fought by day or at dusk by the battle clock.
  • The sailing master asks before you attack a friendly nation or one whose letter of marque you hold, and you can back out of an attack before the fight. Famous Expeditions never attack their own nation, except the outlaws.
  • Selling, scuttling or abandoning a ship asks Yes or No first.
  • Drake's voyage around the world: history's prizes off Chile and Peru, the Cacafuego among them, and every plunder goal says plainly what counts. The Golden Hind sails as a fast galleon.
  • 35 places from Dampier, Exquemelin and other accounts of the buccaneers: anchorages, small towns and three islets, each with its picture, and three wrecks that may still hold food, goods or gold.
  • The Manila galleon no longer jumps across the ocean between voyages, and dialogs shrink their text to stay on screen at every text size.
  • New text appears in English in the other languages until the next translation pass.

Version 0.18.63 beta

21 October 2026

  • Captains have faces: every pirate, hunter, navy captain, privateer and merchant you meet has a portrait by people and era, the famous ones their own, and the same face each time you meet. Names now fit each people and period.
  • The capture screen tells the prisoner's rank, nationality and fame, who would pay most for him, and where you met before. A Captains page lists everyone you have met, and the dead stay dead.
  • Governors take the pirates their nation wants and pay the bounty; the court decides days later. A pirate acquitted or pardoned holds a grudge and attacks on sight. A governor sees you whenever you have done something worth discussing.
  • A new merchant's screen: your goods on one side, his on the other, arrows to buy and sell, his purse by the town's size, and Sell all goods. Towns restock over time.
  • Sailing into a town with no fort means a fight in its streets. A fallen town's stores can be plundered from a screen like the merchant's.
  • Pilots guide you into large ports, and the sailing master takes the helm at a few hard small places. Reef passages at Mauritius, Rodrigues and Tongatapu.
  • The Ship Book shows the painted ships to scale. Texel and the anchorages have their paintings.
  • Fixes from a full play-through: the Manila galleon is always sighted when you wait for her, the battle clock on wide windows, dialogs that close with Esc, and many smaller ones.
  • New text appears in English in the other languages until the next translation pass.

Version 0.18.46 beta

21 October 2026

  • More anchorages in the empty stretches of the wider worlds, where the old accounts put ships taking water and food or careening: Port Desire, Port Famine, the Falklands, Grand Cayman, Drakes Bay, Shark Bay, Rodrigues, Tristan da Cunha and more. Each names its own foods.
  • Castaways: some lone islands hold a marooned sailor. Rescue him or sail on; he may join you, bring food, gold or cannon, rave in chains, or carry a fever.
  • Ship's worm: ships left waiting near a river while the men are away may lose a little of their hulls.
  • Blackbeard, Bellamy, Roberts and the pirate careers are pirates in every sense: the black flag, outlawed by every crown, until their own nation pardons them.
  • A ship that sails off the screen ends a sea battle, and whoever fled loses fame, named captains too.
  • In the Classic Caribbean pirate hunters are rare unless you are notorious and a nation hates you; much evil brings more of them, and better ones.
  • In the Mediterranean the great galleys keep to their bases and the war fleets; corsairs and merchants sail galliots, xebecs and brigantines.

Version 0.18.38 beta

20 October 2026

  • Harbors and narrows: Basra, Corfu, Brill, Rotterdam, Antwerp and the Texel roads are open by channels, and a ship that meets a coast at a shallow angle slides along it instead of stopping. In the wider worlds a pilot takes you into port.
  • Texel replaces Middelburg on the North map, which stood too close to Flushing.
  • Discoveries: winds, currents, plants, animals, foods and landmarks of the old accounts are found as you sail and land, written in a new Journal page, and bring fame and points at retirement.
  • Rations: full, short or half in the wider worlds; short rations make the food last longer and cost morale.
  • At Swashbuckler in the wider worlds (never on a Famous Expedition), a crew that has lost too much may vote to depose you; win the duel to keep command a while longer, or be put ashore in chains with half a captain's share.
  • The Fleet page shows a card for each ship, with a way to scuttle one.
  • Wild coasts far from any town see few sails; leaving volunteers at sea is held against you only at Swashbuckler.

Version 0.18.28 beta

20 October 2026

  • Promotions come with a sealed decree in the style of the nation that grants them, and land grants show a painting of your new estate. Promotions come sooner, and taking a town for your nation grants land and may promote you at once.
  • Fewer pirate hunters: a nation sends them after you attack its ships or once you are famous and it dislikes you. In the wider worlds they follow your trail and lose it when you leave those waters.
  • Wider worlds: shorten sail, and choose a sailing mode, Brazen, Normal or Evasive. Fewer sails on the open ocean, more near ports, and raiders prey on a town's trade; an enemy privateer captain can be taken and turned in for a reward.
  • Your fleet holds 8 ships in the Classic Caribbean and 12 in the wider worlds. Keep a prize by scuttling one of your own ships. When her men want to join, you are asked whether to take them.
  • The Ship Book on the Information screen shows every ship of the world.
  • Screen settings: fullscreen or windowed, window size, graphics quality, sharpness, frame rate limit, reduce motion, brightness and a frame rate counter.
  • At Apprentice and Journeyman, a key names the nearest port, its direction and the days to it.
  • Expeditions say when a convoy is due and let you wait for her. Drake's Silver Train works again.
  • At an uninhabited island you careen one ship at a time with the timber the island has: enough to make a sloop whole, not a galleon.
  • Rivers: no more false "too shallow" stops, smoother rowing, a canoes panel, and animated falls and rapids.
  • Deserts and dry lands are painted on the map, from the Sahara and Arabia to the Atacama.
  • The governor's family is worded anew; in the Classic Caribbean the captain is a man who meets governors' daughters.
  • Grape shot at her decks is weaker, and cannon are sold only from ships in the harbor.

Version 0.18.7

20 October 2026

  • No more hangs: winning a fight out of a town no longer freezes the game, and if anything ever goes wrong, a "Something went wrong" screen lets you carry on, load the autosave or go to the main menu.
  • No more dead ends in port: when you have too few men and the town has none, you can find men for your flagship (or, at Swashbuckler, wait in the tavern for them). A skeleton crew stays after dividing the plunder, and cargo can go overboard in port.
  • The battle clock: a sun crosses the sky in sea and land battles as the light runs out.
  • New paintings: the prison, the gallows, the governor's hall, taverns and coffee houses, retirement scenes, village elders, captured captains, expedition orders, treasure finds and more.
  • At Apprentice and Journeyman the mate tells you the nearest port with food when food runs short.
  • Storm clouds drawn anew, and cannon ports in the wider worlds.

Version 0.18.3

19 October 2026

  • The wealthiest Spanish towns now trade with a captain who holds a Spanish rank and is of decent standing. Before, they refused every captain.
  • The first version to arrive as an update. Your saved games and settings stay as they are.