Windrose 0.10.0.9: Cannonballs Weren't Registering Damage Correctly on the Stern, Sails, and Hull — Redo Your Naval Combat Tests

Kraken Express released the patch notes for version 0.10.0.9 of Windrose on Tuesday, August 25, 2026. They amount to two lines, and those two lines say the same thing about three parts of a ship:

"Cannonballs now correctly deal damage when hitting a ship's stern."
"Cannonballs now correctly deal damage when hitting a ship's sails or hull."

(Translation note: Kraken Express only publishes its patch notes in English, even though the game is fully localized into French.)

A two-line fix wouldn't normally warrant a guide. This one does — because what it fixes lies at the heart of naval combat, and because it partially invalidates what everyone, ourselves included, had taken for granted about how to aim.

What the patch note says, and what it doesn't say

The key word is "correctly." It doesn't point to a rebalancing — no revised value, no new multiplier — but to a fix: these hits were supposed to deal damage, and they weren't, or not as intended.

Three zones are named: the stern, the sails, the hull. In other words, on a ship seen from the side or from behind, almost the entirety of the exposed surface.

Four things the notes don't say, and which we shouldn't speculate on:

• Since when the problem existed.
• Whether it was a total absence of damage or a partial calculation.
• Whether player ships and NPC ships were affected in the same way.
• Whether the behavior varied by ship class.

We won't go beyond the official text. What is certain, however, is what needs to be tried again.

Why this changes how you should aim

Naval combat in Windrose is built around target selection: you shoot the sails to immobilize, the hull to sink, and you look for the stern because it's the angle from which the opponent can't return a broadside.

If hits on these three zones weren't counting correctly, then three practices every experienced player considers optimal were, in reality, disadvantageous:

The practical takeaway is simple: if you had concluded that stern shots or demasting "weren't worth it" in Windrose, try again. That conclusion may not have been yours — it may have been the bug's.

The ten-minute test to run

A fix of this kind is easy to verify, provided you proceed in order and compare what's actually comparable.

1. Choose a reference target — the same type of NPC ship, in the same area.
2. Count the broadsides needed to sink it, firing from the side. This is your baseline.
3. Repeat while firing exclusively at the stern. If the number of broadsides is now equal to or lower, the wake maneuver becomes profitable again — doubly so, since it also puts you out of reach of a counterattack.
4. Repeat while aiming only at the sails and time the loss of speed. This measurement decides whether dismasting precedes boarding or replaces it.

Do this before resuming a serious playthrough: your cannon settings, your engagement distance, and your maneuvering order all depend on it.

Seven weeks between two patches: where the game stands

This patch also says something about the pace of development, and it's worth knowing before waiting for what comes next.

Forty-eight days separate 0.10.0.8 from 0.10.0.9. This is, by far, the longest interval between two patches since the early access launch on April 14, 2026: the previous record was 38 days, between May 18 and June 25.

This slowdown contrasts with the game's launch. Kraken Express announced 500,000 copies sold in 48 hours, one million in six days with more than 200,000 concurrent players, then two million on May 14. Between April 14 and May 18, the game's Steam page received six patch or technical update posts; since July 8, it has received only one.

Kraken Express had given the reason in advance, in its Ashlands development diary from July 1. The studio explained there, with unusual candor, that delivering the early access launch had cost it dearly: "we spared no effort to make and fix the game as best we could, and it really exhausted us". Long-term plans, it wrote, had to be set aside.

What the next big update promises for ships

The same diary devotes an entire section to naval gameplay, and it sheds light on the August 25 patch. Kraken Express announces there, for Ashlands:

• More ship classes, with at least one added in the update. Three are in the works, which the studio names in English: the Brigantine, the Fluyt, and the Galleon.
• More ship variants per faction.
• "More care and attention" to combat — the phrase is the studio's own.
• Improved AI: NPC ships with more natural behavior, sailing in formation.

On the community's most frequent request — the influence of wind on sailing — the studio is both open and cautious: it will explore it, but wants it to be "fun and simple", with Windrose aiming for adventure rather than demanding simulation.

No release window has been announced for Ashlands, and the notebook opens with an explicit warning: these are plans, and plans change.