maturin

I joined an enemy's mission just the other day. Why didn't you?

Two pairs of carronades on a trader's brig would make this game a lot more interesting.

All traders should be able to carry guns.

Most people in any game never get farther than "the brig." You can go on Steam and look at the stats for wildly popular and renowned games like Half-Life 2. Most players never get more than two missions in before losing interest.

Like none lol Removal of durabilities is brand-new and correlates with a big increase in the playerbase. Really, GameLabs' business model should center on charging players for ridiculous statements of "everyone left the game because X." They would be bigger than Apple by now.

Pretty harsh, but there you have it. In the future, it is almost always possible to run away from the AI if things go south. Basic Cutter to Snow is a big jump. Pickle or Privateer would have been a cheaper stepping stone, and only would have cost you 50k or so. I recommend never eating into your rainy day fund.

^ Announcement

It would be functional, I agree. But would it be useful? If you can see two different landmasses, then you already know where you are. No more precise location is necessary in this game, where there are no hidden shoals.

We should be able to schedule teleports 24 hours in advance, then log on in the 1-hour window and go.

Aye. Variable windspeed makes it acceptable to have 13 kt Bellonas. But a Bellona that goes 13 kts all the time, like in the current build, is an abomination. IIRC hull speed on a first rate is over 18 knots and the cutter's is around 11 knots. Not a useful concept for the game. I'm pretty sure that Pride of Baltimore has exceeded her hull speed before, same with some other traditional schooner replicas.

A hand compass? That's awful cute. THIS is a compass.

Good idea

Well, sort of. Variable wind speed only solves this problem IF the effects of speed mods are also diversified so they don't stack and create monsters. But that only works if the devs stop trying to stack everything.

So basically, only sail the fastest ship in the game, or get sunk. Most ships have no escape route. Surprise, Rattlesnake and light vessels are the exception. This is the Escapomatrix. It is beautiful and results in a skill-based game with diverse options on the OW. Speed mods take a sledgehammer to it. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=651042782

Most speed differences for a given point of sail are less than a knot. Adding 3.5 kts to a failfit frigate will wipe out that difference. You're pushing players into OW PvP with 1 durability ships while severing the two most important lifelines that protect against ganks: 1. No more escaping with skill and knowledge, everything is gear-based 2. No more logging off after a fight to escape the revenge gank What's the point of using a Cerberus on the OW now? If I just saved up my money to buy it and don't have a stable full of speed mods, I am just rat food. Back in the day I escaped a large diverse gank group in a Cerb.

Death to speed mods

Minimizing the importance of mods that can be destroyed, less gear-based gameplay.

Can we get a bit of cross-pollination between the two frigate branches? It's extremely artificial and ahistorical to split them in two like that. 5 slots of Renommee should unlock the 3rd on Belle Poule, for example.

This makes no sense. Labor Hours are free. By the time you have gathered the mats for a Mercury, you will also have the LH. And as a new player you only need to build one ship every now and then. And what new player is building ships anyways? It is complicated. New players need to learn the game first, and missions + trader hunting is an effortless source of money for the first 3 levels. You can buy all the necessary low level ships from NPCs for cheap. By the time you are off the dole of missions, you can have 200k or more. That's plenty of seed money for crafting, trading or PvP. In short, the OP has very little to do with new players. Sounds more like generic crafter complaining dressed up with 'you are killing the game!!!!1' rhetoric. (I haven't used any of my redeemables, by the way. I am playing as a new player.) I'm glad the devs reverted the empty trader insanity from the Testbed and added repair kit scavenging and mods to sinking ships.

How is it not easily secured? It's on its own island with no freeports and no nearby bases for the enemy to use. Circumstances make Jamaica an excellent fortress. You only get attacked because you're a large target. Habana and Charleston are much easier targets with the nearby freeports, and MT even moreso. Quit complaining.

No, you didn't miss anything. There's nothing to tell you that you have reached a waypoint. Prudent navigators only set a course for a mission or a landmark.

Evolved, not converted. A snow is a snow and a brig is a brig. Pedantically speaking, there's no overlap. In practice, the two types became just about identical.

No, it's an undesirable side effect of server technology and the result of time compression discrepancies. It's bad gameplay and unrealistic. Perhaps people exiting battle should be given a brief boost of speed as well as invisibility.

What's the point in using developer resources to model a navigation system that could only exist with radio waves of some kind?

I'm told that Trader's Brigs are going for 70k these days, which means that a single prize can finance a Pickle with guns at the very least.