maturin

It may not be optimal in the game, but it's certainly realistic! I'm not sure what you mean by parallel and perpendicular, but this doesn't sound right. Remember, tacking is a simple process: Go fast at 50-60 degrees. Double tap A to turn left. At 10-20 degrees to the wind, double tap Z. When you have a few knots of headway again, press F. There's no real reason to mess with the fore yards, or fine-tune yard positions at all. That double-tap changeover of the main and mizzen is all you really need.

Most of the historical warships that were referred to as corvettes would wipe the floor with Rattlesnake. Towards the Napoleonic period a corvette was a catch-all term for ships left behind by the upward march of cannon calibers.

Ever notice how when the heroes find a treasure map in a dusty London antique shop, they usually have to go a bit farther than Sussex to dig it up?

Pirate poll #3,453,847,538,945,296

The French had their own system. In which 80-gun ships are the second-highest rank. Bucentaure's broadside also dwarfs that of a contemporary British 98-gunner. The game substantially modifies it to be more rational. I've never heard of a Seventh Rate.

Why are you applying the silly, arbitrary British rating system to a French ship? Bucentaure the "Third Rate" mounted a heavier broadside than Victory did at Trafalgar. Even the smaller 80-gun ships had more firepower than British 98s. They armed the bride ports, that's all. Same deal with Cerberus and many other ships.

Fantastic job on the sail animations!

Won't the currents be against you half the time? Also, 3 whole knots max: https://www.windyty.com/?currents,20.612,-79.167,6

Niagara, no question. Pride is fantastic, but ultimately it is not that hard to sail on a schooner. Steer clear of El Galeon, as she will mostly just motor around. You probably won't get another shot at Draken, though.

Yes, because as a pirate, you *chose* exile from civilization and all its benefits. The freedom of the outlaw is the absence of restrictions. You can always attack everyone no matter what other pirates think.

In case you missed my earlier posts: Speed penalties for cargo are unrealistic unless they only appear after a certain threshold. For Indiaman or LGV, there shouldn't be any penalties until the hold is a good 50-70% full. Ships are designed to sail at a certain displacement, and a trader with an empty hold requires ballast in order to be stable. Trader's Lynx and Trader's Cutter are designed for speed and smuggling, so there's no reason they should be slower than similar warships. On the other hand, they should suffer from speed penalties sooner. Perhaps 30-40% of hold capacity.

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Shouldn't bottles be more like once per month? I feel like I'm the lone sane person in an asylum.

Warp mode when no other players or NPCs are visible? The screen can change to an Indiana Jones-style map while your ship sails a straight line at 4x speed. You drop out of warp when other ships are near. Doesn't work near land, either.

This is very, very wrong. It's a silly idea that emerged in the 20th Century when the square riggers were fading into the past, and the only surviving examples were steel behemoths approaching 300 feet long. Yes of course when you are almost as big as a cruise ship with a crew of 20 men, tacking is not very convenient.

No, it's one of the many tall ships where you volunteer or pay to be trained in sailhandling and seamanship. There are very few blue water tall ships that focus on paying idle passengers.

Well it would be silly to turn down the Picton Castle, for instance. The Age of Sail has a fuzzy end date.

Oh no, there's plenty more. I'm just arbitrarily restricting my list to ships (three-masted square riggers) that wouldn't look out of place in Naval Action and actively do blue water sailing.

El Galeon barely ever sails, so I would spend that money on a cruise instead. But Shtandart looks like the real deal. AFAIK she's the only authentic 18th Century ship besides Hermione that is actively sailing the world, now that Gotheborg is up for sail.

Most of the time people log off in a battle end screen, it's because they ran out the timer during a gank attempt. They have no rewards to lose. By targeting rewards, it really does seem like you just want to revenge kill people.

For the sake of comparison, what is the chance of causing a casualty with a roundshot hit to a crew hitbox now?

I think that pitch in this game is heavily physics-based, and has more to do with the bow rising to the waves, than plunging down into the water. (Technically this motion is called scend, not pitch.) But more importantly, pitching isn't any kind of handicap in gameplay. Roll scarcely is, either.

Must be a difference in interpretation. So your strongest evidence for captains nailing colors to the mast is a scenario where the captain didn't do so? What's more, this is the U.S. Navy we are talking about, with a very short history. So we can say with confidence that before 1807, no U.S. captain ever fought to the death. Except for that frigate that spontaneously exploded.

Striking your colors was an unconditional surrender in wartime. There was no real parley. In practice, it was the victor's responsibility to take possession of the ship, and vessels often 'un-surrendered' when they found their opponents too disabled or distracted to send an officer over in a boat. So it's really a 'stop shooting me' signal.

Read the last sentence of my post. I gave an example of the very same ship which sailed faster when loaded with more stores. Naturally, a sharp smuggling schooner would likely be happiest with a light, valuable cargo. Compared to a heavy frigates with good seakeeping qualities, the ideal displacement would be attained with a relatively unencumbered hold. But if you took the same vessel privateering, you would want to ballast it down to a similar displacement.