maturin

Casual here. I crafted plenty of great ships back in the old RNG system when grinding XP. Now I'll just have the ability to sell those to the hardcore players, if I don't want to use them myself. Unlike RNG loot, hardcore players can't craft ships any faster than casuals can. (Labor Contracts aside.)

Actually Constitution was quite disappointing for the first years of her service. And her sister ship United States was referred to as 'The Old Wagon', being considered slow throughout the War of 1812. Years later, United States suddenly started sailing fast. Ships, especially ships of unusual dimensions and design like superfrigates or razees (Indefatigable also had serious teething problems) require a lot of careful tuning, or they won't give you their best. The devs are attempting to simulate this process by requiring in-game captains to expend resources and effort on applying speed mods, just as historical captains had to strive get the best performance out of their commands. I don't particularly like the implementation, but we should understand it. And you can't just buff Consti's base speed until she goes 13 kts in LO/WO. Because then the fir/fir version will go 17 kts. You can't expect historical performance when the wood meta is so exaggerated.

If the devs were feeling crafty they could implement Bellona-class and no one could accuse them of Russian bias ever again.

Y'all doth protest too much. Ships are living things. You can't conceive a child without some mutations in the genes. For instance, Endymion was the only ship of her class to be so fast.

I'm sure Spain would take this port for you. They make a small profit and let you have it back.

That's Cherubin. Built according to a highly inauthentic model ship styled as HMS Diana but actually resembling a Chapman design.

Teleporting ships to port as always cheese. But logging out in the instance was the best system. You can't get out of a potentially dangerous sail to port, but you can escape the ridiculous revenge gank.

You can't buy an extra hour in a day.

There's no particular wind strength; it's abstracted. And you can't derive the speed of a sailing ship any more than you can derive the speed of a runner by measuring their muscles and limbs. And I do mean hullspeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_speed Hullspeed can be exceeded by adding more energy, it's just a point where the energy requirements increase exponentially.

The in-game windspeed is perfect for all vessels, all the time. Realistically speaking, many in-game ships carry light weather sails (royals, flying jibs, topgallant staysails), which would probably not be set in conditions where speeds of 12-14 knots were achieved. If you're referring to hullspeed, then generally speaking large ships of this era were incapable of reaching their hullspeed. With a waterline length of around 100 feet (or less) and a very high sail area to displacement ratio, some vessels could do it.

It's just luck, mate. The fortune of war. Masts are sticks of pine. Most of the decisive dismasting going on in the game right now relates to topmasts and topgallantmasts. IRL, ships lost these upper masts incessantly, in bad weather even more often than in combat. If you score a few lucky hits, they will break, whether the shrouds are intact or not. A British 74 has topmasts that are only 19 inches thick. Topgallantmasts are 11 inches thick. Hit one of those straight-on with a supersonic iron ball 6 inches in diameter and what happens? The strength of masts in the game is still quite generous, while the thickness feature is basically a force field from Star Wars. It's the accuracy of guns that is exaggerated. If you want numbers, here are accounts of frigates shooting each other's lower masts off after half a dozen broadsides and 20 minutes of firing, respectively: https://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/16233-1814-british-vs-french-frigates/ If you actually were heeling 10 degrees under a press of full sail at 13 knots, your rig would be even more vulnerable. And yes, ideally the damage models would take standing rigging and the force of wind on the rigging into account. Be a historian and interpret the texts. The language of the sailing quality reports appear to ask for the best recorded performance when sailing with the wind. Of course it's probable, but not necessarily the case that ships recorded their best speeds while in the ideal trim and in the weather conditions that most suited them. Hence the reason the captains were asked to report the trim of the ship fore and aft, and volunteered information on whether the ships were much disturbed by a head sea, etc. The captains wanted to get home to their wives and not write an essay, so we can only guess from their wording whether they were describing the best-ever performance of their ships or the speeds they would expect 'on a good day.' When it comes to close-hauled speeds, the reports solicited answers in three different weather conditions (and thus three different sailplans). Here there is more likelihood of 'typical' speeds being reported. Many of the factors you mention can spoil or alter the performance of ships, which is why a new report was solicited for each commission, and the results could change markedly over a ship's career. And of course it requires seamanship to make a ship perform. But a skilled captain would be hard-pressed to get more speed out of his command unless it had a clean bottom, a properly stowed hold, properly proportioned, stepped and supported masts, adequate sails and capable officers, topmen and helmsmen among the crew.

3 kts

Was it typical for Danish shipbuilders to put support pillars between the guns, instead of on either side of the midships hatches?

Tacking hasn't really changed. What has changed is the reliability of the speedometer. I no longer have any idea when to swap the rudders over. You need to devote all your attention to the water to figure out which way you are moving.

Testing is one thing, but I doubt shoddy ships will actually protect new players. There are a mean of giving PvE people harmless toys, nothing more.

Yeah... even at point blank range I'm amazed at how weak fir was, even before the patch. I was sailing along in a fir Belle Poule last night, looking for a quick fine. I happened upon an AI Belle Poule and thought I'd sink it for the knowledge slot. Was already half asleep at that point and sidled up alongside to trade double shot. No maneuvers, just 1:1 broadsides. The bastard sank me. Granted, I was too unmotivated and sleepy to change tactics or disengage, but yeah, fir is wicked fragile. If we toned down the speed advantage, we wouldn't need such a big durability advantage. Gank-fit boats aren't very fun for anyone.

True, but they don't dismast and don't try to board unless you approach them deliberately.

Yeah, 1 PvP mark is ample reward to sink a shabby ship.

The best pvp server doesn't have safezones. It really doesn't make sense to me that we are chasing that goal, in the context of huge carebear regions for crafters. Try to look at things from my perspective here: having safezones and 1-BR capped ships at the same time is weird. Like we're moving in two directions at once. But both features destroy a form of gameplay that I personally found very enjoyable. It feels like soon we'll only be allowed to play the game the way Russian streamers do. There are no AI indiamen. Most people use free LGVs.

I'm sure 1 BR ships will still get attacked for entertainment and practice. Also when you screenshot the Tab menu of the 1st Rate you killed in a Surprise, it doesn't show the BR.

So you can't PvP in a ship you captured from the AI. Which is something I spent time doing yesterday and the day before. This is just another barrier to starting PvP, and further narrowing the scope of what kinds of PvP gameplay are possible and viable. Less of the sandbox remains with every restriction. It's a high price to pay just to please a few players who want to capture AI 1st Rates. So why not apply it to Rates 1-4 only? Then no current gameplay is lost. Yes, at least #5 can be done. Most trade happens in capped AI trader ships. Now I won't get PvP marks for attacking a trader. And the trader will have even less chance to escape because of no counter-tag opportunity and weak sails. It's a lose/lose. Doing missions already dwarfs the utility of trading when it comes to making money (for the average player who doesn't have fleets of 4 indiamen). So as a result we just further diminish the viability of trading.

Yeah, this 1 BR trash ship plan should not be applied to ships below 4th Rate...

The frame is made of one wood, commonly a tough, dense wood which is resistant to rot. Some use cheaper woods, oversized to obtain the same stiffness (and similar weight) to the more common woods. The outer planking is a wood type commonly chosen for toughness and resistance to rot. Can be different below and above the waterline. Inner planking varies more. It can have differences below and 'between and above' the ports on each gun deck, and in the Orlop and Hold. Masts, spars and yards are typically made from low density timbers. For a typical English built ship these would be; Frame, Oak Outerplanking, Oak above, Elm or Oak below the waterline. Inner planking, Oak in the hold and below each port. Fir between and above the ports. Decks, pine or fir. Masts, spars and yards. Spruce, Fir, Birch or Poplar, with Baltic Spruce preferred. Light weight was essential to retain even the indifferent range of stability of a ship, and dimensions were as thin as possible and tapered consistent with carrying of the necessary canvas until typical conditions. As far as I know, only the Fir-built ships, and the US heavy frigates differed substantially from this formula (with the possible substitution of Teak or Mahogany for the Oak framing and outer planking in Indian and Carribean built vessels). The Fir ships have larger timbers, replacing much of the Oak from the standard design of the same type, and the US frigates use Live Oak for the frame alone. Penetration into Oak, 12lb 4" shot, 734ft/s 22" Into Elm, ditto, 29" Into Fir/Birch, ditto, 40" Into Poplar, ditto, 43"

Let me get this straight, a 12-pounder penetrates 22" of oak when the velocity is only 734ft/s? That's way into the subsonic range. And the shot only falls to that velocity after 1100 yards if fired with full charge (1526 f/s)? That's impressive, so a frigate will be hulling SoLs even at extreme range.

Then you don't get PvP marks, and you lose the prize to the revenge gank. But those are two separate problems.