maturin

Even one frigate could tow an SoL, which would of course have its sails raised as well. But towing was for really slow or disabled ships. No one would ever tow a ship that was already sailing at 8 knots. Could be a really nice feature with all the dismasting that is going on, however.

Well, all the ship's animals should be struck down in the hold in reality. But in Master and Commander (the book), the protagonist's brig approaches a Spanish xebec-frigate that didn't expect them. And the Spaniards frantically clear their vessel for action by throwing all the deck clutter overboard, including the chicken coops.

Half the time I am sailing within sight of 4-5 other ships. This will make automatic spotting pretty pointless, and I am against anything that prevents a player from carrying out a surprise attack. However, for long AFK passages across open water, it would be very nice to click a button that sounds an alarm for the next spotted sail only. No information given, and if we ignore the lookout's call, all subsequent spottings will go unremarked.

Not to mention clucking and bleating sounds coming from your own ship as you travel. Ships of the line could have mooing sound effects. And before battle there is a cascade of chickens being thrown overboard.

Done right, this would be an enormously complicated new game feature. Resulting in several operations where everything is... very slow. Remember that a frigate or ship of the line would carry many boats, some of them very large (25-35 feet) and capable of long voyages under sail in their own right. HMS Victory, for example, carried a pinnace, a launch, a barge and three different cutters. Some ships also carried a small gig for the captain (jollyboat for you Jack Sparrow types) or a yawl. Most of the time these boats were stored on booms in the waist, stacked on top of each other like spoons. So obviously it was an incredibly involved operation to lift them up with block and tackle, put the bulkheads, seats and rig back in, then launch them. In battle they would usually be towed astern or passed off to an attendant frigate. By the way, when your ship is in irons or totally dismasted and you are using A/D to slowly swivel the ship, the devs say you should imagine the ship's boats towing the bow around. Anyway, without complex anchor simulation and amphibious operations we don't really need ship's boats. No calms in this game anyway. Can you imagine having six other little boats to take care of, besides the main warship?

It's the XP-progression system that's guilty here. When each rank gives you a set number of crew members, there's simply never any reason to use the likes of a Cerberus. Not without giving it fake buffs it shouldn't have.

That's pretty much what the damage effects in the game look like to me, with the huge billows of dusts and splinters (they're severely exaggerated for visibility purposes, of course). It's just that getting hit by several thousand magical napalm cannonballs in the span of thirty seconds is rather unlikely to happen in the game.

Even a hull repair isn't a hull repair. It's abstracted. Re-mounting a cannon would often require work on the hull, if the breechings were damaged.

To be fair, back in 1720 the frigate hadn't really been invented yet, nor had the 74. So a two-decker with 40-60 guns was the standard warship. If this doesn't happen, I will be floored.

Damage to rails and other features on the weather deck would be cool to see (remember the bell exploding at the beginning of Master and Commander?). However, you should realize what you are asking for with the actual holes on the hull: A huge development delay to reboot the engine tech, netcode, damage model and existing assets; five times fewer ships in the game; much higher hardware requirements; smaller online battles.. and all for a little hole that you can barely even see through. And if you half-ass it, you just get cartoon goofiness like Total War.

Ha, reminds me of the other day when I had a Lynx sitting high and dry on my quarterdeck. Of course I boarded it. But this is the year 2015. Why are you using photobucket? Did you also write this post with a typewriter, calculate postage on an abacus and send it to the nearest internet cafe by pony express?

Workhorses for what? On the contrary, they were a sort of awkward middle child that became obsolete. Too slow for frigate duties and too weak for the line of battle. Even when fourth rates were still being built, the Third Rate 74 was already the standard SoL, making up vast majority of any battlefleet.

What I don't understand is what the point of using Locked Sector Auto is. And what's auto about it?

I agree in principle. Rather than actual pirate ports I would rather see corrupt and lawless ports that are nominally national, yet open to pirates. However, such a system is hard to do right if pirates are going to be instantly identifiable as such. Chasing a pirate into a port of your own nation and then being powerless to attack him there will be really dumb.

There weren't any 'neutral' ports in the Caribbean IRL. If the current free-for-all of nations turned into a war between coalitions, there would be zero need for neutral ports. Neutral flags should exist for PvE players, though. Ideally as a flag of convenience so that neutral status can be changed. You have a hard time with the idea of some countries not being at war?

A thermobaric warhead could start a possibly fatal fire, and at least wipe out most of a gundeck. However, any other warheads in the handheld caliber would have seriously unimpressive effects on the hull (fingerwidth holes from the HEAT), and the .50 wouldn't penetrate much. The crew could sit below the waterline in relative comfort, sending up firefighting and teams and small gun crews as needed. Of course, they would need to understand the weapons they faced. And the small boats would never need to enter the firing arcs of the Vic, so it would probably be a stalemate in which her rigging would suffer the most.

I made a Dutch alt and the very first vessel I captured was an Exceptional-quality Constitution, which some Brits had boarded and left unguarded while farming the Oranjestaad guard fleets. Still have no idea what to do with it.

Not if a crafter actually has to make the ship, and is paid for it. It would just be socialism. Which of course is a better approximation of how state militaries operate anyhow. That said, this is only a problem because you are new. Once you get something with a few more guns, your battles will be enormously profitable.

The lowest square sails (ie, a frigate's mainsail) are the courses. The ones that don't have a yard under them. Main course, fore course, etc. Does the weird sail on Pickle even animate when it is backed? Honestly, it's a major step backwards in terms of visuals.

So we go find another battle immediately after being sunk.

The sheet is the rope you attach to the bottom corners of the sail, to keep the wind from blowing it forward. The tack is a shorter rope that attaches to the same corner, used to haul the corner of the sail up towards the bow, where it attaches to the rail. It makes the sail flatter, because a square sail needs to be as flat as possible to generate lift.

Bellona should only carry 18-pounders on the upper gun deck. Putting 24 pounders there should make her heel like Trincomalee and ruin closehauled speed. That would make Pavel a bit more attractive.

No, that's just a mistake one of the artists made because they wanted to have sheets on the courses. If your sail was 'bent' like that, then entire leading edge would be backwinded and the sail would collapse in on itself. It looks like a sail with just sheets and no tacks, and would be completely impossible to go upwind (or even on a beam reach) with it. Pickle being faster upwind than Lynx/Priv is also completely counter-intuitive, with that sailplan. Realistically I think that the cutter and Pickle should be quite a bit slower than Lynx/Priv. It's good balance as well, because you pay for the toughness. Cutter should be the best upwind performer.

I don't think we need pirate NPCs at all. The player population is high enough for that faction. The only purpose of the NPCs is so neutrals have someone to fight.

Trying to think of some better alternatives to the hated speed mods here: Extended False Keel +1 kts (wind angle 80-50 degrees only, 50-30 degrees for fore and aft rig) Ship has 1 foot deeper draft in OW Loosen Rigging +1.5 kts (wind angle 80-50 degrees only, no effect for fore and aft rig) +1 kts (wind angle 80-180) -15% Mast HP +10% repair costs Speed Trim - Closehauled (exceptional) +2 kts (wind angle 85-70 only) +1 kts (wind angle 85-135 only) Maximum repairs used per battle: 2 -50% repair materials capacity Speed Trim - Downwind (exceptional) +1.5 kts (wind angle 180-115 only) +1 kts (wind angle 115-85 only) Maximum repairs used per battle: 2 -50% repair materials capacity Shift stores amidships -0.5 kts +1.5 kts (Storms only) +10% acceleration -10% deceleration +5% Mast HP -10% repair costs Shorten Rig -15% max heel angle -10% repair costs -0.5 kts -15% acceleration