maturin

It holds true for any old pair of sailing yachts in the harbor, too. Right of way is funny, because the vessel with right of way is actually more restricted in their maneuvers. They are expected to maintain their course so that the other vessel can evade.

That pretty much proves that customizable gun calibers are a meaningless feature. Go with the largest possible or commit suicide.

That's a good idea. We should also have the French-built USS South Carolina, which carried 36 pounders. A proto-super frigate! Edit: I think I misremembered the name of the latter ship. I have only seen her mentioned in one source. Maybe she was a privateer or something.

My, what whiggish history. As I recall, the US barely even had a navy in 1880. It's superior to Napoleonic vessels. I don't want superior European technology in the game either. If Ohio was a British ship you wouldn't want it included.

Yeah, but where do you stop? What about royals? If you include every jib, you have to include the royals. And including every staysail just makes the stat meaningless because staysails vary in proportion a lot depending on the vessel, yet will almost never be flown in their entirety. I assume that the numbers give the surface area of 'all plain sail,' but what constitutes plain sail varies by country and decade.

Oh come off it. You and me both know the cuttoff is just some handwaving the devs grabbed at random because it's a round number. You're so desperate to sail around with superior American technology that you would be begging for exemptions for American SoLs if the cutoff was 1815. And Lynx was launched in 2001! What a scandal! See how the devs have bent over backwards for the American consumer base! Because, of course, Lynx would look like a normal vessel in 1812. As would Mercury.

I hope he acknowledged that as only the theoretical prediction of his model.

I wonder what the criteria for sail area is.

They shouldn't sail in a straight line, though.

Trincomalee is a Leda-class frigate. Ships that are virtually identical to her took part in many battles, including one of the most legendary frigate duels in naval history (the Shannon vs the Chesapeake. I imagine the devs would have built Shannon if she were still around as a museum ship today. And as should be perfectly obvious, the amount of time a ship spends in ordinary has no bearing on whether it should be included in the game. What matters is whether the ship actually sailed during the period of the game, took part in historical events, and fits the atmosphere and technology of the time. USS Ohio is to a Napoleonic SoL what Lincoln's tophat is to Washington's tricorn. The American SoLs don't fit. They are significantly more modern than their Napoleonic counterparts, and you can see the technological gap starting to yawn. The game should not have uber ships if it can help it. Constitution and the Leda class already make life difficult for less advanced vessels. But of course it would be a crime not to include them.

That's what 'in ordinary' means. She was neither commissioned nor armed until 1838. I know this because I am so incredibly authoritative that I see through the veil of time to watch history as it occurs. Pointless sniping aside, does anyone have any information on her configuration when she was built? Since she was referred to as a 74-gun ship, I wonder whether the midships guns and bulwarks were added after her 1838 refit. At which point they likely ruined her looks in the other ways as well.

'Put to sea' means 'to embark on a sea voyage.' (Collins Dictionary) She sat in ordinary (at a wharf) for an entire generation, with no men, no stores, and probably short of guns and spars. Then she was rebuilt, outfitted with an armament that would be impossible during the Napoleonic wars and given extensive refits, finally sailing with the paint scheme of an obese zebra. Ohio is out of place among the game's other ships, and never took part in a real battle. At the end of the day that timescale is meaningless. We all know that the 1600 end of the scale is in all likelihood going to be quietly dropped. Ships are chosen based on the needs of balance, their popularity and aesthetic qualities. Can be included is very different from should. I await the aggrieved accusations of anti-American conspiracy, along with assumptions as to my nationality.

And then she never even put to sea for a decade.

Of course, heavy seas will almost always favor the heavier (thus longer) vessel. Just pointing out a typo here, although I think we know what you mean.

In that case Ohio is definitely out!

Excellent idea with the focuses. In sailing focus, crew should be lined up on deck to man the braces and clewlines.

Two corvettes...

Watch out for that DEFUALT a couple pages down, as well. I'd recommend at least running it through a spellcheck in Word.

Honestly, it needs some pretty heavy editing. The formal language combined with complex sentence structure, neologisms, typos, novel use of nautical terms, and literal translations from Doran's native language add up to make it a very taxing read.

It's doubtful Spain will have a ship in every class, so it's no tragedy if the US has to sail 'foreign' SOLs.

Keyside

I hope we don't have to start in a rowboat arbitrarily. Medium-sized vessels should be available at the start, but with strings attached. More to lose, more responsibilities and orders to follow. Ie, a merchant captain may start with a full-rigged ship, but some if your voyages are planned out in advance by the owners. And your cut of the profits is much smaller than that of the coastal trader or smuggler in business for himself with a light vessel. And maybe players can start out as a post captain at the cost of being assigned convoy duty and blockade until they prove their mettle. Independent types can take the revenue cutter and cruise more at will.

Only reason to hang out there is if a swarm of cutters are attacking an SoL, and you are trying not to collide with your allies.

What you're asking for makes no sense. Why should we be able to aim at a point beyond the possible elevation or traverse of our guns? That is much more counter-intuitive and clunky. The little red bar isn't an aim point, it is the actual, realtime elevation of your broadside. If your angle of heel changed while you were looking through the glass, that's your fault. You have to pay attention. Long range fire is difficult, and difficult things can be frustrating, that's all. In real life gunners had essentially no way of knowing where their shots would land. They would just fire and hope that reaching the target was possible. Thus, the fact that the aimpoint moves doesn't rob you of any information or ability. One thing we definitely DO need is an indicator that shows us how far we are from maximum elevation or 'vertical lockup.' When we are aiming near the bounds, the border should appear in some unobtrusive way. This won't make us any more accurate, or make the shooting easier, it will simply remove frustration.

Not bugged, just unfinished. From a development standpoint, this is a fairly large new feature.