maturin

*roll eyes* Someone has never played a strategy game before in his life. Anyhow, you've perfectly described the spiritual identity of the 18th century jack tar. If you want to play a game with 'moral' NPCs in it, I recommend Euro Choir Boy Simulator 2013. Just watch out for the bishop. And leave your embarassing persecution complex at home.

Well that's not entirely accurate. Delegation to the master was a question of practicality, not necessity. A captain who couldn't execute every maneuver without a sailing master's help was a failure. Becoming a naval captain was like getting a PHD in seamanship. And the master is only one man. He can't be on deck all the time. The ship is often in the hands of the lieutenants, and every captain was one a lieutenant. What's more, there are many sailhanding decisions that are too important for the master to make on his own decision in normal situations. That said, I'm not exactly sure what sort of advanced sailtrimming features are being called for here. Anything more detailed than what we have would require drastically more detailed animations and UI for features that are ultimately of rather minor importance. We don't really need to fiddle around with topsail sheets and topping lifts on a day-to-day basis. Far better to refine the features that we have increase the degree of accuracy by adding reefing, yards that hoist up and down, and individual sail control as an optional vanity feature.

We're all talking about labels and targeting, obviously, because we do find them useful. The labels appear at a fixed distance, which tells you that shots at the hull are becoming feasible. And any time the aimpoint is above the masthead, the label is massively helpful for replicating shots. If it wasn't there, it would be much harder to walk shots onto a target. Your brain just can't remember the location of a single pixel in a clear blue sky.

From an aerial perspective you'd be surprised how much water you can see through if conditions are right. But stormy seas are not the right conditions. Rough weather should make for the most opaque water of all.

Film looks awesome. I'm not too sure about their movie prop SoL, though. Especially when they dock it next to Shtandart. They really put a gaff mizzen on a ship from the 17th century? Some the rig looks a bit anemic too.

The lines of battle were a LOT closer than that, though. No one ever did any damage past 1000 yards, which is where many Naval Action battles are decided nowadays, based on who is lucky enough to have their heaviest ships placed farther to leeward.

Arisu, I remember you vigorously defending "kiting cowards" not long ago.

You think they actually had masts and tge artist deleted them?...

Yes, but that's something of a good thing. Chainshot was a specialty item, and French fleets would spend a lot more time flinging normal roundshot into rigging. Chainshot definitely has its uses, though. I often call for the smaller ships in an engagement to hit enemy SOLs with chain. It's a lot more reliable as a means of slowing (rather than disabling) the enemy, and you can be effective even without dozens of heavy guns. Good close-range chaser shot, too.

It was a real encounter. I think I read about it here.

Well of course dropping anchor under way was an emergency maneuver. But there is at least one account of a ship doing so during a chase, so that the pursuer shot past. I can't imagine that this happened at slow speeds.

If there's a bottom, you can stop or turn sharply that way. But then you lose the anchor.

It's good news that the modern timbers are the ones rotting, and that rainwater through the deck is the cause. Modern timber is replaceable, and it's easier to caulk a deck than shore up the structural timbers of the underwater hull.

Must be irritating acoustics in there. You can hear every little grunt from that guy benching.

What if labels sit between the fore and mainmast head while in gunnery view?

As long as the name labels can't be used for rangefinding, I don't care what happens to them. But they need to dance around the screen or something, so we don't use them as a gunnery aid.

The idea that I have long favored is a bit simpler. B shouldn't enable a specific 'Battle Sails' setting. It should merely toggle the courses, spritsail and a few staysails. That means that you Battles sails is just a modification of all the other sail settings, from Dead Slow to Full. Maximum flexibility with no UI complications. Your second idea refers to slacking the sheets. We currently use manual yard controls to reduce speed in this manner. Slacking the sheets was certainly done, but only with certain sails and on certain headings. It was often an emergency measures, and tended to cause a lot of bedlam aloft, putting the sail at risk in blowing weather.

Even more cookies to anyone who knows the answer?

Eh? The cutter and yacht don't have a mizzen. Anyhow, the OP's idea is a no-brainer, and the requiring animation update has many bonuses for square rigged ships as well.

Might be time to build her into a glass greenhouse with holes for the masts. Although that would be a shame.

Actually, it is modeled. The settings just aren't tweaked to make enough of a difference. And autoskipper can fix most of it.

That's a xebec, with lanteen rig.

No verification needed, as it's impossible for any traditional vessel to point that high. In that period of history, sailing 3 1/2 points means pointing nine or more points off the wind. That is, 3 1/2 points from the highest possible course.

That's a bit of an overstatement, unless you're only talking about the worst-case scenario of an objective dead to windward. Square riggers sail quite happily upwind. There's a big difference between infeasibility and impossibility, after all. And there's nothing extraordinarily high performance about most 18th century frigates. They were pretty much indistinguishable from merchant ships of the same rig. Nothing stopped a commercial vessel from slacking off the mainyard truss ropes and pointing just as high.

Well, no, you wouldn't furl anything. But you can haul on the clewlines to get the sails almost furled. That's what should be represented visually.