Henry d'Esterre Darby

I understand Bart, no worries mate!

Fighting during boarding was the worst aspect of POTBS. It is my fervent wish that it stay in the abstract in this game.

Yes, you'll get an email with a Steam Key you can use to access the game on Steam from what has been announced.

Im not really sure I want to dwell on the human cost of these encounters. I'd prefer any wounded/death screams be capable of being muted/turned off by the player.

No to the disconnection idea. It is impossible the detect a true disconnect from someone pulling the Ethernet cable.

A million times this. I don't always have an unlimited amount of time to play. Knowing of a specific and reasonable time frame in which, if I get caught out, I'll be back in port (with or without my ship) is important for playability. The alternative is your opponent suddenly going dead in the water when they shut off the client to go make dinner for the fam after you've kept them trapped in a battle instance for an hour and a half.

Regarding hacking, it's my fervent hope that most of the actual computations, etc. will be server side with the results only sent back to the client a la the World of... series. Unfortunately, I think leaving any of it to the client means a game-killing eternity of hacks, anti-hack patches, more hacks, accusations of hacks (whether warranted or not), etc. And I'll be darned if I'm installing root-kit like anti-hacking software on my computer to play this (or any other) game.

Exactly. If you want "fair" deviations with noticeable differences, you code it as a point system. Given a list of different hidden characteristics that will be a benefit or detriment to a ship's handling, you create a "point" system where the sum total of positives and negatives is the same for all ships. Think of a tabletop game that has a point buy system for stats. You can have amazing strength, but you'll have to ignore or even reduce other stats to get it. In the end, every ship has the same number of "points" towards various hidden characteristics. Some will be better than the average for the hull, some will be worse. In the end, every ship can be unique through a randomized distribution of pluses and minuses to those characteristics, but no ship will be overtly better than any other, they might be better on a bowline, might turn on a dime, might run downwind like it's going out of style, but they won't do everything well, just might do some things better at the expense of others. I think this would counteract the "that guy's lucky! he got the +5 in everything ship!"

As well as cause an increased chance of Fire, yes.

The spyglass analogy is completely flawed (as has already been pointed out) in that you had a bevy of officers to relay that information to you. You didn't personally need to keep an eye on the spyglass to receive reports on how the enemy lay. There's no reason to artificially restrict that information in game by limiting it to the spyglass.

Because a true to reality deformation/destruction based model is not economically or technologically sound given today's technology. Again, the real life cues can be difficult to do well enough to give a reasonable accounting of damage that we be easy to see in real life. While we don't need accurate to the single HP health bars and floating damage numbers above ships when they hit, a certain amount of HUD may be necessary to convey an adequate amount of status information to allow the Captain a realistic decision making process.

Would there be value in the ability to load different cargo areas differently? I'm not sure if fluid dynamics is modeled on the hull shape itself, or if speed is just a factor of ship x at sail deployment y with wind z can sail this fast. If there aren't fluid dynamics, then differential loading to bring a ship by the head or the stern wouldn't really do anything without a TON of coding. If there are fluid dynamics built into the game, then this may be a great way to learn just how to load your ship to get the best out of her, as well as providing an automatic penalty for too much/too little/improperly stored cargo. And thanks AKPyrate - I was pretty sure ballast was infinitely customizable at the time, but didn't have good historical references with which to make a full-on assertion. +1 Sir!

Bear in mind ballast at the time was stones or other dense, heavy objects. It was quite possible (I think!), given room to unload stores and supplies to adjust overall weight and even shift ballast around to bring the ship more by the head of stern. Stores also could be stowed to some degree to adjust the ships trim.

In real life, you could use your telescope and get an ok idea of how the other ship lay. Stove in gunports, parts of the rigging missing or dangling, how high she lay in the water and handled the seas, blood pouring from her scuppers - a million observable details that helped the officers make decisions. The nature of polygons and damage modeling makes this level of detail nearly impossible in a game of this nature. So the question really is more along the lines of "how can damage be displayed in such a manner as to provide a realistic level of information about the state of your ship and the other ship, while still being technically possible to implement given the level of technology we have to work with?" Most games use health bars and other gauges to accomplish this mechanic. They're ugly and anti-immersive, but they serve an important purpose.

Hehe, "start that man there!"

Beta for PotBS here too, but didn't play after release.

Great point. One should also take into account the extremely poor (by today's standards) medical care available at the time when comparing mortality rates.

By no means complete, just a few I dredged up off of Wiki in the 1700s and very early 1800s: England Companies: Allen and Hanbury's (Pharmaceuticals, London) Browns and Chester (Department Store, Chester - Could traffic in trade goods from other countries) Coats PLC (Textiles, Scotland) Courtaulds (Textiles, Essex) Dowlais Ironworks (Wales) Melingriffith Tin Plate Works (Wales) Seager Evans & Co. (Distillers, London) Thwaites and Reed (Clockmakers, London) Vesuvius PLC (Glassmaker, London) Wilkinson Sword (Guns, swords) Ship Yards: Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Portsmouth Royal Dockyard Chatham Royal Dockyard Harwich Royal Dockyard Sheerness Royal Dockyard Plymouth Royal Dockyard France Companies Debauve & Gallais (Chocolatier, Saint-Louis (Glassmaker, Lorraine) Ship Yards: Navy Island (Ontario, Canada)The Netherlands Companies: Det Bergen Grønlandske Compagnie (Founded/Administrated Dutch Colonies in Greenland) Scheurleer & Zoonen (Precious Metals Traders, the Hague) Sociëteit van Berbice (Trading Company, Guyana) Van Gend & Loos (Distribution Company, Amsterdam) Prussia/Germany Companies: Emden Company (Trading, primarily with China, Emden, Prussia) Verlag Herder (Publishing, Freiburg im Breisgau) Shipyards: Reiherstieg Schiffswerfte & Maschinenfabrik (Hamburg) Spain Companies: Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas (Venezuela - Trade goods like Tobacco and Cocoa Ship Yards: Havana United States Companies: American Fur Company (New York City) Colgate Co. (Chandelry and Soap, New York City) Crane & Co. (Paper, Cotton-based products) DuPont (Gunpowder and Explosives, Wilmington, Delaware) Freeman's Auctioneers (Auctionhouse - could trade in anything, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Fort Pitt Foundry (Ironworks, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Rogers Orchards (Agriculture - Fruit, etc, Southington, Connecticut) Valentine & Co. (Paint/Coatings, Boston, Massachusetts) Ship Yards: Charlestown Navy Yard (Now Boston Navy Yard) New York Naval Shipyard Philadelphia Naval Shipyard

That's entirely dependent on the particular period in question isn't it?

It's far more important to me to have cannon animated on my own vessel, I could do just fine without it being animated on vessels around me.

Panthera, from what I've read you can let the ship trim the sails itself if you like.

Exactly. The way to attract female gamers is not through portraying women in denigrating, suggestive outfits.

Hehehe, I'm still hopelessly confused about square riggers and their hauls.

That's just the point. It's extremely hard to focus on what you're trying to say when it's darned near unreadable.

My wife would have me seized to a grate and flogged if I brought something like that home.