DeRuyter

Bear in mind that her highest recorded speeds were achieved when armed with 18 lb longs on the gundeck.

True but she only surrendered when the rest of the British squadron came up and started firing. President was giving it to Endymion at first. We'll never know if President could have escaped because she damaged her hull and sprung her mainmast running aground. Although we do know that both President and Endymion were distancing the rest of the ships.

You just made a great case for variable wind speed and weather conditions! Please make it so!

Not with 2 way invisibility, you can't sneak up on a ship you can't see. I agree all this does break immersion but then again so do battle instances.

and/or 2 way invisibility - you can't sneak attack what you can't see.

Someone once proposed duel invisibility - while you are escaping invisible, other ships on the OW are also invisible to you.

@Mrdoomed I am not sure that no cooldown teleport has anything to do with no escape re-tagging in capitol waters (the "Home Defense fleet"). For the most part there are enough players around some capitols that they don't have to tp to form the fleet. Look at the OP - he was operating off MT and some ships came directly from there and some actually sailed from another location because of the hours of re-tagging! Look at the screens the original opponent sailed back out of port with the chasing fleet. Bottom line in this case the revenge fleet would have come out even without any teleport in game. Sadly it looks as if @EliteDelta was on a solo raid and he certainly did not pick on a newbie trader, so I wouldn't call him a ganker and he got a 5 hour chase for his trouble.

I disagree. NA is still a game within a historical framework (magic bow figures aside ofc). Sure everything is sped up for gameplay, but historical top speeds can be used as a reference point. You then have a speed cap unique to each ship. That way you ensure variation in ship speeds at difference points of sail. A stock ship starts lower than the maximum historical speed, then you apply mods. Like stock ships vs fully researched in WoWs. Another way to alter the ship speed meta is with variable wind since right now all ships always reach their max speed at a given point of sail (but that's another topic).

@Fluffy Fishy Also leaving the courses set would increase the risk of the rigging catching fire. Don't forget that the animation in NA does not accurately portray how sails were set or furled. The tops'ls and t'gallants were set by raising the yards not dropping the sail and in particular with the main tops'ls it took a lot of crew to set. You hit the nail on the head though, primarily a ship set the best maneuvering sails that would require the minimum amount of crew to work in battle - spanker, fore stays' or jib, tops'ls and in light air t'gallants. To the OP one reads more about the impact of the roll of the ship for aiming prior to firing than afterwards. I think there was some concern for recoil on the structure of the ship when firing an entire broadside (there may be a thread about this somewhere).

Sounds like a great plan moving forward - UI improvements needed to retain new players IMO. Many comments on revenge fleet/ROE issues which is critical to fix. That aside here are my 3 critical fixes: 1. Balance mods and fix speed issue. Mods should not be a "must have" for pvp. Lower %, stacking penalty, make more mods craftable. Speed cap issue - Use historical speed of ships as reference for top speed with max bonus. For example USS Constitution logged 14 knts for a short time under ideal conditions (see #2). Endymion fastest speed with 18 lbs cannon on the gundeck not 24 lb.. 2. Variable wind and weather . Add in variable wind speed and weather conditions please. Storms and high seas as well. Before anyone complains about longer travel time I mean higher winds. Use a baseline and go up. We need wind effect on sails so you risk damage to sails going full sail in high winds. This will help with speed issue as well. High winds the heavy, bigger ships will go faster, lighter wind (current OW) smaller ships outrun larger. Heavy seas hard to fire lower deck guns as well. 3. In game tutorial This is important for new player retention. How many players have left after only a few hours? This may help boost the player base. Something that will show the player around the port UI and then out into the OW and on to a first "tutorial" or rookie mission. Better new player retention can lead to fixes for a number of issues on our large map IMO. @admin Will the new Unity engine allow modelling for depths for PB and ship draughts? That would be a great feature!

What are these magical mods you speak of? All I ever seem to get from loot drops is 12 hull repairs, 13 rig repairs and of course Med 6lb cannon! It is ok that certain skill books drop rarely I suppose, but copper plating etc is another story. I'd say that the larger issue is the large and stacking bonuses some of the mods afford. Something to be said about the numbers at EA release - What percentage of those numbers played for a few hours and left? I'd argue a large amount because it is hard to get started as a total noob, in the state the game was then and now. I'd suspect that an in game tutorial and finished UI would be a big help to retain new players.

Control should be a game mechanic not a perk though. Ships should not vanish from 200m away simply because you missed a shot.

Sorry I misunderstood - shame they canned the Kickstarter idea.

You should be in Boston on July 23rd. Link to restoration blog: https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/restoration/blog/

Cargo weight does effect OW speed. Not sure how much the reduction is, but if you overload your ship with battle loot your speed will be very noticeably reduced.

Did you make sure you are not doing fleet missions? For a fleet mission you will get 3-4 opponents.

I have had 4 on EU server and 2 on Global. No perks. It may be just RNG. BTW - the shipwrecks appear to have the same good as before the wipe - some coins, resources, and maybe labor contracts. I have only collected 2 though.

@jodgi oops jumped the gun a bit then. Yes I do know of speed fit Connie's going very close to the 14 knts cap in game. I also know of one that got caught and sunk! Still there should be some limits on speed mod stacking.

Interestingly looking at @jodgi updated speed thread with the new spreadsheet of base speed the Endymion reaches @135 degrees is 13.7 and the Constitution is 10.9. As an aside the Constitution's highest recorded speed was 14 knts over an hour. That drops to 10.3 knts over 24 hours though.

I noticed that I took rigging damage from fire after the last hotfix. Sailing in a Pickle caught fire and lost 25% rigging, going into rigging shock. Anyone else notice this effect? I know fire damage to sails was mentioned by admin awhile back but didn't know it was implemented.

Exactly. More often you would have the upper masts damaged or fall then the whole mast. Too often I see the entire mast fall and then of course get repaired which is another issue itself - lol. Masts fell because the supporting rigging was shot away or it got entangled with the enemy ship (See Constitution vs. Gurriere). The lower masts were hard to bring down simply by hitting it with ball shot (in game accuracy effects this ofc). Ships returned from battle with gouges in standing masts from grazing hits. So in game we don't model hits to rigging - just masts and sails, so how is this accounted for - by having mast hit boxes I suppose. Considering how this is modeled then hitting masts should be one of balance. Maybe the lower masts need a buff at this point. I for one would like to see more fallen t'gallant masts (spars too but that's is not modeled in game). That would make it harder for the dismasting meta. Ask this question - In Naval Action would Nelson have made it to the Franco-Spanish line without being dismasted?

@maturin Good point but they generally would have less and lighter guns with insufficient crew to properly man them. Private merchants I mean not EIC ships of course.

You are correct about the rig which is the difference really as @akd pointed out. Both are modeled after real ships, the Fair American and the HMS Ontario, so the size comparison is available - the Ontario being longer by 10 ft. I am not sure about the size of the rig though. Fair American was noted to be a fast privateer which suggests a large rig. I don't find the snow in game to be that terrible, it is maneuverable and could outmaneuver an unwary Cerberus captain. I mean comparing it to bigger ships is apples and oranges. If you are a new player it is not a bad choice, and has the advantage of chasers for running down traders.

This ^^. Set a floor so no one is becalmed, etc. One thing to remember is that this does not mean that a lighter ship will escape - in high wind/heavy weather the Bellona or Constitution may just catch that Rattlesnake, whereas in lighter wind the smaller ship normally get away. It really is the overall weather effects - a privateer in a storm may have a hard time escaping a large ship without risking losing its' rig. So you would need to add weather related rigging damage as well. Although I am in favor of variable weather effects I can envision a lot of crying when people are caught out by weather RNG. (like IRL ). This is called hull speed and it is a calculation based on the waterline length of the ship. Some ships - ie; 1st rates would usually not ever go this fast though. So yes top speed should be done per ship ideally based on the historical performance of the ship. Stacked mods should have diminishing returns. Maybe start the ship slower so that mods will ultimately bring the ship up to her historical speed. (like WoWs).

One point to keep in mind is that the starboard tack will always be favored because of the wind rotation. You can also watch your sails and when the square sails go flat and start to shiver, then it is time to tack. Edit: This is sailing on the OW.