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To more accurately represent battle line formations I propose the following: Accuracy penalty when under fire. This represents increased stress under combat conditions. This incentivises the targeting of every ship in a battle line. The targeting of every ship in a line is historical. Ships in a battle line will target the closest un-engaged ship first. Perhaps there could be the potential that the wrong ship is targeted based upon captains skill and luck. The above have precedent in the battle of Jutland.

Hello, every time i enter the combat mode in PvE i receive the message "connection lost- you will be disconnect from server" and i have to re-enter the game. During the time my opponent is obviously not freezed so i receive damage and have not the possibilty to defend myself or attack the enemy. Has someone a solution for this? I also reported several in game bugs for this topic but haven´t not received an answer, yet. Thanks in advance

Hi devs! Question: Ratty can tag privateer, but privateer cant tag Ratty. Same is for the 3rd rates. Is it possible to fix this?

Hi, I recently bought into the EA, following the release of the british campaign, skimming through most of it, but I did play the first mission to the death trying to get the feel for naval combat. As for the experience I am basing this feedback on, I played both UG games, but more importantly I played Naval Action going all the way back to the Sea Trials. Also, unsurprisingly, I am a military history nerd. But to the point. 1) Sailing I find the current implementation of sailing more than servicable. So much so that I do in fact have only major issue with it and that's the ships inertia, changing sail is nearly instant, on which point alright, fine, but the change feels far too quick to affect the ship. Shortening sail from full to almost none will make the ship stop on a dime, and that just doesn't sit right with me. That is, however, a debate on arcade vs sim and I don't know how far you intend to go in either direction, so I am simply gving feedback, hoping to hear back for future reference. Minor annoyances include lack of control over which sails are actually being set (I would at the very least love to see a dedicated option for combat sail and an option to shorten all topsail to reduce list due to wind effects) and the inexplicable enthusiasm of the AI to get itself stranded in the wind. 2) Combat Now I am regrettably not a happy camper in regards to this one. I am impressed by the mechanics regarding ranges and pentration, little can be done to improve that, accuracy of the gunners gets the job done, though at times I find them perhaps too good at their job. Particularly at range. Using Richmond as measure, at a range of 5 or more ships length, absolute majority of the 18 pounders will remain dead on target, which I don't find particularly realistic, considering the size of the ships involved and the level of experience of their crews. My main concern though, lies with the damage model. Like I said, I played the first mission to the death, I tested every angle, every range, every type of shot. First of all what kind of mythical heroes am I playing against here? I have the enemy sloop to my leeward, he's stranded in the wind, armour stripped, I am raking him bow to stern, he lost his mizzenmast, most of his guns, is taking on water and yet he will not strike. While I certainly applaud his bravery, it just seems a little too much. Is this an intentional mechanic to force players into aggressive boarding actions rather than playing it safe with a ranged engagement as a tactic for capturing enemy ships? If so I am certainly no fan of it. If not, it needs significant adjustment. If a ship takes a broadside that shaves away over a quarter of her armour hitpoints, I certainly don't want to see her just sit there and take 8 more like it. More work on the morale meter perhaps, reflecting the overall state of the ship, her crew, her sails and her armamament, as well as the time period in which this damage was dealt to her. Perhaps not to make her outright strike, but to make her susceptible to do so, ie. half-hearted defence of a boarding action, striking after suffering another artillery shock, or striking when suffering further critical damage (losing a mast, taking on water, rudder etc.) In any case, I shouldn't feel like the more predictable result of a gunnery duel is blowing the enemy up rather then surrendering him. Which gets me to, i suppose hitboxes? Or more accurately on hit effects? Now the first hits simply stripping planking I understand, a game mechanic, a good one, it works, I like it. But when the armour chips away there follows a mess. The effect of round shot on ships components is somewhat satisfactory. The damage reflects the angles of impact well and I can say that when I did feel like I've managed a good broadside, I also felt like I was adequately rewarded with good damage. To the ship. The crews, on the other hand, appear to be bulletproof. I'm not expecting to be killing dozens here, but when I pull of a very steeply angled shot, all but raking the enemy ship, with the shot actually going out the other side, so clearly fully penetrating, well when such a broadside takes 5 guns and only 4 enemy crewmembers... something ain't right. When another broadside smashes into the enemy on his uproll, below the waterline, blows a water pump, hits ammo stores, hits a mast, takes out two guns and takes out one crewman, that's just plain wrong. I can take my ship yardarm to yardarm with the battered and now unarmoured AI, load canister, and blast it in from so close his men might as well lean over to try and snuff the fuse, and when that barrage kills a grand total of 0-3 men, something clearly needs to change. This was not a one off. I did this multiple times, tested out different ranges and angles too, different states of armour. The results were always identical. No more than 6 men killed, quite often none. Canister is in fact so ineffective, that the musket fire from the on-board marines does multiple times more damage to crews, and not just over time, but per volley. At point blank ranges, being blasted through with 12 pounders, I would expect the men on those sloops to drop in double digit numbers. Perhaps this is something you deem too extreme for the purpose of the game, in which case I would have to disaggree, perhaps this is something that plays out far smoother on larger ships I have yet to test. At any rate, during my tests in the first battle, these mechanics felt entirely out of tune. 3) Land Combat I haven't done enough of it to comment on mechanics, but one thing I will say is, can we please have more music? Meaning pipes sounding orders, drums for marching, more marching songs... and so on and so forth. I know you already have it present to a degree, but I would like to see it more pronounced over the sound effects ie. the sound of footsteps feels far too loud in comparison to the drum etc. That's about all I have now. I suppose I'll be making more posts as I progress.

Everyone knows how frustraitig it is when AI keeps doing its turning cycle to your stern making him usually die to upwind. And if you are in group there is many enemies around, you just dont have time to loot any enemies before they go too deep. I suggest you can "Retrieve" loot in battle by button sending "longboats" to the shipwreck (add drop down menu to choose shipwreck). This would lock your ship at place for lets say 30 Seconds? And after that loot from the ship you have selected, it will open in trade window for you. You would need to send the "longboat" to all the wrecks invidually in the battle. Ofcourse there should be a maximum range to this action. This way its also dangerous to stop ship and loot middle of the fight, and if you get hit by enemy the process would be interrupted. Now a few rules i would suggest to it. Looting items this way will only give you everything else but resources, so "loot items" only. To retrieve example 300 Teak logs you would still need to sail to that enemy ship for pick up. Also if you sail to the enemy ship yourself and then loot it and have not done the far away loot yet you could get EXTRA loot, would be nice pay for the effort. I would also love to see a loot log, so all in the group can see what is looted. I feel right now that you are not getting the reward from your kills because your loot is either colelcted by others or it sinks to the bottom. It would also be greatly appriciated if you could trade in battle. Or add some other way to share loot with group. Best option ofcourse would be that everyone has their invidual loot, like in many other games already one mob gives loot to all group players acording to their effort. I would like that, and with this method it would be fair game. No griefing and crying, also its more rewarding to group up when you get abit more loot when groupped this way. OR Just add Extra reward when picking up from shipwreck and loot rest in loot window at after battle report like it used to be. Add a trade option to that and be done with it. This is the old after battle windows, i kind of liked it. Just add the loot to the logs here and it new textures and it would work. Feel free to post your ideas, this is just my suggestion take what you want from it.

I know simulating collision damage was tried and failed, but with our current unrealistic boarding capabilities or sometimes lack of (determined defender), perhaps it’s time to relook at some options. First, I don’t know if it is always possible for the game to determine who rammed who. I also don’t if the game can determine the speed of the collision. But... Here are some options: Damage and leaks to both parties, the lighter ship sustains worse damage. Possible immediate rigging shock as well. But even more important and perhaps easier to implement. A use for the BRACE COMMAND. If there is a strong enough collision and your crew is not braced you receive significant crew damage and go in to crew shock.

So we have thickness that determines whether a ball is deflected, how about an additional stat - absorption. Wooden ships were built to absorb projectiles to prevent them from traveling across the ship and causing havoc within. This additional stat would determine whether a projectile will travel through the ship and create a large exit hole on the other side of the hull (possibly creating leaks), kill a large number of crew, knock out cannons and would help deal with hugging ships, for example. For this lack of absorption effect to occur the difference between the caliber of the projectile and the absorption stat would have to be large. For example 1st rate vs 1st rate (or 2nd/3rd rate) this would have no effect, however, 32 pd ball vs a much lower rate ship would have devastating effects.

I've just been inspired by @King of Crowns and what his gang did last night. The devs should create a type of "Treasure Fleet" mission which rewards the sale of items (or it could be based on the amount of currency generated) at an enemies capital within a specified time, starting when the first person in the battlegroup drops it off. A with B to F forms a battlegroup. Person A picks mission up at Fort Royal (FR) and their mission is to sell 30 Parisian furniture to KPR (they don't have to leave from FR). Only one mission can be taken per nation per 4 hours and it can only be taken within the port battle window (so no running up just before maintenance). If the mission is completed, the players triple their money, half completed, double. If you fail to complete half then you are not permitted from joining or creating a battlegroup with this mission for a week or two (to prevent people spamming and time wasting. You could always require a cash deposit to take the mission in the first place which they lose if they fail to complete a quarter or half of the order. This would have two effects, it would give dedicated traders a job within the PvP arena. It'd create player generated events much like port battles but in open sea. If you wanted to make it extra difficult you could announce in CombatNews "Treasure Fleet due to arrive (you could even say where) within 3 hours". This would allow players to gather etc.... This would create much needed interaction between PvEers and PvPers as well, communication is content! A reason for the nation to work together as well as clans. PvEers would venture outside the zone for trade but do it with a group of PvPers at their back as the PvPers know they're guaranteed action for helping them.

To present a valid option to a sect of the playerbase than loves the game for the duel ( mainly frigates, master and commander style ) I suggest the inclusion of a Duellist Perk. - costs 10 points - enables 1v1 always, automatic closes battle ( no countdown, immediate start on tag ) in the following conditions: player is tagged player is not tagger both ships are same navy rate eg. 5th rates - player cannot be tagged by different rated ships - Duellists can see each other's info ( small flag UI for example, or added text in info box ) and can attack each other to a 1v1 - Patrol Zone combat - 90 minutes, no escape. - no ship capture. Only sinking for Battle Over. - warships only. Trader models not affected. Pros: - duels ! Cons: - Spies in frigates

Currently, the random fire mode has no apparent practical purpose besides frustrating captains who accidentally use it - it offers no advantage over the rolling broadsides in any situation. However, I feel it could be made useful with a very minor change: Random fire mode now fires the guns twice as fast as the other fire modes. Rename Random Fire Mode to Simultaneous Fire Mode. By "fire twice as fast," I mean that the time it takes between the first gun and last gun to fire is half as long as the rolling broadside modes. It will have no effect on reload time, accuracy, etc. This will turn Random fire mode into a "full broadside" command. The reduced broadside time will be useful in situations where your firing window is short, or when you want to start maneuvering immediately after firing, thus making Simultaneous fire mode a useful tactical option. This idea was brought up before in a previous post, but I thought it deserved its own suggestion thread for consideration by a larger audience.

I know that cannon loadout, mods, and build quality (color) are not reflected in your AI fleet ships' combat capabilities but what about wood choice and regional trim?

Twice I have tried to start combat using the cutter. Each time I'm facing the wind with no sails and no speed through the water. Impossible to get under way and fight. Have to sit there and be slaughtered. Must be missing some trick to fall off the wind. Please tell me

Currently, experience is provided to players based on the hull hits they score on a killed target. This entirely leaves out players who score primarily sail or crew hits. This is a major flaw especially for sail hits because there are many situations and strategies when playing alongside friendly ships wherein a captain may legitimately maximize their effectiveness by focusing on rigging or crew damage, and as of now they receive zero credit for it. Even further, the task of dedicated rigging attackers is best suited to smaller vessels that are commonly captained by newer players. It is very hard to new players to sail alongside higher ranks in larger battle because even though they can provide the very useful contribution of rigging hits and raking grape attacks, they won't get any points for doing so and are thus discouraged from training alongside folks. From a new player retention viewpoint, this could also provide some much needed encouragement for midshipmen and the like as they'd actually be useful and benefit themselves from participating in fights they're invited to by more experienced players, who can even show them the ropes in the process.

Opinions appear to vary on this but it seems like sailing into the scenery should be potentially costly. Speed dropping to zero after hitting shallows/shoreline could initiate a five-second countdown timer. If the captain has not gotten clear within that period a battle window opens where three things happen. 1) You've run around and a damage mechanic goes to work on the hull. 2) A button appears to refloat the ship. The amount of damage done, and whether you get refloated would be probability calculations based on whether the wind is onshore or off, the amount of cargo in the hold, and timing intervals. 3) The sharks are invited. Sooner or latter a hostile AI shows up. And crossed swords appear in open world inviting other players to attack / defend while you are trying to refloat.

Increased join timers — due to OW travel speeds — gives a chance for everyone to receive reinforcements. It allows battles to grow bigger. Obviously, depending on how that particular battle plays out, that can be a good thing or suck. You’re holding your own right when 6 enemy ships join and turn the tide against you. That sucks. You’re barely hanging on and the cavalry arrives. Hooray! Numerous good and complex suggestions have been made on how to deal with the whole revenge fleet, gank, or other problems associated with unrealistic OW speeds and battle join times, most of them dealing with circle size and placement, tagging, control perks, and BR limits. I suggest that right now, with the extremely low populations on both servers, we try simply increasing the join timer just to get more players involved in PVP. It would seem like it would be an easy thing for the Devs to implement and adjust. As it is, not only do you have to find a PVP situation on a very big map, you only have 3 minutes to do it.

http://www.nelsonandhisworld.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1679 Make cannonballs bounce, it supposedly even extended the range. Likely considered to be measure of gunnery excellence.

We still struggle with problems caused by the difference between OW speeds / time compression and battle instance speeds. Here's a new (I think) idea. In port battles, attackers already have to be inside an outer circle while defenders join inside the inner circle. Could we use an expanding outer circle idea in OW? The first circle represents the tag and immediately after. Players within the tag circle are pulled into battle like they are now. Players outside the tag circle need to be within the outer ring (but not inside the inner circle) to join the battle. Obviously they will be joining further away from the battle start and will sail to the combat at real world speed. As time passes, the outer ring grows larger and further away from where the battle started. One can still join the battle, but only from inside the outer ring and will join the combat at battle instance speed. Eventually, the join ring is quite far from the original tag. With this solution, I don't think you even need to close the battles. Reinforcements may join at any time while the battle is going on but the more time that has passed since the battle began, the further away they will be when they join. The camping of crossed swords problem will still have to be dealt with by the player invisibility/hyper speed "solution" but ALL PLAYERS and AI NEED TO BE INVISIBLE while you are cloaked.

Conquest Marks, PVP marks, PVE Marks, Gold... There are so many currencies in this game that it is impossible to balance them all. Get rid of them all except Gold. Combat earns XP and Gold. Crafting earns XP (and profits in gold if you sell your wares). All items in admiralty are priced in gold. Adjust the amount of rewards and prices as you will based on difficulty and desired scarcity. It seems to me that a) this system would be easier to get the economy right and b)would allow players to pursue their own paths to "success".

I find it really injust that if you manage to run away from your enemy (trader example) succesfully, or have to flee after causing major damage to enemy but also take fatal damage to your self that there is 0 reward for this. After you have given your very best and fought till the end you should get reward! It is frustrating that after 30mins of fight you might need to run and get no rewards at all, its not often this happens but when it does its like wet rag to your face. Also there is no xp for traders that are bullied / chain pulled to battle that they escape succesfully. There should be rewards for those. Just my thought, didn't find thread of this yet. If there is one please move my comment there.

We can't capture the ships, but at least allow us to remove cannons for later use or sale from AI combat ships we successfully board. It's not going to make anyone rich but it would provide a bit of income to pay for the crew and ship damage we sustain in combat.

Am I doing it wrong? I thought we were now aupppsed to be able to remove some cannons from AI we successfully board on the test bed? After boarding more than a dozen enemy AI combat ships, I have yet to see a cannon in the hold when I'm removing loot. Is there a button or screen I'm missing?

I've given this more than a little thought. My thoughts are predicated on two assumptions; that crew kills are determined by shot striking hit boxes designated for crew, and that crew hit boxes are flagged on or off depending on how men are distributed to tasks. If these assumptions are wrong this should still be adaptable. First, we need to add a few crew hit boxes into the rigging at fighting tops and various other bits of rigging, which are enabled when men are either sailing or set to boarding, to mark the location of either crew aloft in the rigging or marines in said fighting tops. Treacherous French sharpshooters will enjoy these cowardly postings, I am sure. Second, points around the ship need to be designated as musketry origins. Spots on the forecastle, quarterdeck, weather deck, possibly gun ports below, and our now-crewed fighting tops aloft. These musketry origins will have an orientation and a maximum angle from center. A musket on the gunwale may be oriented 90 degrees off the beam with a 90 degree maximum angle, creating a half-sphere of possible shots to starboard (90 degrees left plus 90 degrees right equal 180), but excluding firing to anything left of it. Meanwhile a musket in the fighting top may have a 0 orientation and a 180 degree maximum angle, allowing our sharpshooter to fire anywhere he pleases. Not all possible positions for a musket-firing crewman need be simulated, just a dozen or so for small ships, and perhaps as many as fifty or a hundred for a 1st rate. Next, we need to enable or disable the musket points based on if Boarding Prep is flagged as enabled or disabled. If a captain enables Boarding Prep, his crew rushes to their musket points and starts firing. Of course, marines are always in Boarding Prep, but unless boarding prep is enabled, they hold their fire. There is thus a new level of play in that you can tell your enemy has gone into boarding prep, and your enemy may attempt to surprise you by staying out of musket range until he's fully prepared to board. Speaking of which, we will only need to fire when in range. Until an enemy ship has closed to within X meters, the musket simulation idles. Fifty or a hundred meters from an enemy ship, the simulation moves to the next step. Within range and with crew active in boarding prep, the crew opens fire. We need to have points operating randomly to reduce the computational overhead of plotting every musket's reload and possible shots simultaneously. We also need to have musket points firing only when they have a possible target. To accomplish this, musket points are numbered for their ship, selected as a random number, and perform a distance check from their point to a crew hitbox on an enemy ship. Only distance on the X-Y plane is calculated for simplicity and to prevent the fighting tops from being too high aloft to fire. If a musket point is in range of enemy crew hitboxes, it proceeds to the next step. Otherwise the program returns to the random number generator to select another musket point. This process continues until a musket point responds as being within range of enemy crew hitboxes. In range of enemy crew hitboxes, the musket point performs a raycast to determine if the closest hitbox is inside of its field of fire (the orientation and maximum angle from earlier). This raycast ignores the various objects, including friendly ships or obstructions. It simply checks if the musket can point at the target. For fighting tops, this will be almost always true. For more restricted musket points along the sides of the ship, they may determine they are close enough to a ship, but that ship is on the wrong side of their field of fire. If the raycast determines the ​closest ​hitbox is out of its field, it then checks the farthest hitbox (within the range check of X meters). This second raycast will be useful if one enemy ship is closer than an enemy ship on the opposite side, allowing muskets on that opposite side to fire at the more distant enemy, rather than all musketry checks passing or failing on the closest enemy, or firing at the bow of a ship when the closer stern isn't in the field of fire, as might happen when your T is crossed. Should both raycast checks fail, the shot from that musket point is canceled, and moved back to the RNG to pick a new musket point. When a raycast is successful, the shot is fired. This is an individual musket ball able to kill one crewman, originating from musket point, and directed along the raycast to the center of the target crew hitbox. The individual musket ball is simply a raycast with added deviation to account for inaccuracy. Given a shot with say five degrees of inaccuracy, we have a chance of hitting gunwales, masts, crew hitboxes we didn't intend to fire on, or even friendly crew hitboxes. Plotting the actual shot will also give the proper advantage to a taller ship or a shot from the fighting tops, as shot falling down on the enemy deck has a much higher chance of hitting a crew hitbox than attempting to shoot through gun ports. All of these calculations occur server-side. Client side, clients are merely informed that they have lost a crewman and which musket point on the enemy ship should render a puff of smoke and a retort. The result is a robust simulation of musketry occurring where it belongs, the battle server, while server-to-client traffic is only marginally raised. There is no need to inform clients of any details of the shot, unless effects beyond gunsmoke are requested. Hearing musket balls patter against my hull may be nice, and watching little black dots fly is entertaining with grapeshot, but given the volume of fire I expect it would be expensive. Speaking of volume of fire; the rate of fire will be determined as a function of how many muskets your ship has, if you have enough boarding mode crew to fire all of those muskets, and what percentage of your crew is marines. Lets presume you have 100 crew, no marines, and 20 muskets. You open fire with boarding prep active. As crew move into boarding prep, the number of muskets in use increases until 20 crew are in boarding prep, when all muskets are now being used. Each musket fired by a crewman has a base firing rate of once every thirty seconds. Twenty muskets, firing once every thirty seconds, comes to 40 shots a minute, or one shot every 1. 5 seconds. The musket simulation attempts to fire a musket point every 1.5 seconds in this situation, graphically there is a puff of smoke every 1.5 seconds, and depending on the luck of the shot raycast, the enemy crew starts whittling down. Now lets say you have gold marines, and 50% of your crew is marines (IIRC). A marine can reload and fire a musket much faster than an untrained crewman, and gold marines almost certainly reload faster than grey marines. Accordingly the fire rate is increased by the marine crew percentage, 50% for gold, less for less expensive marines, but peaking at one shot every fifteen seconds per musket. This creates a blistering 80 shots a minute from the 20 muskets. But wait! The number of muskets has increased as well! We have to add the additional however many muskets to the rate of fire calculation. The fire bonus from your marine percentage will continue down to the last man as well; the simulation need not track how many marines are manning muskets to how many crew are manning muskets. It is presumed either the marines will be prioritized with the musket distribution, or the crew will have received some drill themselves if the captain had planned to perform boarding enough to invest in marines. However heavy casualties will still reduce the rate of fire as the total number of active muskets falls, or if muskets are lost under the bloodied bodies. So what is the result of all this? Going gunwale to gunwale and exchanging musket fire will now be a useful way to gauge the enemy's ability to repel your boarding, and make point-blank fighting much bloodier. No longer can you exchange broadsides into each other's hulls and coolly calculate who will win by who's losing armor faster. You will now be exposed to his fighting tops and muskets on the gun deck, and will suffer casualties among your weather deck gun crews and sailors. It is now very, very clear when someone has a gold marine boarding setup, if they leave their crew in active boarding prep mode. It may be desirable to not tip your hand by keeping boarding prep disabled while approaching and keep your marines from firing. A ship that hasn't fired its muskets either has no-one on hand to fire muskets because the captain intends to focus on gunnery, or has a marine build he intends to conceal. Once you begin firing muskets, you tip your hand as to your marine and musket levels and your enemy can react. There's a possibility for trickery in this mechanic. It is also possible for a ship disabling a gun side to use all their needless extra crew in Boarding Prep with Extra Muskets and Pistols, giving the appearance of having marines but still maintaining full manpower for gunnery and sailing otherwise. It is also possible to defend your Gros Ventre or other trade ship with your crew in boarding prep and firing muskets, and one of these ships with full musketry builds will be dangerous to pull alongside in a lower-hulled vessel. Barricades can also have a new bonus; a flat 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 percent chance to cancel a raycast musket ball hitting a crewman, as your crew enjoys extra small-arms cover. With the right build, muskets could be an effective defense for an otherwise unarmed trade ship! The actual boarding minigame will lose some of its importance. A close quarters fight may be determined entirely by hauling alongside and unloading muskets into the enemy. The captain who finds himself running alongside a boarding-modded enemy will no longer simply keep his speed up and negate his adversary. He will also find that if he cannot break away, then he needs to force a boarding and hope for better swordsmanship than musketry. Or pray to the gods of grapeshot. All of this was posted elsewhere in the wrong forum under a related discussion, so do pardon the double post. I don't want to take over someone else's thread.

On the test server, I noticed that If we get into a boarding action (By choice or unwillingly) we get NO REWARD despite all the cannon fire exchanged. Historical Context: The nations of the world considered it preferable, by far, to capture an enemy ship. It was taken as a high achievement of skill and courage. The capture of vessels was preferable, and well rewarded, because the ship could be refit for use ti strengthen the navy, or striped for vital materials, to save cost on other ships. Why then do we receive "No Reward" for capturing a vessel in combat? It makes no sense to only reward potions etc for blasting a ship to match sticks. Even the crews got a share of the Prize money for capturing. We should receive the mission and combat rewards for defeating enemy ships, no matter how that victory is achieved. Pyrate Context; Post script. When prize money was rewarded the vaunted Royal Navy officers often screwed the men out of their share of $… Which is just ONE of the reasons so many crews mutinied and turned pyrate! But I digress...

This might only work in conjunction with a reputation system, but what if players could craft and trade Letters of Marque. They would temporarily assign the creating nation's flag (with its restrictions on who is an enemy) to the player holding the letter. There are a few options how this might be interesting: 1. Only Nats could make them and only Pirates could get them. 2. Or since alliances are being "turned off" perhaps one Nation could give it to another Nation's player. They would not be free to make and presumably whoever accepts the letter will want some sort of payment as well. A player could only hold one letter at a time I'm sure there are other ways this could play out but it seems like it would have positive impact for low pop nations while avoiding alliance entanglements and provide a mechanism for pirates to do some privateering. Please discuss.

Only stupid question is the question not asked, but this one may come close... Despite the name, do Mortar Handbooks assist with deck guns? It says they affect: DECK_CENTRAL CANNON_DISPERSION_PER100M, CANNON_DISPERSON_VERTICAL_PER100M AND CANNON_DISPERSION_REDUCTION_SPEED