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In Campaign, especially for lower level crew, why is there a significant delay between shots(especially for battleships) IE: Aiming shots (Guns show as aimed in the armament window), but the guns do not fire again after the loading cycle has finished. Not even after five minutes.

Before recent patches it was possible to change the crew distribution in the port menu (see here) by using the arrow keys for small adjustments. This seems no longer possible. Please investigate.

Hello fellow sailors this will be a long reading. On the 28 August 2018 @admin posted this at the bottom of page 3 of the patch 26 thread I always had some thoughts about this and now want to share it and explain how I imagine a new officer and crew system could potentially look like. First of all I always thought that crew in this game stays to much on the sideline and has no real value other than being needed to crew a ship. Sure we have to pay a certain amount of reals to replace lost sailors but atm these are peanuts and nobody should have a problem to pay for crew. If you constantly loose first rates it could be expensive but if you constantly sail first rates, fight with them, lose and replace them, then I think that money isn't a real problem for you anyway. What I also mean with value of crew is that we don’t really care about them. We don’t even surrender to lessen their suffering when we are completely outmatched or outgunned. Crew is simply to cheap and easily replaced. And with the new patch we have even less incentives to surrender because it lessens the chance to get your insurance for your ship if your enemy chooses to keep the ship and not sink it. Our crew gloriously die for our cause and nobody even knows their names . Yet they are and should be the ones who make all our accomplishments possible. They load and aim the guns, they follow our (sometimes foolish) order to board and they set the sails and repair our ship. They keep the ship going. So what I propose is in not to make hiring crew way more expensive but kind of a radical approach to the existing system. Mainly the system of ship knowledge and books on which the biggest emphasis lies at the moment and which is subject of many heated discussions. Additionally I also think that it is finally the time to introduce morale and fatigue during the battle and not only during the boarding mini-game. So how do I imagine such a system? The main part is to introduce certain officer roles and make the rest of the generic crew somehow persistent (until they die of course. This is debatable due to many issues but more to that further below) To increase the performance of your ship you need an experienced crew and experienced officers who lead them. The officers and crew gain experience through sailing and fighting and they get better and better at what they do as long as they survive. So in short. Officers and crew take over the role of the current ship knowledge and books system. Basically this should make it possible for everyone who sails and fights a lot and is also successful during that to achieve a high level of knowledge and efficiency. It is not based on luck or plain grinding for rare books. Or paying a fortune to get the rarest and best books. It should level the playing field a bit and make it possible for everyone, even the average Joe and most casual player to achieve this if he wants. The foundation of this is the officer corps of your ship. So in the ensuing chapter I would like to introduce and explain the main officer roles to you and what I think would be their skillset respectively their duties on board of the ship and of course why I think so. Furthermore, as a disclaimer, the whole system shouldn't get out of hands like some skill books obviously do. It is important that a fully experienced crew should never break current existing hard caps on bonuses. Maybe even those caps should be lowered all together. But this may be a whole different topic. Officers: Players can have several officers because we also have several ships and of course need to crew them. We already had the officer mechanic (with name and perks) albeit only for one at a time. This time we get more. Maybe we can even implement some kind of training in the new academy building. So Officers who aren't on a ship can also be trained and gain xp at a smaller rate. I don't think that it should cost reals to hire officers. They get assigned by the admiralty and are also paid by it. No investment for the player here. On the other hand I can also imagine a market for good and experienced officers, so who knows. Lieutenants: The Lieutenants are the only other commissioned officers on board besides the captain. They are watchkeepers and have various other tasks on the ship. For example they commanded a sections of cannons and are in general a role model for the rest of the crew and supervise their work (hence the watchkeeping). That’s why I thought of these traits in the picture above. A very experienced lieutenant knows everything about his craft and naval warfare. He can teach how to increase the reload speed and how to aim properly because he also learned form the best. A very experienced Lieutenant is well respected and trusted. He gets the best out of his men and they do their best to not disappoint him. He keeps a cool head even in the fiercest battle and keeps the morale of his men high. He leads by example. Since there were mostly more than one Lieutenant on the ship I think that their bonuses could add up but give diminishing returns as their number keeps rising. So SOLs will have an advantage over smaller ships in this case but still not as much as simply adding up the bonuses. Below a small table about the amount of officers on board of English ships I found (please correct me if this is wrong). Master: The master’s main responsibility is the navigation and sailing of the ship. To make sure of good sailing capabilities of the ship one of his tasks is to look after the stowing of the hold and the ballast to get the best possible weight distribution --> hence his effect on the roll angle and other sailing qualities of the ship. For navigation purposes his task is to calculate the position of the ship. So I would finally introduce a feature that makes it possible to get the players position on the map. For gameplay purposes and the possibility of gaining experience in this trait I would say the position should not be pinpoint exact but with good accuracy. Thus the accuracy increases with experience. I think the position on the map should be updated once per in game day and maybe the player could demand a rough position whenever he likes (maybe also only once or two times a day?). His other traits derive of the fact, that he is responsible for the sailing and supervision of sailing maneuvers. Since one of his tasks is also the provision and condition of the sails and rigging, he could share some traits with the boatswain/bosun (further below, debatable!). Surgeon: sorry, no picture here Our beloved surgeon. His tasks are clear. Treat the wounded and amputate extremities. I would say his only in game skill should be that he affects the effectiveness of the rum usage. Though I would change rum to something more medical like bandages and bone saws or whatever I also have an idea for a new casualty system but I will explain it further below when I come to the rest of the crew. Gunner: The gunner. An important person for us players who like to fight. He is in charge of the main guns and the rest of the armament and gunnery tools including the ammunition and the powder room itself. So a greater experience in his work will lead to better maintenance of weapons and ammunition. For example sharper cutlasses, cleaner and more accurate muskets/swivels. Well maintained cannons, tackles and cannonballs including well calculated powder charges (by experience) and their perfect composition for round shot, double shot and double charge will lead to better accuracy, penetration and reload speed. As he gains experience his supervision of the powder room makes it less likely that a catastrophic mishap will happen. Carpenter The carpenter’s duty is it to keep an eye on the condition of the ship. The maintenance of the hull, the seams and the caulking, the masts and the yards is his responsibility. During battle he and his mates will fix leaks and if possible take care of repairable damages. Boatswain/Bosun A very important person on the ship. His main tasks include the inspection of the ships equipment and supervising the work that is done during the daily routine. He supervises the sailmaker and the ropemaker and is also responsible for maintenance of the sails, rigging and cordage. He is also responsible for the discipline of the ordinary crew in fulfilling their assigned tasks. During emergencies he coordinates the firefighting or other emergency procedures. Marine Captain/Seargent Another major change that I would like to see. Every warship has a certain complement of marines. No matter what and no extra books needed (we can talk about pirates who didn’t have them. Maybe everyone of them is a berserker ). I found some tables for the royal navy that showed the usual marine complement for every rate but I also think we could settle on some realistic values after a good debate. Back to the commanding officer of the marines. He is responsible for the training of his men to make sure they are the best at what they do. This includes offensive and defensive training with muskets, cutlasses, grenades and the deck cannons. A highly trained marine also has a higher morale and is a fierce fighter in a boarding action. To not make books absolutely obsolete I can think about a slot for every officer where you can choose a duty specific book or perk but I am not really a fan of this. Bonus Purser: I had no real idea for the purser but with the new patch and the introduction of doubloons I can think of one thing. Maybe the purser can hide a fraction of the looted doubloons during a cruise because he knows some place to hide it and in general is a sneaky bastard. This way there is always a part of your loot that is safe from the enemy in case you get captured. The rest of the crew: Now to the rest of the crew. Contrary to what I said earlier, we don’t need to know their names . But they are the most important people on the ship. They are the ones who fulfill the task that were assigned to them by their superiors. They should also gain experience with battles they survive and get better at what they do. I would say very small percentages that will add up if you are really successful and take care of your men. Now comes the difficult part. How does the game keep track of unnamed sailors? How do we manage that without killing the database with too much information? How to keep track if a part of the crew dies and then the player decides to change the ship, let’s say from frigate to SOL, where he now has new crew with different xp additionally to the remaining crew from the frigate. I couldn’t find a simple and satisfying solution for that. Is it even worth to make such huge efforts to keep track of nameless sailors? Although I would really want a totally persistent crew, I can't really think of a system that wouldn't be a huge pain in the ass, overly complex and a giant strain on the database. Perhaps you have some great ideas for this? So maybe we simply leave them as no-names and just make their performance dependent on the officers’ experience? But then I would still implement a morale and fatigue value for the ordinary crew. The morale of the ship’s crew is important for their performance. With decreasing morale their performance also decreases. We could argue if this should affect the speed of their actions like reloading guns, setting sails and turning of the yards or if it should only play a role in case of a boarding action. But I would prefer the former solution. The morale of the crew is affected by shock events on their own ship like rigging shock (maybe only when a mast actually falls), reload shock, and crew shock in a negative way but also in a positive way if the player inflicts a shock event on the enemy ship. Leaks, high fatigue and heavy losses decrease the morale. A crew/ship that initiates a boarding action should receive a very small additional bonus to morale hence they are the ones who take action and actively attack. In the case that an already heavily losing player initiates a boarding as a last desperate move, the small boost wouldn't really matter because he already lost so much more before. A loss of an officer also has a small negative impact on morale. Maybe you guys could think of more ways to affect morale, like being outnumbered, outgunned or gaining on the enemy but kind of complex and maybe just too much. Very important: Low morale should never lead to auto-surrender. This should always be in the hands of the player/captain. Maybe morale should also never reach 0 during the battle. Some kind of lower limit for this value. Fatigue should definitely affect the speed of the crews actions. Fatigue should start at 0 every battle and slowly increases over time. Very slow in the beginning and at an increasing rate the longer the battle lasts. With every reloading cycle of the main guns the crew gets more and more tired and reloads slower and their accuracy gets worse (Ok, impact on accuracy is maybe too hard). Every yard turn and setting of sails increases the fatigue level and lowers the speed with which these task are performed. Handling fewer sails could decrease the rate of fatigue gain. Pumping and repairing (emergency repairs) increases the value. Wounded soldiers returning to duty are more tired than fresh and healthy sailors (more to that below). A very high fatigue value also affects the morale of the crew (some kind of threshold that needs to be reached in order to trigger this). Both morale and fatigue should decrease/increase very slow at the beginning and should only have very small effects. With severe loss of morale and high fatigue levels the effects should increase dramatically. Morale loss and fatigue should also be a function of crew and officer xp (less if more experienced and trained). Now to the part which I already mentioned during the description of the surgeon. A new wounded state is introduced. Sailors can not only be killed and then magically brought back to life by rum but the casualties should be divided into dead and wounded. Only wounded can be treated by the surgeon and maybe return to duty. Also in case of a crew shock event like a very good rake, a part of the lost crew during that should slowly come back over time. I see no way around RNG here to determine how many are only in shock or just took cover and return to duty. The rest is either dead or wounded. Even better would be to have three states. Dead, incapacitated and wounded. Only a part of the wounded can return to duty in a battle. Incapacitated sailors can only be brought back after a battle. But, this is just a bonus. So how is this achievable? The way I understand our current crew loss system is that if a crew hit box is hit there is a probability calculation of how many are actually disabled. I don’t know if it is that simple to just add another probability calculation to determine if a man is dead or wounded. It would be a lot of rng and I know you guys don't like it but as I see it this is already the case when it comes to crew loss calculations? For officers I think that a similar mechanic could be used. If this image below of the hit boxes on the ship is still accurate then I would propose that at the start of a battle the officers are assigned randomly to certain hit boxes that are likely positions of the in a battle. Maybe add a few extra hit boxes because right now it looks like there are only hit boxes behind each gun (again, if this is still an accurate depiction of hit boxes). For example the surgeon down below in the ship, though it should be very unlikely that he gets hit there. Or assign the gunner to the magazine. A bigger hit box amidships where master and maybe (or maybe not) a lieutenant can be. And because this isn't complex enough already, we need another probability calculation on top for the officers which determines if an officer assigned to a hit box gets hit and killed/wounded. The chance to lose and officer due to enemy cannon fire is of course way lower than for the average sailor. But it can happen. So why all the fuss? Mainly I would like to get rid off almost all skill books this way (please don't stone me to death). With a sophisticated crew mechanic every players has the possibility to get a good working and effective ship. On the other hand the crew and their officers have more value than simply a bit of gold. Maybe there also develops a better connection of players to their officers and crew. This is for all the roleplayers out there. A surrender is a more likely option to safe the crew and prevent their total loss. This is where I come to my final point. Surrender. A historic aspect and probably the most likely outcome of a battle back in the day. What happens after a surrender? After a surrender the remaining crew and officers are safe. No dead officers equals no hard earned experience is lost, which would be the case if the ship sinks. Maybe you lost a few officers but that’s still better than all of them. Doubloons are assigned to the captor and all captains that did damage to the ship. The captor additionally gets a monetary reward for the remaining enemy crew and their officers. The value is determined according to their experience. This is simulating the ransom for the prisoners of war, which the enemy nation would have to pay to get their officers and sailors back. The captor gets a part of that from his admiralty. I don’t know if the captain who surrendered should be punished with a small real payment somehow. I would say no. It is debatable. Maybe the returning of the crew is delayed until he can pay his part (this would only make sense if we really track the xp of the ordinary crew, but see the problems above). The winner and captor is always paid immediately. An additional scuttle mechanic could also be interesting. Ship gets abandoned and set on fire while the crew escapes into the ship's boats. Crew is still captured but the ship is sunk. Maybe if close to friendly ships/forces the crew doesn't get captured. Then all doubloons would be safe. Interesting but I can also see a lot possibilities to troll and grief here. If this crew loss system is too harsh because you always lose all your experience when you sink we could talk about the possibility that a part of the crew and officers almost always survives via RNG. For example even if a ship sinks some swim away and get rescued by friendly or enemy ships (prisoners in that case and ransom/reward for the enemy). A small summery: Pros: the best possible ship performance isn't limited to players who have all the rare books bonuses aren't over the top if they are capped at reasonable values potential to make ship performances more equal or at least the difference between both extremes not so large even the best sometimes have to start at zero again crew has a real value and purpose a new incentive to surrender books can be wiped too at release (sorry) Cons: hard earned and grinded books become useless and all the work was for nothing too complicated and performance intensive harsh impact on database maybe frustrating if you lose too often and never really gain experience and knowledge many more I can't think of right now but I bet you can So this was a wall of text but I wanted to get this idea out. It is here to discuss and debate. I am not demanding this to be implemented. I often have some complicated ideas that might not really work or simply wouldn’t be fun in the long run and I just don’t see or realize it mainly because I have no clue how a game is developed or how hard to code it is. But nobody prevents me from posting it right? In my mind this all works best with my other idea thread about new gunnery mechanics and maybe even with an overhauled ship damage/hit box/penetration system (perhaps I will write something about this too some day)

So i'm reading one of the Alan Lewrie adventures (King's Captain, Dewey Lambden), which covers the Nore Mutiny of 1797. This was a major issue in the age of sail and i'm wondering if it has a place in the game. As all of you history buffs know, the mutiny was caused by a number of factors. low pay and pay in arrears, brutal officers, no shore leave for years on end and horrible food (issued at 13 ounces to the pound). Many games factor in "keeping the plebes happy". Could we have (and do we want) a "Mutiny" trigger in this game. It's a good add for the realism factor, but of course, gameplay should come first. To do it, the only way I can think is to institute operating costs for each ship you own. Adjustable by the Captain (you), if you pay more, you get a happy crew with high morale. Pay less and you get a surly crew. Leave them surly long enough and you get a Mutiny. Once a ship mutinies in harbour, you'd have to put up a lot of money to get it back. At sea, you could find yourself in a boarding mini game without warning and lose your ship. How will it add to the game? Some players will flat out hate this as they don't want any distraction from PVP, but part of this game is economy and that means covering your overhead as well as making profit. This could make the economic part of the game more vibrant. For your consideration, Messrs.

I am convinced the game would greatly increase in gameplay attraction if we would feel our ships being manned by PEOPLE and profiting from their personal talents, as they come or can get developed. This is a major suggestion with a great deal of changes, but with little expectation this gets accepted, it still should get heard, for some inspiration, parts of it or just a single idea for the minds of our developers. And it's all for free. Let's start dreaming: I wish I would find taverns in ports where to find and valuate seamen for my ships. Not a single mass of sailors, but categories of different abilities and some specialists alike. The idea mainly is, you are hiring crews with different qualities for different pay for different tasks on board and in buildings - which allows you to further shift priorities, in addition to the static ones your upgraded ship provides. Your ship will get influenced in performance in the known categories - sail handling (speed of increase, decrease of sails, turning speed) - cannon loading speed and accuracy of shooting - boarding efficiency in various tactics On land you get engineers who influence your production in buildings, add some more warehouse space or add quality in your merchandise crafting (maybe needs grades of quality - like standard/high/deluxe of anything which is fabricated and has effect on prices). Your purser maximizes your hold as storeroom because of his organization talent and finds for you better profit margins when dealing in ports with merchants. -- You hire ordinary sailors in groups in a tavern in every port you visit. Seamen groups are generated by game engine in qualification types, for a specialization field they provide a boost in. The better the group, the more you need to pay them. The lowest quality sort is crew which is pressed into service and thus the cheapest. This method of using press gangs you may have only in your own national ports, not neutral ones, and it is not available to Pirates. No wonder the pressed seamen are worst because you catch unskilled people and who resent to what is done to them. You may still forge them to something better during the trip, in crew training. -- Which brings me to the next point of my suggestion, the possibility of training crews during the trip in various disciplines so they gain in value. As a side effect, individual specialists may origin from those trainings (or ordinary service, battle instances) and you may promote them into your leadership group on board your ship. Training, drills and practising on board cost you silver coins. Losses in battle reduce your skilled crew just like the unskilled, so you will be more careful not to lose the professional ones. Generic losses come from illness and accidents during work on the ship, but not very often. As I already mentioned, above the crew groups of certain capabilities are a class of experts which are generated with names and individual statistics about what they have to offer to you. You may hire them as boatswains, mates, midshipmen, pursers, officers for battery decks, boarding commanders, master carpenders etc. They can get killed (will get removed finally from game) or injured (temporarily become unavailable or suffer from drawbacks in their skills for some time) in battle - or rarely during accidents on board - so you may want to order them to abstain from battle while the rest goes into boarding. Hiring those individual specialists and officers costs gold coins. So does promotion from lower ranks if a talent shows up (you are given a choice to accept or decline). Needless to say: top notch talents would be very rare. Another type of those specialists can serve you on land, to boost the fabrication of goods and get higher output for your mines, plantations, forests. -- The game would have a distribution system of crew groups and individuals which show up in ports and move on to another after some time, making it impossible for you to predict where you find whom (fun to search the port taverns for talent, therefore). I think it does not need great graphics to depict the taverns, just show crew rosters for each place who is actually there and what his specification is, the price and any conditions. From that roster you pick your men. Maybe 100 to 200 personalities would be created for the game and given generic names, who keep wandering from port to port until you or another captain finds them. A similar roster you will have for the ship you command and where you distribute men according to their talents. So you see where you can concentrate the benefits as you see fit, where the vacancies are and need replacements. A ship will still 'function' if you don't look at the roster at all and just hire standard sailors as you do now, but this way you miss fine-tuning your crew and their perks for the ship. Because a ship can only be as good as the crew on it. To give another personal touch to the whole thing, let some specialists need certain requirements for exposing their full quality (visible in same crew roster). For example, they may hate certain other guys and refuse to work if the other is on the same ship. Or they ask more money because they don't like the company. Or quarrels between sworn enemies reduce their qualities, or increase risk of one of them getting injured when they fight it out. - In fact all this what produces vivid scenery in our heads would just be mathematics in the background to determine what will occur. Maybe a morale system (outside boarding situations) would make sense in the context, as a more general performance factor. You increase morale by your successes in your voyage and by giving out grants to your crew altogether, or sending them to whores in ports (which lets me think of different whore qualities, but that is another topic and goes too far here ). -- Here some ideas for how to give a feeling of having human beings under your command. Make them as individual as personal, for instance: - person will only accept jobs on ship of certain size (he is thinking a small craft is below his honor) - artisans will only join you if you have a workshop or a shipyard (of certain size = equipment) where to employ them - person will only accept job if you sail to certain region of the Caribbean where he plans to leave you again - person has great luck in fishing and brings for you the best catches out of the sea - person is very skilled in finding hiding places in captured ships and thus reveals to you booty you would otherwise not find - especially blueprints, books, coins, permits. - carpenters work much better if you provide them with the best tools (by existing upgrade), same goes for engineers taking care of your production buildings. Hired specialists on land get installed like an upgrade with an outpost - any of your specialists may leave you again after a period due to personal reasons. Others may require another investment of silver coins to convince them to stay - some specialists may get killed during battle or (lesser risk) by accidents in the service. When wounded they are disabled while recovering and may still have a handicap after returning into service. Think of a lost leg or something like that. You have the choice of commanding them to stay away from fight to reduce such risks - but still they may object to that - you may find crew and specialists among surviving crews of captured ships and offer them to join your ranks. This could be a privilege for the Pirate faction. -- Not necessarily connected with the concept above, but added as an extra: [Finally, the system I just proposed could use a 'headquarters' or 'Mansion' building in your home port where you can keep personnel currently not assigned to ships and train them meanwhile there. If we take into account a headquarter would be the place where all your wealth is stored (instead of carrying it around all the time in your pockets and even staying at all times in your posession even when you lose your ship and everything), the people you station there provide protection to your belongings. If I develop this idea one step further, it becomes an interesting factor in the PvP world of port battles and taking over ports, because the personnel stationed in mansions of captains could get involved in the defense of the port and add resistance potential. You would be interested to serve the protection of your home port (via manning your mansion) because once it fell into the hands of the enemy, your wealth will also fall prey to the looters.]

The NA rulebook as per the present day states that: - Rum can be used to revive crew lost during battle All good and despite the name involved the mechanic does away with logistics necessary to conduct naval operations. Now my suggestion comes towards a multinational approach, as in game multi nations. Items that could be included as crew revival should be: - Tea - Bourbon - Wine - Cider Pros: - local access in any nation to specific item even when rum is not available - nation fluff if player decides - a yank privateer might pack some bourbon, a french corsair will go with fine wine, a tea totaller like pagan must go with Tea. Cons: - ... not sure.

Clarification: this post is about adjusting PvP marks distribution between two or more players who sank a ship. I would suggest to increase damage to 25 damage per crew (as opposed to current 15), as well as drastically increase damage for sails. Reason - killing 500 crew in Santi is harder than lowering just one side to 40% and gives a more significant advantage in battle. Killing sails is now also critical and requires more skill with limited chain. During battles usually everyone tries to kill sides, while people who are asked to chain and rake feel they are missing out on rewards. It would be great to have proper rewards for leaks which kill enemy as well, however I understand it's harder to code.

Are you satisfied with current visualization of crew on the deck? Compare our stupid canonniers and sailors of "total war" / "age of pirates 2". Growth in scale, increase the number of sailors, different movements and actions including boarding fights. (don't know actual status of new boarding) Game performance will not change: "disable" option, another quality...

Introduction I'm sure there have probably been posts on this, however I will give some more inspiration to this topic. I strongly suggest that this is done before release, since if this game gets media attention and high attention on YouTube (which it probably will) this would be a great feature. I suggest having visual crew on decks with each crew member performing actions according to their rank. After playing "Napoleon: Total War" and viewing the sea combat there I was inspired to post this. NOTE: I do not want this game to copy said game or any other. This game compared to others is done with much more detail and realism, so I find this feature should be detailed as well. I do not encourage copying in this post. A snippet from total war, where the crew moves across the deck Attention to details Not all crew should be modeled, but those who are should be very real and detailed like the rest of this game is. If crew would be implemented like this I would suggest a strong attention to detail. If you have your majority or all of your crew on gunnery, sailors should move away from cables and climb down from rigging and move to the guns. The x/y crew on gunnery would be determined on how many of your ships crew are at the guns. NOTE: Most of the crew will not have to be displayed as they are bellow deck. This means that the process can easily done with numbers and waiting times which does not reduce the frame rate compared to a drastic decrease if you would model all crew. If you have marines on board the marines should be displayed on deck. If you have extra hammocks, more crew should be on deck. If you used the Muskets & Pistols skill book there would be muskets lined up at the railing of the ship. Drummers could be on the deck on navy ships. If you have a crew shock, crew could be cowering on the deck and other crew members "shouting" at them to man their stations. You have boarding ladders or any other special upgrades? They would be shown in boarding. This would take a lot of time and probably a whole patchto implement, but it is definitely worth it. If you are a pirate your crew should be nowhere near as organized as other nations ships. Your sailors would not have an uniform and would move around the ship differently. ^^^ These are just a few examples what you could do if you model crew independently. This game already has an absolutely great system when it comes to sails and sail damage - Crew should be the same. Realism and non-cartoon ships is this games biggest selling point, so details should be there. Implementation This game is currently not released yet. There are much more important issues to tackle right now, of course. However this implementation would not be as difficult as it sounds. As said, all crew should not be modeled. Most are beneath deck in bigger ships and extensive modeling of all crew on smaller ships is not needed. Each cannon, mast, region on deck etc. would be treated as a small region of action. Although I don't know how this game utilities Unity 5 right now, I know this is definitely possible using Unity as an engine. For example, each cannon needs x/y amount of crew on it. If crew members "move" (none of this is visual except on deck) to a cannon, it would take a few seconds. Example: If you just got a broadside of grape on one side, crew numbers on cannons would decrease on that side more than on the other side of the vessel, if the grape shots even got to there. This would mean until more crew can man the cannons your reload speed would be affected on that broadside making just this a very tactical and exciting aspect in battle. Of course this crew system could be used in many, many more ways. Falling masts, stern rakes, angles in which you board a ship, sending crew to survival etc. are all possibilities. Some of these were planned to be implemented already - this could implement all at once. End note to the developers I really hope you consider and implement this way of having crew. It would add a lot of visual aspect and game play to Naval Action making battles more interesting. However I hope you tackle problems like User Interface, Tutorials, Economy... first. This thread will surely be edited a lot with feedback and more ideas. Check back later. Until then, thanks for reading.

I have some suggestions for some elements I'd really enjoy in the game. 1. Navigation I love the idea of exploring the open world map, but it's very boring and time consuming, and it can get a bit difficult at times. Having more navigation tools would make it a more immersive and rewarding experience. My suggestions are as follows: - you should be able to plot a course on the map, more than just a straight course with a protractor (if you need to follow a winding course next to land masses) - re-introduce the ship's present coordinates. Back in the day they would perform daily noon observations to work out latitude, and they had chronometers for the longitude... It doesn't have to be super accurate, but for example every day at noon the ship's current position can be obtained (if it's not cloudy or raining) and a cross placed on the map, so you can see where you are. dead reckoning with just orienting by islands is not enough, and it's too tedious. - a wonderful example of navigation tools is the implementation in silent hunter 3. again, it doesn't have to be super accurate, and indeed errors can be introduced, for example proportional to the number of times the ship changes course, turns, etc, and an error can also be associated with the noon observation? 2. Crew I think that for a really immersive age of sail experience, there should be more adequate crew uniforms. A captain pacing the quarterdeck would be really cool, and maybe even marines firing muskets when engaged battle, officers giving orders to the gun crews etc... If officers or the captain are killed, a morale shock can take place. At the moment the crew looks like a bunch of golfers taking their yacht out for a spin...

Hello guys, Sorry for the "zombie" title, but recently, I observe a strange thing from my point of view, in the game. During a boarding, against a player, he was able to "repair", to treat some of his crew, probably with the consumable rum. Happenend two time, in two differents fight. How the guy is able to do that? Thanks for your time

I captured a t brig and added it to my fleet, I moved half my basic cutter crew to it and sailed to Savannah with my prize. Once there, I was unable to split the fleet, it said I could not do it because I did not have an outpost there. I could not leave port because the basic cutter requires 28 min crew to sail and the t brig 18 for a total 46. My max allowed crew at my rank is 40. Trying to leave the port in a different b cutter would cause the loss of the fleet, don't care about the original b cutter, but did not want to lose the t brig. Furthermore, I could not sell the t brig if I couldn't sail it out of Savannah because I was not allowed to split the fleet in a port where I did not have an OP. The only thing I could do was to dismiss the t brig and not make any gold out of it. I could sell the loot in Savannah, or transfer it to the port warehouse, then to the b cutter hold to transport it to another port for a better price. So, my questions are: 1- Is there any reason/rationale for making this whole operation this complicated? 2- Why can't we separate fleet ships and sell them individually at any port regardless of having an OP or not?

So I move from the Basic Cutter to a Pickle, only to realize, after I have bought the extra 15 crew, that I do not have cash to buy the guns for the Pickle. So I go back to the Basic Cutter to continue grinding...to buy guns for the Pickle. On return to the Pickle, I realize I have to re-buy those extra 15 Crew for the Pickle... So the Cutter was using my bought crew to replenish its losses ... just wait a minute that ain't right!!!...crew losses on the Cutter should be recovered free of charge without going into my crew stockpile. Please repair this Devs...this is not very fair to any newcomers to the game.

Are there maximum range differences between guns of different calibre e.g. a 4 pound long cannon versus a 9 pound long cannon? Also, can i find information anywhere on how much crew a specific gun needs? Thanks in advance.

Hey Folks! Dear developers, can't you rethink the whole PvP systhem? ATM it is a chase or try to run, gank or be ganked simulator. Many things take way to much time, so the most people are running even it is a fair fight. If you lose a ship, all of your officers lives, your upgrades, or your cargo, it takes WAY to much time to rebuilt. For example, to craft a renomee, with, lets say pirate refit, copper plating and speedtrim, it takes at least 2-5 days, if you craft all your needed materials by yourself, and ship them from a city like Gustavia, or Wilhelmstadt, or other capitals. What abought a Constitution? 7days? Come on! I understand that players lurk each other in the real world, mostly at least just massive insult each other, if they sink there ship. The penalties for loosing ar way to high! So what hapens? Everybody is running from a fight if you can, me too. One dura ships btw. are useless, caus you will lose all your Upgrades, which are mostly not craftable, but needed.... So why not make dura a thing that you can restore with gold and time? So when you have your first rate sunk, your dura droppes to zero, but you still keep your ship and upgrades and you need to pay 500.000 and wait 2 days till your dura is restored? Maybe the ships with restored dura may become slightly woser (lower hp, speed and armor) than new ones, but still usable. Even captured ships gain a second chance and at least some use then. The trader not looses 100 % of there goods, maybe only 30%, and the corsair will get a propper reward from the admirality, or the 30 % of the goods. Why not? Will make it at leas less serious but more fun and less punishing. The officer with 10 lives is also a miscreation, so people will mostly surrender. Cause level up a new officer will consume up to 6-8 houres. More time to grind, then using time to play trough a normal AA+ game. Make the game less grind and less useless sailing around (when you attract more players, the ocean will get more populated). PvP ist the core of this game, so reduce the penalties of loosing a fight, and we all get more fights and more fun. Even if you loose one. Give normal gamers with 5-8 hours gametime in a week, a chance to have some fun (no not just with cutters), dont frustrate them with grind when they lose a ship ind PvP and give them the chance to participate in bigger Events, then we will have full servers all the time. Dont listen to the gamers who say, that achiving something must be hard work. It should be a challange, but not "hard" work. hold fast Karotte

Right now if you hire some extra crew you can magically access it in the post battle screen and have it appear on the ship. Opposite to this medkits spawn fresh crew out of fish and rum. It would be more realistic in my opinion if crew was only accessible in national ports and medkits could only be used to restore portions of the lost crew. (I know that realistic is not always better for gameplay, but this would add a nice touch)

I have been sailing the Bucentaure for a few days now and I'm having a pretty serious issue with it. My crew loss per mission is unbelievably high compared to my clan mates in ships of the same size. 200 + crew lost in each battle and not just from stern shots. Each broadside I take I see my crew drop by 5-10. What this makes for is an almost unplayable match and today i lost my Buce for the last time due to one point blank broadside from a Bellona which wiped out 330 crew. I know you history buffs will say "That's what happened at Trafalgar" and it is... The ship was rendered useless in one broad side. Yet i can put a full broadside into the back of a third rate or Bellona and only kill 30-40 crew. I'm now stuck with no big ship, no upgrades, and no money due to the fact i spent it on ships for my clan mates yesterday other than 1 last Buce which is (In my opinion) My least favorite ship in the game and practically useless for anyone who wants to do PVE fleet missions to level. I get the ship being a bit squishy, But the crew loss is too extreme when it takes more then the 160k-200k gold I'm getting from missions to recrew and repair the ship. Also for those of you getting ready to type away at how bad i am at the game and how you never lose anything save it. I'm excellent in anything other than this ship.

Leadership 1381/1100. Nuff said. I haven't got a clue how I got myself into this though. I have a suspicion though. Usually it happens when I do something stupid somewhere...

Warm greetings to both the developers and the community. I would like to offer several suggestions that I have been mulling over in my head for a while now. Captain Lord Cochrane beat me to the officers' suggestion, so here're a couple more regarding morale, NPC pirates and finding crew on open seas, and potentially dealing with the “surrender issue”. Since we already have morale play a role in boarding, I would suggest implementing the general morale system that would in effect produce morale for boarding actions. I envision a simple system of morale status from “joyous” to “mutiny” with minor bonuses/penalties in crew transfer speed, sail raising speed, etc... As I see it, crew morale should decrease following a defeat and increase following a victory. Several factors can be implemented that would affect the degree to which it would either increase or decrease, so that, for example, being ganked would result in a minor loss of morale, losing a closely matched PB would moderately decrease morale, and winning a fair PvP fight or PB would significantly increase morale. Other factors that would influence morale could include number of crew lost in the battle, profits made from a voyage (especially for pirates for whom that could be one of the main factors), successful escape from overwhelming forces, etc... This system could also solve the “surrender issue” by penalizing surrendering with a moral decrease. This way, since sinking is already punished by a durability loss and crew loss, surrendering would be similarly penalized by two factors: durability loss and morale decrease. In essence this would enable the transition from monetary rewards for damage to rewards based solely on ship destruction/capture from the admiralty and prevent exploits with people surrendering to each other to grind cash as their morale will plummet and they will face high risk of mutiny (more on it in follows) and decreased crew performance for any real battle. I would also love to see lower levels of morale progressively increase a chance of mutiny (which can be decreased by the presence of Marines on board and officers' perks). In the case of mutiny, however, I would want to see a captain lose his ship and be left in a rowboat (perhaps with a makeshift sail to facilitate faster return to nearest friendly port). This rowboat model could also be used to generate random shipwreck survivors that could be found in the open seas and picked up as free crew; this will help to liven up the seas and provide some free crew on occasion. The mutinied ship, would become NPC pirate ship and could be programmed to actively seek out and attack trader ships while avoiding and actively trying to escape battle with warships (perhaps admiralty rewards for capture of such ships could be introduced as well). Of course, mutiny and low morale levels should be extremely rare occurrences that would not deter players from enjoying the game. It can, however, add a bit of flavor and serve to prevent exploits. One should be able to increase morale from low to neutral levels through token “tavern expenditures” in port and victories over AI, so that high chances of mutiny will be attained only through neglect or extreme folly such as losing a warship to a trader in a botched attack. Essentially this system would provide minor bonuses (1-5 % range at most) to captains that take care of their crew and create a remote possibility of mutinies that would produce Pirate NPC ships and extra content. Ideas to improve these suggestions or potential problems/reasons for not implementing them are, of course, welcome.

Ahoy, Just a brief suggestion regarding the current crew mechanics. It strikes me as odd that they should be quite as expensive as they are. Of course I can see the point in making crew member valuable and to stop them being a magically replenishable resource like they were before. However, the cost of crew now does raise some issues which have been mentioned elsewhere; namely that it can sometimes be prohibitively expensive to engage in battle - many Captains are saying that they must PvE to fund their PvP, which is presumably not a desired effect of the change. For this reason my suggestion would be to separate crew into tiers, which are variably effective and variably expensive. This is both historically accurate as well as useful for the game mechanics. For example you could have three tiers of crew; landsmen, seamen and able seamen. My suggestion would be something like this: Tier Efficiency Cost Landsmen 0.5 0? Minimal Seaman 0.75 200 Able Seaman 1 500 These crew members represent historically accurate ranking of sailors. Landsmen were the essentially untrained hands pressed into the service forcefully or who chose to join the Navy for lack of better options - many unskilled labourers joined the Navy as it provided steady rations and income. These could be available from ports for no cost or at least next to nothing. Seamen were crew members who had spent at least a year at sea and who had learned how to perform operations abord the ship. They were basically useful crew members rather than the often confused and disoriented Landsemen. Able Seamen were those Seamen who had spent a long time aboard a ship and could "hand, reef and steer", i.e. perform essentially any function aboard the ship. Such skilled hands were valued most highly and for this reason there was competition between Captains for the best hands as well as the ever present temptation to press men out of merchant or indeed American ships to serve in the Navy, as these men were essentially Able Seamen (even though they weren't always granted this rank due to the accompanying pay bump!). In any case, the way I see them working is simple mathematics. If you have a crew of 100 Landsmen, your crew efficiency is 50%. So all operations aboard your ship are 50% as effective. You reload more slowly. You turn your yards more slowly. You raise and lower sails more slowly, etc. If you have a crew of 100 Able Seamen then you are operating at 100% efficiency and there is no delay. When you mix different crew members, you will get an average efficiency at which your ship operates. So, for example, a ship with 20 Landsmen and 80 Able Seamen will sail at 90% efficiency (unless I screwed up the arithmetic), etc. The good thing about this system is that it allows anyone to quickly fill their crew with unskilled hands if they don't have much money. Equally, they can splash out on a good crew which then becomes the valuable asset that the developers are striving for them to become. Finally, there could be a system of experience gain and progression for crew. Maybe no bars or XP bonuses or anything like that but simply that a Landsmen will become a Seaman after e.g. 60 days at sea, or something. There is also room for synergy between this system and the officer system. Maybe some officers make Landsmen less useless. Maybe some officers are better at training Landsmen to Seamen more quickly, etc. Anyway, that is the general idea - of course all the numbers would have to be tweaked and balanced. What do you guys think?

Good Morning Lads, late that night I was thinking about crew and officers and there status in the current build. Crew is, at the moment, a moneysink and not more. You loose crew, restock them with no drawback than loosing money. You can have a crew that is 100% skilled for boarding (thanks to upgrades), and with a few cliks you have a decent gunnery ship with no boarding teams at all. I am not a fan of this right now. Lets think about what "Crew" can be: Crew gets XP like the Officers and you can give Percs to them, like to your Officer. If you restock crew with newbies, you loose an according ammount of XP and maybe Percs. Respec your Crew should be possible for a decent fee (This could be used as a moneysink) Another suggestion is that the crew will get "Perks" by using things. If you fire your cannons you will get perks bound to gunnery. If you are making turns you crew gests better in sailing, and so on... Maybe in addition with the officer Percs, we all can get rid of nonpermanent upgrades. At least, formidable percs for officers will be for crew training not for faster reload, like: Friend of lashing - crew looses 10% less xp if crew members are restocked with newbies. Drill sergeant - crew gets 5% more XP and so on... Atleast... lower costs, or make them free of carge (in gold) for new crew (newbies) , make it possible to hire expirienced crew for a higher fee (no xp loss). Just my thoughts... Regards Jack Tar Karotte

Officer Perks Ideas - Focused Canoneer Very simple 5% faster reload speed - Doctor aboard Replenishing some of the fallen crew doing battle - Marine Officer adding a few mariens and making them fire at close enermy ships, damagin sails and crew. - Made for trade Officer know how to stack and optimize cargo space adding more % to cargo hold Modul Ideas - Flintlock Cannons Replacing the old matchlock stick with Flintlock on cannons making them fire quicker and less misfires giving a more focused volley 10 % to cannon volley speed - Sharp Shooters Putting rifels in the mast making enermy ships slowly lose crew if they get very close. Other suggestions Please add more crew model and animations, i really want to see more. Not only so u can add the Sharp Shooters and Marines firing, but also make the ships feel less life less.

Will we see more crew on deck in the future, its somthing i think could really make battle alot more fill with life. A few officers on main deck, some sailer pulling ropes, and some muskets / mariens taking shots at ships crew when they are close. I know the devs said that there will be no boarding animations like total war-ish style, witch is fine. But sometimes the ships feel kinda lifeless with the same cannoneers doing the same anitmation over and over. If i remember correct some people thougt it might course FPS drop adding in more crew, but if there wher an option to turn crew off for people with less powerfull PC that woulndt be a problem. I really hope to see mroe crew in the future

Hello everyone, After discussing my ideas about crew and level ideas with my clan, they suggested that I post here. Some of my clan mates feels that they’re good ideas that can complement or replace current systems in Naval Action. Player Ranks: The current system with crew members should be cut. Any captain could successfully crew a ship given the money, however they would be limited by the officers under them. Therefore, it would be best to have player ranks limiting the amount of officers one can command rather than its crew. To expand on this, if each low ranking officers (e.g. Midshipman) can only command 20 crew, and you’re limited to having two midshipmen’s, then the maximal crew you could command efficiently is 40. However, you could still take command with a Privateer of 60 crew, however your crew efficiency would be limited to only 67% (much like the up and coming patch, therefore the efficiency number is the same thing as crew). Advanced explanation: Your 60 crewed privateer who would have two midshipmen that are specialized would have two departments not impacted by the efficiency, e.g. if you have 1 gunnery and 1 rigging midshipmen, then those areas would be running at optimal efficiency if you only need 20 for each. The additional 20 crew members you would command would not be specialized, giving them a significant penalty to wherever they're tasked on the boat. The Officers: As one would progress through the ranks, they would gain further ability to successfully command more officers. A low ranking sea captain, might only be able to command 2 or 3 midshipmen’s, whereas a truly ranked captain could command multiple commanders, lieutenants, and midshipmen’s. Therefore, these officers would have a hierarchy, to where the Captain (you), might have 3 positions under him, as you progress through the ranks, you’ll be-able to command higher and higher ranking crew members (better stats/abilities?). Example: you start the game, and you immediately hire (start with) 2 midshipmen. After gaining your second level, you unlock a 3rd position under you, therefore allowing 3 midshipmen underneath you. On your 3rd level, you gain the ability to have one of those midshipmen be promoted to a lieutenant, of which he can command 2 more midshipmen, giving you a total of 4 midshipmen, and an effective crew of 80. After you would progress a few more times, you would finally unlock commanders, of which each commander would have two slots for lieutenants, and each lieutenant having 2 midshipmen. Every officer would have a specialization, such as gunnery, sailor, marine, rigger. With that in mind, each tree that goes underneath you should reflect these specializations. E.g. you don’t want a midshipman gunner under a lieutenant rigger. In my honest opinion, I believe that having officers in this manner adds a human element to the game, which it currently lacks. Lastly, officers would not have a quality, but rather experience themselves, as they level up they gain more ability (hidden or skill-tree?), but are capped by their rank. E.g. you can't have a Lieutenant who's as capable as a Captain. The Crew: Since this is a hypothetical post, why not expand it! Since we discussed having officers under you, why not have crew too? Crew could be the enlisted members of your ship, not directly impacting the stats of a ship, but rather being detrimental in nature. E.g. if a crew member is trained as a gunner, and you use him as a rigger, there would be a penalty. Furthermore, having the ability to pick every crew member could be quite tedious, therefore an option could exist to send your officers to town and hire crew (and automatically assign them). Each crew member of lowest quality (e.g. basic seaman rank), would cost nothing up front, but then would cost a daily wage (something small, but gets way costlier when you man your 1st rate!). If you wish to hire better crew members (e.g. able/leading seaman, petty/warrant officers), it’ll cost you a bonus payment in port (e.g. 5gold+ per depending on quality) plus their daily wage, which would also be higher than their basic seaman counterpart. Additionally, if you wanted to min/max (as many hard-core players would), you could specifically go to port and select each and every member of your crew (my god!), with ports limited on how many crew members of higher quality it can create per game day. In this system pirates would have to share their spoils with their crew, rather than paying a wage. E.g. If you capture a trader and sell the trader, your share might be 60%, and the remaining 40% would be distributed amongst your crew. Failure to adhere to your pirate standard would demoralize your crew, surpassing it would improve morale. Specializations: In my idea, there are four key specializations, Marines, Gunners, Riggers, and Sailors. Each are fairly self-explanatory with the exception of sailors, who are jack-of-all-trades. They can fulfill or complement any crew area with minimal detrimental effects. However, if one were to move a gunner to a rigger, there should be a substantial penalty for it. Lastly, future additions such as a Chaplain, Surgeon, and/or Cook, could give bonuses to the crew as a whole. E.g. Chaplain can improve morale, Surgeon reduce death chance, and Cook boosting morale as well. Conclusion: I feel as if these additions could really bring about a human element to the game, especially if they can die! (or at least have the chance of dying in combat) Please do not slaughter my idea, as it is just that, an idea.

Just something I've noticed, I know there's a good bit of griping about the huge amounts of sail/reload debuff we experience when our crews are killed past about 10%, and I'm sure that will be reworked sooner or later, but what's bugging me is that NPCs are almost immune to the crew debuffs. Earlier myself and several fleetmates were graping a Surprise to board it, and it was matching our rate of fire and tacking masterfully despite having 60 crew left. Were one of us in this state we'd have no choice but to disengage because reloading would take about 6 hours. I understand that the NPCs must present a healthy challenge to players or else everyone will be sailing around in captured heavy frigates and ships of the line, but excruciating crew losses for NPCs (especially in the realm of 25% crew remaining) should have quite a bit more pronounced effect on the ship. Having a 25% crewed ship that can tack like a dream and fire a broadside every half-minute is a bit of a stretch.