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☸ Part VI - Modifier series guide: Upgrade book modifiers ☸ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ █ Ship crafting: █ Wood and trim modifiers █ Permanent Upgrades: █ Store - Refit & Note modifiers █ Store - Bow figurines modifiers █ Loot - Perma Upgrade modifiers █ Regular Upgrades: █ Store - Admirality book modifiers █ Loot - Upgrade book modifiers ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ To conclude the modifier series, here are the missing Ship Upgrade Books. Those can only be found in loot when killing AI or if you are lucky when a player sold one to a port. INFO: Since the last patch the names of the listed modifiers dont nececcarily match the names ingame. But the values are correct. All listed Items use a Slot as one Regular Upgrade aka Knowlege-Slot. A Treatise on Rigging Handling A Treatise on Square Sails Trim A Treatise on Staysails Trim Art of Proper Cargo Distribution Art of Ship Handling Barricades Boarding Axes Boarding Cannons Boatswain Book of Five Rings Expert Carpentry Handbook Fireships Gunnery Encyclopedia Instructions aux Canonniers LHorizon Balistique Mast Rake Aft Means of Directing the Fire Notes on The Best Rudder Angles Pellews sights Reinforced Masts Reinforced Sail Rum Rations Service Historique de la Marine Steel Toolbox Sur le Canonnage a Bord Table of Parts of Ships of War The Book of the Void The Complete Fencing Master The Fire Book The Ground Book The Water Book The Wind Book The old Flag Officer Treatise on Making Saltpeter Trim - Speed Trim - Turning Trim by the Stern Winged-out Ballast (State as of Patch 11.0)

A lot of people have the perception that pvp is unbalanced/unfair because they don't have the best books/upgrades. Why not make them all available in the admiralty store for doubloons?

I've suggested this several times in other threads before, but it was recently suggested to me to make a topic for it. Wall of text incoming. If you're intent on skipping it, skip to the bold part for the mechanics suggestion. I personally liked our old system of craftable upgrades better. You know the one, the old grey/green/blue/purple/gold system where you could craft most modules and upgrades using mid grade notes and some materials. But there were some very powerful, very rare modules (gold marines, carpenters, light carriages, etc.) that made that system no good. I understand the devs have worked hard on our current skillbook and permanent module system, and introduced new modules (however much I disagree with the need for them) so we probably won't return to that old system...so I'll propose a compromise in this topic. Now after the big wipe, I was under the impression that we were trying to move away from a mod-dependent system. Instead modules and books are now more valuable and more important than ever. And the worst part is, the common ones are mostly garbage! Nobody who is competitive uses Gazelle for +1% speed, when Bovenwinds, Navy Hull (granted that ones not super difficult to get) and Copper Plating all offer significantly better performance. And why use Optimized Ballast when there is Art of Shiphandling? The list of crap mod vs good mod goes on. Players who have played long enough, or are active enough, or are "good" enough will likely have access to these super rare modules. Heck I've got a full set on my main and almost a full set on one alt, and I'm well on my way to a decent set on a 3rd alt. But the casuals can't easily get them. This further widens the gap between 2000+ hours "I am pro--I sink players [noobs] 5 vs 1" and Mr. Casual over there who is playing an hour or two a week. I'm 100% for high quality rewards for players who are active, skilled, and get out there and get the kills, but those same rewards should also be available (at a very high cost, and via RNG) to those who maybe aren't so skilled. But when the ship you are sailing costs less than 1Mil to make and the modules you need on it to make it relevant in PvP cost over 2Mil, something is wrong. Here is a quote from this post by admin regarding future goals in NA http://forum.game-labs.net/topic/19703-forthcoming-changes-in-the-next-testbed-patch/ I took the liberty of emphasizing the important part. Granted that post is old, but I don't think the goal has changed? It shouldn't have changed. We should always strive to put people into the OW where they can willingly PvP without fear of losing a super-expensive ship. It has gotten to the point in the game now, that you pretty much need those good modules and books to be relevant in PvP. (I know someone is going to come along and say "I've gotten X amount of kills with a storebought ship and medium cannons. Hurr durr your point is irrelevant the system is fine!" blah blah blah.) Sure, you can get by without them, but you'll sink a lot, and most players get discouraged when their best 5th rate gets run down and wrecked by a 4th or 3rd rate because that big ship was running mods and books that they'll (seemingly) never have access to. Important note: I am NOT against speed-fitted 4th and 3rd rates. They are lovely ships and can easily find a balance in NA. Read on to see how. So here's the suggestion: (credit where credit is due, I'm sure I'm the first to suggest this stuff) Remove the useless speed cap. It breaks more things than it helps. Nerf Pirate Rig and Spanish Rig some (don't ruin the mods, just nerf them bit by bit till we find a balance). Nerf speed bonuses/negatives provided by wood types: the difference in speed between fir/fir and LO/WO should be less than it is now. Make all modules available in 4 ways: RNG loot, Crafting with resources and books, PvP marks, or Combat Marks (enormous amounts of combat marks, obviously). Introduce diminishing returns for stacking all modules and books of the same category (reload, speed, turn, hp) (stacking 2 speed mods @ 2% speed each does not equal +4% speed, instead more like +3.2%, stacking another 2% mod will yield a net bonus of something like 4.5%, etc.). The more you stack, the less you benefit. Negatives still stack normally, obviously. If you have mods that give different amounts, the highest amount will apply first, then the stacked values will diminish in order of greatest to least. This will once again provide room for "average" 5th rates and 4th rates to spread their sails on OW. They'll still get run down by speed-fit Bellonas, Ingermanlands, Endymions, Wapens, etc. (as they should), but the difference in speed between a failfit speedboat and a teak/wo "jack of all trades build" with one or two speed upgrades will be much less than it is now. Furthermore, the increased availability of books and modules means that everyone can be on a more-or-less equal playing field. There won't be room for people to say "I don't wanna go out and PvP because I don't have the right mods and I'll just get sunk," or "You only beat me because you have elite mods that I don't have." There will still be plenty more to balance regarding the bonuses we can choose for our ships (looking at you, useless wood types and pointless modules that nobody uses). But I think that if the broken DLC boats have taught us anything, its that high availability and low operating cost does increase PvP. I see some people going out to hunt and forming up in the coastguards who before wouldn't willingly PvP. But now that they have a ship that can be replaced easily and doesn't *require* expensive modules to function (pirate rig refit is cheap enough), they go out and fight. Thats good. Those ships still need balancing though, but thats well covered in other threads. TL/DR: Good mods are more valuable than standard 3/5 ships and that discourages casuals from PvP. Make the good modules and books more available and maybe we'll start seeing people leave port and sail out of the safezones. Introduce diminishing returns to discourage stacking that leads to outrageous bonuses. Thoughts? Is it a good idea, or crazy?

The title says it all, basically. Right now the overall effect of stacked mods with similar boni seems a bit extreme to me. While realism sometimes has to make way for playability and fun, I personally think that it's a bit ridiculous to have Ships of the line zoom around going clost to 14 knots. A speed stacked Teak/Teak Bellona for example easily outguns and outtanks a Wo/Wo Indefatigable, but the Indefatigable has almost no chance of running in such an encounter. This seems a bit overboard to me. (pun very much intended ) My suggestion would be to either reduce the effect of speedmods according to ship rating, much akin to the way knowledge books like powder monkeys have less of an effect on higher rates. Another possible solution would be to limit the maximal speed bonus to something like 4 % making stacking of more than two mods useless. The same principle applies to repair mods and skills. Sailing a ship with northern masters, steel toolbox and expert carpentry/combat carpenter reports, will essentially enable one to build half a new ship in battle. Granted those books are rare, and the mods are fairly expensive, but as long as economy is like it is, with some people having 100M gold or more in the bank, that argument goes in the other direction, creating a large non-skill-related gap between players. To be clear: This is NOT an advertisment along the lines of "Upgrades are blatantly overpowered, skill makes no difference anymore" . The final exam very much shows the opposite, as one can easily sink both AI ships without the rageboarding meta. Just takes a little more patience. This suggestion is about moderation and enhancing the importance of skill and patience. An expensive Upgrade has to have it's value, it just shouldn't knock balance out of the water completely.

Ok that title needs to be put in context... But, in many ports you can find the same old books, the basic stuff, pellews, boatswain 6-7 , rum rations etc.. and this is what I am referring to by 'too common' I'd like to suggest that these basic books be less common, I mean you only use them once, and increase the availability of the 'basic' upgrades. Many ports will have no upgrades at all, but they will have 7 different 'basic' books. Players use more of the upgrades than they ever will books. I'd also suggest reviewing the drop rates of these 'basic books' from AI ships, especially those above 6th rate. I'd expect most players will have collected the majority of the common books by the time they are fighting 5th rates, so perhaps they could be replaced with basic upgrades in the drop tables, or their likelyhood to drop reduced.

Clearly, upgrades are not all created equal... How is it that upgrades do not have BR?

I just tried to place a contract, and even though the price showed were for 1 upgrade I automatically placed a contract for 10 upgrades (and ofc were deducted the asking price x10).. As the richest man on the server, this isn't an issue but it will stiffle the economy for all smaller players..

Problem: As I see it experienced players gaining even more of an edge over new players through ship experience and upgrades/builds. For veteran players it upgrades + mods + builds means a player must have a PvE ship and a PvP ship if they want to do both. If they are on a PvE mission and are jumped they are at a disadvantage or if they want to now PvP they have to sail back and change to their PvP build (how many times have I seen/heard "let me go back to port and get my PvP build..."). Evidence: Two players encounter each other in OW, both of them in say a Lynx. One is brand new and the other is a veteran. The new player has a base ship (say oak with oak planking) and medium 6pdrs with no ship knowledge and thus no upgrades. The veteran player can use his ship knowledge + permanent upgrade slots to fit a combination of, what.. seven out of FORTY SIX different Upgrades that when stacked can give (him as a singular example) +16% hull penetration (Bow Figure - Rattlesnake + Almeria Superior Gunpowder) or +22% hull penetration if you can stack Guacata Superior Gunpowder on top of that - not including if he is using 6pdr longs. 46 upgrades is way too many - especially coupled with the various wood combinations and planking and then add Officer Perks and you can have a crushing imbalance for a new player to try and overcome. Are all these upgrades really necessary? What do they add to gameplay other than imbalance? Why does a veteran and experienced player even need these things? The example I gave above is regarding guns but the issue travels into the speed meta problems as well. Having a handful of speed mods + wood choices + officer perks and suddenly you are untouchable in your Wasa (or pfrig etc). You can gank and run as you choose and none can touch you. Solution: Level the playing field. Officer perks are gained through experience and they provide any sort of "mod" abilities across all ships. Ship "knowledge" is Ship Veterancy and takes the form of purely cosmetic effects like sail colours or paintjobs or signal flags. Number of woods reduced to 4 or 5 (not 8) and values tweaked accordingly. In Conclusion: A player shouldn't need a PvE ship AND a PvP ship. More Byzantine systems of mods and tweaks and upgrades and perks and woods do not great gameplay make. Getting people on the water and letting player experience and knowledge decide a battle is far more fun, realistic and challenging than who has the better upgrades/speed meta.

I could not fit in a slot the new upgrade "cotton sails" having already bowenwind refit o spanish rig refit o pirate rig refit (and vice versa) Is it work as intended or not? (I guess not since Cotton sails is not a "refit" upgrade, so It should stack with the sail refits)

Dear Devs, PLEASE change the running system of inter-dependent ship XP gaining, because of the following reasons (anybody else who thinks the same please add other reasons you have): 1. For me it's a massive "fun-killer" in this game to grind XP on lots of ships i don't want to sail, just to get the upgrade slots to the maximum on vessels i would really like to sail! 2. For me it's a massive "time-killer" too - Naval Action takes time, yes, but on the contrary to trading and so on, this grinding for XP feels useless and boring to me. 3. If you play Naval Action - for a certain amount of time - you have to sail in smaller ships or ships you propably won't use again later on. Everyone has (had) these time, that's ok. But the current inter-dependent XP system prolongs this period artificially in such an extreme way that it feels everything else but ok. 4. The grindig in it's current state can't be supported by historical data: Back in the days, to become captain of a ship of the frigate-class for example, noone would have had to sail every differnt kind of lower classified vessel. AND if someone has already been captain of a certain frigate he wouldn't have to sail a lower classified ship again just to be able to get the command of a frigate different to the one he sailed at his last command. Because of these reasons please abolish or at least change that system! You could change it like this for example: A. Make it easyser, better fitting to historical data and much less a grind, if you change it, so that everybody needs just to sail a random ship of one tier to be able to get every ship of the next tier to maximum upgrad slots. For example: If one sails a cutter, lynx or other 7th rate to the maximum amount of freed upgrade slots, he / she would be able to do so with every 6th rate and so on. B. If you want people to sail small ships open areas where they just could sail 7th rates because of extreme shallow waters (someone else has already mentioned this idea in the forums i think) and abolish that whole system of inter-dependent ship XP. I really like Naval Action but in this particular case i beg you: Please take ACTION to make it a LOT better!

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

Dear Captains. It is an important announcement. As promised last Autumn - we are bringing significant changes to your vessels that will streamline and improve the experience removing a lot of pain points from ship fitting and crafting. It will also solve the problem of ships being less expensive than some upgrades. Here is what will happen. Ships Ships lose their quality levels - as it was deemed redundant All Ships become have 1 durabilty as it should have been from the start All captured/crafted ships are grey You accumulate experience level sailing that particular vessel By sailing that vessel you unlock better options for that vessel class. If you lose that vessel in battle you still have that experience and can use those unlocked better options in the future. Example - after a lot of months at sea in the surprise your surprise will surprise any fresh leda captain, if you lose that surprise you still know how to sail it well. You don't need to search or worry for rare upgrades anymore (if you have them) Upgrades Upgrades/refits are no longer craftable. Upgrades/refits lose the quality level and no longer can be lost. Upgrades/refits finally have size requirements. (large pumps can only be installed on large ships) Upgrades/refits can be received in the admiralty and/or as loot items Upgrades/refits are basically turned into ship skills Example: If you have Spanish Silk Sail and a Naked angel figurehead - you won't ever lose them if you lost your ship Crafting Regional bonuses turn into refit items/blueprints Shipyards will be brought back Example: You can buy bermuda refit in bermuda, bring it to shipyards in Port Royal and refit your ship there These changes will make all existing ships obsolete and impossible to use due to database structure changes. As a result all ships and upgrades will be removed/deleted from the game ETA - Estimated time - within 30 days but not less than 2 weeks from this announcement. Changes will be rolled out to testbed first All current crafted or captured ships will be removed from the game All Upgrades will be removed from the game All Permanent upgrades will be removed from the game Ship blueprints will not change significantly so you can and are encouraged to stockpile resources and materials for ship crafting after the wipe. Apologies for all the inconvenience caused.

How long does it take to get back ships/upgrades you lose when the game messes up? I've sent in two F11's regarding my two missing ships and several missing upgrades and was wondering how long the wait time is.

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

I advocate a more flexible construction/modification feature in the shipyard. I want to be able to trim the ship fitting my play - in this case making my traders fast, dumping all main guns to achieve more speed and fitting a couple of HEAVY stern guns to slow down pursuers. The ship mod section (and initial construction page) should have sliders to select weight, speed, gun sizes, gun placements, rigging quality, hold, powder storage, ammunition, crew selection (number of gunners, sailors, marines...) and all of course having results in speed, stability tonnage and so forth shown... Then I can make fast raiders with light broadsides, speed traders with only stern guns or heavy Corvettes for pirate hunting.... All in all this will make gameplay more interesting as all will have different preferences, so you never know exactly what you are up against. And in fact more period exact - just look at how all the ships stolen from Denmark were outfitted with heavier armaments by the brits and thereby got slower..... regional bonuses and some upgrades could stay in slots but many would be better integrated here

Hello, captains and devs! I would like to discuss an issue with capped ships and upgrades. Yesterday together with a friend we capped nice exceptional Bermuda Cedar Pirate refit Frigate. Last week before Bridgetown PB I also was able to cap nice LiveOak strong hull Agamemnon. Both are very good ships (though for different purposes) and I will be happy to sail them. Except that I won't. Cause to outfit such a good ship to be competitive I require 8 yellow upgrades which boils down to 32 mid grade notes. And this is too much risk for guy like me to sail one dura ship and risking to lose 32 mid grade notes. And the first rule of sandbox PVP game - don't sail what you can't afford to lose. So from my point of view capped ships are almost useless now. Just because on one side you can quite easily aquire 5-6 yellow regular upgrades and just trade them from ship to ship without risk of loosing them if you don't like living on the edge sailing 1 dura ships with upgrades installed. And spending 3 permanent upgrades for 5 dura frigates once in a while is not a big deal. 1st rates are quite another thing but outfitting 1st/2nd rates SHOULD BE expensive so I am ok with that. What I am not ok with is to cap enemy ship and have all permanent and regular upgrades magically dissapearing from it rendering it useless. We have 2 kind of solutions for that: 1. Make all ships one dura. This is pretty good solution - if devs will implement it I just assume we will cap ships with all upgrades installed. Nothing to be said more on this. But I think 1 dura won't be accepted well by a "whining" part of the community. So maybe we can discuss another solution. Introduce upgrades durability. Make all upgrades have like 5 duras (or any other agreed number) after crafting. When ship is capped or sunk all installed upgrades lose durability. Capped ships have 1 dura and all installed upgrades will have 1 dura. You can put 5-dura upgrade on a 1 dura ship and if you lost ship you will still have 4-dura upgrade with you. The concept may be a little "magical" and "ahistorical" but it's no more magical than ships having more than 1 life. So let's discuss pros: 1. Finally you can sail capped ships and be competitive. Even better - now for really good capped ships they will come with upgrades preinstalled. 2. It will create natural sink for upgrades. Currently I can just craft 5-6 yellow regular upgrades and use them between all my ships. I need to craft/aquire them only once and use them forever. 3. It may shift OW battling from 3-5 yellow upgrade meta. For PB most probably everyone still will use the best they have (like now with 1st rate PBs) but for daily OW hunting people MAYBE will tend to more casual upgrade quality. Cons: 1. whining part of the community will probably tell it will make crafting more "unbearable" than it is even now (For god sake I had to spent around 5 hours of real time in a week to get myself a yellow Agamemnon!) Discuss!

Here are some suggestions that in my opinion could improve game play in some areas. At least, if technically possible some of these should be tested/assessed. SHIP NON-PERMANENT UPGRADES _______________________________ The easy way to address the non permanent upgrades would be to look at reality. If I have 2 ships, I most likely will have a set a amenities in each and they will not appear at the docks magically for availability in an upgrade window before I set sail. It's a convenience that is not possible in the real world unless the ships are moored next to each other. You can't just move all upgrades out of a boat in one place, teleport 400 miles away and voila! all the upgrades are still here ready to be used in another boat. Granted the teleportation is needed to help game play otherwise we would all get old and senile traveling for days between areas on the map. (reduce the map so everything can happen in real time?). In short, make the non permanent upgrade that are in one boat, only transferable to another boat in the same port. If you want to move them to another port they have to travel by boat in the hold or be sent by delivery system in free towns. BATTLES WITH ONE DURABILITY SHIPS _________________________________ The ideas below pertain only to battle end game and not to boarding mechanics. At this time boarding is the only way to capture a ship in PVP. I would propose an additional way to capture a ship during battle: I again take inspiration from real world for guidance. I don't think that captains would let ships sink so easily whether on the defending or attacking side. The loss of life alone, including their own would be enough incentive for the losing captain to make an effort toward the survival of the ship. For the winner, the prize is one of the incentives for getting in the fight. The ship can be taken and added to your own war effort, the crew taken as press gang, etc... Also I don't think that wooden ships sank that easily as they do in the game. I understand that we need to have a clear "win" or "loose" status for game play clarity. However this create a loss of opportunity in other areas. Once the majority of the crew has been dedicated to keeping the boat afloat and can no longer fight... Once the pumps can't overcome the water coming in and repair kits have been used... Once the main mast is down after repair kit has been used... (insert more instances of unrecoverable loss here) I would think it's time to cry uncle and maybe, once this level of damage is achieved (when water line is high enough that cannons are inoperable for instance but boat is still afloat?), the white flag should come up automatically in the game, declaring a "stranded status" as the damaged ship is no longer maneuverable, no longer in the fight, and is not as much to be boarded as it is to be rescued. At this point the winning side would have a certain time limit to board the ship before it sinks, assign crew to it, use repair kits of its own to prevent it from sinking, etc... If they fail to get to the stranded boat in time, it is doomed and sinks with all hands. The losing captains loses boat, crew and officer. If they get to it in time, on the losing side, part of automating this end game process gives the vanquished captain the choice to surrender this one durability boat as well as surrender his crew to replace the lost crew of the winning captain in exchange for keeping the life of his officer. If he refuses he basically refuses to be rescued and sinks with all hands, looses the boat, crew and one officer's life. So choices, are surrender and you keep your officer's life or sink and loose all but deny the winner from taking the boat and crew. This is not a boarding battle, it is essentially a rescue. This potentially would make ships themselves stay longer in the game and change hands in a more diversified way as battles go on. Ship would still sink regularly when they are not salvaged in time or when captains refuse to surrender. You might loose you ship and capture it back at a later date which is an incentive to not let it sink in the first place. Some ships might become famous for having been captured many times and survive many battles which brings up the next topic: SHIP PAINT AND CUSTOM NAME __________________________ Once ships have more chances to survive battles and becoming famous it would be nice to give them personality by allowing custom ship names that stay with the boat once christened as well as making custom paint readily available at ports to give them distinctive character. Paint is not something special in the world of ships. Maybe gold leafing or special custom figureheads could be rare items but not paint. Making "rare" ships has also the unwelcome side effect of captains avoiding combat to preserve the custom paint of their "special" ship. This behavior alone degrades the quality of PVP on the server. DEALING WITH CAPTURED SHIPS ___________________________ As much as I like to teleport a captured ship it should not be possible to cross the entire map at the click of a button. You capture a ship, you deal with it. When a ship is captured, the victorious captain must assign crew to it after emergency repairs have allowed the ship to stay afloat, then it can be added to the FLEET and sailed back by the regular open world sea ways. If the captain already has a full fleet (2 slots as of now) provision should be made in the game mechanics for towing the captured ship without fully crewing it and of course taxing the open world speed accordingly. ​There should also be an option in the event of multiple ships captured, to allow the victorious captain to either to pass the control of the captured ship to a clan's mate or group mate. __________________________________________ Thanks for reading this far, please critique, comment, improve etc... -T

Just a suggestion: why not adding a new category of upgrades (maybe for permanent slots) and/or perks that affect OS performance? I.e.: add speed downwind add speed upwind improving the radius of the tagging max distance (useful both for hunters and for preys) improving the distance at which you can spot a boat on the OS (useful for prays) diminishing the distance ar which you can be spotted on the OS (useful for hunters)

This game has a lot of potential! In fact, it could be the best Civil War battle game made. However, it's missing some pieces. I wouldn't post this if I didn't care but I think Game Labs actually cares what the players think. Here are crucial elements that affected my gameplay. They seemed minor at first but got really annoying after a while. I will make a block of text Italic when its background information for supporting my complaint. 1) Confederate Army Has Obvious Advantage That Goes A Bit Too Far This is a complaint that some other players have said and after playing with both armies, I totally agree. The CSA has a distinct advantage over the Union. At the start of the war, the CSA had a distinct advantage in generals and quality of soldiers. Many of the generals had experience with the Mexican War 13+ years back and the men who made up southern army handling guns from the time they could walk. What's more, people from rural backgrounds will most likely be able to handle the rigors of long marches, lack of food, lack of adequate shelter and stress much better than their city counterparts. Having said that, as the war drew on, this advantage disappeared. For one, many of the best southern generals were killed and the northern soldiers were catching up. By the summer of 1863, the quality of soldiers from the Union was pretty close to their southern counterparts. The reason the Army of the Potomac was losing battles had nothing to do with its soldiers. From all accounts, the men who were present at Fredericksburg, 2nd Manassas and Chancellorsville were as brave as you can be. It was the successive appointments of unqualified and incapable Major Generals (many of whom got their position by their connections in Washington) that were responsible for blunder after blunder after blunder. Now...back the the game. The Confederate troops are unrealistically better than the Union. Its overblow to an obvious level that gets frustrating quickly. They can withstand the worst of situations (very low moral and condition) while the Union troops seem to run at the first volley that gets fired at them. Every charge done by the CSA ends in a route for them. Pressing "charge" for any Union unit is a complete waste of time b/c it never works. They always loose the melee. The Iron Brigade and Vincent's Brigade were not the only decent units at Gettysburg. 2) Infinite Artillery Negates Union Artillery Advantage There should be a limit to the amount of shells each artillery unit has. They either need to run out until the next battle or have to resupply. The only advantage the Union army has in this game is its superior artillery. They have more artillery most of the time and can be better concentrated multiple artillery units because they have shorter interior lines. You can really mass artillery units together to help make up for your poor quality troops. The amount of artillery available to each army is relevant to the battle. Some may call me nitpicking but this has a HUGE IMPACT on the battle. The CSA had enough cannons but couldn't resupply them as fast as the Union. They lacked quantity of shells and the supply wagons that carried them were significantly further back. This could never be more true than during Pickett's Charge. The whole plan of General Lee was to bombard the center into smithereens and then send 15,000 into a softened center. Problem is, they ran out of artillery ammo shortly before the charge started and couldn't support the army. They had more 170 guns massed in the center to the Union's 80 but spent their whole supply during that two hour artillery barrage. While they were charging on the 3rd day, the Union artillery is mowing the rebels down before they even hit the fence while the Confederate guns are silent. In essence, I'm saying that if you're going to make the Confederate soldiers so much better than the Union then you need to make the Union's artillery advantage equally better than the Confederate. As the game stands, the Union has a small advantage in this department but not enough. In this game the CSA wins the 3rd day with too much ease. The Union artillery doesn't do enough to break their ranks up and the Union soldiers crack. When I'm doing Pickett's Charge as the CSA, I can put the troops on autopilot. I told every brigade to charge towards the center and won with ease. Main reason: the Unions primary advantage on this day is highly mitigated. Note: I know the 3rd day is hard to replicate because no Gettysburg game has gotten it right. Sid Meier's....same thing. The artillery of the Union, as programmed, can't do enough damage and their soldiers can be easy overwhelmed. 3) Seminary Ridge Needs To Be Further From Cemetery Hill They are way too close. They need to be distanced. One of the reasons why the 3rd day is so unrealistic is because they CSA seems to only have to charge a couple feet to get to the center line. This make the 2nd con I just mentioned more pronounced because the the Union gets a 1-3 good shoots before the Confederates are upon them. 4) Stuart's Cavalry Has Too Big A Footprint It seems awfully easy for Stuart's cavalry to to flank me from behind on the 3rd day. Custer's men don't put up much of a fight (even though they win a battle one day later) and the southern cavalry easily charges through massed volleys. I find myself having to divert an insane number of men and artillery to keep him at bay. No matter what his casualties are when I do this, he regroups after a couple minutes and charges at me again. Unrealistic! Harass. Maybe. Attack supply lines. Yes. Disrupt. Yes. Maybe I'm wrong but I never remember horse cavalry attacking the main army in massed formation like that. Bufford could be used to counter my argument but he was doing more a delaying action that anything and they were dismounted. 5) Defense + Entrenched + Hill Advantage Seems Weak In This Game The Union's good ground is not emphasized enough. You get a slight advantage but its not enough. It's not that hard to overpower an enemy entrenched on high or entrenched ground. High ground is one of the main reasons why the Union won the battle. It is insanely difficult to attract an enemy that is entrenched on the high ground. He is stationary with usually some sort of cover and you are walking at an incline with less cover. Malvern Hill=Union Win, Gettysburg=Union Win These were the only times the Union had the high ground. The Confederates had this advantage in all the other battles and won or the outcome was deemed a "tactical draw." The hills need to be bigger and harder to penetrate without some extreme flanking maneuver. The stone walls need to give the Union Army in the center more of an advantage. Plan of Action Make the Union army not so weak Make the artillery shells a finite resource that needs to be replenished (won't mind overly weak Union soldiers at present state if this is implemented) Fix map to make the distance between Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Hill further apart. Make calvery more susceptive to mass artillery fire. Make the defensive advantage an army gets more pronounced. The offensive player during the Civil War had the harder mission and should be reflected in this game.