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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)

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.]

Would like to have these men and units in the game for recruitment or rewards for completing a battle. CSA: officers: James Kemper William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson John Singleton Mosby "The Gray Ghost" Joseph Johnston Edmund Kirby Smith Edward Porter Alexander Barnard Bee Patrick Cleburne Benjamin Terry Wade Hampton William Quantrill Units: The Alabama Brigade Louisiana Tigers Orphan Brigade Shelby's Iron Brigade‎ Stonewall Brigade Texas Brigade Laurel Brigade Terry's Texas Rangers Hampton's Legion Quantrill's Raiders ____________________________________________________________ Union: Officers: Robert Anderson Nathaniel Banks George Custer Abner Doubleday Arthur Macarthur Daniel Sickles Benjamin Butler George Thomas John Pope Oliver Howard William Starke Rosecrans Adelbert Ames Daniel Butterfield Units: Irish Brigade Lightning Brigade Vermont Brigade‎ Philadelphia Brigade‎ Michigan Brigade‎ Excelsior Brigade‎ Gibraltar Brigade‎ The Lightning Mule Brigade U.S. Horse Artillery Brigade Spinola brigade Mississippi Marine Brigade ____________________________________________________________ Wants: Would like to see a Civil War Newsletter for every battle pop up for realism Need to show the Division Commander as a Corps General unit so that i can keep him alive or know what brigade he's with. Division Commander's should have combat bonuses as well. Brigade cap at 2600. Custom battles within the campaign as a what if scenario. Defensive custom battles for CSA and Offensive for Union. Would like to see naval battles. Detach brigades into five regiments if in a tight spot or able to deploy skirmishers (x3). Able to dispatch all five Corps if available. Unit detail. Able to nickname Divisions. Artillery and Sharpshooters need more damage.

One feature of this game that is annoying me is the inability to promote officers to positions like having your character be major General to command a corps rather than start as a brigade, or when short of officers and having a major command a brigade. It also bugs me that later in the game I have major generals commanding brigades. I think the officer feature could be improved by separating the skill level from rank. During the civil war many officers gained high rank from their political connections and not because of their skill at leading and managing an army. I propose giving officers a set of skills like the unit skills which increase through experience such as leadership or inspirational. Maybe one or two skills. This skill then goes towards affecting the command and morale and efficiency skills of the brigade or division they are assigned to. The officer would automatically be given the rank appropriate to command of the unit e.g. colonel or brigadier or could be purchased for gold/rep as is currently the case. Officers could also be given special traits like for corps commanders but which affect their brigade/div to increase the rpg element. You could also have negative traits that appear either for historical characters or officers who get wounded in battle or if demoted like the system used in total war series. I would also like to see corps commanders be killed or wounded. For your game character maybe just wounded which means they miss a few battles. I would also like to be able to pick his portrait.

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

Hi all, Just a thought here. Obviously, it is a good function of the game to represent the decreased effectiveness of a brigade when its commanding officer is killed or wounded. However, in battles that represent multi-day affairs, there is historical precedent to allow officers to be appointed to fill those positions. I am not proposing the player get "free" officers, but I am suggesting that in the event of a multi-day battle, or if a significant phase completes, an option should be presented to assign an available commander to a division, move a brigade commander up into division command, and/or replace a brigade commander with an available officer from the barracks. There is historical precedent for this suggestion. While the decreased effectiveness might still be present for an untested officer, or one new to a level of command, there were ample cases when a brigade commander was temporarily promoted, or an unassigned officer took command of a formation mid-way through battle. The Battle of Gettysburg is the best example since it was a three-day battle that saw many changes in command of divisions and brigades. For the best example of what I am proposing, consider Pender's Division of Hill's Corps. Since Pender was wounded on the second day, his division was given to Major General Isaac Trimble on the third day, who at that time was an unassigned officer attached to Ewell's Corps. So, in a battle like Shiloh, Gettysburg, etc, after each day of fighting, a brigade commander could be reassigned (but not actually promoted) to replace a division commander, or if you have an unassigned brigadier or major general in your command, could be put into that place. It would encourage the player to have a small pool of unassigned field grade or general officers (maybe a couple colonels and a brigadier general) in case such an event was required. Again, for a single day battle no change in existing procedure in the game, and even if this were implemented, perhaps still a smaller malus to the unit to simulate a new commander unfamiliar with his command.

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.

So, as everyone playing the game knows, you can outfit your ship with officers, I've got a few suggestions and would also ask for some player feedback into what officers roles should be and how that would affect your sailing; if they go down with the ship or have a chance of getting onto the longboat and paddling to the nearest pirate port, whether they can be injured, gain XP and rank up just like you; or just simply be modules you plug into your ship, leaving all the captaining and micromanagement to you, though captaining a ship would be no easy task. Firstly I'll take a look at navigation. What I'd propose is, with an officer who fills the role of your navigator is access to your captains quarters (though in a 'locked' isometric position) where you would get to see your map spread out over a table, along with all the ports and their flags. When asking a basic/low level navigator where you are he would simply reply "Nearest to <portnamehere>", however as you got better navigators (or your navigator got better) a circle would appear around your ship on the map like GPS on your phone with bad sattelite reception, as the navigator gets better and better or the best one is got the circle would shrink until you had a very reasonable idea of where you were, along with the navigator telling you where the nearest port is provided it's on the map. Officer of the watch - This officer would stop you having to buy a 72" 4k TV to tell if there is a ship in the distance. Of course like the navigator not all officers are as good as others so you may still have to keep an eye open for ships he might miss. However, he would be tasked with one other important thing, logging ships and fleets into the ship's map a lower-level/rarity officer would have them as lines coming out from the ship indicating heading, but not exact distance, somewhat like the sonar map in silent hunter; as he gets better he will begin to mark the lines red, white or green according to whether they are neutral, an enemy or an ally (He would start with black lines), eventually he would work his way up the skill/rarity tree to map the ship's approximate location, heading and speed he would also give call when land is spotted and if it's uncharted you could have him and your navigator draw up a rough shape (accuracy dependant on how skilled both officers are) of an island that was not on your 'original' chart. As a pair the navigator and officer of the watch can map out shallows and put them on your map too. Bosun - (or whichever way you want to spell it), generally keeps the morale of your crew up and gives shipwide bonuses if morale is high (almost as if you had added more crew), he keeps you aware of your crew's status, if any are sick (if this is added in the future) or if they are annoyed to the point of mutiny due to a series of failed encounters and not having a captain of the correct rank controlling the vessel. Your bosun could also double as a carpenter or surgeon, the carpenter getting more effectiveness out of repair kits and allowing you to repair about 20% of your armour if in survival mode, though patching a ship up with bits of shattered ship takes time. Him doubling as a surgeon would reduce crew loss in battle and reduce crew loss during boarding and regain some crew who would have otherwise died during boarding, they would mend slowly over a matter of days depending on their injuries. If he is acting out other roles then shipwide bonuses would Gunnery Officer - Pretty simple this one really, firstly you can set him to fire broadsides if you wish, possibly manning starboard and firing salvos at an easily hit ship while you pick off the little guy in a gunboat. If he isn't on firing duty he would assist with aiming, giving you somewhat of a trajectory arc, as all other officers some are better than others. As well as that a modest increase in gun damage would be nice as well as the ability to have him suggest where to shoot (eg armor, rudder, sails; though this may be very difficult to code) if trajectory arcs are a bit too Assassin's Creed for you then let him widen the little red line, essentially adjusting guns on the fly to hit where you may have just missed. Just to add a quick edit here. Should ships with multiple gundecks benefit from only one gunnery officer or should you have to have one for each gun-deck or set him as a ship-wide gunnery officer who's task is just to maintain the guns and keep the firing crews trained, giving less bonuses to all the guns on your ship than say 3 gunnery officers for each gun-deck of the HMS Victory who would actively be running fire control for each deck. Edit: one more thing he would do is tell you how close your ranging shots are to the enemy ship rather than you having to fire and get a spyglass on the ship (a feat impossible/very very difficult in real life if you are controlling the gunner's aim first) naturally as the officer got better by way of experience he would be able to tell you how far you missed by, by saying "Your shot missed her" at the beginning to "You hit just short/long of her cap'n" to giving more accurate descriptions of how much you missed by such as "You only missed by a few yards short cap'n" as well as letting you know how well you are damaging the ship from telling you whether you scored a hit to whether the shot hit her sails (though ball going through sails would not count as a hit when he feeds back to you), her mast or her hull (higher levels would be able to tell you if you hit her on the waterline and higher levels yet would tell you if you have created a leak) essentially a high level gunnery officer takes you away from mundane tasks and allows you to focus on things like manual sails. Boarding commander - takes care of boarding tasks, gives a modest increase in turn rate and fire rate prior to boarding(once again increasing with experience or rarity) during boarding he gives a recharge rate bonus as well as a morale and damage bonus. If there are any roles I've missed, let me know and let me know how you feel about things. Main questions would be: - Should officers be bought from the store as an item or hired from the tavern (Yes I got most of those roles from Age of Pirates 3 City of Lost Ships; a great game with mods, though it is somewhat buggy). - Should officers require pay to function (a good bosun would lower their wages by keeping them and the crew happy)? - Leading on from this, if officers have an XP based levelling function should they level automatically (thus requiring you to pay them more) or should you need to promote them. However officers that have gone a long time with max XP and no promotion may get a little annoyed and demand you promote them or you part ways next time you make port. - Should officers die upon sinking? Or should those that make it to a boat in time (wounded officers are slower) so having "fill boat" and a countdown running until all officers are on board (at risk of your ship sinking and you losing all your officers if it's taking on water fast) then a command to "Scuttle ship and escape" Any and all feedback is much appreciated, even if it's a link from a devblog going deep into officer mechanics and you calling me a fool for not finding it (I used both the forum search and Google, neither turned up anything like this so I'm sorry if I'm making you read the same stuff twice) anyway, that's all I've got to say for now until I retreat to the batcove and think of moar stuffs.