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Hi all! After leaving my feedback regarding the Ship Designer - in my opinion the most interesting and unique selling proposition of the game - in multiple threads I decided to write up a summary of what I would like to see. The whole thing is aiming to improve flexibility and create more interesting (and less repetitive 😞 ) Designs! As a Start I would expand on what we can do on the Hull! These steps are marked as H1 to H11: H1. Hull Selection Fewer hulls needed as the hull itself becomes part of the design process. Example: tumblehome, pre-dreadnought, dreadnought, fast battleship. Each hull comes with a tonnage restriction (eg. something like 20.000 - 50.000 t for dreadnoughts, 30.000 - 100.000 t for fast BBs, etc.). H2. Tonnage Slider As today but instead of simply lengthening the hull it would make the hull bigger in the whole (lenght, beam and draft) -> scale in all dimensions instead of just lengthening H3. Lenght-to-Beam Slider Change the hull form within the tonnage. Has impact on seakeeping, speed, turning, accelaration, stability, etc. H4. Freeboard Slider (UPDATED) Has an influence on stability, buoyoncy and target size (hit propbability of the enemy). Alternatively a simple high / medium / low option as proposed by @Cpt.Hissy . For me it is important that this is represented in 3d meaning a „low“ freeboard ship would sit deep in the water. H5. Speed Slider Desired top speed as today. Determines needed power output. H6. Selection Bow-Section The bow has influence on seakeeping, speed, stability, etc. and is visually represented in the 3d model. - Ram pronounced - dreadnought bow - straight bow - slight positive - pronounced positive / clipper bow H7. Selection Stern-Section The stern has influence on seakeeping, speed, stability, etc. and is visually represented in the 3d model. - cruiser - round - transom H8. Selection Flush deck or step? (UPDATED) Possibility to add: - Forecastle - step - or flush deck As @Cpt.Hissy mentioned, maybe there are better ways to achieve that. But in general iT would be good to shape generally the form, and decide if you want a step in the deck, a forecastle or just a flush deck. H9. Selection Propulsion As today (triple expansion, turbines, diesel, etc.). H10. Place machinery Spaces Machinery space volume required based on all above criteria is calculated and represented as a couple of slices of the hull which can be moved fore / aft to be placed within the ship. These could be split up or placed next to each other, eg. in the center. Machinery spaces will not allow centreline primary guns over them. I would suggest to allow "side" primary gun turrets over machinery space though. Funnels can only be placed over machinery spaces. There should be a couple of seperate sections of these to be placed, eg. three. Machinery Space Section marked yellow (red means no placement of primary guns at the very ends of the ship). H11. The osther selection boxes could mostly remain as they are in my opinion. However - I don't like the "Bulkheads" Slider at all! It is simply a matter of "the-more-the-merrier" thing. I would replace it with some selection box potentially like the one for double bottom. General remark to the Armor: I am one of the few who don't mind the armnor settings through thickness on certain parst. However there is currently an issue how the program determines "main belt" - it is the center three sections of the ship regardless of what's inside. I would propose a dynamic "main belt" calculation based on the first main gun or main gun barbette and the last one and including all the machinery spaces. Once the hull is defined we can come to the modules which are currently added in the center section in the lower part of the designer. To give the player the possibility to create much more diverse designs the current modules are split up into more granular categories - named M1 to M7: M1. Casemate Deck (UPDATED) Possibility to add an additional deck below the actual superstructure. As mentioned by @Cpt.Hissy a few predefined models would most likely suffice here. It would be great though if the length of the deck could be changed to create longer or shorter ones and if Barbettes could „snap“ into the very ends of the deck (same for the step in the deck btw). M2. Bridge Module Lower half of the current "main tower" module. This module includes basic fire control, damage control, spotting, etc. values M3. Mast Module On top of the bridge we would put a mast which provides different bonuses to the bridge base values - Spotting top (mostly spotting bonusses) - Tripod Mast (spotting and long range accuracy) - Pole mast (spotting and long range accuracy) - plus some more modern masts, such as the thick Bismarck mast, the Dunkerque mast, etc. as stylish elements (spotting and long range accuracy) M4. Rear Tower Module Mostly like today but it must be easier to combine them with other modules, eg. smaller modules M5. Funnel Module (UPDATED) We certainly need more funnely, bigger funnels and so on! But most importantly I want to place funnels ANYWHERE over the machinery spaces and on the superstructure and casemate deck over machinery spaces. And we need these thick trunked funnels and such 🙂 Edit: after thinking about it again and reading the comments I think every machinery section should have their own funnels. So the program should allow for placing funnels anywhere over the machinery spaces. Funnels should „cut“ through casemate decks and bridge structures if possible — with some exceptions like the coming tower part. M6. Main Guns and Barbettes With all of the above it become easy: you can place main guns and mnain gun barbettes ANYWHERE on the ship - safe bow and stern and machinery spaces for centerline armament. I would propose to allow side mounted main guns over machinery spaces to simulate that they sit to the side of the engines, boilers and such. Plus: make it so barbettes are represented in the correct size in the 3d model which should be relatively simple to do as the program knows the turret ring size - as proposed by @SonicB M7. Secondary guns and Barbettes Secondary Guns should be able to be places ANYWHERE safe the very bow and stern section. It would be awesome if placing such guns could "CUT" into the casemate deck if placed there. No idea how difficult that would be to do. AI Designs: we discussed multiple times that the AI needs support to avoid these "Clown Car" Designs - well for them just put a couple of hardpoints and presets in the background - but leave the players the freedom! Thanks all for reading and hope you like it!

Let's dive right in: this game could have been great. It could still be great. It would be even better if the development team actively communicated—or at the very least, hired someone to communicate—as they gave out in the past, but that's neither here nor there. We're not here to beat a thoroughly dead horse. Instead, I'm here to present some (relatively) minor quality-of-life improvements that I've compiled from my experiences playing this game: things I wasn't quite satisfied with, or thought could be done better. This is an alpha, after all, and we're here to test and provide feedback. Here's the feedback. Battle Better divisional organization—if we are not allowed to pre-determine the divisions and their heading prior to entry into combat, the game should stop taking four ships of the same type and then making a division of three and then a screen of one. The ideal solution long term would be a 'pre-battle' phase showing a top-down 2-dimensional view of the engaged fleet and any allies: a naval chart aesthetic could be used. Simple slide-and-drop controls could be implemented to quickly separate ships into divisions and organize them efficiently prior to battle, representing the signals that would be naturally given out to separate from cruising groups and order battle formations prior to actually engaging in combat. Turrets ought to have a toggle in battle for 'rapid' and 'salvo' fire: in the former, all guns fire together or with a barely noticeable 'ripple', providing a slight rate-of-fire increase at the cost of a minor amount of accuracy—ideally it should only be toggleable once the enemy has been 'ranged.' The latter would be fire-by-turret, as currently implemented, and would provide no bonuses or maluses. The AI for both enemy and friendly ships should be able to toggle this automatically as required, though you would have the ability to manually countermand the order if so desired. Guns of the same calibre should lock to the slowest loading cycle among them: if you have two quads and a twin turret for 14"/356 mm artillery, the twin should fire at the same rate as the quads. Compensation might be that loading cycle differences are less noticeable. Animations Casemates ought to also elevate and depress with their loading cycle. It looks very strange on pre-dreadnought and dreadnought-era warships for their main battery and turreted secondaries to move for their loading animation, while the casemates remain at a flat 0 degrees. Single-cradle artillery (Italian medium-calibre guns prior to the Luigi Amedeo Giuseppe Maria Ferdinando Francesco di Savoia, primo Duca degli Abruzzi - yes, that is the actual name of the Duca degli Abruzzi - and American 8in guns prior to Wichita) should depress and elevate all together, as they're on the same slide. Models More hulls are, obviously, a must. Since they shouldn't require nearly as much time to implement as a campaign, and the modeling personnel should not be focused on the same work as the programmers associated with that project, smaller bi-monthly or monthly patches might work better- not only will this reduce the pressure on the team in order to deliver on the core patches, since they won't have to cram in as much per update, it would also keep a steady stream of new content in order to keep the existing playerbase interested and to draw in new customers. Potential hulls for consideration include (minimum necessary outlined in bold) Russian Empire / Soviet Russia Rurik. Bogatyr. Svetlana. Pr.26 (Kirov). Pr.26 bis (Maxim Gorky). Pr.68 (Chapaev). Pr. 68 bis (Sverdlov). Izyaslav. Gnevny. Leningrad. Tashkent. Germany / German Empire Moltke / Seydlitz. Derfflinger (can be rescaled to Mackensen & Ersatz Yorck). Emden (1925). Königsberg (K). Nürnberg (N). Type 1934. Type 1936. Type 1936C. Austria-Hungary Much the same as Germany, but including the 'Improved Tegetthoff' (also known as Ersatz Monarch). Italy Conti di Cavour (designed). Conti di Cavour (modernized). Duca d'Aosta. Duca degli Abruzzi. Turbine. Navigatori class. Soldati class. Comandanti Medaglie d'Oro class. France / French Empire Danton. Courbet. Bretagne. Normandie. Duguay-Trouin. Duquesne. Suffren type (all are distinct from one another so different towers are probably necessary). Algérie. La Galissonnière. De Grasse. Mogador. Le Fantasque. Le Hardi. L'Alcyon. Aigle. United Kingdom / British Empire Orion. Iron Duke. Town class subgroups (1900s). Town class subgroups (1930s). County class subgroups (1920s). A class. G class. N class. Tribal class. War Emergency Programme destroyers (Q through Z classes). United States of America USS Texas (1892) - by popular support (and by popular we mean @Cptbarney) Mississippi. Florida. Wyoming. New York. Nevada. "Standard" type (Pennsylvania through Colorado generally only require separate towers). Omaha. Pensacola. "Standard" type (Northampton, Portland, and the Astoria classes all share much in common with one another in regards to the hull- only slight resizing and different superstructures are required). Wichita. Brooklyn. Baltimore. Cleveland. Atlanta. Des Moines. Note: the Brooklyn, Baltimore, Cleveland, and their respective subclasses and refits are all largely based on the Brooklyn type's hull: it would be perfectly easy to only add the base type and then use different towers & tops as required. Clemson. Farragut. Porter / Somers. Gridley. Benson-Gleaves. Fletcher. Japanese Empire Nagato. Tosa. Amagi. Kii. Furutaka. Aoba. Myōkō. Takao. Specific towers: Takao — 1937, as modernized. Atago — 1944, as sunk. Chōkai — 1927-1944, as she never received a refit. Maya — Post-AA-cruiser conversion. Takao Kai — Larger version of the hull available 1930-1940, cancelled as a result of the 1930 LNT. Mogami. Agano. Ōyodo. Ibuki. Sakura. Asashio. Otori. China / Chinese Empire Ning Hai & Ping Hai A bi-monthly or monthly stream or devblog of sorts to show off models in progress would be an excellent way to garner reputation and support. Designer (parts) Blast bags. These are an absolute must. See right: note Richelieu's black blast bags. Every country used them at one point or another, and they figure prominently in many photographs of modern and older warships. A toggle to use them should be available, and they should, of course, be animated to move with the guns. Ideally, turrets of the single, twin, triple, and quadruple variants—with a very few exceptions—should not all be common to a single size. Single-gun turrets should be far slimmer, twin- and triple-gun turrets should provide the best balance of size vs. firepower, and so forth. As it is, many ships can be upgunned without any tradeoffs since 'if you can fit a twin there, you can fit a quadruple there.' Designer (balance) Components ought to have more meaning: ideally, the 'modern' warship should require them as an absolute must, not just as an afterthought that eats up weight without being very helpful. Weapons might do more crippling damage to targets, for example, to offset the better benefits acquired. Heavy cruiser armour belt minimum thickness decreased to 20 mm, to allow for the County class's 25 mm as built and the Duquesne's somehow-less-than-that. Misc. When mousing over an armour thickness in the Ship Designer, the section of the ship it protects should highlight or otherwise be made visible. This will allow players to know which parts of their ship are in need of protection and which parts can be left with less weight. Ships should pitch and heave far less relative to displacement, particularly in calm seas. Destroyers, of course, will still buck like a wild horse—but 125,000-ton battleships should be a little more stable. Shameless Plug. This post might be added to as time goes on, as either I come across new portions or they are brought to my attention.

Let's dive right in: the current system of how artillery - arguably the most important factor in the design, construction, and production of the modern battleship from inception to conclusion - works, sucks. As many people have already noted: - Shell weights are considerably off reasonable spec, let alone historical. - Gun ranges, a pet peeve, are considerably limited for all but the largest calibres. While these are just a few examples - albeit well-known - the inability to choose certain real-life influencing factors considerably limits not only our capacity to create historical warships, but also be creative with our designs. The same extends to even the very gun calibre: what if I want to be French in the predreadnought era? I can't make a 138.6 mm gun, or a 164.7 mm gun, or 194 mm, or 240 mm, to say nothing of 274 mm; what if I wanted to make a German light cruiser? German '15 cm' guns aren't 150 mm, they're 149.1 mm. Then you also have things like the Japanese 15.5-cm in the 1930s, which of course doesn't line up to the 152.4 mm calibre we currently see. The Gun Designer My proposal is as follows: the current system of artillery will remain in place, as 'quick load' settings and also for people who don't want to spend the extra time with the Gun Designer (details to follow). But just as one can save ships for custom battles (a much-requested and soon to be added feature), one would be able to save custom-designed guns, which will go under a new tab (my current vision is that in the Guns section of the Ship Designer, there would be a checkmark to let you use custom guns; the tables would simply show the guns you've saved that are appropriate for the type, sorted within 5 years of nearest date.) Of course, the gun section in the Ship Designer, if you chose to use a custom gun - with the exception of the shell outfit increase/decrease option - would be 'greyed out' for our purposes. Sections of the Gun Designer Designation Design Date Artillery (side tab) Barrel Type Gun Bore Gun Length in Calibres Breech Type Shells (2+ side tabs) Shell Type Shell Weight Bursting Charge Fuze Propellant (side tab) Propellant Type Muzzle Velocity Mounting (side & bottom tabs) Mount Model Elevation Elevating Rate Loading Angle Train Rate Hoist Type Rounds per gun (base number, affected by reduced/increased ammo outfit in Ship Designer) This looks like a lot, and it is, but let's break it down from here. Designation This is what we plan on calling our gun: throughout history, we see consistently that guns can be rounded to the nearest metric designation (all Japanese "8 cm" guns after 1907, for example, are 76.2 mm) or are deliberately mislabeled to confuse enemy intelligence (the British 15"/42 and Japanese 46-cm/45 Type 94 are prime examples). This functionally is the same as naming your ship in the Ship Designer: it won't have any bearing on the battle, but it may play into how intelligence gathering might work in the future. Nation of choice might also go here: it wouldn't do to use German 283 mm guns on an Alaska analogue, would it? Design Date This one is a little tricky. Why would we add a design date? That doesn't matter, does it? Well, actually it does. A design date limits the options for what we can use in the specific year - just like the Ship Designer - and more importantly, limits the ships we can place the gun on. If we don't have a design date on the gun, we might be able to stick our brand-new 1940s autoloading 203 mm triple turret onto an 1897 armoured cruiser. And that just ain't right. It's a refit some people might consider, and if you press "Unlock" on a custom battle you should be able to do just that, but we'll set some realistic limitations on what we can and can't do. Artillery Section Ideally, in this section, our view should be cutting to a different location from the ship designer- perhaps in one of the warehouses alongside? A nice little graphic touch to compensate the lack of direct interaction (placing guns in turrets, etc.). Barrel Type Our first section here is somewhat difficult to grasp a hold of without a little prior knowledge, but it plays into everything else. The construction of the barrel is incredibly important in determining the maximum available gun calibre and how powerful your gun can be: too much, and the barrel will burst. A list of options would potentially look something like so: Wire-wound Partial wire-wound All-steel Autofrettage Monobloc This is, of course, not an exhaustive list: merely a few examples. Wire-wound guns are the heaviest type of those mentioned: they also have rather restricted gun lengths (e.g. the 15"/42), thanks to the lack of stiffness close to their centre of gravity. However, wire-wound guns, within their limitations, are extremely strong weapons with higher factors of safety than some other types. Maybe there could be an option here to plate the bore in chromium: it adds a ton or two, but it significantly ups the barrel life. Gun Bore This section should pretty much be self-explanatory. The gun bore is the interior diameter of the barrel, i.e. the calibre of the gun. We have a wide selection of models already, so functionally, many of the existing assets can be used without too much change; I highly doubt that people will nitpick over the less-than-one-pixel difference between a 406.4 mm gun and a 410 mm gun. The diameter should be set to the nearest 0.1 mm for metric, and for 0.01" for imperial: specific numbers should be enterable, much the same as how one can currently change armour figures. Commonality is important: we want to make a good transition and keep the theme of the designers consistent. Gun Length The gun's length in calibres is our second most important part, and arguably the trickiest: we have to be able to set calibres from as low at /30, to as high as /70. Ideally, there would be a slider, but enterable numbers are good as well: setting them by factors of /1 would be good, though in the interest of saving our poor modelers and the scalers some hassle, visual changes should probably only take place once every 5 calibres, working forwards (e.g. a 52-cal gun would use the same model as a 50-cal gun, but a /55 would have its own model). What's important here to help impose some limits on our wild imagination is gun construction: that will limit our available calibres. If we have a wire-wound gun in 1914, for example, depending on the gun, we might only be able to get it to /45 calibres before we hit our unfortunate red "Error: Gun Too Long For Barrel Type" warning sign. The game doesn't want us to suffer any unfortunate accidents because of barrel droop and insufficiently stiff bores, so we should listen to it. Calibres will gradually increase as barrel quality improves over the years and steels grow stronger: 65-70 calibres should be doable by 1940, for those of you who want to make Stalingrad's 305/62 Pattern 1948, or go one better. Breech Type And here we have another important question: the breech type. This directly feeds into the type of ammunition we're using. If the gun has a sliding wedge block, it's going to have to use semi-fixed or fixed 'cased' ammunition: propellant that is stored in a brass case that obturates the wedge when fired, to trap the expanding gasses and force the shell out of the muzzle. This is great for Q.F. guns and practically a necessity for autoloading gun designs, because it cuts down on complexity and loading time: accordingly, the rate of fire increases significantly. On the other hand, breeches of this type are heavy and tend to take up a lot of space: the extra equipment they need to operate is one reason why proposed German triple turret designs (and those that existed, like the 28.3-cm triple used on the Deutschlands and the Scharnhorsts) are so darn wide and heavy for what they are. Welin screws, on the other hand, are for 'bagged guns': they can't easily autoload and they have a lower rate of fire, but they're a lot simpler to construct and use, and they're lighter. Shells This section will deal with the shells we're using: weight, type, and so on. For the purposes of keeping it a little simpler, we're going to assume that the breech type you just chose in the last section has already automatically made you use cased or bagged charges for your propellant. Cut to looking at a generic shell and its brass or tin case for powder in our graphic. Note that there will have to be at least two sections, with options to add another: many ships carried more than just straight APC and HE, and many ships - particularly British cruisers - didn't carry either. Shell Type The simplest options can be found here: AP, or HE? Except it's not. We have a variety of types here: APC, HE, SAP, CBC... the list goes on. For now, however, we'll limit it to the first three, and roll things like capped common under the third category: semi-armour piercing shells. This will set our basic shell type and automatically adjusts our bursting charge percentage to the necessary value, in case you didn't really want to bother with this section. Shell Weight Arguably one of the most important parts of the shell designer proposal, and also one of the trickiest: it's also one of the reasons we gave for proposing it in the first place. After all, currently, shell weights are averages that seem to have no real connection to history (or the laws of physics, for that matter: just try and take that super-heavy 406 mm shell and get it up to 900 m/sec in real life). This number will be automatically averaged to a standard value based on the gun calibre and year: a gun around 380-381 mm, designed in 1914, will have a shell weight that would probably be in the 850-870 kg range, increasing slightly to 880 kg by 1940. Again, physics. You can change this number, but not by much: if you were designing a 406 mm gun, for example, the maximum shell weight would be around 1,400 kg (50 kg above the heaviest 406 mm shell ever considered for usage, the heavyweight Italian 1,350-kg shell for their 406/56) and the minimum somewhere around 900 kg. Similar restraints would exist for all gun calibres, necessarily, but everything's within a modicum of reason. Until it's not. Bursting Charge This category is twofold: percentage, and type. The percentage of the bursting charge will directly impact our damage and penetration performance: the larger the charge, the higher the damage- but also a weaker shell overall, which impacts penetration in a negative way. Of course, the type of bursting charge matters as well: British Lyddite bursters had a habit of igniting upon any impact shocks (re: the Skagerrak battle), while German TNT bursters were somewhat more stable and able to resist impact shocks long enough to do their job: much to the chagrin of many British sailors. The category will include those fillers we already have, plus a few we don't (such as Shimose and TNA, trinitroanisol). Fuze The fuze type is important. If we stick a base fuze on an HE shell, congratulations, you now have an HE shell which will penetrate mild steel plates and even some light 'protective' plates before bursting, thus giving yourself a good anti-destroyer weapon. Fuze set time is also important: instantaneous fuzes will act immediately, but set it too long and it might overpenetrate. An automatic value of 0.03 seconds should be the default value for all shell types. Propellant A small section which we might group under "shell", but I decided not to, since the shell types are numerous while propellant tends to be - with very few exceptions - uniform in regards to amount and type. Propellant Type Self-explanatory. We're selecting what we want to propel our shell, whether that be cordite, SPD, cast TNT, or RPC: many variations of powder exist, sometimes even within the same nation and same time frame. Amount auto-scales with desired muzzle velocity, taking into account barrel length. Muzzle Velocity And here is the other half of our equation: how do we combine light shells with good range? Maybe I want to sacrifice my barrel on the altar of the liner gods in order to achieve a heavy shell at high velocity? Perhaps I'd to sacrifice ballistic performance to get consistent, long life out of my weapons in order to make ends meet? All of these questions will help determine your muzzle velocity. But beware of those pesky "Error: MV too high for barrel type" and "Error: MV too high for calibre" flags. Mounting Is this where the fun begins? Cut in our graphic theme away from the shells to a completed mount further on in the warehouse. Mount Model Are you tired of using Zara's turrets for your German 283 mm guns? Unsatisfied with the fact that it's KGV's turrets on your British CA, not Edinburgh-style? Perhaps you like the look of Agano's gunhouses over Mogami's? Want that snazzy French 38-cm gunhouse model for your new 24-cm guns to recreate a few ahistorical cruiser killers? This category is for you. Since we're doing away with specific gun "Marks", this category belongs at the bottom of the page and will allow you to select - from your nation of choice - the appropriate gun mount style for you. This should include open-backed and enclosed mounting options, with their own pros and cons: open mounts are a lot lighter but tend to be weakly protected and suffer lower fire rates. Since many of the gun turrets appear to be scaled versions of one another, this category should present no problems. Elevation The minimum and maximum elevations available to the gun turret. And here's where we have to cut in on a personal peeve: gun ranges are too short. For example, Mark V Super-heavy 8" shells max out at 18.5 km: real-life 8in guns in the 1920s (and the Mk.V mounts are only available in the late 30s onward, remember) were hitting ranges of around 30 km, easily. Now, the 203 mm gun really has no business shooting past 20,000 metres - it's a waste of ammunition, they're not going to hit anything unless said heavy cruiser is named Haguro or Gorizia - but dang it, I want the option to waste my ammunition. A general and radical increase in both maximum range and spotting ranges should start to take place in the years immediately following 1920. Moving back to the minimum and maximum elevations: a high maximum elevation (~45 degrees) will yield you the maximum ballistic range available to your gun, at the cost of a severe increase in weight. As the depth of the gunwells increases, so does the weight of the turret. However, as the useful limit of naval gunnery is ~35 km, a sufficient muzzle velocity coupled with a good shell can yield you weight savings so that you hit that "golden mark" with your 380/406/457 mm gun. This can also play into gun modernization: allowing old turrets to be refitted in the campaign to have a higher maximum elevation and extend their useful range. Elevating Rate This directly impacts the firing rate: the faster the guns elevate and depress from and to the loading angle, the faster the firing cycle will be. Additionally: the rate of fire should change dynamically with the range, for the very reason just listed above. At high elevations, a slower firing cycle is expected, and guns tended not to fire as fast as they did on firing trials (unless you're part of the Hochseeflotte); however, at short range, as the gun needs less time to elevate and depress, the cycle should change. Loading Angle A settable angle (measured in degrees) that determines where the guns will "rest". There ought to be a tab here with options for All-Angle, Fixed Angle, and Semi-Fixed Angle loading: the first offers a faster cycle but also weighs the most and additionally has a higher chance of ammo detonation, to give an idea of benefits and tradeoffs. Train Rate We have included Train Rate merely to say that we are not including Train Rate, as it is directly affected not only by the motors and hydraulics used but also by the weight of the armour on said turret, which is a function of the Ship Designer. Hoist Type And here we come to a small, often overlooked, but important part of the designer: hoists. Pusher hoists, bucket hoists, dredger hoists, cage hoists: there are many different types. Each offers their own benefits and maluses: pusher hoists, for example, offer a very high rate of exchange between the magazines and the guns, thus improving your firing rate... but beware if that turret gets hit, because they also create a continuous powder train between the turret and the magazine. While this isn't a critical feature, it would be nice if this important part of the design of a warship should get its own spot in the sun. Rounds Per Gun A base number of rounds per gun, to be affected by the increased and decreased shell outfit options. Conclusion Thank you for taking the time to read through this. While this will probably not - almost certainly not - be implemented into the game at any point now or in the foreseeable future, I wanted to share my thoughts on part of the direction I'd like this game to take, especially towards an emphasis on creativity and removing some of the hard restrictions placed on the main selling point of this game (the ship designer)... with a little dose of reality mixed in. Fun in moderation.

with current nation starting ports, under this idea would become permanent coalition/alliance ports and a specific port will be chosen by the devs for the primary starting port. this way the coalition/alliance flag would be used for discerning who owns what port but will encompass multiple nations in that coalition. so instead of USA owning this port the western coalition would own that port. cutting down on the clutter of nations and making it easier for newer players and returning players to choose where they stand.