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Hi guys, I have been thinking this for a long time, I have mentioned in many unrelated threads. I know many has similiar ideas. As new ranks has been introduced, which is very welcome addition because players kind of rushed to much bigger ships without learning vital game mechanics like manuel sailing, which ended up with lots of pain, rage cause they were losing their valuable/bigger ships to other players and to npcs! Time to time even effecting group battles. I really think this new rank system should get proper improvements and changes to fit the purpose. AIM: Change leveling up from mindless grinding of thousands of generic bots into something enjoyful and useful. A captain who gains rank, should be gaining real experience in a meaningful and enjoyable journey. HOW: Change how players rank up, set a final goal, define sub goals/missions, give true rewards and let captains feel the accomplishment. RESULT: Players see ranking up as a real rewarding accomplishment, they become more confident and more competent on the long journey. EXAMPLE: ( all numbers are made up just to give an idea) POST CAPTAIN RANK requirements: 1) 100K experience is needed. 2) 5 times patrol zone completed. 25K xp granted. (patrol related stuff can be optional but it should accelerate xp gain) 3) 5 player 5th rates or above hunted, assists counts as 0,25 kills. 35K xp granted. (pvp related stuff can be optional but it should accelerate xp gain) RANKING UP results: 1) A ranking up captain recieves a nice sealed handwritten letter from Admirality for his success.(not the ugly in game email) 2) He is given a ship permit fitting his new rank. A nice prize. ( Lower level captains should recieve ship note up to light frigates, wow!, make the note teak/wo fixed, I hate to see new guys redeeming fir/crew ships) 3) A small chest is earned! Includes a random ship upgrade. 4) Some Reals / Dobloons and small amount of Repairs are given by admirality for the effort. *** Isn’t it a nice result, what an accomplishment with great loot at the end. * Tutorials give big experience for initial ranks.( I would instead love to see scripted start campaign for the new players including the tutorial. At the end of the campaign details of nations map, and selection of where they will start, very encouraging easy nations according to low population to be recommended.) * Lower ranks should include missions like building farms/mines, doing some trade and delivery missions. Attending patrol zone event, establishing outposts etc. * Highest ranks may require RVR attendance with contested port battles. May require more pvp kills etc. but these should never be exessive not to block and lock progression due high difficulty. * Optional crafter / trader goals can be added for xp boost. * Unlocking same rate similiar rigger ship to full should give accelerated unlock for same class, or unlock 3 slots instead. I know this will be very important when game will be released. Thank you very much guys for spending your time and reading my purposal. We all love the game, hope it becomes much better, more fun for all of us. This kind of ranking up or similiar approach is surely needed, will be a great addition to Naval Action.

A small thing that I would like to suggest is that total xp be displayed somewhere. When leveling up there's a little display under the rank in port that displays the total xp earned, however this goes away when max rank is reached. I'd be interested in the display remaining and counting up even after reaching max rank. I'm certainly interested in seeing how much I got and maybe screenshot it before it gets wiped.

Call clans "squadrons." Mainly an aesthetic thematic suggestion, but such a naming convention would open possibilities for a new clan structure, with different types of clans depending on size and function. For example, naval squadrons and trading companies. Naval squadrons could have the equivalent of player ranks depending on size, e.g. detachments, divisions, squadrons, fleets, and even regional stations, Trading companies might start as import/export shops and progress on up to full-on East India Companies (or West India Companies, since it's the Caribbean). Clans/squadrons/companies could then potentially have their own internal rank structures and chains of command, with subunits to match, for their player members (so a port might be conquered by the 1st Frigate Division of the British Jamaica Squadron, etc.).

Now, this may have been suggested elsewhere, but as I've not the time nor interest to trawl through every single thread and read every single post, I'm going to throw this out here as a suggestion and gauge the reaction to it; there may be flaws in it that I've not seen. The problem below is what I've gathered from reading threads about the forum recently (I can't be in-game currently), that the grind and access to ships is an issue, particularly progression from 7th Rates to 6th Rates. This is not an answer to solve the problem entirely, but it could help. On to the issue at hand... Free ships for all! Problem: This appears to be two-fold but centered around the 'grind'. Firstly, it is difficult for new players, unaffiliated to a clan and lacking knowledge of the game, to progress from the fore-and-aft ships to square-riggers. Secondly, replacing ships can be difficult, which makes PvP unattractive due to low rewards and the difficulties from losing a valuable asset. Frederiksen's Answer: Free ships. Alright, more detail below. Now, I'm not advocating everyone having access to every ship for free. That is ludicrous. However, what if, what if the game gives you access to a free ship depending upon your rank. It is a simple concept. Currently we have the Basic Cutter. Brilliant, a free ship with free crew and repairs and is not for PvP, but gets new players started and can be used as a barge to get around for ranked up players. What if, once you reached the relevant rank for the crew numbers, the game gave you access to an Oak/Oak Sixth Rate, perhaps the Brig. The ship is free, purchased just like the Basic Cutter, but you must pay to arm it, crew it, repair it, same as a normal ship, but it is free for you to get hold of. You don't get a choice in wood types of which Sixth Rate, maybe you can't mount permanent upgrades on it and its 'knowledge' upgrades are restricted to, say, 3 boxes. That makes the free Brig viable in a basic sense as a ship to take to PvP or PvE, you can waste it in PvP without issue and get another. Yay! Taking this further, it could be done as well for Fifth Rates, maybe the Cerberus is available as a free ship, or the Renommee. It would also follow the same procedure; you pay for the crew and repairs but to get it it is free, but you lack choice in wood types, etc. Now, where this falls down is the potential for 'spam', as we saw with Basic Cutters; using a free ship to attack ships with no loss for the people using the free ship. How do we counter this? A cooldown? You can only have one free Sixth Rate per 24 hours, one free 5th Rate every 48 hours? It still gives a leg up but means that if you lose it you will need to buy a replacement ship. In short: Positives When you rank up you can 'buy' a Sixth (and maybe Fifth) Rate for free at the relevant rank (when you'd have enough men to crew it) in port, same as the Basic Cutter. This free ship has a set wood/wood type, perhaps no permanent upgrades and limited knowledge upgrades. Repairs, crew, cannon etc. are paid for as usual but the ship itself is free. Combined with other ways of incentivising PvP (decent rewards) it gives a fallback option for PvP/PvE that isn't back to square one in the Basic Cutter. Can treat it as the ship issued to you by your nation's navy (goodness knows what excuse the pirates would have, but hey). Leaves player-made ships being worthwhile as they can be customised by wood types, will have all of the upgrade/knowledge slots available to you (if you have the knowledge) and can be an investment, but if you need a free ship for some PvP, boom! You have an option. Perhaps this could be introduced for a free 7th Rate ship beyond the Basic Cutter to give new players a sense of progression. These ships cannot be traded or captured (suggested by @The Wren). Negatives Would need a means of preventing spam (my suggestion being a cooldown). It is giving stuff away for free. Anyone think of anything else that would be a problem with this? As always, thoughts on a postcard, address being the reply box below.

hi captains / Dev's Well at the moment i have the highest rank a player can get sailing a ship but i am in need for a better career i suppose i need a Vice admiral, and a Admiral rank. (and admiral flags in OW/battle ) (just some thoughts) to go :full force with my fleet (every vice Admiral had his own squadron of (+4)ships ) where the rear admiral is a officer on the ship as a extra officer (2 perk ponts extra) and a 450 men extra >total 1550 men therefore i can take 2 more fleet ships in the total fleet aswell building 3 more outposts and 3x2 more buildings A Admiral gets a Additional political advisor, therefore giving the player (in the current political system 10 votes) but for the rank below of a captain only 1 vote, a captain gets 3 votes and so on and a +450 men extra > total 2000 men (also the political advisor is also the OLD lord protector [flagsystem flag builder] ) and is the only one to buy/ plant the flag) Captains how do you feel about this, don't you have ambitions to?.... discuss

Having seen the brothel load of ranks' names that the poor, pirate captains have to put up with, I would like to suggest a much more humane and not devilish sounding names. I got these from reading about pirates in history. My suggestions are these, below. They are all easily translatable into every one of the six national languages: Admiral (there is no reason why pirates should not have admirals) Vice-Admiral (a double entendre) Grand Captain (comes from Eastern 'Titanic Captain') First Captain Quartermaster Vessel Captain Master Mate Mister

Hello, this morning I came up with the brilliant idea... READ THE WHOLE THING TO GET THE IDEA At the current state of the game when we're sailing in Open World we can see ranks of every captain. What I suggest is to limit the "Rank visibility" so that we only can see ranks of captains in our nation. Why? In Open World: 1.Because it would make a lot of sense. In navy you can more or less determine the rank of friendly captains. But how can you determine ranks of hostile captains? Short answer is, you can't. You're not a spy + enemy navy is not giving away ranks of their captains just like that. 2.It's more realistic comparing to what we have now. 3.This brings the element of a doubt and element of surprise. For example: You see an enemy Constitution on the horizon and you think two things: a)there is no way he is sailing this thing fully crewed, you take your mates and attack the fellow. What can happen? -boom, you're right and you sink that bastard -holly cow, he is fully crewed and he sends you and your buddies to the devil b)damn, if he's sailing this thing on our waters he must be confident enough and he must be fully crewed. What can happen? -you run as fast as you can -some of your friends tags him, you get into battle and it turns out he's sailing that ship with 50% crew. You outmanouver him and fire 10 broadsides to his 1 which means he's dead On the other hand imagine YOU are sailing the Constitution and you see an enemy or a bunch of enemies on the horizon. What can happen? a)you are fully crewed but they don't know it. What can happen? -they run like flies due to your Fear Factor -they think you're undercrewed and they attack. And then the fun begins... b)you are undercrewed but you think your Fear Factor will do the job. What can happen? -they run like flies due to your Fear Factor -they think you're undercrewed and they attack. Turns out they were right and you're literally torn to pieces In Battle Mode: 1.This whole thing leads us to one great feature we ALL want you to implement - THE SPYGLASS - 2.Imagine how many good things this would bring. The only way you could determine enemy rank, number of crewmembers, number of working cannons could be only possible through spyglass. We could exclude the armor and rigging status, pump status, rudder status or magazine status so that is stays visible all the time (it would be hard to determine those things with the spyglass). 3.By opening the map in Battle Mode and clicking the enemy ship silhouette you could only see: a)Armor b)Percentage of sails (85% Sails etc.) c)Type of ship (Cerberus etc.) d)Shocks e)Pump, Rudder, Magazine status THE SPYGLASS should have limited realistic range (obviously) and it should be some kind of mechanism, for example: (the loading circle would appear with the message "Gathering information" - similar to the one when you Capture a ship, but you could move the camera and your ship to track the enemy with your spyglass) a)If you want to determine the Rank of the Enemy Captain you should SCAN that ship with the spyglass for let's say 60 seconds b)If you want to determine the more or less accurate amount of crew on enemy ship you should SCAN that ship with the spyglass for let's say 90 seconds c)If you want to determine the type of cannons on the enemy ship you should SCAN that ship for let's say 45 seconds d)If you want to determine the amount of working cannons you should scan that ship for let's say 120 seconds (time of each scan is just an example, it would have to take further tweaking once you would like to implement the Spyglass mechanism) So whay do guys think? I know it would make the game even harder, but "spotting mechanism" is at the moment ridiculous. Too many information about the enemy is within arm's reach. The current state limits the PvP capabilities by a large margin. EDIT: Almost forgot - by using the spyglass in battles you could also implement a thing called "Captain's Log" or "Captain' Journal" in which every player would have the database about players he had encountered. The database would be updated after the battle ends with the information you gathered by scanning each captains ship. The database would (of course) be one time registration. Which means that to get the latest info about the captains you've encountered you would have to encounter them again. The information you store in your Captain's Log would be: Captain's name, ship, rank (or whatever information you think will be suitable)

Please fix the ranks for the USA players. There is no such rank as Lt. Commandant. It is Lt. Commander, Commander, and Captain. Commandant was a shore position for schools and prisons, not a rank.

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.