Falcon

Not a clue on the different shot type, though it would be very useful, but as for the focusing on a specific deck, that's pretty much already in. At present of course you can hit f1 to f4 to select or deselect gun decks, but with the more dynamic crew management, guns not in use should, in theory, not need crew. I have no guarantee that this is true of course, but it at least lends hope to all the post captains on constitutions out there right now.

I like the kedging idea, especially once land is introduced in battle instances, as it will be a genuinely helpful means of pulling a larger ship off the shallows, or even the opposite, setting up a larger SOL as a battery, and preventing an either-side-of-the-line situation like Abukir Bay. I also rather like the reinforce idea, especially to help ships close to the epicentre of an explosion, as that tends to devastate crews. However, while the main parts of the game are still being worked on, I'd personally prefer this to be a fairly low priority option, the animations are already a little off in battle, and I doubt an unanimated pixie-powered longboat toddling about would add much to current immersion. One other thing to bear in mind in regards to seeing the longboats is that there is a considerably smaller amount of seaborne debris in game than in the real world; in PvE it wouldn't be too hard to implement, just give a low 'visibility' value for the AI to play with, but in PvP it would be a death sentence for the troops involved, especially as the low mass and armour of a longboat would make it a nice painless ramming target for careless players, and an easy kill for those more attentive.

Ditto, I would guess that it's simply the wrong screen being shown for server maintenance, it's about the right time of day.

Worth noting; my key was sent out on an automated system, which did not adjust for daylight savings, so mine actually arrived an hour later than expected.

Celonius, noon and midday are the same thing, so 12 noon is 12pm kiev time. That would be 11am CET, or 10am GMT

For benchmark purposes, I'm on Windows 10, six gig of ram, gtx650 graphics card with one gig, running on a core 2 quad at 2.4ghz I'm getting high tends too low twenties fps in open world, and in a battle instance a solid 25 plus, all on medium. Good enough that the sailing is smooth and the water looks good. For reference, this pc cost me just under £200 on eBay during an eBay store sale.

My surname coincides with the (real world) commander of the ship named in my signature. As for the character name, Falcon was picked because i didn't initially know how the names were presented, and i figured it sounds okay for both a ship or a surname. So Samuel Falcon was born, and I get to sail around on my ancestor's ship!

Not played as any other nation, but pre-wipe GB had a huge player base, and SLRN has separate fleets for each side of the pond. The territories taken will reset along with the wipe of course though, so assuming the capitals haven't moved, GB is Jamaica based, and you can surely guess where the US is based. Swings and roundabouts.

I'm very much English, and would be happy to provide you with voice overs to play around with. If it's any help, let me know what needs to be done!

Personally, i think some customization would be good. I've read four of these six or so pages, and so far i understand each viewpoint put forward, both camps make sense. Perhaps a simple way of getting around this would be to allow naming of vessels, and have a function to hide or show user-defined names. Default names, as current, with this unticked, only your ship has its own name. Tick the box, bam, everyone's ship has its name visible. This would allow you to sail the 1st rate ship of the line HMS Indomitable alongside Victory and Bellona and so forth. Tick the box, and you may well be sailing alongside the USS Peenooz, but you won't have to. I do not, nor have i ever had any insight into coding a game, but it would seem that this would be a quicker and therefore cheaper means of implementation than a list of several thousand approved names, allowing more work to get done elsewhere in the game by the dev team in the same time period, on the same funds. Just my two pen'orth.

A bow to you sirs, and thanks aplenty! I would like to take this opportunity though to let it be known that it was Captain Smith's suggestion that we should lend our broadsides to the ongoing engagement, and to congratulate his officers and crew on their stellar efforts in keeping their wooden walls afloat. Fair winds sirs, and prizes for all.