PvE Open World--Return Ports to National Control and Orient Around Single Cruisers

[Preble]

Hi there,

The recent national rework that saw most ports revert to neutral control was perhaps logical for PvP but makes little sense for PvE where port conquest is not an option.  My perception is that PvE is more of an environment for players who generally operate outside of clans/groups and on their own--much as single cruisers (frigates, sloops of war, commerce raiders) did in the Age of Sail.  As such, the national structure is more important to PvE than PvP, which is now experimenting with a much more clan-centric model that explicitly requires conquest.  

It would be great if the PvE server could see ports revert to national control and orient itself around the activities of cruising warships rather than battle fleets.  This could harness the open world by including historically realistic trade routes (the British, for example, sent their convoys outbound from the British isles to Barbados, to Jamaica, and homeward bound from Jamaica to Belize, around Cuba by the Florida Strait, and across the Atlantic by way of Nassau and Bermuda) for commerce raiding, and adding new categories of missions like convoy escort and attack (which would encourage players to take more full use of the open world map by sailing longer distances), and single/multiple-ship (i.e. not fleets) port raids (which would deliver goods and prize money, and possibly ships in the case of a cutting-out expedition).

These would require the restoration of national control over ports, and in the case of the long-distance commerce-related missions, a means of plotting positions on the chart with a similar resolution as can be accomplished with a sextant and chronometer in open ocean (so something similar to, perhaps slightly less accurate than the previous GPS-like system, but much more accurate than the current, rather unhelpful dead-reckoning only method).

Many thanks--

[Jean Ribault]

Preble, good input.  There are definitely too many neutral ports on the server now after that patch.  I know the devs have promised some attention to the server after some other priorities they have set, and then maybe port ownership will be addressed.

I'm not sure which nation you joined, but actually there are many groups and some clans that I see go out together for battling fleets.  I see people ask a lot in chat too. If you haven't run across any such groups you might check in global chat when the numbers are up, you might find a good group.

If you are in France look me up, or the FRF clan, which I see go out daily.