Modern Major General

Enrich the open world, it is a hollow shell as it stands, we know PvP will get a rethink, it is obvious, now though is not the time.

Hopefully with more variety to spread out the top end there will be room to tweak. I look forward to some more frigates showing up to broaden 4th, 3rd and 2nd Rates.

Yeah, she packs a decent punch that it does not take too long to go up to Santi from there so enjoy!

Go to Esc to see the graphics options and check the box at the top of the list called "Transparent Sails" viola! Apply; and return to game.

Without it and the reliance of muzzle flash on the "horizon" (which has its limitations) Storm Maps are fait accompli! for leaving before the match starts. So I would not blame anyone for auto leaving Storm maps.

Yeah the "crosshair" is the little red line you see roughly center of your screen or where your field of view is when in firing mode.

I find a good team on TS does wonders than typing while playing to communicate position, intent co-ordination, etc. Organise your friendlies, jump all into the same event at the same time and then chat away on TS manages "right of way" and anything else quite easily. Another thing I have noticed is self entitled players, the "unfriendly friendlies" who seem to think they are entitled to some sort of "share" of the enemy and try to order people about or put them down in chat if they have somehow broken some sort of unwritten rule that these so called self entitled folk make up to try and bully their way into the game play. This is the worst kind of player, even the actions of cutting across fire lines and bows are creeping in causing heated issues. I think any "friendly" behaving like that needs to be reported. I've definitely got my list (like the Lord High Executioner!) for my Ignore button. Self-entitled players simply are a version of bully boy griefers who must sorely tempt and cause a lot of friendly fire exchanges and intentional ramming. I have witnessed quite a few so far.

While there is no fouling of tackle and rigging even issues of boarding in the current game form remain moot about this (which will deter anyone of ever trying to ram again except under exceptional desperation and encourage everyone to watch out more of their vector in relation to everyone else) and no morale system in place for crews and their captain as we are playing a more simplified fps at sea for the moment; ramming remains valid just like mast sniping.

Again, losing masts is a common factor in this kind of warfare so again bad luck if your on the receiving end, there is one factor missing in all of this which has not been programmed in yet though I'd expect it to be a critical factor in an engagement which I note in paragraph 2. The Santi for example on both occasions struck her colours due to losing her masts. Its a typical and acceptable form of attack on large ships and usually a dismasted ship signalled an end to that ship's engagement in the battle and an expectation of colours being struck when challenged. This was a kind of acceptable form given the immense sums of resources to field them and the temptation of the prize in their capture. No Captain really intended on sinking, only to neutralise, secure and move on. Hence why dismasting is such an effective tactic. Colour striking if anything is missing immensely in this game testing so far, it should be the form to which an engagement ends rather than everyone just sinking everything. Taking the Prize was more important and valued, sometimes sinking was very important, for most of the time though preservation of your crew and your ship over ruled a fanatical death wish. This is where the AI needs to improve too for factoring in morale for them as well as your own crew's morale as a risk factor when certain kinds of damage events occur on your ship. At Trafalgar HMS Africa got a little too eager when seeing the trouble the Santi was in, the Africa was the smallest (64 gun ship) in Nelson's fleet and mistakenly assumed the Santi would strike her colours as they came alongside and began the formalities. The boarders were informed that the ship was still in action and asked to leave which they did. Despite this the Santi was effectively neutralised. She had been neutralised before in the past having being dismasted in the battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797 where she was lured away and set upon by smaller ships. They failed to secure her as finally other Spanish vessels arrived on the scene despite her striking her colours knowing full well it was pointless to continue. Despite a little ship not being able to penetrate the hull, its the fact you are dead in the water with hundreds of mouths to feed with no means of returning to any land that motivates you to surrender and therefore have a chance in seeing a new day being towed back.

Given how mixed the signals are on how the Open World will pan out my suspicion is first and foremost the Devs concept of how far historically and ahistorically they are prepared to go before a certain demographic of their potential customers are alienated and move on. I'd expect a non-fiction world with fictional ahistorical outcomes where 90% of influence to events and the balance of power rests with procedural programming and managed by the Developers with 10% influenced by what we do as players. Sea powers kept each other in-check through a range of alliances and diplomacy which kept a sort of status quo only broken through revolution and mismanaged economy. Any one power dominant over the others was often caught in a crosswind of alliances set against them which prevented any sort of real winner and replaced it with the idea of Super Powers among the nations. If we did not pin our colours to a national mast I'd expect us to be considered Pirates. If anyone encountered a warship without a nation it was often the case and no one would think otherwise. The only reason you'd have access to bigger and better shipping came down to simply what a nation could afford to build for you both in terms of manpower, resources, infrastructure, finance and technological development. All of which I'd expect the Developers, with our feedback to help, work out and balance. This is a challenge given the idea that we are talking about a heavily unfair world in the first place with real winners and losers. So this is where the ahistorical "what if" parts come into it where the game would shine a lot I suspect. Any player guilds would reflect the "Trading Companies" set up under national flags to exploit the resources of the 2nd and 3rd world of the 18th and 19th century. Players would chose a nation, belong to a player Trading Company if they wish and work along several different choices of play style; one of which is a Trading Company's choice of throwing caution to the wind and turning into a Pirate Conclave. I suspect some similarities to the style of play found in games that have worked on this type of theme before in the past and hopefully some more innovation to make the Open World part of the game attractive to keep your bum on a seat for many, many hours of enjoyment.

If your caught with your pants down then you deserve it OP. I see no problem with plucky little ships going for your masts if you did not take an escort to shoo them away. Its all about what you took into a battle and how it was used; how you positioned yourself and how you managed to co-ordinate with whatever sea worthy skills you have in your fleet, squadron or whatever. If some little boat is happily sniping your masts then most likely something has gone wrong for how the engagement has played out to your side; which could be a number of factors including quite easily blaming yourself for allowing said sprat to get into a good firing solution. Strike your colours sir if its too much to bear.

Servers most likely down like what happened earlier today, this time the Lobby remained up the battle servers went down and a lot of folks got kicked out and have the connection error.

I think given others stating the same including myself that the Server Status Page is not correct and the servers for the moment are down.

Checked Server Status, Status is On. I get Connection error repeatedly. Checked and validated files, no issues. Was thrown out of PVE Mid Match have only been thrown out one other time of a match and I managed to reconnect no problem. This time I am not able to connect. I do not know if this is a repeatable issue with others as I could not see anything elsewhere other than advice to check server status which I duly did before posting this. Smooth run on test, barring one disconnect I could trace to my end; since before this. Will keep on trying to reconnect, I do not know if it has blocked my return to the instance due to a programmed rule on reconnection? Update 1: It appears to be a shared issue so it points to the Server being taken off line. Have not encountered others commenting that they are still in though a few are ambiguous about their connection status.

Excellent thanks for the info I'll try and pop on TS Wed evening.

How very handy. I was looking for an Org for SC and also looking for a Fleet to join here. Have you decided what Flag to fly in NA: GB, USA, Pirate etc? Are there many people in your Org that play in UK/Euro time zone?