daHeld

Well, they have painted the model according to the original pigments they found on the Vasa, so you can be pretty sure it was red indeed. If it looks better or worse is just a matter of personal preference and what is considered to be aesthetic changes over the centuries a lot. And a blue paintjob would have been more expensive than gold when the Vasa was built, so it would have been out of the question anyway... @Malachi: Where did you get those draughts from? Is there an online archive like the one from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich? And marvelous job, by the way!

well, I guess that the bitching about pirates capturing ports is more intense than any nation doing so is because it's just so incredibly unrealistic. No town in history was ever captured by pirates. Held for ransom for some weeks, sure. But captured for keeping? Not once. On the teleport issue, I wholeheartedly agree with Krakken. It would make thing much more realistic. Additionally, captured ships we send away as prises to one of our outposts should go there on the open world. And deliveries should be able to be made from every port, not only from free towns. Maybe we could buy some kind of insurance to make up for possible losses.

Yes, you're right there. Hm.

I have some more books to add: Brian Lavery: The Ship of the Line, 2 Volumes. Brian Lavery: Building the Wooden Walls the Chatham Pictorial Histories series by Richard woodman and Robert Gardiner (ed.): 1) Fleet, Battle and Blockade 1793-1797 2) Nelson against Napoleon 1798-1801 3) The Campaign of Trafalgar 1803-1805 4) The Victory of Sea Power 1806-1814 5) The Naval War of 1812 Frank Howard: Sailing Warships 1400-1860 Peter Padfield: Nelson's War Jonathan Dull: The Age of the Ship of the Line John Harland: Seamanship in the Age of Sail Brian Lavery: Nelson's Navy Blake & Lawrence: Nelson's Navy Nicholas Tracy: Nelson's Battles Jean Boudriot: The Seventy-four Gun Ship, 4 Volumes Jean Boudriot: Les Vaisseux de 120 à 74 Canons Jean Boudriot: Les Vaisseaux de 64 à 50 Canons Jean Boudriot: La Frégate de la Marine française Jean Boudriot: L'Artillerie de Mer Rif Winfield: The 50-Gun Ship Dudley Pope: England Expects... Robert Gardiner: The first Frigates Robert Gardiner: The heavy Frigates Robert Gardiner: The Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars Robert Gardiner & Brian Lavery: The Line of Battle Those are the books that came to my mind. Unfortunately, a lot of these books are out of print, but a good library should have them.

I agree with maturin, those upgrades are probably meant for the quality of the men assigned a certain task. I've read somewhere (in one of Robert Gardiners books, I believe), that the British untertook sea trials with two new frigates around 1780 to compare a standard hull to a coppered one and that the copper gave the frigate a slight speed advantage, probably due to the much smoother surface of the thin copper plates. And actually I've noticed that frigate speeds are a little too conservative in the game. The French frigate Révolutionnaire, of the Seine class by P.-A. Forfait, was reported to, at one time, have run 126 miles in about 9,5 hours, which amounts to a speed of 13,5 knots (!). The Hermione replica's captain reported in one of the video-logs on youtube (in French) that he was very surprised of how fast she was and that she ran 13 knots on several occasions on her voyage over the Atlantic last year. So maybe the top speed of the frigates should be upped a bit in the future. And the ridiculously high speed of the Rattlesnake lowered quite a bit. A sailing ship's speed was a function of her length to width ratio and that wasn't that huge on the little privateer, so in reality, she would probably have been a little slower than the average frigate... Oh and speaking of reality, why do we have to pay for a crew member in advance, but then never again? It would make much more sense to have to pay continuously, maybe every in-game month or so. By that you wouldn't have to pay for dead crew members, either... Since I have to pay for my crew, I'm broke most of the time...

Thanks for the info! That's really good news!

Sorry, I got confused because of the 24 pounder armament... The Russian Ship is actually a 60-gun Fourth Rate, not a 64-gun Third Rate. There's actually a rather big difference between the two in the disposition of the armament (26 Guns on the gun-deck in a 64 and only 24 in a 60) and in the scantlings. By the way, the Ingermanland carrying 32pdrs is rather exaggerated... The Russians quickly realised she couldn't bear them without being slowly torn apart, so they swiftly exchanged them for 24pdrs... A 74 would always have carried 32pdrs (or 36pdrs in French ships)... So the 3rd rate seems to be a placeholder for a 64-Gun-Ship. Those were the ones with 24 pounders on the gun-deck... To the developers: What about an Agamemnon, eh? "Nelson's Favourite" would be really nice...

The Roebucks were not frigates at all. They were so called 44-Gun-Ships. A frigate, in the 18th century definition, is a ship with a single continuous gun-deck. 44-Gun-Ships had two gun-decks. They lacked the speed and agility of the frigates because of the additional deck. They were built for convoy duty and to show the flag on some backwater stations. The most famous member of the Roebuck class was of course the Serapis that fought John-Paul Jones in the Bonhomme Richard. And no - 44-Gun-Ships are definitely not how most people view frigates... But I would like to see one of those in-game along with a 50-Gun-Ship, perhaps?

Exactly. When storms are coupled to the OW weather, then everybody can decide if he wants to fight in a storm. But I'd like to see the other effects of stormy weather, like ships not being able to open their lower gun deck ports or masts breaking if you set too much sail....

"The Fighting Temeraire" - very nice picture. William Turner, is it? And I'd like to see the same info on damage I suffered by an enemy broadside than the one I see for the damage I inflict.

I see. Thanks for the replies :-) Does anybody know something about the 3rd Rate 64-Gun ship?

Does anybody know the real ship the Frigate/Pirate Frigate is based on? The name "Cherubim" on the counter is in cyrillic, but there was no Russian Frigate by that name - at least not according to the book "Russian Warships in the Age of Sail". I find that a little curious. By the general outfit, she looks British, although the steering wheel is behind the mizzen mast. Are her plans available anywhere?

Well, for me there are already too many concessions to gameplay as it is. I'm a sim player and I want my experience to be a realistic one. Hyperspace zones? MY ASS! Having ships go faster because they have won a battle? No way. The crew experience part of that thought is a good one, though. We should have XPs for crews that reflect on how good they are at handling the ship and reloading the guns, for example. But making any more allowances at the expense of realism? Thank you, but NO thank you. That would certainly not be my game. If you like something like that, go play a sci-fi game. This is supposed to be the 18th century - so the 18th century it shall be! The time acceleration we have in the OW right now is more than enough in my opinion.

So, does anybody know of the official view of that matter? Will there be changes made to how being a pirate works?

I find this a very good idea. It strikes me as odd, that one of the biggest player bases, the Russians are deprived of any representation. It is somewhat unfair. Right now the Russians mostly play for the Danes (I don't know what the Danish players think of that...), which in the long run should only be a stop-gap solution. As a German national, I think a German faction is not as necessary, but would still be nice. I play for the British right now and are quite content, except for that pirate menace. (Should they really be a full fledged nation?) So I heartily support the OPs idea. Of course, that deviates from the historical facts, and I'm normally a friend of the utmost accuracy, but in this case, it wouldn't hurt my feelings ... And after all, we already have at least three Russian ships in-game. So why not the Nation, too?

Seeing that the Pirates are the biggest "Nation" on the EU server almost gives me physical pain. As a history buff I can't stand it. Pirates NEVER captured even a single city in the whole of the seafaring history. Some were held for a limited time to ransom, yes, but they were way too afraid of even the smallest naval force to stay for a prolonged time. They had some towns where they found shelter, mostly because the authorities there profited from them. We already have free towns in-game, so let that be the towns they can trade with. Maybe give them La Tortue (aka Tortuga, that's where they really found a home in the 17th century after all, NOT Mortimer...) and a few other towns as bases of operation, but restrict them from capturing ANY nations towns, please! The biggest ships ever owned by Pirates were Frigate-sized, like HMS Oxford of Henry Morgan or the Adventure Galley of William Kidd, but that was a rare exception. Most Pirate vessels were very small, a lot of them not even carrying any guns at all. This is why I suggest that the Pirates in-game can keep whatever ship they can capture but please don't allow them to built anything bigger than a small frigate. I also would suggest that they can man their ships with bigger crews as it were in reality, because they had to overwhelm the other ships by sheer numbers. May be give them the possibility of acquiring some kind of Letter-of-Marque, so that they get some extra income when they attack the ships of the enemies of the signer's nation. I think there would still be a lot of players that would accept the challenge and still play as pirates. And PLEASE remove their status as a full fledged nation. This is IMO ridiculous to the bone. It's a real showstopper for me. If they keep that status when the game enters beta, I think I most probably won't play any more. I don't like it when a historical setting diverges too much from the historical facts. I know there are some concessions to make towards playability - and I support that - but THIS is certainly not one of those.

Freddy, where did you get the plans for the Model? Looking really great, by the way.