St. Vincent

For me, the hotkey for free camera now seems to be the Home key, rather than double-Ctrl-H. Maybe give that a shot?

I'm absolutely in favour of adding craftable ammo, both from Legioneod's perspective of depth to the game's simulation/management aspect, and NorthernWolves' point regarding adding more depth to the economy. I'm far more ambivalent about having different grade of each ammunition type. Wetworth makes a good point - the number of grades PotBS verged on the ridiculous. I'd be perfectly happy with one 'grade' of each type of shot (round, anti-rigging, anti-personnel); I'd just like to have to purchase it, rather than have a magically unlimited supply. I'm not terribly worried about the risk of the devs making ammo a premium commoddity - IIRC, they've said that premium ships won't be a pay-to-win proposition, more a means of funding the development of additions to the game. If they're not planning on imposing a pay-to-win model on ships, I doubt they'd do so with ammunition.

planktonette, your compass suggestion is an excellent one. As you've said, the small 24-point compass is a pain - particularly as it means there are only three rather than four divisions between the cardinal & ordinal points, making it tough to lay a course due NNE! A full 32/64/128-point compass rose, accessible in a popup like the map, would be a great solution. Ideally, I'd also like to see a third popup, containing a sextant - only available at local noon, of course. I'm less enthusiastic about adding any interactivity to the map, even just for the sake of more accurate dead reckoning. I'd be perfectly happy as long as we can confirm that the OW speed and time readouts correlate properly to each other. As for accurately translating that data into your course travelled... just spitballing, but perhaps the game could ship with a high-res printable chart of the in-game Caribbean? Geographical details only, plus grid/scale/compass rose - we could then pencil in course estimates, add in ports and other features as we visit or discover them, etc.

If memory serves me right, the mortar shells fired from bomb vessels were fitted with a fuse. The artillerist would cut the fuse to a specific length which, when combined with the right charge of powder and correct mortar elevation, would result in the shell exploding just above the target. However, this isn't a technique you'd be able to use to snipe at masts in a battle - bomb vessels were only ever used against stationary targets. They'd be firmly anchored, which when fitted with springs could precisely adjust the ship's bearing. Ranges and angles would be painstakingly calculated; even after that, a deal of trial and error would be involved. Employing mortars from an un-moored, moving vessel at sea, against moving targets, would be utterly impractical. I gather that this wasn't the case when bomb vessels appeared briefly in game... it really should be, before they reappear.

I think that absolutely one of the worst things that could happen to this game would be for the trade system to wind up as something like EVE - less a game and more an accountancy simulator. Trade in the age of sail was an enormously uncertain thing. In addition to the dangers of losing a convoy to piracy or the elements, there was really no way knowing the financial situation at your destination - the last financial information any trader would have to hand would be word from the last convoy to come from their intended destination, which would be days, weeks, or months old. I say no to a global market view. You'll be able to use chat to ask about contracts - which is about as close as we'll get to simulating asking a newly-arrived trader what the prices were like for timber when they sailed from Antigua!

Oh, nice idea! Another +1 from me. "Lieutenant, let the carpenter prepare some targets, and have the boats' crews stand ready to tow them out..."

I'd prefer to see features like transparency removed completely. Ships fought with courses, spritsail etc clewed up, reefed or furled for good reason - to avoid having them catch fire from the muzzle flash and fragments of burning wadding (which is another feature that I'd like to see, frankly), but also to improve visibility in combat. It may not be a high priority for the devs, but I'll be content to wait for fo'c'sle/masthead/quarterdeck/etc views.

Hah! I stand well and truly corrected Tying ship renaming rights to battles won is an interesting idea - a sign of affection from a crew proud of their ship's accomplishments. You could go further than number of battles won; maybe unlockable prefixes like "The Joyful [X]" for a ship with long-term high morale, perhaps; "The Flying [X]" for a given accomplishment of speed; "The Bold [X]" for exploration; "The Stout [X]" for taking a given amount of damage without sinking, etc.

I'd be 100% in favour of having a set vocabulary for ship names, either to pick from or a generator. Frankly, I'd be content to have the choice out of our hands, and have the names automatically assigned. After all, historically speaking a ship's captain would rarely if ever have a say in her name - that would be the province of the architect/dockyard/navy/owner/company (pick one). If anything, automatically assigned names would add to immersion, particularly if each nation had its own name pool. Eg. if you see a British captain sailing a ship with "Santa Leocadia" on the name-board, or a French ship sporting a name like "Berwick", you immediately get a sense of both the player's and the ship's stories. Possibly the option could be made available to rename captured foreign ships - eg. the Royal Navy wouldn't countenance a name smacking of revolutionary leanings like L'Unite; something like Surprise would be much more suitable!

Whereabouts does it say that she mounted 46 guns? Correct me if I'm wildly mistaken, but she only looks to be pierced for 14 a side, plus two stern chase ports. That'd make her nominally a 28-gunner (which I believe would match the Heldin, per SteelSandwich).

That could be an interesting solution, particularly as exploration is slated to be a prominent part of the game. You could start with a blank map, and fill it in as you travel. Not even necessarily automatically; I'd enjoy setting out on a charting/hydrographical expedition, taking soundings/bearings/etc to compile my own charts.

theSpatchula, I love the direction you're going with your GUI redesign. I have to second felelo, though. I feel like there's room to steer it a little but further towards an 17th/18th/19th century aesthetic, without sacrificing the current clean, minimalist feel - and without going too far in the direction of Wind's example. I threw together a quick concept: It's basically the existing UI, neatened up a bit, and with just a couple of ornamental touches to give it that historical vibe. I've done a bit of rearranging; eg it didn't make sense to me to have the ship's crew/sail/hull stats in the wind/compass section. I've shifted them to sit with the armour/leaks/damage section, for one combined 'my ship' panel; here, I've shifted to a vertical layout (seems more sensible to me by far, even just from a "which is starboard?" standpoint), wrapped the armour readouts around the guns, and aligned the rest to match. I've also moved the leak indicator from behind the compass to behind the armour/guns readout - again, seems more sensible that way. I've also slimmed down the action buttons, combining the reload buttons into one. I was a huge fan of mortenlnielsen's NumPad idea from a few pages back: ...so I built it into my layout. In the following, I'm picturing switching the port-side upper gun deck to grapeshot in three key presses - [1] [Num4] [3] (felelo, the image you posted is showing up as a broken link for me - apologies if the example you put together already covered the ideas I've posted!)