Shepherd

Dang, and I just had a moment to pull off at a place with wifi to use my crafting hours on the PvE server while I'm on a long trip.

Those three bow chasers are very pretty on the lateen galley above, but goodness what is that last one even carrying?! Is there a top view to get a better idea of how those side guns are arranged?

I was suddenly struck by an idea that, to make things perhaps more really reflect these times, crafting notes could be renamed "bribes" or "dockyard bribes". It seems that corruption ran wild and bribery could influence the construction or outfitting of a ship. If more crafting notes means a better ship, why not change crafting notes to bribes since they are doing the same thing? Another change I have been thinking about is the ship crafting, even with the recent change to low-mid-high-grade crafting notes. The more hours and resources are required to build a ship, the less crafting notes influence the cost of building a ship. Right now crafting notes directly affect the number of upgrade slots and the quality of the built-in upgrades, with some random chance. I propose a change where crafting notes (or bribes) give you a certain number of points to spend on upgrading your ship. These points could then be used to alter the ship's upgrade slots, built-in upgrades, speed, and whatever else may currently be influenced by random chance or the number of crafting notes. Perhaps you could even use the points to add additional built-in upgrades instead of just choosing one. The more crafting notes you use, the more points you have to improve the attributes of your ship. Each individual ship would require a different number of points to improve its characteristics, with smaller ships requiring less for each improvement added to it. For example, the number of points you get from a single crafting note can do much to improve a Lynx but will do less to improve a Snow, and they will barely let you improve a Frigate. Perhaps to keep things from getting extremely steep, four high-grade crafting notes should still be balanced to let you fully or almost-fully upgrade a 3rd rate of 74 guns.

Sounds good! Especially if the drafts of individual ships are factored in, it'll add a lot of strategy to battles. Would be cool too if you could capture / purchase charts for different areas, so that you might be able to see where you are in relation to shoals or so that you might be sailing blind and hoping you don't run aground in the heat of battle.

While some more creativity would be interesting, there would still need to be limits on the largest long and regular guns that could be fitted due to the simple geometry. A cutter isn't wide enough to run in and reload a very large breech-loading cannon. A limit too to the number of guns based on the vessel's number of gun ports of course... I could only imagine how obnoxious, say, a Constitution with a broadside of 84x 6pdrs would be, especially with the current model of rippling broadsides.

I look forward to getting a closer look at this crew management. I hope there is a way to let the gunners know which guns you want them to focus on reloading, especially concerning chasers. It would be great if we could see how many crew you required for your current gun setup while you are in port, too.

I chose the Dordrecht, though any other 4th rate would be nice to flesh out that type of ship.

I would enjoy it if the current system of 20/40/60/80/100% + depower could be changed with a system showing the ship's sail plan, where you could click on individual sails and choose to have them raised/lowered/reefed. There could still be an "easy" mode like the current system, but more experienced captains could trim their ship to better suit the conditions. This would probably also require more variable winds, and some more advanced modeling of the physics, but it would be far more realistic and immersive to have such control!

I would also like to see storms, have more impact on the gameplay. As it is now, the only thing a storm means is I have much reduced visibility and it becomes harder to find anything on the overworld, short of creeping along the coast or being dead certain of your course across open waters to another place. Perhaps you could just have the option of sailing about in the storm as normal, but there could also be an option to enter an instance within the storm's area. In this instance you could fight for survival within the storm, and gain experience as a reward. The less damage you took, the more experience you gain. Perhaps there could even be a chance of, once the storm dies down, finding a dismasted ship to salvage!

Would make battles really interesting in high seas if lower deck, or leeward, or all gun ports had to be closed in high seas. And the effect on boarding...

As enough ships are added to the game, perhaps the ships specific to each nation could be more accessible for crafters of that nation. Maybe some would be unlocked by default at the appropriate level, blueprints for others would be more likely to appear while crafting.

Cutting out expeditions as instanced events near ports would add some nice variety to things. Additional ships being able to take part in boarding actions would also be fun. They could grapple alongside a friendly ship to help that one with defense but with some penalty (at least in early rounds) to attacking the enemy, or go over the stern / bow / other side of the enemy ship to flank them on their own decks.

I like the idea, but would not like to see it mandatory. It's hard enough to see what is happening in night battles when playing in a brightly-lit room. Some folks may not have the luxury of darkening the space in which they are playing.

I voted for refined officer and crew management. A captain wasn't doing everything on his ship single-handedly. -Lookouts could call out land and sail sightings. They could maybe provide more or less information - and more or less accurate information - depending on how experienced they are, with chances of mistaken identity or seeing through a ruse de guerre at long range, etc. -Gun captains could be ordered to fire by broadside, fire as they bear, or fire at will instead of the current rolling broadsides or individual shots aimed and laid individually. Further options to fire on the down-roll, up-roll, or fire into the rigging / waterline / sweep the decks could further modify each of these commands. Maybe then instead of all guns having the same arc (Do they all have the same arc? It's hard to tell.) the forward guns could bear a little further forward and the rear guns could bear a little further aft, and guns could also not fire if they can't bear on the target. Shots going far astray while the captain is trying to concentrate on waring ship or raking the enemy could be mitigated by simply telling the crew to fire as they bear! -Smarter sail handling, perhaps an improvement on auto-skipper, could be performed by bringing up a sail plan of the ship and selecting which sails you'd like to do what things with. Individual sails could be reefed, brailled up, tightened or slackened, set or furled, backed or let fly, as necessary for an experienced captain. Furling square sails and hoisting every stitch of fore-and-aft canvas when sailing close to the wind, for instance. -Marines, sharpshooters, and swivel guns could harass the enemy crew at close range instead of simply flinging grape at the enemy, possibly even with orders to harass enemy sharpshooters, gun crews, or officers. -Carpenters and mates could automatically work on plugging leaks, and the boatswain and mates could repair damaged rigging gradually instead of having the simple repair / survival modes currently present. Hands could still be taken away from fighting the ship in a survival mode, hastening the pumping, plugging, or repairs as necessary.

Being able to determine a position by taking noon sights would be nice for times when one is away from land for a while. Dead reckoning traced onto the map would be neat, and I wouldn't even mind if there was some inaccuracy with this. Could even introduce leeward slippage so the dead reckoning isn't an accurate plot of direction. Adding to the Silent Hunter comparison, being able to select a particular course by clicking a compass bearing would be nice. Could also inputt a specific heading by clicking and dragging on the compass, or typing in a bearing for when you have to be very accurate. (Sailing to Bermuda and wanting to be certain of not missing it, for instance.