Fluffy Fishy

I feel like the BR fix hasnt really helped the game for the requin, in part because the requin in game is nothing like it was historically. While it means port battles are a little bit more varied it still doesnt fix the ganking problem. Requin shouldnt be a tough ship, she shouldnt be able to go toe to toe with 5th rates in any stretch of the imagination and a 12 pounder frigate like surprise, diana and renomee should basically just cause requin to evaporate into a puff of splinters. Take a look at how she is built, with paper thin frames and planks, she is a single hulled vessel unlike almost every other ship in the game she shouldn't have the thickness or HP she does. Just make requin the commerce raider she was meant to be, not the warship she currently is and watch things improve massively.

I have spent a long time with multiple postings trying to point out the fragility of xebecs, they are all like this, and Requin is one of the stronger ones too. Italian, Spanish, African and Turkish xebecs are all weaker constructed than French ones in that order too. The xebec should be a fantastic commerce raider, a glass cannon that takes high damage and crew loss on being shot up. It shouldn't be able to fight frigates, while 6th rates should be a pretty fair match for it. The thickness and structure given to Requin has always been far too high. She is a light ship that is good for corsairing and not much else, her sailing qualities meaning she can avoid naval ships but should she get caught by one she should be in real trouble. They are built for almost pure speed and sailing, with very little focus on longevity in fights, the main use of naval xebecs by most nations was as a countermeasure to pirate xebecs sailed by the Berbers, this should be reflected in the game, they should also be a fairly easy ship to capsize, their draught is incredibly shallow and there is a lot of power in their sails, especially when exposed to caribbean winds, rather than the sheltered winds of the Mediterranean. Requin is a commerce raider, not a brawler by any means. Hopefully these pictures will help contribute to that as an outcome.

@Lovec1990@z4ys@balticsailor I take your videos of firing cannons at various bits of wood and ship reconstructions, and raise you this: Your move.

Its not often a long and well constructed post like this one now, its been a long time since I have seen something like this, thank you for the fantastic post, I look forwards to see what you might write next. Keep at it we need more people like you!

I have posted this picture before, but I have decided to redo it with more information, to properly look at how it works within the context of the ships involved so as to give an Idea of Fama, and how she compares to other ships of similar sizes. I have also reuploaded the image to have much less distortion from page bending. The picture is of a comparison of how various ships sit in the water and is from the book Das Erbe Der Serenissima, by Dr Karl Klaus Korner. I have also included some specifics of the ships featured so as to further understand the comparison. Concordia (1772) Venetian 40/56 gun Fregata Grossa/Second Rate: Improved San Michele Arcangelo Class Designer: Antonio Nadal di Annibale Measurements Total Length: 128,85 (Venetian foot) (44.8m) Keel Length: 110 (Venetian foot) (38.25m) Total Width: 35 (Venetian foot) (12.17m) Bilge tip: 27.5 (Venetian foot) (9.56m) Draught: 16.5 (Venetian foot) (5.73m) Armament: Fregata Grossa: 20 x 30lb (Venetian pound) (9 kg each) 20 x 14lb (Venetian pound) (4.2kg each) Total Broadside: 440 lb (Venetian pound) Second Rate: 24 x 30lb (Venetian pound) (12 kg each) 24 x 14lb (Venetian pound) (4.2kg each) 8 x 12lb (Venetian pound) (3.6 kg each) Total Broadside: 576 lb (Venetian pound) (173.38 kg) Plans: Short History: Designed as an improved, more modern version of the San Michele Arcangelo class first launched in 1749. Concordia was laid down in 1767 and launched in 1772. The majority of her career was spent supporting Venetian convoys to and from the eastern mediterranean, as part of this role she supplemented her role as a heavily armed transport ship and carried spare masts to support the Venetian navy. She later took part in the war against the Bey of Tunis where she took part in the hunting down of barbary ships and bombardment of Tunisian towns. Once the war had ended she returned to Venice and was in 1793 refitted as a receiving ship, where she served for 20 years before being broken up. Dolphin (1781) British 44 gun 5th Rate; Roebuck Class Designer: Thomas Slade Measurements Length of Gundeck: 139' 11" (42.37m) Length of Keel: 115' 6” (35.06m) Width: 37' 10” (11.28m) Depth of Hold: 16' 4" (4.89m) Tons Burthen: 880 47⁄94 Draught: 19’ 3” (5.87m) Armament: 20 x 18lb (8.16 kg each) 22 x 9lb (4.8 kg each) 2 x 6lb (2.72 kg each) Total Total Broadside: 285 lb (129.27kg) Plans: Short History: HMS Dolphin was one of the batch of Roebuck class ships launched in 1781 towards the end of the American war of Independence, she was commissioned for service in the North Sea and was present at the battle of Dogger Bank, fighting against the Dutch. She was reassigned to the Jamaica Squadron in 1782 where she would spend the remainder of the war. With peacetime she was repaired and then laid in ordinary where she would stay until 1789, when she was refitted as a hospital ship in response to the Nootka crisis, where war with Spain looked likely to erupt, although by the time the refit was finished the crisis was over and again laid in ordinary. In 1793 she was commissioned as a storeship for the Mediterranean squadron where she took part in the evacuation of Porto Ferrajo and the capture of Minorca then returning to Lisbon to serve as a Hospital ship. In 1800 she returned to England and was refitted as a troopship, and later dispatched back to the Mediterranean where she took part in the Royal Navy’s Egyptian campaign, then returning and being paid off in 1802. In 1804 she saw another refit into a storeship, and would work to take supplies to Ireland. She then was refitted again in 1805, and went on to serve in the Leeward Islands, was refitted again and then broken up in 1817. Grampus (1782) British 50 gun 4th Rate Grampus Class Frigate Designer: Edward Hunt Measurements Length of Gundeck: 148' 1 (45.11m) Length of Keel: 121' 8" (36.89m) Width: 40' 8" (12.4m) Depth of Hold: 17' 9“ (5.19m) Tons Burthen: 1,070 25⁄94 Draught: 20’ 7” (6.27m) Armament 22 x 24lb (10.89 kg each) 22 x 12lb (5.44 kg each) 6 x 6lb (2.72 kg each) Total Broadside: 414 lb (187.79 kg) Plans: Short History: Built in Liverpool in 1782 very little seems to be written about her that I have seen, a similar design to the portland class although slightly larger with some interesting features like a fully built up bow and one of the ships that started the theme of enclosing the waist. She was first commissioned in 1782 in home waters, in 1783 she was refitted for foreign service and recommissioned the same year although sadly I can’t find details to where this service took her. She returned in 1785, when she was refitted for African service, and then commissioned to serve there. She was later returned to Depford in July 1794 and broken up a month later. Rättvisan (1783) Swedish 62 gun Third Rate Improved Wasa Class Designer: Fredrik Chapman Measurements Total Length: 167 (Swedish foot) (49.6m) Width: 45’ 9” (Swedish foot) (13.59m) Depth of Hold: 19’ 6” (Swedish foot) Draught: 19’6 (Swedish foot) (5.79m) Armament Peacetime: 26 x 24lb (Swedish pound) (10.2 kg each) 28 x 18lb (Swedish pound) (7.65 kg each) 8 x 6lb (Swedish pound) (2.55 kg each) Total Broadside: 588 lb (Swedish pound) (249.9 kg) Wartime: 26 x 36lb (Swedish pound) 28 x 24lb (Swedish pound) (10.2 kg each) 8 x 6lb (Swedish pound) (2.55 kg each) Total Broadside: 828 lb (Swedish pound) (351.9 kg) Plans: Short History: Rättvisan was one of the Improved Wasa Class ships drawn up by Chapman, constructed at great speed in Karlskrona, with her keel laid down on 19th of July.1783 and was launched only a month and a half later on the 2nd of September straight into service. Rattvisan was heavily involved with the Swedish-Russo war of 1788-90 where she took part in the battles of Hogoland and Vyborg. It was during the battle of Vyborg where she was captured by the Russians, who much prized Swedish ships. Now with Russia, she was commissioned to the Baltic in 1791, then stationed in Revel’ Roads between 1792-4, England 1795-6, then the Baltic again in 1797, the same year she was docked in Kronshtadt and surveyed for draughts so as could be copied. She departed her dock in 1798 and went to assist British efforts in the North sea until 1800. She then returned to russia, and received repairs between 1803-4 after which she returned to service in the Mediterranean. She fought at the battles of Mount Athos, The Dardanelles and Lemnos in 1807, was stationed to Lisbon between 1807-8 and then went on to be interned at portsmouth. She remained there until she was sold in 1813, although her guns were returned to russia. Fama (1784) Venetian 66 gun Fregata Grossa/Second Rate (3rd Rate French/Austrian ship) Fama Class Designer:Domenico Giacomazzo Measurements Total Length: 138 (Venetian foot) (48.00) Keel Length: 122 (Venetian foot) (42.42m) Width: 37 (Venetian foot) (12.86m) Draught: 17.5 (Venetian foot)(6.08m) Bilge Tip: 28 (Venetian foot) (9.73m) Armament: 26 x 40lb (Venetian pound) (12 kg each) 26 x 30lb (Venetian pound) (9 kg each) 14 x 14lb (Venetian pound) (4.2kg each) Total Broadside: 1008 lb (Venetian pound) (303.41 kg) Plans: Short History: Designed as part of a modernisation project, bringing Venetian ships up to date with the double framed typical european standards of the time, she was launched in 1784 and sailed for Malta where immediately became the flagship of Angelo Emo, she took part in various action during this campaign, attacking large barbary ships and taking part in the bombardment and destruction of many of the most prolific bases for north african piracy. Following the death of Angelo Emo she returned to Venice carrying his body with full honours. After this she was displaced from being flagship by the larger ship Vittorio and she was sent to be stationed in Corfu, where she would spend the rest of her Venetian career patrolling the coastline for pirates. Following the surrender of Corfu she was captured and enlisted into the French Fleet, where she was sent to Toulon and received a small refit and rearmament, and was renamed Renomee, then Dubois. She then went on to serve in Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, where she would sadly come into collision with the french flagship L’Orient at Alexandria, because of the damage she received she was then used as the command headquarters for the French forces, and later partially sunk to block the British fleet from entering the harbour, after the British routed the French from Egypt, she was captured by the British who inspected her and found her in poor condition so fully sank her. (For more history of her and her sister ships, please check the other posts in this thread, there are more in depths plans too)

That website is pretty innacurate, the "polacca" used is a polacca rigged xebec, they are two quite different ships and to say they are similar is frankly wrong. The polacca is a round ship which is often misdescribed as meaning "polish", the word actually comes from the Greek words "Πολυ" and "Αχρα", where as the xebec is a longship, coming from Arabic origins. The ancestry of the ships are fairly different too, Xebecs are adaptions of galleys where as polacca have a much deeper comparative draught and much more closely resemble cutters and brigs. While they do carry some similar features, such as beak and bowshape their hydraulic lines are quite different, they handle quite differently too, the polacca being more built for mercantile activities where as the xebec is far more suited as a light warship. Polaccas are also on average quite significantly smaller ships, although can often draw the same tonnage as xebecs, thanks to the much sleeker profile of the xebec, don't let this mislead you, the xebec also has much larger variants of over 30 guns, sometimes over 40, unheard of for a Pollaca, which often carried a much lighter armament of around 8-20 guns, both typically carrying light guns. Here are some pictures of the different types of ships respectively, as you will see from their actual lines that they are different ships, even if they can occasionally have quite similar profiles above the water. albeit in slightly low quality. PS: if anyone is curious about the models they are both Amati, their Polacca and their Sciabecco, both are nice little kits.

Its worth pointing out that it was pretty common for xebecs and galleys to carry both square and triangular sails with them, more often than not one sail would have been mounted on the yards while the other was folded into large a sunscreen to allow for the crew to get some respite from the heavy mediterranean sun, something that isnt often shown on plans or models. The sails would be swapped in and out depending on the weather conditions to allow for the best possible speed or agility. The possibility of mounting xebecs with the best sail for the conditions was one of the major draws of having the live yard and helped offset the difficulty in raising it. Its also worth noting that a pollacre and a xebec are two quite different ships, its weird that source mixed them up. Perhaps its more of a conceptual thing? I'm pretty sure i've got some pictures of rigging up a xebec with a square and triangular sails somewhere, i will find them if I haven't posted them already and try and post them later. Sadly they aren't particularly high def though.

Would you be selling the port or the title to the port? Assuming nations continue to control ports as they do you are basically selling a title for example as the governorship of Bermuda, I think there is a bit of devil in how its presented here, if you are selling ports its kinda a bit of a hard to justify idea, modifying it slightly around the wording involved to make it about selling a title you will probably see what is actually a pretty good idea being more easily accepted. Port rights and Landed titles were exchanged enough to justify the idea on the historical side of things, while the feature would easily be justified by the gameplay aspects, creating a market out of conquest will do more to encourage conquest than most the economy changes we have seen over the past couple of years.

I have been toying around with this thread recently, adding little bits and adjusting what is on it and I thought I might add some of the Artwork I've come across over time which includes the Fama class ships, mainly Fama, Gloria Veneta, Beyrand and Stengel. There are some nice bits I've stumbled by over the years of constant coming back to this ship so I thought I may as well throw them all up on this thread. Thank you to everyone who still keeps an eye out in the shipyard, I hope you enjoy these pictures by the fantastic artist Sandro Ferlugio: This is a rough sketch watercolour of Fama at the Bombardment of La Goletta, while not a particularly accurate piece looking at Fama herself, the watercolour shows a nice interpretation of some of the activities going on supporting the destruction of the port town so often used as a base for Barbary pirates. This is a picture showing the main expedition fleet on its way to the Tunisian Coastline in 1784, with Fama proudly presented in the foreground of the picture, the painting also shows some of the other ships present in the fleet, most easily seen are the Venetian first rate ships Forza and Vittoria also included are the bombard sloop Distruzione, the Frigate Palma and a Galiot and a Xebec. In the spoiler below I will leave two close up shots, looking more closely at some of the details shown in the painting. This picture is a rough sketch that would later inspire the painting above, note the slightly different ship placement and absence of Palma and Distruzione, while the first rates also end up in slightly different positioning, This picture shows the construction of the floating gun platforms used in the Bombardment of Sfax, it also again shows the large Venetian first rates Forza and Vittoria, and the bombard ship Distruzione, a Galiot and a few ship's boats. Fama is the ship on the immediate right of the painting unloading a long gun onto the gun platform. This is actually a picture I really like of the ship, partly because it gives a nice show of detail to how the ship would have looked from an angle unusual for ship paintings. This image is one of the Bombardment of Sfax itself, with the full listing of ships shown in the writing at the bottom. The majority of the numbers show the floating bombardment platforms but it also lists the ships with convenient numbers, and going left to right it lists the ships; Concordia, Vittoria, Palma, Fama, Eolo, Distruzione, Polonia, Cupido and Exploritore. The bombardment of Sfax was one of the most significantly destroyed towns in the campaign. While not as clear as the one above, this picture is a similar kind of piece again from around the time of the event. It shows the blockade of Ancona by the Russo-Turkish fleet, the ships Beyrand, Stengel and La Harpe are the large ships blocking the harbour mouth, although details are somewhat difficult to see it shows a nice perspective of what the desperation of the siege might encounter, with the Venetian ships serving under France, who were fighting the Russians and Turks at sea and also the Austrians on land during this battle. I hope you enjoyed the sharing of these images, hopefully I will stumble across some more over time and share them with you all as I go. Thanks as always for reading.

@Sir Texas Sir and @Banished Privateer Sorry if i misunderstood the point you were making I read it as a jab to against the PVE community which is something I see far too often around here, aplogies for the mistake. Thanks for both clearing it up.

I don't know anyone who was particularly upset on the PVE server by the more restrictive change, people just adjusted to the new mechanics and explored other ships while they built up resources to get SoLs. I saw far more frustration from the PVP playerbase concerned about death spirals and having strong enough ships for port battles anyway. Please have a bit more respect, we all want a good game here, Insulting the PVE players doesn't achieve anything and especially when its not even true, scapegoating the more casual playerbase and making them feel unwanted only hurts the game in the long run, especially when the accusations aren't justified. Please can we stop this now, its been a continuous damaging aspect pushing people away for years.

If you actually want realism demasting happened from a cocktail of damage, not from just the mast itself but also the internal supports and rigging. Its pretty impossible to demast a ship simply by hitting the mast proper because the tension from the rigging will keep it up, on the contrary its most often the tension from an uneven force on the rigging that causes most masts to come down which exacerbate damage to the trunk of the mast itself. A mast is actually a very strong structure even though its most often made from a sappy wood like fir or pine, its cylindrical shape makes it very difficult to apply meaningful force and therefore damage due to the way impact forces work, similarly to how circular towers on castles are much stronger than square ones. The game should just make it more difficult to demast without rigging and a bit of structure damage rather than removing sniping. It would be silly to remove ranging shots because no captain would want to fire an entire broadside blind.

You can solo/duo pretty much any PVE mission fleet with a l'Ocean, especially if you set your ship up right with right wood types and thickness and dps bonuses. I've seen oceans with almost 100 thickness and the reload cap, you can basically kill anything with that, especially if you have edinorogs. If you are concerned about doing Fleet action do a few with a friend or two, its helpful when you are getting used to sailing the slug that is Ocean. Just don't make the mistake of taking the largest guns into combat you possibly can, stick to 24/32lbs When it comes to actual fleet battles there isn't much useful AI ships really help with, they seem to flap about and not really achieve much in my experience, the extra slots only really become useful for trading, while you are better using the more combat themed perks. Hope this helps

Something I would really like to see as a low priority suggestion for the game is the ability to have a complete viewer for the ship models in game. We are lucky here to have the best ship models available of any naval game I have come across, it seems a shame not to emphasise the art involved a bit more and giving players the ability to properly look at the full shape of the ships we have without the clunkiness of using free cam with water in the way. I would really like to see a sketchfab type system where you can properly move the camera around the ships to fully enjoy what the art designers have provided for us, for the sake of simplicity it would be good to see it as a feature of ports, but I understand that developing this idea would suck away resources from the game itself. Take these examples from Sketchfab, how great would it be to see this kind of feature available in the game with the fully textured beautiful models we have. https://sketchfab.com/models/ca7d542c808e42fc931e60b731d3a96e https://sketchfab.com/models/e29f5923f97b484eb965ace28f19ece9 https://sketchfab.com/models/1aafe7df3f21434fba578e44880a1231 https://sketchfab.com/models/ff599e254a59404cb01f3ce81f689cc1 https://sketchfab.com/models/97c5c859b5d944cc8fa31cd21f95a1b9 Freecam in comparison is very limited to shots like these, which while you do get to explore the ships very nicely it would be great to go further and have a more optimised system for properly examining ships, especially one that you could potentially toggle water on or off. Here are some shots I managed to achieve of Requin (please don't judge me, I'm just using it to quickly get from a-b). Note the way the water gets in the way of the hull form shots, something I would personally like to see avoided when examining the workmanship in what goes into the NA models, while the free cam is also quite clunky to use, and those of us who aren't so well practised in it you can rarely get the screenshots you want, especially shots where the sails are deployed, because using freecam on the move is beyond my skill and patience, even into the wind where things are much slower. It would also be great to add some proper lighting to this system so you can adjust sun and light effects to get the ship view you really want, rather than having to rely on the OW weather. To achieve this idea you could probably refit the mechanics from NA Legends, where the ship is sitting in the dock screen, you could call it something like Architects view, Surveyor's view or Dry Dock Examination, it would add a lot of enjoyment to myself, and I imagine the portion of the game's audience who are very into the ships themselves, here for the artwork more than the gameplay too. Its probably also worth noting that the Museum mode in Assassins Creed Origins was a massive success, with it being used by various people to view the world of ancient Egypt in a really nice electronic form, something that could also be of great value to certain groups of people with a high degree of interest in ships and naval history, maybe even bringing in some new revenue from a new audience, allowing for more money to be reinvested in the game itself. Thank you for reading What are your thoughts?

Something that has bothered me for quite some time, although stupidly I have never really pointed it out is the exit from KPR, The way you exit the port in larger ships often means unless you change your course you end up completely stuck in shallows, curiously the water looks deep blue as if you could sail over it with ease. It would be really beneficial if the depth was redrawn slightly, alternatively the line you exit the town on needs to be positioned a little bit to the west of where you exit currently. It makes no sense gameplay wise that you need to adjust your bearing almost instantly after setting sail where the exit is clearly ahead of you. To make matters even more bizarre the shallows appear in what appears to be the almost centre of the channel as you leave town. I guess thats why the area in real life is called hunts bay (insert rude joke here). Here are some pictures to show the current predicament, I have just sailed straight forwards from where I exited the port in my Indiaman, not even the largest of ships going. Please dredge or adjust the exit angle, thank you for reading.

Crafting ships should simply be easier, the loss of NPC production and the time sink of gathering resources in the current state of the game just requires too much of a commitment for a lot of people. The best times in the game were the times where ships were fairly disposable and could be replaced without too much of an issue. Restricting the supply of ships or making certain materials only available in specific ports only damages the game and its PVP either through upping the risk to the point people dont bother to play or by creating a culture of alts, both sadly leave us with a worse game. More ship availability for more players is the answer, the reletively disposable nature of the Herc and Requin have been so refreshing, its just a shame they are ships that are given stats that have thrown the balance right off.

When people joke about pink ships and show victory's colours but the lighting doesn't show that the actual historic colour at Trafalgar was black and salmon pink, nelson was quite the dandy. So yes you should get that pink surprise

Here is a collection of drawings of common Venetian flags housed at the Venetian naval history museum. And Here are a couple of bonus flags from other sources: As a fun bonus fact for those who are still reading this: Venice was also the only nation to frequently use velvet in their flags because they had ridiculous amount of money, although velvet flags were mainly in use over the 16th and 17th century they were still employed as part of parades and for prestige value, with the majority of naval jacks being made no different from any other flag of the period, unless they were the flags for the Bucentaur.

what about the asian system of yyyy/mm/dd? Its what they use for archives and most filing systems too

The Venetian flag has many different aspects, all encompassing various stances and things that the lion is holding, the main 3 are the cross, the book and the sword, whilst its also quite common to see the Lion of St Mark holding a city too. The battle flag of Venice holds the sword, but when fighting pirates there is often the sword and the crucifix, while traders tend to use the book and the sword, meaning they can fight but they come to learn and trade. There is also significance to how the book is held, if the book is open the flag means its open to influence and discussion, where as if the book is closed and the lion is standing on it the flag means Venice is showing authority. The 6 tails to the flag are also significant, they represent the 6 original districts of Venice, Cannaregio, Castello, Dorsoduro, San Marco, San Polo and Santa Croce. There are a lot of combinations of many little betweens the different but the main 3 are: I will try and find some more useful pictures when I have a bit more time, but I hope you are doing the artwork yourselves as best you can, creating your own artistic resources the majority of the Venetian flags online look a bit derpy, If you aren't please use the two above rather than that weird cgi style one it looks weird and out of place, especially in an age of sail game. Also please if you are going to model it let the tails flap properly, they look incredible. Some Other Examples: Here is a nice link showing some more flags of the republic: http://www.bandieredeipopoli.com/veneto.htm

I was responding to this. Also the model below shows the the modification of the Seppings stern of the Sandwich class, the subclass of the Java. I also forgot to respond to this, which I meant to say surely if Java is considered SoL so should the US 44 gun Frigates, Chesapeake too, being a slightly smaller version of the design who all had thicker hulls than Java, when you look at specifics like this it quickly becomes a very blurred line.

Technically it is SoL, it's heavy enough to sail next to thicker hulls. The changes Seppings made to ships are generally hideous, the move to iron frames including the iron diagonals mixed with the changes to sterns are the beginning of the end to the age of sail. It does mean that the enclosing of the stern made significant steps to make a weak part of the ship much more protective and in a lot of ways built more like the fairly sturdy bow but its such an ugly system that is the first step towards iron warships. Its kind of interesting British history chooses to mainly forget Seppings, while remembering Slade so fondly, Seppings had a much larger impact, but Slade's iconography wins out mainly because it goes in hand with Trafalgar, having designed Victory and nine of the other ships in the Battle. Here are some examples of Seppings Sterns:

You can usually pick up a good quality copy either second hand or from a 3rd party seller somewhere like the Amazon marketplace or Abebooks for a bit cheaper if you keep an eye out. Especially on abebooks, you can pick up some real bargains if you pay it some attention, ive picked up some hugely discounted books there recently. Currently there's a few copies going cheaper on Abe, its also worth making a watch list if you haven't already https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?cm_sp=SearchF-_-topnav-_-Results&isbn=1844863093&sts=t

Something that may or may not have been suggested before is the idea that you might as well just not have nations in PVE, everyone being able to play in the exact same community rather than weirdly divided up into the 8 nations seems like it would be great as an idea. PVE has the issue where now every port is considered neutral, which is a great benefit to everyone except the capitals, which is a waste of time, what would be better is if everyone was able to do everything together and ports and nations didn't mean a thing. This way we could have everyone working together and all accessing building friendships and relations with each player on the server instead of being cut off from each other for no reason. As it currently stands the main population plays Great Britain, while a few others play the other nations but are cut off almost entirely from the main body of the playerbase, which seems mad on the casual server. I would quite like to see the continuation of flags, where you can set yourself a flag of a nation but it doesn't mean anything other than what flies off your ship (ideally with more flags all round), meaning you can party up with anyone and sink those nasty AI ships to your hearts content for the best experience for the casual player. Nations seem meaningless and a pointless way to divide players for no reason in an already small community. Thoughts?