William Death

Lol yeah sometimes I'm thinking "I know global doesn't want to hear this...but its kind of difficult to plan battles when its more than 1v1 because all info has to be relayed to all parties, etc." so that is why global chat hears us all the time planning our fair fights out. In addition, I would like to see a new type of group chat that allows you to invite up to 50 members to discuss policy, wars, peace treaties, etc...maybe this could serve that purpose as well. I really think something like this needs to be implemented, it saves us from spamming global and keeps things semi-confidential too.

Indeed!

Avoid being stern raked. If you are sailing a large ship alone, and you get attacked by a couple smaller frigates with skilled captains, you should be VERY afraid. I have used a surprise to chain the sails, and then kill hundreds of crew off of a Bellona before (granted, the skipper of that ship was not doing a very good job of keeping me off his stern, and I believe he was most likely sailing a poorly built Bellona [tank fit, should never be sailed alone in the first place]). If you want to sail a large ship alone, you had better know what you are doing and have a darn fine build that can move when needed to. I have a couple Bellonas that I can confidently sail alone, I have even camped the Pirate capital with one ; but the only way I feel comfortable doing that is knowing I can turn well, have good speed, and still angle armor well enough to tank some damage. More to the point of the post, having a magical "recover crew" button is a big no-no. I'm assuming that of the crew I take out of battle in a rake/grape broadside, about 30% of those are dead, with 70% being carried below to the ship's doctor for attention (works out just fine if you run the doctor perk). It would make sense for a few of them to return to combat (bandaged up, splinters removed, ready to fight again), but I'm not sure how many that should be....30% of the 70% that survive? I don't know. However, I don't like the idea of hitting a button and getting a whole bunch of crew back...it should be a process that happens over time: a certain amount of the injured men can be recovered in battle, with x number appearing per x minutes since they were "killed" (injured). Just my opinion.

This exactly. I was dueling a Waffle Hamburger with my Constitution today, we did a gentleman's agreement duel in the small battles room and had another player in a gunboat come in to even BR so we wouldn't have to deal with AI messing up the fight. It was fun, I called uncle as one side of my ship was getting low on hitpoints after repairs, I would have liked to try several other strategies (and builds), but it is a waste of time waiting on small battle to open, finding someone to come in to fill BR, etc. Besides this, other ships are fun to duel against each other, for example: I would love to practice my skills in Bellona vs. first rates (currently, I feel *pretty* confident I can take one out, as long as he is not an agile hull build Victory with turning mods), but I would love some more practice. Also, is there any way to group duel? I have noticed some messages when I am in a group and try to enter duel "only ready group leader can enter duels." Does that mean we can have massive duels? As in 8 v 8 to practice strategy? I've never actually tried it, but it would be awesome if it worked like that. Finally, it would be nice to have an "invite spectator" option so others can watch the duel if you want to show tactics or something.

I used to feel the same way, but now that I have gotten better about managing armor and avoiding taking too many rakes, its not that bad. I can do a Rear Admiral fleet mission and suffer less than 100 casualties on my Victory, that means only a few guys need replacement at the end of the fight with doctor perk (a few guys died, most just got cut up and taken out of the fight for a bit). Also, avoid sailing fir or bermuda cedar built ships into heavy broadside-to-broadside combat, they drop crew like nobody's business. If you do plan to fight in one of those ships, you have to be really careful to bounce each broadside and manage bow and stern rakes. Don't misunderstand me here-I LOVE my cedar ships-but you really have to watch that crew count in those ships.

Exactly, crew is dirt cheap to maintain then...so hire yourself a good ship's physician and buy him some medical supplies and go on about your fighting Captain! I used to struggle with the cost of crew too while trying to make money off of missions, then I started doing this with almost every ship I sail, and I have no problem with crew cost now, and can even make some money doing missions if I want to practice new tactics (demasting, stern camping, etc).

Thanks for posting this. I have been meaning to sail my Niagara so I can try to recreate circumstances that happened one day to me: I was in a small fleet mission and an ai Navybrig ran alongside me, as he turned, he kind of just "slid" over my rail a bit, my Niagara heeled way over, but did not capsize (it had to have been close to the point of no return though). The same thing happened to a friend's Niagara as well. I also heard via nation chat that a Pirate's Niagara fully capsized due to being rammed by another player's ship (Indiaman maybe?). Unfortunately I did not think to do a F11 at the time, I thought it was a freak instance. After I heard it happened to others though, I wish I had sent a report. I do think this is a bug.

Same thing is happening with me too. Happened to me last night around midnight EST as well.