Sea Archer

From gameplay point of view, there is nothing wrong. The Spanish guy gave up his own nationality during the time of the battle, flying the Swedish flag. Therefore he was a legitimate target for the fort. As long as there can be only 2 sides in a battle, the mechanics must consequently work this way.

Pandora is only free for pre-release players, the other have to buy it. Without some experience, the exam ships are lost within a few day. It is easy to say, that shipless captains shall just cap an ai, when you know how to play. The game became really complex in the last years, so that noobs need some support. Especially since they do not have the practice room we had in 2016. They will loose many ships before starting ho win a battle.

Basic cutters up to m&c rank could have a different colour and give no kill. M&C rank upwarts could have a black hull and give the kill. Shouldn't be too difficult to code.

You already have the Santissima as 1st rate. Better to add some spanish frigate or smaller one.

So you say free Admiralty ships with restrictions in outfitting them is not ok, while DLC ships with possible port bonus and free choice to outfit them is ok?

Especially new players have problems to earn enough money to replace their lost ships. Therefore I suggest that the Admiralty provides a daily ship, without port bonus, according to the rank of the player, but not above 5th rate. The ship shall be random, in the full historical setup (guns, marines, wood) and not tradeable. Maybe with one set of repairs for hull and sails, that cannot be removed. Guns shouldn't be removable, too. Breaking the ship up shall give no mats, to avoid abuse. Just take the ship, sail and fight. Could be even redeemed by everyone, though most, that can afford better ships, won't use it.

Maybe we could switch to random fire when at point blank range, letting the crew fire as fast as possible without aiming. Could increase the fire rate by 10%.

Historically random fire was used in the hot phase of a battle, when every ball counts and should be shot as fast as possible. Firing from bow or stern was for reduces strain, while the fire was still somehow controlled. The full simultaneous broadside, causing more confusion at the enemy, causes the maximum strain. Which I would love to see in game.

You are right, people will buy powerful ships, seasoned woods or not, but the little difference between seasoned woods and the usual crafting woods makes the life for crafting players much harder, since it gets more and more difficult to compete with dlc ships. The Redoubtable is so successful, since it is a very powerful 3rd rate, without any crafting effort. Many people buy it, since they cannot pump out a similar ship by crafting every day. There are two kinds of players in the game, the ones who like crafting and the one who don't. With the Redoubtable, imo the balance between both got lost, even if it is a commercial success.

32 lbs guns on small ships without a disadvantage. A ship will always displace the same amount of water, when it shall be able to sail the same speed, and to swim stable even in stormy weather. The stability is the distance between the center of gravity and the buoyancy focus. The bigger the distance the more stable a ship will swim. When adding bigger guns high above the waterline and the general displacement shall stay the same (for the same speed), consequently the ballast must be reduced. This will move the center of gravity upwards, while the buoyancy focus stays the same. Therefore the ship will be less stable. This should be reflected in the game. I think it was in one of the Thomas Kydd, where he gets his first frigate command and wants to swap his guns to a higher calibre, which is dismissed due to stability reasons.

No area for 7th and 6th rates only

PB mechanics I don't like this circle capping thing, it should be more like bringing Marines, or crew in general, to forts, tower and the city itself to capture or burn them. Would be a kind of more realistic...

The second thing I do not like is seasoned wood.

Mods and books, I would definitely prefer to live without, to have equal chances for both sides, so only the player's skill shall make the difference. ... though everybody else seems to love them.

Right now I am Vice Admiral, so one more rank to go, but since I can fully crew a l'ocean, I really don't care about my rank or crew. Not sure if your stars will have that much effect. Though you could make golden stars for like 100k xp from pvp and silver stars for 100k xp from ai, but without increasing crew. It will just show how successful a captain is.

I would love to see all ships in their historical woods only, without any bonus, mod or book. ... though I know it will never happen to.

My suggestion is to make all DLC ships in standard woods, but the player has the option to provide the seasoned wood himself, then he gets his ship seasoned. This would place the burden of crafting s-woods on all, breaking up ships wouldn't be the way of getting cheap seasoned wood anymore, and the DLC owner still gets his ship with good woods without any crafting effort.

Non-pvp players can get their CMs via missions, no need for selling them at the Admiralty. You shall only get CMs, if you risk your ship in OW. Even if it is only sailing in enemy territory and sink ai.

I would love to see the high level dlcs as permits only. Everyone can craft a 4th rate to compete with the dlc ships, 3rd rates, without crafting effort, are a way too much p2w.

Would be great to see the ship smoking all the time.

Raiders run a high risk of being attacked in enemy territory, like it should be. But they should not be able to stay and repair for an unlimited time.

Raiders shall have a hard time, when they used up their repairs. There must be a risk, when entering enemy territory. In my opinion the repairs in battle are much too high and no captain would be able to repair a ship, heavily damaged in battle, outside a proper shipyard. Therefore I refuse any extra repairs, apart from the usual loot you can get.

Maybe even an own cannon crafting lvl is an option. If crafting lvl and LH shall be separated, how shall the LH lvl be calculated?

To my understanding the raids were ment to keep big nations busy with defending their main ports, while other nations can attack another port at the same time. Ok, I understand that, and it somehow works, since nearly 25 players were needed to defend and cannot participate in other battles. Still, yesterday, the ai fleet was very fast, difficult to intercept before reaching the circle. Even then you have to be careful, when you try to push them out, that you don't get boarded. Slightly less speed of ai would be good.

I disagree, the basic cutter is a warship somehow and should therefore not be able to enter enemy ports. They are too often used for reconnaissance, if they can escape in enemy towns, it would be too much. A better explanation how economy missions work, that only traders can enter enemy ports would be a nice thing. It should be written in the mission text.