Idle Champion

Under the current system gun carriages are included in the blueprint of a ship and these gun carriages give the ship the potential to be armed. The purchased 'cannon' is much more of a ticket, with no weight and no variation in cost for the number of cannons on any fitted deck. Once the ticket is added, the gun carriages now behave as carriage-mounted guns, adding weight to the ship and enabling it to load and fire and generally fight with the cannons of that deck. There is a massive by-design difference between traders and warships, with the traders having a minimal armament and a massive hold and warships having quite the reverse; the difference is so pronounced that the largest warships can carry less cargo than the smallest traders. But this difference is artificial: many small warships were not purpose-built but purchased commercially and subsequently armed, merchants sailing in convoys might concentrate weapons in a few ships, otherwise no different from their sisters, to serve as escorts. Pirate captures and by extension pirate ships themselves were largely ex-mercantile ships. The differences between a large merchantman with full lines and two stern galleries, pierced for cannon on two decks even if not armed on both, and a fourth-rate ship of the line were so marginal that even ranking naval officers could be fooled, and several ships were built for one role only to find themselves in the other. Even warships in naval service could be armed en flute if carrying capacity was required for a particular mission. Even in-game the difference is artificial - the gun carriages are the only blueprint elements separating trader and warship variants of the Lynx, Cutter, Brig, and Snow, and the models for the traders have not covered or filled the gun port piercings. What I am proposing is removing gun carriages from blueprints and removing the 'cannon ticket' from the shop, and replacing it with crafted and, within limits, NPC-generated carriage-mounted guns. This would also call for replacing the existing twofold abstraction of 'Cannon weight slowing warships' and 'Trader ships being slower by design than warships' with a unified 'Cannons and cargo both add load which slows all ships' system, and replace ships with otherwise identical 'trader' and warship variants with a single ship. Crafted cannons and unified load capacity in summary: No gun carriages in ship blueprints. Labour hour cost and craft xp reductions in proportion to lost carriages in each ship blueprint. Cannon blueprints added, unlocked at all levels. The blueprint for a batch of cannons consists of several carriages and some additional materials to reflect the labour cost/craft xp difference between unarmed and armed ships and the price of an existing cannon ticket. Gun deck UI is updated to show number as well as class of cannons that the deck can accommodate. Once crafted, cannons can be added to gun decks - eventually, going into gun decks should open up a deck UI that lets cannons be assigned to each gun port for maximum customisation. Every ship has a 'Capacity' - adding cargo to the hold takes up capacity, adding cannons to decks takes up capacity but does not take up a hold slot or count as cargo for the purpose of teleporting, adding cannons to the hold takes up a hold slot and a lower amount of capacity to reflect the gun being dismantled for storage and the lack of powder, shot, and tools needed to operate the cannon as a weapon. The 'Trader X' label gets removed from players, and is left to only mark AI vessels (think of them as mercantile ships, flying a national flag but no naval ensign) The intent: Removing artificial distinctions between trade ships and warships. Slightly increase the carrying capacity of dedicated warships, give traders more options in their defensive and economic play, and create the opportunity for hybrid play as armed merchantmen/warships armed en flute for both trade escorts and commerce raiders. Other advantages: Crafting conservation - crafted ships represent slightly smaller lumps of time, a player going up into a new ship can get a lot of the arming done by taking cannons off their previous ship, a player can arrange cannons throughout their personal fleet as fits their resources and play style. Payoffs for marginal play and customisation - e.g. lightening the broadside of a commerce raider also increases its free capacity for cargo, a leveling player can craft and crew a lightened armament and get into a ship they are interested in sailing easier. Cannons become a resource which can be shared or looted. Low-level Traders no longer stand out as a target from a mile away in the open world. Main disadvantage: Increased cost and detail management for maintaining a mission-variable armament for a given ship - the cannon ticket makes it easy to switch between carronades for search and destroy and long guns for PvP. Increased cost and detail management for arming a fleet that doesn't use overlapping cannons. Complications: Balancing the capacity cost of weapons and the capacity of ships is not entirely straightforward - there isn't a single relationship between capacity and combined gun mass between existing Trader ships and their warship variants, and there isn't a clear reference as to how much cargo an unarmed, unladen warship should carry. Its fairly evident that an unarmed Le Gros Ventre should be able to carry more than an unarmed Renomee, for instance, but how much more? Too much and the differences between trade ships and warships are as pronounced as before, too little and the role of specialised traders is compromised. Tl;dr: Remove gun carriages from ship blueprints, craft cannons instead, make cargo affect speed and cannons affect cargo. Y/N?

Excellent. Definitely colour me interested in seeing Les Jeux, La Gloire (La Gloire and Sweepstakes seem to be the same ship, though carrying thoroughly different armament between services), and L'Amphitrite/La Protee; I'd like to take the temperature of the community to seeing some demi-batterie and two-decker ships of equivalent power to the in-game fifth-rate and sixth-rate before the next major poll, in part because it'd be good to show the earlier type of frigate and in part because I think they'd add quite a bit to small and medium ship gameplay.

Malachi, a fairly involved request, but do you have or know of plans for any of the following French galley-frigates and two-decker frigates: 36-gun Dunkirkers Tigre or Les Jeux (1689) 38/40-gun Dunkirker Croissant/Brutal (1674) 22/32-gun galley-frigate Milfort (1697, ex-Milford) [if not Milfort, then Fouey or Ludlow, two other captures of the same type that ended their careers in French service.] 48-gun two-decker Griffon (1705) I've found measurements, armament, and even some crew details and Wind shared a pic of Les Jeux a while back, but I'd like to build a more complete picture of some good galley-frigate candidates.

Primarily, it's cost, build time, and material availability. The larger of the 'original six' U.S. frigates were frigates by role but capital ships by intent; over on the other side of the Atlantic, 74-gun ships of the line were being churned out in huge numbers and the sort of resources that went into USS Constitution would have been reserved for a second-rate. That's not to say that something like Le Bucentaure or HMS Neptune was built in the same fashion as USS Constitution, but with a similar sort of budget for labour, materials, and shipyard occupancy for the whole project. The second point is that Constitution wasn't built as an 'armoured ship', but was built to be strong enough to support more powerful weapons than existing frigates without the need for additional decking: as a happy byproduct of its prodigiously strong construction it was resilient in combat. Ships of the line had the lateral support of additional enclosed decks, and could support bigger guns without requiring the same structural strength from the hull, while typical frigates weren't carrying the same immense weight of carriage-mounted guns as Constitution. They were built with spaced frames because solid frames weren't required.

Unless every nation had the ships to cover every basic role, restricting ships by nation would stagnate the game - low-level ships, for instance, are either American or British with the sole exception of Mercury. Similarly, several ships sailed for multiple nations - would Surprise be restricted to the British as its captors or the French as its builders. National traits - improved shallow water handling at the expense of stability for the Dutch, improved build strength at the expense of labour cost for Americans, things like that, could be cool, placing particular value on trading or capturing for ships where the national trait really complements the specialty of the ship. Cosmetic differences would also be cool - seeing a French-accented Connie like Acheron in Master & Commander. I will say, however, that it was highly disingenuous to introduce the article on the Constitution as 'well researched', or even relevant given that it refers to a much earlier patch and iteration of the armour system.

Was just about to hunt down plans and pics for some two-decker and demi-battery galley frigates; lo and behold, one of the ships on my hit-list was already in shipyard. She's an unusual example of the type; most galley-frigates and great frigates didn't have more than 22 guns on their main deck. But its definitely cool to see one of the weird and wonderful pre-1740 frigates.

Hasn't the possibility of NPC fleeting using a ship you provide and your own hired crew been raised by the devs? Seeing "Rear Admiral Whatsisface sailing on Indiaman, Fleet: Cerberus, Cerberus" or "Rear Admiral Nonotthatguy sailing on Ingermanland, Fleet: Le Gros Ventre, Le Gros Ventre." may be a thing pretty soon. By the same token, seeing "Curse Thatotherguy sailing on Constitution, Fleet: Rattlesnake." may also be a thing. (In this theoretical, the pirate only has one NPC so he can cap and take prizes.)

On one hand, Le Foudroyant, 1693. A real ship, if an ill-fated one. 1691's Foudre had been burned at La Hogue, 1692's was renamed as Soleil-Royal to replace the legendary flagship, lost in the same fashion. The 1693 Le Foudroyant and that same Soleil-Royal would be scuttled in shallow water at Toulon and not refloated until the ship had degraded beyond repair, and the ship was broken up in 1713. Despite this, Le Foudroyant is beautiful, powerful, and modern for her time. Some knowns - main battery of 28 thirty-six livre cannon, middle battery of 30 eighteen-livre cannon, upper battery of 28 twelve-livre cannon, 18 six-livre cannon arranged on her upper works. 166 feet (fr.) at the gun deck, 46 feet beam, 21'6" her depth of hold. Some assumptions: exact same rating and broadside weight as the 1692 Foudre/Soleil-Royal, so quite likely the same complement of 967 men and officers. A port placed extremely far forward at the level of her upper battery could be a bridle port, but suggests she may have had a pair of twelve-livre cannons as bow chasers. Two stern chaser ports at the level of her main battery, but it was not common practice to carry additional full-sized cannon as dedicated stern chasers. In game, translating her thirty-six livre cannon to 42-pounders and leaving the rest as is, a broadside weight of 1080 pounds and a crew of 950-965. Making her slow, a poor sailor on any upwind point, and giving her a manpower-intensive sailing rig or slow yard turning/sail raising would be a fair concession to her age, though for the sake of balance her sailing vices should feel tolerable against a Victory or Santisima. She should be tough enough to hold out against a broadside as strong as her own for a while before becoming endangered or losing fighting potential, but should not feel like a 'tank' in the same manner as Bellona or Victory since she never had to withstand ships more powerful than herself. A Pavel should be able to easily outsail her, but a simple broadside duel should favour her the longer it goes given her larger crew, greater broadside weight, and the Pavel's larger battery of weak 6-pounders. I'd definitely be interested in seeing full plans of Le Foudroyant and eventually seeing her in game as an alternative to the Pavel that creeps into the lower end of the Pavel-Victory gap. On the other hand, L'Ambitieux, 1680. An innovative but rejected plan, features of which would have made it into Pangallo's subsequent ships including Le Foudroyant. Extremely modern lines for her time, but still with the charming and visually distinctive 17th-century rig. In the model at the start of the thread we see her heavily baroque ornamentation as though in ebony, without gilt or paint, and her planking as varnished, unpainted wood. Her proportions and modest grandeur are elegant, though she would still remain striking more vividly adorned. Some knowns: a tremendous amount of her construction - appearance, dimensions, her decorations, her rigging. Some assumptions: 26 guns on her main battery, most likely of 36-livre given other ships of that period/role. 26 guns on her middle battery, most likely of 18-livre for same reason. 24 guns on her spar deck, most likely of 8-livre. 4 guns on her poop deck, most likely of 4-livre (4 poop deck guns on the 74-gun Saint Esprit and the 84-gun L'Intrepide, both of 4 livre). 4 forward ports at her forecastle, suggesting as many as 4 8-livre bow chasers. 4 stern chaser ports at the level of her main battery. If the same relationship between the armament and the crew complement for L'Intrepide, Saint Esprit, and the 84-gun Foudroyant held for L'Ambitieux, she would have a crew complement of around 580 men and officers. Translated in-game, that projected broadside would come out as 892 pounds. I feel that any 80-gun three-decker, let alone one designed in 1680, should be a ship with compromises that specialises in firepower and has a balance of disadvantages between her sailing and resilience. While she would overwhelm weaker vessels and work well in the line of battle, a straight fight against a Bellona should be unsustainable and she should feel fragile against a heavier ship or a carronade-armed Bellona up close. She should be an excellent gun platform with little heel, both because stability was an intended benefit of her design and to favour her firepower specialist role, but out-turned and out-sailed by Bellona. I definitely love to see her in game, not only for her individual aesthetics and those of 17th-century ships of the line, but also as a more interesting alternative to the Diet Bellona. I admit the idea of realising an authentic yet unbuilt design in-game has some inherent appeal as well. If I had to choose one or the other, I'd say Le Foudroyant, but that's largely because of the Pavel-Victory gap compared to the Ingermanland-Diet Bellona gap, and is very much a comparison in my head between my impressions of what these ships would be like in game. Anyhoo, I think I've comprehensively said my piece on this matter and done my bit to keep the thread alive until the next poll.

Sorry - I'm repeating the error as I found it. The 1691 L'Ambitieux (rated 80 gun, armed 96 gun, ship of the first rank) is by Honore Mallet - it was burned and counted destroyed at the La Hogue. The name was passed on to, as you say, a ship of a Guichard make (rated and armed 92 gun, ship of the first rank). The inconsistencies between the model and the page were nagging at me - the model is quite modern, but it looks to be armed as a false three-decker in the mid 17th century style, with an armed spar deck and only a handful of guns on the poop deck. The page was referring to a true three-decker, with too many guns on the upper works not to have three enclosed decks and a normal forecastle and quarterdeck. I went looking, and there's a whole batch of Pangallo-designed first-rank ships; 1688 Conquerant, 1690 Saint Esprit, te 1691 and 1692 Merveilleux, the 1691 and 1693 Foudroyant, and the 1693 Terrible. (http://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_crewman&id=23729) . Haven't gone looking for full plans, but the initial information is pretty comprehensive. (guns in livre) Conquerant: rated 84, armed 80, 16x36+10x24, 28x18, 22x6, 4x4. Saint Esprit: rated and armed 90, 28x36, 28x18, 28x8, 6x6, 659 men and officers. Foudroyant (1691): rated and armed 84, 26x36, 26x18, 24x8, 8x8, 609 men and officers. Merveilleux (1691): rated 92, armed 98, 28x36, 28x18, 28x8, 14x6, 712 men and officers. Merveilleux (1692): rated and armed 98, 28x36, 28x18, 28x8, 14x6. Foudroyant (1693): rated and armed 104, 28x36, 30x18, 28x12, 18x6. Terrible: rated 100, armed 92 or 96, 28x36, 28x18, 26-28x8, 10-12x6. 864 men and officers. With the armed spar deck, Conquerant is the most similar to the model/plan 1680 Ambitieux, but even a quick game of gun-port counting its clearly not built to the same plan. Plans might identify Saint Esprit and 1691's Foudroyant as spar-deckers as well. The similarity in armament between the two Merveilleux despite their different measurements (1691's is 157' (fr.) at gun deck, 1692's is 163'5") suggests information could be doubled up between them. I like the 1691 Foudroyant the most: if it is a spar-decker, it would resemble the model which first caught my eye, and the full spar and poop deck armament of 8-livre guns definitely sounds like a more useful battery for an in-game ship of the line than a bunch of 6-pounders. The 1691 Foudre and Merveil at least went out fighting; they were burned at La Hogue - the other four were ruined at Toulon. I'm on the lookout for a 17th-century ship of the line, and I'd definitely back an in-game realisation of the unbuilt 1680 Ambitieux, or one of the 1691 Ambitieux, Foudroyant, or Merveilleux if plans and images emerged.

Slightly curious - there's a bunch of 1691 French ships of the line listed, and most have an armament matching their rating. L'Ambitieux has an 80 rating, but 96 guns by that count - but when I go through the other second rates, L'Ambitieux is larger than higher-rated ships - bigger in every dimension and more crew than the 94-gun L'Admirable, comparable in size but bigger crew than Formidable, (96 guns on a rated 90). However, it would mean the model's gundecks are off, particularly the upper works where only 4 poop deck guns are visible. It would also mean that she throws a well-rounded 1050 pound broadside. So that's cool. Edit: After realising that the Threedecks entry is for a 1691 ship and not a 1680 ship I did some digging. There does not appear to have been a 1680 L'Ambitieux - the plans were commissioned by de Turville from a naval architect called Blaise Panglano. The plan, which called for an 80-gun ship was rejected for being too costly and the ship was not built. In a recent monograph by one Jean Boudriot the unbuilt ship is dubbed L'Ambitieux, and models have been built according to the 1680 plans. Given that the 1691 L'Ambitieux was given an 80-gun rating despite its 96-gun armament, it seems that it is a real ship which acknowledges the 1680 Panglano design, but it is not built to that design and has a genuinely different armament.

Yep - in the final poll thread - http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/8340-player-ship-selection-1st-half-2016-final-poll/ De Zeven Provincien might have still been in service for the acceptable range, but its a 1665 build. A shame to deny it.

A general rule of thumb seems to be that Fleet Search and Destroys seem to spawn combinations of ships that would spawn in regular Search and Destroys of that rank. Generally there is a mix of battle ratings represented, and less powerful, lower-rated ships outnumber more powerful ships. In the future, I will try to see what the balance of BR is between the powerful single-spawn ships and the combination/pair ships. For instance, Fleet 169s will only ever spawn ships with individual BR between 300 and 600, Connie/Inger to Pavel, but with more Constitutions and Ingermanlands than bigger ships. I'm confident that I've only ever seen ships with 100-200 BR, Niagara/Cerbus to Trincomalee/Essex, in Fleet 152s, but with only a few Belle Poules and Trinco/Essex in any one mission and plenty of Niagaras, Cerberi, and Renommees.

I mentioned the relative fragility for L'Ambitieux and also for De Zeven Provincien in the Dutch ship post. Wood is wood, oak is oak, and a lot of these ships were pretty heavy, but I agree with Vernon that these older ships shouldn't be as resilient as 19th century and late 18th century ships of the line. In part because naval authorities and designers had another hundred years of seeing how ships withstood artillery and adjusting their designs, but also because of the firepower gap between 17th century and Napoleonic ships. When L'Ambitieux was built the incoming broadsides weren't as heavy (first rates topped out at 100 guns and carried 18-pounders - well, culverins - in their middle battery) and the sort of structural reinforcement that went into later ships wouldn't be called for even if the techniques and technology permitted it. I'm not saying 17th century ships should be poorer ships overall in game, but any ship should have a balance of flaws, strengths, and costs. Similarly, if a 17th century second rate simply sailed and fought like a 18th century third rate, some of the point of adding the ship is lost. Bellona is a very straightforward ship in game and actually kind of hard to mess up with - L'Ambitieux could be a more temperamental ship with an edge in crew and firepower but without Bellona's resilience or easy upwind sailing, making it a powerful ship but a bad ship to lose control of an engagement in.

Wow. That is a ship with a serious sense of occasion. The current crop of ships of the line can be pretty plain but this one... magnificent. And then there's 17th-century details like the round gunports up top and the sprit topsail... who doesn't love a sprit topsail? There may be some kinks concerning the armament - the threedecks page seems to suggest 96 guns, which doesn't match the nominal rating or second-rates of the period. The model seems to suggest a much more likely 82 guns with 4 stern chaser ports (there are bridle ports up front, but the bow chasers seem to be from four round gunports at forecastle height). My guess: 28x 36-livre lower battery, 26x 18-livre middle battery, 24x 12-livre upper battery, 4x 6-livre quarter deck, capable of firing 4x12-livre guns in bow chaser position and 4x36-livre in stern chaser position (very doubtful it would have carried permanent stern chasers, but . Translating 36-livre to 42-pounders and the rest as is, a 978 pound broadside. Add to that 730 crew, resilience and upwind sailing appropriate to its 17th century construction and rigging - not just a gorgeous ship, but potentially an interesting competitor to Bellona.

Ah - in the same spirit as the confusion between Unite-Surprise and any of the other surprises, I'm getting my Renommees confused with the 1790s Republicaine Francaise of the Galathee-class that was renamed HMS Renommee after its capture. Then the in-game Renommee is a good match, just with slightly more crew and bigger quarterdeck guns.

In-game Surprise definitely has some firepower inflation compared to Unite-Surprise. The initial 28-gun rating came was 24 nine-pounders and 4 four-pounders, but in practice it carried 16 mixed four-pounders and twelve-pounder carronades on its upper works, and no reference to dedicated chase guns so it would have had to move broadside guns to chase positions. When it was re-rated as a 32-gun fifth-rate, it had 32 thirty-two pounder carronades between the main deck and the upper works, and again no reference to dedicated chase guns. Shows what having a movie and a novel series does for you - poor Reno was a proper 12-pound, fifth-rate frigate.

I'm curious why De Zeven Provincien either isn't included or was removed from the list - it does have its own thread with some very good plans, pictures, and models (http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/4775-de-zeven-provinci%C3%ABn-dutch-warship-1665-with-plans/) and its mentioned in the overall list (http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/4389-list-of-ships-and-plans-presented-so-far/) but isn't merged here. There's some mention of it being too old, but from the ship selection poll: De Zeven Provincien isn't too old by the hard limit and was still in service by the 'preferred' window. It's definitely a worthwhile ship on its own merits - visually distinctive, historically significant, plenty of firepower in its full Third Anglo-Dutch War armament balanced by never being built to withstand 18th-century things like 24-pounders on the second gun deck or true three-deckers with 100+ cannons. Not to mention that the in-game Dutch nation still has no ship, the VOC's Amsterdam was replaced with an EIC Indiaman of Swedish design, and there's no shortage of Napoleonic ships.

I'd been looking all over for plans of a good demi-battery or two-decker fifth rate, given that true sailing frigates weren't around for about half of the Naval Action timeline. I could find the plans for the Roebuck-class two-deckers that were built after such ships became obsolete, or the demi-battery galley-frigate Charles Galley, but nothing in between two fairly broad extremes. There's already plenty of British and American ships in the game, and a pre-Independence New Hampshire-built British ship called America might be too much to bear, but its definitely a good example of a fifth-rate that's not a sailing frigate and an interesting alternative to the medium frigates currently in-game.

Love to see more varied missions More varied combat missions prioritising different skills and different ship advantages: a search and capture or pursuit where the enemy is trying to escape from you, not destroy you, but is still on a warship and can still fight back. Convoy escort/treasure fleet, where you have to protect allied traders, recapturing them if necessary. Low-level non-combat missions can make good introductions/tutorials - a mission to bring a particular resource to the port you picked up the order, a mission to deliver a VIP to a particular destination, stuff to get people exploring and familiarising themselves with the world and the mechanics. And a rescue or recapture mission definitely sounds like something cool to see in game.

So, resource and labour costs of ships increase, and every blueprint now includes a 'PROVISIONS' segment, and the crafter collects resources like salt, fish, meat, grain, fruit, suchlike and possibly assembles materials - kegs, barrels, salted beef, biscuit, beer, stuff like that. Okay. A few points: a) there was not a single ratio of crew size to stored provisions for historical ships. This was a point of difference, for instance, between British and French naval doctrine; British ships were built for extended deployments, carrying considerable provisions for a moderately sized crew, while French ships were built as more of a response force, with larger crews and much poorer capacity to store provisions. Provision storage related to role and naval doctrine much more than to crew size. The effort to make crew more of a resource seems like something that could go hand-in-hand with consumed provisions - the idea of consumed provisions being too much fuss and hassle doesn't ring true given that players already return to ports with some regularity to top up on repairs kits - and also missions and, one assumes, hired crew. As an example of a consumed provision system: consumed provisions could replace out-of-combat repair kits, with provisions being depleted only gradually in normal sailing and then more rapidly post-battle while running repairs are made and wounded crew recover. This replaces the click and confirm rapid repair with a more organic 'regeneration', while preserving the in-combat repair kit. A ship not carrying provisions (not loaded at all or all expended) is assumed to be on short rations - it no longer regenerates in this manner and if engaged only a minimal crew is healthy enough to actually take part in the battle. While there would be a need for an affordable, all-purpose provision, there could also be quality provisions that convey some advantage (a diet of meat, bread, and beer for fast repairs, a more varied diet with fruit and vegetables for better wounded crew recovery, heavily preserved rations might be depleted slower because less of it spoils but provides no other advantage, grog and rum ration upgrades could become buffs maintained by consuming the appropriate provisions). c) The stated intent is to increase the cost and relevance of ship maintenance compared to ship building. Blueprint provisions does not add an element of ship maintenance, it simply adds the lifetime maintenance costs of a ship to the existing ship building process. On the face of it, blueprint provisions seems to go against the intent of this idea. As regards Admin's suggestions for disappointed captains, though I don't count myself as disappointed: 1) It would be a very short-lived ship that did not completely revictual or resupply at least once; it was a piece of game logic that ships did not need to revictual, assuming that the first full load of provisions would last the lifetime of the ship does not add a simulation, it replaces it with a different piece of game logic. 2) Gradual repair and recovery would remove 'did I forget to repair' as a simple blunder while adding a dynamic of fresh ships, weakened ships still recovering, and exhausted ships that still look for all the world like they have teeth but are extremely vulnerable. 3) Already mentioned, but players do return to port for other reasons and probably will return to port to replace dead crew or recover crew from captured prizes. 4)Because when you log off your ship is in port and much of the crew has shore leave. 5) Why not? Unit crafted cannons and an ammunition mechanic are a great way to remove some of the artificial trader/warship distinctions and make things like double shot or grape and ball viable options. 6) Now you're just being facetious.

Thanks - and yes, there's definitely other interesting candidates among the gun-brigs; Conquest-class as you point out, the first batch of these little ladies to be built to a common design, the Confounder and Bold-class had an interesting setup with a single centreline bow chaser and stern chaser mounted on a special traversing carriage for wide field of fire. I put forward the Archer-class as their numbers made them a good representative of the overall type. Cherokee was definitely a prolific class, but they were more grown up - 75-man complement, brig-sloops under a Commander rather than gun-brigs under a Lieutenant. In-game, they'd be a little bit screwed by the network as they'd have a really small crew for a Second Lieutenant ship while being outgunned by the Privateer. Still, cool collection of plans and pics. gun-brigs had low freeboard, plenty of topweight, and got put to harder work than they were designed for - some tippy-ness is to be expected. A few Archer-class brigs were lost and presumed to have foundered, but they never attracted the 'coffin brig' or 'Half Tide Rock' infamy of the aforementioned Cherokee. And when you craft a tippy ship, you actually feel good when you random Stiffness.

Hermione's definitely coming in, as evinced by the WIP post and the reference to a Bloody Hermione prize on offer for players who contribute an officer perk that makes it into the game. But the Diana came second in the player selected ship poll, so it seems reasonable to expect that Diana's coming in as well. They aren't peas in a pod (Diana had a few more men by its listed complement, a couple of extra 6-pounders, and was a shade bigger) but both fairly similar 12-pounder frigates. Hermione should have some time to itself, but I'm curious how they'll be differentiated when the time comes.

HMS Archer, and the Archer-class of gun-brigs From 1793 to 1813, the Royal Navy demanded large numbers of small armed brigs for coastal warfare. These were smaller than the brig-sloops or man-of-war brigs, with a complement of 50 men under the command of a Lieutenant. Some were converted from merchant ships, while most were built to order - the most common design of these gun-brigs was the Archer-class by William Rule, consisting of 58 ships. These ships were workhorses, most with individually undistinguished careers or a supporting role apart from some colourful exceptions; HMS Staunch, for instance, was decorated for its efforts in the 1810 Mauritius campaign, while HMS Manly was captured and recaptured twice, spending half of its life in the Dutch and Danish navies, making the ship itself something of a battleground. It is worth noting that these ships were built at a great rate - the first 10 Archer-class ships were ordered on the 30th of December, 1800, and the last of that batch, HMS Constant, was launched on the 28th of April, 1801 and completed fitting out on the 10th of June that year. Also worth noting is that arming these tiny brigs to the teeth gave them a marked tendency to roll. Measurements Length at gundeck: 80' (24 m) Length at keel: 65' 10.25" (20.072m) Beam: 22' 6" (6.86m) Depth of hold: 9' 5" (2.87m) Tonnage (by burthen, not displacement): 177 31/94; 177.3298 tonnes burthen Armament: Broadsides: 10x18-pounder carronades Bow chasers: 2x18-pounder carronades (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gun-brigs_of_the_Royal_Navy#Archer_class_.281801_batch.29) What could she be in game? A low-level ship that doesn't handle like a the others, a square-rigged ship with both broadside guns and bow chasers for people who want to jump in the deep end early. For more experienced players, she would still be an ideal interdictor for the smallest trade ships, and the combination of an in-game 7th-rate's turn speed and bow chasers could make her a potent shallow-water warship in its own right.

A system I'd like to see: Once a ship reaches a certain level of boarding preparation, musketmen set up in the fighting tops and available crew go to the swivel guns on the upper works and begin laying down short-range antipersonnel fire. They should be incapable of damaging the hull, rigging, or modules, inaccurate to the point of uselessness past 50 metres, and solely capable of killing of crew. Its power and accuracy from inside 'pulling' range and actually contacting the other ship should be similar to the in-boarding action musket volley (though dealing less damage, of course, if the enemy crew isn't in boarding focus and up on the decks.) Being physically lashed to the other ship seems a reasonable requirement for throwing grenades by hand and actually getting aboard the ship, but not so much for a volley of musket fire.

I always figured 'gank' as 'gang kill' - that it particularly referred to uneven, overwhelming PvP, as Sanson said. In an unarmed, solitary trade ship I suppose any fight feels uneven.