Idle Champion

Based on what I've seen: 50 xp: 20-40 BR - single cutter, lynx, privateer, pickle. Only encountering low-ranked enemy captains. 67 xp: 20-40 BR - single cutter, lynx, privateer, pickle. Enemy captains have higher ranks, consistently seemed to put up a harder fight. 84 xp: 50-80 BR - single brig, snow, rattlesnake, navy brig, mercury. double cutter, double pickle. Double ship spawns seem to pair higher and lower ranked captains. 101 xp: 70-90 BR - single navy brig, single mercury, double pickle, paired brig or snow with pickle. Haven't re-tested this rank thoroughly for rattlesnakes, but would expect them. 118 xp: 100-140 BR - single Niagara, Cerberus, Renomee. double snow, double brig, paired snow and brig. Paired navy brig or mercury with pickle. Double navy brig, double mercury, paired navy brig with mercury. As above, haven't re-tested for rattlesnakes. I believe I've fought single Surprises at this rank, but I'm not sure. 135 xp: 110-170 BR - single Renomee, Surprise, Frigate. Double navy brig, double mercury, paired navy brig with mercury. Niagara or Cerberus paired with Navy brig or Mercury. 152 xp: 170-250 BR - single Frigate, Belle Poule, Essex, or Trincomalee. Double Niagara, double Cerberus, double Renomee, or paired combinations. Surprise paired with Niagara, Cerberus, or Renomee. The crazy Flag Captain jump: 169 xp: 500-600 BR: single 3rd-rate, single Bellona, single St. Pavel. Double Constitution, double Ingermanland, paired Constitution and Ingermanland. 186 xp: 550-600 BR: Appears as above, with the exception of the single 3rd-rate spawn, which I have not seen occur. The crazy Rear-Admiral jump: 200 xp: 900-1100 BR: Cannot be definitive, as usually we do 169-186 fleet search and destroy in preference to solo 200s. Single Santisima Trinidad, single Victory, two Bellonas. Personally I'd prefer some differentiation between 169s and 186s, along the lines of: 169xp: 470-550 - single 3rd-rate, single Bellona, Constitution or Ingermanland paired with Trincomalee, Essex, Belle Poule, or Frigate. 186xp: 600-850 - single St. Pavel, double Constitution or Ingermanland, 3rd-rate or Bellona paired with Constitution or Ingermanland. But currently the scaling at that level suffers from the lack of an intermediate third-rate and a genuine second-rate ship.

Only two out of the 120 Temeraires had the 24-pounders in the secondary deck - cool, but not representative. On the plus side, the main battery and the obusiers and their replacement carronades on the typical Temeraire were 36-livre, which is closer to 42 than 32 pounds. Hopefully the work in progress thread will some day alert us to a 700-man Temeraire with 78 broadside guns (Obusiers and carronades weren't included in the 74-gun rating) in 42, 18, and 9 pounds or 42 pounder carronades. I look forward to a choice of 3rd-rates between Bellona's manoeuvrability and toughness and Temeraire's speed and firepower, rather than Bellona and Diet Bellona.

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/987-work-in-progress/page-9 Though I'm glad to see some support for the man-o-war Indiaman idea, I think the ship being teased in the Work in Progress thread might be the 'fourth-rate warship of a different design' which quashes it.

I don't think this is going to be a third-rate: 6,12, and 18 pounders and a 426-pound broadside (admittedly, all tentative numbers) suggests that this is going to be the junior two-decker below the Ingermanland. A bit of reading identifies Wapen von Hamburg III as a dedicated convoy ship, not a ship of the line relegated to convoy duties, and originally rated as a 52-gun ship. While I'd like to see a small 3rd-rate to sit between Ingermanland and Bellona, that might be the Agamemnon rather than Wapen von Hamburg III. That said, I certainly don't think a small fourth-rate that eases players into ship of the line combat and serves as a 'tank' alternative to a big frigate is any sort of bad thing - not every two-decker has to be a ship of the line. ...is this a bad time to mention the 1708 HMS Pearl?

Not exactly - it throws a 225 pound broadside, which puts it square in the middle of the fifth-rates. Perhaps I could have phrased the title better, but I'm wondering about a non-trader version of the existing design/game asset as a dedicated fourth-rate warship, with a broadside around 490 pounds.

Simply put, will there be a warship variant of the Indiaman? The cutter, Lynx, brig, and snow all have their trader and warship variants, the Le Gros Ventre has certain parallels with Renomee and Belle Poule - similar lines to both, its blueprint drops from both, and it has the same crew size and battle rating as Renomee. There certainly were Indiamen converted into man-o-wars - HMS Calcutta, which was slated for work as a cruising ship and convoy escort, ended up fighting as a ship of the line on both sides of the Napoleonic Wars, is a good example. An armed Indiaman - for instance with an extra deck of 24-pounders below the existing 18-pounder deck, with similar crew size and BR to the existing trader Indiaman, could serve as a 50-gun 'junior' ship of the line, plugging some of the gap between the frigate and ship of the line style of gameplay, and also serve an analogue for the various historical 50-gun two-deckers not currently slated to appear in-game. I haven't seen anything suggesting or confirming an armed Indiaman, but I think there's an opportunity to add a worthwhile ship to the game. What do people think? Does a converted Indiaman sound like a ship they'd like to sail, or even just to see in game as an option or an enemy? Has anyone heard anything about an Indiaman warship, or some other fourth-rate warship that would make one redundant?