Hodo

Some of the things have been nerfed in favor of the game play aspect. BUT in real life a stern rake on the Surprise would have been devastating. The crew on the HMS Surprise gun deck was pretty exposed from stern rakes. There are NO walls aside from the cabin wall, which was pretty thin and wouldnt stop grape shot, which was the size of a pool/billiards ball. You have to do some imagining and use some common sense. The gun deck of the Surprise would have around 120men on it, crammed in an area not much bigger than the space of 4 city buses parked 2x2.

All of this information except the mast height thing is taken into account in boarding currently. No one actually Errol Flynned over from one ship to another. But the deck height is taken into account on these actions. -Grenades -Deck Guns -Attack/Counter Attack Some ships have additional modifiers for morale and attack/counter attack bonuses. Like the Privateer, Lynx and I believe the Rattlesnake have a bonus to the morale of the ship and gain some bonuses to melee. Your number of guns on the weather deck effect your deck guns attack in boarding. A Snow, is worse than a Brig because the Brig has 8 guns on the weather deck vs the Snow's 3. Lastly if there is a more than 2 deck difference in height the ship there is penalties applied to the lower ship. This is where ladders come into play. There is a lot of detail in the current boarding mini-game but it isnt presented well.

Then yeah I could see a good captain giving you a real run for your money. I have had an armed trader brig make me break off from an attack.

Was it a player LGV? Because I have never had a problem with an AI LGV in my Snow.

If you have been in 1 you have been in more than me in my whole time in this game. Fact is I have never bothered to sail anything bigger than a Bucentaur and that was once against the NPCs and then I broke it up for the parts. You make it sound like if someone doesn't sail a 1st rate they aint shit. Well I hate to break it to you, but some of us dont have to overcompensate for other inadequacies.

It is actually closer to a heavy rattlesnake than the LGV.

O Rly? Getting killed left and right. LOL seeing as I have lost 3 ships to players this WHOLE time, 1 T-brig, 1 Snow, and 1 Navy Brig (store bought fire ship).... which worked QUITE well ask Sir Texas about that one. And seeing I have capped or sunk, easily 5 times that number, I think I am doing just fine in my kayak.

First thing that comes to mind on the pirates comment.

There is a post by the @admin somewhere on these forums showing a very old damage model for the Victory, you can clearly see the rudder and the wheel modeled as hitboxes. It is kind cool.

I have an LGV hunter, it is a tricky ship to master in that task. You have to be just as selective on your hunting routes as a Privateer or a Lynx. But the same token a well built trader snow can do the same job, possibly better due to its chasers and heavier weatherdeck carronade mounts. While it is slower, than the LGV, and has less crew it has a better turn rate and better overall guns. BUT it has VERY thin masts. It takes some practice to get good with the combat trade ship. But there are a lot of advantages.

Well beating on minor nations doesnt require everyone... just 5 to 10 captains. Anyway we tend to do most of our PBs on the weekends, I expect things to heat up a bit this weekend.

Sometimes I will draw out a hunt in battle in hopes of reducing damage by talking them into a surrender. But I intentionally sail ships with high crew margins so I have room to put bigger long guns on specifically for mast removal.

As quite as it has been I am willing to say he is doing number 3.

I am picking at the way we fight. Right now everyone including the pirates seem to be more interested in econ than fighting hardcore against each other. Even myself... I have been busy upgrading shipyards and such, havent even had a chance to leave my base of operations in since the PaP port battle screening.

I run an outside map program, like the ADMIN suggested, and I use the protractor. But I can easily find my way around just using the protractor. I set the protractor at landmarks then set a course to the next large or easy landmark, then adjust course and set a new mark and go from there. I have been using that to get to my shipwrecks and coming within sight of them every time now.

Well when two heavy weights fight, it is a slow methodical fight. Unlike when two feather weights step into the octagon.

I would love some of those features. But again you are mistaken. Naval officers did not pay for their crews wages. That was taken out of the ships funds which was handled by the Purser on the vessel. On frigate commands, where they were often granted prize rights, they would get additional pay from prize captures. This was broken down according to the prize laws at that time. (you can google prize laws and find out what they were) Most of the time it was a simple arbitration system where they assessed the value of the vessel and its cargo, then applied that to the prize pay for the ship. Which was broken down in 8 parts. 2 shares went to the crown, 1 share to the admiral of that squadron, 1 share to the captain, 2 shares to the ship, all jr officers and senior enlisted shared a share, the crew was then split into ratings and shares were split accordingly. I believe Admiral Pellew's most successful patrol netted his crew the equivalent of 10 years pay after prize payout from one voyage. If you were a privateer, your shares were taxed a bit more, usually 2.5 shares went to the crown if not more. Sometimes you would have to pay your backers with a shares from the prize, but that was often negotiated prior to the voyage. The same was for merchants who did not own their vessels. But most privateers owned their vessels and this was not an issue.

Funny, historically the Royal Navy captains were not from just rich families. They were often in position because they had worked their way through the naval ranks. They may have got their position as a midshipman on a ship because of family status, but they had to EARN their captain position. Horatio Nelson was not a rich family that bought his command, case and point. In the French Navy, prior to Napoleon the French Navy was exactly this... after the French Revolution it was much different. The Spanish Navy was based on Aristocracy for command. But the Danish Navy was based on merit. As for the named ships... We will take the Ballona as an example. The Ballona was the basis for most of the Royal Navies 3rd rate 74s, so seeing as we have the "3rd rate" and the Ballona in game, we actually have a redundant ship. The Constitution was actually a class of ship, and the USS Constitution was the first of the class. The Trincomalee was a Leda class, and they were all built the same aside from wood type. The Snow, Brig, Navy Brig are all based on actual ships, but are actually pretty common designs. The Rattlesnake, Niagara, Privateer, Lynx, and Pickle again, same as the Snow. So while we call them by their proper names, most if not all of the ships in this game had more than one of that type built. The only ones I can think of that were individual ships was the Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad. Which was a one off design. And the L'Ocean. Other than that the Victory was 1 of 12 of its class. As for alliances.... The French and Spanish had an alliance during this time, The Danes and English were in an alliance. (Well the Danes were forced into it). The US and France had an accord of mutual support and trade. (so a non-aggression pact)

You are really getting mad. I didn't think it was possible to misspell so many words in one statement. I underlined all of the spelling errors for you. And yes, you are a bit of a cry baby.

But he didnt use it as a flag ship. It was a temporary vessel not a primary hunting vessel.

Honestly they just need to make that stuff visible in game. If you have a gazelle on the front of your ship you should HAVE a gazelle on the front of your ship. I know they can do it, because in OW none of the AI ships I see have figure heads on them, even the ones that are supposed to, like the Essex and Trincomalee.

Problem is each of these ships were different. Let us take the obvious one, the Constitution. The USS Chesapeake was smaller than the USS Constitution, closer to the USS Essex in size, or the Indefatigable. The Chesapeake was a 5th rate, while the Constitution and President were nearly identical. Adding a figure head, while I like the idea of adding more to it, does take away from it a bit more also.

I dont have anything bigger than a 5th rate currently, and only 2 of those, 1 LGV and 1 Reno. I have an Indefatigable but been debating on moving it and selling it because I dont like it.. to slow for my liking. But you are right about the MMO part. I wouldnt say get a better team or get a team. Ask people if you could have one built if you supply the parts. Most have no problem with it if you have the parts and labor contracts.

The current speed meta is one of my biggest complaints about this patch. I knew it was going to be an issue when they introduced it. But I figured I would try it out. Now that I have, I can say... no sir I dont like it.

1st rates has always had 1 durability so that shouldn't be an issue, as it was there before the wipe. But if you think about it, no other sandbox MMO pvp oriented game has more than 1 life on vehicles or ships. EvE is a good example of this. While it seems expensive to make 1st rates or any SoL, you have to figure these are the equivalent of a Battleship or Titan in EvE. So damned right they should be expensive. Now as far as wanting to blast a bunch of 6th rates in your Victory.. well go OW hunting, you can find a fleet of 6th rates pretty easy.