Hodo

The Ganj-i-Sawai was a 80gun Ship of the Line.. while it was hauling troops it was still a SHIP OF THE LINE. It still had 80 guns on it, and still had more firepower than ANY of the 3 ships attacking it combined. And you did not specify the terms of the engagement. There were only 3 ships attacking it, the largest of them was a 6th rate, the other two were 7th rates... 48 men with 8 guns, a Lynx for comparison.

I dont like that the Snow is almost as fast as a Brig at it's best point of sail. 12.95 vs 13.00. The Snow should be a bit slower, because the Ontario (snow) was a lake ship, it was not an ocean ship, it would bob like a cork in the ocean due to its VERY round hull.

There werent many actual engagements with a 3rd rate vs a 5th rate. Thanks to the "gentlemen" agreement that generally kept that from happening.

Honestly the best fix for a lot of the SoLs would be give them something other than carronades in the stern. If you let them mount 24lb long guns back there you would see LESS 6th rates sitting back at 700m trying to hit them with 4lb guns when a 24lb ball is being flung back at them.

The fact is the OP, screwed up his fight and is blaming the game for his loss. If he had gained the weather gauge before the fight started, by either defensive tagging and going upwind, or turning to meet the tagger before the tag counter finished. He then continues to blame the game for his faults. When sailing a ship capable of over 12knts down wind, being pursued by much smaller ships. He fails to gain distance and turning to fire or slowing and forcing them to overshoot into his broadsides. Fact is historically most SoLs had an unrated tender ship to follow them... usually a Brig or a Schooner.

More like, dont sail a P-47 in a turn fight with a Bf-109G6. Avoided my comment about the Ganj-i-Sawai and Henry Every.

You said.... There is no historical context for a 6th rate ever defeating a 4th rate or larger in battle. HMS Speedy was a 6th rate, it took a Xebec Frigate (5th rate). Henry Every captured a 80-gun SoL, Ganj-i-Sawai , with a team of sloop-of-wars.... none of them were bigger than a 6th rate.

I dont remember ever reading anything that said any of this, can you site your source? The "74" 3rd rate was a common ship of the line because of cost, and cost of operation. The 3rd rate was akin to the modern Battle Cruiser. It had the firepower to deal with anything smaller than a 3rd rate, but was fast enough to out run anything bigger. Had enough crew and marines to influence the nations will on its own. And just cheap enough that they were on the cusp of being expendable. The biggest difference between a Frigate (5th rate) and a "74" (3rd rate) was the hull shape... most frigates were built for speed, they were long sleek lines. Case and point, Constitution and the Endymoin vs the Aggie, and Ballona.

The funny thing is I still hate the Snow. I think it bobs like a cork in the water and the gundeck is low and often hits water more than your target. The Prince, Brig, Mercury and Navy Brig are all better 6th rates in a good captains hands.

Privateers, Pirates, and Buccaneers were not hired guns.... or people who attacked their own nation. Privateers were nothing more than PMCs (private military contractors), or in the case of modern history, Dunkirk rescue flotilla, was privateers, mostly civilian vessels going on a military mission to rescue soldiers from a combat zone. In the 19th century Privateers were contracted pirates.... They were given letters of marque to attack the shipping of enemy nations for a prize fee. But by the 19th century most pirates and privateers were a thing of the past. Outside of the United States very few major nations used them in the early 1800s. Early 1700s the British Royal government made a huge use of them... but that is almost 100 years before this game. Honestly there should be two options for the major nations (US excluded). Merchant career or Naval Career. If you want to be a pirate, there should be NO pirate ports, you should only operate out of free ports, neutral ports or ports set to all. You should not be able to build a level 3 shipyard. Or a cannon foundry. Pirates did not have it easy... not by a day in site. The US, Prussia, Russia, and Poland should have special rules allowing a third career option, privateer. The three career options should be. Merchant - No military vessels, but has access to trade ships, shipyards, cannon foundries, workshops, and all buildings for resources. Naval officer- Access to military ships of any rating, NO access to any resource buildings, but has access to shipyards and cannon foundries and workshops. Privateer- Access to military ships up to 4th rate in class. Has access to shipyards up to 2nd level, but no cannon foundries, or workshops, but can get resource buildings. Pirate- No access to any shipyard over level 2, cannot have resource buildings, cannon foundries, or workshops. Cannot own ports, has to operate out of neutral or free ports.

Already a lot of ships sinking in PBs. But I agree with you on limiting the repairs. I just dont think setting it to a magical lock of 1 and 1 is the right way. I would rather see it become so crew intensive that is all you can do while doing it, and your crew become VERY exposed.

LOL Wrong Roberts next headed for Sierra Leone, arriving on 12 June. Here he was told that two Royal Navy ships, HMS Swallow and HMS Weymouth, had left at the end of April, planning to return before Christmas.[29] On 8 August, he captured two large ships at Point Cestos, now River Cess in Liberia. One of these was the frigate Onslow, transporting soldiers bound for Cape Coast (Cabo Corso) Castle. A number of the soldiers wished to join the pirates, and they were eventually accepted, however they only received a quarter of a pirates pay because they were not sailors most of their lives. The Onslow was converted to become the fourth Royal Fortune.[30] In November and December, the pirates careened their ships and relaxed at Cape Lopez and the island of Annobon. Black Bart.. or Bartholomew Roberts, captured a 5th rate and was sailing an unrated ship (6th rate). I often hunt in a 6th rate on the EU server... and if you as a 4th rate captain can not handle a pair of 6th rates then you need to look at your sailing practices. They are just out sailing you sir, and thus you need to learn to sail better. Even the current Constitution can turn enough to get a broadside into a Snow, and if you use chain or just aim for the masts you can cripple that ship before it can do anything. But if you are rocking carronades for PVE missions, well that is on you. The Constitution, Wasa, and Wappen all turn as well as a Trincomalee and Belle now so no reason for you to have issues with such a little ship. I myself have been chased off by a well captained LGV, who on paper didnt stand a chance vs my Prince. But he was able to pull a great maneuver that put me squarely in his broadside.... I didnt like that 10 gun 9lb chain into my sails.... and I was forced to pull off and come around for a better pass and he just sailed away at his best point and left me.

That was a bad pirate... I always go after the NPC ships... because I can catch the player again in the OW. LOL

His issue is not with the safe zones, but it is with the smuggler flag abuse by some people. But we have a lengthy discussion about this already.

The trade off is... dont defensive tag. Just learn to counter sail vs their tag. Pagan Pete has done it to me... It is effective.

That answer is easy.... Simplicity. NA it takes an hour to sail most places to find a fight. The fighting is usually LONG and drawn out, my average fight can last 20-40min. Then you have the slow pace of the fighting... and lack of any other ambient sounds while sailing in OW. No music, nothing other than the wind and occasional seagulls when you are near shore. NA is pretty damned boring in OW. I often have EVE online running in the background while on long sails or I am playing Candy Crush on my phone while sailing. And almost always have Youtube or Eve-Radio on in the background for music. Tempest is a simple game and finding fights is easy. Not a lot of brainpower goes into games like that. This is why games like that are so attractive.

You mean... Pirates actually being... Pirates.

I think what would help with this is an increase in the spread of what can be built and where. But with an increase in the number of outposts and buildings per player. Right now it is VERY limiting for a solo or even a small clan player to do anything craft oriented. I dont think a solo player should be able to do everything by themselves without buying things off of other players or the market, but there does need to be an increase of building slots and outposts to players. The idea of making woods regional was a step in the right direction but then it kind of died there. Major port towns should be the only ones able to build level 3 shipyards, and gun foundries. While other ports should have level caps on buildings based on the importance of that port. This would create conflict zones as people WANT those ports for their value. Capital ports should not be able to have everything in them, to force players to get out of the safety of the capital area.

You do that now. A Lynx is Frame parts, planks, ballast, provisions, small gun carriages, canvas rolls, cordage and oakum, ropes, and blocks. So yeah there is a lot of parts in a typical ship build currently in game. The most unrealistic part is the fact we can crank one out in a matter of minutes, when in real life it took weeks to months to build some ships.

It could be better, but making the crafting more "grind" based isn't going to help. Let us look at a successful economy in a game... Eve Online. They have a pretty simplistic crafting system, Mine ore > Reprocess Ore > Refined goods > build ship. We dont need mining in NA, and we have something like refining now. I would like to see more building options for crafting. And more contract options for other things... like shipping.

If you get to complex it becomes a time sync that people wont want to do. Right now the focus is on sailing and fighting, less about crafting. If this were Wurm Online, Life is Feudal, or Mortal Online, I would say sure... but all three of those games already have something like that in place.

How about... You can only repair structure damage and sail damage, not armor or masts.

hmm... Just a thought. Repairs only repair Structure and, sails, not masts or armor. This means, you can keep your ship afloat when damaged but not replace the missing armor off of the sides or the mast that has been shot off.

That would work. Disable the Smuggler flag if they initiate the tag.

And this is why I suggested, the combat timer like Eve Online. If you engage in combat (shoot at someone) or in this case you initiate the tag on someone, you can not enter port for a set amount of time after leaving battle. Or it could be.... If you initiate a tag on someone your smuggler flag is disabled for 5 minutes, after you leave the battle.