William the Drake

I've made suggestions at length for possible port raid and pirate haven mechanics: Port Raid: the Pirate End-Game Pirate Havens, Port Security, and Trade Regulations

As it stands, crew is rather arbitrary when it comes down to what they do and how their effectiveness is measured. For now, as long as you have full crew, you are sailing and fighting optimally. Start losing crew and you begin to take penalties on efficiency and performance across the board, (or at least based on what focus you are on). Encouragingly, this will be addressed in the up-and-coming crew patch, which will begin to go into more specifics as to how the crew works, such as how many crew are assigned to an individual gun or how many it should take to fix a leak. This is a superb step forward in giving more importance top the crew and crew management. However, I would like to think that the crew could be made even more important of an investment than they are now, and the same with marines. This could be done by having both crew and marines operate similar to crews in games like World of Tanks or War Thunder, where the crews gain experience based on the number of fights they have had (or can be trained up to higher experience with extra coin). At the moment, when it comes to marines, they are designated as an item, a module for a ship. Furthermore, at the moment marines simply add more crew to the number, instead of taking place of some crew. Instead, I believe that both marines and crew should operate on an opposite spectrum: one that measures Experience, Morale, and size. Both Crew and Marines will act like modules: they are to be bought and placed on a ship. However each ship should only ever have one crew slot and one Marine slot (So basically marines shouldn't take an equipment module slot like they do now, but have their own specific slot alongside crew) Size: This is the only area where crew and marines will operate somewhat differently Crew- crew size will operate along the lines of ship sizes: "6th-rate" crew to "1st-rate crew". So if you have either a cutter or a snow, both will need a "6th-rate crew" in order to operate. Even though the Snow requires more crew than the cutter, the 6th-rate Crew will still suffice to fill it. (NOTE: player rank will still determine how much crew can be had optimally: so you may have a "6th-rate crew", but not be able to pilot a snow due to rank). The idea here is to limit someone from using the crew that ranked up in a small ship and immediately having them placed on a lineship with the same level of experience when technically they have never operated on the scale of a lineship. Marines- unlike crew, marines should operate in detachments, taking place of a small % of crew based on size. So detachment sizes could be "Marine Detachment-Small," "-Medium," and "-Large," in which a small detachment may only replace 5% crew with Marines, medium with 7.5% and large with 10% (arbitrary numbers here as examples). Experience: Both crew and marines will have levels of experience, which dictated their efficiency and abilities. Experience is most commonly gained through battles; the more battles the crew/marines fight, the more experience they gain. Experience can also be gained through extra training. Extra training will cost a hefty sum as well as a temporary (or not?) penalty to morale. Naturally, the higher the experience, the better they will perform. Experience levels can be thought of as the crew versions of module or ship grades: Fresh = Basic Tested = Common Experienced = Fine Veteran = Mastercraft Battle-Hardened = Exceptional Ideally, crew experience will improve how the crew operates, such as reducing time it takes to perform tasks aboard the ship such as moving from one focus to another, reloading, and working rigging (Crew experience will not effect one area in particular, it will effect how the crew handles everything). More experienced crew could even tackle tasks at the same efficiency of less experienced crew with less men working, For example, 2 "Battle-Hardened" crew on one cannon could do the same job as 4 "basic" crew on the same cannon (again, arbitrary numbers here). The biggest thing here is that crews are compatible with ships of the same size, so the crew you used on a cutter could still be used on a brig, and thus still be allowed to continue to gain experience. Morale: For now morale will simply be the willingness of a crew to fight/operate. High morale means they will operate efficiently. Low morale will result in penalties growing faster than normal. The greatest effect on moral for now should be how long one has been at sea; the longer the voyage, the more likely moral will fall. Later on in development, morale could be affected by other things such as success rate, global events, or even things like weather or pay and rations.

I found the band "Gaelic Storm to have a nice selection:

This has long been a heated discussion here. While it would be interesting, limiting it to only pirates isn't 100% fair or accurate. Perhaps for pirates and privateers (thus meaning a privateer mechanic is needed and thus a diplomacy mechanic for when privateers can operate) Letters of Marque Notoriety, Infamy, Bounties, and "Heat" I'm going to save you from flack as many will jump at the term "warship". Historically speaking, yes pirates added mire guns to their vessels, however they would usually replace heavy guns with lighter ones. Meaning that even though the Queen Anne's Revenge was technically a 5th-rate Ship-of-the-Line warship (having >32 guns) under Britain's rating system at the time, she would have stood little chance against a comparable naval vessel that was custom built as a heavy warship. The addition of heavier guns would mean having less guns in the process and from a pirate standpoint, not something they would have done. The Pirate Ship: Hot Rods of the Age-of-SailHowever the modifying and refitting of ships is a good option Variants and the Modular Ship Pirate Havens, Port Security, and Trade Regulations Port Raid: The Pirate End-Game

Magnifique I am in love, and her name is Hermione. Without a doubt she is my biggest ship crush. Of all the ships in the world she is the one I want in-game the most. I consider myself blessed that I was able to walk her decks in person

I have heard from numerous players that ping is a deciding factor when choosing servers. I personally do not see any issues, however I am not one to force captains to play in conditions they do not deem fit when there are other, possibly better alternatives. This is easier said than done, as the servers' stability is reduced the more players are online. The devs have been gradually upping the amount the servers can hold, however they are trying to avoid a scenario where they break the server due to excessive stress.

Most everyone agrees that the national news should be separated into their respected server forums, mostly to avoid confusion and clutter Server Based Sub-ForumsAs for merging servers, the biggest issue is ping, how much population each server can (optimally) hold, and the "prime-time" for each time-area

Looks like collateral damage got the best K/D of the night. Good show out there gents, I hope there will be many more fights like this to come.

I believe you gentlemen have a misconception of what "unique" means. Unique doesn't necessarily mean "Base content + extra stuff" on the contrary, a truly unique faction would be one that looks or works nothing like the other factions in the game. A truly unique pirate mechanic would be able to operate independently of large scale national politics, not be apart of it. And it's only logical, as the pirate mindset is purely instant gratification: plunder gold and then turn right around and spend it on booze and women. Pirate gameplay should reflect that mentality, not planning grand strategies to conquer numerous ports or setting up huge economic powerhouses. That's national stuff. If you want to do those sort of things, then the answer is simple: play a nation. This is what we mean when we say we want pirates to be unique, not just some under-powered carbon copy of a nation a la PotBS. Pirates should almost be a completely other game when it comes to the mechanics. Almost. And this is what most pirates promoting the "unique" approach (including myself) are gunning for. Retort:

First and foremost: This comes up every time there is a major pirate discussion, and it is just plain false. Almost never, 99.9% of the time no one, I repeat no one is proposing that pirates not be allowed to pilot large(er) ships. Perhaps limits on producing them, but not piloting them. This is almost always brought up by pirates who actually want to be Nats as an argument that people want to nerf pirates. It's not, and they don'. So stop it! You want to conquer ports and make an empire? You want to have huge line-battles and drawn-out port battles? You want to have a huge faction-based economy and churn out mass amounts of vessels to take part in said huge Port battles? Then go play a nation. The issue in PotBS wasn't the restriction on pirates only being able to command only up to 3rd rates, but rather the fact that it was all we had to compete against Nats and their 1st rates. We shouldn't have been competing with nats in Line-battles in the first place. Anywho, yes, Pirates need a major re-haul if we want to be anything other than a carbon-copy of the Nationals. The issue is not only that because they are continuing to grow, thus meaning any change will be harder to implement, but also the fact that there seems to be no interest on this issue from the devs whatsoever. I have yet to see them comment/discuss any unique pirate mechanic suggested as of yet. It needs to happen soon, otherwise the pirate playerbase will be too large and too content with the current Nation-esque system to be able to successfully change it. Yes, but it still offers some sort of hurdle to becoming pirate, and even that may be enough to begin creating even a minimal siphon on the pirate population. More on this here: Going on the Record

Often times captains can get distracted or tired on long voyages. As such they can be easily caught off guard when tagged. A captain may not realize he has been tagged on the open sea because he is checking his charts (looking at the map), or observing the crew (have another window open, like looking at the forums). Currently, there are only visual cues to when someone is tagging or being tagged. A simple addition may be to add an audible cue for when a tag is commenced as well. For example, a quick beat upon a drum followed by the chatter of crew as they scurry to quarters. Similarly, a few strikes upon the bell or a quick flourish on the whistle could have the same effect. The audio would be heard by everyone in the battle radius being tagged. There could even be different audibles for when an NPC is tagging and when a Player is tagging.

Pirate Economy needs to be parasitic. It needs to be unique. Been saying it since day one. It needs to happen soon before Pirates just become another nation. An Approach to Piracy Pirate Havens, Port Security, and Trade Regulations Port Raid: The Pirate End-Game

There is no "Point-in-Time" for the game. The Devs have stated that ship designs will come from anywhere between 1600-1850 (rough dates) or 1690(?)-1830 (preferred dates). this would mean that the QAR would be historically accurate as far as timeframe goes.

This is the only one of your suggestions that I do not completely agree with. It has some merit, however I believe there are some greater pitfalls that could be avoided. This mechanic could easily be abused in a number of ways from fixed/staged mutinees to downright trolling. If you have a selection of people who do not like the current leader, their option should be to leave the clan and make their own, not try to take over someone else's. Issues could arise due to players with multiple accounts affecting votes. I don't like the idea that someone could come along and oust a creator of a guild, (first voting them out of leadership, then kicking them) effectively robbing the player of 100,000 gold This does bring up a good point, however, as right now the owner of the Clan is labeled "Creator" and is also the leader. The only one. Some clans operate as Oligarchies (rule by few) as opposed to Monarchies (rule by one). MoD for example has 3 leaders (4 in ArcheAge). In PotBS, we all had the highest leadership rank. Here we cannot do that, only one is 'Creator" so perhaps first there needs to be a distinction between "Creator" and "Leader" and then the ability to flesh out ranks to make them more identifiable. We had little to no issue with this system in PotBS, as our crafters being payed and supplied immediately turned into free ships for our members. Any excess was sold and put into the soc. wallet (which in-turn gave the crafters pay). And remember, it's not a "free ride", the crafters needed that pay in order to craft ships in the first place. Often, crafters were operating at a loss regardless, however our system had them supplied with a stream if free building supplies, so this wasn't an issue. Pay can also be a nice little incentive to log in or to just be around. When we were at our peak, we allowed a daily salary of 100 gold (chump change in PotBS) for our base members. Even though it was a very small amount, it was better than nothing and members liked that. They would have just one more reason to log in and play the game. Never did we have any issues arising from pay disparity. I'm a bit split on this. I would like for only my officers to be able to see what is happening, but at the same time, I personally would like to be as transparent as possible when leading a guild. If I (or another officer) kick someone, everyone should be able to see who was kicked and by whom (furthermore, we should even be given an option to designate why someone was kicked). A compromise could be to have this as a permission: leaders can decide who can see the clan history.

The QAR at its peak would have been classed as a 5th (~44 guns) rate warship. Even so it would have been similar in size to a medium(ish) corvette. "Frigate" is probably used loosely here. Right now the ship named "Pirate firgate" is probably our best comparison atm. The bigger issue here is that we as pirates shouldn't be running around trying to match the nationals, especially in line-combat. The pirate mechanic seriously needs top be reworked, but that's a rant I've had elsewhere and to be continued another day

Absolutely Server Based Sub-ForumsThere is currently a lot of confusion, especially regarding guilds and news, so the sooner this can be done the better, before more clans and news are made

The USS Constitution Museum has posted a video on their Facebook page, giving a very small-scale and simple demonstration of wood types and how they absorb and deflect energy. Using 3 blocks of wood (one spruce, one Live Oak, and one Oak) and 3 (what appear to be) ball bearings, the demonstration shows how well each wood type absorbs and deflects the energy from the falling ball bearings. What's interesting is that while the spruce clearly shows that it does not absorb much energy, both the live oak and regular oak perform about the same, with the regular oak appearing to perform better, if only by a little bit. Take a look: Here is the video

I direct you to my signature, in which I have linked some of my topics on the issue. You can also check my content for numerous other pirate mechanic topics I have suggested. (Can't put links here atm as I am on my phone)

These are arbitrary restrictions; Making Somerset the capitol is just plain ludicrous. What needs to happen is a change to the Pirate mechanic, not where the are and limits on what they can do.

Clan organization and Global politics are two aspects that need to be addressed separately before they can be merged. Clan Management ToolsAfter this has been fleshed out, and a global diplomacy system has been introduced, then perhaps the tow could me made to supplement each other

Already been suggested a few times Server Based sub-Forums It looks like this will be happening soon anyway. Server names and sub forum names

The devs have already shown interest in this, and have asked the community for their suggestions: Server Names Proposals: Your Feedback Needed

Server Based Sub-ForumsThere seems to yet have been a response from the devs. For now they might just be focused on teh game itself, content, and bug fixes to do this atm.

I think the pirates need something unique in place of ports, but yes I agree wholeheartedly that pirates need some reworking in their dock/port system But we are already able to enter free ports, just not neutral ports. Pirate Havens, Port Security, and Trade Regulations An Approach to Piracy