maturin

Can't possibly be louder than the muzzle report itself, can it? Anyways, the reverberation of the sound makes me feel like I'm at least surrounded by six-foot bulwarks.

Ship names could be a toggle. You turn off the custom name visibility and just see the name of the ship class, Victory, etc. An approved list is probably the ideal, but difficult and problematic. Bottom line, we should be able to name our vessels HMS L33th4xxor, so long as other people have the option of not seeing it.

Small ships can always fight each other, and privateer brigs can threaten under-crewed merchantment many times their size, while cutters and the like can escape from square-rigged naval vessels by running away to windward.

Ships can sometimes live a long time, and outdated models can be built after their obsolescence. But what about the date for the online gameworld? 1740 vs 1720 doesn't make a lot of difference for naval architecture, which was very stagnant over those two decades, but it makes a hell of a lot of difference for piracy in the world!

Currently we can only view the last dozen or so of a user's posts. Tracking everything the devs say is a great way to disseminate information and prevent duplicate topics. People will make FAQs with dev post compilations. Also, is there any practical way to segregate the English and Russian forums in the View New Content menu? I actually read the Russian forum from time to time, but everyone else has to sort through the clutter to find new posts at a glance.

Pretty badass, actually. Clearly the perspective is below decks somewhere, which makes a big difference.

Ooh, off to the Russian forum to see what's up.

S. Trinidad is worthless curio. The Donald Trump of naval warfare. Please, people, vote for something else. Or with so little votes, the devs should just declare that there is no quorum. It's their responsibility to build vessels that will actually be usable in the game.

I'd like to see time-compressed fast travel, like a map in an Indian Jones movie, where you make periodic adjustments when the game alerts you to wind changes, worsening weather, spotted sails, etc. Edit: Oops, off-topic. Very much not a skilled sailor here, and as for traditional vessels, except for the 'yawldory' my dad built, the HMS Surprise simulator is just about it. Has anyone figured this bad boy out yet? I can finally sail to windward and everything, but with your only indication being numbers, I always get the strangest outcomes, with Rotational Thrust balanced to port but the ship still flying up staboard into the wind, or zero Heeling Thrust and no sail set, yet the ship still rolls through a full 100 degrees, probably capsizing (the rolling seems sort of glitched, or am I wrong?). Also, never hit more than 7 knots.

Exactly how the first Patrick O'Brian novel ends. Although then the British characters end up watching a large-scale fleet engagement from the highly un-safe vantage point of the officer's head. But they make great friends with the captain who captured them, before shredding his fleet two novels later.

Thankfully, the magazines are below the waterline, so those fireworks are reserved for the truly unfortunate. Fires could often get out of control, though, especially on dismasted vessels where sails fell over the guns and ignited.

Automatically accepting surrenders would certainly be simplest (or making surrendered ships stop taking damage, which would work if there is no option to aim gun specifically at the waterline). But there are a large number of realistic disincentives to sinking surrendered vessels that could be implemented. A pirate captain would be promptly voted out of office for depriving the crew of prize money (assuming the hold wasn't looted first). Naval crews would respond in a similar way, although it would just be a hit to morale. A captain is a member of polite society as well, and subject to severe censure for such a dishonorable action (and the admiral loses out of prize money too).

Age of Sail naval combat very rarely resulted in one ship sinking the other. This is for two obvious reasons: A. Hunks of wood are very buoyant, and large crews can easily stop holes and pump out water. Cannonballs don't create holes much larger than their own diameter and can't shoot through water, so damage is limited to the hull at the waterline or above. Causing damage that threatens flooding relies on very specific conditions or deliberate action... B. ...which combatants were unlikely to take, since the objective was almost always to capture, not destroy. This brings in the most prize money. In game terms, it is also far more fun, because we get to maybe seize a brand new vessel to play around with, rifle through its hold, etc. And if we do get sinking ships, please don't make them blow up in a ball of fire when their HP reaches zero, like in POTBS. Concrete wishlist: Ships can take huge amounts of damage before sinking. Ships receiving fire on the windward side when heeled can suffer shot-holes that cause flooding. This forces them to divert fighting manpower to the pumps to stay afloat. Ships that sink do so slowly and realistically. Captured ships are sent away with prize crews. But if ships don't often sink, how do we win battles? Won't human captains be opposed to surrender and often choose to fight to the death? Yes, and at a certain point, the game must take the decision out of human hands to prevent the irrational and trolling behavior that would otherwise ruin the gameplay. Once a ship suffers too many casualties, the crew will naturally run down into the hold or otherwise stop fighting from exhaustion, demoralization or plain attrition. In this case, the officers should either automatically surrender the ship, be considered disabled/killed, or the game should communicate to the opponent that a boarding action would now result in effortless victory.

Realistically speaking,anyone born to the sea would be able to recognize a particular ship in most cases, without the aid of looking at the name. So if you've met before, displaying the name of the vessel is appropriate. And the largest scope for customaization would be in the rig, although the idea of removing guns is a good one. Just remember that the devs are unlikely to implement anything demanding a change in model, and I would be opposed to the POTBS state of affairs, where the model of a 32-gun frigate would fire ghostly cannon balls from 40 guns.

Gunboats... swarms and swarms of gunboats. One 32-pounder in the bows, a single lanteen sail.

The need to trim sail in high winds. More sail does not always equal more speed. Too much sail aloft can hold the ship down, making her handle sluggishly. And then you can lose sails, yards and masts. I would love to see some real storm gameplay, especially as heavy weather has important consequences for combat. Suddenly that 2nd rate can't use it's lower deck guns. But on the other hand, it is suddenly faster than your smaller, lighter ship.

Unless I'm mistaken, use of specialized dismasting shot was not the standard tactic. In large fleet actions and single-ship engagements, the combatants would usually shoot plain old roundshot at the rigging. It's a lot cheaper, plentiful and most importantly, more accurate and not so finnicky to load. Maybe you have some good sources on this topic, but I suspect chain and bar shot would only be used at very short ranges. Modeling this dynamic in the game would be both easy and increase the depth by giving captains an opportunity to make a timed tactical decision.