Digby

I understand and most players will use a 3rd party voice comms utility like TS or Ventrilo anyway I would imagine. With the spyglass/text pop-up window method to "read" a message, you could only read (decipher) messages flown from friendly ships. In effect each clan or guild or nationality (however it gets divided up) has their own signal book and only members of that group get the message's meaning in plain text when they use the spyglass view. The game could have an international signal book (aka 'common tongue' that everyone can read), then clan-specific flag codes. It just strikes me that nothing whatever like this has ever been attempted in any naval game of any era, it would a great coup to be the first to have such a cool and fun feature I think.

You could easily do that: 1) A national or clan flag at the sternpost 2) A commanders pennant at the main topmast indicating rank (capt, commodore, admiral, etc). Historically this is mostly accurate as admirals flagships flew a coloured pennant here indicating his rank. 3) A smaller pennant at the foretopmast with some kind of symbols on like lions, fleur de lys, skulls, etc with the number of them indicating rank. 4) Extra flags at the mizzentopmast for that, or smaller coloured flag at the flaghoist lines betwen the masts. You could implement a commun ications method by flaghoists if the player had a "spyglass view" which fixed on the flag hoist. A simple "read signals from ship X" command would fix the zoomed in player's view on the signal flags for, say, 10 or 15 seconds and then the message those flags are sending is shown in a text window bottom of screen. It would certainly be something unique in a naval game. Unfortunately clans and such will just use Teamspeak and talk to each other, there's no way round this I don't think so any historical in-game comms system would be purely for plaayer immersion. Unless you can force VOIP to not work or something. Of course in MP fleet battles you could have an agreement not to speak over TS and all fleet signals be sent by flags. That would be truely awesome. I'm also thinking flag hoists from forts and shore stations at harbours might be useful too. They could at least show which nation/clan owned the port and what the status of the senior player present was. Not having port or ship ownership marked in any way in the campaign map would oblige a clan or guild to send a small patrol vessel to a place to report back who owned it and what its strength was.

How old was she? Was she a genuinely old ship, or a modern build? EDIT: I see she was built in 1918. Looks like the various owners operating her have been struggling to make money in recent years and she's passed through several owners going back to Holland only very recently. I wonder if the master was inexperienced? Those are treacherous waters and have claimed many ships. Of course she has a diesel plant but apparently that failed. Maybe an issue with poor maintenance due to costs.

Can I ask why you chose Gettysburg in particular? While I can understand the choice from the point of it being perhaps THE critical battle of the ACW, its also been covered very well by other games from other devs, most recently by Norbsoft in their "Scourge of War" series. It would be nice to see a less well known but still interesting battle such as Shiloh or Chicamauga or even some form of mini-campaign or linked sequence of battles such as Jackson's Valley campaign or the Seven Days. In addition the ACW gets too much exposure from games developers I feel, particularly in comparison to the Napoleonic wars. I think there is a huge market in treating a subject from the Napoleonic Wars such as Waterloo, Leipzig, Austerlitz or Borodino. The sales market for a good Napoleonic PC game may even exceed that of the ACW if sales are a consideration.

Ships sailed under their national colours at all times. Nasty people like pirates usually used false colours as a trick of war (to hide) or to surprise a victim. Are you looking for a way for players to communicate in-game by means of flags or just a library of suitable period ensigns? Home Popham's is the most well known but is extremely late in the period, 1799: http://3decks.pbworks.com/f/Admiral%2520Home%2520Popham%2520Telegraph%2520signal%2520book%2520Final%2520edition.pdf There's even a fun online Popham encoder! http://www.goblinrevolution.org/widgets/popham_encoder.cgi Google-images for "eighteenth century naval flags" will get you lots of useful designs. As to where on ships flags were flown, I'll have to think on that, but I could probably come up with some simple basic rules quite quick. EDIT: Any use? http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeohzt4/Seaflags/signals/Signals.html http://www.flags.net/UNKG04.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_national_flags http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_flags http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_flags http://www.nationalfcf.com/history/historicamericanflags/tabid/2192/default.aspx http://www.flaginstitute.org/pdfs/Roberto%20Breschi.pdf http://www.loeser.us/flags/revolution.html

The Sea Lords is a group still wanting a naval combat simulator 15 years after Age of Sail II. Dozens of MMOs and pirate games have come and gone since then, dying into obscurity. A strong committed wargamer group has been waiting more than a decade for a fleet or squadron combat sim. Supply that with the attention to detail games like Rise of Flight and IL-2 have rightly become famous for (alongside your MMO crafting pirate world) and keep it updated with bug fixes and listening to the player inputs and I promise you, you'll have a community that supports this game for years, long, long after the pirate players have moved on to something else... or maybe after they've joined our ranks and are enjoying Nelsonian level epic sea battles.

Listen to Verhoeven, he's sunk my frigates many a time! A 1 on 1 ship duel between small ships is a game of wits, daring, cunning and skill. By the time the actual shooting starts, one of the captains has already lost. If you're in a losing position when the first salvo is fired your only option is to cut and run. 1 on 1 combat between ships of the line however is far more about good gunnery and steady crews rather than good sailing.

All the old names are gathering again. This game looks promising. Yours, &c Captain Digby-Chinless, RN (ret'd)(certified)