Crankey

From memory there was a 2 masted ketch rigged vessel but cannot for the life of me remember if Bismark was its name or class, and indeed from what era it was built. I like the Aprils fool reply best

Totally agree, posted something similar some a while back. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/5902-captures-scuttling-and-prize-crew-options/ Crew replenish only at port visits. (Aside from a small qty of lightly wounded called back to duty) Prize crews reduce your current crew appropriately Prize crews cost you at least 1 officer, taken from a suitable rank position dependant on the prizes 'Rate' If you take a small enough prize/prizes you may actually be able to set the prize up as a combat viable 'escort' 'tender', your crew as above would fight at reduced compliment until you reach port. Otherwise as you say, you either escort a minimum crewed prize to port yourself or take a chance enemy player or AI won't intercept it on the OW. Decision to sink it instead of prize crew to voyage home etc

If in game carronade's damage and range and perhaps more important dispersion at range were realistic then there should be no restriction on where you put them. Whether you can successfully get close enough in action before long guns rip you apart is something you will have to cope with. I would love to come up against a Victory with all carronade armament. I simply wouldn't let it get close enough and a lack of incoming fire at range would soon be noticable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carronade HMS Victory used the two 68-pounder carronades which she carried on her forecastle to great effect at the Battle of Trafalgar, clearing the gun deck of the Bucentaure by firing a round shot and a keg of 500 musket balls through the Bucentaure's stern windows.

If in game carronade's damage and range and perhaps more important dispersion at range were realistic then there should be no restriction on where you put them. Whether you can successfully get close enough in action before long guns rip you apart is something you will have to cope with. I would love to come up against a Victory with all carronade armament. I simply wouldn't let it get close enough and a lack of incoming fire at range would soon be noticable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carronade HMS Victory used the two 68-pounder carronades which she carried on her forecastle to great effect at the Battle of Trafalgar, clearing the gun deck of the Bucentaure by firing a round shot and a keg of 500 musket balls through the Bucentaure's stern windows.

Is it possible to enable the search of player posts within a large thread. So someone may want to view Admin, Poster A & Poster B content only within a subject thread. With over 600 replies to the ROE thread for instance, finding a particular persons entry's or even your own to refresh your memory is quite a task

Inevitably Players will vote with their mouse selection button when deciding which game to play on the STEAM library. It depends what the Devs wish to do as a business model and testing purposes (Head count). Are they happy to see players drift away from the game because they are not achieving 'action to time ratio'. My own opinion is it is better to have skirmish room players who can continue to test battle mechanics, than lose those players to WOT or similar. The players who enjoy OW will still play OW regardless of the skirmish room being active. You max out the testing potential of the games mechanics in this case by re-introducing the skirmish rooms. My only caveat would be that skirmish 'rank and progression' should be wholly seperate to OW rank and progression.

Add this to ROE discussion?.

Devs have already stated slavery and whaling will not be part of the game for ethical reasons. I imagine High value livestock or some other such cargo will make it into the game somehows. one will just have to join the dots.

So the only response from admin is they look ugly ? Soooo nothing that isnt aesthetically pleasing is allowed in the game. Thats not really a reason and would actually prevent some ships even being modded as they were by comparison to others downright ugly. I would advocate having studding sails on appropriate ships when different wind strength and weather comes back into the battles and OW. Denying their use is like denying carronades "Because they are short and ugly". There were several famous fleet 'chases' where all plain and all studding sails are set both by the persued and the persuers and when the light air winds failed, boats were put in the water to tow the ships. I can think of no valid reason why they cannot be in game. I can imagine there involves extra dev time to both model and interact with the ui and environment. I would like to think they are part of the project that must be completed in order to add varying wind strength into the game. EDIT: No-one is suggesting that studding sails take priority over anything else, merely that it is considered for inclusion with dev time alocated as they see fit. Differing wind strengths in game would open up the opportunity to utilise studding sails.

I'm sorry but I completely disagree. You want to give Nations the ships that were historically correct, but then you want to invent ships for nations that didn't have ships of particular classes so that all nations have ships of the same class ? I really don't know what adding fictitious ships to a game would add that using the current or planned models wouldn't do just as well. The only merit this post has is for Devs to consider ship naming and realistic colour schemes of ships so that nations or players could put their own stamp on them without changing the stats of a ship. (Eg classic Spanish sSntissima as it is in game, British player may prefer Black and Buff hull strakes etc.)

Not all of the current neutral ports need to be aligned to the main 8 Nations, many could be small outposts for far flung kingdoms, or self styles governors running an independent port etc. Don't forget a Nations conquests were normally based around resources wanted, or strategic locations. This would give the Nations something to fight over. If there are sufficient neutral ports turned into self styled independent ports then these would function just as the neutral ones are now. So any nation could go into port for trading or shipwreck re-spawns etc.

Mr Maturin I believe we are singing from the same hymn sheet, merely started at different pages. A pirate wouldn't sail boldly into a well policed harbour unless he was doing so in 'disguise' change look of his vessel, wearing apprpriate disguise, false papers etc. Yes they would have no reason to do this if putting into an unpoliced den of the unlawful. I agree any player should be able to smuggle etc, however if you get caught your unlawful activity is attached to your current 'lawfullness / notoriety rank. Carry out and get get caught doing enough unlawful acts would alter your standing and potentially make it difficult to enter the more policed ports, again without somehow trying to hide your identity. Small principalities dotted around around the globe will have fewer restrictions on all national and unlawful notoriety players visiting. In essence they are your neutral ports but have far more colour and in creating them you prevent all traders rolling neutral, as well as adding a lot more future possibilities for interaction with or in them.

+1 Not a bad idea. Mine always vanishes when I head into battle. not worked out how to reinstate it. Having it on my 2nd monitor with my ts display would make a lot of sense

The more Nefarious the acts a player takes part in the higher their profile. Therefore they have to be more and more careful where they put into port, or devise bribes or legal looking documents to circumvent attention. A player deciding to play as a pirate with the right paperwork could enter every port on the map something a National player will never be able to do. Smuggling, Stolen goods all make it worth the risk. Agreed - lose the Neutral ports all together. Create a few dozen locally governed 'states' who have access to a port. Not exactly neutral more simply too small and insignificant for the larger Nations to bother with .... Well until they become a haven for pirates and buccaneers (Or gold is discovered.) causing them to be viewed in a more interesting terms.

Yarrr !! OK now i have your attention.... Every pirate started their life as a National (Somewhere!) British, Spanish, Native Indian, Portugese etc. When you join the game you have no reputation, Good or Bad. Only through in game actions should you remain an honourable member of your Nation or through smuggling or piracy become known as Captain Crankey the Notorious British Pirate etc. Piracy was a label not a Nation. Players could Have Naval Rank earned through grinding and pvp against your Nations enemy shipping, Merchant standing earned through trading. Piracy would be a label of notoriety/lawfullness. Honour/Notoriety/Infamy earned by acts within the game, smuggling and piracy would give you bad notoriety and eventually earn you the title "Of ill repute","The smuggler","The Blackguard", "The Pirate", whilst intercepting pirates or smuggler activity would eventually earn you the title "The Honourable", "The Upstanding" etc Players with bad repute, would be limited to visiting Neutral(I prefer Unaligned) ports and National ports where the level of 'policing' would be sufficiently low enough for you to enter with a simple bribe to the harbour master to enter you as Captain 'Smith'. False papers, would give you a chance of appearing to be law abiding while on the high seas or entering ports.(Depending on the quality these could perhaps fool OW players into believing you are neutral or friendly at the very least law abiding, but if your papers fail then you are flagged as wanted or pirate to the investigating players ship who can then engage you. I would suggest the more notorious you become the harder it is to deceive without using the very best falsified signals or papers(Cost associated). Neutral Ports and Nation?? Players should choose their birth Nation. If not one of the main 8 then at least offer some viable 'others' with the odd port dotted around. I also would prefer to align all ports on the map to either the larger nations or perhaps little known local 'self styled governors/warlords' (Guild ownership possible perhaps at some point?) Even the meanest little hamlet would have been claimed perhaps tenuously at some point by one nation or another albeit 100 years earlier without seeing a uniform since. Neutral just sits badly with me. Everyone wanting to be a trader will just roll a neutral toon Yeuch EDIT: As I have made some sweeping statements above or put forward an idea without going into detail, I have been replying to different queries or questions regarding my ideas within the thread to clarify and expand on my OP. Already seeing some very good interpretations and suggestion to expand my initial thoughts

Sorry Bungee I didn't search tbh. I had limited time and just wanted to get the issue out there well spotted +1

I don't believw in Neutral. They either flew a nation flag , flew a company flag or were a nest of pirates

The mortar was a badly armed brig or similar, that once anchored could 'lob' large calibre shells over terrain if needed into a targetted area. Such as a harbour, Port, fortress, battery etc. The mortars were never to my knowledge used outside of this specific circumstance. The mortars themselves were cast down into the hold when not in use as they placed too much weight too high for normal ship operations, they would be fit into place once the ship was anchored at its deployment point. I know of single and double mortar ships. Some converted merchantment others purpose built. The brigs std guns normally very small number of small calibre cannon would be used for any ship to ship engagement. I believe the mortars also had to be anchored with at least 1 spring to the cable to permit alteration of mortar direction whilst fine tuning was carried out on the mortar itself. The mortars were not designed to hit moving targets, rather they targetted an area or building. Possibly anchored ships etc.

There is a lot in game that is not accurate. getting paid for damage caused etc. Finding a nice mod during a battle is a fun way to introduce them, it could also save you some monotonous time having to sail around for hours locating one worthy of putting on your ship. The price I won't quibble, they do seem more lucrative than an entire captured hull so yes reward seems too high for the mod or too low for ship hulls.

A mariner of the day, could tell the difference in calibre even out of sight. Cannon did indeed have different sounds, the variation easily comparible to the depth of tone of different sized church bells. there must be archive sounds somewhere from film or real life test firing etc that could be utilised.

Just spotted an error in the classification of ships in game and wondered if there might be a few more. (Navy Brig should be un-rated not a 6th rate) See wiki for specific confirmation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_system_of_the_Royal_Navy Basically a ship carrying 20 to 28 guns was a 6th rate. (Navy Brig 18 guns should be un-rated not a 6th rate) A ship of 30 to 44 guns sometimes 2 decker was considered a 5th rate. A ship carrying less than 20 guns was un-rated I saw Navy Brig in the 6th rate shopping list. A Captain (Not Master 8 Commander) would never ordinarily be given command of an un-rated.

If this is a simple requirement of new sub forums for real life players "Language X" users. Then it sounds a good idea to me. (However let us not confuse this with the Gameplay nations available to play.) A recruitment, discussion, Translation help and Tavern etc ? Why Not just create them as requested. The community will make use of them and improve their enjoyment and participation of the game. Which in turn will improve content feedback.

To take a port should be a very major occurrence in the game with large strategic and economic significance both for the victor and the defeated. Taking part in a port battle should also be an awesome pvp event. (Trafalgar, Glorious 6th of June) etc. Taking a port should not be a frivolous occurring every hour event. However battles to effect the outcome of the port capture could indeed be every hour or 2 hourly through a 24 hour period to allow all timezones to effect the outcome of each port attack. This should negate 'night flip' 'meta gaming'. Different ports should have different levels of strategic, economic and tactical(Castles, Gun Batteris etc), strengths. Making them tougher or weaker opponents. Attacking a port should be a National initiative. There may be differences of opinion within a nation which port should next be attacked, so you have to have a mechanism to 'vote' for the actual port decided upon. By Vote this could be players individually placing a battle marker on a port with different guilds and player groups urging players or indeed entire fleets to vote for the outcome they themselves want. Fleets could perhaps vote en-masse using the number of accounts (NOT characters) in their fleet active in the last 3 days. (This system would not be unlike clan battles in W.o.T) I would like to see supply be a factor in the effectiveness of the attacking and defending fleets/forces. Chain of supply could force lesser important ports to be captured in order to have reasonable chain of supply to reach the ultimate target port. This could create cases where ports not too important for economic reasons become an important port for the purpose of denying or allowing an attack on a port further away. Without good chain of supply, attacking fleets should become weaker/over extended. (I leave meta gaming and cross nation playing in a single account to another discussion). Other methods I imagine will involve grinding locally which the Devs have stated they wish to ignore.

Stuff and nonsense sir ! the first broadside in an engagement were considered the best loaded and most lethal, all gunners were awaiting the word from their offices to fire as they were all of them ready and waiting for the command. After this first broadside then of course firing became more ragged and uneven as different crews were able to reload at different speeds due to skill levels and possible casualties, tiredness etc Read your historical references or even compare gaming systems tabletop or otherwise, all comment on the lethality of the initial broadside.

The danger of losing masts is primarily when sailing with sails set and your ship travelling at a decent speed then your hull comes to an abrupt halt. Run aground, Hit Rocks, Collision with another vessel (Obviously a 1st rate running into a Lynx is unlikely even to notice) being 'All aback' wouldn't necessarily mean you lost spars and mast sections, though never say never ! especially if the ship had received mast damaged prior to carrying out a manourve which puts particular strain on the damaged rigging.