[Massive Points for each handicap level per shot instead of ship balance]

Your idea would be workable, no doubt, but I think that bonus multiplier is not needed and would mostly encourage engagements that would have never happened in real life, like in the example of a yacht going for a ship of the line.

 

Working together with other captains however opens up new possibilities where the "underdogs" could actually pull something off. But again, I don't think that would need an extra incentive and should be filed under "common sense".

[Massive Points for each handicap level per shot instead of ship balance]

Sorry, but I fail to see how that applies to Naval Action!? As far as what I've seen and experienced, there is no balancing like: "Since ship x has powerful guns it needs to be less maneuverable or have less speed than ship y, with it's inferior firepower". Ships were built for certain purposes and thus had their strong- and weakpoints in their specific design and I think those are fairly well implemented so far.

 

Going against a Victory in a yacht shouldn't wield more exp/rep, imo. It's just plain suicidal (could even call it plain stupid) and no one in their right minds would have done so back in the 18th century. "Skilled" captains ought to know better when and what to engage.

[What music while playing Naval Action]

The old Microprose game Pirates! had a pretty nice soundtrack, with pieces from Händel, Bach, etc. I generally like the classical/baroque composers. More modern: The AC 4 piece that plays when engaging the legendary ships, just feels so epic:

[Little things you'd like to see]

A fire on a ship.

You catch fire and forget fighting and manurving, fire = assured death. Have it on rare occasions and perhaps the 9 key is "fight the fire" and as long as your crew is focused here the fire will go out. But move them to sailing or the guns or repairs and the magazine blows. A random event that will totally change the game play for that person and everyone around them. You would not want to get caught in the blast when the mag goes up as you may catch fire.

Fires would really be a nice feature to have. Although, we'd probably need the implementation of different ammo types first, like Shellshot ("bombs"),  or Incendiary Shot (filled with pitch, etc.) Solid shot, Chain shot and Canister Shot don't really have any incendiary effects (unless it'd be the so called "Hot Shots", which were heated up to red glow Solid Shot, basically).

[POLL - Where are you from?]

Kassel, Germany

[Average age of Players?]

35 here. Level of maturity: "very mature" (my own opinion), according to my girl and friends however...well, let's say their opinions may differ from my own perception

[POTBS]

Used to be a Frog on Tiggy around 2011 (Jean de Metz), still recognise a lot of nicks here. Back in those days I was spending days and nights playing, days for grinding out pvp gear, nights for PBs, Port flipping and was starting to get into group PvP more often. Stopped playing that much however, when I started my new job and then got hooked on WoT and later War Thunder (which was another very promising title, yet the devs managed to muck it up, adding content when their game mechanics are totally borked, both in aviation and ground forces).

Tried to get back into PotBS when Portalus took over, but for me the game had already lost a lot of appeal, simply because it felt so much emptier, population wise and a lot of the broken mechanics were still around even after all the time in between (AVCOM for example, or the freaking x-teaming). Left again after a couple of months, just wasn't that much fun any more.

Now my gaming hopes rest on NA, looking forward to get my stern handed to me as soon as I get my key.