Van Valkenburg

I personally enjoy that there is no ownship position marker on the map to tell you where you are. It forces you to get acquainted with your surroundings and be able to visually identify where you are based on the coastline. Of course, nobody is going to have an intimate knowledge of every island and inlet, so that adds an adventurous element to the game. However, while cartography and navigation was indeed often just a matter of mariners drawing up their own charts, there was also a fair amount of sophisticated instruments and practices that allowed vessels to navigate with efficient accuracy. I support the idea of adding a consumable you can use at your own discretion. For instance, each consumable is a "taking of one's position." It's accuracy depends on both the quality of the consumable and the time of day/visibility. If you try to use it in the dark, it won't do you much good. When you take your position, a plotting mark will appear on the chart. This mark will remain at the exact spot you occupied upon taking the fix, so it won't tell you where your ship is at that exact moment, but rather tell you where you were so you can get a feel for where you are heading relative to where you want to go. After a certain amount of time (let's say a minute), the plotted mark will disappear. I also think the idea of being able to use a pencil/ruler style of tool to draw lines would be nice. You could plot out the legs of your voyage and then take fixes to see how far off the mark you are. While this might seem to take away from the overall adventure of not knowing 100% where you are, recall that the fixes taken aren't all too accurate, especially if getting a quality consumable costs a shiny penny (accounting for the cost of the instrument and skill needed for accuracy). Considering how often we see fog, rain, etc. in the open world, it wouldn't be too hard to find yourself in a situation where you ventured to sea and are no longer confident as to your whereabouts. You then pray for a clear day to take a fix and determine where you are, but you only have two consumables left...

Much like the style of the Silent Huner series, particularly as seen in the fifth installment, which allows one to literally walk to controlling stations rather then click to them. Some folks will want to play this for the RTS style simply to see the ship, so I'd venture to say that offering "camera modes" that can be toggled would be nice. Sometimes you just want to look at the beautiful ship in all its splendor, sometimes you want to feel truly "in command."

Maybe this is just me, but I've always felt that Gotheborg could easily undergo some minor and temporary alterations to play Bonhomme Richard in a movie or miniseries about John Paul Jones. If anyone wants to take this notion to a different thread topic, I'm for it! Like several others have said, though most of her timbers are "new," I still think Constitution is the same ship she was in 1797. She will continue to be so until she is decommissioned (which isn't going to happen) or is totally lost (be it to fire or breaking up...Heaven forbid. Even sinking relatively intact would simply reduce her to a wreck). On a side note, my wife gave me a pair of cuff links made from Constitution wood removed during her 1971 restoration and a tie clip made from Victory. She's officially won Christmas for the next decade! Lastly (since we're on the topic of replica and original ships), if you haven't, take some time to look at the Olympia | Independence Seaport Museum. She's in dire need of funding and awareness to stave off a fate as an artificial reef! Next to Old Ironsides, she's America's second most important gem!

I'll be using my real name. It's highly unlikely to be taken and it's actually a famous name in the US Navy. Captain Franklin Butler Van Valkenburgh (a relative of mine) was the last commanding officer of USS Arizona (BB 39) at Pearl Harbor. They posthumously awarded him the Medal of Honor and named a Fletcher-class destroyer after him too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Van_Valkenburgh

Anyone reading this feel free to counter me with your opinions and knowledge, but I personally think an American in command of the Allied fleet at Trafalgar would have been messy. Given the utter lack of ships-of-the-line in America's navy at that point, they didn't have any real experience with handling them, be it alone or in numbers. I'm an American myself and will fly that flag regardless of how much of an underdog we are compared to the rest. That's just my nature and I prefer frigate duels to lines of battle anyway. I think one can make a reasonable case for the inclusion of America as a playable third rate, even if she was ultimately gifted to the French. A bigger stretch would be for allowing Ohio in the American lineup, but that's even further into the realm of "what if." Any of the American "supersized" second/first rates simply came too late to be included. At the end of the day, however, I submit that the American faction actually be limited to super-frigates and lighter. It might be a major disappointment to folks wanting to charge into battle with the Star Spangled Banner at the gaff of their battleship, but it would naturally deter folks from flooding the American faction simply because they're American players. If anything, I think it would be interesting to factor in some sort of economic or privateering perk for Americans, since that's largely what the United States had to survive on during both the War for Independence and the War of 1812.

The colors in the center of your signature is the Serapis ensign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapis_flag

Below is an album of plates by the esteemed artist H. Charles McBarron detailing the evolution of Continental and later US Navy uniforms.