StaleMemes

I think a straight up HP bar would be gamey, imo rather masts should be like pump/rudder/mag with "ok" "damaged" and "heavily damaged" with background repairs rate capping out at ~80% health Then make demasting also depend on the amount of sail set. "Ok" all sail levels are good, "damaged" you better be careful at full or half, and at "heavily damaged" you have to stay in battle sails or below until the crew reinforces the mast and repairs the weak spots. If you want to take the risk of fighting with full sails you run the risk of a well placed sudden burst of damage demasting you before you can drop sails. It makes sense, you put more stress on the masts they will be more likely to fall. I think this would alleviate problems you speak of and add more interesting (and realistic) strategy. Edit also the angle of yards, depowering, and anything else effecting force exerted on the mast (like angle to the wind, and how much it is supported by other masts and rigging) All this stuff should effect the likelyhood of a mast collapsing.

Ok the issue of this being a bug is solved, but does this make sense? The hercules has gun decks that can fire at navybrig level, even if not the top decks. Would these guns not fire in a boarding situation? I'm kinda curious about this, would they keep those gunports closed to stop people jumping through them or throwing grenades in? or what.

I think that replacing/reducing admiralty missions with escort/intercept orders (and exams as the tutorial already has) would be a fun way. Have them synced up. If French admiralty orders captains to go and sink enemy shipping in the upper antilles, swedish and danish captains get orders to protect their shipping there. Make the mission require the player to be in 5th rate and below, and reward players for sinking/capturing enemy shipping OR escorting friendly ships to their destination. Make battles that start in the escort zone between frigates/merchants not allow SOLs to enter so it doesn't become a PVP zone "who has the biggest 1st rate fleet" clan slaughter fest/farming bonanza. Make it focused on more spread out, more even engagements between frigates, the goal being to protect and attack merchant shipping. (as most battles would be in real life.) Also stop enemy AI from spawning right outside the capitals. What is a swedish trader's snow doing at Fort Royal? Make it so if you want to hunt AI you have to go into enemy territory, and then make the rewards better to counterbalance the risk. Whats important as well is that even if the enemy doesn't show, you still have fun and still get rewarded I've sailed into the PVP zone several times in the past weeks, and only on one instance could I find someone to fight. I even announced my exact location in global and my ship type, nobody showed. All in all I spent hours in the zone for 0 gold, 500 xp and 7.3k dmg that I ended up doing in a fricken yacht fighting against a niagara. I figured if I was in a yacht, someone might want to cap it and get there ass out of someone else's PVE mission and get in the zone. Point is current PVP missions completely screw you over and give you nothing IF the enemy doesn't oblige and come out to play. With escort and intercept orders, no matter what the enemy does, you can have fun and get rewards. If they dont show, you won't have quite as much fun, but thats made up for by the fact that you get tons of gold and marks for sinking dozens of merchant vessels. Even better, have these spawned AI ships determine the profitability of the ports that they travel too and from, so reward clans for protecting shipping around their port. Even better than that, have the % of merchant shipping from a port sank play be a factor in determining the size of the hostility window (as I suggested before in a huge RVR suggestion) making "octaflips" and other bs impossible. (Fastest way to get a PB would be to totally blockade a port. That way people would have to leave the zone if they want to keep their ports, or take enemy ones. As is you slap a timer on it and grind in the safe zone for days earning WAY more than the cost of your port. 500k is like one 5th rate fleet mission with an indefat. My 2 cents

This idea isn't brand new lmao I've been thinking this since day 1 of the first open world test. anyways you are right it could be disasterous, it would have to be thought out carefully.

With the addition of the herc I have realized how fun ships with few, but heavy guns are. A ship like this would be a fun light ship, and crew management could serve to balance it along with diminished DPS

Will this money be real and tangible? Like a gold doubloons item? I think that could be interesting, if you want to buy something you must bring the gold with you, without instant money orders across the map. Could encourage pvp and make merchant raiding more interesting

That's an oof

i don't think the herc will be a problem because it's so rare. if you see someone using one in a PB focus on sinking that player and boom you dont have to worry about them on a herc ever again as it is completely irreplaceable and can't be traded.

Not to mention anyone who asks in nation or global (at least in France) will be BOMBARDED with advice and offers to help them. Just today we were helping a Brit learn how to use de power and handling yards to fire without heel, as he was struggling with that in the exam.

We don't want powercreep for light ship battles, rattlers eclipse everything else as is and adding the Cerberus will make it worse

Or the more you craft a ship, the more flexibility you get in its stats. If you are a master at crafting a certain ship, then you can choose + or - 5% on some stats, while inexperienced on that ship you can craft + or - 1%. obviously increasing one stat would require diminishing others but being able to min max is an important advantage, while not being as OP as current mods and wood types.

I've personally always wanted the pointless parts of ship crafting to be more meaningful, like "coardage and oakum" and other items that are just a combination of the 5 or 6 base materials. I'd like to see wood type have a LOT less of an effect on ship stats (like maybe +-1%) and have ships be a combination of lots of little parts that can be made high quality or min-maxed/adjusted. Not just "light carriages" Have different types of carriage, granting SMALL bonuses and penalties to accuracy, rate of fire, gunlaying speed, etc. Have "Iron knees" not be an upgrade but instead a crafting resource. That would allow more personalized ship building and planning, and make building ships on commission better than the current "mass produce 50 and throw away the ones with bad trims" meta. Overall ships would be less extreme in their variation, which is good because right now outside of armament ships have no personality. Slap elite spanish on any two fir/fir ships and they will go like hell downwind and suck upwind, at that point your point of sail knowledge is beyond useless. I also love the idea of crafters being able to specialize on one or a few ship types, and would like to see crafting experience and specialization in ship stats (as long as they aren't as op as modules, with an equal downside to the benefits.)

I finished on the first try, but I shamelessly ran away and waited for repairs to be off cooldown, which is something new players won't know to do. Repairs and repairing vs dps and repair to damage over time are important things currently lacking from the tutorial in my opinion. These aren't the mechanics you want to proudly flaunt because they are kinda weird but at the same time they are important. I very nearly killed a niagara alone with my yacht using mediums last night by using range and repair kiting to out dps/repair him.

Sounds lit

I have added to the discussion of music, and an merely called you out for insulting the developers in an unfair way. If you don't want anyone to respond to your accusations, don't make them. And yes, we do have to choose between things in the short term. There are finite development resources and a plethora of elements to the game to work on, not all can be developed at once.

I would just strip them of their double shot, or give it to players too.

Admin and mods have stated multiple times that they are working on UI and tutorial before most other changes, they have a vision and they have stated it here often. They might not have YOUR vision but it is a vision.

My impression is that the tutorial final exam will be VERY hard for new players, but that with some more advice/help they will be able to finish it. I think giving the AI ships a slight nerf would be good, as that battle was harder than a lot of pvp battles i've fought. Then again, they have completed other tutorial components so I don't think its too bad. A coach system could be good. Let me get in there and give them tips/help them. Also, new players need to be warned about how rare the items they are getting are. A ship clock will be worth 10mil + easily, and they are just told its "rare" not that its basically a once of item they will never be able to attain again if they lose it.

why not just have OW hailing anonymous. "X hails you, respond?" Then you get a little window to type a short response or whatever, or just ignore it. You can say what you want but can't prove it, they still don't see your name. You could say "King of Crowns on bellona" when it's really stalememes on a yacht. If they don't look closely that's their problem, and if you think people are afraid of you just lie or don't respond yeah you could talk in global chat for authentication but you could do that anyway

I'd like to have your crew start making music once in a while. Shanties, fiddles, whatever instrument might be found on a ship. Would add to the immersion and make your ship feel lived in. I think the devs have bigger things to work on right now though, although this might be a totally different type of work that isn't related to other important projects.

Saw that on facebook, it's also in the background of one of the other ship teasers. Looks beautiful!!!

I have a question about the tutorial reward ship Hercules, will it be craftable? it says its a rare ship, but if its only available upon completing the tutorial we will probably have a problem with alts just completing tutorial and selling it, rinse and repeat to get rich or arm their entire clan with these ships. If its a strong ship this could be very unfair. Thanks

It wouldn't affect you as you aren't a new player

Making PVE a nightmare will not give you your desired PVP punching bags, it will only kill the game. If you want pvp to revive, make it enjoyable and make it rewarding. So tone down the modules (especially speed mods ffs) and give people decent rewards without "gank zone" of massive fleets. I'm sure this will be improved with coming admiralty rewards, but as is I really don't see this here is improving the game at all. If I log on and don't have time to spend an hour solo hunting (realistically 2+ if you want to achieve anything worthwhile) or go do a new mission that has spawned in the middle of hello kitty knows where, I'll just log off... fixed it for ya