surfimp

I would like to see the OW use the same camera control as the battle instances. I.e. I shouldn't have to right click and drag in OW to move my camera around my ship, whereas in battle I can just move the mouse. Also I think the spyglass in OW is absolutely essential, and I'd like to see it implemented along with removing the ability to click on distant ships and have all the information about the ship / fleet displayed. Instead, I would like that national flags be displayed in the OW (currently they are not) and you'd have to use your spyglass to identify ship type and nationality... and you'd only get the captain's name once you were at hailing distance. This would really add quite a bit to the drama and tension of seeing other ships - are they friend or foe? - and would be much more realistic and interesting. Trade ships look ridiculous sailing around with the gunports open and no guns on deck. At least they should have the gunports closed, for sure. I don't think the spyglass should be something that has to be earned, it would be a basic piece of essential navigation equipment for ships of this time.

It would be easy to re-name the current ad hoc groups of NPC or player ships that you refer to as "Squadrons", which would be much more historically accurate for a group of 2-8 ships than the current usage of Fleet. Then the word "Fleet" could - quite appropriately - replace the word "clan" to refer to the much larger groups of players who don't always "squadron up" but are part of the same permanent group and nation. Done and done. The game is still in EA and I don't think any of the current player base would need more than a week to adjust, and probably less.

My personal opinion: Clan is completely unthematic and, as an American, has always had very uncomfortable connotations to our very unfortunate history of racial discrimination and a specific group of terrorists who attempted to enforce racial prejudice through violence and coercion. So, anything but clan would be better, especially something that was actually naval. I voted for Fleet.

I previously asked the same question as the two posters above and then thought better of it. But now, having 2nd Lt. in my sights and quite a few more battles vs small ships (my Cutter vs enemy Cutters and Lynxes), I have been finding: 1) For Admiralty Missions, it's more helpful - against armed AI opponents - to go for their stern armor and rudder first, then - if I want to board them - work the sails a bit with chain before proceeding to grapeshot stern rakes to whittle down the enemy crew. If I just want to get them to surrender to get the Gold & XP for completing the mission, I keep hammering them with ball. 2) Against traders (Trader Brig and Trader Lynx) I capture in the Open World, I find I need to make sure to approach as close as possible while maintaining a downwind position in the Open World, so that when the battle instance loads I will be downwind and able to catch them. I use chain to bring the sails down ASAP so that they can't run away, then use ball to reduce the stern armor and rudder, then grape to kill the crew. In both cases above, once I get to grape, I keep graping till the enemy crew is down to 10-15 or so (and I hopefully still have 35+). This makes the boarding take even less time, and if the enemy's sails and rudder are gone, you can pretty easily grape stern rake all day if you want. Make sure to remember to do the "prepare for boarding" action before you try to board! Once it's time to board, I get to the downwind side of the enemy ship and then slowly round them up into the wind - the AI will usually try to avoid collisions. Once speed gets below 5kts and both ships are pretty even matched (neither is accelerating / decelerating relative to the other) the boarding [G] will usually show up.

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Started for me about an hour or two ago, can't get in. Tried restarting NA, restarting Steam, restarting my computer, all to no avail.