DeRuyter

@admin I am updating to post a single ship suggestion - May we suggest our choice for each category of ship? My pick for heavy frigate 50-60 guns is Delft 54 gun ship built in 1783. IRL a 4th rate but in game would match well with the heavy frigates. LOD 144 ft, Beam 40 ft, DOH 16 ft 1040 tons LD 22 x 24pdr, UD 24 x 12pdr, QD&FC 8x 6 pdr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_ship_Delft_(1783 Plus there is a replica being (slowly) built in Rotterdam (Delftshaven). http://www.dedelft.nl/museum

One way to answer the question is that the definition of "light" frigate changes with time. So at one point the 12 pdr 32 gun frigate was the standard and a 28 gun 9 pdr was light, then the standard becomes 38 gun 18 pdr, etc. @Surcouf Good point on the limitions on the upper deck 6 pdr guns carried by the replica. There is not a lot of space on the FC for sail handling and on the QD they placed the guns (3 per side) further forward to keep the stern clear.

Indeed I believe the replica is armed with 6x6pdr per Boudriot. At least when I was onboard she had 6 x 6pdr on the QD.

@A. P. Hill I saw her in Philadelphia and took an onboard tour. I also got some great photos of her firing a guns as she came up river. One of her 12 lb guns is an actual piece cast in the 18th century. Fortunately I found out the proper French pronunciation ( it is not like the Harry Potter character!) while I was there. Interesting you mention Baltimore as I see the inner harbor in the photo of the ensign above! Of course if you are frequently in Baltimore you can sail on the Pride which is very much like the Prince (rigged as topsail schooner).

I hadn't actually thought of Pickle as anything but a topsail schooner, maybe because all the sources list her as schooner rigged as is the replica. Actually both Pickle and Prince have a fore and aft rigged foresail on on the foremast which technically makes them both schooners, but Prince has a square topsail on the mainmast as well. The Pickle is modelled in game with a forecourse which is not normally carried on a topsail schooner and differentiates her from Lnyx and the Privateer, but I don't think that would turn the rig into a hermaphrodite brig. If that were the case neither Pickle or Prince should have the foresail (fore and aft rigged).

We have Topsail schooners in the game, Lynx, Privateer and Pickle. Prince was rigged as a schooner but also as a hermaphrodite brig (brigantine) which is what we have in game. The schooners above are later examples after they did away with the square sails. A very popular rig used on the US coast and Canada for fishing and cargo hauling. Some of them also dropped the bowsprit and were called "knockabout schooners". We have some replicas and restored original schooners sailing on the US east coast, Lynx being one of them.

+1 to the suggestions by @pietjenoob for the Dutch ships. To narrow it down Delft as suggested by @Jœrnson would be a good 4th rate/heavy frigate, notably she was in the Battle of Camperdown (Kamperduin) vs. the British. https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=1292 Also the Vrihied for a 3rd rate (74) she also fought at Camperdown. The Venetians had some interesting frigates (some built to French plans). What do you think @Fluffy Fishy Several were involved in the Battle of Lissa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lissa_(1811 The Corona (40) or the Bellona (32) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Corona_(1807 https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=22633 The Hebe class French frigates would also be a good choice for a heavy frigate as someone already posted. Re the Concorde class 32 gun frigate @George Washington we do have the L'Hermione incoming and on the testbed. But you right that class is a good representation of the 12lb frigate.

That may be but he is mostly a tabletop miniatures guy and rules author. Known in those circles for taking adapting a popular ACW rule set to the Napoleonic period among other things. From that perspective it is a fairly in depth and positive review. Note one of the criticisms was the lack of flags but again that can be traced to miniatures when you generally paint command groups with officers and flags for each unit.

No I meant single player game (Einzelspieler Kreigspiel) ie; "Ultimate General Civil War". You need xp in reconnaissance to gain knowledge of the enemy's strength. In NA some suggestion has been to give only some information when you click on a ship in the distance, same thing.

+1 to @TommyShelby post. Pre wipe I spent time crafting and ship building and yet still could go out for pvp as a casual player. Post wipe I was spending too much time grinding pve and trading and in the end I hardly had time to pvp and didn't really get the sought after refits and skill books. I wouldn't mind going out in a capped AI ship or one without the "necessary" mods, but it would be a waste of time because you get nothing for getting sunk by a player with a fully modded ship. Patch looks like it will help with crafting grind. Get rid of RNG skill book/refit drops - grinding pve for mods. Then there is the repairs/repairing but that's another topic.

I beg to differ. Fog of war is a common principle in military science and used in many wargames whether you are playing against the CPU or PVP.

Better to have some fog of war than people calculating on a spreadsheet how many cutters they need to tag a 4th rate, etc.

The easiest way is just to tag the ship you want to attack, then you'll know if you have enough BR.

Just wanted to bump this outline. Lots of good ideas IMO. @admin The national reputation system may work well with the new clan wars type RvR system you have proposed.

@admin Lots of great discussion and ideas in this thread. I would just add that with possible capitol changes and map reset you may want to give everyone another set of Forged Papers in case players want to change nations for this new conquest system.

@Hodo Great topic. Battle sails were also known as maneuvering sails for much the same reasons as you mention - the easiest sails to control in different weather and battle conditions. The courses require the most manpower when tacking or gybing as well. The Constitution's current sails are essentially maneuvering sails - jib, forestays'l, tops'ls and spanker. I believe they have also added other stays'l and maybe t'gallants. I have had sails catch fire but I am not sure if that started in the hull and spread. I was at full sails and on fire next thing I know my rigging was down to 70% from 100% and on fire! One thing to keep in mind is that battle sails varied with the wind IRL. Nelson had to sail towards the French line with full sail including stuns'ls. Of course we don't want extremely light winds in NA @admin Battle sails - another reason to have some variable wind and weather conditions, for example someone using full sails in high winds has a good chance to suffer rigging and sail damage. Also you would have a much less heel and a more stable firing platform with the right sails set in battle - more player skill involved. As a sailor I am always interested in this feature.

@Skully is linking you to a developer's answer to a player with the same situation as yours. Seems like you were aware of the instructions to sync accounts on all servers (posted on the log in screen), would have been a good time to sync your families accounts too.

I am with you here there should remain a sense of nationality. There have been ideas posted to have a national reputation system which regulates what ports you can get in and what forts fire on you. Also I believe Ink posted that different nations can't be in the same war company so in effect you still have national based companies. So if your clan or war company mostly attacks Spanish ports then you may not be able to enter Spanish ports other than those taken by your war company (maybe allow smuggler trader though).

An answer to the purpose of nations and a good way to keep some history in the world. Kind of reminds me of Sid Meier's "Pirates" - If you kept attacking a nations ships and ports eventually you couldn't enter that port or the merchants wouldn't trade with you. You did choose a nation starting out though. In the suggestion above players would essentially be privateers maybe working for a company or maybe not. Need to work out mechanics like starting area or what flag you ship flies, etc. Speaking of flags - with the war companies you should be able to create and fly a company flag on your ship.

I watched Black Sails and thought it was a good show. However Black Sails was loosely based on pirate activity in the Bahamas circa 1718 and Woodes Rodger's term as governor. Even on the show, which took liberties with the history, one could hardly call the pirates a "nation" similar to the others in NA. A loose association might be a better description, in particular at the end of the show. (BTW: Woodes Rodgers was not killed by pirates and continued as governor driving off a Spanish invasion.) Don't be so quick to assume it is some national player beaten by pirates making these suggestions. A quick forum search will turn up dozens of threads on how to make pirates a real pirate faction not just a nation with a black flag. Many of these suggestions were made by and for pirate players.

1. Dual invisibility 2. Longer join timer at end of speed boost. I think @Pratermentioned 3 minutes. 3. No speed boost after outlaw battle. I think the longer timer may help solve the problem of an alt sitting outside spotting for an invisible ship. There may be more suggestions in the thread but these are the main ones. by Prater !

True but she only surrendered when the rest of the British squadron came up and started firing. President was giving it to Endymion at first. We'll never know if President could have escaped because she damaged her hull and sprung her mainmast running aground. Although we do know that both President and Endymion were distancing the rest of the ships.

and/or 2 way invisibility - you can't sneak attack what you can't see.

I disagree. NA is still a game within a historical framework (magic bow figures aside ofc). Sure everything is sped up for gameplay, but historical top speeds can be used as a reference point. You then have a speed cap unique to each ship. That way you ensure variation in ship speeds at difference points of sail. A stock ship starts lower than the maximum historical speed, then you apply mods. Like stock ships vs fully researched in WoWs. Another way to alter the ship speed meta is with variable wind since right now all ships always reach their max speed at a given point of sail (but that's another topic).

@Fluffy Fishy Also leaving the courses set would increase the risk of the rigging catching fire. Don't forget that the animation in NA does not accurately portray how sails were set or furled. The tops'ls and t'gallants were set by raising the yards not dropping the sail and in particular with the main tops'ls it took a lot of crew to set. You hit the nail on the head though, primarily a ship set the best maneuvering sails that would require the minimum amount of crew to work in battle - spanker, fore stays' or jib, tops'ls and in light air t'gallants. To the OP one reads more about the impact of the roll of the ship for aiming prior to firing than afterwards. I think there was some concern for recoil on the structure of the ship when firing an entire broadside (there may be a thread about this somewhere).