DeRuyter

It can be very bright during night at sea with a full moon!

AFAIK oared vessels were not necessarily more agile in battle, plus that's a lot of crew taken away from the guns. The main advantage of an oared warship in this period was in areas with tricky wind conditions or a lot of shoals and shallow water. Hence the advantage for pirates of getting into a hidden spot up a river, etc. Oared ships were certainly used in the US, in particular on the lakes and in Jefferson's gunboat navy before 1812. Gunboats with 1-2 guns mounted on pivots or on the bow. However Practically speaking for NA the devs have already stated they are not going to models no wind or light wind conditions (rare in the Caribbean anyway). Plus I am sure the oars would be a prime target for ramming...

This would be more of an OW benefit. You would have a lookout at the masthead searching for sails as opposed to fighting top where your horizon view would be obstructed by sails and rigging. Once at engagement range guns were sighted manually from the deck. As for the wood it was really all about the density/hardness and longevity of the different types and the only speed factor would be the weight difference. If I recall correctly the British built fir frigates because they were cheaper and quicker to build (also oak was becoming scarce), but they didn't last as long in service.

Nice idea. I agree with JR though, titles depend on the size of the fleet/ number of squadrons. So for the RN if you had 1 squadron of frigates, the leader would be in effect the Commodore and the others just ship captains. Technically commodore was not really a rank just the title for someone in charge of a squadron (or of a yacht club!) If you had a fleet with multiple squadrons you'd have an Admiral as the fleet commander several other lower ranked admirals as squadron commanders. The latter system would be good for the large fleet events.

Then I recommend you try "La Trappe" a Dutch trappist beer brewed in a monastery (De Koeningshoeven in Tilburg(yes trappist and not in Belgium!). They have all the Belgian styles. I recommend the quadruple. http://www.koningshoeven.nl/en/abbey/brewery.php Unfortunately my childhood Nederlands taal is also mostly gone! Whenever I visit family in Den Haag we like to go to the beach restaurants in Scheveningen for bitterballen and patats. My cousin is a chef working nearby in Leidschendam. Inevitably we end up in an Indonesian or Thai restaurant though! In fact I highly recommend the restaurant "Max Amsterdam" (in the Jordaan neighborhood)for a modern view on Indonesian cuisine. Excellent Rijsttafel. I have a pofferje pan and sometimes we order kroketen from an online Dutch food store. Now I am hungry too!!

What about the Merchant (Trader) role? Should this be a separate role from "Crafter"? Merchant: Access to trader ships in store or buy from crafter ( we'll need more variety of merchant ships of course). Could be dual role - ie; can also craft their own ships. Can access ports from different Nations for trade. (Maybe this could come in later when all Nations are not at war). Work with NO for escorts or hire NPC escorts. Just a quick thought for another role. Just saw McJimm's post ^^.

Young you need to log on earlier - there was a fleet of Dutch and Swedes there at 4:00 EST

Even on modern (wooden) replica tall ships you check the water level in the bilge while you are on watch! Pumping is much easier with electric pump though! Also much easier to see in the bilge with an electric flashlight! AFAIK - Batavia does have some form of scuppers. She was built without modern concessions like bulkheads etc, so whatever the technology was in 1625 that's it. Perhaps what he meant was that some water always finds its way in and down into the bilge!

Very nice! EIC ship Falmouth Well armed with a large crew.

Don't forget she was also Nelson's favorite ship! He was her captain in 1793. http://www.amazon.com/Nelsons-Favourite-Agamemnon-1781-1809-Sailors/dp/1861761066/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441032749&sr=8-1&keywords=hms+agamemnon

In my opinion larger merchant ships should be brought in the game sooner rather than later, ie; within the next several patches. I think it is more important to have more merchant ships than adding another SOL (sorry Bucentaure fans!)at the moment. I am thinking a ship like an East Indiaman with significant armament so it can carry a lot of cargo but is a challenge to capture in a smaller ship. In the player choice poll such a ship was voted in (VOC schip Amsterdam) see this thread: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/3922-voc-ship-amsterdam-a-call-for-help/?hl=amsterdam I think variety in the merchant fleet is important as we begin testing crafting and trading increases.

This^^ would be cool! Hard to see combining 16th century galleons in NA though. By the time of the Armada the English had already developed a new type called the race built galleon that could out sail and out shoot the Spanish/Portuguese ships. The galleons of the Armanda were designed more for boarding combat then artillery duels. If you are frustrated by sailing upwind in the OW now, try it in a galleon! I will say that some of the late 17th - early 18th century (baroque) designs are quite beautiful.

Nice work - beautiful ship. I saw this replica when I was visiting in 2013 - alas no time to sail on her! I was in Muiden near Amsterdam going to see the Muiderslot (castle).

I 'd agree that there is too much use of full sails in NA. I think there is another thread somewhere about turn rate v reload rate which is effecting NA combat as well. Here is a historical example of a ship backing sails on main and mizzen masts to make sternway and prevent an enemy from raking her stern: http://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/uss-constitutions-battle-record0/uss-constitution-capture-of-cyane-and-levant.html I would note that full sails were only used during the chase and then some combination of battle sails once in close combat.

I am a miniature gamer and have rigged models as well and I am aware of a number of rules HoO included, that have rules to introduce risk of damage or failure when tacking. Some of the games just have a rule to make it harder to tack period. However the risk of damage was minimal unless the wind was very strong or gusting or you had steep waves arresting the ship's momentum. Ships routinely performed a number of maneuvers, which have been mentioned, tacking, boxhauling, heaving to, that required sails to be backed. I have also sailed on a square rigged ship and performed some of these maneuvers. If there was any significant chance of damage a modern replica wouldn't do the maneuvers because of the costs and potential for crew injury, but they do it. If you study a rigging diagram you'll see that the standing rigging is set up to support the masts/spars from all directions. Your forestays are tensioned to provide support against pressure from the front. Also your forestay and mainstay are the thickest lines on the ship. There are any numbers of books on the rigging of tall ships real or models. I would recommend Harland's "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" for a highly detailed study of all aspects of sailing square rigged ships. I am all for implementing rigging damage for carrying too much sail in certain wind conditions, we would just need to have varying wind strength in NA first!! With respect to the broadside reloading I think it varied by nation and crew complement and some miniatures rules/board games reflect this.

Agreed, but you could have crew loss from falling debris not caught in the splinter netting, or marines/sharpshooters in the fighting tops.

The devs have already said there will be a skirmish mode (room) enabled at some point.

The 68's were an experimental load out which was returned to the 18lb long guns on the lower gun deck. The 68lb armament is not even mentioned here: http://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=641 Not sayn' you couldn't try it in game but I would think you'd have seen more ships armed this way if it worked. Having said that we do need a 26 gun Indiaman in game.

I like this idea. Not really good for a negative balancing trait, but officers could add a small buff here and there: Sailing Master: Small speed buff + .1-.2 knts depending on quality. Quartermaster: Decrease in repair kit price say -10%. Bosun or Boatswain: Turn rate buff or sail handling buff Gunner: An expert or Master Gunner could provide a decrease in reload time. First Lieutenant: Bonus for morale or decrease in boarding prep time. Carpenter: An expert carpenter could increase repair speed or % of repair. Surgeon: Increase number of crew returned after a boarding or maybe only after a battle.

Good idea but not really for towing first rates into battle. You would only increase the speed of a ship under tow if it was sufficiently smaller, as in frigates towing schooners (Cerebus towing a Lynx). This was done in 1812 in the Great Lakes by the US fleet on Lake Ontario because the small merchant schooners were overloaded with cannons. Historically frigates did tow SOL that had rigging damage from battle (after Trafalgar for example). This would be a good feature for those weekend Trafalgars when you see SOL getting dismasted. A frigate could tow a dismasted ship away from the battle, etc.

You can try some trading. You can make enough in one trade voyage in your Lynx to buy a cutter by finding the right deals. You can also capture and sail a trader Lynx with 20 hold slots and trust in upwind speed to run if necessary. Also try capping a couple of trader brigs with your Lynx and send them back to your outpost/capitol to sell them.

Wow, great work gents! Can't wait to see the final version. BTW - Currently I keep NA windowed and just keep Chrome open to Booyah's map. Hopefully that should work for yours as well.

Nice Guide Thanks!

I think you mean that other tank game - WoT. If a tank designer drew an outline of a tank on a napkin in a pub it would make in into that game! Otherwise I agree!

First one is Russian ship Shtandart. Replica of a frigate from the fleet of Peter the Great circa 1703. Second one is maybe the Christian Radich a Norwegian sail training ship.