_Masterviolin

Looks great! But I hope these refits are very rare or difficult to get, for I could see significant power creep in-game if these become too common! These are some pretty hefty buffs.

Had an absolutely amazing last stand in my Niagara yesterday near Basse-Terre against some Frenchmen! I chased and was chased by numerous 7th rates in company of a Surprise all around the Basse-Terre region before being caught in a final battle. Surprise and his friends were far closer this time, and I slowly got my rigging shredded as I led them on a chase all the way around the island of Dominica. I got reduced to 68% sail, and decided to put up a last-stand fight against the Surprise and his two 7th rate friends further off. I avoided a lot of damage early on, I think my low profile really helped with that! It was a good brawl, I raked the Surprise many times and did significant damage to his guns before going side-to-side with the three ships. I eventually became so slow that the Surprise boarded my mangled ship and captured me. The battle really demonstrated how deadly a Niagara can be, with those glorious 9pdrs, her low profile, great speed and awesome maneuverability,. Honestly the most fun I've had in a while! My opponents were honorable Frenchmen of "PURGE". I regret to say I did not take any screenies

Sir, with all due respect, the idea that players will supply all of the medium cannon in the game to combat high NPC prices relies upon an economy where a huge portion of the players are devoted to producing cannons. This will simply not happen lest the playerbase is HUGE, and will only happen in capitals most likely. Foundries should produce special types of cannons, they should not be the backbone of the entire cannon market.

The plain reality is that the cannon market is broken. Cannons on the market are so expensive that I cannot imagine any player would want to grind dozens of battles and numerous trade runs simply to arm their ship. The idea that the market for cannon will be supplied by a player-supplied economy is simply not realistic. Foundries are wicked expensive to build and honestly, producing the cannon to fully man a Surprise is rather difficult by itself. Even so, I think the only ports that would sell the quantities of cannon required would be the capital. How about this? The role of foundries should be to produce long cannon/carronade, not the backbone of the entire cannon economy. Reduce the price of cannons by at least by two-thirds so that players can try out more ships and not be completely devastated by the loss of their ship.

You were supposed to go onto all three servers and simply fight an action in which you gain any amount of gold/xp. This updates your "account" for each individual server so the devs have the data to give you your XP when you log on after the wipe. This was displayed in bright orange text on the sever page in game, and appeared on the forums numerous times.

Silence shall fall... -Brother of a Dr. Who fan

Though I am already part of a pretty neat clan, that sounds like fun! The 7th/6th rates are a blast really, especially the Privateer and the lovely Pickle. I still fondly recall when two pirate privateers (Hethwill and company :P) harassed me in my Essex Black Prince, so bloody small that I barely hit them! I imagine you folks could be quite capable in small port battles

Or how to avoid them. 'It puts the tiller hard-a-starboard or else it gets raked again"

I wish I could come to that battle in my Essex, weaving between the Santys, Vics and L'Oceans with 32pdr carronades- raking again and again, courses and topgallants going up and down, up and down as I maneuver... Sounds like an excellent way to send the old Black Prince to her eternal retirement

Armenian dollar. That way, we can have millions and millions of Armenian dollars and can feel rich. Just kidding. I submit the ducat, thinking of EU4. It's a third-party currency that does not show favor towards any nation in game, and it's familiar to many players. It sounds cool too tbh

I'm sorry, I don't know that word, speak English please

Here's the screenshot, my friend. Due to some unknown reason, I was unable to reinstall my guns on the Cerb so the figure you see is based upon a 100% empty ship, with copper plating: I took the Cerberus and simply stern-camped three LGVs, destroying all of their cannons twice (before/after repair), dismasting 2/3 times, killing almost their entire crew down to 30-50 men and finally sinking them outright. Here's a screenshot I took for cinematic effect. The Belle fought against five ships in a fleet battle (brig, navybrig, snow, rattle, cerb) with the use of the great smashers (carronades) in a grind. I assure you, I would not be so vain as to blatantly lie on the forums... Oh and I completely agree on the cannons, good god how much money I've been forced to spend

Strange, mine's fur-built? I also have noticed that despite the vessel saying it makes 13.7, the ship never exceeds 13.2 in battle. Bug, bad sailing on my part? Sorry for the confusion- I meant if the ship is sunk, the experience from that specific battle isn't gained I don't think it's reasonable at all that through the system to have vessels with insane speed/reload/maneuverability well outside of their capabilities. Upgrades should not be so powerful as to provide such incredible benefits to performance. I don't think it is at all reasonable to be able to so modify a first rate to outmaneuver a fourth rate frigate. This was a big problem previously, in which high level crafters that had the money and access to high quality upgrades would have high one-sided engagements against poorer, newer players. New players would ragequit because they would be facing off against players with vastly, vastly superior ships and there was essentially nothing they could do about it until they became very wealthy or a high craft level. A system based off experience is far fairer, as players are rewarded for their playtime, not merely for the size of their coffers. Upgrades should only provide small benefits instead of so significantly boosting a ship's performance- the insane levels of benefits for various upgrades will create huge power creep. Oh, and I entirely agree with your idea for Marines!

A Humble Proposal [Testbed] It is my opinion that the present system in Testbed of unlocking upgrades to the vessel's performance provides vastly overpowered benefits for far too little effort that will create an environment of power creep, in nullifying the effectiveness of upgrades and creating a poor environment for simulation and play. It is far, far too easy to obtain access to extremely powerful upgrades that can be installed/uninstalled freely with no drawback whatsoever. Anyone that spends an hour, perhaps two in any ship can access a slot very quickly. Upgrades are hugely buffed with major benefits that are honestly shocking. My Cerberus, which has battled only three times ever against traders, now makes 13.70 knots for no cost whatsoever. When sailing the Belle Poule, it took a mere two missions to obtain powder monkeys which caused my guns to reload at an insanely fast rate. I can mindlessly exchange that at the flick of my mouse in port to lightweight ropes in blocks, in which the yards fly at significant speed even with 1/3 on sails. Don't even get me started on optimized rudder, in which I stern-camped a mercury in a bloody Belle Poule! That was really funny, but seriously though... These upgrades have a huge effect upon performance of the vessel. They can be obtained very easily and exchanged for no drawback whatsoever. With the present testbed system, it is feasible that a 12pdr frigate can outmaneuver a light brig. An Indie could potentially run down an Endymion, an Essex could reload its entire broadside before a Surprise can and a Victory could tack faster than a Bellona. All for relatively little effort. These are speculations, but dear reader, I am sure you get what I'm going at Now, I'm not here to whine about the devs or just report a problem, but to also humbly propose a potential solution. Hence, here is what I envision in a good system. 1: Retain the method for unlocking slots for the upgrades. I think it forces players to prioritize upon trying to amend specific parts of their vessel's performance, and bars captains from fitting overpowered vessels lest they have very significant experience on the vessel. 2: De-buff upgrades from their divine pre-testbed "Gold" level to the "Blue" level. 3: No free upgrades, all upgrades must come from books purchased from the Admiralty. 4: Accumulate experience for the following areas: -Gunnery: Increased by any/all hits scored, increased gunnery xp translates into better accuracy and lower reload. -Sailing: Increased by movement of yards (could be improved I know), the more the yards are moved in manual sails the faster they slowly get. -Boarding: Increased by kills logged in boarding combat, with a "prize" when a vessel is captured. Increases attack and defense modifiers in combat for that crew. Experience is ship-specific. Experience gained in battle is lost if the vessel is sunk, as is the present way of things. So essentially, slots are more difficult to unlock over time, and said upgrades serve primarily as small boosts to performance and the ship itself. Experience from firing the guns, tacking and various maneuvers with the sails, and boarding combat improves performance of the crew. Such a system could be difficut to implement, but I think it would be really awesome. You could go out with a new vessel, and train you crew in attacking traders and easier missions as you slowly increase the skills of your crew and gain access to upgrades. Then, with an experienced crew and some help from upgrades, you would then go into more confident battles with a sound ship. I feel that the system would encourage more people to pick ships and just stick with them, which is what I really love about the game, instead of simply trying to get the best ship on the spreadsheet. Encourage players to become experts with their ships, and be rewarded for it. Oh, and thank you devs for a wonderful game, and for the excellent progress thus far!

See profile picture.

This is something minor, but it is a bit strange. The two "gunnery" perks you can select for your vessel on the testbed server at the moment are Powder Monkeys and Improved Magazine access. However, Powder Monkeys have a -7% reload rate versus Magazine Access at -6% atop increased fire risk. This hence renders Powder Monkeys the clear superior upgrade, both are attainable at the same cost and same fashion so hence Magazine Access would be completely useless. It is minor yes, but it's worth noting! Perhaps Mag. Access should have a better reload rate than powder monkeys, to justify the increased fire risk.

Storm battles were really awesome. But I thought they're still a thing?

18-pdr long guns mostly, do well to take down masts and useful for range. High penetration too. wait a second...

Hm, interesting. Personally, she's not the most attractive ship out there with that blank bow and unfortunate color upon the stern there- yet, she commands majesty for sure. I wonder what her combat characteristics will be!

It would appear you have surrounded the Rebels, damn fine work! Not only overcoming the defensive obstacles but encircling the enemy, my.

Since the folks in the above post seem so engaged in debating the historically fascinating event of the Spanish Armada, I figured it only made sense to divert that discussion to a proper topic on the History subforum! I'll begin. I personally think that that the Spanish Armada was a significant loss for the Spanish, due to the following: -Superior, modern English fast-sailing warships equipped with more naval artillery vs. large, slow and unruly Spanish galleons focused upon basic boarding tactics. -The use of fireships at Gravelines to disperse the Spanish fleet and force it on its perilous journey northward to escape the English. And more. DEBATE!

We need more post ships, like good 20-24 gun vessels that were used en masse as workhorses of European fleets. Vessels like these I would very much look forward to seeing in-game I'm already very exited to sail the lovely Pandora.

Sorry for off-topic response, edited! Galleons are not merely an older version of the game's ships, but an entirely different vessel. They represented an old era of naval warfare based on boarding tactics that is simply incompatible with the game. Galleons were slow, poor sailors brimming with soldiers to board other galleons and carry them in that action. Naval Action's ships are designed for sailing and gunnery performance, with 1650-1820 naval tactics in mind.

Ugh, the model needs more rigging! That's not even nearly enough rigging for the ship, smh

I found a rock-hard roll at the kitchen where I work, I guess that counts