GrapeShot

I charted another new port on the Venezuelan coast between Rio Chico and Nueva Barcelona: Piritu (Spanish) Deep, x: 591200.7, z: -354956.8

Charted 2 more as I continued to sail east off of Venezuela: Mitara (Spanish) Shallow, x: 363471.7, z: -287398.6 [across the land bridge from Coro] Las Aves (Verenigde Provincien) Deep, x: 483147.3, z: -267636.0 [east of Fort Oranje]

Continuing east along the coast of Venezuela I charted 3 more new ports: Cordobas (Spanish) Deep, x: 68883.5, z: -414789.3 Barranquilla (Spanish) Shallow, x: 138953.0, z: -311383.4 Cojoro (Spanish) Deep, x: 278518.4, z: -283868.0

I sailed east along the Central American coast from Matina in Costa Rica to New Edinburg in Panama. Along the way I charted (west to east) the following new ports: Talamanca (Spanish) Shallow, x: -214022.4, z:-380782.6 Almirante (neutral) Deep, x: -190430.2, z:-395143.8 Chargres (Spanish) Shallow, x: -92321.4, z:-396844.1 Playón (Spanish) Deep, x: -15063.1, z:-394389.6 I also verified Goodblue's reposition of Concepción and corrected the map accordingly. New Edinburg is now safe to leave, and has also been changed to a shallow rather than a deep port. I edited the map to reflect that information.

I should make it to New Edinburg tonight. I'll double check it to make sure it is OK.

Plotted 2 new posts along the coast of Nicarague: Great Corn (pirates) - shallow X: -230918.1, Z: -261705.5 -- this is on an island that Google map shows which is east of Bluefields and Grindstone (neutral) - deep x: -261299.6, z: -297212.8 -- which is on the coast south of Bluefields

What we had labeled as Walpasiksa appears to be Prinzpolka now. I have added that name as a parenthetical to the map.

Added Nuevitas, a Spanish deep water port between Cubitas and Puerto del Padre on the north east coast of Cuba. Considering its location, I was quite surprised that it was uncharted.

I added Las Tortugas to the locked map. In the notes I used the annotation '--gs' so in the future you know who edited it (something we might want to start doing)

Unmapped Neutral Deep water Port -- Las Tortugas (west of Key West on present day Dry Tortugas), x:-233842.2, y:334131.0

I added Road Rocks Harbor, a pirate port on the east end of Grand Bahamas Island. It should be revisited to verify its map location (I was a bit lost when I came upon it).

Yes, New Edinburgh was bugged -- put you in a little pond under the land. Very odd. Also, roughly plotted another shallow Pirate harbor, Cayo de Sal (x:-79090.1, y:284576.4) which is and island just off the coast of Cuba and east of Carahatas.

Roh-oh! I think that is where I am currently docked

Added Placentia (N), Santo Tomas (N), Omoa (S), Triunfo de la Cruz (S), and Ruatan (N) on the Central American coast.

Thanks Sigfried -- I've added that.

I've added 5 ports (2 neutral, 2 Spanish and 1 English) along the Central American coast, starting with Tulum on the Yucatan south to Belize. Did it from memory so a couple of them need to be visited to be named as well having their precise location double-checked.

As an aside, and as an old sailor, I find the notion of sailors not swearing pretty damn funny.

Too great a frequency of storms would be nothing but annoying after a while. They would need to be carefully balanced to happen often enough so that people would have to factor them into their calculations, but not so often that you couldn't sail 2 miles without getting hit by one. One thing that might be done is having seasons -- say the 4th week in every month is winter for example -- so that people could plan to sail in more calm weather. Merchants losing escorts is just part of the cost of doing business. Just like the merchant might run into a large raiding force, perhaps they would lose an escort or two. Bad luck is going to happen -- just as long as it is infrequent enough so thast it doesn't seem like it is always happening. i think scattering's most interesting effect would be on large scale guild/clan operations. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and carefully laid invasion plans can be thrown into chaos by a large storm. TS would certainly get a work out on both sides as they tried to reasseble their fleets and recover from the dispersal of their forces.

From the Classical era to as recent as Typhoon Cobra striking Halsey's 3rd fleet dduring WWII, storms have caused armadas, fleets or squadrons to be scattered in their aftermath. The devs of Naval Actiion have said that merchants will be able to hire escorts, and we know that factions/guilds will eventually sail squadrons or fleets as they compete with each other. I propose that sailors in the open world of NA face the same problem as Age of Sails mariners faced with ships sailing together becoming separated due to inclemenet weather. I'll throw out some ideas and hopefully we can do a bit of brain-storming (no pun intended). Storm Events I suggest that on the global map there be periodic 'storm events' that would have a specific center, strength and radius of effect. Once a storm effect occured, any escort or fleet would check to see if it had scattered. The strength of the storm, coupled with the ships' nearness to the center, would influence the chances of a scattering happening. Escorts, Fleets and Squadrons There are 3 main types of ships groupings: escorts, fleets and Squadrons. They would be affected differently. Escorts have been mentioned by the devs and should be easy to deal with. Merchants will be able to hire them and, at the moment of contact, they will appear to assist the merchant. I propose that, upon a storm causing them to scatter, they simply do not appear to assist the merchant. Fleets are what I'm calling large scale clan/faction gatherings of ships to either relocate to a new port or, more likely, to attack a rival faction. Upon a storm scattering they should be split into 2 or more groups and relocated some distance from each other on the global map. The distance should be far enough that it will be difficult for them to recombine their fleet using TS or some other comms. Squadrons are what I consider to be similar to WOT's platoons -- a means for a couple of friends to play with each other for a night. Since it would be an annoyance for friends playing for a relatively short time, squadrons should either not be scattered or should only be split by a small distance so they can rejoin. These are just some preliminary thoughts of mine. I do think that storm caused fleet scatterings would add some Verisimilitude to the game. Sort of a 'critical hit' for global movedment. I would be interested in any opinions or other ideas about ship scatterings.

Today I had a problem with the S key not furling the sails when Caps Lock was on (I am a fumble-fingered typist and hit it by accident a lot). The rudder and deploy sails keys (W, A amd D) worked fine. I submitted an ingame report of the problem.