What kind of ship are you looking forward to sail

[Mirones]

The idea behind this Poll and Topic is to find out where the focus of the personal taste of the comunity is.
for the reason to make the devs and 3D-artist enable to focus on Shiptypes wich will be mostly used,
because not anyone is able to handle the biggest Lineships and or wants to sail one.
there is no point in wasting countless hours of hardwork if no one wants to sail the shiptype so they can focus on more Frigattes instead of 1st and 2nd Rates
 
Please be honest with your vote and think about some time for your answer,
for as much i like the design and dekoration of the big SoL's i dont have the feeling that i dont belong in one of these.
 
examples of the Ship types:

1st Rate:
HMS Victory
Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad
HMS Prince
Orient
 
2nd Rate:
80gun french  Duc de Bourgogne 

 
 
 
3rd Rate:
74gun clas: HMS Superb, HMS Bellona, 
HMS Centurio
Ingermanland 64gun

 
4th Rate:
HMS Leopard/Isis/Portland 50Gun
Fleuron wonderfull french ship
 
5th Rate:
Trincomalee class 38gun Frigatte
HMS Surpise ( in British service more guns  wich is why i put her here)
 
6th Rate:
L'Hermione 26gun

Corvette Unity 
 

32gun 12lb Frigate La Belle Poule

Unrated Brigs Sloops Shooners:
Lady Washington

Lynx Privateer shooner
 

Merchant Ships: 
 
Swedish Göthborg 42gun

Amsterdam 42gun
Earl of Abergaveny East Indiaman 32gun
one of the largest ever build  12&9 pounder, 18&9 Pounder,  18&12&9 pounder (my personal favorite)

 
ofcourse i might forgot some examples of other nations than the British ships
i also left out he Heavy frigates to avoid the discussion if they belong into the 4th or the 5th rate categorie or between them.
 
this poll will not be that much usefull in the current matchplay gamemode
but later in openworld where you have to look on upkeep and resources and price
i enabled multiple choises since some people might consider using mostly a brig but want to sail a 38gun from time to time.
 
for me i cant really deside, i would sail in Portbattles either a 74gun or 50gun like the HMS Leopard/heavy frigattes
but will spend most of my time hauling goods with one of the large Indiamans that could be on distance be mistaken with an 3rd or 4th Rate.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Mirones

[maturin]

Taking command of a swift, weatherly sloop or schooner and playing cat-and-mouse with big frigates is going to be a blast. Darting in and out of coastal shallows to snap up under-manned merchant vessels, then escaping upwind at the first sign of trouble.

 

I hope that merchant gameplay will also be engaging: feeling your way through hostile waterways, using false flags and careful navigation to avoid trouble and arrive at port safe.

 

As for battles, a fast 74-gunner is where it's at. No pregnant elephant 3-deckers for me.

[SeaDog]

Add the option'' all of them/all types'' and I will vote 

[Mirones]

you can basicly click on all of them but i want a honest vote since it might be used as referrence what ships will be focused on to bring ingame mainly

[Chilly Willy]

Love Frigates, and smaller boats xebecs and such

[Pappnase]

It's difficult to say. I clicked more classes, excepting 2nd rate, 1st rate and sloop. If we can own more ships, I will store a first or second rate ship in my travelbag for harbor siege or whatever.

[SeaDog]

I've also chosen many classes, the Götheborg is one of my favorites.

[Ink]

I'm sure frigates will be the most common ship type in the game (4-th and 5-th rates)

[Månis]

Depends on what kind of battle i will do really.  1st rates for harbor seiges/ Port Battles ( if they will implent something like that )  or a 60 gun vessel to hunt down the enemies of the crown. But perhaps also a sloop for thoose days i feel like going fishing.

[Leviathan]

Probably brigs and 4th/5th rates....or whatever I can get my rum-soaked hands on

[davidallan]

My marchand = indiaman :bark , and brigs sloops

26 and 32 and stock medium

[BungeeLemming]

As I know how Frigates feel like in Naval Actions.. Ill be more than happy to have a very good 38 gun frigate under my ass..

Damm they make fun as hell

[Thundershield]

I'm looking most forward to Frigates. I love their combination of speed/maneuverability and firepower.

 

Oddly enough I'm more interested in the smaller ships, like brigs and sloops than massive First Rates.

[Destraex]

I am interested actually in whether larger ships ever had a chance to catch smaller ones.

I assume the larger ships were just as fast but less agile.

[maturin]

I am interested actually in whether larger ships ever had a chance to catch smaller ones.

I assume the larger ships were just as fast but less agile.

All things being equal, longer ships have a faster top speed. If you shrank the Constitution down by 25%, it would be considerably slower.

[Bergoo]

Personally, I'm a fan of 4th rates because in my opinion, they offer the best combination of speed and damage (at least in my experiences)

[maturin]

Personally, I'm a fan of 4th rates because in my opinion, they offer the best combination of speed and damage (at least in my experiences)

There isn't actually a 4th rate in the game yet, though.

[Hawke]

I'm very interested to see how the frigates and smaller ships will stack up against the larger ships, with the effectiveness of hulling shots having the smaller profile and lower gun decks could be quite the advantage. 

[Alex Connor]

Roughly speaking a 3rd rate should be faster than a 4th, given they will have similar hull forms and as maturin says the bigger ship is normally quicker.

 

Some 3rd rates can be very big indeed, the French 80s like the Tonnant and Buccentaur are slightly longer and wider than the Victory.

 

Probably a 4th rate will still outrun a 1st or 2nd, and they do have good firepower, 24lbers and 12lbers, enough to overwhelm any frigate short of something like the Constitution. Also, 4th rates can operate in waters normally reserved for frigates.

 

We need some wind variation to give smaller ships a chance.

[maturin]

 

Roughly speaking a 3rd rate should be faster than a 4th, given they will have similar hull forms and as maturin says the bigger ship is normally quicker.

Not to mention, the classic 74-gun ship as developed by the French had superior speed and sailing qualities irrespective of size. That sort of 3rd Rate would outsail an 50-gun ship even if they had the same length on the waterline.

 

 

Probably a 4th rate will still outrun a 1st or 2nd,

Maybe. A lot of 2nd Rates were awkward, overgunned things. But HMS Victory once reached 11 knots, and 4th Rates could be as short and stubby as 145 feet LoA, or comparable to HMS Surprise with tons of dead weight added on. I would expect nothing special, when it comes to speed. There's a reason this Rate all but died out.

 

 

Edit: That length stat for Leopard may be suspect. Correct me if you find any different numbers.

[Alex Connor]

That length sounds right. 4th rates were about the same size as an 18lb armed frigate.

 

About the hullforms though...

 

I was a bit surprised by this, but comparing the plans Leopard resembles nothing more or less than a scaled down Bellona. Hull shape almost identical and overall appearance strikingly similar. Both ships designed by Slade, who also designed Dublin, the original British 74 (borrowing from French hull lines in the process). Given Leopard's class is a later design and Slade is known to have done this for his 64 gun classes it's entirely possible she is a scaled down 74.

 

Dublin/Bellona/Leopard

 

 

Chances are then Leopard would actually have sailed well, contrary to "the horrible old Leopard" 

 

Could really enjoy sailing 4th rates if this is the case.

 

Concerning 1st and 2nd rates. Certainly there were some good sailors amongst 1st rates. Victory was a well balanced and successful design (indeed, almost 50 years after the original was laid down, 2 more ships were commissioned to her design, the Boyne and Union) and seems to have been a decent sailor. The French Ocean class were said to sail like frigates, and being truly massive (214ft on the gundeck) were quite likely the fastest ships afloat in heavy winds. On the other hand the Santisima Trinidad was overloaded and top heavy (and Spanish 1st rates were not especially good sailors even without extra decks and guns) to the extent it was joked that she should be restricted to defending the bay of Cadiz. 

 

2nd rates as a rule were poor sailors, somewhat too small to have 3 decks, only the British kept building this type after the 74 was introduced (even worse, the British had also been building 80 gun 3rd rate 3 deckers as small as 156ft on the gundeck).

[maturin]

Yeah, the Leopard was one of the last true 4th Rates, if I'm not mistaken. The better design was probably the only reason they built any so late in the century.

 

Anyways, Victory just got a speed boost in the game, so that's nice. Lineships should be terrifying, not to be laughed at and kited.

[Stan Laguna]

Frigate!!!  

[Hipparchia]

Frigate too here.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Confiance

[maturin]

Frigate too here.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Confiance

Or a corvette, in this case. 18 guns and 170 men is too small for a frigate, including in French usage at the time.