Crow's Nest Officer perk

[Angus McGregor]

Yes - I'm lazy... and tired of endlessly scanning the horizon for danger. Watching the OW go round and round and round and ... well, you get the point. Why the hey does the captain have to do this manually anyway? Either that git up in the crow's nest wakes up and does his job or he gets the lash!

I'm suggesting a new officer perk that will cause an alarm when a hostile sail appears on the horizon. Something very similar to the sequence in Master & Commander when the Acheron is first spotted. (obviously not verbatim, because that would be 'pirating' )

Pop up a notification and play a sound clip - alarm whistle, "Beat to quarters!!", drum tattoo for a few seconds.

Maybe at a cost of 2 points?

[Jerome]

No, it is already too hard for people to catch enemies open sea.

[Ser_Slack]

I suppose the people who'd most benefit is the afk sailers. That ain't gonna fly.

[DeRuyter]

Just gonna be nitpicky here - The crows nest only exists in pirate movies. On a warship it is called the "fighting top". Usually a ship would station men in the bow as look outs (fog scene in M&C). Once a sail was sighted someone was sent to the mast head to try and ID the strange sail.

An in game "alarm" would take out the risk of afk sailing and the suspense of sailing in enemy waters.

[DeRuyter]

2 hours ago, Hodo said:

This depended on the ship and the nation.

 

Certainly nations had different watch systems and watch stations. IMO every system has lookouts on deck, especially the foredeck.

[DeRuyter]

21 hours ago, Hodo said:

Depending on time of day and type of ship, yes. 

Most navies had a 3 person lookout system.   The Royal Navy and the USN, both used this system on their frigates.  You had one stationed at the Forecastle, one on the quarterdeck, and one aloft weather permitting. 

Fact is you can see further when you are up higher. 

 

 

Having been aloft on a tall ship I can confirm that you can see further higher up 

[Bach]

It's bad enough our sailing ships have radios and gps. Now you want radar?  ?

[Winters]

How about this, instead of a perk make it a toggleable feature. Turning it on reduces ship speed by "x%" upon disabling it, the speed reduction will decays over "x" amount of seconds. So you gain increased awareness but if caught in a bad wind direction you are screwed.