A Suggestion to Reduce the Number of Factions

[Marquês do Bonfim]

Flags should be made loot aswell, you should be able to add the flag to your ship (kinda similar to permanent upgrades/paint), once you add it, your ship would be recognizable as a ship from that specific nation till you remove it and put it away.

Once you sink a ship from said nation, you should be able to loot the flag from the wreck and also resources like hull repairs/rig repairs and rum, THIS SHOULD NOT BE RANDOM ITEMS, every ship have them, even if NPCs don't actually need them.

This would make a lot more sense if players were actually enlisted as naval officers in the first place, so in pvp players sinking would lose their flag item to the other player, similar to every other item in their hold. Idk, food for thought.