Player ships captured by NPC sail with them for a time, for future chances to get it (back)

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

Currently, when a NPC captures a player ship, they leave it with zero crew in battle instance and it is gone, if you don't have someone capturing it back for you in same battle.

For obvious reason, this is impossible in solo fights and I would figure there it happens most of the time and less so in team fights.

Now what I want to propose is, NPC would not only transfer decent number of crew to a captured ship (and use it in battle!), but also take the ship with them into OW once the battle is closed (and they win/survive). Why? - Because it would mean a nice challenge to capture your ex ship back from NPC. It creates hope. Your ship may be a gold ship with premium upgrades on it and what not in port boni and seasoned woods. The NPC formation you fought would take that ship with them, repair it and crew it to max, just like it were a standard NPC ship. So it will be hard to capture back in any following battles done with that particular NPC fleet. And other players may discover that ship earlier than you back in OW and also capture it.

Nice surprise - you find a strange ship in a NPC group, unexpectedly, and you know it used to be a player ship... you may keep it for yourself or give back/sell it to original owner, if he claims it in chat...

I imagine there would be a time window for your ex ship to sail around with that NPC group, like two hours. And then really gone for ever. Or make it stay with the group until next maintenance. Ex player ship will not spawn again with that group, it will be a unique one-time addition free for the taking.

Perhaps DLC ships would need to be exempted from that because of possible exploits in changing hands.

Optional: surrendering working the same way: ship joins NPC group until retaken later by yourself or another player, or destroyed by another player, or expired with maintenance.

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Idea is primarily for PvE peace server, you PvP heroes will know if it fits your server or not.

[Yoha]

I would not put this on the pvp server since AI are already incredibly easy.