I will just use general references, to save time:
Pirate Flagship
Ship Abilities
Special Crew and First Mate

Here is the leading design so far:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Every ship will get a list of new abilities.
-These abilities will be like the current upgrades (these will be regarded as basic abilities that EVERY ship has)
-Different ship types will have different set of extra abilities
-Just like current upgrades, abilities will be upgradeable with attribute points.

New concept: Crew Experience
-Crew Experience will increase the maximum attainable level of a ship.
-Crew experience will be gained from battles for War Type ships and from Trade Routes for Trade ships.
-Crew experience will be intensively hard to get.
-Crew experience will be irrelevant to crew number.



Ship leveling details
-Current max of 10 levels will be retained as basic max - regardless of crew experience.
-Initial max limit will be set to 20 level (This means 10 different levels of crew experience).
-Every level upgrade will use current system in attributes (3 to 5 attribute points per level up)
-We might use a different pricing module for levels beyond 10 as some ship prices will get really high if current system is used.
-There will be a limit for ability upgrades beyond level 10; they can't be higher than the ship level (so a level 14 sloop can have at most Cotton sails of 14)

Well abilities would be the main way to make ships unique, especially if every ship had a few to choose from. The crew experience is a great idea, I just think that having extra attributes should be limited. Maybe once the crew gets enough experience then the ship can be leveled above 10 for a sum of gold. And for each level above 10 the ship get a single (special) attribute that can level a stat above the max

As for the "Even more special" I think Black Sparrow had a great idea. Every player, (or at least pirates) could be able to choose a ship and make it their main ship. Once chosen, a flagship gets several bonuses and an ability that is only available to that ship if it is a flagship. There could also be a flagship ability that differs depending on if you are a pirate, merchant, or noble.

I feel a little silly for quoting myself from another thread but this is still what I think:

Captain dungeness wrote:I'm a little worried about adding experience to ships/fleets. That would make it harder for new players to match the power of older players with the same type of fleets. I would rather win because of my knowledge of what attributes are best to upgrade rather than a game mechanic that makes the ship better. I'm already learning, the ship doesn't need to....

Also it would be very easy to get lots of "experience" by plundering a ton of new players or 1 big inactive player even though the battles provided no real challenge.

Player learning is the thing to reward. I don't really want another game resource to manage called "experience". I think Ship Abilities can provide enough specialization to gain the advantage in certain situations without the complication or experience. I think this might be good if people only had a few ships but with so many people with dozens of fleets it sounds hard to manage.

i worry that this idea could make the game even more top heavy in favor of long term players

Captain dungeness wrote:Also it would be very easy to get lots of "experience" by plundering a ton of new players or 1 big inactive player even though the battles provided no real challenge.

Zombie jesus wrote:i worry that this idea could make the game even more top heavy in favor of long term players

Not all battles should give the same gain. For example: sloop-to-sloop = 0.1 / sotl-to-sloop = 0.01 / sotl-to-sotl = 0.2 / brig-to-sotl = 0.5 . In all examples 1st ship winner and they are just examples, not suggested ratios. If a smaller ship beats a MOW because small ship is active, MOW is inactive, how is that a problem? Active players already gain advantages from inactive players, nothing will change in game mechanics. I think the gains should be very, very small per 1 battle so that it would force us to "train" 1 war fleet instead of 20. And let's keep in mind that Levis are not going out of the game, we'll just not lose the turns invested in a sotl. As of now the players with more cards can have the strongest war fleets. Allowing ship activity to play a role in the game mechanics would only encourage and reward activity in my opinion. After all nobody needs a full chest of voodoo cards to be active, we'll only need to pause buying a new trading fleet everyday and save some turns for battles. Right now I know exactly which fleet I can attack and win, if ships would have hidden abilities this will change and I for one will welcome some adrenaline injected into plunder/wars. That said, I think this will work better with Pirate Code or something like it, not sure that the sole introduction of ship extra abilities will resolve the lack of enthusiasm for plunder and wars.

I think that there is also another possibility to use crew experience. For every million dollars a trade fleet earns it gets a better chance to avoid attack. Say 2% to 3 % per million earned by the fleet. If a player is inactive for 7 days their trade routes become inactive also, please correct me if I am wrong, so this could also act as an incentive to keep players comming back to the game.

^_^

Sweet, I am the worst!

There is an additional setup that could be used in addition to whatever ship abilities/specialization/upgrades, hopefully not difficult to implement. All fleets could have 3 settings:
Coward = a chance to run away
Brave = everything stays the same
Reckless = an increase in attack attributes and in danger points