New ships idea

[Grimrock Litless]

One option to what Captain jack said would be is to re-do the ships speed. Lets say the merchantman. Instead of it being a sandwich ship it can turn into a "alternate ship"
For example. Lets say we have a large merchantman that can earn lets say 30k gold a day. The merchantman because its smaller should sail faster, and for it to be useful and more of an "alternate ship" it could also earn 30k a day. But wouldn't be used in some scenarios because of danger rating. So then the merchantmen can create new alternate 1 hour routes that a large merchant wouldn't do.
Creating a new game strategy while keeping the balance.

Their cost is not the same, that is why they are not the same as you say 30k per day, so what jack meant is that have the ship do something else, like his idea of being the only ship that can carry gold.

[Most Lee Harmless]

Therefore, till we find a way to utilize all current ship types, we will not implement new ships. There is one exception for a new battle ship that we already designed but this is another story.

I worry that the above means the Dogger has been kicked into the long grass?

[PFH]

Not sure how to vote on this one. Need insight from the dev team.

[DezNutz]

-1 For reasons stated below.

We already have ships to improve in our current list. I understand that it is fascinating to think of new ships, ships better than the current ones. However if we keep adding new ship types without giving meaning to our current ones, we will end up with a couple of super ships where everyone will use them. This will damage the strategic part of the game - less used ship types makes the game more flat - we want more depth.

Therefore, till we find a way to utilize all current ship types, we will not implement new ships. There is one exception for a new battle ship that we already designed but this is another story.

These were the bad news. But I also have GOOD news. The good news are that the remaining ship types to improve are now less than before. We have been taking steps towards this direction for a long time now. In particular, we are looking for ways to improve the usability of the following ships:
-Fluyt
-Galleon
-Merchantman
-Brigantine
-War Galleon

These are all "sandwich" ships. Meaning that there are cheaper and more expensive ships than them which do the job better (always depending on the time built). I will be sincere and tell you that I currently have no statistic data at hand, to see the actual usage of these ships. I am more speaking about utility value of these ships and not popularity. Although I believe that they should have popularity issues too. The fluyt for example has the best utility value of them all in my opinion; It is very cheap and a value for money @ 80 cargo. Still, I bet it is underused. As it is a "sandwich" ship.

Sandwich ships can play a role of course as you can gradually increase the quality of ships you make. They are also specialized ships (they share a family with other ships, the family plays a role in certain technologies, voodoo, game concepts). The biggest problem that they face is that the price difference between them and their bigger and better counterpart is insignificant. This happens mainly due to to officers cost.

Therefore,the solution is going to be difficult. An idea is to make them "upgrade-able". Which means that you build now a Galleon and later you can upgrade the same ship to a Trade Galleon. If we also make the bigger ships cost greater, then we will create a reason for everyone to use them more. This is something we can discuss more in the future but I have just served you a very important idea of future game development.

[Kangaroo]

+1
I don't see why improving 1/2 dozen mostly useless ships is better than introducing a couple that sit outside the square.
Not convinced on the hulk idea, in fact it's poor, but I like the idea of the clipper as a super fast trade ship

[sXs]

CJ already commented, no need to vote.

[PFH]

I with CJ. -1

[Whitcomb The Feared]

Merchants ships are divided by cargo and speed. Some take more cargo but go slowly and some faster but less cargo. Of course with a hierarchy, trade galleons better than lower ranked ships and LLM better than the LM. So on that I don’t know what could be done better or worse.

On warships there could be a system of paper-rock-scissor. Ex. Brigantine has a bonus on attacking a frigate (but still less powerful. Frigate a special bonus on sotl, ... and so on). So at the end there won’t be only the difference in level of the attribute set or the bonus, but also this difference.

And if we add the feature of the fort. Maybe a ship weak against other ships but powerful against buildings.

What I would like to see more is maybe a system of merging temporarily some fleets with other players.
Right now I talk to a newborn but I can’t help him and he can’t help me, but maybe it could be cool that if we could merge our 2 fleets of 5 weak sloops, and maybe being able to ambush a fleet of 5 sotl and being able to plunder it. Of course having huge damages and sharing afterwards the plunder, but it could avoid some toxic actions. What I will write in the topic of toxicity is that one problem for a newborn is playing but not being able nor to avoid nor to counterattack some ultra powerful fleets. And this can be frustrating. Maybe if I could play with other 5 or 10 newborns, we could play as a team and support each other (we can cap the function maybe, like that the sum of the fame of all the attackers can’t be higher than the total of the defender. Or use the influence, high influence means lot of money and often powerful fleets).

[PlagueDoctor]

Wouldn't there be any mileage in changing the size of fleets depending on what kind of ships are in them? So trade galleons and LMMs are 5 ships max, but you could have 8 Fluyts...for example? Similarly 5 SOTL, but 6 war galleons.

I am ok with this being a bad idea (in fact surely someone has thought of this before?), but just in case it isnt....

[Axy]

I like both ideas from Whitcomb joshua and PlagueDoctor.