First Rates.
I want one, you want one, I want one, we all want one, I want one.
But these ships are huge, even the smallest one had a hundred cannons and anywhere from eight hundred to a thousand crew, and in our world of sloops and galleons; ships that massive simply do not fit.
Or do they.
I submit for your consideration an idea of how a Line Ship would fit into the game, allowing players to crew one while not disrupting the current balance of the game.
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Firstly one must understand how vast these ships are, it would be complicated as such that one person simply could not crew it, it would need a minimum of four and max out at 10 well-co-ordinated people.
This Behemoth would have four decks of which all supplies would be stowed at the bottom, all other decks would house the ships 14 cannons, 7 a side (or more). A hand-operated pump on the main deck would help with bailing.
Each cannon would be embedded into the hull with a limited swivel room, requiring the ship to be positioned correctly in order to fire off a shot.
One could also throw in a few other restrictions, such as sail requiring two people to raise.
"But!" you may cry, and you'd be right to do so "All those restrictions would still do nothing to off-set the imbalance of having a floating fortress of 10 people sailing the seas!".
Of course, it would be slow, would steer like a pregnant cow and could be seen for miles. One could impose that it is always visible on the map and its sheer size would prevent anything other than fog from hiding it.
But
I did not imagine these ships being used in Adventure mode.
Instead, we implement them in a separate Arena Mode, where we split the players into two teams that face off against each other in massive line ship battles.
Massive Ships, Massive Battles.
Lots of cannon fire, explosions, sure it's a bit away from the whole Pirate thing and straying dangerously close into Napoleonic style naval warfare, but it would also be hilariously good fun.
Even if we all know no crew of randoms would ever be co-ordinated enough to actually crew one.
