Tl;dr: roaming skeleton galleon with a different hull color that shoots more frequently and accurately, but has additional loot on board.
Although I like the idea of Rare designing a brand new PVE threat (such as my idea for a new leviathan monster), I also believe there's room for providing "upgraded" versions of pre-existing threats.
Enter the Elite Skeleton Galleons!
These galleons are nearly identical to pre-existing skeleton galleons, but with the following changes:
- New hull color. I'm not sure what color would be best; golden would be easy to distinguish (and we could call them "gilded skeleton galleons"), but green or purple would also fit the skeleton theme. Maybe change the color of the on-board lights to make the ship visually distinct at a distance.
- Skeletons try to keep all cannons manned at all times (usually the four on the side facing the player's ship, but all eight if there's a target on each side). If a skeleton operating a cannon dies, a new skeleton runs to take its place.
- Skeleton cannoneers are much more accurate. Players who played sea of thieves at launch remember how accurate skeletons on islands and forts used to be; bring that level of accuracy back for the elite skeleton ships.
- Skeletons attempt to physically remove threats that players bring on to their ship, such as gunpowder kegs or chests of sorrow/rage. They would use the same carrying animation currently used by gunpowder skeletons to transport the item to the end of one of the gangplanks (those boards that stick out by the ladders) before dropping it overboard. If the gunpowder keg is lit, they'll put it out when they pick it up.
- These ships carry much more loot on board, including one or two supply crates containing supplies (roughly the same amount found in spectral supply crates dropped by ghost ships).
Because of their difficulty, these elite galleons would never randomly spawn on a player ship; they can only be found randomly sailing the world or acting as the leader of a fleet battle. Also, their use of cursed cannonballs would be adjusted so that it's about the same as a regular skeleton galleon (less likely to fire a cursed cannonball for each shot, but their increased rate of fire means the player's likelihood of getting hit would be roughly unchanged).
These galleons would require minimal work to implement; it's easy enough to change the hull/light color, cannoneer accuracy, and loot probabilities. The most difficult thing would be programming skeletons to remove kegs/chests brought on board by the player, but even this could use pre-existing behaviors; skeleton bombers are already programmed to light/defuse the kegs they carry, so all that's really needed is to teach them to pick up items and carry them to a specific spot before dropping them.
What do you think? I thought about other potential changes (such as the ability to carry more than one type of cursed cannonball, or the ability to fire chainshot), but decided that would be a bit much.
