Many players (including myself) have been putting forward the idea of adding a ship larger than a galleon into the game since launch (6/8 man crew).
However, as many commenters point out, it's unlikely a ship such as this will ever be added to SoT due to many reasons mostly:
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Server player limit
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Low demand for 6+ crews
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Balancing issues
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etc.
Given this, it might be interesting to see a Man O' War ship and crew be added as an AI world event for players to fight over. To drive player interaction, this event could see player crews take sides with the merchant alliance Man o' War trading ship to protect it during its voyage (From Outpost to outpost). On the other hand, other crews could try to sink the Warship for the prospect of all the merchant loot aboard and a rare chance for ancient coins (to encourage players).
This way, crews flying a merchant emissary would be encouraged to escort and protect the Man O' War to its destination. The vessel would travel relatively slowly and occasionally 'lose' some of its merchant loot that escorting ships could pick up. Allowing the warship to reach its destination would reward players with some % of the merchant cargo but no ancient coins. Conversely, crews not running merchant alliance emissary would be aggroed by the Man O' War and be seen as a treat to its AI.
The Man O' War's AI and Crew AI would be a copy past of the skeleton ships but with some more coordination and complexity. Firstly, the ship would move slowly and would have considerable firepower able to threaten even a galleon. The crew would be re-painted skeletons and randomly generated human models. I believe this would add life to the NPCs and populate the world more realistically. The vessel would be further tougher to sink due to the merchant player crews defending it, making attacking it a risky but rewarding choice.
Merchant emissaries defending the vessel would not be immediately aggroed by the Man O' War, but would be considered attackers upon firing on it.
I believe an event like this would be a good compromise to introducing a larger vessel to the SoT and drive an interesting dynamic between player factions and prove to be one of the tougher fights.
