I know many people have suggested dinghies, but I'll do it again, with a twist. I'd like to see a dinghy like this in the game:
On the sloop, it could be sitting behind the helm, on that sunroof thing. On the galleon, it should be attached to the railing behind the captains quarters.
General mechanics:
- mechanic similar to anchor for lowering and raising the dinghy into and out of the water
- in the water, dinghy would be attached and detached to and from the mothership with a rope
- towing the dinghy instead of raising it would slow down the mothership
- players could either row the dinghy or use 3 planks to construct a mast
- mast would have to be deconstructed before dinghy could be raised back onto mothership
- sailing would be faster than rowing
- steering and controlling sails could be possible at the same time
- rowing and sailing at the same time for slight speed boost
- dinghy would be a lot slower than motherships, but extremely agile
- dinghy would be able to sail right up on the beach and stay there without anchoring
- 1 cannon hit would cause 2 leaks, dinghy will sink in seconds if not repaired immediately
- powder keg would instantly destroy dinghy
- no limitations regarding loot or player count
- no cannons
- small banana crate (10 bananas)
- small plank crate (5 planks)
- small cannonball crate (10 cannonballs)
Now here's the kicker:
If a sloop or galleon lowers their dinghy into the water, it will serve as the respawn point for players should the mothership sink. A new mothership will only appear if the dinghy is also sunk or scuttled.
Why would this be awesome?
In PvP, the dinghy could act as a lifeboat in case your mothership sinks. It would give you a last chance to recover some treasure and make it to the next outpost. Maybe the other ship sunk too, and you continue the battle in your dinghies. In larger battles, the dinghy could be used as a decoy, or to attempt more elaborate boarding maneuvers or keg moves. Because it has a few small crates of supplies, one player could sail away from the battle to gather some supplies for the mothership. Since a new mothership would only spawn once the dinghy is destroyed, it's use would be situational.
For example, let's imagine an active skeleton fort. It's highly contested and the captain has already spawned. One of the contesting galleons is sunk, but the crew decides to use the dinghy to stick around for one last attempt at the key. Since their new mothership will only spawn once the dinghy is destroyed, they're taking a big risk, since it means their new ship won't be around for a longer while.
Unfortunately, they get sunk shortly after, and one of the two remaining galleon crews gets the key. A chase ensues across the map. The chased galleon could use their dinghy in an attempt to sneak the key from board, or to lure the chasing galleon away.
Or maybe, the crew who lost their galleon didn't lose their dinghy. They managed to pull of a keg move and sink the last remaining galleon. They kill the skeleton captain and stash all the loot on their dinghy for a desperate attemp to make it to Ancient Spire outpost before that Sloop on the horizon gets there. But then they get caught in a storm...
What about PvE?
In PvE, the dinghy would be useful for bringing treasure from an island to the mothership. Especially with late game quests, it can be very annoying to swim a load of chests or chickens or snakes to your ship and frankly, it's not very realistic to swim with a chest full of gold. It could also be used to split up the crew and do multiple parts of a voyage at the same time. For example, a gold hoarder quest wants you to dig up 5 chests on Cannon Cove. However, you're also supposed to solve a riddle on Rum Runner Isle. One of your crew could take the dinghy to Rum Runner Isle to solve the riddle, while the rest goes digging up the chests. Once the riddle is solved, the dinghy will sail to Cannon Cove too and help ferry the chests to the mothership. Of course, seperating the dinghy from the mothership would make it an easy target for predators...
(Optional) Dinghy as a 1 player ship:
A slightly bigger dinghy could be used as a dedicated 1 player ship. It would be a bit more tanky and have one cannon that the player could manually move from one side to the other. Shooting the cannon would cause the boat to rear, and the supplies would be limited. The cannon would mostly be useful for killing skeletons, but a good pirate might even use it to sink larger ships. However, it's small size and agility could make it the boat of choice for solo sailors looking to do some quick voyages..
I think a dinghy like this could lead to some amazing adventures and really funny moments. Just imagine a galleon crew who just lost their ship, desperately trying to get their chest of a thousand grogs on board of the dinghy before the enemy galleon returns to finish the job..
What do you think?
