SoT should look at EvE online

I really love the setting and gameplay overall, however there are some deal breakers that makes the game too frustrating to play.
I really believe this game should get inspiration from EvE online (and other MMOs, but mostly EvE because that’s basically SoT in space). Don't get me wrong. I don't want spreadsheets at sea :-)

What I mean is:

1. Keep your ship and everything on it when you log out. It's frustrating to have collected x chests and/or y animals, then having to do something IRL (or the servers shutting down) and have everything gone when you get back.
   This also give the game more risk vs reward mechanic (which you’ll find that I enjoy if you read on). You can have a ship with loads of stuff on it, including cannonballs etc, and then lose it all to bad decision or luck.
   There needs to be a timer for logging out, so people don't just escape a PVP fight by logging off. You should be forced to have your anchor down and it should take perhaps a minute if there are ships within sight, and it should be extended if you or your ship takes damage.

2. Hi-security, low-security and null-seas (if you don’t get the reference look at EvE). This would enable players that don’t want PVP to avoid it more (but not entirely). It’s also nice for risk vs reward mechanics. Bigger treasures can be found further out from the safe seas.
   There should be guards at (most?) outposts that attack anyone initiating PVP. That way you can kill someone, but you get punished for it. Same for hi security areas of the sea. You can attack and sink a ship, but if you do you get the “royal navy” hunting you down.

3. Currently it’s too hard to solo. Both in PVE and PVP.
   I can out-maneuver a galleon, but it’s almost impossible to take it down solo because I either get sniped when I get close or even if I board and take out all four players I’m not able to both take the players out AND sink the ship before they respawn. Also running out of ammo is quite frustrating in these situations… I don’t think it should be easy to solo a full galleon crew, but it should be doable with skill.
   This can be solved in different ways, but one way that I think would fix the problem not just for solo players, but also galleon vs galleon fights, is to make you respawn away from your ship if it’s engaged in PVP. That way you could either board and take out all four players, or at least take out some of them and then regroup to attack the ship and sink it. Or make them occupied with repairing and then board again, etc. The only way I’ve managed to sink a galleon solo is by ramming it when the crew was on an outpost. That was a lot of fun though since it was after chasing them around for a day at sea 😊
   It would be nice to be able to just fight ship to ship as well and sink a galleon from a sloop, but I don’t have any good solutions for how it should be done. The sniper is a big problem for this, but I don’t think it should be removed. It’s also quite hard to both maneuver correctly and fire the cannons at the same time solo. Some things that would make it easier are raising/angling the sails quicker on sloops, firing the cannon from the steering wheel (not aiming it, just lightening the fuse, which isn’t unrealistic). Perhaps a solo player could have a little monkey helper that can fire the cannons or repair the ship? Of course, you need to feed it bananas 😊

4. You should be able to get more cages. This can be done in different ways, but at minimum you should be able to get new cages if you lose the ones you have. I think it might be a good idea to be able to purchase extra cages and do multiple merchant quests at once. It also has nice risk vs reward mechanic. Do you risk doing multiple quests to save time, or do you play it safe and do one at a time to minimize loses if you die?

5. Finding animals should be easier. A lot of this weekend I sailed solo from island to island looking for pigs and chicken. At one point I managed to find 1 of the pigs I needed, brought it back to my ship, feed it, then went back for the second. Couldn't find it on the island, so went back to my ship to find my pig starved to death.
   There can be different solutions to this, but I think the first step is to make animals easier to find. It should be comparable to gold hoarding. I do like the adventure part of not knowing what island got the animals, and you can sail around an island checking it out without leaving your ship. However, it sometimes just takes too long and especially with the pigs can be very hard to solo. Perhaps not have that many different colors of animals? Perhaps getting some more clues as to where to find the animals?
   Or again, perhaps solo players could have a monkey helper helping you out? Like feeding the pigs, keeping an eye out for ships on the horizon? 😊

6. As others have written you should be able to just without having to find animals. There could be markets where you can buy animals (and other stuff?) from both players and NPCs. Then you transport the goods for profit. Again, you can look at EvE, but don’t go too deep into trading mechanics.

7. I enjoy that all pirates are equal, so no one has an advantage except in skill. But even so, perhaps there should be just some very tiny advantages that you can get to give people something to do with all their gold except for cosmetics. It could be increasing damage from cannonballs or weapons 5%. High damage cannonballs could be perhaps 50 gold each, or perhaps you can only get them by crafting (or from the player market). Sharpening your sword temporarily with a sharpening stone that needs to be reapplied after 20 whacks, or similar with guns. 5% won’t really change the balance, but it will still be something that players can do to spend their gold to get a tiny advantage.

8. POS (player owned structures). Again, look at EvE, but not too complex. A POS could be big, like a fort, and you could hire guards (payed daily), or small, like a fishing net you can lay out at sea and come back to later to bring you some fish (and we DO need fishing with a fishing pole!). A fort could give you rewards like gold (if you hire mine workers), fish (hire fishing men) or crafting bonuses (if you add crafting).

9. I enjoy it being mostly player driven and not loads of NPC pirates. A few NPC pirates would be cool though. They could also help balance the game in different ways. For one, if not having been attacked in a while, NPC pirates could, occasionally, show up to “ruin your day”. The “royal navy” mentioned earlier would also help balance the game.

Final notes: Some of these are just ideas for what could be added, while others, especially #1 are deal breakers for me to enjoy the game. It’s not reasonable to be forced to stay on for as long as it can sometimes take to finish a journey before being able to log out without losing progress.