National Ships

[Pappy]

Hello,
In reading some of the threads about some of the great new ships being designed, I have one question (and forgive me if this is the wrong place).

Has there ever been any thought to Nation Specific ships? Meaning, the new Vaisseau de 46 canons would be a French only ship. Pirates could, of course, capture it, but only the French could build it?

This would add more depth to your nation choice as well as your career choice. I always figured some ships would only be availabe to certain nations and was a bit disappointed to see that all nations get the same selection of ships. Probably why I have characters as Brits, Spanish, and Rats :-)

Just a thought.

Thanks for listening.

[Oneyed Willy]

I thought this is how things currently are...........

[Pappy]

No...today, it doesn't matter what nationality you are (other than pirate), you have access to the same ships. The only thing that limits your ship selection as a national is your profession. But a French, Brit, and Spanish NO has the same selection of ships, as does a FT or Priv of each nation.

[LiMuBei]

The idea came up several times. The main problems are:
- Lack of plans. There are just so many period appropriate ship plans available that it would be nearly impossible to find an equal selection of ships for each nation. Which leads to the second problem being
- Ship balance. With the amount of different stats each ship has in game it's already very difficult to balance these against each other. Introducing nation specific ships would make this even more difficult because you'd have to balance nations against each other as well. Just take a look at the pirates vs. nationals discussions to get an impression of what that could lead to.

So while it's a nice idea and would have some merits, from a game perspective it's currently not feasible.

[Sir Trafalgar]

There is one additional point to why there are no national ship designs. If a design was good enough and it was captured in battle the new propritor of the ship (guys who captured it) would often put it into service for their country. Historicly speaking usually it was the Danes or French who came out with the most advanced ships. The British would then copy said ships after capture and set to work on improving her. Most of the time they would keep the original name of the ship too thats why in alot of great battles during the period of fighting sail you see alot of French ship names fighting on the British side. There are two reasons behind that one they were actual captured ships or since the British often named their ships after ships that had done well in battle for their side. Best example I can think of would be during the Nelsonian era with HMS Temeraire (French for reckless), named after a French 74 that had a good service record after it was captured by the British.

Edit: corrected spelling for HMS Temeraire. Thanks

[RacecarRay]

Originally Posted by Sir Trafalgar There is one additional point to why there are no national ship designs. If a design was good enough and it was captured in battle the new propritor of the ship (guys who captured it) would often put it into service for their country. Historicly speaking usually it was the Danes or French who came out with the most advanced ships. The British would then copy said ships after capture and set to work on improving her. Most of the time they would keep the original name of the ship too thats why in alot of great battles during the period of fighting sail you see alot of French ship names fighting on the British side. There are two reasons behind that one they were actual captured ships or since the British often named their ships after ships that had done well in battle for their side. Best example I can think of would be during the Nelsonian era with HMS Tremare (French for reckless), named after a French 74 that had a good service record after it was captured by the British.

I believe it was the HMS Temeraire...I could be wrong though.