Jacob Nion

And sometimes he's just an opportunist! But all that makes his story so exciting. I wonder if this will be the turning point in Sinbad's story where he maybe becomes a captain himself?

I'm sorry to question again, but I have doubts about the suggestion regarding the Royal Oak. @Kolonialbeamter stated that real life ship types wouldn't be a matter defining shipclasses, but size instead and "right feel". The Royal Oak is pretty much the size that was established as class 5A until now, especially the armament of 20 guns. I know, I know, we had the discussion about firepower already, but since she's built as a warship, what other aspect could be used to evaluate? To say that she's a light frigate and therefore a certain class is contradictory to what Kolonialbeamter said. And it would bother me since that's exactly the kind of discussion we tried to avoid in BoBS. You see, my whole problem with evaluating the ships now is that there are no standards. I don't think this whole 'right feel about it' will work without problems. On the one hand it is said that size and tonnage matter, on the other hand we don't want strict measurement rules in studs. And on the third hand () it is said that quality would be a factor. But I'm no fan of evaluating quality outside of contests. What quality standards are we looking for? Elaborated techniques? Accurate rigging? This doesn't work for me. And I'd really like to avoid this ship type aspect. It limits creativity in my opinion because most more realistic ships built for bobs are either frigates, sloops, and a galeon once in a while. Ship building, especially in BoBS deserves to be more diverse, without looking only at types of rigging used by the royal navy from 1750 to 1800 (not that I would not enjoy these vessels and the models of them around here). But what about the few junks around here e.g.? How to compare them to a frigate? Or ships that are more inspired by official TLC ships, which are far from historical accurate models? I don't know how to solve this yet, but I definitely welcome the new system. Defining my own licenses adds to the strategy aspect of the game and that's great. But I don't believe that we will find a satisfying consent without real standards.

My rum-soaked brain still denies to step through the upkeep calculation (as it does by any form of calculation). Could we have a few examples for different fleet sizes?

Without intending to question the court's thoughts on the whole matter, I have to say that it sounds like a contradiction that size matters in the rating but without certain measurements. I agree that tonnage should be more important than over all length, but that's another reason why I liked the gun counting, not only for warships. You see, when planning a ship of a certain class I always thought of the warship type of that class and when building a tradeship, just took that size and removed the guns. E.g., when building a 4T I would think about what size the ship would need to carry the full armament of 12 cannons for a 4A. Now that it was supposed to be a 4T, I would just remove the guns , because that space would be shipping space instead. So both types of the same class would have been at least comparable in tonnage. Of course that's not a perfect system, but I found it reasonable. Now looking at the given examples, I don't understand why the Margot is considered a class 7 instead of a higher class. Well, my thoughts about this case are a bit complicated. Even without specific ship type licenses (war, trade, wr) people certainly know what purpose the ships they are building will serve. And the Margot was certainly intended to be a warship. Know if it would be about the amount of guns with the old 1~4 cannon scheme it would definitely be a class 10. But what would it take this ships to be a class 10? More tonnage for more cargo space? Wouldn't make any sense since it's a warship. Additional cannons? Would be odd since the firepower can't go over 12 points so a class 8 ship with g12 should have the same amount of guns than class 10 with g12. And about the aspect of build quality, that's a highly subjective matter. Please don't get me wrong, of course I know that nobody intends to segregate people with less building experience or skills or parts collection, but I think especially people with higher building skills should be encouraged to fit the reasonable size of a class, to give newbies and less experienced fellow guidance and inspiration. So far that's it. In the end I always trust in everyone's sense for unwritten guidelines. I am confident that this will become a solid system. @Bregir the size of guns was always the "creative license" for me. For example your 4A galley was reasonable even with only one massive chase gun. Or my very own junk that features less than 12 guns but also heavy chase guns. Another thing: I imploringly hope that we don't end up in discussions like "although your ship has the right tonnage, it can't have a maneuver of 5 because it's too top heavy" or the like in the court. Of course some ship types are unlikely to reach high speed, but I liked about BoBS that people without ship expertise could build without being forced to follow accuracy. And speaking for myself, it would make me sad if I couldn't build extravagant galleons with ridiculously hight aftcastles anymore because they don't match the ship characteristics I need. I appreciate reasonable rigging and I am always amazed by the rigging expertise of many brethren around here, but as a clasdic lego pirate, and for fun's sake, I will always prefer fancy design over enough sail area.

So does upkeep for active ships mean that if I don't send a licenced ship out for a mission in an MRCA I don't have to pay its upkeep for that month?

So I may ask the first question: can 1 point in firepower still be considered as equal to ~4 guns? I found it always helpful figuring out the appropriate size of a (war-) ship aiming for a certain amount of cannon. And can the crew still be increased via troop location form, following the same reglement?

Great layout! The use of more natural colours like the olive green adds a feel of realism.

Neat micro scale. But the flag piece looks a bit off for me, considering the size. And nice business idea. Sadly nothing for me, an insurance seems a bit unpiratey.

A bauty as always. I wouldn't have thought that the white hull works so well. But in combination with the tan sides it's really appeasing.

Neat windmill! For this size it's very elaborated and well shaped.

Fantastic monument and great way to show off a bit of the Pirates' wealth in Bastion. I love the simple but effective combination of the skull pattern and the dinosaur tails.

Neat ship! I'm always impressed how you put an interior in all of your vessels. Even on such a small one. And I want to commend your presentation. For me such a wavy water diorama is the best and only way to present a ship in a way that fleshes out all its beauty. Sadly I don't own enough trans coloured parts right now to do it myself, but I will keep in mind your pics for the time I'lll afford enough.

An impressive ship, no doubt. I can't make any complaints about her, she is a beauty all around. But the one thing that bugs me a bit (and that's something TLC does everytime and many builders around) is that there are more soldiers than sailors aboard. Without sailors, a ship looks so empty and inanimate. That's a shame, especially on such a well done vessel.

Very creative! But I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier to assemble the wheel locally. If I'll ever build a mill, I will try my hands on a similar exemplar. Very elaborated.

An amazing effort! Now the only thing missing is a proper royal residence to place in front of this green wonder. You've got me jealous with all the gold.

Another scene that should be ARRR rated (you gonna love that joke once I've made it a few dozen times). But war is a nasty business and we should have the courage to show the world (of Halos) where their bananas and pineapples come from and how people suffer to secure the maintenance of their supplies.

That's a ship fitting my taste. Good work on the hull (although you should add a warning"ship does not float!" to avoid charges).

Great action shots! The whole scene is well composed for photographing. That's an often underestimated aspect. Many good mocs are not built for taking pictures, there's just no good angle for photographing. I love the waves, they look splendid and natural, and really add to the thrill of the scene.

The Xebec is a wonderful vessel. Normally I wouldn't have chosen such a striking coloursheme (of course, I'm the guy who only uses like 3 colours in a moc). But it works well, as it is probably suitable for a more exotic ship type. I like the stemhead the most. Although the soft axles are a common solution, I want to say that they work particularly well here, it's very elegant.

Aye, lad, sure you can join! We welcome everyone to the Sea Rat Brethren who seeks freedom and adventure. I anticipate your sig fig, but the name alone sounds very good.

Well, remember that the settlers in New England were European colonists. There wasn't a huge difference in architectural design. These people would construct buildings the way they knew it from their native country. Same about liturgy, the pulpit and organ. All of that were things the settlers brought with them from Europe. So you can assume that everything you find in the New World during that time was directly imported from Europe. About Dutch churchs I can only say two things: many protestant churches all over Europe had been former catholic churches (logically, when people converted during the Reformation, they didn't build a whole new church). Second, the by far the most used building material in that time were bricks, especially in northern Europe and all coastal areas around the North Sea due to a lack of natural stone. In the 17th ctry such building were often covered with plaster because visible brick structure was perceived as ugly. This changed a bit in later centuries. So both plain white and red brick textured buildings would be fine.

Wow. What a blast. First of all, thank you Ska for picking up the challenge to roll and evaluate the outcome of this insane massive battle extraveganza. And such a fantastic read! It took my half an hour to get through every detail and I had to take notes to not lose the thread. I have several questions though, but first @Maxim I just a few words; I just want to clarify that there was no request by Mardier to recruit Sea Rat privateers. This whole action was just the insane idea of a few ruthless individuals seeking adventure. We were pretty unsure how this whole battle would turn out, since there has never before been a summoning of so many ships -what was it? 37?- and we played with high risk, actually, my personal hope was that Eslandola's fleet would have been wore down after engaging the blockade squadrons and we then could have raided the leftovers. And after the first part of the report that hope faded away. But by Hades, what a battle! I have never been prouder to set sail with my fellow breathren of the Sea Rats. This one is for the history books, no doubt. I suppose Morgan found a new arch enemy in Lenoir, given that he survived the wrrck of the Queen Annetta's Revenge. We don't know! Perhaps this was the righteous end of Captain Morgan... @SkaForHire 1. If a ship got captured several times by us (taken, re-taken, taken again) do we get two bounties from Mardier? 2. Do we also get bounty for one of our ships that was taken by Eslandola and then recaptured? 3. When I recaptured the Peregrine, does that mean that every further action of that ship goes into my account? (That's more a question about every prize ship that was used in battle after the capture, one of my major interest when analysing the report was to make notes was which ship was owned by whom at which time, very confusing, cheers to you for keeping track of that!) 4. The seventh paragraph states that the Sea Sweeper was also taken by the Peregrine, but it's missing in the list below. 5. Thanks again for the read, amazing! What a morning to wake up with such news! P.s.: @Legostone thanks for the information

Alright, as I said before I get your point. A prize I captured is basically supposed to be a ship that already exists ingame, even if it is an unmoced one. And I can understand that it basically already has a background story in that way, that it was a ship I seized. But I can't see where it is gaming the system if I change that background story. It remains the same ship type and class, it gains me no advantages if I say that it either was a prize or (as I did with the junk) that it is a pirate ship that joins my fleet because the fictional captain wants to. It is just a story thing and has nothing to do with the EGS. Something different would be (as said previously) if I use a prize license on a ship I've already built just because it fits the ship. That would mean I could build dozens of ships and just wait for the suitable license to be captured by my fleet. And to see it from a different angle, let's imagine I would have captured that license, built the ship like I did and then wrote a story about how I sold the prize and paid the yield to a junk pirate captain to join me. It would have changed nothing for the EGS or the game mechanics. It would only have limited my story developing because I was forced to include that prize ship somewhere.

@Bregir I think we meant the same in major points. It is hard to discribe but a simple case: just imagine I captured an NPC ship, and it would be my fourth ship. I intend to sell, but to increase the value I moc it. Now if I was to sell it to someone for whom it would be the third ship, it logically would be cheaper for him to licence it himself. Now my question was if I built the ship, state that it definitely is this very prize (to avoid the issue you mentioned about retconning an existing ship to be the prize), would it be legal to sell a player both the license and the unlicenced ship as a so to say 'licence-it-yourself-kit'? Only reason would be to lower the price and increase my income (something all of you seem to be interested in). About the thing with my junk, you may understand that for a professional pirate, who mainly concentrates on seizing ships to use them for strengthening his fleet (because he is not that much into landlubbery and generating monthly income) it can become a boring routine if the only background story he can give to his ships is that he captured them. At least with the current rules, that is. For a player who mainly focusses on trade it can be an exciting thing to capture a ship from time to time. But for hard working pirate captains it is literally the only thing to do.

Although I completely agree with you on that point about "retconning" the story of already moced ships @Bregir, I must admit that I did something similar, just the other way around; I used a 4A license of an unmoced prize to licence my junk, without giving her a background story of being a prize ship I captured during the mrca. And I must say, even if I felt like it was a bit violating the intention of prizes, for playing the game I would find it odd if a prize license couldn't be used this way, because I like to build the ships I'm up to, and develop my personal story, and that is not done by licensing only prize ships. And something different; perhaps it's not the right thread, but the right time to ask: the rules state that a player may use a captured ship that is moced and licenced whenever. Does that mean even if I already own more than 3 licenced ships I do not have to pay the difference between license value and increased cost for a +third ship? And if I own a license and did built the ship, could I sell both things separately to a player so that he may licence it himself? (Just in case for him the licencing would be cheaper)