SkaForHire

I think it is fine for now... until it falls off the main page. which it will inevitably do after most of the current users post... from that point if it is pinned then new users can contribute... or for now you could put it in the directory so if new users read that they could go to it? i don't know, up to you.

actually when i built it about 8 months ago, i had just found a steal on ebay. i found a buy it now for an almost complete RBR for 9 dollars. all it was missing was a fig and a tresure chest it looked like. maybe a couple small pieces. All the essentials were there, plus i had just got back from Walt Disney World, where they have a Lego Store with a pick a brick wall... I had spent way too much and had tons of random pieces to use... not many were useful but some went into the ship.

well i have had the generic "battle" pictures (i really need to get a copy of PS on this comp so i can do the backgrounds and make cannon smoke and what not) for almsot a year. But i made the story up last night. I actually made the whole Tacklebee story up yesterday when i was writing the inventive lol. he just fit into these pictures also. yes i have alot of those brickster looking guys... but my redbeard collection is much more scary... i think i have over 100! they will be turned into some sort of army hopefully...

yeah i thought about this, but did not want to part with pirates... besides we all know it would be one of us that bought it lol.... it would have to be an item that got alot of views like a ship or eldardo fortress... and I know none of us want to part with that. also phes, as i edited last night, i tried to contact people but ebay doesnt allow you to make contact it seems unless you have an open transaction (though they have the option to do so, after you send it says it blocks stuff like this.... meaning my friendly message.)

more suggestions.... 1) combat should not be the orientation of the game, at least PC vrs PC. it should be available, yet not made to be the centerpiece... this is to avoid players ending up disliking each other in an already small community to incorporate this there should be alot of islands available. this will allow players to go out and find their own treasure, adventure, what not... and to keep it from being limited to "I go conquer Helden's island X" fostering cooperation would be ideal, so working together would be encouraged... especially if you were the same side. also, perhaps and this may suck, the mod shouldn't play as a character. He or they would control the database, so that people could say ask to "explore sector A5" and then he would tell them, "ahoy, there be a small pirate outpost there!" And there could be NPCs that could give people a scened to set up for their visual presentation of the outcome of their meeting.... also a mod like this would help when players get mad at other players and decide they are going to go attack one another... the other player can keep "hidden" via telling the mod what sectors he has things hidden in. actually i am going to stop right at that.... because perhaps i am getting ahead of the game. I feel the original sentiment that it should be light, widely open for adventure, combat with others if nessasary, and foster MOCs and stories should be observed.

As for maps, I would have to say that we should keep the map reliativly vague to allow maximum origionality on the part of the players. Basically, I see it as a world where players could, essentially, conquer an island and then fill in all the details themselves. Only places like Port Cochraine and the iron mines of Cortimer would have that level of detail to begin with. And Toles Suggestion - If we can get the UPSS off the ground and get a fair sized player base, this is, as I said, almost a must. Just think of it as someones personal pirate blog with their own statistics. If you ever want to do that, I could work up a format people could use. The combat system: Lets see what you've got, Ska! Just as long as you can take commentary and suggestions - Among other things, I am also a pretty veteran warhammer player :P Just remember that the goal is to make something thats quick, fun and easy to play without allowing room to go out-of-character, such as with the aforementioned steam vessels. Also, I believe we may have lay down some guidelines so as to keep the ships in roughly some kind of realistic format. To further this end, I am already thinking on a post to put up that would cite how real historical ships were built, looked, were run, etc etc. I was thinking, for ease of the combat system, we could use this system on the ships: My ship ranking: Frigate: 3 middle hull sections, wide, 3 masts, 4 Cannon Large Sloop: 2 Middle Sections, wide, 3 masts, 3 Cannon Small Sloop: 2 Middle Sections, Skinny, 3 masts, 3 Rotating Cannon Large Brig: 1 Middle Section, wide, 2 masts, 2 Cannon or 2 Rotating cannon Small Brig: 1 Middle Section, Skinny, 2 masts, 2 Rotating Cannon Large Schooner: No middle section, Wide, 1 mast, 2 Cannon or 1 rotating cannon Small Schooner: No middle section, Skinny, 1 Mast, 1 rotating cannon Rotating cannon means the setup on the Armada Flagship. Cannon rating is "guns per side" or Rotating. This would allow for ease of combat pluses and minuses in combat, but could limit creativity for those of you who like mounting tons of cannon on ships. On the other hand, it DOES give a realistic designation to the ships. - Helden I didn't read any posts under this one yet so here is a response to Helden's post First to phes, i never said i would not participate, just said real life may get in the way from time to time and not allow me to be a leader or mod for a faction, i will msot certainly contribute and play Helden, I will whip something up maybe in the next week or so... I am more then up to the task, let me give you a little background... lol 1)i also have been an avid 40k player (have thousands and thousands of points of armies now, and no one to play with lol!) 2)I have played many many different games from table top to wargame to board game. 3)I have a couple totally finished boardgame prototypes and am trying to find the capital to launch a game company along with a friend. 4) i am in the midst of creating a lego war game on the scale of brikwars... with Mecha and pirate subgames. ... i list these because I want you to know i have alot of experience with wargaming, and also with writing rules... i can take critisism... not to mention I am a Naval Historian :P Onto ships... I like mounting alot of cannons lol... i think we could still work with that... as in if extra cannons gave weight and slowed the ship down... there is many possibilities. if you made them cost prohibiting also it could help to balance. I think your ship names need redone... sloops usually only have one mast! :P and schooners refer to the rigging type of a ship. (consequently the SES is not a schooner at all) schooners should be sloops, and the sloops you have listed should just be ships. then again since nautical terms can be trickey, if those ships were warships they could be called sloops of war... lol... anyway, i was just thinking that they should be named by number of masts.... It will be easier designating these through the combat system i think... if you want to let me have a shot at it. also, once you get into ships (3 masts or more) then perhaps we should make up a rating system like the royal Navy had... Royal Navy Example for this (not a final, just an example!) First rate 100 + guns 10+ cannons per side 2nd rate 90-100 guns 8 or 9 cannons per side 3rd rate 70-90 guns 6-7 cannons per side 4th rate 54-60 guns 4-5 cannons per side 5th rate 32 - 40 guns 3 cannons per side I dont think we have to get smaller then that, because if you have a ship (3 masts) then you probably have more then 3 cannons per side... but these numbers can all be reworked, it is just an example. there is also the problem that many people can build brig type ships and have jsut as many guns lol... so the numbers probably need adjusted to be much higher, but again it is just an example. and just in case you wanted to know, 6th rate in the RN was 20 - 28 guns. Also the classic frigate was usually a 5th rate ship, but grew in guns towards the end of the age of sail. sorry, just throwing a bunch of stuff out there. lol. i will post more as i think of it.

too many quotes to quote... If you want, to lighten the burden i can figure out the combat system for this. I would offer my services as a mod / commander as i feel i fit the description, however it all depends on how much effort has to be put towards this, beacause i need to limit commitments due to the work both my masters programs put on me.

So some asked to see what i had done to the 7072 boat, they are minor modifications but overall i made the surface of this ship longer and added a gun to it by hollowing out the middle. Not much modification, but enough to make it an actual threat in the water other then a rowboat with some tresure... it can hold four minis comfortably now, and i can pile atleast eight in there. It is a good size ship in perspective, since most pirates never made it to a biger ship then the size of the 7072... so it can add a feel to your pirate universe... i personally like the blue black theme, but then again that is my favorite shade of blue.. so i may be bias... One of the best things about the ship is the blue pirate flag, helps to add factions to your pirate world. Overall, i would agree with what Mister Phes has said about the 7072 in a recent post, it probably is the most usable for a MOC out of box then any other 4+ ship. When i dug these out of my box of legos here... they were pretty much trashed so this gives me the opportunity to rebuild them again. so in the meantime, i present to you these little ships in action, via the story of The Battle of Trickery Bay. I had taken these pictures almost a year ago when i got my digital camera. Hopefully, by the time people view this the links will be OKayed by Brickshelf... if not give it a day :) i didnt like how they ended up resized in paint, it skewed the colors for some reason. also forgive the duplication of figs... they were just bodies for the story. _______________________________ The Battle of Trickery Bay. August 5th marked Commadore Charles Tacklebee's First full month in the Legowind Straits. It was on this day that his honor would be further soiled by a man known to the straits as "The Old Lord of the Sea" or as refered to in this story as Admiral Tolots. Not much is known about Tolots, other then the rumor that he was formally an admiral in the British Navy. About seven years ago Tolots began making raids using small crafts to raid merchant vessles traveling through the straits. to this day he is the most successful pirate in the straits in the treasure taken category. He prefers not to fight battles if possible, and commands a small fleet of fast maneuverable sloops under his personal banner just in case. On August 4th Tacklebee had recieved intelligence that the "curse of the straits," Tolots, was Careening a couple of his ships on the shores of Trickery Bay. The Commadore realized the opportunity to finally get an upper hand on his Imperial rival Commador Garvy, and set forth to Trickery Bay to catch the notorious pirate. Trickery Bay, as the name suggests, is decieving to navigate. The bay, which is the southern most inlet of the island of Perta Royal, has atleast three main sandbars that are hard to see even by the best pilot. So when Tacklebee got caught up on the third and final sandbar, this gave the waiting Tolots plenty of time to move his two little ships into action. Tacklebee's HMS Silient (a Imperial Flagship model) was lightly crewed due to a scurvy epidemic that had plagued it's crew. The pirates outnumbered the ship's crew and Tolots made the decision to move in on the Imperial ship. Image One- Tolots' second ship Grace heads for the Silent on the sandbar. Image Two - same Image Three - gunners of the Grace prepare to fire on the Silent Image 4 - Admiral Tolots (holding the clear spear, and wearing the admiral hat) presents his ship The Cats Paw for a broadside from the Silent . This of course was a ruse, as the cannons on the Silent could not keep their sites acurately trained on The Cats Paw, due to the close pass she made, at almost full speed. Image Five - reverse point of view as the pirates close. Image Six - the layout of the battle, overhead of the first pass by the pirates under Tolots. Image seven - Tolots fires, hoping to take out the rudder, perhaps giving Tacklebee and his crew an option of surrender. Image Eight - The Grace hooks the Silent with chains, preperations for boarding are made. Image Nine - Boarding Begins Image Ten - Com. Tacklebee quickly finds Admiral Tolots in the heat of battle. Image Eleven - The duel transfers to the Cats Grace... meanwhile most of the Imperial crew is strucken down in battle. Image Twelve - Tacklebee's impeckable luck allows him to almost best his oponent, however seeing that he is about to be sneak attacked by one of Tolots' crew, he jumps into the water and swims for the deserted Grace his remaining crew among the silent spot him in his valiant effort and run to board the Grace. Taking the small vessle, they shove off and pick up the corageous Tacklebee. The then make full sail out of the Bay of Trickery and head for a safe port. Gallery - i used most of the pics, but for easy navigation this is the link. Aftermath: Govenor Crane was furious of Tacklebee's loss. For starters, Tacklebee never told any one where he was going, and neglected a routine patrol to leave to chase Tolots. Meanwhile, a British Caravan was raided by the infamaous Red Beard. Second, reports that Tacklebee left and returned in a drunken stupor reached the ears of the govenor before Tacklebee did. The Com. insisted that he was not drunk at either time, but his reputation spoke more then his words at that moment. Because Tacklebee's commision came from the home gov't, Crane could not remove it. However, he was on fort detail for over three weeks because of his loss. His small prize, the Grace was mysteriously stolen two days after it reached port. Most suspect a member of Tolots fleet took the ship. Almost a month later The HMS Silent turned up deserted on a beach of a small remote island in the northern most parts of the Legowind Straits. A merchant brought her to port and recieved a large reward from Gov. Crane. Lacking any other seasoned officers (even amongst Com. Garvy's crew,) the Gov. reluctantly gave Tacklebee's ship back.

good to see another piratebricks.com alumni over here! Our community grows stronger :) muhahahaha This was one of my favorite ships that was posted on piratebricks.com, glad to see you here! also, i know what you mean about building heavy cabins, the royal navy was also moving to corvette style ships like this at the time, forecastles and quarterdecks were just going out of style. I apreciate your representation of this period (its my field actually! ) looking forward to seeing your next creation!

So as i was browsing.. (hopefully not buying) I started looking at other bidders profiles and what htey have bid on (though looking at their feedback) and i found some people who were obviously pirate fans... I was wondering what people thought of contacting other bidders on Ebay and letting them know we have a pirates community over here. I waited until this auction was done to post it, just in case one of you are some ofthe bidders, but look at this collection that just went. I feel the 200 dollar jump at the end made these sets go for way to much, but still this person just bought a WHOLE Pirate lego collection.... perhaps we should invite them to this site? This would be a good way to get people to come to the site and build a bigger community... I think i may send some hellos to the bidders of this auction.... perhaps when you guys are browsing, and see some pirate stuff you are not going to bid on, you may want to drop a link if you find a collector and say hello from all of us over here at eurobricks pirate forum. You are chief diplomat here Mister Phes, what do you say? :) http://cgi.ebay.com/7-LEGO-Pirate-Ships-Se...1QQcmdZViewItem EDIT: I went back and tried to contact some winners of recent pirate auctions, EBAY wont really let any messages through unless you have an open transaction with that person... i dont understand why they even have the feature "contact member" since you cant do it, you have to send messages through the bidding channels that are open... its too bad, beacuse it would be good to build our community bigger... i am sure there are alot pirate AFOLers (and all other themes )out there that don't know about this site. mainly, if we could bring more people here, then we get form more support and leverage to get the TLG to give us some more pirates! lol maybe... on a totaly different note... maybe we need secret codes when bidding on ebay lol, i would hate to drive up prices on someone from this board on a regular basis (i know sometimes we are going to come into competition, but as a casual ebay buyer i would gladly step away from an auction i dont care too much about for friends in need.... :) but that might be just me!)

LOL I have got double the parts back that they really did forget in sets... haven't got to the point where I am willing to lie... lol i bought some of these hulls on bricklink, they were fairly cheep... I would like to see what you have come up with :) I already posted my limited version MOC of it this week.

i am pretty sure it was sent to me after using S&H or complaining to S&H... thats the last survey i did for them and it was last winter (dec) i think

I think you know my answer... couple questions.... How would it be organized? also, obviously you want people to play a couple different factions if possible, would there be a specific "leader" of the more organized factions like the brits and the spanish? and how would that be determined Also, say i have a storyline already in mind (ie the legowind straits background my stories follow now) would that just become part of the archipalego, or would it be like next to it or something? or does everything have to happen in the archipalego, which I assume you are making a map of? just some things to kick around... Also... what if my spanish wanted to attack someone elses brits, how would this be handled? random dice roll by a third party? i hope you can garnish support, this would be fun.

yeah, well i used RBR's rigging, and you know how they skimped on pieces for booms and yardarms. i wish it had been set up more like SES or BSB's masts... instead RBR only has that one long front sail that is pretty unrealistic. I am going to have to hit bricklink up for the bottom most mast pieces and more 1x x black and those knobs for the sails...

52c The HMS Inventive was commisioned from the wreck of the previous Imperial ship, the HMS Wind At the time, the HMS Wind was the only Imperial ship in all of the Legowind Straits. It was her sole duty to patrol the straits for pirates, with her beaching and burning the Brits were in a bit of a pickle. In stepped Govenor Crane, who had the quick mind to promote a fledling officer, Arthur Garvy to Commadore of the Legowind Straits Fleet. Com. Garvy speedily had the wreck of the Wind recovered and rebuilt the ship from the waterline where it had burned. Unfortunately, Imperial supplies in the Straits were very limited at the time, and the HMS Inventive was a bare bones Brig. There was care to make sure she float, but not much other luxary was put into her. Com. Garvy made sure his crew knew she was built for one thing, battle. He salvaged 6 long guns and 2 smaller caliber cannon for the ship and began to carefully train what soldiers he had. Meanwhile, the crown's admiraldy found out about the loss of its ship in the Straits. It quickly dispatched its only spare ship at the moment to the straits. They assigned the retired, and often drunk, Commadore Charles Tacklebee to the small sloop, HMS Silent. WHen Tacklebee arived in the straits he was suprised to find another officer with his commision. So far there has been no word from the home government on who should keep the commision, so both ships now patrol the waters in British interests. There is a freindly rivalry between the two men, however the Battle of Trickery Bay and the temporary loss of the HMS Silent, has left Tacklebee in an embarasing position with Governor Crane. The Brig (I think it is actually rigged as a Snow...) HMS Inventive And when the folder is okayed by brickshelf, here is the gallery Note: again, limited parts at the house i am at. Obviously the ship borrows alot of parts from the Red Beard Runner kit... also i messed up the sail off the bowsprit. Need to cut a new one, just couldn't find my cloth! Nothing really new or inventive here... just a MOC -dan

That is quite a possibility, i took a tally of what 7075 hulls i have... i have 3 bows and sterns and 5 mid sections... so that could be two two midesection ships and one one midsection, which is what I will probably do. the other option is one 2 and one 3 middle section ship... I dont think i will be building anything bigger then a three. it just puts the rest of the fleet out of scale... though, i would like to attempt it to see if it can be done... lol. maybe if i hit the lottery... then again if i hit the lottery i would hold a Lego Pirates Fest, and i would fly all of this forum there! lol then we can all build it! HAHAHA

And on another note... i just did some digging in what i have at home... and came up with some 7075 hull.... here is a picture of what i could do.... lol. Note: the HMS Inventive (uploading images as i type this of that ship) in the middle is about the length of a SES... I calculated it out that I could probably (if had the pieces of course) build atleast a 120 gun first class ship of the line with the size the ship was. However there is a couple limitations, i would want real masts because you can stack them higher, and i would go broke buying the 60 or more cannons for just one side, not to mention that i would want to crew it too thus making me even poorer... even if i had the pieces, the ship would be so much bigger then the rest of my fleet... it would be invinsible in wargaming, cumbersome to photograph and not have too much to tell storywise, as it would never get to fight anyone since it would be WAY to slow to catch pirates... If i could build two, maybe then it would be interesting... but i think it would cost over 1000 dollars to build one...

hehe.... k know that feeling Texas Jack.... i just last minute wrote a paper due yesterday... i have a thesis that I am supposed to be ready to write in a couple weeks and two classes term papers due in two weeks... real life is just not fair... maybe I will become a pirate! thats a good question, to reps read eurobricks?

i will quote the text here, i tried to post the link but it is only for my email address i believe: The LEGO Group wants to know what you think To make sure you continue to receive news, sales and special offers from us, please add LEGO@click.LEGO.com to your address book. We care about your opinions! Your family was specially invited to take part in this survey based on the advice you gave us in the past. Your answers helped us create better products and experiences! We are asking for your help again. Please answer this 10 minute survey before July 31st. As a thank you, the first five (5) to complete the surveys will win a one-hundred dollar ($100) LEGO Shop At Home gift certificate. If you are not one of the first five to complete a survey you will be automatically entered into a random drawing to be one of three (3) winners of a one-hundred dollar ($100) LEGO Shop At Home gift certificate. (No participation in survey is necessary; winners will be randomly selected from a list of those receiving this email. All winners will receive an email notification by Friday, August 4th.) This questionnaire should be taken by a parent together WITH her/his child. If you are age 17 or younger, please ask your parents if they want to take this survey. Have an adult start it and there will be questions for you at the end. If there are no children in your household, please continue, because we want your opinions! Thank you for your feedback! Click here to begin :::: as for what advice i gave them, this could either be because i had a problem with a set (7075 didn't come with the flags... one of the reasons i bought it.... they sent me 3 of them though instead of just one! and new sails lol. ) or it could be because i participated in another survey not to long ago.... but i think it is all because of i bought stuff through S&H

I don't mind the sails, they remind me of the old sets... i do mind that htere are not enough sails, so I am going to have to make some to match the new ones that get put on anyway... But it is true, not many ships used color sails, because it was just too expensive (sails get ripped all the time and need mended, after just one voyage multicolored sails would just look really bad because they would be patched up, most likely with what ever is available.) I feel to be "legoish" color sails are all fine and dandy, for realism there are only a couple good colors for sails. i guess it is preference.

i jsut happen to have a few laying around lol. when i rebuild i will look into making it larger, maybe three sections.. thats all i have though... dont know what i will do with all the end pieces ugh... make barges or something i suppose...

Which survey are you referring to? The official survey The LEGO Company conducted around last May which they conveniently capped at 500 responses, or is there another? i got a new survey via mail 3 days ago

i was probably just thinking about usable pieces! lol. Yeah i want to redo the sails, atleast add some. but i have more the mind to destroy it in a battle with the HMS Inventive (that wiil hopefully be a link in the next couple days... i really want to find some rigging and put new sails on it before i show it.) After destruction, rebuilding from the ground up after maybe 20 bucks on bricklink helps me out. i could probably spare that... I think this was just an example of what a quick alteration to the 7075 can produce... it atleast looks more like system. (if you look at the picture of the stock model, it barely has pieces that connect together, most just snap onto the hull and you are ready to go. ) which i said, makes it playable, and gameable. Which is all that matters to me at the moment. I can make it pretty later. So perhaps call this model an attempt at sprucing up the horrible reputation of a parts bin model! lol i dont know... I think I should have showed the HMS Inventive first, because then i dont look as much a hack hahaha.

i meant 400 inverted slopes... i got them on bricklink... so if it takes 16 (and some other pieces easily obtainable like flat 8 x X ) per normal sized midsection. thats around 22 midsections.... which i will probably never use, but they can be used in ship design other places then the hull so it is all still good.

ill take some pictures tonight or tomorow and post a new thread... well after i dig them up. I dont suppose we could have the fleet listing pinned? so more people see it?