Seafaring fantasies

[carmenara]

Dear Pirates,

I would just like to say how disappointed I was when I picked up this age of sail RPG entitled "Pirates of the Caribbean" when the concept is obviously so Russian and so "something else" (aka, Sea Dogs), than PotC itself. Like watching Dungeons and Dragons in an "LOTR" film.

The worst aspect of it all is just like Crimson Skies - people have the opportunity to make an excellent alternative-history study sim, of sorts, and bungle it all up by removing all the fun, what with arcade fire control, swivel mortars for broadside guns and the infernal high explosive shells that everyone and their mom knows warships never carried aboard till far, far in the "future".

So, a few years ago I discovered the Build mod, but alas I had already replayed Nathaniel Hawk's tale a zillion times, but imagine my surprise when I was brushing up on my WW2 naval history (while playing Fighting Steel/NWS v10) leading me to a mention of PotC Build 14.

Now now, someone (me?) needs to do a proper manual for this 1.3gb behemoth of a total conversion, like the 600 page .pdf for GWX of Silent Hunter 3 fame, but it's pretty obvious once I fired my first broadside at the enemy that this is going to be my online home for the next year or so... Everything is pretty intuitive where it was frustrating out of the box and that speaks a ton for the million man-hours put into this project. Very impressive...

I have just a couple of questions;

1. Is there an existing team creating up a full manual/walkthrough of Build's million sights and sounds? Or are you busy piling on new features and stuff (and a monumental task it is!)

2. Point me to the mod tutorials (though I notice it's Notepad stuff all the way? Very complex notepad stuff?)

ps. I was playing with the tailor shop and it struck me how my late sister looks like Jack Sparrow. As in, *male* Jack Sparrow. And no she's not a butch.

 

[Thagarr]

Ahoy Snow White Sorrow, welcome aboard mate! Indeed, the original POTC was a major disappointment. Personally, I blame Disney and Bethesda for hijacking Sea Dogs 2, but I won't dredge that all up again. Sea Dogs did indeed have a very Russian feel to it, but at least they captured more of a 16'th century feel to the game than POTC did. There are many aspects of the game that were very historically inaccurate, most game companies feel they have to cater to the FPS crowd to make any money off a game. And that usually means big explosions with not much thinking, problem solving, or tactics involved. The PA Mod team has done a fantastic job of fixing a lot of the issues with both historical accuracy game playability.

As far as I know, no one is working on a manual for the Build Mod. A lot of modders are also working on new mods for CoAS as well, so I doubt any of them have much time to spare. I have thought about trying to put something together, but there is so much material to sort through it would take quite an effort to put it all together in one single file. Unfortunately, I don't have the free time to devote to such a project. I would really like to see this accomplished someday though, it would go a long way toward helping players, and mod team members, to try and keep all the information straight.

One way this might be accomplished is if we had several people working on documenting different parts of the Build Mod, and then put all the separate parts together into one comprehensive PDF or DOC file. I would definitely be willing to help and devote what time I could to such a project, but I think it is just way to much of a task for one person to try and accomplish on their own.

 

[carmenara]

Hello Thagarr, it's nice of you to drop by

I pretty much agree with your observation - to me the "Golden Era" of gaming were those massively detailed wargames I grew up with in the 90s up to 2000 or so. (Yes I am pretty young) No doubt they were buggy and never had the potential to realise the full scope of their concepts but they were labours of love and one could see that with their huge manuals. The last I saw of the good 'ol games was Homeworld which was very experimental being the first 3D sci fi tactical space combat thing around. It had a great backstory but alas as we know, the sequels and spinoffs that arrived in later years never, ever had that "naval warfare" feel again. Same for 90% of commercial games out there which is why I put my $50s somewhere else...

One way this might be accomplished is if we had several people working on documenting different parts of the Build Mod, and then put all the separate parts together into one comprehensive PDF or DOC file. I would definitely be willing to help and devote what time I could to such a project, but I think it is just way to much of a task for one person to try and accomplish on their own.

You sure know what you are talking about, and so do I. Not one to procrastinate I might start writing a sample chapter or two based on the many readme files bundled with the current up to date Build packages. Thing is, I'm good at narratives and historical references but this is my second day playing Build 14A9 and still getting to know many of the features (and getting around the crashes). Although that won't matter if we have the technical specialists writing their part :3

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Welcome, mate! I'm very glad to see another member joining our ranks.
And even happier to see you like what we've cooked up over the past many years.

I absolutely agree with you on the need for a manual and I've been trying to convince people to work on one for YEARS.
I'd make one myself, but I simply don't have the time to do it.
There is SO much to do for PotC that no one person alone can do it.
Not to mention I like to do non-PotC stuff occasionally too, eh?

In short, at the moment we have nobody working on a manual.
If somebody'd get started on it, I'll certainly support his efforts in whatever way I can.
I'll certainly answer any questions you might have and might eventually end up writing some stuff as well.
Maybe in a while I could even come up with a general outline of what the manual could look like,
with what would need to be covered and in which order. That is, if nobody else beats me to it.
And I'd definitly prefer it if somebody DID beat me to it.

If you want to work on it, please be my guest. Indeed it might be too much work for you alone,
but even if you do only a bit and release that to public, the next person can continue from that.
Because people have started on manuals in the past, but never finished or released anything,
we never really got anywhere.

If you can work together with Thagarr and whoever else you can press into service, that'd be even better still.

For sources of information, be sure to have a look at:
- \buildinfo subfolder in the main game folder
-http://www.pietersmods.s31clan.com/ for Build 14 Alpha 7 features (I might have the Alpha 6 ones still somewhere)
- "Build Info.txt" in the main game folder for all recent additions
- http://www.moddb.com/mods/new-horizons for a short overview of the main Build 14 Alpha 10 features
- http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?app=ipbwiki mainly for walkthroughs of various storylines

I'd suggest not putting in stuff like items and ships lists but just plain the most important things for any player to get started.
Maybe an explanation of different gameplay modes (land/sea/worldmap), controls and interfaces.
Once that's covered, that already takes care of a LOT of the features.
Then you could explain some stuff about the game world and what you can actually do in the game.
So start out with "how does it work?" and then continue with "what can you do?" or something like that.
I'd suggest leaving out any modding tutorials until the rest is taken care of.

Ideally the manual should be fairly compact (preferrably not 600 pages ) and easy to navigate,
so that anyone with questions about the game can find the answer quite quickly in the manual.

I sincerely hope you'll be able to do some work for it and wish you the best of luck.
Please let us know if you need any help with anything.

[ PS: At the moment I am away at sea and do not have much time at all, but if all goes well,
I'll return home in two weeks and then I should be of more use ]

 

[carmenara]

I'd suggest not putting in stuff like items and ships lists but just plain the most important things for any player to get started.
Maybe an explanation of different gameplay modes (land/sea/worldmap), controls and interfaces.
Once that's covered, that already takes care of a LOT of the features.
Then you could explain some stuff about the game world and what you can actually do in the game.
So start out with "how does it work?" and then continue with "what can you do?" or something like that.
I'd suggest leaving out any modding tutorials until the rest is taken care of.

I had a little brainwave in that regard - why not skip the boring manual stuff?

Do an overview of the mod by highlighting the various storylines... then as a "rite of passage" dump the player right into Nathaniel's stormy start (the worst possible option currently available) and as the narrator (me) goes through every way and means to keep alive, controls and special features of New Horizons are explained. And by stormy start I don't intend to even activate Nathan's main quest.. but walk my own path to fame or infamy in the Caribbean. Start from a nobody skulking around preying on others' misfortunes, gaining intelligence on the game world and being as cunning as a fox.

By the time I got to the point where I'm thinking about taking down a fast merchantman (with a Class VII barque, no less) and converting her into a terror of the high seas, we should have covered every single Build mod feature (and tactical situation) imaginable with room for much much more.

The idea is to leave the player dumbstruck at how the hell can one do so many things in an obsolete game engine - no doubt an imperfect system we have here but name a commercial product that gives as much depth!

Now, not many game manuals resort to roleplaying. Few even dare to strut their stuff like that these days. But with good organisation and execution of the storyline, one can easily break up the whole tutorial into manageable and related chunks (ie, indexable and logical) and add in a few historical references along the way. And because I'm definitely not boring, it's gonna work

I'm betting you'll get much more than just a layout by the end of 2 weeks...

ps. I'd like to propose some changes to the default options - the preinstalled options are pretty much, too easy; I want enemy ships to surrender after an hour long bombardment, not in 5 seconds!

I also play with cannon damage scaled to the minimum - making sea battles much more interesting and is more believable to me (one needs to jockey for position in order to get critical salvoes in) - and may be more historically accurate: large galleons were pretty much floating fortresses vs swarming pirate sloops. I also had a very entertaining long range broadsiding duel (at very high speed downwind) in Bartolomew's fast galleon against a corvette and that won't be fun if the enemy were sunk -too- easily!

(We traded blows for about 15 minutes where I ran out of gunpowder because I so love small calibre rapid fire but just managed to pull away at what seems to be half a knot for damage to the enemy's rigging - it was a stalemate as I couldn't get close enough to fire chain at her rigging or I would be in effective range of the corvette's much heavier guns, nor could I cross the T for the same reason)

I think too that in those olden days where explosive shells were never used in sea battles, much more ships were disabled by fallen masts and depleted crews than simply sunk outright, even where such as the Battle of Trafalgar were concerned, involving large numbers of ships of the line.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you can make it work like that, be my guest.
As long as the manual also still works for someone looking for a quick answer.
If you can make both things work, it's definitly going to be better than a straight-forward manual.
In fact, we could post it as an article series on the ModDB and generate some more interest for the game that way.

I'm quite convinced the Build default settings might not be the best,
but finding the right values for gameplay, balancing and realism is not an easy task to accomplish.
If you can come up with better values, feel free to do so.

 

[carmenara]

Some encouragement

Hmn, that's a strange thing because I'm usually ignored...

Anyways I have made... very astounding progress with the stormy start gameplay. It was made ten times better by working with Direct Sail exclusively because of the random event generation. Evading a drifting mine -very- close off the port bow ten minutes into getting offshore proved to be a hair raising event (what with 25% of hull integrity you start with), so was fighting off not one but two of Portugal's warships with.... nothing but one port cannon and one rear chaser. I got KOed on land and when I found my beached ship again everyone had deserted save for 8!

And the issue with the Portuguese came from me masquerading as the French because I was wrecked on their island.

I managed to recover some form of seafaring ability by limping to the French port on the other side of the island, having managed to tack upwind from the French by just a couple of degrees steeper than they can, and intended to get my sorry little tub back to English waters while doing a little trading. I had to strip the lugger of her chaser guns for funds and sell all nonessential equipment.

Good intentions typically, are the first to die. For when I left port at midnight I found the harbour blockaded by an English frigate and a schooner. One could question my intentions of engaging them in a Class VII lugger that is about to fall apart, but I did anyway and charged them with a strong wind at my back and the French fort's 50 plus guns firing high explosive at very long range.

I had about one broadside of 3 guns to fire, one chance at it and I decided it shall be French gunnery targeting the rigging of the quite pretty red painted schooner so chain shot it was. I practically went up to spitting distance, surprising my own countrymen trying very hard to kill me (I was still flying the French flag and at that point forgot all about returning to British territory!) and even more surprising, that 3 gun salvo snapped the schooner's main mast. Somehow (I had a gunnery skill of... 1)

A moment later, disaster struck as the wind, combined with perhaps the heat of combat and British gunnery, forced my hull against a nearby cliff face to starboard just meters away from escape and I ground to a halt just bare moments from sinking outright if not for emergency repairs. The hull was practically Swiss cheese from accurate British gunnery but thankfully the crippled schooner didn't manage to fire again and limped out to sea, while the frigate, in her haste to run the little French ship down, ended up marooned in the bay with unfavourable winds and demolished by the French fort.

Being completely stuck I put all crews to man the 3 remaining starboard guns (fast reload feat, raise cannon skill, accuracy remains 1) and fired a few potshots at the retreating scarlet schooner. Despite choppy seas, salvoes soon straddled the British vessel and she struck her colours before being hit.

It was not the time for celebration though as I was still marooned on the cliff and it took about an hour to free myself (thanks to wind direction changing and taking hull damage all the way) and when I finally boarded, was greeted by a VERY arrogant English captain who refused to give his ship up and was "persuaded" to cooperate with good use of a blunderbuss. Since I had no way of surviving a swordfight with a spade! What a gamble. But it netted me a large and for her size, very powerful vessel with 18 pdr guns.

My voyage thus aborted, I watched as my lugger practically fell apart as I took the former HMS London into port for repairs, where I was hailed as both a hero and a something else not so good for I was attacked on sight as soon as I disembarked!

Resupply and emergency repairs to the rigging soon complete, I decided to set sail to Portuguese waters with a cargo of silk and captured English riches, far away from the colonial war that would engulf all of France and England's southern colonies. Then again I couldn't just sail away, for the prevailing wind was towards Antigua (the major English naval base in the region, just a stone throw away from here) and I had to tack down south and north again before being free from the coastal battle still raging between English, French and Portuguese vessels.

I pretty much left them to their own game, and curious ones "discouraged" by the thunder of 18 pounders at range. Now, many hours of direct sail (with no compass) to the first waypoint of my journey - Curacao.

---

So that story is going to be converted to "manual format" and would probably end when I finally reach land again (and it could be anywhere, based on dead reckoning navigation - I hope the sky graphics are fixed in orientation - whichever is north, etc). Direct Sail pretty much makes things a thousand times more interesting, what with aborted voyages, random floating encounters (the mine was very scary) etc.

 

[Thagarr]

Good job Snow White Sorrow! Draw em in with a bit of gameplay action, and hook em with the loot!

That's the problem with most game manuals, and why most people don't bother to read them and just jump right into the game with no clue what to do or how to do it! They are mostly just a dry list of game controls and lists of skills and ability's with no real description of what effect they really have in game situations. Most also don't include any kind of strategy guide either, they usually try to milk a few extra doubloons with stuff like the Prima guides. We have a wealth of pirate strategy and history buried in these forums, I'm sure Captain Python wouldn't mind at all if we borrowed from his brilliant strategy posts and added those to the manual! I am not much for eloquent, exciting writing, I have more of a technical style. I have some free time coming up over the next week, maybe I can write something up along the lines of a preface to open the manual and explain why we as a community decided to embark on fixing this game and developing it into something much more than what it was originally intended. I will also try and work on some strategy and history stuff for the end of the manual. If that's acceptable, we seem to have the beginnings of a rough outline of what this beast might look like in the end. I have a little experience building PDF's, and some building Publisher layouts, with a little luck(and a LOT of Google!) I might be able to patch it all together in to something resembling a coherent format! :

Unfortunately, some of the early build work posts from back in 2003 and 2004 were lost during upgrades and server crashes, but there are still a few around I believe. I'll scour the forums and see what I can come up with when I get the chance. Thanks for the links Pieter! Those will come in handy! Now we just need to press-gang a few more unsuspecting lubbers into helping us with some of the other stuff!

 

[carmenara]

When I read this:

I have more of a technical style. I have some free time coming up over the next week, maybe I can write something up along the lines of a preface to open the manual and explain why we as a community decided to embark on fixing this game and developing it into something much more than what it was originally intended. I will also try and work on some strategy and history stuff for the end of the manual.

Do it!

I almost sounded like Cap'n Kirk (Star Trek '09) jettisoning the Enterprise's reactor cores to save the ship. That will save me a LOT of time and trouble as while I am a self-learned follower of military history my sphere of interest usually lay in the Second World War and its technological innovations.

I love history, and even more reading it from such as you. And I would love to learn a thing or two about life on the high seas.

As for publishing the manual format - don't bother with it. Let me do the job of publishing. You just get the content out and I don't care if it's in Notepad. It's better for one person to settle the presentation related matters in one fell swoop for consistency and quality reasons.

I might be able to patch it all together in to something resembling a coherent format! :

Thus I will save YOU time on this regard :3

EDIT:

I actually saved up 193 screenshots from the above stormy start last night. Those pics will serve as a "LifeCam" for my character when I sit down and write the roleplay in detail. The concept's pretty simple, run of the mill young merchant turning rogue privateer, fed up of being the victim of other peoples' failures. But as you can see, being a hero is pretty simple but not dying pointlessly is well, an art form sometimes!

I stumbled on the idea of a freeform stormy start as I'm really not used to games where people don't tell me exactly what to do - so I thought to get out of my comfort zone and do something memorable for a change to suit the mod's theme. By putting such concepts of imaginary initiative and critical thinking into a manual format, I hope that others too will view games as not just a form of stress relief but as a learning opportunity. I actually recommend against putting a strategy guide into the novel (but hyperlink to them for the desperate) - players should not aim to take the easy way out but live with the consequences of early mistakes and surpass them. Such as my getting into a melee instead of quietly waiting out the storm and later recover the ship and crew.

It made a simple "board ship, hit F3 and sail far away in a minute" affair into a battle for survival that was ultimately, very worth the challenge.

The Storm Engine might be pretty light on realism but I see a lot of potential to discuss age of sail battle tactics and whatnot. And naval combat is just one aspect of New Horizons.

Perhaps in a future build, the long range sailing interface might be disabled entirely (make it a high level, item dependent feature like the battle compass), then everyone of us would be forced to relive my adventures.. the hard way. Life would never be boring again

EDIT 2:

Looks like my tall tale above could actually occur in reality:

Witness the tale of the Russian brig "Mercury" here
http://www.shipmodel.ru/MercuryHistory.htm

The Russian ship of 20 guns (light brig to us) found herself wedged between two Turkish Class I men o war of 110 and 74 guns respectively but managed to stall her pursuers by damaging their masts and rigging.

Total damage suffered was

When the wounded brig approached Sevastopol where there were the main forces of Black Sea Fleet, contused, with a head bandaged Kazarsky counted the losses: 4 killed, 6 wounded, 22 holes in the hull, 133 holes in the sails, 16 damages in the masts and spars, 148 in rigging.

This supports my observation that battles are much more "realistic" when cannon damage is set to minimal (0.3) and that is how I play B14A10. It was not easy to sink outright a period ship, with period weapons - damage to rigging and crew casualties was what enabled decisive boarding action. That is, not counting critical hits (powder explosions and fires etc)

 

[Thagarr]

I might be able to patch it all together in to something resembling a coherent format! :

Thus I will save YOU time on this regard :3

Not to mention embarrassment!

The screen shots are a fantastic idea! I am more than happy to let you handle the publishing Snow White Sorrow, it sounds like you have a very firm course plotted and you know exactly where your heading!

I do see your point about the strategy, perhaps it would be better left as a hyperlink to either the Wiki or the posts on the main page. Maybe I could work in some brief pirate history into the preface, and then just leave the rest to you. Now ya got me all excited, pirates and Star Trek in the same post!

 

[carmenara]

Well I am not one to waste inspiration - it's hard to come by these days!

I do actually need more help than it seems because I have no idea as to the history of Build. You do.

I propose we work as not part of a chain of command but as independent contributors working on two different projects. Comparing notes is the first step to merging two good ideas into one - do not be hindered by my apparent confidence; some things are not as they seem

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Very interesting. I'm not sure if the above diary-like text would work well as a manual in the current form,
but you do say you're going to convert it to manual form later, so that should be fine.
In the meantime, why don't you register on the ModDB and post what you have as a "Captain's Log" article with screenshots?
Might generate some interest and it can be a running series. And then eventually that story ends up as the base for the manual too.

I reckon it might be a good idea if Thagarr could write a more technical outline of the game's features and history,
basically from the point of view of the developers, while Snow White Sorrow can write things from a player perspective.
If then both can be joined in one manual, that should give a pretty comprehensive result.

And as far as you usually being ignored goes, well... let's just say I'm not one to ignore offered help.
We have always welcomed and respected new members who are willing to contribute,
which is probably one of the main reasons why our mod is still being worked on six years after the game's release.
I would absolutely love to see this go somewhere; I'm fed up with the Build not having a proper manual.

 

[carmenara]

Pretty much read my mind there.

The usual issue with independent modding is having a lot of good ideas but a quest for quality and perfection prevents any actual progress.

Thus for prerelease work it's more or less critical to generate prototypes on a rapid basis as without said haste, valuable inspiration (and motivation) is thus wasted. On this regard the moddb idea is sound but I have had very bad experiences going public in the past.

Having 2 50% solutions or 1 70% is better than having 0. Oh dear... that's exactly like firing straight running torpedoes in a spread.

:mm Nope the manual format story won't be presented as in the draft above, way different. I'm doing a detailed story then progressively shaving off narrative elements to be far more direct and useful as a reference guide.

As in the real world with me, things tend to get done faster than concerns are raised, so the 2 week deadline still stands here (thereby eliminating the penalty to production aforesaid )

 

[carmenara]

Testing file attachment - will post Draft I .PDF within a few hours.

And I enclose herewith Draft I:

http://rapidshare.com/files/312029934/SWS_Build_14_Tutorial_Phase_I.pdf

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Attachment works.

"if you were a real pirate of the Caribbean, you didn't have to mash certain keys in a certain way to appease a bloody shame of a game so that you could unlock the next level."
This sounds like "Legend of Jack Sparrow" and not the original "Pirates of the Caribbean" game.
The game was never split into "levels" and no button-mashing was ever required.

"For the record we are very cruel game developers and won't allow you the luxury of death and
subsequent resurrection."
Actually, that is one of the mods that we DID add in. If you die, you ARE resurrected.
Though that can be turned off.

"You're an indentured servant of the mighty British Empire, getting mere
pennies for much sweat, blood and tears and now you have tasted liberty!"
Actually, you can start the "New Horizons" storyline as different nationalities.
Default is British, but it can be different. Note that if you start, say,
as French, the tutorial will also take place on Martinique instead.

"The only women and children to save are those in your dreams and they don't actually exist in
game."
You can actually encounter rapists in the evenings and you can save fair maidens from them.

"And a plantation that bore uncanny resemblance to... a real plantation. Where did that come from?"
From "Age of Pirates II: City of Abandoned Ships", truth be told.

"But be warned – your disguise is only partway convincing!"
Absolutely true. The further you advance in the game and the more well-known you become,
the less other ships are likely to believe your false flags.
Also, the closers you approach enemy ships that are friendly based on your false flag,
the higher the chance of them recognizing you and firing upon you before you could make the first hit.
Again, this depends on how well-known you are.

BTW: You can use F9 to hide on-screen log messages and the interface for your screenshots.
Makes them look nicer.

"How's that U.S.A. expansion for Build 14 coming by the way?"
That's already in there. Check our articles on the Periods mod on the ModDB.
The USA are present in the later game periors, eg. Master and Commander and Hornblower storylines.
Not in "New Horizons", because that would be wrong for the time setting.

"There can be riches without hardship..."
Don't you mean the opposite?

In any case, it certainly looks interesting. Definitly worth posting as article series on the ModDB.
And I'm looking forward to the final manual-like version too.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I saw you added a poll to this thread, so I changed the thread subtitle to something hopefully a bit clearer to other members.
Personally I reckon I'd like a balance between all of the options you mention above.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Short and concise
Information does need to be easy-to-find.

Short and concise with hyperlinks to additional info (Wikipedia-esque)
That'd work for links to walkthroughs and latest updates and bug tracker and such.
Basically all things that are likely to be updated after the manual is finished.

A quasi historical presentation (Like wargames of the 90s, references to real life on the high seas)
We've got the Periods mod, so please do show the level of attention to historical detail we put in.
Soldier uniforms, ship types and colour schemes, island/town names/nations, FLAGS, etc!

Full of technical detail (Silent Hunter III : GWX style, 600 pages!)
Look through the documentation we have to see what's good to add.
Examples would be the workings of the Wounded Crewmembers mod and the New Officers System.

A Realist's point of view (Roleplay a character and explain special features along the way)
That'll make it more readable; also useful when you post it as ModDB article series.

Focus on Build's components (Detailed modding history, coding tutorials, etc)
Build history: yes (in a seperate chapter - Thagarr?)
Coding tutorials: no (not in a gameplay manual)

 

[Thagarr]

Focus on Build's components (Detailed modding history, coding tutorials, etc)
Build history: yes (in a seperate chapter - Thagarr?)

I wrote up a brief outline for the preface last night after work, I have the next few days off, so I should be able to get it fleshed out a little more. As soon as I am happy with it, I'll post it so you can all give me your opinions. I will dig in to forum and see just how much build detail I can come up with. I think the two week deadline might be a bit optimistic!

 

[carmenara]

Firstly, thank you for the kind opinions. It definitely is helpful to know the project's immediate documentary needs.

Worry not the technical detail and Germanic precision will come soon enough, in other portions of the proposed (and still classified) manual layout. I shall leave the roleplay deliberately less than surgically precise, as in the real world no one ever has the luxury of knowing everything. The more questions and observations you make on my rhetorical observations, the better. I like when you play along with it. And you are correct I made a little typo here:

"There can be riches without hardship..."

I do know when the "error threshold" has been breached And thus I stopped where I had. Next sequence shall touch on basic trade planning and ship to ship combat. Then tacking my way out of unfriendly waters by use of Direct Sail (what's the fun of autosail, huh!?) to make a fine starting profit with "acquired" English and French cargo.

Third chapter shall discuss operational strategy - how does a historical Privateer operate, what's an expedition, dividing the plunder mean? etc. And that shall be the last, for I am as yet a secretary not a novel writer!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sounds good to me. No need to make a rush job though.
*I* don't care about it being two weeks or two months,
as long as it does end up going somewhere.