Update: New Designs

There are three different designs.

The Gunboat was my first design. Its a short and compact ship, armed with a forward-facing cannon. To find out more about the gunboat, keep reading this post.

The Longboat is the most conventional design. It is long and narrow, with a bit more space then the gunboat. It has a side-facing cannon. Click here to jump to the Longboat.

The Dinghy is a minimalist design. Its a bigger rowboat with a mast and nothing but the bare essentials. Click here to jump to the Dinghy.

My wish/hope is that one solo-boat can find its way into the game. This can be a boat based on one of my designs, but it can be something completly different as well. Just to make this clear: I do not want Rare to add three different solo-boats into the game. That would just be a waste of development resources.

Gunboat

The Gunboat is a dedicated solo-ship. Its smaller then a sloop, but still has everything thats needed. Take my design as a proof-of-concept, to show that such a vessel is possible, which problems arise when trying to design it and how they could be overcome. (For the emblem on the sail, I copied the Blue Horizon Sails and replaced the galleon with a gunboat.)

I am certainly not the first one to propose this. And although my design follows the same basic idea, it does differ in execution.

ch3wiie created a design for a gunboat three years ago: Single Plyer Ship Concept. I took many inspirations from it.

Eddy_Znarfy shared an alternative solo-ship-concept one year ago: New ship type: the Dhow. I just discovered this one shortly before posting my concept.

Layout

The Gunboat is divided into Front, Middle, Back and Cabin sections.



The Back is pretty much the same as on a Sloop and has everything needed to sail the ship.

The Front contains the cannon and harpoons. The Front and Back are connected via a walkway that goes over the Middle section.

The Middle section contains pretty much everything else you need on a ship. It is just a bit more cramped. The map is conveniently placed in front of the Steering Wheel. (Maybe a bit to convenient. Alternatively, you could place the map in front of the mast and move the mast a bit further to the back.)

The Cabin contains the voyage table, brig, pet cage and a decorative hammock. (I know that the brig is just as pointless as it is on a Sloop. I still added it, partially as a personal challenge and partially because every other ship has it.)

Sails

The other renders all show lateen sails, but there are several other options. I tried to achieve three goals when designing the sails:

Silhouette: Every ship has a distinct silhouette. The Galleon has 3 masts, the Brigantine has 2 masts and the Sloop has 1 mast. Following this pattern, the gunboat would have 0 masts. Since steam engines are not a thing in Sea of Thieves, I went with the next best option and gave it 1 mast with 1 triangular sail.

Controls: The sails should work just like the other sails in the game: The default position catches wind that comes directly from behind, the sails can be turned up to ~90° to either side.

Realism: The sails should look and behave like real sails or at the very least be believable.

None of the designs I am about to show you accomplishes all three of the goals. I will give my personal raking at the end.

Lateen

• pro: Simple; Short mast; Same controls
• contra: Top of sail obstructs view from crows nest; Rotation of emblem changes; Turning unrealistic

Bermuda

• pro: Realistic
• contra: Jump in turn; Front/back changes; Tall mast; Ladder at front of mast; Fully turned looks off-balance

Mirrored Bermuda

• contra: Jump in turn; Front/back changes; Tall mast; Ladder overlaps wheel; Fully turned looks off-balance

Gaff

• pro: Realistic
• contra: Jump in turn; Front/Back changes; Ladder at front of mast; Silhouette similar to sloop

Genoa

(It is not actually a genoa. Genoa is the closest match I know of. If you ignore the crossbeam, it somewhat resembles a genoa.)

• pro: Simple; Same controls
• contra: Very unrealistic

My personal ranking from most to least favourite is: Lateen, Genoa, Bermuda, Gaff, Mirrored Bermuda

I have done my best to research these, but I am no expert. If you find any mistakes or know of any alternative rigs that might work, please tell me.

Combat

From Galleon to Brigantine to Sloop, the amount of cannons halves at every step. Following this pattern, the Gunboat should have one cannon. Having a cannon on only one side is to asymmetric for my liking. This is why I went with a forward-facing cannon.

Its strengths lie mostly in the forward-facing cannon.

1. Will get the first shot most of the time.
2. Ideal for chasing.
3. Easy to repair and bail.
4. Small target.

But it also has its share of weaknesses.

1. No side cannons.
2. Can not circle. (Due to 1)
3. Long distance between Front (cannon) and Back (steering, ladders)
4. Very difficult to keep moving and shooting at the same time. (Due to 2 & 3)
5. Sinks fast.
6. Vulnerable to boarding. (Due to 3, 4 & 5)

And finally, I present to you a render of a gunboat with a broken mast, wrapped by a not-at-all-detailed kraken tentacle.

I have tried to place the break low enough, so that it can be repaired when standing on the lower deck, but also high enough so that the broken mast can lie mostly flat. The fence at the walkway is shorter to accommodate the broken mast.

Design Conclusion

This concludes my Gunboat-concept. You can find the 3D-model and all renders here: Link. I have been tinkering with this design on-and-off since March 2020. You can see a render of an older version from May 2020 below.

Following are some arguments for adding a dedicated one-player-ship. Feel free to skip them if you are only interested in the specific design I have put forth.

Benefits of a one-player-ship

Right now, the sloop has to be a vessel for one and two players at the same time. Balancing this is difficult, because there is a big difference between being on you own and having a second sailor onboard.

I would argue that the difference between one and two players is much larger then between two and three or three and four players. We got a dedicated three-player-ship long ago during cursed sails, so it seems reasonable to add a one-player-ship.

Dividing the ships into 1-2 players, 2-3 players and 3-4 players may sound good on paper. But in practice you will have either 1 or 2 players on your ship, not 1-2. The amount of players is a distinct amount, not an interval.

All encounters you face on a sloop have to be balanced so that a single player with limited experience can defeat them. They are trivial for two experienced players. With a dedicated solo-vessel, you could increase the difficulty of these encounters for sloops. And if you are bored with the encounters on a gunboat and looking for a challenge, you could switch back to a sloop.

In a fight between a solo-sloop and a duo-sloop, the duo-sloop has a clear advantage (given that the players are of equal experience). But if you replace the solo-sloop with a gunboat, the gunboat has the chance to exploit the unique strength and weaknesses of both vessels. The duo-sloop still has the advantage, but it is less certain then before. The same applies for conflicts with other ships.

The vast majority of the vessels you see are sloops. But if most solo-players are sailing on gunboats, it would bring much more variety to the ships you see. A sloop on the horizon would be much less of a wildcard.

There is one argument against dedicated solo-vessels which I would like to address directly. One might argue, that Sea of Thieves is a multiplayer game and should therefore not have a solo-vessel and that it would be wrong to encourage playing solo. I do not agree with this statement.

Being on a solo-vessel does not turn this game into a singleplayer experience. Sailing on your own does not mean you won’t see other players. There are still up to five other crews on your server. You can already sail alone on a sloop and a gunboat would not change this.

There is nothing wrong with playing Sea of Thieves solo. There are many valid reasons why you might be on your own. Maybe you do not have friends who play this game or they are not available and you do not want to put up with open crews. Maybe you feel pressured when playing in a crew with others and want to relax a bit on your own. For my part, I would not enjoy this game as much as I do right now if I could not sail solo.

End

Thank you for your time. I am looking forward to you feedback!