5 Ship Types for Sea of Thieves (Speculation /Graphic)

  • Hypothesis: Sea of Thieves can sustain a 5 Ship Meta
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    A lot of people calling for other ship types, but in breaking down the game it only makes sense to me that there are these 5, of which we already have 2. Any Thoughts? Would this throw the Meta off balance?

    Thanks for your time!

    Edit: LATEST REVISED IMAGE link below
    USE LINK:https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf1.myportfolio.com/1b9d7c982cd04a787f0c89eaaa8951b0/cb7adc35-8603-42af-860c-a97a1f6b1135_rw_1920.jpg?h=81d763d5fa5ccc3e9e37fa1cc6672bb6
    *Patch Notes in Forum Below

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    Community Wishlist:
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    Graphic Based on Forum Feedback and Input
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  • I think this is some great ideas and would love to see the man of war into this, I would like there to be more members on that though as I feel it needs a few more people to be a good experience. (pirates after all) with crews as small as they are it don't feel like your sailing a big ship.

    I personally really like your thoughts on this and can see you put a lot of thought into this. I think Rare will prob look at this and im sure there also listening to everyone and there ideas.

  • @shoothere4exp Nice concepts! I like them. However, I will be that guy and point out that the man o war looks like it has 7 cannons per side, not 6.

  • @shoothere4exp
    Good designs and a great idea.
    I do feel like the difficulties are a bit off. 1 man crew on a sloop should get a higher difficulty then 4 man on a galleon.
    But other then the difficulty settings you envisioned it is a wonderful concept. Maybe we will get them in game, might not be at launch but who knows could be a few months after launch.

  • Love the art designs/style.

    Don't think the Frigate should be so op though and the Sloop so weak.

    I mean you're already solo, you should be able to outrun to save your life, witch is already known to be possible due to the fact that it does have the best in maneuverability and I heard, not sure if it's true, that it is the fastest of ships that sail AGAINST the winds. I could be wrong on that, I just remember reading it on here at one point.

    With these stats though, it would make most sense to always play on a Frigate as it would dominate all of the rest.

  • I like it and the balancing makes perfect sense to me. I hope they have a look at this.

  • I feel the Sloop should be way faster.

  • @COMMANDO-SLIPPY I agree that more people on the Man O' War would be fun, but I was thinking that could incentive you to team up with other crews to fill your ship. Could add an interesting dynamic, because I really cant see them allowing any crews larger than 5 or 6.

    @Cows-n-Muffins Thanks Man! And good catch, I had that 4th top cannon leftover from the Galleon and I originally planned on having 7, but that seemed a bit OP to me when i went through the stats. What do you think, should I leave the cannon and increase the stat or keep it at 6?

    @Radzz-the-drunk I scored the difficulty not based on the amount of crew onboard, but the amount of work required to sail it (EX. Sloop has everything closer together, fewer sails to manage, faster capstan) Its true that it is still harder being a sailor on your own, but thats why the difficulty level for that ship is brought down to meet with the player count.

    @Olric-Forstner Thank You! MY idea behind the Frigate was to have it focused on speed but otherwise well rounded, perhaps I should take a cannon off to give it less firepower to balance?

    @canadianmuscle3 Thanks! I hope so too

    @Dragotech123 If sloop was faster perhaps it could help solo players not be fodder, these stats I made considering how they operated in the closed beta, and the sloop was slower than Galleon in the beta from what I could see and read.

  • @shoothere4exp Ah okay my bad then. Good concept of you nonetheless.

  • Great concepts! Except two things.... the "Frigate" is actually a brig. A two masted full rigged merchant ship.

    And as for the Man o War... maybe it should be a tad bit longer and maybe look more like a war carrack? That way, it's have 4 masts, same speed as the sloop (8 knots I think), tall fore and aft castles to go up and down, and said fore castle blocking the forward view of the ship.

    (And as for the cannons, 5 below deck and 2 on top would be better. maybe 2 on the back of the ship bc they'd probably be chased a lot.)

  • @shoothere4exp Having more cannons than the maximum number of crew is pointless. Even on the current galleon, 4 cannons firing means that no one is driving, what would be the point of the 5th cannon if it existed?

    The advantage of the Man O' War would be that it can overwhelm an opponent with firepower and durability. If both captains get off the steering and man the cannons, that becomes 6 cannons vs 4 cannons, which is a 50% increase in firepower over the Galleon. If there is always someone steering, the Man O' War has 5 firing cannons against the Galleons 3. That is a %66.66 increase in firepower. If one gunner on the Man O' War decides to do repairs, they are still up 1 cannon, which is a %33.33 increase in firepower.

    The takeaway here is that even with 6 cannons that is a very big jump in firepower over 4 cannons. 6 cannons should be just fine.

  • I think we need some aft and bow cannons on the ships. But all in all I would like to see a 2-3 player ship with 3 cannons a side.

  • @cows-n-muffins That is true, but the galleon would have a speed, maneuverability, and turning advantage. Well, unless they add two chaser cannons on the war carrack's stern to hold off those chasing from behind. But still there are blind spots out of reach of the cannons.

  • @cheatingpirate It depends on just how sluggish the Man O' War is. If slow is the defining trait, then stern cannons would be necessary to still present a bit of danger to annoying sloops trying to strafe you constantly.

  • @cows-n-muffins Well if the man of war needs to turn the wheel three times to fully turn, and have the same speed as the sloop, then yeah probably

  • PATCHED IMAGE: 1st REVISION!
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    Patch Notes:

    Sloop - Boosted to balance with other ships
    Increased Speed
    Increased Maneuverability

    FRIGATE
    Now renamed to Brig for accuracy

    MAN O' WAR
    Fixed extra cannon symbol on image, now has 3 guns above and 3 below

  • @CheatingPirate
    The War Carrack would be awesome! My thinking on that is that hopefully Ship Customization in-game would allow you to turn a Man )' War into a War Carrack, with high fore and aft castles and chase cannons.

    I proposed a similar fix to this earlier today with the Galleon, check out this post!
    https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/30403/my-ship-design-fan-concept

    @Cows-n-Muffins Your logic is sound! I've revised the image above

  • I like this idea, I really want to see a junk with the bat wing sails. However there stats you are proposing would make it extremely overpowered. So balance it's stats differently because I'd love to see this in the game.

    The galleon is an older ship, the specific one that comes to mind is the video Golden Hind which was sailed by the privateer Sir Francis Drake. It had 22 guns.

    The Frigate is a newer design, the one that immediately come to mind is The Queen Anne's Revenge, which was sailed by Edward Teach (Blackbeard), it had 40 guns. He sailed it less than a year because it was run aground.

    The Royal Fortune sailed by Bartholomew Roberts was a Man-O-War. It had around 50 guns and was sailed across the Atlantic and abandoned because it leaked.

    I think either the Frigate or the Man-O-War would be nice to add to the game but not both. They are too similar. Also the difficulty would have to be pretty high for that amount of firepower.

    The most common pirate ship was actually the sloop, followed by the brigatine.

    Edit: I did a little reading and apparently the Spanish had galleons that could carry as many guns as a British Man-O-War.

    A skiff might be good for solo players, really fast and maneuverable, with a single cannon on the front that can be fired from the wheel. Maybe this would give solo players a chance.

  • @shoothere4exp Awesome! I love all of the ideas! However...can you imagine trying to bail water from the lower deck of your Man O' War concept? That would blow LOL

  • The "Junk" model would be sooo much fun to play with

  • @CaseSugar401098 I renamed the Frigate to Brig in the patched image and your comments here reinforce that that is the right decision to me. Now there is a very clear distinction not only in stats but name between Man O War and Brig. Cool history too!

    Also why do you think the Junk is OP? Its maneuverability is certainly advantageous, I tried to make it a strong option for tactical players.

    @TouchDown1504 All part of the trade-off for having all those pretty cannons my friend!
    Given you would have a larger crew, if they're all doing their job the bailing should balance out. My idea for the Man O' War is to give really experienced players a high risk/high reward option for play. The ship should be more rarely played much more rare than the Galleon, so when you see one on the horizon its a big deal. I tried to build it so that if you use it right you can dominate, but it really requires all of your large crew to be on-point. Hence the difficulty (4 star) rating

    @Ferodie I agree! A good tactical option for smaller crews

  • @shoothere4exp my only suggestion to expand on your idea is the extra job load, with the sloop and gallion the jobs are balanced for crew sizing so id say that the interim ships would need to be stepped in the same way. The MOW however would likely need around a 6 man crew (1 per cannon) I'd suggest looking at the extra work load required to keep them busy.

    Maybe some stern sails, the ones that stick out the sides at the back or maybe top sails, you'd need to climb rigging on the edge of the boat to get to the pullies to operate these.

    Just some ideas.

    Love the work put in, now all we need is a digital artist to pin up some renders of how this might look in game and some exportable files for implementation and were all done here.

  • @touchdown1504 With that design it wouldn't be uncommon to allow the lower deck to completely flood with water before anyone decides to do any bailing. The point is to crush the enemy with overwhelming firepower and durability. So at the start of the engagement even if the Man O' War takes a few hits and is flooding the lower deck, it can keep firing for longer before anyone needs to really start doing bailing and repairs. Ideally, by that point your target is already destroyed so the entire crew can focus on bailing from the lowest deck.

  • @shoothere4exp 3 people on a junk would mean two cannons being manned with one at the helm. Combined with that turning speed it would sail circles around most anything. I don't think much could survive it.

    I really like the concept though, would love to see the design. From what I've seen in pictures online a junk can be just about any size and armament. I think it's mostly a style than a class of ship.

    Maybe research what advantages/disadvantages the bat wing sails might contribute?

  • I love the 3 man types. Junk especially. Amazing ideas, this is some truly quality content!

  • So this is really rough guys, but for the sake of conversation I did a very quick photoshop of the Galleon, adding another deck and sails to make it a Man O' War
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  • @shoothere4exp I agree that is really rough, can you clean it up a bit :p You really took the fun factor out, of bailing water ya' know?

  • I'd be tempted to give the man-o-war a 4th mast to raise it's difficulty. However they really only had 3

  • Wouldn't a cog or a carrack be more in theme with SoT, over the Junk. Nothing against the junk, but that is more an Asian themed(future dlc?!?!?!) type ship.

    I envision a less maneuverable ship with a slight speed advantage over the sloop because as someone else mentioned, the junk would be a terror on the seas and I think the sloop fills the agile fighter role quite nicely(even if it is light on firepower).

  • I like the solo ship with forward facing cannon definitely help give them a chance

  • @f0ur20-4ever Agreed. Chase cannons would make a big difference! So would some chain shot to rip apart sails but that is another discussion.

  • I hope you can customise the look of ships

  • @TouchDown1504 I'll do some original thumbnail paintings for concepts like this one when I get the chance ;)
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    @CaseSugar401098 I was tempted to add a fourth too... I looked up the first rates and they all had 3 though. But this game isnt exactly about accuracy and the War Carrack did have 4... so what the heck why not add a fourth?

    @MattyDove74 Its set in a fictional original universe, and we havent seen the other seas yet they could be more eclectic themed. I picked the junk because it fit the bill for the type of stats I needed for that slot between Frigate/Brig and Sloop

  • @shoothere4exp A lot of Man O' Wars did have some sails on the front of the ship, hanging just over the water. Similar to this. Boom, 4th sail to manage.

  • @ShootHere4EXP I think the brig if find, but you should put the frigate back in but have a third sail but maybe make it a square back sail not like the galleon but like a jib. If you know what I mean, because frigates do have three masts. So there would be 6 ships types and the difference between brig and frigate could be since the frigate has an extra back jib sail it could be a little bit faster just for more variation of ships. Something else that could be brig could be 3 players and frigate could be 3-4 players. You can also make a size difference between the two so that brig can go into shallow water more than the frigate can. Also brig and down could have chasers while frigate and up has both chasers and stern cannons.

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