Suggestion Ship-to-Ship Communication System

[Splizzer]

Several issues in TLOPO revolve around miscommunication whether it be to an AFK, a grinder, a muted person, a deaf person, no communication programs, or places where communicating is restricted like SAILING! IT'S SO FREAKING FRUSTRATING TO TELL A NAVY TO GO AWAY! I WANNA HACK YOUR GRANDMA! (Random Joke XD)

It seems that fellow pirates complain about problems that are caused by the lack of communications between ships and its true! There are very limited ways to communicate from one ship to another and back. The power-up abilities are a way, but they have a cool-down which makes them unreliable in everyday and instantaneous uses.

With the lack of communication, you could compare these ships to modern cars. These days, a car will have indicator lights and horns to communicate with each other on roads and highways. Because of these tools, it is extremely remarkable how so many accidents are avoided with only two ways to communicate. Ships, however, do not have horns nor indicator lights; and several issues occur in-game. Although they don't exist in the 19th century, there are some realistic ways to get around that.

Other than the obvious solution, which is a ship chat system, I think we can do with special colored flags. Like indicator lights, we can use color-coded flags to signal other pirates what we plan to do like making a turn, claiming a ship, requesting help, or politely asking other ships to back off. You could even inform other ships that you're planning to do a mass mat hunt circle.

These are suggestions that I think, in theory, can help resolve some of these sailing issues that are upsetting so many people THEY WANT TO HACK YOUR GRANDMAS! (Again. ) Please provide some criticism, your feedback, and other suggestions to either replace or add to this idea. I thank you, either side, for your contribution and I hope we can one day resolve these upsetting conditions of Sea-Sailing.

 

[Sky Kiwi]

Just give the captains an extra chat tab like SvS does, and call it something like Ocean chat.

It could either be local (within render distance), or global, to allow captains to communicate with each other.

It may be unrealistic, but so is thunderbolt cannonballs, and in real life crew members would be able to keep an eye on the other ship's crew members with a spyglass, and therefore make rudimentary coordination possible via hand gestures, flags, etc.

 

[Bart Stormbreaker]

It could either be local (within render distance), or global, to allow captains to communicate with each other.

I'd prefer to see local chat with the radius of the render distance (given that it is the same for everyone) rather than global chat. I feel like global chat would be too crowded, as different people may be forming different groups throughout the high seas to do whatever.

Flags would be the most realistic method of ship communication. It was how wooden fleets communicated and operated in the age of sail. I can't think of any other non-technical drawbacks to this system at the moment. As you said, different flags can mean different things and can be displayed in two ways. The first way would be for short term actions (whatever you consider short term to be) and should be displayed as open fire and take cover are, above your ship and visible to all briefly before vanishing. The second way would address messages with longevity (ie: planning on doing mass hunting circles), and should be displayed as an actual flag somewhere around the name of your ship. The optimal spot would around your ship's name, as placing the flag on the mast (albiet awesome and realisitc) would be too much of a pain and hassle to see. However this option can be more viable if some of the render bugs are fixed and if some sort of zooming tool was added to the game, such as a spyglass.

The overall inter-ship communication system should be centered around accessibility rather than pure historically accuracy and realism because in our beloved Caribbean, not everything is synonymous with real life .