2026-09-25
The ships got guns, crews to fight them and an enemy to fight: every ship but yours now flies for the Notorious Plantation Cabal.
Gunnery
Each hull carries a battery laid out from its gun ports. Guns reload by shot weight, fire on the nearest target in arc and range, and throw real balls under gravity that splash, bounce off a glancing hit or go in. A ball that goes in kills along its path through the hull, so a rake down the length kills about three times what a beam shot does, with no special rule. A broadside ripples down the side instead of firing all at once, each gun recoils inboard when it fires, and it runs out again only once it is loaded.
Every shot leaves its smoke: an irregular grey puff thrown outboard by the blast that drifts slowly downwind, so a broadside leaves a bank lying by the ship. Every hit leaves its mark: a splintered hole where a ball went in, a pale gouge where one glanced off.
Two more kinds of shot arrived. Double shot hits harder at half the range. Chain shot is laid on the sails, tears holes in the canvas and weakens the mast it strikes until the mast goes over the side, taking its yards and sails with it.
Crew, morale and striking
Casualties thin the hands, which slows both the guns and the sail handling, and they sink morale. Morale recovers in a lull. At zero the ship strikes: fire ceases, sails come in, and a white flag goes up in place of the ensign. A ship's crew is split between sail and the guns, one gun crew sized to a broadside, which can fight one side or split for both. Manning the guns leaves fewer hands for sail, more so on a big ship than a small one.
The enemy
The Notorious Plantation Cabal flies a bone-white goat's skull on red. Every ship you are not commanding is theirs, and they fire on you and never on each other. The race course from the first day was taken out to make room for the fight.
An island
The sea got its first land: an island with a village, a church, a warehouse and a dock, wooded with oaks, pines and palmettos, with a shoal off its east point. It is solid to ships and shot. A ship runs aground where the water is shallower than its draught and stays there until it backs off, and guns won't fire through the land.
The sea, the sky and the ships
- A new sea: swell running downwind, chop that grows with the wind, sky reflected in the water, a glint from a low sun, whitecaps, and surf breaking on the island's shore.
- Ships heel to leeward under sail and ride the swell. A band of cumulus round the horizon shows the ship's turn against the sky.
- Hulls in relief: planking, wales, framed gun ports whose lids swing up as the guns run out, a carved stern with a stern walk, channels and deadeyes, a shaped rudder, and guns on truck carriages.
- Sails in worn canvas that breathe in the wind and flog as they luff, and an ensign streaming from the gaff.
- The cutter now sails on sheets rather than yards, with a jib and a main to balance and a no-go zone to tack through.
Playing it
A start screen and an Esc menu arrived, with the controls and settings inside it. Along the bottom, a station bar shows each gun side and the sail crew with their numbers. M opens a north-up chart of the fleet on paper, which can be dragged and zoomed. Right-click turns on free look, and a second right-click lets the camera ease back astern.