This is part 2 of my proposals to make some things at sea better. This time I remembered to change the title to reflect the topic!
Merchant ships:
Merchant ships are super lame right now. We’ve all had the experience of hopping on one only to encounter the blandest inventory you have every seen, and then never touching one again. They sell 3 items and they are all useless damn near 100% of the time. They also never let you hop on their ship so easily, it’s like they know they’re garbage and ignore people because of it.
First of all their items need to be better. They don’t need to have rare items like scrolls and stuff, just medium rare items like blueprints, decent accessories, and rarer cannonballs. Make them sell more stuff too. I don’t want criminals to accidentally destroy merchant ships selling rare stuff, so they should have their items visible on glass cases so you can see them without having to slow down and interact with the merchant (give the rare items a recognizable glint). You can’t steal the stuff though, it takes a lot more effort to do so.
The quality of a merchant’s ship will determine how good their stock is. So a lowly sailboat will have low-tier stuff (but not necessarily garbage), while a reinforced ketch with arcanium cannons and lots of flashly advertising and colors will probably have some fire stuff inside. Merchant ships will also become much more defended to make up for having a better stock. Add some neutral merchants and criminal merchants as well.
If you want, you could add super rare travelling merchant ships from places far away. Travelling merchants in Terraria have tons of cool stuff and some very strong items that are actually useful (celestial magnet, captain america shield, gatligator, ammo conservation box, pulse bow, etc.), while merchants in AO have some wooden arrows and old boots. These travelling merchants are neutral, very fortified with captains at a level similar to Kai and Merlot, and sell completely unique items. Around half are exotic vanities while the other half are exotic ship parts, weapons, scrolls, you name it! They ask for lots of galleons and rare items though, similar to trading with another player.
This is a bit of an extension to the idea, but they should provide other services, even rare services. Shipwrights and builders will be fairly common onboard, while tailors with rare accessories and fishmongers with rare fish are rarer. Dyers are available on these, and some of these people may provide services at a discount compared to those who sit their asses in stalls. You could probably have some really weird things, like people who can change the magic on arcanium items.
Some people say that merchants can contain rare things. Maybe they do, but damn near nobody has the patience to check them as they usually are selling garbage. Merchant ships should be useful aside from the occasional rare thing and free sealed chests for criminals.