Sailing is kind of boring so here are a few general features that could improve the engagement
Increase the visibility of wind. While sailing, it’s hard to tell whether you have tailwind or headwind. It would be cool to have occasional breezes a bit up in the sky that show you where the wind is headed. Additionally, add an Anemometer to the higher tier ships (maybe frigate and above?) so we can have a UI that shows us which way the wind is facing.
Oars. It isn’t really “realistic” but adding oars to boats gives a reasonable explanation as to why we are able to rotate while stationary AND would allow the perfect addition of a feature people have been BEGGING for since the game released: backing up with ships.
Also, a lot of things in this suggestion is gold and id love to see some added
but i mean, there was nothing stopping people from making really big oars and oaring a brig around.. just.. they didnt cause thats too much work compared to the other ways ships would typically back out of docks
Some convenient stuff that’d fit into the game perfectly, I’m on board. Makes sense to have giant oars at least on some ships that extends out when backing up and I never really understood how wind works either in the game.
I think the core ideas for Oars should be that they give your ship the ability to reverse, they increase your turning and speed stats, but are broken and take at least 30 seconds to a minute to repair if you crash the sides of your ship or get hit with cannons.
Also in general the leaves of trees, the motion of grass, all of it imo should flow like you see in those mincraft mods, and we should have very visible wind and wind sound effects.
It would definitely make sense to have oars, and being able to tell the wind direction could be awesome. However, would the wind resistance stat on ships make this addition useless in higher tier ships?