Release and plans

This project was started in 2011, under the working title "Fifth Rate", as a prototype to explore two things: how does sailing physics work; and what is a control scheme that does not have the immediacy of moving a joystick, but feels more like ordering a hundred sailors around? 

I worked on it on and off for the next two or three years, adding various bells and whistles. For a while I expected that it would expand from a bare-bones simulation into a proper game, with an ocean populated with enemies and prizes. This would probably require a whole new abstracted sailing model on top of what is there now, to sensibly handle the large scales in time and space. But I never made the time to do this, and eventually moved on to other projects. Recently I decided I should fix it up and release what there was.

There are a few things I might still work on, that seem like they could be fun to do and won't require any big changes to my hopelessly entangled Unity 4 code:

1. Any corrections to ship handling, physics and language
2. Ability to repair masts, remove/add topgallantmasts etc.
3. Studdingsails and royals
4. Premade sail plans for different strengths of wind and points of sailing
5. More realistic wave model, different kinds of wave in different seas, etc.
6. Show winds on the map
7. Nicer map UI
8. Nicer clock UI
9. Flooding and sinking
10. Some variety in ship appearance, textured sails
11. Distinguish clouds, fog, rain
12. General atmospheric graphics and shader rewrite
13. Better Portsmouth harbour
14. (slightly) higher resolution landscape
15. Procedural (cubical) rocks & beaches along coasts
16. Fix physics glitches
17. Foam and spray
18. More years of weather, some randomization
19. Better stars
20. Port cities on the map
21. Usability tweaks to travel acceleration 
22. Stop the guns sticking out all the time
23. Battle AI