Ships do not trade back in for money(If you buy the cutter and suddenly realize you want the original ship back, it WILL cost you 2000 golds). The only instance of this not being true is the original starting ship, which costs 2000 to buy, and if you are currently piloting it will give you a 1000 gold reduction on all ship prices.
Purchasing a ship with a smaller cargo size than you currently have goods will FORCE YOU TO DROP ALL EXCESS GOODS IN THE WATER. If you have ANYTHING worth ANY amount of money, be very careful when doing this.
Purchasing a new ship will ask you to name your ship. Switching to another ship, then back to the one you’ve already named will not allow you to rename this ship. Apparently you buy the old one back and are attached to the name or something.
No ship has additional equipment slots. The same 6 slots exist in all ships.
CREW
You can easily hire crew up to the ship’s capacity. (There is a current bug for some people, the option to do this does not appear at 10+ crew. Closing your game after buying a new ship and restarting should fix the issue. Personally I have not encountered it, and don’t know how it happens.)
Hunger will increase by half of your crew size once every 10 seconds. Do not underestimate the amount of food you need if you move up to a larger ship, if you have twice the crew, they will eat twice the food.
Crew are still recieved in the normal ways. At the same rate. You still get 2-3 for the hearts challenge in london which hires on crew. This means fully crewing a large ship is more expensive.
Conversely, you still lose crew at the same rates. On the cutter with a max of 5 crew, you are seriously in danger of losing half your crew to certain bad events, with no current benefit to using the cutter.
ENGINES/SPEED/FUEL
Ship weight has no current effect on speed(I timed this with a stop watch on all ships). The only difference is engine power. The difference between the 800 power starting engine and the 3500 power max one, was about 20% speed or so. (Same distance test run for the starting engine/serpinetine/combustor = 18/16.5/14.5 seconds)
Similarly, fuel usage is not effected by ship weight. Fuel used is determined by two things, First - is your light on, and Second - are you moving. If you’re running super low on fuel and NEED to make it to your next port, turning off your light will DOUBLE your fuel economy. At the severe cost of raising your terror gain to unprecedented levels.
HULL
All ships start with their stated hull ratings, all ships heal 25 per repair at the dry-docks, All ships seem to take the same amount of damage from all enemies.
Similar to crew loss/gains, it happens at the same rates. Larger hull sizes ensure living longer.
GLIM-LAMPS
The glim-lamps that refer to "Obscuring energies" claim to require an "Obscuring energies item". While this item itself does not exist, the skill still functions in combat and reduces your illumination by up to 20, and increases your terror by up to 20 as well.
Any questions? Don’t hesitate to ask! I can and will test any interesting questions regarding this topic. Ships are super expensive and you shouldn’t make an ill-informed decision. edited by Elilasol on 7/12/2014
Nice ty for the writeup, I was curious about some of these things before I drop money for a ship. I’m currently running the default one with upgrades and eventually I suppose you gotta move up.
Elilasol, is the item referred to in the Glim-lamp text an Unclear Device? Those do exist and are usable, and it makes a certain amount of sense that “Obscuring Energies” would help with their use. (If not, I’ve got no idea either.)
On crew matters, I just upgraded to the freighter which is magnificent for berging, or what ever the hunting of huge living rocks is called. But I can only hire zailors via "a new recruit" because London gives me "locked: no more than 9 etc."
A bug or am I just dumb?
Turning radius is larger in relation to how long your ship is, so more manuvering by giving and taking steam.
Oh yes the increased hull strength is a huge benefit, I accidentally ran into Mount Nomad and just survived with 49 hull left out of 250. The increased hold capacity means you can stay away from port longer as well - lots of killing beasties and looting Corsair’s to fill up that space.
Actually for the glim lamps ‘Obscuring Energies’ comes included with it. You can use it as a combat veils skill in battle though I honestly think it’s a pretty big gamble unless you’re desperate and facing a Lorn Fluke or Mt. Nomad.
Turns out you are right… I honestly didn’t even try using the skill cause it said it needed an item. But it works fine even without.
From what I can tell turning radius is unaffected between ships.
I hacked the money. I cheated. I’m not discussing how to do that here, but the obvious reason is that when I play the game I don’t want to make a shitty decision when 29000 gold takes 50+ hours to grind out right now. I also figured it would help a lot of other people who aren’t willing to look into cheating for themselves. edited by Elilasol on 7/12/2014 edited by Elilasol on 7/12/2014
There is no way to pass ships on through death. Heirlooms are the only option, and all they are is money. Also since you can only pass 11, and they sell for an average of 1k or so, you only get 10k max to pass on, which could buy you a ship, but not the nicest ships.
The thing is, I make most of my money through Admiralty information-gathering: if I don’t have the fuel to reach far places, I’m basically ruining my main source of income.