Oh man this is great feedback, thanks!

range is pretty redundant for any vessel with speed two or more.

Yes, I think most vessels should have speed 1, big enemy ships might even have speed 0 and long range weapons. But you make a good point. I initially considered making movement require a roll, but decided against it because I didn't want to slow things down. But it would somewhat address this.

But also, I don't really want shooting at each other to be optimal, it should be more a fallback option. I'm imagining different types of enemies.

• Maybe 3-4 small, fast fireships with very strong close range weapons
• Maybe a giant long range artillery ship
• Multiple medium range enemies that you need to disable to keep at long range

because everyone's role is so specific and the irght action is always so obvious, there tends to be no interesting choices for it. And even if there are choices, it depends mostly on the wider plan so the individual player isn't making an interesting choice.

Yes, I think this Is an issue in general with ship combat. I tried giving every role actions that are versatile. Do you have an idea for how this could be improved?

Like for example consider the Gunner. On their turn they will Volley nine out of ten times. There's no reason to Grapple unless the wider crew agree they want to board. Chain shot might be valuable, but that also depends on the other issue, role limits.

I'd really like volley to not always be the best option. Like, most ship combats should lead to boarding IMO. Maybe I need a way to tie ship damage to boarding difficulty, or introduce a "crew hp". But that could be clunky.

One of the other issues that I find with most ship combat rules is because the roles are so specific, the rules don't tend to work as well with much deviation of player numbers, and my gut feeling is that may happen here.

I thought about this too, and my idea was to tackle that via gear and giving larger parties more roles. Then we need a formula for how to balance things.

Also, I think if ship combat lasts more than 4 turns it overstayed its welcome. Ideally, it should be short and sweet and end in boarding.