Minimum Cruw and Minimum Ideal Crew Ship Battles

[Strange]

I did some tests with a trainer and timer and got the chart listed below.

the first column is minimum crew needed for sailing purposes.

the last is max cannons for the ship, which is leftover from my spreadsheet and I was too lazy to remove, (also a helpful reference in the context )

The middle column is Minimum Ideal Crew, which is the crew needed to fire the cannons at the quickest reload time possible. Additional crew has no further effect.

NOTE! I got this off limited testing, so there may be a bug in it. but I'm fairly confident it will hold up.

I got the numbers from timer tests on a Mail Runer, Fluyt, and Ship of the Line, each at Max Crew Hammock, Max Crew Regular, Min Ideal Crew (computed by a formula) Half Max Crew Regular, and 1/4 Max Crew Regular.

my timer was a stopwatch lacking a hundredth column, hence the possible inaccuracy. Still, the numbers in the test cases were definative enough. (though if anyone with a hundreths accurate stopwatch wishes to double check the test cases, it's appreciated)

the Formula is: Minimum Crew + (Max Cannons * 3)

I did a few tests with ships carrying less than max cannon, and this seemed to stick with it, but I was really only concered with running a ship with max guns.

The test cases of Mail Runner and Fluyt definiatively disproved the 1/2 max regular crew, though the SotL much closer, but still seemed to disprove it.

if your ship is damaged in any way, Minimum Crew and Minimum Ideal Crew will go up (I'm not going to bother with numbers for that )

Here's the chart:

Min C MIC Cannons
Sloop 8 44 12
Sloop of War 10 58 16
Royal Sloop 12 72 20
Brigantine 12 72 20
Brig 14 86 24
Brig of War 18 114 32
Fast Galleon 16 88 24
War Galleon 20 116 32
Flag Galleon 24 144 40
Frigate 16 112 32
Large Frigate 20 140 40
Ship of the Line 24 168 48
War Canoe 6 30 8
Pinnace 6 36 10
Mail Runner 8 44 12
Coastal Barque 10 46 12
Barque 12 60 16
Ocean Barque 14 62 16
Fluyt 12 36 8
Large Fluyt 14 50 12
West Indiaman 18 66 16
Merchantman 16 64 16
Large Merchantman 20 80 20
East Indiaman 24 84 20
Trade Galleon 16 76 20
Royal Galleon 20 116 32
Treasure Galleon 24 144 40

Also, I tested the effects of the Gunner. the times are quicker, depending on how many guns you have or men, but the Minimum Ideal Crew numbers are still the minium necessary for for fastest firing.


Reefing and raising your sails causes the cannon reload to briefly pause each time. Thus the more you reef and raise while the cannons are reloading, teh longer it will take.

There's no amount of crew you can carry that will cancel out this effect. (I did tests on a SotL staffed at 450 and 168.)

enjoy

[Howie]

Looks like some very good investigative work on your part Mr. Strange. Good addition to the data banks here on Cuttlass Isle I would think.
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[headrock]

That's wonderful, actually. Now I know I don't need to carry 450 men wherever I go )))

Have you tried checking the effect of difficulty levels and crew morale on this? At higher diffs and lower morale you may need more crew to get ideal results...

Besides, just the extra crew needed when people die and when the ship gets damaged could reach large numbers...
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[Airsaw]

*tips his hat*
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[Zem]

Thanks, Strange! It reminds me the good-old bigchief's investigations! Hey, where the hell is he? I haven't heard of him for a very long time...
His ship may have been sunk somewhere near Bermuda...
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[Arvind]

Nice work. Important conclusion, the one about extra crew not helping reload times when raising or reefing sails.
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