Ghost ship?

[Airsaw]

I'm puttering around on the eastern Spanish Main, when lo and behold I see a pirate ship sitting in front of a pirate haven doing nothing. No words came up to describe the ship. I sailed "through" it, no attack blink on the keypad, nuthin'. It was just a galleon with a pirate flag sitting in front of a haven. Ever see this before? It caught my eye immediately because I'd never seen a pirate galleon, other than my own! This reminded me of an idle theme park ride.
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[Bloody William Flint]

if not a ghost ship it may be a docked ship like raymondos & the real pirates ships dont say anything nor can be fought when they are docked
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Captain "Bloody" William Flint

[Graedus]

Exactly if you enter the port you will be able to talk with the captain (one of the famous pirate)

However its true that is really rare that they use a Galleon I've never seen one doing that

[Crookshanks]

[Grimmelshausen]

What´s that ship anyways? It looks like a Galleon of sorts, I´ve never come across a pirate galleon so far.

[JackBlue]

While I haven't tested it, I believe this happens when some mutinous scum takes off with one of your ships. They end up parking outside the nearest pirate haven.

[Airsaw]

[rupertlittlebear]

Hopes you still got the save from that nifty screenie.

Sometimes a Pirate parks his ship outside his haven.

Check what that pirate is sailing these days!

Have seen the computer telling me that a named pirate was sailing a Trade Galleon!

[Bloody William Flint]

the flag isn't from any of histories pirates except Richard Worley but he isn't in the game
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Captain "Bloody" William Flint

[Airsaw]

Oops again. All named pirates were ex-pirates, like the Norwegian Blue parrot. The flag could be from a mod-flag pak. I have several of those.
Believe me, there is NO explanation as far as I can tell. It was just "there".
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[Grimmelshausen]

Now I know what the "ghost ship" outside a pirate port is: It´s the ship of a mutinous crew. If they take a ship from your fleet, they sail off to some pirate haven and stay there.

[Airsaw]

[CGM3]

While a Named Pirate's vessel is "parked" outside his Pirate Haven when he's "in town", it seems that sometimes the game goofs and uses that same logic at the wrong place.

In one of my early games, I saw a Pirate Sloop sitting outside a Pirate Haven on the northen coast of western Cuba, and as mentioned I could get no information by passing the cursor over it, nor could I engage it. The haven in question had no Named Pirate in command, so I went on my way, but over the twenty-odd games years of that character's career, every time I passed that way, there was a Pirate Sloop apparently frozen upon the verge of sailing into that haven.

Call it the "Stalled Dutchman" bug.
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I only do what the voices in my head tell me to do.

[Grimmelshausen]

There are more funny things about the pirates. If you take any kind of escort mission, there are always two pirate ships spawned on the way, attacking the ship you escort. This also goes for Indians, if you incite them, and for pirates. The only thing is, if you talk a pirate into attacking a port, the spawned pirates head to him, but they don´t attack. Probably against the Code...

[CGM3]

I've actually seen the newcomers fall in with the "original" pirate and sail with him to attack the target city!

On a slightly different tack (arrghh, we bein' nautical t'day!), how many times have you spotted a ship sailing near the edge of the monitor screen, only to have it vanish before you can get the cursor over it (which gives you the nationality and name and, usually, the mission of the ship), and never reappear even if you sail towards its last location? This doesn't seem to happen often, but it's not exactly rare, and I'm wondering if it's a bug or something else: deliberate "false sightings", or they're supposd to be lost at sea from "natural" causes.
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I only do what the voices in my head tell me to do.