The ocean, and the ship on it

A real simulated sea surface — FFT wave simulation on the GPU, not a scrolling texture. Swell, chop, foam forming where the water folds, and ships that carve a true Kelvin wake, the real V-pattern, with a bow splash that fires when the bow actually meets a crest. The ship floats on four wave-height probes at bow, stern and quarters, so she bobs, pitches and rolls with the actual water under her hull. The signed-off open water is frozen.

Remaining: the wake retune against its new, brighter reference target.

Sail east far enough and you come back around. The world wraps east–west; north and south are walled by polar ice.

A dynamic sky that drifts through its states and drives real wind bands. Storms are dangerous: canvas left flying gets shredded, and riding one out means furling and taking the weather on the hull. Gales come in three weights, and only the severe one opens the rogue-wave gate — a monster that looms in out of the fog line, read by the damage code off the very same crest. Night sailing is allowed — a captain's privilege.

Temperature by latitude and season. Hot waters drive the crew's water consumption up a quarter; cold cuts it.

Coastlines drawn from real geography, with a full ground-material pass — sand, shingle and rock coasts, turf, bedded rock, scree, alpine snow, tree crowns with lobed shading that bend in a storm — and vegetation that streams in only where a sailor can see it. Ship collision follows the exact terrain on screen, and running aground now bills the hull.

Remaining: the dominant-peak island silhouette, discrete offshore islands, and the foliage pass.

Wind-relative sailing with a genuine no-go zone into the eye of the wind. Rebuilt cloth simulation — sails billow, flutter and luff with the wind on them, and furl through six ordered rates when you call for it. Square sails are most of the way to their visual spec.

Remaining: the triangular sails' one named crease fault, a planned halving of top speeds, and the voyage-math re-check that follows.

Hand the wheel over and the auto-sail tacks and gybes for the best speed made good toward your mark, without cheating through the dead-upwind cone.

The yard is a building you walk into, its trades listed as words: Build, Buy Used, Repair, Remodel, Sail Maker, Flag Maker, Sell. The builder is the drafting table inside it. Step masts, hang canvas, mount guns; burthen is genuinely spent, the buy writes a real ship that survives a reload, and a refit charges only the increase. Tier one is essentially finished.

Remaining: the tier-one balance pass (weights, prices and the rig table are placeholders), and the hull-shaping bench — a working lofting engine with no door into the yard yet.

Any ship at hand can be taken to the yard: dye the sails, fit a carved figurehead, and choose a rig that genuinely changes the speed curve.

Paint your own flag pixel by pixel in the flag loft. One flag per captain; it flies from every masthead of every ship you own, waving on its own cloth simulation.

Worn canvas genuinely robs speed; the gun deck rates your batteries and magazine off the shot and powder in your hold.

Remaining: combat now gives the damage model its full life; tuning and the presentation bar remain.

Up to four captains on one shared ocean: each flying their own ship, one shared economy, a synced sea clock and weather, captain-to-captain barter at sea, Five-Card Draw at the inn between voyages — and shared battles, so captains can fight the same enemy together, hearing the same seeded storm.