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Guide Selected ship plans, plan websites, and other resources

One area this game is missing out on is Napoleonic merchantmen. I found a few complete hull plans that could be used for modeling, but it will take a little while for me locate them again.
 
the last plan under the unrated vessels cat
Post Captain said:
One area this game is missing out on is Napoleonic merchantmen. I found a few complete hull plans that could be used for modeling, but it will take a little while for me locate them again.
Click to expand...

Yes, among many other types :( the last plan under the 'unrated vessels' category would qualify as one I beleive :onya
 
Here are a few merchantmen ans smuggerlers I found, plus one or two possible privateers:
http://collections.r...cts/384171.html
http://collections.r...cts/385645.html
http://collections.r...cts/385544.html
http://collections.r...cts/384788.html
http://collections.r...cts/384158.html
http://collections.r...cts/384155.html
http://collections.r...cts/385775.html (A true merchantman in form)
http://collections.r...cts/385731.html (maybe even more tubby than the previous)
http://collections.r...cts/384289.html
http://collections.r...cts/384291.html (very interesting, one of the smaller full-rigged ships I've ever seen)
http://collections.r...cts/384792.html (not very many of these ingame)
http://collections.r...cts/384730.html
http://collections.r...cts/384789.html (one of the smaller schooners ever built)
http://collections.r...cts/384800.html (this one has some very elegant lines)

I tried to include vessels that I felt were missing in the game.
 
the stern on that last one looks very nice, and they aren't bad lines for a merchant ship :onya though the plan could do with having some more details put in there. The three before that look to be smugglers, and the 'ferret of fowye' apparently is too. that packet ship would be neat. the 90 ft 18 gun brig is certainly a privateer, though captured french or english built i cant tell (there were very few english privateers at this time) The Albacore sloop of war looks nice, and has nice lines for being a converted merchant ship. pretty complete plan too. the others are definately full on merchantmen, some very english looking ones (mainly because of the stern, seperating the outer windows on each side from the rest of the row is a very english decorative scheme)
Edit; the nelson here looks like a very typical merchantman, but the plan is incomplete http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/460841.html
another one http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/460855.html
 
We do need some ugly ships for authenticity's sake. I might even take on a few at some point in not too distant future.
 
Beautiful plans you have there! No love for earlier period ships? My favourite time period is 1680 to 1740.
 
I just like the form and armament of Napoleonic vessels for some reason.
 
Thanks Kriswood! why are they napoleonic?
Post Captain said:
I just like the form and armament of Napoleonic vessels for some reason.
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what he said! :D
To me ships from the napoleonic era seem the pinnacle of good looks (still a decent amount of decoration but simple and refined) hull forms, rigging, and power (for example large frigates with 18pdr or 24pdr main batteries, which you probably noticed are a favorite of mine ^_^ ) It's hard to explain really, it probably has alot to do with reading alot of O'Brien and CS Forrester, and having a blast playing Age of Sail 2 when I was a youngin'! 1680 to 1740 is the cutoff for POTBS ships right? I would imagine you have a TON of expertise in that time period, so feel free to post some plans of earlier ships in this thread if you would like! :onya Considering how long I've spent looking for plans, I think it would be great to have this thread as a sort of one stop resource for modellers, whatever the type of vessel and time period they are looking for. :)
 
I'm the opposite. I like the early periods best. The late periods are too militarized with everyone wearing a uniform and strutting around saluting eachother. Bleagh. Even the corporations have their own armies and navies. I'm looking forward to just kicking back in a Carrack or Fluyt in the 1500s and early 1600s.
 
The privateers and merchants didn't have uniforms. Only the marines and officers had uniforms in the RN. Seamen didn't. There wasn't actually very much saluting going on. And, far more important than any of the former, Carracks smell bad.

(on a more serious note, hull and rigging wise, many of the pre-Revolutionary War vessels were very prone to capsizing)

I still like the earlier vessels, but the dynamics of the lateen sails ruin them for me in the game. (My God! It's a miracle! Spell-check now recognizes lateen as a word!)
 
Haha agreed, seamen didnt have uniforms until well after napoleonic times. Naval officers would often wear civilian clothes except in battle or formal occasions too. I think pomp and circumstance was more common in the armies of the time than the navies. Not to say there was none in the navies, and the Royal navy certainly loved its traditions, but it was certainly limited by practial concerns.

The british east india company was really the only militarized corparation, and even they couldnt match up to a national navy, their warships only exsisted to protect their merchantmen (which admitedly were heavily armed as it was). There were alot of privateers, but they rarely had uniforms and behaved better than pirates of earlier times, at least they were governed by laws and took prisoners.

I'll admit that the two major powers at the time, Britain and France, being locked in a death struggle of a war for over twenty years probably militarized the world quite a bit, in mindset if nothing else. But it did produce some mighty fine ships as each tried to build them better than the other side :onya and that isn't to say that earlier times were any safer, especially before piracy was severely reduced in the caribbean and americas in the early 1700s
 
That's a HUGE amount of plans you've found, Captain Armstrong! I've pinned this thread to ensure these remain easily accessible in future.

I have to say, I'm with KrisWood on the period preferences front (though I do like vessels from the mid to late 1700s as well, most notably HMS Victory :wub: ).
Personally I find ships built after 1800 to be less interesting design-wise, mostly because they tend to be much less decorative.
I do agree that some more plans of earlier ships would be great, but we should really try to target ship types that we have low-quality or no models of at all.

Post Captain said:
We do need some ugly ships for authenticity's sake. I might even take on a few at some point in not too distant future.
Click to expand...
Some of the stock game ships are fairly ugly :blah: ... but of course they're missing a lot of authenticity.

Post Captain said:
I still like the earlier vessels, but the dynamics of the lateen sails ruin them for me in the game.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's a shame the lateens are so hard get right. The stock versions seem to be modelled at an angle to the forward axis, but the effect is still off.
Maybe a similar technique to that used to fix spankers could be employed for some lateens, but I've no idea how effective that would be.
 
Armada said:
That's a HUGE amount of plans you've found, Captain Armstrong! I've pinned this thread to ensure these remain easily accessible in future.

I have to say, I'm with KrisWood on the period preferences front (though I do like vessels from the mid to late 1700s as well, most notably HMS Victory :wub: ).
Personally I find ships built after 1800 to be less interesting design-wise, mostly because they tend to be much less decorative.
I do agree that some more plans of earlier ships would be great, but we should really try to target ship types that we have low-quality or no models of at all.
Click to expand...
Thanks Armada! I also linked to a thread by rider88 at the top of my first post which should have more older plans in it if anyone is interested

I agree that ships from after 1800 or so generally don't have enough decoration. for warships, this was because decoration costed lots of money and took extra time, and I know the British government for one just couldn't justify spending money on decoration instead of on more ships to defeat napoleon. I think the best combination of ship design and ship decoration generally lies between 1797-1801 (very limited time I know) but thats where I find the majority of the designs I like. My next three ships will be from that timeframe, and only the first two I built are outside of it. Of course there are exceptions, as you can see from the plans I posted :)
Post Captain said:
We do need some ugly ships for authenticity's sake. I might even take on a few at some point in not too distant future.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure about the need for "ugly' ships as much as 'average' ships. I realize that I tend to choose designs that had above average performance (like the Rev, PDN, and Volage) but my next batch will be of ships that one would see more often, the ones that perhaps werent the most glamorous of their type but that were proven, reliable, cost-effective, and could perform their duties well, so were usually built in high numbers. (i.e. small 18pdr frigates compared to ships like the Revolutionnaire, my 18 gun brig compared to the Prince de Neufchatel)
 
Captain Armstrong said:
Post Captain said:
We do need some ugly ships for authenticity's sake. I might even take on a few at some point in not too distant future.
Click to expand...
I'm not so sure about the need for "ugly' ships as much as 'average' ships. I realize that I tend to choose designs that had above average performance (like the Rev, PDN, and Volage) but my next batch will be of ships that one would see more often, the ones that perhaps werent the most glamorous of their type but that were proven, reliable, cost-effective, and could perform their duties well, so were usually built in high numbers. (i.e. small 18pdr frigates compared to ships like the Revolutionnaire, my 18 gun brig compared to the Prince de Neufchatel)
Click to expand...

The more average the better, of course, from a historic standpoint, but I would like to see a pretty good spread of hull forms... By ugly I didn't exactly mean completely ugly... take Friendship of Salem, for example. Hideous from a technical standpoint (tubby and slab-sided) and from certain angles, but still not entirely ugly. (I would have used a picture where she was under full sail, but I couldn't resist.)
 
yeah, a wide spread of hull forms is definately a good thing :)
Did anyone see the last link under 'inspriation'? http://www.hermione.... sequel.html
I think its very cool that a full size frigate is being rebuilt, its should be launched soon too, seing as the launch was planned for march. I would think it will be quite the attraction at tall ship festivals and the like :dance
 
I've actually been following that vessel for quite a long time. They've made pretty good progress since I last checked in on them. The rigging will also probably take longer than expected.

Edit: and unlike Rose/Surprise the gun deck will actually have the proper amount of head room. (Rose-prise has a whole eight feet from deck to overhead)
 
Post Captain said:
I've actually been following that vessel for quite a long time. They've made pretty good progress since I last checked in on them. The rigging will also probably take longer than expected.

Edit: and unlike Rose/Surprise the gun deck will actually have the proper amount of head room. (Rose-prise has a whole eight feet from deck to overhead)
Click to expand...
Yeah me too, its great to see the hull pretty much complete. lol of course the rigging will take longer than expected, it has a way of doing that, both in real life and in modeling <_< not only will the gundeck be correct, it will be quite a bit bigger! the whole ship is much more frigate-like than the suprise/rose
 
The staff in SD Maritime actually maintain that the roomy gun deck was built so that the owners would be able to turn Rose into a restaurant if she failed as a replica ship.
 
yeah I think I remember reading that that was the case somewhere. the rose was built in the early 70's right? she is actually in decent condition then if you were to compare it to the state of a ship built in the 1770s in 1812. few warships of that size (and I imagine merchants too) would be used as much more then hulks at that age.
 
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