Captain Skills - Lookout Last update 20th May 2001

This is a measure of your lookouts ability to recognise another vessel. A good lookout is a major assett to any vessel. Recognising pirates, merchants and ships of war from each nation at a distance gives you a good length of time to decide your reaction before getting too close, and a chance to try and gain the wind. Always remember as well that your lookout could be wrong.

A beginning lookout has a rank of 3. Normal men have a lookout rank of 1. For the purpose of this game, my assumption on lookouts is: they are on duty from sunrise to sunset. At night, the lookout is a normal man on watch. At night lookouts ranks are reduced by 2 with a minimum skill rank of 1. It is assumed at night eventually the dedicated lookout will be called to make a judgement on the approaching ship. Merchant ships except large galleons do not have lookouts. Large pirate crews may have a lookout. Small pirate crews don't. All naval vessels have a lookout.

Skill Rank	Maximum Visual Range Modifier	% Chance to determine ship type	% Chance to determine nation	% Chance to determine ship name & captain
1	+00%	30	30	10
2	+03%	40	32	20
3	+04%	45	34	22
4	+05%	50	36	24
5	+05%	52	38	25
6	+05%	54	40	26
7	+06%	56	41	27
8	+06%	58	42	28
9	+06%	60	42	29
10	+07%	65	42/	30/40/50/70/90

Range of observation in daylight are: Max range/long range/medium range/close range/boarding

Chance to determine ship name & captain is really an index of the lookouts knowledge of vessels and captains.

Subterfuge:

Pirate and merchant ships were a wary and cunning lot. They had an amusing habit of flying flags of other nations to fool each other into thinking they were something they weren't. Pirates in particular captured and kept flags of all nations to use as circumstances permitted. Lookouts observing ships using subterfuge will see them as they pretend to be depending on their lookout skill. If they correctly identify the vessel as it pretends to be, a second roll is made at -3 skill ranks (minimum of 1 rank) to determine if the lookout has seen through the subterfuge.

I don't recall warships using this subterfuge, but remember navies did hire merchant ships to act as warships, so they could be mistaken at a distance. As far as I know all warships flew their national flag. Also remember even pirates could mistake a warship bearing down on them, as one of Bartholomew Roberts ships did in 1722.