Sailing-/driving-skill, Shipwreck/accident, minimum crew

[ElHuerta]

Hmm... I'm surprised this hasn't yet been suggested (well, maybe it has, but I didn't find it).

When we don't have weather and currents, what if there was a sailing-skill, which would affect how good a ship stays it's course (when sailing, the course would change randomly based on sailing-skill). Sailing skill would also affect the speed of the ship.

And a possibility of shipwrecking on which your sailing skill has an affect on. If shipwrecked, you would be thrown on the the nearest town with some random damage and ship and most of the stuff in it lost (sailing-skill reducing damage).

One could think of an item built here; the false beacon to aid in shipwrecking and getting some benefit from it...

There seems to be more than enough vehicles going around, what if it would be possible to have an accident for them, based on a driving skill. And people would return to place of origin with random damage. Or be on location with damage and some walking to do.

The bigger vessels should have a minimum crew to operate. This would make operating the bigger ships a co-operation effort.

Addition: Compass and starboard. Stuff to build to stay in course...

[Piscator]

Whose skill would be used? There's no such thing as a steering project. We could of course take the skill of the person who set course, but it seems not entirely right to magically increase the speed of a boat just because a good sailor turns the wheel once and gets back to smoking meat directly afterwards.

[ElHuerta]

You are right. Shouldn't there be a helmsman-project for the helmsman and sailing-project for the common sailers?