Officers

 I've started working on the back end for the ship Officers feature.  The primary reason being that I've been intending to add it for a while, and UI changes need to be made to the Ship Maintenance window to support Cabin Upgrades, so it would be best to do that at the same time as the changes needed for Officers.  I'm going to get all the back end work done for both additions first, and the last step will be the UI and other client side changes.  So I don't expect to have either feature ready in the next update, but in some near future update.  

Enough on that, here's how Officers will work

Ships will have a number of Officer slots available.  To fill one of those slots you will recruit a new Officer.  You'll name the officer, and choose the officer's first specialty.  Officers provide a bonus to your ship based on their specialties.  Currently the planned specialties are as below, though I will add more.  

Watch Captain - Increase spotting distance
Sailing Master - Setting sail position speed bonus
Steward - Reduce food/water usage of crew
Surgeon - Medical crew bonus
Gunner - Bonus to repair effort required to fix leaks you cause
Carpenter - Repair speed bonus for leaks and hull integrity
Coxswain - Rowing speed bonus
Marine - Bonus to effectiveness of Marines used for boarding operations
Armorer - Bonus for handheld firearms

Doing the activity related to the specialty will increase the Officer's XP in that specialty.  Once the XP goes up enough, it will result in the Officer's level in that specialty increasing.  The Officer's level in a specialty starts at 1, and goes up to 5.  A 2% bonus is applied for each level.  So at level 5 you receive a 10% bonus.  Once reaching level 5, you can add an additional specialty to the Officer.  An Officer can have as many specialties as are available.  

Larger ships with multiple Officer slots can have Officers with the same specialty.  The bonus for all Officers with the same specialty is added up, but capped at 15% total.  

When your ship is sunk or captured, the Officers go down with the ship.  So a highly trained Officer becomes a loss you can't easily replace.  You will be able to transfer Officers between docked ships.  

On the Marine and Armorer specialties, eventually ship boarding will be added to the game.  At that time a new cargo item "Marine" will be added.  They will be soldiers dedicated to performing and repelling ship boarding operations, and will have greater effectiveness than your regular crew.  The Marine specialty will provide an additional bonus to these Marines.  The Armorer bonus will help specifically with the use of firearms for boarding (boarding will also involve bladed weapons though), but there will also be a feature where your crew uses firearms automatically at nearby enemy ships outside of boarding.  

So I've started the process of working on this.  I think it will spice up the ship customization a bit.