Time to approach this. I don't know if Rokuro comes or doesn't come back but it's not good we have the ship hover in limbo for the players who are on it.

After Sakkaku Attack, it needs to be de-mujinafied and repaired. And maybe given a new captain. The first I'll make a wider event of, the second looks like a personal plot for anyone who ends up being in charge/cares, and the third might be a small 'new captain selection' too if Rokuro is out. The last one might be an opportunity to rearrange things a bit to reflect personal story developments, a chance for one of the non-captain senior staff to ascend.

Give me your thoughts, please, here or privately. I am looking at it as throwing some plot hooks at players and making those who feel sidelined more central to things.

Do we have the numbers to crew it? Without removing crew from other ships I mean

This boat still contains Hikari and Akarei at the very least. We have c. 20 Explorers in the game still, maybe more, so the average for a ship is above 3.5.

As much as it sucks to lose a ship...

I think it's better to consolidate our groups a little more. I already felt we were to spread earlier with 6 ships when I felt 3-4 would've worked better in terms of activity and level of skill for First Mates.

Tori and I are ships of 2 now

Again I need to agree with mother Dragon - it may be better to instead move the active people from that ship to other ships, or just allow more free-reign for people to move around

I concur.

This.

Please consolidate the people from the Yamato Maru onto existing ships.

If we do another voyage, than the crews definitely need to be reorganized and consolidated, with the extra ships becoming off-screen parts of the fleet. In port, I would suggest de-emphasizing the crew/ship relationships, to encourage exploration by mixed parties, which has more or less been done.

Ultimately, though, I think it all depends on the end game narrative and individual character goals. Some of us have invested duty points that require a ship, and would like it to be our own.

It would be a little frustrating to be demoted when I spent my XP and Duty Points for this position. I also don't really want to have to spend XP to be captain so... Eh.

Less ships in the long run would likely be a good thing. At least if there is more long voyages to preform.

I think for the time being it would be fine to repair the Yamato though, and find her a new captain if needed. Exploration can be done by combined crews, and we can change which ships explore to give crews chances to repair, patrol, and trade.

You...could become Tori's first mate? :3

I'm fine with us consolidating the remaining people onto other ships.

Perhaps we can save the Yamato and just leave it in port as a back up ship or have it as an NPC ship in the background or something? In either case we just keep the ship but it doesn't really play a huge role in the story anymore.

We need to look at the ups and downs on this...

First of all, limiting the number of vessels also means: limited maneuvers in battle, limited resource space for the same number of people, if anything would happen to any of the vessels then we would also be cramped into fewer vessels.

Since we are splitting we could use the vessel to return some people to the Empire, meanwhile another group continue forth. This way we wouldn't lose strength either.

We could also leave the vessel on land and turn it into a restaurant.

I think there's some agency on player part to fight back and restore the ship, so I am not going to be preventing that. The composition of crews and expeditions is another matter entirely - people don't have to go on their own ship, can mix up and grab impromptu first mates as long as the original ones don't go and don't mind. It's no longer crucial to have robust, unified teams for anything, so an additional ship doesn't hurt.

As far as DP spending is concerned - nothing is wasted. In YM case Akarei either keeps her post or is fully reimbursed. I am not going to rip people of their DP just because another player dropped and GM decision roughed up their ship.

Mothball the vessel and improve the two smaller vessels

Suzume Rokuro has been posting in Discord a bit about being interested in coming back potentially after PAX Unplugged.

What is PAX Unplugged in terms of dates?

It is possible of course. EM8 thread will address the fate of the ship.

It is this weekend, I believe, ending Sunday.

Ok, so after Sunday. Sounds good.