First of all, thank you for an enjoyable experience.

Binged a bit over the weekend, and figured won't spoil store ratings with the review I'd be inclined to leave.

Right now, this is a solid 3/5 game - which is a massive shame, because with another polish/balance pass it could be so much better.

Some observations off the top of my head, in no particular order:

1. Ship choice seems pretty much limited to "bigger is better." Didn't really notice much performance difference in terms of "handling" (speed of maneuver bar gain). A shame, would have liked to see some utility to keeping a smaller and faster/nimbler vessel instead ("Royal Sloop best Pirates! ship," heh)

2. Some weapons are clearly better than others, with few drawbacks to them. Berserker dart, lightning gun, section guns, hullcracker mortar - they all do their specialist thing without much drawback compared to more generalist choices. There's not much point to using roundshot, as an example, instead of specializing, since reload times are functionally the same anyway (even ignoring potential loss of resources). Ditto for the mortar slots - get a hullcracker (for that %(@#*^& "can't change distance" map, more below), get an acid mortar, you're set. Not much point to using anything else for the same reasons.

3. Kraken fights are straight up not fun. They seem to scale, too, so the better ship you have, the more HP spongey that thing is. The attack rotation is just... ugh. In between the ramming attack and tentacles breaking the hull, with a corvette I ended up not having enough opportunities to SHOOT the thing in the first place before my hull was gone. Meanwhile I quite easily took one out in a Schooner. Maybe the anti-ramming upgrade, or spikes, help, haven't tried either yet. I don't use those because I don't want to damage enemy ships that I do board, so I spend money on more pertinent upgrades. As is, while having little trouble with a smaller ship, my Corvette got sunk simply because I was taking constant hull damage with no opportunity to damage the kraken back. Abso-bloody-lutely annoying.

4. The map where you can't change ship distance. Yeeeeh. I'd strongly suggest changing it so you can only change distance at timed moments (kind of like "brace" wave coming, or any other environmental damage), and ONLY if your ship has full maneuver bar. Ended up with 20 minutes of a "fight" at far distance between enemy with flamethrowers as main guns (so they couldn't damage me) and my ship with chain shot, 2 section guns, and a lightning gun. Enemy crew had three surgeons, so had to whittle down the defenseless ship with section guns till it sunk. That encounter was what made me buy the hullcracker mortar, heh.

5. Encounters injuring a crew member and knocking them out at the same time are... ugh. Especially the "lucky shot" combat one, which immediately side-lines one of the few precious sailors. Which encourages running with a full crew in case of such incidents, and that in turn makes the lifeboat and "swimmer" events irrelevant as recruitment possibility. Unlike port recruiting, those are already pure RNG (they probably should get better stats/traits, TBH), and even with that the need to account for potential "knockout injury" means it's a risk leaving a slot open for potential rescues. Wish you could use cargo slots for temporary berth for spare sailors. Or there was an "extra hammock" upgrade that turned one of your ship's cargo slots into a single-sailor storage - just so I can sail with a full crew complement, and still pick up occasional stray rescue. Also, be nice if majority of those events simply added a wound (that's already 75+ gold expense for a trained one you're better off keeping), instead of always KO-ing them as well.

6. Not being able to salvage equipment/upgrades from enemy ships is a big "WTF." While it would probably require rework of income balance (then again, you sell for fraction of the value even with port discounts), really did not like not being able to upgrade own ship that way - at the very least in terms of weapon loadouts. Be a nice alternative to having to find that single port that sells whatever half the ships I'm fighting and capturing are firing at me. Other equipment/upgrades aside, shouldn't be that difficult for my sailors to haul a swivel gun or some cannons from a captured ship. Especially when they cost ten times what I'll likely get in "spoils."

Don't get me wrong. Game's fun enough to make me want to leave this feedback, but probably could use some more time in the oven, especially in terms of greater differentiation of mechanics.

"Kraken hates this one simple trick."

Turns out, Acid mortar that gets washed away from decks works underwater. Go figure. Having two equipped and timed to alternate shots completely trivalizes the encounter if you place them at distances to cover all potential ranges (the hitbox is appropriately huge on that one). Since it's a DOT field, and the Kraken will break attack animations while taking ANY damage, including while "charging" underwater... yeah. From "OMG WTF BBQ can't touch this" to "pop goes the cepelaphod." Way too easy now.

Other mortars work in a much more balanced way, so I guess that's what I was missing to get direct-shot damage in. L2P issue, I suppose, since I did not expect the necessity of having to use indirect-fire weapons in that fight. Shame Acid completely overperforms (there and during normal combat), so don't see much point in using other types (especially ship-sinking ones).

Also, not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I can't get the alternate facing of ship to trigger in Kraken combat - is that hard-coded to only allow port facing? Can't maneuver to change face during the encounter, either, even when the bar is full, wheel manned, and the Kraken is performing "ranged" attacks (including spitting). Wanted to try alternate weapon loadouts, despite things working in encounters with other ships, Kraken is "all the port, all the time."

Game's still too much fun to stop. Ay, caramba, I should be doing other things.

Captain's Log: I have no idea how long I've been playing now. Send more coffee.

Turns out I really should have started with the main campaign instead of going immediately into Freestyle. If only to get the explanation of why mortars work the way they do, and why you should have them against the Kraken.

That said...the longer I play, the more lack of balance surfaces. For the record, I'm playing on Normal - I'm sure going higher will make things more interesting. I assume Normal is the intended difficulty, though, so feedback based around it.

In Main Campaign, I just killed the Kraken. I don't try to "farm" maps, just do "clear and move to next one" playthrough. Miss the timer-until-Kraken-attack already, though - at least it gave some sense of urgency. Found a bunch of locked gates that are still locked even at this stage. Cleared the Howling Sea - was looking for the Ice Breaker upgrade, couldn't get to the Cold Sea from the starting zone, thought might unlock it that way. Nope, Cold Sea stays locked. Maybe need to progress more (freeplay FTW, though).

I still have about a third of the Great Funding to visit. Meanwhile, I'm already pretty much maxed out on everything - aside from Automatic Winch that I have yet to find being sold, I have all the upgrades I need or want (including section upgrades). Cruising around in a Man o' War already, with a full crew complement (sorry, castaways, the game don't like you :( ).

One Sailor (starting), one Navigator (starting), one Surgeon (just hired for the last spot), four Gunners (including 1 starting). The first Main Campaign I started, and abandoned almost immediately to Freeplay, was when I went with a starting Marine thinking boarding combat is important - only to find out I can clear enemy decks without even coming close to them with the right loadout. So, Gunners are king, at least on Normal. Before I got the final Surgeon, my Navigator was often used as temporary gunner replacement, or doing repairs for the fights where distance was irrelevant (most of them). Sailor is handy for occasional "I need the fires put out fast" job, especially in early game, but by fifth crewman becomes somewhat redundant, as well - which is ironic, considering you need to level up the repair specialization for it to really shine. Shame at that point most repairs are just an afterthought.

The only Section Upgrades I don't have are:
- Hull Crack Resistance in all of them. This is intentional, to train repairing, since Automatic Pumps turn hull cracks completely irrelevant. That's a Bad Thing™ in itself, they really should be limited to handling water from 1.5 cracks at most. It's not like the repairs take that long with a trained crew, much less a dedicated Sailor.

- Performance on the off-side board. I don't even use it, it's also empty of weapons since even the "caught on the wrong side" encounters are a non-issue with a dedicated Navigator at the helm (even before he got Focused from a random event, heh).

Ship's set up as default Cannonade, with, from the stern toward the bow:

- Berserker Dart (OP for most fights) crewed by the Captain (good all-rounder, including emergency navigation handling)
- two sets of Section Guns, because a fast lock-out of enemy guns without blowing up their ship is dandy. Especially when enemy crew then starts trying to repair those. While taking continuous damage from consecutive volleys. I usually set them on the enemy gun decks on auto-fire and mostly ignore for the entire combat.
- Lightning Gun - best damage when enemy crew is most numerous (i.e. the important part of the fight), lets you lock out specific firing positions in the first one or two salvos enemy might get off, and fantastic completely to the Berserker Dart. Both also work exceedingly well with:
- Acid Mortar - how to win fights the easiest way. Excellent synergy with the Lightning Gun, and not single-target, either. So DoT AOE, and a multi-target stun in the damaging area. But wait, there's MORE
- Ship Smasher mortar - it can knock enemies overboard, and stun-lock entire crew. Particularly lulzy when that stun occurs in Acid Mortar AoE (stagger their respective launches!). Hull cracks for luring enemy into Acid AoE.

And... here's the problem. This setup means every single fight, no matter the enemy numbers or weapons onboard (or even enemy type, because it's easy-peasy even against a Kraken despite Berserker Dart doing no damage), is pretty much the same.

Main batteries of Section Guns counter-firing on their opposite positions on enemy ship. Sometimes there's a situation where one might be range-locked, and either aft or stern of the enemy has some problematic swivel gun on it (which mostly means Berserker Dart), but the swivel guns stop being used after initial salvo exchange or two, anyway. Mostly set up and forget, not like you'll need them.

Acid Mortar and Ship Smasher - either set up on the bow of enemy ship (Healing Station that damaged crew will go to), or, in case of fighting enemy mortar ship, maybe covering one of the back mortars for one or two shots - at which point those positions will likely be abandoned to repair ship damage. Can be also denied use with both Berserker Dart and (to a lesser degree) Lighting Gun. By third shot latest, I have both already covering the enemy's Healing Station. The hull cracks from Ship Smasher guarantee a target will go there anyway, and the more damage enemy crew takes, the more targets cluster for a handy Acid AoE.

Barserker and Lightning Gun are the only ones that need target adjustment. At least there are some initial choices: counter-Berserker Dart fire if enemy has one, targetting enemy Surgeons, or switching targets at stern of the bow of the ship to lock them into terminal acid shower.

But... yeah. Mostly it's "destroy main batteries, set up both mortars on the healing station, use Berskerer Dart and Lightning Gun for crowd control, win no matter what." Most fights at this point I don't even take meaningful hull damage, if any.

Considering this is the opening stage of the game, and I'm basically rolling God Mode already, the balance is definitely not there. Doubly problematic is the fact that vertical progression in terms of upgrades is already gone, too - and that's after about a fifth of the map, at best, visited!

My starting crewmen already have double-golden pips, and are pretty much maxed out in both their specializations and boarding combat (some need another blue pip in melee, but that's mostly because I kill things at range so effectively). No more ship upgrades, either by type or subcomponents. All the combat encounters at this point are so same-y, they get boring very quickly - and being the main source of income, are best not avoided. There's no danger anymore except for some random event KOing a crew member, requiring back-tracking to a nearby port for easy-to-afford Apothecary visit. Oh, and with over 1000 supplies (I start selling them at that point) no problem with such backtracking, either.

Based on Freeplay I don't think there's much of a challenge left to find, at least in immediate future. I breezed through Cultist Islands in Freeplay, so here's hoping the campaign changes it somewhat. Still... Best ship, best upgrades, maxed crew already.

That's a massive problem for gameplay loop, without any kind of challenge there's not much point to it, no matter how I might want to enjoy playing further :(

You might want to consider expanding equipment tiers, for both weapons and at least some of the upgrades (such as hull plating). So that later enemies are more dangerous, because their guns do more damage, and their ships are more resistant. Likewise allow the player to continue justifying all the combat encounters with the need for more gold for more upgrades.

Progression is very important for a healthy gameplay, and Abandon Ship seems to give up on it way, way too fast.

The game is fun enough to make me want to spend all this time pouring my thoughts into the grim darkness of the intertubes, though, so there's that.