A few suggestions for future development of ships in VS or any ship related mods.

[Stejer]

I know there is the "Joy of Sailing" mod and that it was added a patch with the "Banners" mod to allow one to use a customised flag in their boat. I think this is an essential and wonderful feature, specially when roleplaying.

 

I do however have some suggestions on some possible mechanics to be added to any boat/ship mechanic.

1- Reinforced hulls, make so you can put cooper/broze/iron etc plates in the side hulls of your ship so if one is doing PvP like a marine battle you can ram into others ships as it was frequently done before the use of cannons. Those hulls can also raise the defense of the ship in case they are rammed, and as for the player on the ship they can receive some damage depending on how well the enemy hit them and a possibility of being thrown over board from the impact

2- In the small pre-view demo it was said that it will be later added the possibility of space for mounts, block-sized objects and maybe "mini dimentions", another idea could be a cargoship wich can be tied into the main ship upon wich you can put a few animals or chests, supplies etc. That way imo it allows for being less complicated to be able to get all the space and hitboxes of the objects in one ship. (In compessation the ship goes slower and maybe has a higher chance of sinking when rammed)

3- As I already gave the suggestions for ramming into other boat it would be obvious that some kind of naval battle sistem should be added, something simple like bow especifically made for naval battles wich have greater range, accuracy and let you aim for longer while in a boat and maybe some catching chains to slow down/ halt enemy boats

4- fishing net, not everything needs to be about war, so it would be cool to be able to have a fishing net wich you can add to the back of your boat so you can easily and quickly get fish of different amounts, sizes and species.

5- Water Rust monsters. That way not only you would still need to be careful at the night at the sea but would also make so the sea isn't a safe place to hide, allowing singleplayers to have challanges at sea as well (maybe a monster that tries to flip the ship or drifter that can board the ship or some kind of flying monster that acts similar to the phantom of the other block game)

6- sea waves and tides, those might be very difficult to program and would problably be very heavy on the game engine but the idea would be for a need to be careful and not just go full sail all the time in the high seas and the possibility of either being able to get your ship stuck on land depending on the time of day/year and that being able to cause damage that needs to be repaired on the ship (similar to how sometimes you need to put your ship on shore to clean it to remove barnacles and stuff) Another possible feature for the tides would be for seasonal flooding in rivers/lakes, similar to how the nile works where, lets say its a land of low/ medium fertility soil but when the floods end the dirt that was under water gets a higher fertility just like the nile.

7- Rivers, I know there is already a great mod of same name and that it will be definatly a feature that will be added in the future, but the suggestions goes not only for that possible tide feature I wal talking about to be added to it but asso the possibility to make a cannal (to connect a river to a lake and/or ocean for exemple) and a better world gen. I love the "Rivers" mod, however the way the rivers are generated are a bit strange/weird/unatural imo. Mainly the fact that they are always almost 5 blocks lower than the rest of the map, there is hardly any variety in their with and most of the time they are so frequent to the point the whole map is ocean an small islands disconected to each other because of river forks that dont really have a reason to be there. Of course Im not complaining but those are some aspects Id like to make notice of

 

I am no programmer so I have no idea how possible said mechanics would be, together with engine, how much lag it might produce in the game etc but I just think it would be some cool mechanics

[Alluvium]

I love these ideas  If new ocean creatures were introduced to the game the reinforced hulls could also prevent the ship being broken or sunk by aggressive mobs - a good incentive to upgrade. Metal parts could also be required to implement more efficient hull shape designs allowing faster travel by sea.

Great ideato introduce fishing nets. Would be good if these could include a small crude version for hand-fishing by the coast, and a larger net, maybe with a buoy, for fiahing at sea from ships. You could also implement 'lobster pots', similar to the basket traps on land, to leave in the sea and catch seafood.