Gotcha.
I’m gonna fly off into some D@W stuff here, so please don’t think I’m giving you the business, though I may be “selling” D@W a bit here. I’m just showing what ACKS “will have” in a couple weeks or so that might be conceptually usable:
So, officers in D@W have a few characteristics that might aid here:
Leadership Ability: Equal to your # of henchmen you can hire - 4+ChaMod+Proficiency if any.
Zone of Control: 1/2 the Leadership Ability, representing the radius in hexes a commander may activate units without penalty (give them orders)
Strategic Ability: Highest of Int or Wis bonus, minus worst of Int or Wis penalty if any, then Military Strategy added to that. That determines your initiative bonus in mass combat for the commander’s units.
Morale Modifier: CHA plus any class powers (battlefield prowess, etc)
So, you gain a number of activation points equal to your Leadership Ability that you spend to activate your units. (it also determines how many divisions you can have in the army you command).
I could see splitting the marines and weapon crews into separate “units”, that can be activated in the particular order the captain wishes, with the ship perhaps counting as it’s own “unit” for movement.
Furthermore, each ship can be it’s own “division”, thus limiting any given captain’s fleet size to what he or she is able to handle.
Zone of Control could be reworked to reflect whatever the historical signalling method (and effective range thereof) was between ships of the time, perhaps with bonuses from the Signalling proficiency, or overload the Naval Strategy proficiency.
Separating Naval from Military, proficiency wise, is a really good idea; they are two different beasts. Make the PC that wants to be a terror on land and sea work for it.
Regarding the rammed ship effects: There’s the concept of “shock” in D@W, if a unit takes enough damage or magical damage; a morale roll determines effects (rout, flee, recoil, stand firm). That might be something worth modifying, since you’re already using a morale roll in several different places.
Pursuant to that, a unit can become “disordered”, requiring another Activation Point to use. If a successful ramming would cause each unit on board to have to roll for “shock”, and those units fail the roll, the captain perhaps wouldn’t have enough AP in that round to activate everyone on ship, and may have to forgo movement or marines firing or weapons firing depending on who failed, thus reflecting the on-deck disorder of a rammed ship.
Or do it for the whole ship.
Perhaps a critical hit (a particularly good ramming) (if you know what I mean) might also force the roll for the ramming ship in addition to double damage or what-have-you.
Completely random thought: is it worth the complexity to have a “warm up” to gaining speed, espc. from a stationary start? Perhaps using burst rowing to reduce the effect?