Medieval fantasy ship carrier

[Argent Hellion]

>their best bet would be to scatter
Given that they would all be under the same wind, scattering wouldn't be quite random. One direction would be much slower than the other. It would be an unpopular captain who chose the slower!

That would lead to the majority of the pack deciding to follow the wind... Hmmm... Seems I'm going to have to start developing the naval background of my world in more depth and making slight adjustments to all the speeds you folks provided me with, so the gap between the navies wouldn't be obscene and both sides would have feasible tactics to apply.

For starters, I'm going to have to cut the cruising speed of the Carrier down to 40kph and limit its top speed at 50kph in order to give the sailed ships a better chance at evading the damn thing, otherwise it would simply dominate them in every regard and that doesn't account for good storytelling. Since I'm cutting down the Carrier's speed, it stands to reason I can expand on its size, it would be slightly slower than what I imagined but it could field more Hunters. Other ships in the strongest faction's navy would definitely be able to sail faster, but they'd lack the firepower a Carrier can provide.

As far as sailed ships go, it's safe to assume that the sailing technology would evolve at a reasonable rate if it does not have any sort of alternative, so I'll be using the Sovereign of the Seas to set the new standard. For now, I'll set the standard sailing speed of sailed ships to be 40kph, it's the Sovereign's recorded top speed and, funnily enough, the cruising speed of my Carrier, so this would allow the sailing ships to stay ahead of it. As far as the maximum speed goes, I could increase that to 60kph under ideal conditions, maybe even 70kph if the ship in question is specifically designed for speed.

So where do I stand at this moment with the most advanced faction? I do have some spreadsheets but I'm still working on the exact scale. The strongest faction isn't the one fielding the largest navy, but it is the most highly advanced since it's the first navy to evolve past the sailing technology and relies on new weaponry. It currently has 5 ship classes, the class names themselves are also a work in progress:

- Hunter class (gunboats)
- Predator class (Destroyer-submarine hybrids)
- Seeker class (Corvettes)
- ??? class (Cruisers)
- ??? class (Carriers)