Gothicer

That could work as well. There are multiple ways they could be balanced depending on how the devs want them to work. I just hope they add some way that allows us to play around them. I haven't lost a ship to them yet, but I've watched many ships be destroyed by them with no chance of escaping or fighting back, and I've heard about many more in my zone alone. The fact is the way they work at the moment is just frustrating. Ghost ships just feel like the fun police, and they make me not want to play because at any moment I could lose days of work and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I don't mind if the devs want them to be overpowered, but we at least need some way to be able to reliably avoid or escape them.

I think there's a few different ways they could be balanced: Similar to what psykoe has said in another thread, I think the ghost ships are too aggressive. I feel like they should be slower than all other actual ships, so that you actually have a chance to escape from them if you wish to. Or, like psykoe said, simply make them non-aggressive until fired on. However, if you do decide to keep them hostile but slow them down, it might be a good idea to make their cannon range further than any player ships so that they can't be cheesed. That way, people who want to fight them can, and people who don't can actually avoid them rather than losing hours/days of work thanks to something they could do nothing to stop. Finally, I also think that ghost ships should be limited to one or two per zone, IF ANY AT ALL. Having fewer of them, along with the changes above, means that you can ramp up the loot quality and scale their health however you like, while also adding another layer of gameplay in terms of having to actually find the ghost ships to begin with. It could end up with people from different companies working together to search for them in multiple ships, and then taking them down together like raid bosses. Personally (especially from an MMO standpoint), I think that sounds much more fun than having them flood every zone. I really hope you take these suggestions into consideration. I've been enjoying the game a lot already, but I really do think Ships of the Damned need some changes.