In a lot of the character discussions, you mention ships and air ships. I'd love to know more about those!
Can players build them? Can we sail them ourselves? Might large ships require other players to help crew? Could NCP's be crew? Can we own ships? Since you're already planning on wind and ropes, might players have to set the sails in accordance to the wind in order to get movement?
I know it's a ton of questions, but as a sailor myself, I am very excited to hear what ideas you have!
You mention plans for steam and pipes... Steamboats?!
As others have started, basically, pretty much yes to all of the above. At least it's my plan. All things subject to change when hit against reality.
(Beware, I'm about to ramble.
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Much like avian flight, it will probably be based on a simplified physics model. It's easier for me to write and easier for the physics engine to handle. That being said, wind and wind resistance should come into play and sails should work properly, to include being able to tack around the wind and so on.
Basically, ships and air ships will be able to be anything you can construct. If you have enough anti-grav power, you could fly your castle around but you'd likely never find that much material to make all of the lift required. Buoyancy will be a somewhat simplified model based on the materials and air cavities.
Depending on how the ship is built, it may require additional crew to maneuver properly. For example, if tacking requires manning the rudder and multiple rope changes then the ship will be more agile if multiple folks are helping do those things. It is likely that NPCs would only be able to help with ships of relatively standard designs. Otherwise they wouldn't know what to do... and teaching them could be quite difficult. They are just AI, after all.
There will be a few different ways to make a ship air-worthy... all involving magic to some degree.
There will be a sort of neutral anti-gravity material that is essentially "lighter than air" but is not necessarily a gas (I might make it act like a liquid because I think a gas bag is more interesting than random block configurations). This material provides a constant source of lift without consuming energy directly. To make an airship buoyant will require a lot of this material and it will be difficult to find the raw materials and difficult to manufacture. In the end, this will create dirigible style air ships. These ships don't necessarily require power but they'll probably want some kind of thrust if they don't just want to drift with the wind.
The other approach is active anti-gravity. This is a magic circuit that when fed with energy will create an antigravity bubble of some size/power. Air ships employing this approach would require several "pods" to be both buoyant and stable. Unlike a dirigible, the fields must be lower than the center of gravity. The plus side of this approach is that the pods can also be potentially used for thrust. In my mind, because of a sort of gravitational precession, forward movement of an anti-gravity field provides extra lift (like a wing does)... so some of the energy can be devoted to thrust by angling the fields. Note, though, an anti-gravity pod is not an engine. It does not produce thrust but does repel gravitational forces. This is important because you can't simply rotate the pod 90 degrees to get super thrust. You'd be back to 100% uplift and no thrust. The field does have an axis of sorts so slightly tipping it can create an imbalance that produces forward thrust. It is likely that air ships of this variety will require power consumption and backup power to the point that regular thrust engines are not a problem to support. If you have to produce X watts of power to run your anti-grav engines and have a backup in case that power fails (or you drop like a stone)... then it's not really a big deal to run some regular thrust blocks that would require a small fraction of that power... especially since forward movement requires less power to the anti-grav pods.
In the game world, these ships will always resemble ocean going vessels and in most cases are direct derivatives. a) you need to land them quite frequently and the water makes a great place, b) the wind can then be used as propulsion on both land and sea, c) building these ships is expensive and it is quite likely that all air ships of this kind were once working cargo ships until the captains earned enough money to add the pods and energy systems.
The simplified flight physics model I've started for the avians may also support wing structures on air ships. In which case, wings may further offset some of the mobile lift requirements though a ship will still have to get off the ground first. I don't foresee airplanes anything like air planes in the standard game.
And if you are thinking, "Running an air ship like that sounds complicated... reducing power here will increasing thrust... keeping track of power sources and energy draw, etc.." That's precisely the point.
The control systems will be the trickiest parts of these ships to build and will make the difference between a good one and a bad one. But I can't wait to see what emergent systems players develop once it is all in place some day.
