Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
What do you think guys?
I think your observations are accurate--95% of the time the crew actions are pro-forma and dealing with the chits is much more hassle than its worth. Your proposal makes a lot of sense.

The one thing you would lose by this method is when the ship is close to destruction and you have few crew and need to make hard decisions. Even then what you need to do is usually clear, but the feeling that you are holding your ship together with spit and bailing-wire, and trying to outlast your foe who is doing the same, is a part of the game I appreciate. And there is the occasional interesting dilemma about things like whether to pump or work the guns...

For me the key change was moving to paper and pencil ship logs instead of using the chits (a laminated board would work too). So now instead of hunting around in a stack of 12 chits for the right ones, I just quickly mark down my actions, which usually requires me to jot down about 6 letters. For example fire to starboard is "FS", musketry is "M", repair is "R", etc. Most of the time I'm using mostly the same actions each turn, and can just put hash marks to indicate "same as last turn".

This has made the use of actions much less hassle, so then the good aspects of them shine through