Rules For Merchant Ships?

[Bos'n]

This is just a first try, so bear with me.

Ships
1. Choose any warship with a burden of three or less.
2. Cover half of the boxes in both the hull and crew damage rows, round up never down. This represents the space the space taken up with cargo. If you decide to take on more cargo then just cover more boxes. The more boxes you fill means the higher point value your ship is worth at the end of the game.
3. The hull and crew damage boxes that are left are treated like any other ship in the game.
4. A merchant ship must reduce its veer by one. Their crews are just not as good as the crews of fighting ships.
5. Merchant ships may not initiate an attack on another ship. The captain does not have to wait to be fired on. If an enemy ship makes threatening moves that makes the ships commander think he may be under attack, the merchant may fire.

Prize Crews
1. The only way to control the captured ship is to put a prize crew on board.
2. The prize crew can be part of a boarding party or part of your crew that is put on the captured ship after the fight is over.
3. You take one crew damage representing the prize crew that has been left on the captured ship. The prize ship uncovers one crew damage, again, representing the prize crew.
4. If you can not afford to send a prize crew, then you have to hope that the stricken ship will stick around until the game is over. If a captured ship tries to leave, then any other ship can capture it and might sink it.

Scoring
1. A merchant ship that is captured is worth one point for each point of burden, plus one point for each box devoted to cargo.
2. If the merchant is sunk, then it is worth only one point for each point of burden.
3. The merchant that survives gets one point for each box of cargo.

What do you think? Is this a promising start, then please state what your changes or additions would be or way off the mark, then give me an idea of what you would do about cargo ships used in the game.

Thanks for responding,

Bob