User:Thefirstdude/featured article contest/Might ring
Might rings are the colored rings that surround ships when viewed through the crow's nest view. Their color ranges from deep blue to dark red, as shown. This color indicates the relative difficulty of the ship to the one it is being viewed from - that is, how much more or less powerful the ship is than the one it is being viewed from. If a pirate aboard a sloop with one other pirate aboard, for example, sees a player-controlled war brig, its might ring will almost certainly be red. Equally, if the same pirate sees a player-controlled sloop with only one pirate aboard, its might ring will be blue. Attacking a ship with a blue might ring twice will end with an unfriendly encounter with the Black Ship, a.k.a. El Pollo Diablo.
As of release 2007-05-24, brigand and barbarian ships' might rings contain a small icon that indicates whether the brawl will be a rumble or a swordfight. The dhow with the greenish might ring is a barbarian vessel; the sloop with the yellow might ring is controlled by brigands. Ships controlled by other players do not have such an icon, like the merchant brig pictured.
A number of factors go into calculating a might ring. The most important one is the number of pirates on board. This is sometimes abused by players interested in attacking other players with an unfair advantage, as new players and swabbies are not factored into might ring calculations. Pirates' standings in the piracy puzzles (the duty puzzles plus swordfighting and rumble) are also a large factor in might ring calculations, potentially allowing a five-pirate sloop to have a higher might ring than one with seven pirates.
