Message text In the following discussion I will talk about the boardgame rules, if you do not have a WS&IM manual at hand, you can check rules here: http://www.kjkoster.org/wsim/ (although the owner of the site might have slighly modified them)
It is also possible to find a pdf of the manual online.
The original issue
In the online version on the main site, when a ship loses its last hull, it surrenders and sinks, no longer blocking line of fire.
In the original boardgame, however, when a ship loses its last hull it surrenders by striking but it does not sink so it still blocks line of fire (they sink only in some Advanced Rules cases).
As this difference is quite a big change in gameplay and we wanted to stay as close to the original game, I've tried to eliminate this difference.
The first Fix (not good enough)
The first fix I tried was easy: do not make "struck ships" (surrendered by striking) sink when they lose last hull. However, if the ship does not sink, it is now a surrendered ship like the rest so it blocks line of fire (which is what we wanted), but it can also be boarded!
And here comes the problem...
The Rule problem
According to the rule VIII.D.1.b "When all of a ship's hull squares have been marked off, that ship will 'surrender by striking her colors'. The ship is considered to be in such danger of sinking that it cannot be sailed or the guns worked for the remainder of the game (even by a prize crew). None of the original crew can be removed from the ship (all are required to try to keep the ship afloat). Neither side is allowed to fire on a 'struck' ship, although it can be boarded. Excess hull hits are treated as 'misses'. The crew of a 'surrender by striking' ship cannot participate in melees even if boarding parties have been formed. Place a strike marker on a ship which has 'struck'".
So as you can see, struck ships can be boarded and captured as also stated by:
Rule IX.D.1 "Any ship which surrenders in any of four ways either by 'striking', 'firepower', 'melee' or 'immobility' may be captured.
However, it is reminded that struck ships are still in a bad condition, infact:
Rule IX.D.12 "Ships which have 'surrendered by striking' may never fire their guns nor sail even if captured. The prize crew can melee."
So basically struck ships can be captured, but you can only use them as "platforms" from which your prize crew can melee.
Now the question is: what happens when you capture back your ship?
1)Usually in our online game, when you capture your ship, you free your men which were made prisoner and your "prize crew" merges with the original freed crew and you continue normally. However, in this case, when you free your ship, it is *still* a struck ship (0 hull) so if you merge the new crew and the old one, should they still all stay busy trying to keep the ship afloat? So freeing a struck ship is not so useful after all? (Although the opponent no longer gets capture points).
2)Another interpretation could be that the original crew should still stay busy trying to keep the ship afloat, while the new crew, even if friendly, will stay as a separate "prize crew" and mind his own business so that it can melee.
Which is the correct interpretation?
And there's also another question..
Rule IX.D.8 says: "At least one crew square of the prize crew is required for every six prisoner crew squares on a ship. If the numbers fall below this ratio, the prisoners immediately take over the ship, and the prize crew becomes prisoners."
So what happens if you capture an enemy struck ship and your prize crew suffers a crew hit and drops below the 1 to 6 ratio?
Does your prize crew get captured? It is quite funny to think that the struck crew, which cannot move, fire guns or even melee can find the time to make your prize crew prisoner, isn't it?
One way I thought of solving this problem is to use interpretation 2) and make an exception so that the "prisoner revolt" cannot happen (as this does not make much sense in my opinion). However, if we use interpretation 2, what happens if the ship is captured again? Can the "friendly prize-crew", now captured, revolt?
As you can see the situation isn't very clear and the solutions promise to be long to code as they are full of exceptions, so while we discuss about it, I propose the following...
A (temporary?) house rule
Struck ships are so in danger of sinking that no-one would ever board them!
They can still foul with your ship and you can still grapple them (if you want) but no boarding action against them is possible.
To distinguish them from the other surrendered ships (which can be captured and which can also cease to be surrendered once we implement Rule IX.D.14) , they will have a different surrendered flag, as can be seen here:
http://youplay.it/beta/play/ws_GameMove.asp?GameID=23017
(Shrewsbury is struck, while Invincible is surrendered by immobility)
Since this House Rule is better than the First Fix, I've coded it and it's into effect on this Beta site from.... now! 
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