There are eight quality levels in Windward. Depending on the type of item, each has a different affix. Quality goes from "damaged" to "legendary", also shown in a well-known color scheme (from other ARPGs) from grey to orange.
Don't confuse this with things such as "Sly", "Witty", "Scowling", and the like on crews. The quality prefix is still there on the line under the crew's aesthetic name. (Needs confirmation as to whether the aesthetic names are purely aesthetic!)
Sails
Hull
Cannons
Ammo
Crew
Captain
Specialist
Special Item
Torn
Damaged
Damaged
Damaged
Insubordinate
Untrained
Inept
Broken
Tattered
Cracked
Cracked
Rusted
Undisciplined
Inexperienced
Inexperienced
Damaged
Old
Weathered
Weathered
Reclaimed
Demoralized
Novice
Novice
Weathered
Standard
Modern
Standard
Standard
Average
Aspiring
Trained
Modern
Tailored
Reinforced
Reinforced
Polished
Experienced
Experienced
Experienced
Improved
Fine
Ornate
Ornate
Customized
Seasoned
Seasoned
Seasoned
Ornate
Exceptional
Exceptional
Exceptional
Exceptional
Distinguished
Distinguished
Distinguished
Exceptional
Extravagant
Extravagant
Finest
Finest
Renowned
Renowned
Renowned
Extravagant
Legendary
Legendary
Legendary
Legendary
Legendary
Legendary
Legendary
Legendary
Loot
Windward is an ARPG like Torchlight and Diablo but with a very different, unique setting and gameplay style. Nevertheless, its core mechanic is build around finding new loot and developing your ship/skills based on those items. They are randomly generated and have a wide variety of attributes and quality levels.
All loot is local. It's not shared between players.
Actually... as you get more players in the instance, you start getting lords and dread lords instead of captains, which not only drop better loot but also give quite a bit of XP. I'd advise you to try a heroic in a 15-man group. If nothing else it's a hell of a lot more fun than soloing. :)
10 minutes spent in combat gives you a one-time "kill every enemy in sight" ability. Use it wisely. However, this ability has no effect against other players or pirate bosses.
Guard towers need to be built within a firing distance of the town. Lighthouses need to be built within sight distance.(Note: seem to be placable everywhere currently 5/25/15.
Mortar just deals HP-based damage. Assuming you're in a ship with a large amount of HP and are playing at 100% difficulty, nothing should ever come close to two-shotting you with them in defensive spec. 8-shot, maybe. The damage is an HP-based, so a fixed amount.
Every 3 levels rewards increase by 25%. So if you were in a level 30 region you would be getting 1 + 30/3*0.25 = 350% of what you would be getting in a region with level 0. In other words it's very beneficial to go to the highest level region you can.