I don't know if it is intended, but can the rate at which items despawn on ships be looked at?

Today I was doing a solo fight against a krolvin sloop. Essentially, items left on the ground if your moved to a different room despawned almost instantly. I'm talking seconds. When I finally defeated the captain and looted his quarters, I was unable to carry both the chest and the salvage crate. I left the chest on the floor, brought the salvage crate to my Hold, dropped it (bin was full). Went back for chest in captain's quarters and it was already despawned. Went back for my salvage crate in my own hold...and it had despawned.

I recognize the idea is to give value to upgrading a hold (mine is), but this system basically means the only sensible way to fight a boarding action is to stay in one room and never, EVER leave it until you can pick up EVERYTHING. Even just picking up chests from the main deck and moving them to the bin in the hold (all on my own ship, so one room of movement) despawned a number of not yet collected gems for me that were on the ground on my main deck.

Any immersion to be had from hit and run tactics, moving across the enemy ship, trying to seek out the captain in his own quarters or basically anything that might make the imagination of the fight a little more fun actually costs you the majority of your haul in treasure. In larger ship fights (I'm still in a sloop, so this is assumption), wouldn't you want to have players moving dynamically through their own ship and the enemy ship seeking out pockets of enemies to fight?

Again, maybe this wasn't intended, but it was my experience today.

A few minutes of time before objects in uninhabited rooms despawn would be more than enough.


Thanks again for a great addition to the game.