so, do i get it right that each player has their own ship, and players cant form a guild and work together on the same pirate ship, with one of them (such as the guild master) being the captain of the ship?

if not, thats totally weak sauce. it'd be much more fun to hang out with your guild on the same ship. there would of course be ways to enforce obeying what the guild masters and higher up in the guild ppl tell you to do.

i mean Star Trek Online is doing it that way. you dont get your own ship right from the get-go. you start off fresh out of Starfleet Academy and have to work up to captain. i suspect at the beginning after STO launches, the developers will use themselves and some NPCs as the captains and first officers of ships, until enough players get up in the ranks so they can fulfill the quota of commanding officers. PotBS should do the same thing.

Each player is a captain of their own ship(s). That is to say that you can own any number of ships you want, but you can only sail one at once. You can't all sail one ship though; you can't have a ship run entirely by captains. :/

Guilds are called societies. An enemy fleet would hardly be fearful of one ship filled with a bunch of captains; they'd laugh their asses off and sink your ship. You NEED everyone to have their own ship to launch successful assaults.