I play mostly online, so take this with a grain of salt. However, there are six different shipping companies. It is theoretically possible but unlikely that one player could own all six. Even then, each player has only five slots. So, the most a player could have is five different shipping companies. Thus, to account for all possibilities, you would need five different types of ships for each player.

The above is extremely unlikely to happen. The most anyone seems to ever have is two separate shipping companies. There is a strong incentive to merge shipping companies in order to increase effective range. Thus, having two types for each player color would likely be adequate for most games. In games where it's not sufficient, one player is probably not using theirs. Simply appropriate those not being used.

With that said, I'd probably not go that route. For one, it's much easier to distinguish based on color than shape/type for most people (color-blind people is a different story). Instead, I'd purchase six different colors of ships, preferably in non-player colors. I'd also purchase at least eleven of each. This would allow for the use of a single color for two deed companies, which are very common. Three and four deed companies are not unheard of. In those cases, you would need to use two colors, which is still easier to track/follow than three or four colors.

I am new to the game and have only just played my first game. I'm interested in purchasing wooden ships to replace the cardboard ones of the 2nd edition.

From my understanding, two potential options could be:
1) Purchase ships in a variety of non-player colors and use these for each shipping company.
2) Purchase ships in each player color.

#2 seems more attractive to me, because it would be very easy to quickly identify the owner of the shipping company. However, it would seem to me that I would at least need 2 different ship types in each player color to account for separate companies that are adjacent on the map. Is this correct, and would 2 ship types be sufficient?

I'm asking because in the link above, only ships of one type were purchased and it seems to me that this could result in problems.

I would not tie the ship colors to player colors. Companies can change hands, and picking up all ships on the board and replacing them every time this happens would be unnecessary.

You'd just need to change half of them.

Company can be bought by third person.

However, if this proves too fiddly I will just use these to mark the delivered goods.

I am leaning towards purchasing wooden ships to replace the ship tiles.
I also am leaning towards replacing the wooden components with a solution resembling this customization:https://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/273289

The one thing holding me back is the thought of meeplesource suddenly offering custom replacement tokens for ships and goods (I noticed they did this for FCM and that game had great wooded tokens for food).

The one thing holding me back is the thought of meeplesource suddenly offering custom replacement tokens for ships and goods (I noticed they did this for FCM and that game had great wooded tokens for food).

Here's my mini review of the components.

Over the past few weeks we've played both the old and new editions of Indonesia. The new edition map board is probably the biggest improvement. The area boundaries and sea boundaries are much clearer. The city cards and company cards are both improvements and are much easier to read. The city tokens are the same although colors have been switched which we found confusing when moving from one edition to the other.

The plantation tokens are, as indicated, unusable as such. Rather than use the cardboard delivery tokens instead I opted to get an assortment of cubes in the same colors as the plantation tokens. Cubes really are the ideal size for this map. We used the delivery tokens as originally intended which created much less clutter than trying to use the wooden plantation tokens as delivery tokens.

The cardboard ship tokens are an improvement in that they are in player colors which make it easier to track who owns which company. However, they are too large to be functional in the smaller sea areas above Bali and the Java islands. The original wood tokens are better in that regard. I've sourced sets of wooden ships from Catan in player colors as a replacement. I'll also look into finding some stickers or some such to be able to track multiple shipping companies in one player color.

Finally, I'll be looking for something to use to track who owns which production company. I've got a bunch of plastic bingo tokens in player colors which might work well for that.

Although the rules are, compared to some modern euros, fairly simple they create complex situations. Representing these situations as clearly as possible is, I think, essential to playing the game. Excessive clutter and otherwise obscuring features of the map should be minimized wherever possible. I would recommend finding alternatives to the bits in the box along the lines of what I have suggested above. Apparently Meeplesource is looking into creating a set of pieces for the game. Hopefully they keep functionality and readability as the primary focus for their design. Otherwise, check ebay, etsy and your local thrift shops for alternatives.

what is the meaning of the 1-5 numbers in the seazones?