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Hi! A couple of you have probably watched one or more videos from the Battlecruiser tournament currently ongoing on the YouTube channel Stealth17. I designed one of the ships taking part in the contest, the "Elisabeth Petznek," an Austro-Hungarian ship with a main armament of 4x3 12 inch guns with shortened barrels and everything tuned for maximum rate of fire, HE damage, and fire setting capability. Over the last few matches it's become very clear that my design and the British one, both focused on causing fires via HE spam, mine even more so, are beating everything else, with AP focused and mixed designs just unable to keep up. Now I know that this topic has been talked about a lot before. And I know that there are good reasons why HE and fire work the way they do right now, I remember in some early versions it was arguably more realistic but also felt kind of useless. So I think until recently it made sense to have HE do its thing without much regard for armour or penetration. But I think the recent armour changes, specifically the armour limits are an opportunity to revisit this whole topic. The new inability to put massive amounts of armour on even small light cruisers means that penetrating with HE has become much more viable in a lot of cases. To me this seems like the perfect opportunity to talk about whether HE performance, especially in regards to fires should be tied more to actually penetrating the armour of the enemy ship. I think if HE ends up in a place where it still eats small ships alive while mostly destroying torpedoes, rudders etc on bigger ships and helping overwhelm damage control as it fights against flooding that would make for more interesting,healthy gameplay. And it would also feel somewhat more true to life.

Most famously used in the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 only 5 years after the last Battle of Copenhagen that saw deployment of the Christian VII that was recently added. I think as it fits in the timeframe of NA, it should at least be considered. I also don't think there is a balance issue. The actual performance could remain the same ( only with much higher chance for a fire ) or there could alternatively also be a reskin of the Mortar Brig called HMS Terror / HMS Meteor with higher BR to compensate for potentially higher performance / buffs in damage. Even if only the visuals would be added at some point, I think it would make for more interesting cinematics in port battles. Adding only higher fire chance seems reaonable, given the minor effect of fire ( unless used on purpose to fireship ) and the low chance of currently implemented mortar balls actually causing fire.

Currently you need a module to make an effective fire ship. Modules are going away, and there will be learned skills related to ships sailed. How will fire ships be handled in the new version of the software?

My Fellow Sailors: A few ideas i have thought about, and talked about on global, have finally been written down. A few of these have been brewing for awhile, and a few came up while writing. Im sure most of these have been talked about, and may be in the forums. No, i didn't search the forum for these topics. No, i don't really care if there are other threads covering these. These are my thought, basically as they came to me, either through reading notes or remembering conversations. Lets help the devs bring out the potential of Naval Action. ------------------------ Fire Barrels ------------------------------------------------------- Ships with horrible turning can be destroyed by smaller ships. A surprise can stern camp a santi and take it down without too much trouble(Just tons of time). Trading ships also have a habit of being ganked, chained, and capped. To offset these annoyances, i propose fire/exploding barrels. The intention would be to deter or slow down a following ship. It would be a barrel dropped off the stern of the ship, with a timer set by the player(slider?), and it explodes and causes a large flame. The barrel wouldn't be meant to destroy the ship, just cause minor damage. It could potentially catch sails on fire, and cause some sort of crew or rigging shock. If the barrel exploded towards the rear of the ship, it could cause rudder damage. The timer would have a time to detonation range of 3-30 seconds, so it has the ability to damage pursuers that are further away, as well as close up. The timer would need to have a variable on the actual set time (due to a fuse having to be measured and cut in battle) between a flat 15-25% time variation. The other option would be 10% on the "too short" side and 25% on the "too long" side. This allows for the chance it can prematurely explode and damage the ship of the person dropping the barrel. Each ship shouldn't have more than 3-5 barrels, scaled to the rate of the ship. 4th-5th rates have 1 or 2 barrels, 3rd rates 3, 2nd rates 4, 1st rates 5. If a ship is carrying barrels, no less than 2 should be carried in case one doesn't explode. Rates lower than 5th shouldn't need them due to shallow hulls/lack of player use. The barrels could be an upgrade option (non permanent since its only barrels) with each "tier" allowing more barrels than the last (Basic -> Exceptional). Also, a prep time should be included, with the option to drop the barrel early. Dropping the barrel early would increase the "error" range of the fuse, up to 15% greater than a fully prepped barrel. This also opens up the option for a skill, such as decreasing fuse error or lowering the prep time. The purpose of the barrels wouldn't be to act as a main weapon, but as a last resort for defense. ------------------------ Officer Skills ------------------------------------------------------- Officer skills allow us to make our sailing styles a little more unique. Sadly, the skills don't vary enough to keep anyone guessing how an enemy ship will handle in battle. I propose keeping the officer skills, but also adding Captain Skills. Your officer gets 1 "skill" point per rank, with a max of 10 points. The diversity of skill choices to ship choices isn't that great. Captain skills could be implemented to switch that up a bit, make people guess a little more. Captain skills would be attached to the players avatar, not their officer, and would gain a few points at certain rank milestones. The captains skills could include things like cannon trials(reload speed, dispersion,etc...), rigging specialist (Sail rising and yard turn speed, lower damage to sails), shipwright (adds extra bonuses to ships beyond what the regular player makes, use less LH or supplies), boarding training (similar to marines, but for the crew), wind master (adds slight speed bonus to ship), entrepreneur ( better prices in port shops, lower costs for contracts), hull tech (better/faster repairs while at sea or in battle,High enough level allows 2 repairs in battle), shipboard defense (better defense against boarders, defensive only), leadership (adds more overall crew to the crew pool, not to the ship itself). The milestones could be set points between each rank. Each rank could have 2 milestones( current level -> milestone I -> milestone II -> next level), with each milestone giving a certain amount of skill points. Rank 1(Thief) starts with 3 points, milestone I gives 2 points, milestone II gives 1 point, rank 2 (Rascal) gives 3 point, milestone I gives 2 points, milestone II gives 1 point, etc . . . up to rank 10 (Curse) which will give 3 points, but no milestones since it is the highest rank. Having a system like this will make grinding feel more rewarding, while making each player more unique. The skills could be categorized by sailing, crafting, and trading. Having the option to choose a captain skill, without the risk of losing them, would make players feel more connected to the game community. It would also allow specialization of each player, such as a player being a dedicated ship builder, but not having the same sea prowess as a dedicated fighter. This wouldnt negate the "perks" (no longer skills) one would get from their officer. The officer perks would allow everyone to have a baseline set of attributes so they could still do a little of everything. ------------------------ Port Shop ------------------------------------------------------- The port shop needs a little streamlining. If i sell something at the bottom of a list (i.e resources), it sends me back to the top of the list. While it is only a minor inconvenience, that little bit of time adds up to a lot of frustration when trying to sell quickly. The slider when buying/selling is also a pain to use. Using a +1,+5,+10 next to the slider would be helpful. When buying cannons the shop only allows 1 purchase at a time. I think the maximum should be raised to at least 5 when buying. If i want to use the same cannon for bow/stern chasers and broadside, i would like to be able to buy them all at once. With the lag in the system, that can also become frustrating. ------------------------ Warehouse ------------------------------------------------------- The warehouse can become extremely cluttered, and difficult to find something. I know there is an option to show certain types of items, but being able to create my own tabs would be beneficial. Tabs such as "ship build", "future upgrades", or "trade-able goods" would make playing a little less cumbersome. An option to "Show items in shop" would also be appreciated, so i can choose to not see the items in the shop and accidentally sell them. ------------------------ Ship Docks ------------------------------------------------------- Currently we can only have 5 ships docked at a port. I think the maximum should be raised (8-12) through gold purchases. To keep it a little less cluttered, a building (private dockyard) could be built, and each upgrade increase the maximum ships allowed in the port. ------------------------ Clans ------------------------------------------------------- Clan ranks are a big miss when it comes to forming a community . The current system of owner/officer/member seems a bit shallow for a group of people playing together. The ability to have more "ranks" in a clan would give people a view-able goal to strive for, and to show their value to that clan. It can also be set up to allow clan members to be easily recognized of their role (crafter, trader, raider OR Leader,1st mate, 2nd mate, senior crewman, junior crewman, recruit). Having the ability to transport goods from ANY city to the clan warehouse would be nice, or showing on the clan page where the warehouse is located. I appreciate everyone who took the time to read through, and all comments will be appreciated, and discussion is encouraged. Great games are not made. Great games are shaped. Shaped by the ideas of players, and the following discussions. Naval Action has a ton of potential, and i would like to see it become one of the greats. Fair winds and following seas --- Wonderbread O7 Please excuse my lack of observation, I did my best to make sure there are as few grammatical errors as possible.