Ishigami

I'm afraid thats very old info. The "Adler von Lübeck" - project is dead, has been for some years now. Not gonna happen.

I assume this is HMS Marlborough from 1855 because I see 3 gun decks, a modern bow and it might be a photo. That’s a 131 gun first rate steam powered SoL... I'm afraid not worth considering.

I’m not in favor of this ship. Game Labs already choose the Ocean Class 118 Gun ship 1st rate so I don’t see much of a point to offer a 120 gun SoL even more so that they are quite similar and tbh the Le Commerce de Marseille looks better to me. Considering that it takes month to produce a high quality 3D model I think Game Labs should focus on a different size of ship. We already have Victory 104 guns, Ocean 118 guns and Santisima Trinidad 140 guns in the 1st rate line up. I believe that this is a solid and well spread selection. Of course there is always room for improvement but before they flash out the already competent setup of 1st rates I would like them to focus on the work horses of the navies at that time: 3rd rates. But even before that we also still completely lack 2nd rates, so there is a huge gab to be filled. So while a nice ship I think Game Labs should stop with 1st rates after the Ocean Class and only come back to them once the 2nd rate gab is filled and the 3rd rate setup is flashed out.

As you have quote the preferred timeframe is from 1690 to 1790. Therefore you are out of the timeframe to be considered without really good reasoning. Now if there were some good reasons to break that timeframe and apply the extended one I have yet to see them I am afraid. As has been mentioned time and again: American SoLs didn’t do much. That’s apparently a criteria for Game Labs as I remember the Admin mentioning that they would like to have ships that saw some action. With the lack of action comes a lack of rich careers which usually is entangled with fame. The US SoLs lack in this department and are therefore not really good marketing material. Furthermore why extend the timeframe when you only would bring in imbalance? You said we would be ignorant of the strength of the US SoL however I believe the opposite is the case. As I roughly estimated a page ago USS Independence in a historical setup would carry more firepower to the line than many first rates, especially the ones in game atm. Having such a ship would make other options obsolete unless you bring in more modern ships or unrealistic setups. We simply don’t want to open this can of worms. You are also wrong about US dominance of technology as mentioned again in this very topic: HMS St Lawrence of 1814. It used similar hull and had a very heavy broadside for its time. It even had the same purpose: Deter the enemy. It was also extraordinarily effective in doing just that yet nobody would argue to have that monstrosity in the game because it is simply from a different generation of SoL and even if someone would do so we would argue against it just the same. Then the US SoLs are artistically not very appealing. Yes very practically and strong build but they are wooden bathtubs with their super straight decks and sides, almost not existing decorations, boring sterns and black and white colour scheme. Last but not least as I already said it is about allocation of resources for Game Labs and I rather have them work on ships that benefit the game right off the bat instead of ones that might at first break it. There are better choices than these from nations that have yet to get even one ship in the game. And btw. you can defend you port with a Victory all the same.

Out of timeframe.

Game Labs only has so much manpower, time and money available. Choices have to be made what ships get into the game and which don’t. If the only argument in favor of inclusion is the nationality of a vessel than I simply think that there is actually no reason to include it. As Mirones mentioned: No plans provided thus far which is a show stopper anyway.

Game Labs could… but should they? USS America was at best unremarkable but probably disappointing. Her broadside was considerable lighter than other vessels of her time. She only saw service for very few years since she was built from green timber and started to root right away. Why should they invest time in modelling this ship if they could instead model a ship of the Téméraire class? Those ships are way stronger than America, saw a lot of combat and I dare say shaped our romantic perception of naval combat in the Napoleonic wars as the most build SoL. I’m also pretty sure that it is probably easier to find plans of a Téméraire class ship and select a ships with an at least decent career. Well we currently have 74 anyway... we lack 80, 90 and 98 guns.

I see it like this: First and foremost the game needs basically one ship of every type or size in order to provide gab free progression. Then I think the next goal should be to incorporate some alternatives for heavily used ship types or sizes with varying focuses in order to balance things out and give players the ability to customize for their needs or some really off the road choices. Ultimately I believe you can neither balance according history nor economy. I don’t see this working out in a competitive multiplayer environment. Currently it seems Game Labs wants some hybrid balance between historical and game. I don’t think it will work out in the end but I digress. Considering this the game currently lacks a 2nd rate. So of course a 90 to 98 gun SoL of the USA is viable suggestion as long as it lies within the timeframe of the game. Here I see a problem according to this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_of_the_line_of_the_United_States_Navy The United States Navy was terrible late to the party of SoLs. Basically only USS Independence is within the timeframe and if Game Labs wants to stay close to historical balancing then… well she apparently carried 90x 32 pounders. That’s a 1440 pound broadside, compare that to the 898 pound broadside of a British 2nd rate of the Duke class and becomes clear that those 50 years in arms race between those ships just don’t lend themselves to a historical balancing method for the game. If they “game balance” USS Independence then okay but historical it is just out of timeframe really. All in all I think there are ships that lend themselves better for the game as 2nd rates without the need to bend over that much like Christian VII, Barfleur class, Duke class, Bucentaure class or Tonnant class. Barfleur seems a cheap choice for example as it was build as 90 gun ship and later modified to carry 98 guns, so with some adjustments the same model could be used twice and leave only a 80 gun ship to be desired. After all what “real” nation a ship belonged to doesn’t really matter. Having a full complement of all ship types and sizes of each nation is a nice wish but is also very expensive to realize and very unlikely to happen therefore. It is far more economical to achieve similar results with different colour schemes for far less models.

I'm pleased by this decision. As I mentioned several times and not getting tired of it: I like the less decorated ships of the Napoleonic wars the most. The Ocean-class is very eye pleasing to me for a 1st and the Le commerce de Marseille got a very modest yet beautiful take on the figurehead, just like Victory. I really like that. All in all I would have preferred a ship of Téméraire-class since I believe it would probably get used more but I recognize that the Ocean-class is very sleek for a 1st rate and furthermore could serve the purpose of closing a gun gap between Victory and Santisima Trinidad though if balanced according to history it would end up stronger than the Santisima. Either way beautiful choice.

Well I hope they one day get their replica wish even if it is not a SoL. I think I saw in a documentary on the replica Götheborg that it is actually pretty difficult to get a replica authorized since it needs to adhere to modern regulations. So a ship of that size needs to be motored, have the appropriate transponders, communication and navigation equipment and so on and so forth. It’s apparently not just about the manpower and wood…

Not really. Master & Commander – The far side of the world was supposed to start a franchise for 20th Century Fox. There were plans for more movies and script for the second movie also exists. However the film had a budget of approximately 150 million dollar and made only about 90 million dollar in the US. The film was therefore considered a financial failure ignoring that across the world it made about 210 million dollars. The reason HMS Surprise hunts a French Acheron instead of the USS Norfolk is also tied to the US focus of the film studio. During focus testing 20th Century Fox found that the British side being the protagonist and the American side being the antagonist led to a confusing state for US viewers since they no longer were able to clearly cheer for one faction. The tone of the movie would want the audience to cheer for Aubrey and his crew while the viewer’s patriotism would sway them to cheer for USS Norfolk which would however be displayed as the enemy. To avoid this issue the enemy was changed to a French ship in the Napoleonic wars. It was a business decision to not piss off US viewers.

I would like to throw my support behind the idea to feature stunsails. I think if done right this would add another strategic option and add to the games depth. My idea: Stunsails need way longer to be set or reefed than the other sails It should only be possible to set or reef stunsails with the crew focus set on sailing. Set stunsails should make masts way more fragile to enemy fire or storms. Stunsails should have their own keys assigned. Stunsails give a considerable speed bonus in running or broad reach conditions Stunsails give a considerable speed penalty in close haul to against the wind conditions With these rules, which of course need fine tuning and testing, stunsails are more less only useful in a flee and chase scenario with fair weather conditions on top of gap closer. Prolonged set or reef time makes sure the stunsails are not used just to cover a rather short distance but longer distances since the player would need to weight the time necessary to set or reef sails against the time necessary to cover the distance which becomes really important with rules number two: A set crew focus. The slower animation gives chasing players time to realize the change in situation better, allowing them to react before terrible overshooting their target. Having to set the crew focus on sailing and forcing it to stay there in order to set or reef the stunsails adds an additional delay to the command. Captains would need to consider this and plan before hand when to set or reef the sails. They can’t simply press a button and the sails go up or down. This also prevents players from reloading guns fast or repair their ship while setting stunsails. You either chase, repair or fire not all at the same time (at least with stunsails). The game should in general introduce a damage system for sails and masts for stormy conditions. It is quite unrealistic I believe that these vessel would travel with full sails set in a stormy condition. Don’t limit the player, e.g. players can only set half sails in storm, but add a certain risk to it: If you set full sails in a storm you masts may break. Maybe it can be realized in a sort of damage over time matter. It is a “gamey” solution but I think it would suffice and would take a RNG out of the picture. If you set full sails your masts take damage over time and once their “hp” are depleted they break of course. This would mean that if you use full sails in a storm battle that it is easier to be dismasted. In general I think it should be easier to dismast a ship with full sails than one with battle sails. This would also add another purpose to the battle sails. Well back to stunsails: Having set stunsails would add a multiplier to the damage over time or risk to be dismasted. If you are good shoot you might hit your target while it tries to get away or close the gab under stunsails and wola a masts goes overboard giving you the chance to intercept or escape. Basically it simply would make using them in direct battle very risky and probably undesirable. Which is the intention: No stunsails in direct combat. Its gab closer, chase or escape helper no “additional normal sail setting”. Since I force players to be in crew focus sailing while setting or reefing stunsails there is obviously the downside that if you link the stunsails to the usual sail buttons W and A that players might accidentally set stunsails and then are trapped in a crew focus they may not want. Giving stunsails their own keys to set and reef them removes this possibility. You pressed the specific button so you wanted stunsails so no complaining being unable to change the crew focus during the maneuver. Last but not least there must be of course a point to setting these sails and of course it is the speed or better the bonus they add on top of your full set sails. All of the above just to get faster from point a to b. I don’t have any suggested how much it should be it simply must be experimented on and balanced between the time necessary to change crew focus and setting and reefing sails etc. After all the rules I proposed are there to limit the use of them. If they were mere another sail setting everyone would pop them up and down as it is currently with the battle and full sail setting. Anyway I think with the right balance stunsails could be a strategic addition to the game. And I think they look awesome and intimidating.

I hope it does. Grats for the Indefatigable, looking forward to this fine raze.

I’m against fictional ships as well. There are so many real ships that could be done instead serving the same or similar purpose.

Maybe because the Ardent class was a very stable gun platform and out of the 7 ships build three had an actually distinguished career. I mean there seems to be nothing about the Wasa. It was used in a war against Russia but I can’t find details and then it was sold and bought back… that’s rather unspectacular to be honest. And I disagree about the looks… Anyway the advantage of the top three voted ships seems to be solid. Since Indefatigable is a razzed Ardent class ship I hope the wild card goes to either the Ocean-class or Téméraire-class. The Ocean-class would be a nice gab filler between Santisima and Victory while the Téméraire is just simple the most build SoL ever. Not having that would be like having a WW2 flight simulator without a BF109: Unthinkable.