SYN_Bloody-Bandy

In many cases "exploits" involve the discovery or leak of certain game codes that allow unhindered testing by the developers or reliable alpha testers, basically things like god modes getting into the wild. In this case who knows, us plebs likely never will, but the rumours will fly... Oh, they already have... Events like this need to be quashed immediately (and they have, bravo!) because once the reputation of a game is tarnished, well...

I agree fully and completely. Really, choosing to become a pirate should be a selection box somewhere well outside of the daily keystroke interface. Making me nervous now as well, as I tend to find ways to hang programs... LOL

Priceless!

And just a quick necro on this thread (since I see Blackwake has already been mentioned on this forum... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2000479544/blackwake-reboot) that this 'other' age-of-sail game apparently uses the same game engine as NA and has multicrew ships, though has a different perspective (not trying to be historically accurate). So it is possible to do mutlticrew without a completely new game, that is, if there is interest in exploring this by the community and time/resources by developers. Not saying we need this right now, but again, it sure would be nice in the future...

Not sure why some are defensive, or seem to feel that they need to advocate for this thread to not be taken down, i.e. that somehow this is a threat to NA. There is ALWAYS room for more great games regardless of the niche, it only makes the community stronger. Coming from my primary interest of WWI flight sims, age-of-sail is only a slightly larger community. And so what if they decide to have a sea monster, their angle is decidedly, different... Have to admit, multicrew of the ship is awesome.

Technically, no, this is not a good idea from an overall gaming perspective. Beware! In an ideal situation any graphics improvements such as AA should be done in-game as each frame is rendered by the game. Applying AA, or any graphics improvements, 'after' the frame is rendered and thus outside the game will only slow the image getting to the monitor, and therefore result in less fps through the gfx pipeline. Now, that said, I agree that if NA has not optimized gfx code yet, then yes, use nVidia driver settings as the way to go to improve your image quality -- but do so only at this early stage of game dev'm.

THIS!!! Ports would have had coastal defenses and shallow-draft near-shore gunboats (ie not ocean-going vessels) with BIG guns. These gunboats would use sea anchors to create a stable firing platforms and act like artillery as they sat in shallow water. Perhaps only for AI defenses to help even the odds??? There is a lot of opportunity to create very interesting tactical battles if the developers are interested in exploring this aspect. Part of the interest of a port battle, to me, would be the confines of the harbour and weather gage influencing these tactics etc.

Sorry I missed my opportunity to visit her while at Baltimore, Maryland. Real life getting in the way, it just sucks... Now, I've been to the habour and do not remember Constellation being without rig. This would have been a few years ago now I suppose. Just repair/maintenance?

Muskets at 100 yards from a rolling/pitching deck would be at the absolute outside edge of range I would think, and not very effective from there at that. They were barely effective when fired on land at that range; not everyone was Daniel Boone, Hollywood misleads us to think otherwise... But effectiveness would dramatically increase (ie not in a linear fashion) with closer range than that. I'm all for this, muskets and swivel guns, but let's not over model their deterrent power and loose the little effectiveness the small ships currently have in larger battles.

Pretty sure that's what I was advocating, you just did it in fewer words... Cheers!

Rarely, if ever, would a ship-to-ship melee result in the complete loss of life for one or the other ship. As it became apparent that a ship was going to be lost in hand-to-hand fighting, one side would/should concede defeat rather than waste the lives of men. Of course, online players do not care and will want to fight to the last man, but much of that decision should slip out of their hands as the battle turns worse for them. Right? As mentioned many times (and yes, we know the current boarding party mechanic is a stand-in) ship-to-ship battles must be refined to take intangible variables into consideration, such as the symbolic capturing of the helm, or the capture of ship's officers, and/or the captain. These 'outcomes' can lead to a morale-check for various segments of the defending crew; some of the crew will break morale and surrender, others may fight on. If the attacker (or defender) breaks enough of the morale of the enemy crew, they will give up, and so a ship does not need to loose "most of your crew" in a few engagements, though I agree, a captain should be smart and head to port at the earliest possible moment.

I'm sure your comments are meant to be constructive, but NA is not even in beta really, why would you expect a glossy GUI at this point? In time...

As to your last statement, I wonder what fired the 24 pound ball that sank the gunboat then? I doubt we'll ever know given that the British fleet included a range of vessels http://www.historiclakes.org/Valcour/valcour_battle.htm although a detailed order of battle is available http://www.historiclakes.org/Valcour/valcour_chart.htm Didn't know about this work-in-progress, it's very nice and love the carronade off the back. That makes this thread moot! Though it raised awareness if you didn't know about the recovery of the Philadelphia, or the X3D website (a shameless plug for my museum's latest efforts to reach the masses... ) http://3d.si.edu/

Again, I do not think anybody is advocating this gunboat (or similar) to be included on the open sea or for player use, simply that it could possibly be used for AI defense of ports. And it has 9 and 12 pounder cannons, not 32... http://www.rif.org/

Well, I think the "facts", or shall we say proof are in the original: http://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/gunboat-philadelphia http://www.smithsonianlegacies.si.edu/objectdescription.cfm?ID=187 I don't work at American History, but I could walk a block and ask any questions you may have. 9 pounders on the side, and a 12 on the front! My my, I think the devs are short changing us in the small ship category.