Forthcoming hot fixes next week - ships of the line penetration discussion

[Sire Trinkof]

Conny is 7ft longer than the Bellona.

You cannot have a system loosely bound on hull area and then randomly assign a weird number to the conny which is not based on the idea which applies to all other vessels.

Conny needs to be much more expensive to build.

one might even give her only 3 duras despite beeing a 4th rate.

But she is state of the art - and inexpensive.

two things which just wont fit well in my head.

(not saying these things should be done - its a personal feeling)

However. This thread is not about the conny. There already are plenty of those.

Feel free to post in one of those.

Extremely expensive... And as the game is a MMO everyone will have one at some point, and there are good reason why no other navy constructed ships like this... (they had sol and relatively cheap frigate.. )

Make the Connie a 2 durability ship for example while keeping historical planking would somehow solve the problem. The fact it is expensive should be represented by how precious she is and rare on the seas

[Tiedemann]

• Yes 9 an 12 need a buff, but please do not reduce 32 and 42. Or at least wait a bit! I have been using Connie and Ingermanland against Connie and Ingermandlands a lot lately. And I think it's a good and equal fight. I also think 32's and 42' should be lethal to smaler ships. Imo if a smaler ship is caught in a SOL's line of fire it should result in instant death. In that way attacking ships bigger than your self is reserved for skilled captains.
• I disagree with mast buff. I have not lost or taken down a mast after the patch. Considering that we also have reinforced masts upgrades in this game, I don't  see any reason to make the masts stronger. 
• Tweak raking crew losses is needed. Imo raking should be the number one tactic to disable/neutralize a enemy ship efficiently. Especially after the tank-armor patch. Right now it's not rewarding at all to rake. I think crew kill in generell was nurfed at the same time the armor was buffed. So please consider that by the time you have shot down an entire broadside and rear armor of a Connie, it should have lost most of it's crew as well. As it is now they go down with more than 350 crew left. I don't want ships to sink faster than they do, but I want them to be neutralized a lot faster.      
• Tweak marines strength and preparation growth

  Yes, nerf, nerf, nerf.

Sanity check questions

1. Do you consider frigate battles fun (compared to older versions)?

   Using a Connie or a Ingermandland in OW PvP is more fun. Taking a Renomee or a Suprise out for a OW PvP not fun at all anymore. I miss going out and stern camping bigger ships with a Renommee. Taking out a Connie one on one that way was a epic challenge. Buffing the 9 and 12 pounders together with making raking more efficient might fix this issue. But I also like that 3 Renommee's can't pose real a threat to a 3. - 1. rate anymore. So I hope it's possible to keep this balance.     

2. Do you consider ships of the line indecisive historical battles fun?

   Yes, yes, yes. Just give me back the 1. rate battles, I really miss them!   

3. Should marines be tweaked?

   Not only marines. I had 3 golden boarding upgrades that could not be crafted, that I combined with 3 upgrades that we can craft. When you board a equal sized war ship or even a bigger sized war ship and you are using all golden boarding upgrades, it's like you are boarding a civilian Cruise ship full of old drunk tourists. They are totally helpless and you are guaranteed to win no matter what happens. Doing that to one ship is okay, but you can do that to many ships in the same battle, so it's not realistic. IMO boarding upgrades should  have more drawbacks, so you can't combine them all like some of us do.    

What else did we miss?

• Could you developers/gods please convert more deepwater ports into Regional Captials? I miss having my hearth pump with fear of loosing my 1. rate flagship and all the upgrades. The 4. rate battles is just not the same.. And I assume we also need to test how the changes effect the bigger ships, right? I haven't used a bigger ship than a 4. rate after the changes to to port battles.
• Can you share more "intel" on new ships that are incoming and eta? It helps to keep the interest up. And if you need help testing out that french 1. rate Océan, just let me know        

Edited May 30, 2016 by Tiedemann

[Glazo]

1. Do you consider frigate battles fun (compared to older versions)?
2. Do you consider ships of the line indecisive historical battles fun?
3. Should marines be tweaked?

What else did we miss?

 

1. Maybe a bit more fun, but way to chaotic. Inger is just new Santi, and Connie new Vic in PBs, but both easier to sink and maneuver. Remove connies from shops it will stop or at least hold down ppl to bahave like idiots.

2. Who cares about SOLs now? Even in regional capitals PBs i see connies/ingers. Everything above stays in ports (Vics, Santis) or is used in PvE (Pavels, Bellonas, 3rd rates). Sometimes 2nd or 3rd rates are used to carry flag or as part of screening fleet.

3. Ofcourse, now it turns into capturing festival, both towers and ships.

 

4. What else did u miss? Seriously?  Read this http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14351-neverending-wip/?p=265510

[Cecil Selous]

I don't have any historic knowledge about this, but is it plausible, that a captain would sail a Bellona with 50% of his crew consisting of marines?

I would love to see a nerf to nearly all boarding mods, but especially the marine one. Like some others already said, the different qualities should change the skill and abilities of the marines but not their quantity (at least not the amount we have now). So it would be possible to merge some existing boarding upgrades into one marine upgrade (maybe not the best idea. One could argue, that this woulduse fewer upgrade slots and the negative aspects of boarding upgrades can be countered better).

Edited May 30, 2016 by Cecil Selous

[Inkompetent]

I don't have any historic knowledge about this, but is it plausible, that a captain would sail a Bellona with 50% of his crew consisting of marines?

Not really. There were of course moments when there were ships with enormous complements of marines, but these were usually specialized ships (for example a large trading vessel like the Indiaman pressed into that role, or a hospital ship being assigned to that task), but since these ships were very underpowered in a gun battle they required plenty of escort.

In NA the boarding vessels of course get a significant disability in gunnery, and maybe in sailing depending on crew allocation, but they can still carry a full battery of guns.

For example the Victory carried ~150 marines, and a decent 5th rate around 50. In battle the majority of these would fight from the weather deck and the like, and I mean... where the hell would you fit more of them? Sitting on their butt right between the cannons on a gun deck, being in the way for the sailors who are running back and forth to load the guns?

Edited May 30, 2016 by Inkompetent

[Coriolanus]

 

Captains

 

remember

To find the perfect damage model we must conduct experiments.

Even if you already love the damage model there might be changes that need to be tested that you personally won't like - but they will allow to close some doors to never be reopened again. Such experiments are needed and you should not react negatively when they are tested. They are good for the game because sometimes they will help to uncover interesting options we could miss if we did not do it. We promise - the closer we are to release the less experiments like that we will do - but now its a perfect time to continue experimenting)

 

You can always say in the future - we tested them and they are not fun. But sometimes we can find something very interesting because of such experiments.

 

We have tested very tankier ships of the line and the result is obvious - battles are much longer in ships of the line and on average they are tediously long which is not a good thing. Raking is not yet a viable alternative for disabling the ships. Gun loss is a lot better now but crew losses sometimes feel inadequate even if you did a perfect rake.  

 

Regarding ships of the line armor. 

We have found the solution that will allow to keep medium frigate combat (that people say are fun) and increase the fun factor on ships of the line

 

We plan to do the following changes next hot fix (again changes will be slow and gradual)

• Tune medium and heavy gun penetrations (increase them a bit for 9 and 12 and reduce it for 32 and 42 as they are too strong for 
• ou consider frigate battles fun (compared to older versions)?
• Do you consider ships of the line indecisive historical battles fun?
• Should marines be tweaked?
• lower lineship armors)
• Tune armors for ship accordingly (reduce armor and reduce live oak bonuses a bit)
• Tweak mast hp and strength (i think we have found the sweet spot over last 2 fixes) it was too high in 9.8 and too low in 9.82
• Tweak raking crew losses 
• Tweak marines strength and preparation growth

Sanity check questions

1. Do y

What else did we miss?

 

 

advanced warning:

there are 2 things that might change dramatically in the next content patch that are long overdue (ETA 20-25 days)

• fixes of bugs and improvement of old acceleration and deceleration behavior of vessels
• fixes of turning, terminal speed and rudder influence on speed. 

 

Sorry guys if get repetitive

 

New Ships (venetian 4th rates possibly)

Whaling

New faction Knights of S.John order (  )

Edited May 30, 2016 by Coriolanus

[VonVolks]

I dont see issues with taking down masts currently.... its doable, but not easy...seems good to me

[Bulwyf]

1.  Do you consider frigate battles fun (compared to older versions)?

1.      Yes though Constitution is ridiculously tough vs anything and needs significant reduction in armour.
   
2.  
   
3. 2.  Do you consider ships of the line indecisive historical battles fun?
   
4.      Yes though though ships in general sink too often and too fast. Armour vs some other vessels is too weak. The flooding escape rule is bad and should be reversed.
   
5.  
   
6. 3.  Should marines be tweaked?
   
7.      Yes. Historical load outs of marines should be adopted. Present system is gamey and totally unrealistic. Marines should be craftable.
   

[admin]

 

•  

• Could you developers/gods please convert more deepwater ports into Regional Captials? I miss having my hearth pump with fear of loosing my 1. rate flagship and all the upgrades. The 4. rate battles is just not the same.. And I assume we also need to test how the changes effect the bigger ships, right? I haven't used a bigger ship than a 4. rate after the changes to to port battles.
•  

 

next content patch we will increase RC by approximately 40-50 ports (from current 70)

[Quineloe]

Are we going to keep the "press attack at last second" mechanic in boarding?

 

because this ping-related twitch gameplay ruins boarding far more than the strength of high numbers of marines and should be addressed first.

 

in my opinion, you should simply set how much preparation you want to invest in an attack to make it more powerful.

[Bach]

Testing the new armor a bit this weekend. Rate ships are essentially immune to small ships. I'm not sure if that is a good thing. One fight was x4 Tricomelees vs X1 Belona and they couldn't manage any hull damage in 45min or take down a mast. I think a 3rd rate being mostly immune to x4 hvy frigates is a bit unrealistic.

Edited May 31, 2016 by Bach

[SeaMist]

I would like to say how much I am enjoying my Conny ATM. Great fun. I haven't sailed my trincomalee for a while. I must give it a try.

Someone mentioned that a well sailed frigate should be able to give an SOL a torrid time. I disagree. Historically bringing up a frigate against an SOL would be suicide. Perhaps several frigates using their speed and manoeuvrability to bring concentrated fire on an SOL without going broadside to broadside would do it ......but that is a different matter. And would still be pretty torrid for the frigates.m

Edited May 31, 2016 by SeaMist

[karotte]

 

1.  Do you consider frigate battles fun (compared to older versions)?

1.      Yes though Constitution is ridiculously tough vs anything and needs significant reduction in armour

Please dont nerf Constitution, cause other players don`t know how to counter/handle it, and fighting a Constitution with 42pdr carronades with there Ingermaland on close range....

[Jerome]

Exactly, and as can be seen in that video the splinters produced by a proper gun are quite pathetic. Some harmful bits of wood are shot out, but most of the splinters produced there wouldn't do anything at all unless they hit you in the eye, and barely then.

This must be a joke. Those splinters are moving a couple hundred feet per second d or so. The would shred you.

[Inkompetent]

This must be a joke. Those splinters are moving a couple hundred feet per second d or so. The would shred you.

They are still awfully light, and quite blunt. You'll get some shallow cuts, but a lot will be stopped by a simple sailor's shirt, and even if you'd get a piece sticking a centimeter or two into you, how much would it bother you with a splinter the size of a pencil when you are pumped up on adrenaline?

The few large pieces that fly, the very few pieces, those are really dangerous. But most of the fragments are nothing that'd stop a person in battle.

[Quineloe]

One thing I have noticed about building prep is that how much crew you have in boarding doesn't matter how fast prep is acquired.

 

If you keep sailing and gunnery running, and boarding only fills to 50%, you gain boarding preparation as fast as when you turn gunnery off and you have 100% boarding filled.

 

This makes it very hard to get sufficient boarding prep going if you realize you'll get boarded soon. Getting above the free 25 takes quite a while and makes it pretty pointless to turn on boarding prep in such a situation to begin with.

[Bach]

I would like to say how much I am enjoying my Conny ATM. Great fun. I haven't sailed my trincomalee for a while. I must give it a try.

Someone mentioned that a well sailed frigate should be able to give an SOL a torrid time. I disagree. Historically bringing up a frigate against an SOL would be suicide. Perhaps several frigates using their speed and manoeuvrability to bring concentrated fire on an SOL without going broadside to broadside would do it ......but that is a different matter. And would still be pretty torrid for the frigates.m

That's good that you like YOUR Connie. But before you can make a call on game balanced mechanics you have to play the other side of the fight and be in a frigate vs. a Connie a few times. The Connie is immune to even the 18# guns of the Tricom outside Coronades range. This creates a very limited set of situations that a pair or grouping of hvy frigates can even challenge the Connie. Now that's not to say a couple prepared Tricoms can't take down a Connie. The question is simply how hard should that challenge be? The USS Philadelphia lost to the much smaller Shannon. However the Philly was boarded by Shannon and that is sort if still possible. The Constitution fought Java in a battle where Java guns bounced off the hull. So that's a pro for the current system. One summer Constitution was chased off New Jersey by x4 smaller British frigs. One if which was also the Shannon. In today's game the Constitution could fight that battle. So perhaps it's just a little to easy for a Connie to fight frigates. But then again, if we want Connies to be able to harass 3rd rates in today's game we need to keep the armor value higher. So maybe it's a catch 22.

[Anolytic]

With the new damage models I really miss the dangerousness of leaks. It should be hard to give leaks, and it should take a lot for them to be really dangerous, but I loved it when if your enemy was foolish and showed the entire belly of his ship, and you took your time to aim and wait for the perfect moment, and then you could give 15 leaks and he would just sink instantly. It was one of my favourite things. 

 

I'm also curious about how you intend to tweak the marines regarding 3., because they give a lot of penalties to dps, so they have to be effective enough that if you are skilled enough to get an enemy into a boarding position your marines will actually pay off the risk.

 

Other than that I don't mind the damage model testing and tweaking. It needed tweaking, which we've gotten, but I loved the idea behind the new damage system. Tanking with your sides and ships in general being more tanky was a great improvement. And the importance of angling your ship as well.

[Inkompetent]

With the new damage models I really miss the dangerousness of leaks. It should be hard to give leaks, and it should take a lot for them to be really dangerous, but I loved it when if your enemy was foolish and showed the entire belly of his ship, and you took your time to aim and wait for the perfect moment, and then you could give 15 leaks and he would just sink instantly. It was one of my favourite things.

Maybe something like a "Leak Shock" could be introduced, so that when enough leaks are caused simultaneously the damage control teams get overwhelmed and for a moment can't do anything about it?

[DeRuyter]

That's good that you like YOUR Connie. But before you can make a call on game balanced mechanics you have to play the other side of the fight and be in a frigate vs. a Connie a few times. The Connie is immune to even the 18# guns of the Tricom outside Coronades range. This creates a very limited set of situations that a pair or grouping of hvy frigates can even challenge the Connie. Now that's not to say a couple prepared Tricoms can't take down a Connie. The question is simply how hard should that challenge be? The USS Philadelphia lost to the much smaller Shannon. However the Philly was boarded by Shannon and that is sort if still possible. The Constitution fought Java in a battle where Java guns bounced off the hull. So that's a pro for the current system. One summer Constitution was chased off New Jersey by x4 smaller British frigs. One if which was also the Shannon. In today's game the Constitution could fight that battle. So perhaps it's just a little to easy for a Connie to fight frigates. But then again, if we want Connies to be able to harass 3rd rates in today's game we need to keep the armor value higher. So maybe it's a catch 22.

 

Actually that was the USS Chesapeake which was the same size as the HMS Shannon - both were 38 gun frigates with 18lb main battery. More like 2 Tricomalees fighting each other in game.

 

The Halifax squadron pursuing the USS Constitution  also contained a 64 gun SOL in addition to the 4 frigates 2x 38 gun, 36 gun and a 32 gun) and some unrated ships. In game this would roughly translate to an Ingermanland plus 2 Trincs, a Frigate and a Belle Poule. This would be interesting but I would suggest that the Connie would lose this fight.

[Quineloe]

Marines do actually nothing to DPS as long as you still have enough crew to man a broadside, which is easily possible even with 30 or 40% marines.

[Bach]

Actually that was the USS Chesapeake which was the same size as the HMS Shannon - both were 38 gun frigates with 18lb main battery. More like 2 Tricomalees fighting each other in game.

 

The Halifax squadron pursuing the USS Constitution  also contained a 64 gun SOL in addition to the 4 frigates 2x 38 gun, 36 gun and a 32 gun) and some unrated ships. In game this would roughly translate to an Ingermanland plus 2 Trincs, a Frigate and a Belle Poule. This would be interesting but I would suggest that the Connie would lose this fight.

Good points. The Philly was the one Decatur burned. But even with a reduced 18# armament on the Chesepeake it still had the armor. Point being, that without the boarding it's not certain the Shannon could have taken it. Has there been any recorded events of a Constitution class fighting x2 40 gun frigates? The British admiralty put out an order not to engage one without two. So the indication is that the admiralty thought two regular frigs would be enough. I think the current armor rule set goes slightly beyond x2. We' re probably about x3 Trincs to reasonably have a chance. So I would think a slight scaling might be in order.

[Bulwyf]

Please dont nerf Constitution, cause other players don`t know how to counter/handle it, and fighting a Constitution with 42pdr carronades with there Ingermaland on close range....

 

A broad assumption that I don't know how to handle it, a Pavel at short range with locked guns so all are square to target has all of the top two decks bounce, a proportion of the 2nd from bottom bounce and only the bottom deck with reliable penetration. To me that spells that the armour on the Constitution is overblown.

[akd]

A broad assumption that I don't know how to handle it, a Pavel at short range with locked guns so all are square to target has all of the top two decks bounce, a proportion of the 2nd from bottom bounce and only the bottom deck with reliable penetration. To me that spells that the armour on the Constitution is overblown.

 

Top two decks on Pavel are very light (later in life she didn't even carry guns on poop deck).  Many people run with only the two bottom decks.  But square to target at shortish range, both bottom decks penetrate.  Experienced it today (barely beat a Pavel + 3rd rate with 3x connies).

[Bulwyf]

Top two decks on Pavel are very light (later in life she didn't even carry guns on poop deck).  Many people run with only the two bottom decks.  But square to target at shortish range, both bottom decks penetrate.  Experienced it today (barely beat a Pavel + 3rd rate with 3x connies)

 

Assuming reasonable handling you shouldn't be able to beat them at all with that mix. 164 guns of heavier weight vs 132 of lighter weight.