Masts and rigging damage

[Prater]

Ok, first battle in Vic vs Vic after latest update:

Chain shooting him for 25 minutes, nothing, only sails go down. Never achieved mast going down.

 

Chain is for rigging, use balls to demast.  So far if I purposefully fire a broadside in the victory above enemy decks I have not failed in knocking a mast down.  I did it twice to northern yesterday and also  against the ai.  If the ship is coming straight at you and you fire into the sails, you have a good chance of knocking a mast down.  I haven't failed yet to knock down a mast when using this tactic.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Chain is for rigging, use balls to demast.  So far if I purposefully fire a broadside in the victory above enemy decks I have not failed in knocking a mast down.  I did it twice to northern yesterday and also  against the ai.  If the ship is coming straight at you and you fire into the sails, you have a good chance of knocking a mast down.  I haven't failed yet to knock down a mast when using this tactic.

 

Fair enough, but losing shrouds or stays should also put the appropriate section of the mast at risk.  Any amount of sail, or even ship rolling, on a mast that is missing too many of it's shrouds or stays in that axis will cause it to come down.

[William Reade]

I'd like to see felled mast or section hanging over the leeward side for a while fouling all sorts of things and dragging the ship in that direction until cut away, rather than just dropping into the depths immediately.

In general the visible mast damage is great, though I'd like top sections toppling more and lower sections less. Jury rigs are really only feasible for 1 section above a standing permanent section.

Repairs. Possibly think about expanding crew focus system rather than just more repairs.

[maturin]

Fair enough, but losing shrouds or stays should also put the appropriate section of the mast at risk. Any amount of sail, or even ship rolling, on a mast that is missing too many of it's shrouds or stays in that axis will cause it to come down.

Exactly. Chain should be less effective than ball, but it should weaken masts.

[admin]

Exactly. Chain should be less effective than ball, but it should weaken masts.

 

it does weaken them. but not enough.. as it is rotating (in theory) instead of hitting directly with force. 

 

 

No warship ever carried even one single lower mast replacement. Replacing a lower mast was completely impossible.

 

 

It was possible in certain situations at sea. In combat it was not possible

But in NA masts will be repairable in combat - even lower sections. Its a must for gameplay.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

it does weaken them. but not enough.. as it is rotating (in theory) instead of hitting directly with force. 

 

The point is that the chain itself doesn't do much to the mast (unless maybe its one of the very thin top-masts), but that the loss of support as the chain shot cuts halyards and stays (particular parts of the rigging that provide strength to the mast) that then reduces their ability to stay up since on their own, they're actually quite weak when subjected to the shearing forces being placed on them by the sails and the rolling of the ship.

[RAMJB]

The point is that the chain itself doesn't do much to the mast (unless maybe its one of the very thin top-masts), but that the loss of support as the chain shot cuts halyards and stays (particular parts of the rigging that provide strength to the mast) that then reduces their ability to stay up since on their own, they're actually quite weak when subjected to the shearing forces being placed on them by the sails and the rolling of the ship.

 

 

I have to play more to have a defined opinion about this, but my gut feeling is that chainshot goes a long way in making your round shot dimasting shots much more damaging. I can't recall a single demast I've achieved without some chain broadsides before. Then again I've been playing mostly my surprise since the last updage, so using chain to slow down bigger ships kind of makes sense. But while I've gotten some neat demasts with roundshot after having shot a couple chain broadsides, I've not achieved a single demast firing roundshot only. I somehow think that the effect of chainshot on the stays securing the mast is already in there, and that once weakened masts can go down with much less effort (which makes a ton of sense, of course).

[RAMJB]

But in NA masts will be repairable in combat - even lower sections. Its a must for gameplay.

 

 

And this is one of those gameplay concessions over realism that I personally don't have a problem seeing in the game .

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I have to play more to have a defined opinion about this, but my gut feeling is that chainshot goes a long way in making your round shot dimasting shots much more damaging. I can't recall a single demast I've achieved without some chain broadsides before. Then again I've been playing mostly my surprise since the last updage, so using chain to slow down bigger ships kind of makes sense. But while I've gotten some neat demasts with roundshot after having shot a couple chain broadsides, I've not achieved a single demast firing roundshot only. I somehow think that the effect of chainshot on the stays securing the mast is already in there, and that once weakened masts can go down with much less effort (which makes a ton of sense, of course).

thats definitely worth testing. Thanks for the heads up!

[maturin]

 

But in NA masts will be repairable in combat - even lower sections. Its a must for gameplay.

 

I would rather just make lower masts (which warships did not have spares for) extremely strong.

 

That way, being a mastless hulk would be even rarer, even if you ran out of repairs.

[NorthernWolves]

I was demasted by chain alone, 5 of them, I've teleported my post from the patch thread here to show everyone. This was in the first few minutes of the game, these were the first shots I received, this screen is thus the entirety of the shots fired at me to that point, my front mast on the Victory was gone.

Once again, outstanding changes with the new patch. This game keeps getting better.
 
I see several people mentioning mast damage and out of all the changes this is the only one I think might need to be looked at again.
 
Had 3 games in a row with several top players, in the first game, from way out, I cut loose with my first broadside of the game at an opposing Victory and I was thinking I had overshot and wasted it and then I saw his mast fall.
2nd game I lost my front mast to the very first broadside from another Victory, my first cannonballs received that game.
3rd game, same thing except this time it was from chainshot, first damage, mast gone.
 
We all were like 'wow, again?' and had an discussion about how it happened, I pulled up the L menu and saw that I had been demasted with 5 rounds of chain shot.
 
I went on to pull out the win with 1 mast left and we had a great game, but that's beside the point 
 
So here is the screen showing how my Victory's mast went down from 5 hits of chain. In the first block the first 2 hit mast, the 2nd block 2 hit mast, 3rd block 1 hit mast. 

 

I love that masts can go and I love that they go in parts sometimes, not always the whole, but I would definitely be all for them being much tougher to bring down than they are now.

 

[maturin]

That was 8 hits to the mast, actually. But they could have been different masts.

[NorthernWolves]

I'm not exactly sure how to read that, but I only counted the word mast 5 times, what does the number that follows mast mean?

 

So I see 7 entries for hits, but 2 of those are sail only, the 3rd and the 6th.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I'm not exactly sure how to read that, but I only counted the word mast 5 times, what does the number that follows mast mean?

 

So I see 7 entries for hits, but 2 of those are sail only, the 3rd and the 6th.

 

I believe that's the specific number of ordnance that contacted that part.  So the first entry is 10 chainshot "penetrated", nine of them hit the sails, and one hit the mast.

[maturin]

Mast 9.2 [2]

 

Means that two rounds hit the mast and did 9.2 damage.

[NorthernWolves]

Thanks for clarifying, so 8 chain shot bringing down my entire Victory mast. Well, I know where all my broadsides of chain are going now

[maturin]

Remember, you don't know which mast was hit by which shot. So the we only know that 8 rounds is sufficient, but it could have been less.

[Lord Hood]

It works well enough. In a 2v2 last night there was 40 minutes of chain and I believe that only one ship lost their bowsprit. Was tedious but prevented our team from closing distance with them.

[NorthernWolves]

Well for me, I still feel like the HP could be tweaked a little more, especially if somewhere between 1 and 8 chains can bring down a mast the size of the Victory's and a total of 4 masts can be brought down in under 3 minutes from medium range.

 

So something is going on here, the masts needs more HP, relative to size, or there needs to be something done with dispersion as too many balls are finding wood when there is 1000x more cubic feet of air than wood at that height above the deck.

 

Should that chain have done damage to my spars and sails? Absolutely. I'd rather have seen me lose control of my yardarms or lose one whole sail off that mast or something other than the whole mast falling to 1-8 chain balls.

 

Maybe it's just a matter of fleshing the damage model out some.

 

Just last night I turned and fired my first broadside at an AI Trincomalee from about 400 yds, 2 masts fell.

 

The round shot's actual damage on the mast is fine, but the hit rate at range is far too high and chain at least needs some sort of damage caveat when hitting.

 

Absolutely round shot was murderous on masts, but extremely hard to hit, subject to deflection and skimming unless dead on and pure golden chance from anywhere but the closest of ranges.

 

"The hole in the mast passes cleanly through at the thickest part of the timber – about 80cm. It was probably caused by an 18pdr gun fired from the lower deck of the French ship Redoubtable at knife range."

[Pixel]

While not specifically mast related, I was surprised at how quickly using a repair granted me a magical new bowsprit in one of the PVE games I played. While it was wonderful for me to be able to recover, I imagine that if it had been a PVP match and I was the opposing player I might be a little taken aback after breaking a enemy ship's bowsprit or mast to have it regenerate within a few minutes. For gameplay and battle flow having repairable masts and bowsprits makes sense. However, maybe separating out major repairs like remasting so that they take longer or require a naval supplies type of resource would make the process seem a little less jarring.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Well for me, I still feel like the HP could be tweaked a little more, especially if somewhere between 1 and 8 chains can bring down a mast the size of the Victory's and a total of 4 masts can be brought down in under 3 minutes from medium range.

 

So something is going on here, the masts needs more HP, relative to size, or there needs to be something done with dispersion as too many balls are finding wood when there is 1000x more cubic feet of air than wood at that height above the deck.

 

Should that chain have done damage to my spars and sails? Absolutely. I'd rather have seen me lose control of my yardarms or lose one whole sail off that mast or something other than the whole mast falling to 1-8 chain balls.

 

Maybe it's just a matter of fleshing the damage model out some.

 

Just last night I turned and fired my first broadside at an AI Trincomalee from about 400 yds, 2 masts fell.

 

The round shot's actual damage on the mast is fine, but the hit rate at range is far too high and chain at least needs some sort of damage caveat when hitting.

 

Absolutely round shot was murderous on masts, but extremely hard to hit, subject to deflection and skimming unless dead on and pure golden chance from anywhere but the closest of ranges.

 

"The hole in the mast passes cleanly through at the thickest part of the timber – about 80cm. It was probably caused by an 18pdr gun fired from the lower deck of the French ship Redoubtable at knife range."

 

You understand that chain, by cutting stays and shrouds, put the mast in danger due to removing its support correct?  If you cut all (or even a fair number) of the windward shrouds on a mast, and it has sails on it, it's coming down.

[admin]

Realistic mast damage will look like this. It was on for a week.

All British ships got to home bases after this demasting event.

[r6751]

While not specifically mast related, I was surprised at how quickly using a repair granted me a magical new bowsprit in one of the PVE games I played. While it was wonderful for me to be able to recover, I imagine that if it had been a PVP match and I was the opposing player I might be a little taken aback after breaking a enemy ship's bowsprit or mast to have it regenerate within a few minutes. For gameplay and battle flow having repairable masts and bowsprits makes sense. However, maybe separating out major repairs like remasting so that they take longer or require a naval supplies type of resource would make the process seem a little less jarring.

I agree. Some repairs are just not possible at sea. In the later game, I hope that replacing rigging would take more time. Replacing masts would be a port requirement, and yards/spars could be replaced, again in time, but only one at a time. The repair times could be blocks, allowing one type of repair per time block. The captain should attempt to remove himself from combat to do repairs. If he cannot or chooses not to pull back, repairs should be limited and longer to do. This could be a timer based on seconds between firing.

 

Missing masts should be a port repair, except for jury rigged single height half masts with perhaps a single sail to work. There is no way an entire mast, with yards, and sails should be replaced during any fight.

[admin]

 

Missing masts should be a port repair, except for jury rigged single height half masts with perhaps a single sail to work. There is no way an entire mast, with yards, and sails should be replaced during any fight.

 

If you look at the painting above (made by Nicolas Pocock, who was present at the Glorious First of June). Most of the SOLS are demasted.

How did they get to port if they could not repair in the open sea.

There were still some fighting for 2 days after trafalgar, does that mean they were fighting jury rigged?

 

Mast repair is an abstraction. As well as many other gameplay issues. 

Time compression helps here, if we speed up game time to let's say sail across Caribbean in 2-4 hours - then the whole trafalgar campaign also goes faster, meaning that repairs also could go faster as a necessary abstraction.

[RAMJB]

How did they get to port if they could not repair in the open sea.

 

 

"ROW YOU BASTARDS!!! ROWWWWWWW!" .

 

Now on a more serious note I'm all for realism but that some gameplay concessions are done here and there to add some playability while keeping the realistic core intact is more than fine in my book.