Limit Chainshot

[Slim McSauce]

Should chainshot be limited to a few broadsides worth?

So I think anyone who's PVP'd before knows primary means of combat is usually chain, followed by either sinking or boarding. My question is, is this the optimal PVP scenario fun-wise? What if chainshot was limited? Would we see less focus on passively kiting down sails? I think yes.

PVP revolves so much around chaining, repairing, and chaining sails and IMO its not very fun gameplay. Chaining sails is so easy and effective it takes away from the actual ship v ship combat. There's hardly any "brawl" in PVP anymore. Its just so passive and boring chaining someone down to 50% before going in for the kill, most of the time battles are decided by who has the most sail repairs and not skill.

I suggest chainshot be limited to 4 broadsides (enough to get most ships down to 80% sails) and after that point ships have to close the gap and slug it out with ball. A perk/ship knowledge can be introduces to give an extra broadside of chain but no more than that.

At the same time repairs should probably be limited to 2 sail, 2 hull and 1 crew because ships stacked with repairs also contributes to the perpetual kite fest that is PVP. There needs to be a point within a battle where commitment is made to fight. No more sitting at range tickling peters for 40 minutes and running off. Its not fun content.

So what do ya'll think? Is limiting chainshot/repairs the right move to make PVP more fun?

Edited October 30, 2017 by Slim Jimmerson

[Christendom]

If we're limiting chain, repairs also need to be limited.

[CoyoteJohn]

I personally feel all cannon ammunition should be limited. I read somewhere once that HMS Victory carried something like 27 tons of ammunition, which comes out to about 46 broadsides (or 23 volleys of all guns on board), assuming there were equal amounts of shot available for each class of cannon on board.

Repairs below the water line would've been done during battle, but actual repairs to hull damage that had no risk of causing the ship to take on water would've waited until afterwards. I can imagine some measure of repair may have been done to the rigging during battle, but sails weren't going to be patched and the man-power intensive task of setting a replacement mast sure as heck wouldn't have happened during battle. If it were up to me, emergency repairs would be the only thing available in the battle, with repair kits (rigging parts, sail cloth, oakum, planks, and fir logs) available once one leaves the battle instance.

[Teutonic]

1 hour ago, Christendom said:

If we're limiting chain, repairs also need to be limited.

agreed.

[Slim McSauce]

Anyone care to explain why they don't want chainshot/repairs amount limited? The point of the poll is to let you choose a side visually on the matter, but if you are voting without possibly reading the thread or posting why you dissent I'll remove the poll and go off discussion alone since it seems to go further.

Edited October 30, 2017 by Slim Jimmerson

[William Death]

I agree with limiting chainshot to 2 rounds per gun (6 broadsides) and limit repairs to 2 hull, 2 rig, and 1 rum repair per battle. A captain perk (not an upgrade) to allow 4 broadsides of chain per gun would be neat. Add a restriction to this perk so that you cannot combine double shot/charge with it. 

Chainshot damage needs to be reduced to what it used to be a long time ago.  It is a little too powerful right now I think, especially at range. The accuracy seems to be about right.

In my opinion, rig repairs should not repair masts at all. However, people complain about being demasted; so in-game, the repairs actually do repair the masts. Lets strike a balance between the two by doing this: you can gain some masts back using one of your rig repairs. If you are demasted again after that, you don't get those masts back, even if you have your 2nd rig repair still.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

2 hours ago, CoyoteJohn said:

I personally feel all cannon ammunition should be limited. I read somewhere once that HMS Victory carried something like 27 tons of ammunition, which comes out to about 46 broadsides (or 23 volleys of all guns on board), assuming there were equal amounts of shot available for each class of cannon on board.

Repairs below the water line would've been done during battle, but actual repairs to hull damage that had no risk of causing the ship to take on water would've waited until afterwards. I can imagine some measure of repair may have been done to the rigging during battle, but sails weren't going to be patched and the man-power intensive task of setting a replacement mast sure as heck wouldn't have happened during battle. If it were up to me, emergency repairs would be the only thing available in the battle, with repair kits (rigging parts, sail cloth, oakum, planks, and fir logs) available once one leaves the battle instance.

You are correct, every Navy had and still has ammunition scales, shipboard space is always limited and every Navy had their preferences as to ammunition load-outs depending on the tactics they employed in battle.

The French would often cripple ships rigging to facilitate boarding, or if circumstances dictated, disengage  from the action. In fairness to the French it was a sound military tactic, they had after all, at that time lost many of their best officers to Madame Guillotine and was not a reflection on their honour or courage.

The British however preferred ball and grape to reduce crew numbers to facilitate boarding,  a more brutal choice, but highly effective. other Navy's carried a more balanced load-out.

Repairs at sea were, and particularly in battle were very limited. Patching shot holes below the waterline and fire fighting being of the highest priority followed by getting the guns back into the fight.

Mast and rigging damage was often left until after the battle unless a ship was left behind as the battle moved on, even then repairs were often patching sails or jury rigging lost masts with a spar and scrap canvass, anything to get steerage way. Replacing Spars and rigging at sea was difficult and dangerous work, re-stepping masts was impossible, in any case it required the ship be to on an even keel and thus a dockyard repair, although a quiet cove could be used as long as the ship could be shored up and refloated post repair.

In the event of boarding as many men as was possible were needed to repel boarders, the only exemptions being those working below plugging leaks/ fighting fires, it was common to recall the lightly wounded from the Orlop deck to fight but given the types of wounds inflicted in these battles and medical practices of the day, there would not be  many of those.

While these issues are reflected in the game it is a question as to what degree they should be, should a dismasted ship be left behind in the wake of battle to take her chances  of escape or not as circumstance dictates? Should the percentage of men returned to the fight reflect more accurately the injuries sustained? Should ammunition load-outs  reflect the time period or be infinite as they currently are?

At the end of the day it is a game, it should be playable and fun, and the questions raised above will affect gameplay, More historical I think, would result in more ships escaping, to fight another day, Less would take the game more toward  an arcade game where it is easy to sink anything and everything, somewhere between those extremes lies a good balanced game, and that balance is, I think, what will make the game what it deserves to be.

 

[Bubba Smith]

Just slow down the reload of chain-shot, after all it took slighly more time in real life to load chain shot. 

 

 

[Slim McSauce]

25 minutes ago, Buba Smith said:

Just slow down the reload of chain-shot, after all it took slighly more time in real life to load chain shot. 

that's not enough. Even with longer reload time I can sit just within range and chain you down repeatedly for an indefinite amount of time without actually engaging you if I wanted.

[Slim McSauce]

Poll edited for better visual representation, sorry if your vote was messed with

Edited October 30, 2017 by Slim Jimmerson

[Jarlath Morrow]

This is an interesting question. I'll hold off voting until I think about it more.

If we want to make chain-shot less of a go-to in battle, there are a bunch of changes that could be made:

• Increase load time for chain-shot
• Increase ball damage to sails
• Reduce chain-shot accuracy (deviation from point of aim)
• Worsen chain-shot ballistics (worse arc and/or slower projectile)
• More aggressive falloff for chain-shot damage

Personally, I like one or more of the last 3 on the list.

Talking just about the endless repairs in battle (separate but related issue), I have some ideas:

• Increase weight of hull and/or rig repairs
• Increase time needed to repair sails
• Increase the crew needed to repair sails
• Give all repairs diminishing returns (next repair will restore only 75% of the HP the previous repair gave you)

Personally, I like the last 3 that I listed.

If we want to get crazy, during sail repair we could allow hits to the rigging to do damage to crew. Can you imagine patching canvas while cannonballs are flying through the rigging? To the crews in Naval Action, that's their everyday life!

[Rebel Witch]

limit all ammunition, isnt there a reason why boarding was the most effective form of combat in this naval period? because ships didnt have ENDLESS supplies of ammunition to circle around firing for hours at a time.

the devs would do the game a favor by limiting ammunition to force players to make hard choices and to put more focus on boarding in the game. all of which is 'more' historical and immersive.

on that note. there is a reason why pirates in smaller ships boarded much larger ships, because sailors were not marines. sailors were not fighters so an experienced group of cutthroats usually made easy work of a ship without marines.(in boarding)

Edited October 30, 2017 by Rebel Witch

[Eyesore]

"all focus on boarding" ... have you played the boardinggame? It is the least interesting, most boring, gearbased thing to do in this game ...

Yes, i know, it was the way to go in the timeperiod ... but if waiting out some timers and clicking to beat some latency is going to be the 'game' ... I'd rather wait until 'boarding' is a decent actual game?

[randommexi]

I think you're going about this wrong.  

first question you need to ask is "why does everyone use chain shot first?"  Answer, so the enemy cannot run away or pursue.

Pvp is focused around speed.  if you are faster, you can catch anyone and retreat from anyone.  therefor you pick the fights you can win and run from those you cant.

so, limiting chain shot does nothing if you are trying to get people to fight.  Also, 90% of the pvp is ganking.  (a gank is a combat situation where one of the two sides does not wish to participate).  

so the best way to get people to fight, would be to remove ganking.  but then we'd have no pvp.  so its very complicated.  if you're trying to get people to fight instead of circling each other and using chain shot, you're going to need to change the very core of combat and the economy.

 

one  suggestion I can make that could help with this would be to remove all combat repairs.  you would not need to limit chain shot then.  however, it would still be the same as it is now.  people could chain shot each other down so they couldn't run away very easily.  if you left combat repairs in and limited chain shot, people would just sail away and wait for their enemy to run out of chain shot and escape combat eventually.  cause they could repair their sails.

if you think removing combat repairs is too much, then increasing their cooldown could also work.  maybe to 15 minutes.  

 

[Hethwill]

Limit all, per combat ( no need to buy/resupply, it is combat instance related )

A schooner doesn't have infinite round shot, or whatever type.

A brig doesn't have infinite round shot. A first rate doesn't have infinite round shot.

( I'm totally shooting myself in the feet here given my unending love for schooners and brigs... but I rather have a historical setup )

[admin]

repairs per battle probably need to be limited. They did not achieve the desired result of adding an element of picking up repairs from the enemy turning the battle around.

[randommexi]

26 minutes ago, admin said:

repairs per battle probably need to be limited. They did not achieve the desired result of adding an element of picking up repairs from the enemy turning the battle around.

back to the old way, one of each.  

on a side note, how am I suppose to sink those slow pokes that load up repairs and make their ships so slow I can catch them in reverse?

[shaeberle84]

8 hours ago, CoyoteJohn said:

I personally feel all cannon ammunition should be limited. I read somewhere once that HMS Victory carried something like 27 tons of ammunition, which comes out to about 46 broadsides (or 23 volleys of all guns on board), assuming there were equal amounts of shot available for each class of cannon on board.

All special ammunition should be limited, yes. But if  we limit ball, it only takes the fun away and even more fights will end up in boarding parties.

I think the new repair system (multiple repairs, and also chosing which type of repairs to use) is good, but stacking repair mods and endless rig repairs also reduce the fun / slow fights down / prolong fights.

So yes, limit both chains and repairs, but to a sensible extent.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

4 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

I would limit it to 2 hull repairs and 2 rig repairs. 

Max. 3 repairs each... But still I prefer 2.

Crew repair shouldnt be limited as the surgeon was always working during the battle.

Limit repairs definitely. Yes surgeons worked long and hard both in and out of battle, accidents and illness aboard sailing ships were commonplace even without battle injuries. A significant number of battle injuries  resulted in amputation particularly where injuries involved smashed bones, head and stomach wounds were frequently fatal and if survived would take months to heal.  That left those who were lightly wounded, who could still wield an 18lb cutlass or at best a pistol, even a belaying pin if necessary. The question should be, should the number of men returned to the fight be historical v a reasonable number?

Replacing manpower is critical, replacing numbers that equate to almost a full ships company is not really a good thing, neither in truth is using historical values as the numbers would limited to those who while unfit for duty were still capable of defending themselves and their ship, the answer I think would be a reasonable percentage of casualties, for example, a third of the number of casualties sustained, it would cover the number of dead and critical injuries yet still provide more men than the historical values would permit. At least it would provide the defender with an reasonable chance during boarding actions. 

[Norfolk nChance]

@Slim Jimmerson

I voted other. The reason is you’ve asked two questions that seem related but need separating. The title says chain shot so will start with that.

Chainshot

If you wanted to limit chain then you need to limit grape as well. In RL the amounts frigates and upward carried was phenomenal. The stats on HMS Victory (albeit an SoL) at Trafalgar fired 4200 plus cannonballs and 500 grape and chain. The storage capacity was some 120 tons of ammo it could carry in any format. It simply couldn’t run out before the cannons breached…

Am not sure, but I see your point on limiting the amounts fired. Maybe extra load time on both grape and chain instead? Crew more used to cannon balls so add 1.5x?

Within this same context, I would like Double-Charge completely removed from the game apart from Towers and PORT Forts. It was NEVER used aboard a ship. The Double Ball effectiveness to be reduced to “Pistol Length” or 50m ONLY. Double the Penetration at 50m and half it at 100m.

Repairs

I would remove RUM totally or only used in OW not in BATTLE. The other two I would significantly increase the weight and limit the slots stacking in the hold to just 3x or 5x in an SoL. Here the slot stacking is important here with the weight to stop overloading.

Coding no idea if this can be done, but repairs Hull or Rig have a ceiling of 80% on first use and 50% second use. Ask @ink

 

Very good thread

 

 

Norfolk nChance [ELITE]

 

 

   

Edited October 30, 2017 by Norfolk nChance

[Fluffy Fishy]

2 hours ago, Norfolk nChance said:

Chainshot

If you wanted to limit chain then you need to limit grape as well. In RL the amounts frigates and upward carried was phenomenal. The stats on HMS Victory (albeit an SoL) at Trafalgar fired 4200 plus cannonballs and 500 grape and chain. The storage capacity was some 120 tons of ammo it could carry in any format. It simply couldn’t run out before the cannons breached…

Am not sure, but I see your point on limiting the amounts fired. Maybe extra load time on both grape and chain instead? Crew more used to cannon balls so add 1.5x?

Within this same context, I would like Double-Charge completely removed from the game apart from Towers and PORT Forts. It was NEVER used aboard a ship. The Double Ball effectiveness to be reduced to “Pistol Length” or 50m ONLY. Double the Penetration at 50m and half it at 100m.

Repairs

I would remove RUM totally or only used in OW not in BATTLE. The other two I would significantly increase the weight and limit the slots stacking in the hold to just 3x or 5x in an SoL. Here the slot stacking is important here with the weight to stop overloading.

Coding no idea if this can be done, but repairs Hull or Rig have a ceiling of 80% on first use and 50% second use. Ask @in

Very good thread

Norfolk nChance [ELITE]

That accounts for a little under half HMS Victory's round shot count and all of her specialist shot, generally speaking peacetime armaments for lineships were about 40 round for each cannon, while wartime armaments basically doubled this number to about 80 per gun, while frigates tended to carry 50 or 100 respectively. In contrast specialist shot historically really quite limited with enough for around 3-5 broadsides with the number not really changing a great deal whether at peace or war. Its also worth pointing out that these numbers are pretty consistent throughout all the European navies, while the US navy stored less round shot in favour of a more privateer style armament containing around 25% of their total ammunition as double headed and around 10% scatter shot, leaving them typically with around 35 shots per gun.

To limit the number of shots an in game ship should have you should probably look at how much damage the ships can take, the NA ships are far weaker than historical values suggest, with cannons also loading a little bit faster as there is no account for fatigue or morale in NA so there is no loss over time for crew members who basically operate on peak efficiency of numbers taken from training. Realistically if we want to limit balls we need to think about this aspect as well, so as to not end up with things being skewed either way.

Personally I'd like to see repairing being something you can do over time without a kit, more a resource over time, representing spare bits of wood and jury rigging going on around the ship in general, whilst mast repairs are a bit more formal with kits as they are now. when it comes to balls, I'd like to see them restricted to about 40 shots per gun for regular round shot, around 5 chain, and 8 grape, this is more than enough and represents a somewhat broadly based historical descaling to make a meaningful and fun game.

Its a bit odd to see people complaining about potentially limited ammunition as a whole, no one complains about limited ammunition in shooting games, they just accept it as part of the behaviour, it also stops people needlessly trying to get for lucky shots and being a little more tactical and precious about their shots as they are a finite resource.

Just to end here are the wartime ammunition counts for HMS Victory:

• Round, 32pdr: 2400.
• Round, 24pdr: 2800
• Round, 12pdr: 4200
• Round, 68pdr Carronade: 84
• Grape, 32pdr: 90
• Grape, 24pdr: 112
• Grape, 12prd: 168
• Grape, 68pdr carronade: 7 Case shot, 7 Grape in tin.
• Double headed (Chain/Bar), 32pdr: 90
• Double headed, 24 pdr: 84
• Double headed, 12pdr: 126
• Paper cartridge (Gunpowder), 32pdr: 2580
• Paper cartridge, 24pdr: 2996
• Paper cartridge, 12pdr: 4728

[Hodo]

Ammo should be counted as cargo, and thus more ammo you carry the more weight in your hold, the slower you will be.  You want to go fast carry less shot but dont expect to shoot a lot. 

Simple solution.

Give every type of shot a weight/mass.

Round should weigh as much as each shot of the correct caliber.  So a 24lb ball should weigh 24lb in game.

Chain should be 80% as much

Grape same as chain.

And to give you some idea how many shots listed above that is.

That is 75 shots out of the 42lb guns, and 93 out of the 24lb.  We rarely fire that many shots in a running battle now. 

 

[Tenet]

8 minutes ago, Hodo said:

Ammo should be counted as cargo, and thus more ammo you carry the more weight in your hold, the slower you will be.  You want to go fast carry less shot but dont expect to shoot a lot. 

Simple solution.

Give every type of shot a weight/mass.

Round should weigh as much as each shot of the correct caliber.  So a 24lb ball should weigh 24lb in game.

Chain should be 80% as much

Grape same as chain.

And to give you some idea how many shots listed above that is.

That is 75 shots out of the 42lb guns, and 93 out of the 24lb.  We rarely fire that many shots in a running battle now. 

 

I like this idea, but how do you know chain shot is 80%? 

It takes more volume (two balls+chain or bar), but the balls may be hollow, though most of the mass is still at the outer edge (property of spheres). Those balls were made to withstand the explosion of gunpowder, they would be have to be thick. 

[Hodo]

12 minutes ago, Tenet said:

I like this idea, but how do you know chain shot is 80%? 

It takes more volume (two balls+chain or bar), but the balls may be hollow, though most of the mass is still at the outer edge (property of spheres). Those balls were made to withstand the explosion of gunpowder, they would be have to be thick. 

It was a smaller caliber shot packed with wadding to help it fit better.  But wasnt very accurate.

This was a typical shot. 

[Norfolk nChance]

 

@Hodo 

Give every shot or ammo weight and mass was discussed at length a while back. The weight of the ammo as no effect on ship speed or performance RL. Was amazed when finding this out. The extra load factor in coding on the servers might be quite large, imagine a PB for instance. (this am not sure on so needs others input here)

So, the two choices realistically are limit the actual shots like Double Ball & Charge system or use load time increase to slow down usage. Dispersion increases also to make less effective at distance?

Again, I’d add grape into this as well.

 @Wraith

One thing I’d like to test either in OW or PB is having support repair craft like in EvE Online. Gallente Exequror whose sole purpose is repair and support logistics.

 

http://www.eveonlineships.com/eve-ship-database.php?es=Exequror&ids=634

 

Imagine a LGV that follows the main battle group. It carries Hull & Rig repairs also instead of rum additional crew. Would like to try both ways in OW or BATTLE. The LGV pulls up like [x] and either delivers extra repairs or crew to a damaged ship.

Far outside Home Waters is one major hurdle holding smaller clans back (us included). PORT or FOB (Forward Operating Base) staging is costlier than for larger clans. Using LGV Support Vehicles would increase the clans effective range considerably.

Just a thought

 

Norfolk