Ideas for new gunnery mechanics and also swivels baby!

[Slim McSauce]

Accuracy penalty for speed? Yes. I don't like how incredibly easy aiming is.

[maturin]

Quote

Battle sails were used to "steady" the decks to allow accurate shooting. 

This actually works the other way around. Shortening sail makes the deck jump around more as the ship rolls. More sail results in a more inclined deck, but this can be compensated for by changing the elevation of the gun.

Sailing fast upwind or on a beam reach would theoretically provide the most stable gun platform, heel permitting. Sailing downwind would result in the lowest accuracy, due to rolling. Sitting still with your sails depowered would be as bad or even worse, while heaving to properly would be quite comfortable. In practice the sea state has a big influence too, and that can interfere with the steadiness of the deck when close hauled, as the crests come with greater frequency and the ship is always pitching and scending.

[SirAlatriste]

Hello Maturin, I'm a fan of you in the books and the film.

The changes in the top of this topic are really nice, a good content to develop. The boarding update and a good one of this will make this almost perfect.

Edited July 5, 2018 by SirAlatriste

[DeRuyter]

On ‎6‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 10:17 PM, maturin said:

This actually works the other way around. Shortening sail makes the deck jump around more as the ship rolls. More sail results in a more inclined deck, but this can be compensated for by changing the elevation of the gun.

Sailing fast upwind or on a beam reach would theoretically provide the most stable gun platform, heel permitting. Sailing downwind would result in the lowest accuracy, due to rolling. Sitting still with your sails depowered would be as bad or even worse, while heaving to properly would be quite comfortable. In practice the sea state has a big influence too, and that can interfere with the steadiness of the deck when close hauled, as the crests come with greater frequency and the ship is always pitching and scending.

Well I think as you say the sea state has a big influence IRL - currently in game the sea state is not much of a factor except for the really small ships. Sailing fast upwind may result in pounding into the waves - a lot of pitch. In many cases sailing downwind will give more stability - talking from sailing experience in tall ships or the perception from the deck not aiming a cannon of course.

[Angus MacDuff]

Speed gives more stable decks in a sea state.  Slow down and you roll like a drunken sailor (I have some experience on the "drunken sailor" aspect).  "Battle" sails were a case of bringing in your courses (lowest sails) in order to reduce the risk of them catching fire.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Oberon74

[John Page]

I like the idea of swivels. The rest seems a bit complicated, even though I like the ideas and were presented very well. We have to remember this is a game. The more complex a mechanic becomes, the harder the game becomes. I personally think mechanics should be simple.

Also, I believe I read somewhere the time is sped up already, which it clearly is if you play the game. That is, sailing maneuvers and ship speeds are much faster than they would be in real life. So, if something like this is to be implemented, it would have to be rebalanced to adjust accordingly.

On 1/28/2018 at 1:09 PM, Cecil Selous said:

To man the swivels in the battle instance with crew, there should be a second option in the boarding menu (like press 9 and then 2 for “man swivels”) to fire the swivels you can switch between them and aim them personally at your target.

Manning each individual cannon becomes a significant challenge because the player is already controlling so much. It is already very hard to shoot and perform a maneuver at the same time (e.g. tacking and shooting). It would not be in real life because you would have multiple people responsible for each task (firing and aiming a gun, steering the ship, setting/adjusting sails, etc.) whereas in game the player has the sole responsibility. This is why the AI can shoot and sail backwards with ease, the AI has multiple components that handle certain aspects of the ship and can do so much faster than a single player who is trying to manage all of the same aspects.

I think it would be cool to have a combination of @Cecil Selous's idea and what is currently in game. I am thinking the player should still have to aim the guns, or at least part of them, and we can have 'gun captains' (friendly AI) that aim/shoot the rest for you. Not sure how that could work exactly though. But I never liked the idea of having to aim every single gun myself just to get the accuracy I want (and enemy AI already have) and there isn't exactly a 'fire as they bear' command you can give.

Edited July 4, 2018 by John Page

[DeRuyter]

On ‎6‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 12:45 PM, Oberon74 said:

Speed gives more stable decks in a sea state.  Slow down and you roll like a drunken sailor (I have some experience on the "drunken sailor" aspect).  "Battle" sails were a case of bringing in your courses (lowest sails) in order to reduce the risk of them catching fire.

That depends on a number of things including the point of sail.  Keep in mind that reducing sail also reduces heel which helps aiming. Yes sailing in light wind in a quartering sea and you'll roll in the swell. Sailing close hauled under full sail in high wind and you'll be heeling and plunging into the waves (this can be ameliorated by hull shape).

Simply clewing up the courses to reduce fire risk was not the only reason ships reduced sail in battle. Battle sails were also the primary maneuvering sails which could be handled by a reduced crew - the rest manning the guns. The more sail you carry the more stress you have on the rig which is going to take damage in battle. There are exceptions which again is dependent on the wind and sea state. Trafalgar was fought in light wind so the British approached under full sail for example. In general though ships didn't maneuver at top speed under full sail unless they were running.

Example from log of the Constitution on sighting the Guerriere they took in sail to slow down when beating to quarters:

"took in our Top Gallant Sails, Staysails, flying Jib, hauled the Courses up, took the 2nd Reef in the Topsails, and sent down the Royal Yards"

That is a significant amount of canvas that was taken in. Later after some exchanges of long range broadsides they set the main t'gallant sail to close in and;

"and steered down on his Beam in order to bring him to close action, at 5 minutes after 6 PM hauled down the Jib, and lay the Main Top Sail Shivering and opened on him a heavy fire from all our Guns"

Essentially slowing down significantly once in range - in game terms hitting T and manually opposing the main to slow down. So it was not all about speed.

[Alvar Fañez de Minaya]

I love your idea I think that the aim with the guns should be reduced drastically ..... Hitting the other boat should be much more difficult .... This would prevent the sniper shot to the sticks, which is totally unreal ..... 

The issue is how to make it more difficult or more real if you want to say (hitting those spark guns on a moving boat had to be very difficult) ..

I would like to ask a question ...... What if the scattering factor is simply increased and the upper angle and lateral shooting angles are limited? ..... When in a broadside, instead of hitting 20 bullets at 200 meters, you will only hit 10 bullets, the matter would be fixed ... the other bullets would go up or down and end up breaking sticks as it happened in reality ....

To avoid the sniper shot to the sticks, the shading of the individual cannon can be eliminated, and with the greater dispersion of the shot, it would be impossible (as in reality) to hit a stick with a bullet .....

This will help very much to solve the main problem of this game wich is the low population ...... A population of 2500 players ..... that's content ...... And those of us who have lived it, we know ...

If this game wants to maintain a population of 2500 players, it has to get players who can not spend more than 2 hours a day to play, play on equal terms (with the same ships) as those who dedicate 6 or 8 hours to the game. .....

The difference between those who play 2 hours a day and those who do 6 hours must be the skill with the handling of the ship, and guns. Not the ship..... And this will help very much.

Edited July 7, 2018 by Alvar Fañez de Minaya

[Slim McSauce]

12 hours ago, Alvar Fañez de Minaya said:

I love your idea I think that the aim with the guns should be reduced drastically ..... Hitting the other boat should be much more difficult .... This would prevent the sniper shot to the sticks, which is totally unreal ..... 

The issue is how to make it more difficult or more real if you want to say (hitting those spark guns on a moving boat had to be very difficult) ..

I would like to ask a question ...... What if the scattering factor is simply increased and the upper angle and lateral shooting angles are limited? ..... When in a broadside, instead of hitting 20 bullets at 200 meters, you will only hit 10 bullets, the matter would be fixed ... the other bullets would go up or down and end up breaking sticks as it happened in reality ....

To avoid the sniper shot to the sticks, the shading of the individual cannon can be eliminated, and with the greater dispersion of the shot, it would be impossible (as in reality) to hit a stick with a bullet .....

I would really like to see this tried sometime.  Gunnery compared to sailing is too arcadey. Guns are too accurate and if you range your shots you can nail at any range with little dispersion. The traverse speed of guns lets you quickly pull of ridiculous angles or let you train your guns on a single masts until it's down which depending on cannons can be quick of very quick.

I think either gun dispersion should be increased across the board ~25% or the gyro assistance be removed.

[Alvar Fañez de Minaya]

44 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

I would really like to see this tried sometime.  Gunnery compared to sailing is too arcadey. Guns are too accurate and if you range your shots you can nail at any range with little dispersion. The traverse speed of guns lets you quickly pull of ridiculous angles or let you train your guns on a single masts until it's down which depending on cannons can be quick of very quick.

I think either gun dispersion should be increased across the board ~25% or the gyro assistance be removed.

The ships should lower their hardness at all levels to avoid too long battles.

People it would use the battle sails in big battles to avoid damage to them due to the bullets  over the deck by to the dispersion ...

The masts would fall as in reality, by the bullets lost over the deck...

It would be an interesting game

 

 

[Slim McSauce]

3 minutes ago, Alvar Fañez de Minaya said:

The ships should lower their hardness at all levels to avoid too long battles.

People it would use the battle sails in big battles to avoid damage to them due to the bullets  over the deck by to the dispersion ...

The masts would fall as in reality, by the bullets lost over the deck...

It would be an interesting game

Yes I agree. Too much is is relied on taking damage and repairing it later. I think battles would be better if the goal was to not take damage in the first place. We couldn't do this now because dishing damage is just so easy, but with a change in gunnery damage could be scaled more realistically, for example masts can be tuned slightly weaker, and thickness can be lowered a some across the board.

So you do and receive more damage at range, but it's okay because you're already playing farther ranges because it's viable. Eventually the other side will wear their limited repairs and you can close, but it's not a gank meta because if you play smart you'll be at range anyway and you may be able to turn tail and run with 1 sail rep left. Chain has already been tuned to this, ball needs to be tuned to not reset tag timer unless a % of sail damage is done.

That's a meta I'd like to see.

 

[John Page]

On 7/3/2018 at 9:41 PM, John Page said:

Manning each individual cannon becomes a significant challenge because the player is already controlling so much. It is already very hard to shoot and perform a maneuver at the same time (e.g. tacking and shooting). It would not be in real life because you would have multiple people responsible for each task (firing and aiming a gun, steering the ship, setting/adjusting sails, etc.) whereas in game the player has the sole responsibility. This is why the AI can shoot and sail backwards with ease, the AI has multiple components that handle certain aspects of the ship and can do so much faster than a single player who is trying to manage all of the same aspects.

I think it would be cool to have a combination of @Cecil Selous's idea and what is currently in game. I am thinking the player should still have to aim the guns, or at least part of them, and we can have 'gun captains' (friendly AI) that aim/shoot the rest for you. Not sure how that could work exactly though. But I never liked the idea of having to aim every single gun myself just to get the accuracy I want (and enemy AI already have) and there isn't exactly a 'fire as they bear' command you can give.

On 8/2/2018 at 10:12 AM, Old Crusty said:

Even if the Captain ordered the initial broadside fired all at once ( common for the first broadside in a line of battle ) the gun crews were then ordered to load and fire as fast as possible. Each individual crew loading and firing their gun independent  from each other at the target that the Captain has designated. It was extremely rare after the initial broadside for all guns to be fired at the same time.

Just to add this to the relevant topic.

Yes, 'fire as she bears' would be a nice option. The game engine would have to know which ship to target, either expecting you to aim the first shot and the rest 'fire as she bears' at the target or having a soft lock, could both be simple solutions.

 

Having to aim each swivel would be extremely difficult and would often times be tedious, it should be automatic (once you assign crew) with the option to aim, in my opinion. Scratch that, keep it automatic. As far as I know, swivel cannon were used for close range and were very effective against boarders or crew on the other ship using round or grape shot. Pretty much useless against ship's armor.

 

I think in addition to this, muskets (served out to crew) and marines should act as sharp shooters doing damage to crew within range of the ship (they are already in game, but they only count as boarding mods currently).  Since marines are already assigned just have small arms fire start doing damage to crew within 300 yards getting more accurate as it gets closer, like so:

300 yards (extreme range very inaccurate)

100 yards (much better accuracy, 65%)

50 yards (accuracy, 75% or 80%)

10 yards (almost point blank, max accuracy, not necessarily 100% more like 90% or 95%)

Should not be able to kill all the crew this way though, as some aren't visible, below decks, etc.

[Wick]

Contemporary sources reckoned that in battle conditions with an average of 10-33% misfire and the added stress, troops on land achieved about 10% hit-rate at 80 yards to a company sized target. 

Add an ever moving ship, humidity and the immense smoke and what do we get?

Muskets were probably only become somewhat effective on occasions like at Nelson's death. Big ships locked together stationary. 

Still i would love to see the option added with the changes i proposed earlier(speed dependent accuracy).

 

[maturin]

On 9/11/2018 at 8:36 AM, Wick said:

Contemporary sources reckoned that in battle conditions with an average of 10-33% misfire and the added stress, troops on land achieved about 10% hit-rate at 80 yards to a company sized target. 

Add an ever moving ship, humidity and the immense smoke and what do we get?

Muskets were probably only become somewhat effective on occasions like at Nelson's death. Big ships locked together stationary. 

Still i would love to see the option added with the changes i proposed earlier(speed dependent accuracy).

 

Accounts of close actions regularly reference the quarterdecks being swept clean by sharpshooters, and the number of dead officers backs this up.

Then there are the tactics of 1600s buccaneers, picking off the crew with muskets exclusively.  

With a long battle and a lot of barrels, inaccuracy doesn't mean low lethality.

[Slim McSauce]

Still one of the best suggestions on the forum to this day.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[aklex]

Внесу немного от себя по поводу камеры в игре.

В локации боя когда идет смена камеры с третьего лица на вид с палубы (или прицела) очень бы хотелось что бы как то фиксировалась камера. Мне нравится вид от третьего лица с максимально удаленной камерой от корабля  это позволяет увидеть лучше маневр (да и картинка более красивая, от первого лица она более уныла (на палубе если честно реально пусто)), но для точного выстрела приходится входить в вид от первого лица, так вот возврат к камере от третьего лица не происходит на то положение с которого входишь в режим прицела (приходиться крутить колесико мышки). Если можно сделать так что бы фиксированный (с какого положения от третьего лица вошел в режим прицела на такое же и вернулся без корректировки колесиком мышки), это сократит пустую потерю времени во время боя.

Второе пожелание. Как я написал ранее мне нравиться в игре вид от третьего лица на корабль (палуба пуста и уныла). Но камера недостаточно далеко поднимается от корабля, он не весь попадает в обзор, при чем корабли все разные. Огромная просьба если можно сделать так что бы максимально камера при виде на корабль от третьего лица поднималась над кораблем так что бы оставалась пятая часть от вертикали монитора (а на глаз приподнять ее на пару витков колесика мышки).

И третья (она конечно не к этой теме, но если прочитаете две первых то думаю и третью то же посмотрите). Игре реально уже вчера требуется оптимизация в плане потребления компьютерного железа. (при движении на глобальной карте без каких то резких сменах локаций происходит скачки фпс в пределах 60 единиц это очень не хорошо (я представляю что делается на портовой битве с максимальными кораблями и максимальном их количестве (там наверное вообще 5 фпс это очень хорошо)).

Не поймите меня не правильно, игра развивается чувствуется наплыв новых пользователей, а самое страшное для проекта это когда игра технически не исправна или не оптимизированная. Хочется что бы этот проект только рос и развивался, потому что такое ощущение от победы в ПвП не было уже очень давно не от одного онлайн проекта (для чего они впрочем и существуют).