Mast health bar and repair for masts

[Gregory Rainsborough]

1. A lot of folks get frustrated with losing their masts which is understandable as it's annoying having to make a mental note of how often your masts have been hit. So I would suggest adding a bar for each mast which is then split into various sections (demonstrated in my carefully made picture using paint) so you could see how much health your masts have before you lose your masts. This would allow people to repair as necessary without having to waste a repair repairing sails when the sails haven't been damaged but the mast has.

2. I would also suggest that a separate repair called a "mast repair" which would require players to carry mast repairs. Currently we "repair sails" to repair both sails and masts which seems a bit odd. I think that it would be more accurate to use sail repair for sail damage and a mast repair to repair mast damage. This would add to the complexity of engagements of course with people having to carry hull, rig, mast and rum to repair their ships during combat. Rig repairs could be lightened as a result as it would no longer mean that wood would have to be included and the mast repairs could be fairly hefty and correlate to the amount of masts per ship.

But yeah, just a thought I had while carebearing.

[StaleMemes]

I think a straight up HP bar would be gamey, imo rather masts should be like pump/rudder/mag with "ok" "damaged" and "heavily damaged" with background repairs rate capping out at ~80% health

Then make demasting also depend on the amount of sail set. "Ok" all sail levels are good, "damaged" you better be careful at full or half, and at "heavily damaged" you have to stay in battle sails or below until the crew reinforces the mast and repairs the weak spots.

If you want to take the risk of fighting with full sails you run the risk of a well placed sudden burst of damage demasting you before you can drop sails.

It makes sense, you put more stress on the masts they will be more likely to fall.

I think this would alleviate problems you speak of and add more interesting (and realistic) strategy.

 

Edit also the angle of yards, depowering, and anything else effecting force exerted on the mast (like angle to the wind, and how much it is supported by other masts and rigging)

All this stuff should effect the likelyhood of a mast collapsing.

Edited April 27, 2018 by Capt Aerobane

[Milkman van Swallows]

Yeah, let's turn this into a complete arcade game. Lets also add exact position of impact for projectiles fired with a red zone covering possible dispersion, quick example below:

Edited April 27, 2018 by Milkman van Swallows

[StaleMemes]

4 minutes ago, Milkman van Swallows said:

Yeah, let's turn this into a complete arcade game. Lets also add exact position of impact for projectiles fired with a red zone covering possible dispersion quick, example below:

Man thats just immature and a strawman logical fallacy.

Edited April 27, 2018 by Capt Aerobane

[Gregory Rainsborough]

5 minutes ago, Milkman van Swallows said:

Yeah, let's turn this into a complete arcade game. Lets also add exact position of impact for projectiles fired with a red zone covering possible dispersion quick, example below:

Shall we remove the planking bars then since that's exactly the same thing? It's an extension of what already exists not something completely new or even radical.

[Capn Rocko]

Personally, I like the idea of not knowing exact mast HP because it requires the player to be more alert and collected in battle. Those who do not pay attention, get punished. I am not saying that its a bad idea, just that I would rather see things stay the way they are.

 

[StaleMemes]

4 minutes ago, Capn Rocko said:

Personally, I like the idea of not knowing exact mast HP because it requires the player to be more alert and collected in battle. Those who do not pay attention, get punished. I am not saying that its a bad idea, just that I would rather see things stay the way they are.

 

Hence my addition to the suggestion of it only being a rough estimate: akin to a crew and officers looking at the masts and judging the level of damage and strength of supporting rigging/movement/flexing and saying "yeah its fine" or "drop sails the mizzen is in trouble" etc.

[Slim McSauce]

A simple green/orange/red indicator would be enough

[the Kidd]

2 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

No HP bars, but a visual damage model of masts, please.

thats okay!

[admin]

Perhaps it should be different
Perhaps captain of the vessel should be able to judge if his masts are weak or not. 

But the captain of the enemy vessel should not know if he damaged the mast on hit or not. Maybe the feature showing penetration for the enemy is not good, but at least it it consistent with other indications. If we are to consider realistic fog of war indicators we should remove cannon hits, penetrations and crew damage (for example crew damage definitely cannot be judged from the outside). 

 

as a result we are planning the way to give you the necessary info to judge mast state of YOUR ship.

[Raf Van Boom]

Instead of a health bar how about some art that would depict certain stages of mast damage, and hull damage for that matter. It does the same thing but it's more pleasing to the eye.

The pock marks on the hull don't actually reflect the damage the ship is suffering since repairs don't remove them.

[admin]

3 minutes ago, Le Raf Boom said:

Instead of a health bar how about some art that would depict certain stages of mast damage, and hull damage for that matter. It does the same thing but it's more pleasing to the eye.

The pock marks on the hull don't actually reflect the damage the ship is suffering since repairs don't remove them.

there will be no bars

we will just show section HP percentages in the M interface (instance based map)

[z4ys]

21 minutes ago, admin said:

...judge mast state of YOUR ship.

A crackling sound when mast health is low would be enough in my opinion.

[Hethwill]

4 minutes ago, z4ys said:

A crackling sound when mast health is low would be enough in my opinion.

A combination of sound + model wood appearance could be interesting ( no arcade meters and bars ) so to accommodate for the sound impaired players.

 

[admin]

16 minutes ago, z4ys said:

A crackling sound when mast health is low would be enough in my opinion.

not all play with sound

the main thing is that the system must be consistent.
If we show crew damage we must show mast pens too
If we remove mast pens all other things you cannot judge without boarding the ship must be removed. 

But we do not plan to remove it as indications of hits and falling planking bars gives some visual satisfaction on successful rakes or hits.

[z4ys]

9 minutes ago, admin said:

not all play with sound

the main thing is that the system must be consistent.
If we show crew damage we must show mast pens too
If we remove mast pens all other things you cannot judge without boarding the ship must be removed. 

But we do not plan to remove it as indications of hits and falling planking bars gives some visual satisfaction on successful rakes or hits.

I'm against a mast health bar. There should be some random factor not by game Rng. It should be the captain himself. But I understand that sound might be not the best solution because some people might not be able to hear it.