Abandoned ship - Save the crew

[Sir_Wiener_Von_Snitzel]

In Sea trails and Open World every time you start a new battle you get a full crew, even if you lost all your men in the previous battle.

Im sure that is gonna change till you having to hire crew or something, so it would be cool to have a abandoned ship option.

Also if you have some of the more valuable modules for you crew like rifels and stuff to save that insted of buying new if you ship goes down

then you could controll the front little boat and having 1 or 2 AI following you out of the battle, if they make it you keep them and the stuff they saved.

And if the enermy gets too close to your little line of boat an option to make them flee in multiple directions so atleast a few could survive

 

 

 

[Bis18marck70]

I hope to see something along some of these ideas too.

 

However, a 'saving your crew' option only really becomes important if your crew earns experience and is hard to replace.

 

An experience system for the crew would prompt the player to think more about what fights he wants to get himself into and to actually consider them as crucial to his success rather than a mere means to an end. Saving/caring for one's crew should definetly be one of the main concerns a captain has. Considering that the durability system (if it stays implemented [i hope not but we will see] and if the player has spares) already allows players to essentially throw away there ships a couple of times in reckless play, this might at least make such endeavours more costly.

 

That being said, a lot of thought has to go into such a system and I expect it to take some time - and revisions - until a working balance is found. The overall game has to mature alongside it or even be completed before a more detailed crew management. Make a crew loss/experience system without brushing up the gameplay to alleviate ganking and the harrassment of new players/weaker ships and we will see an increase in the latter as such actions bare less risks and still yield rewards. Make it too slack and the system loses its importance.

[admin]

Crew management will be improved - we plan to add options to control your crew distribution better, which will allow control of bigger vessels with less crew if you know what you are doing.

 

On crew as renewable resource or as a finite resource that you have to refill.

The difference with real life is this - ships rarely did multiple battles and almost always returned to port after a battle.

Implementing crew as a finite resource is easy.  The major drawback is the travel time. Do a couple of boardings and you lost most of your crew. If you are far away from your national bases you are screwed. 

 

What do you guys think?

[Bis18marck70]

Crew management will be improved - we plan to add options to control your crew distribution better, which will allow control of bigger vessels with less crew if you know what you are doing.

 

On crew as renewable resource or as a finite resource that you have to refill.

The difference with real life is this - ships rarely did multiple battles and almost always returned to port after a battle.

Implementing crew as a finite resource is easy.  The major drawback is the travel time. Do a couple of boardings and you lost most of your crew. If you are far away from your national bases you are screwed. 

 

What do you guys think?

 

I would say that crew loss has to be painful.

 

If you come out of battle, the captain should have to anaylze the damage taken (to his ship and his crew) and weigh his options. Staying out at sea might yield further rewards, but going back home allows him to stock up and replenish. It might be harsh if you would like to sail from one part of the world to the other and two hours into the trip need to seek out the nearest port, but hey, that will be part of the challenge of the game. If you don't wish to get into a fight and have dead crew, plan accordingly and do your best to run away from trouble.

 

I am fine with having little trouble finding crew in ports - pressing, heaving drunks on to ones ship, stealing them from other boats, etc - there are so many sources of manpower that finding a few guys to join the crew is not hard. That being said, it would be nice to place meaning behind crew hiring i.e. a reduction in the crews average experience depending on how many new guys are on board etc. I don't know if you guys plan that, but refilling should be more about a mere press of a button.

[Ned Loe]

Crew management will be improved - we plan to add options to control your crew distribution better, which will allow control of bigger vessels with less crew if you know what you are doing.

 

On crew as renewable resource or as a finite resource that you have to refill.

The difference with real life is this - ships rarely did multiple battles and almost always returned to port after a battle.

Implementing crew as a finite resource is easy.  The major drawback is the travel time. Do a couple of boardings and you lost most of your crew. If you are far away from your national bases you are screwed. 

 

What do you guys think?

Add local villages to refill men, add survivors on the os that can be picked up. Also, wounded sailors would heal back and some % will be restored back over some time (depends on the surgeon you will use. ex. master surgeon can restore up to 80% of lost crew).  

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Crew management will be improved - we plan to add options to control your crew distribution better, which will allow control of bigger vessels with less crew if you know what you are doing.

 

On crew as renewable resource or as a finite resource that you have to refill.

The difference with real life is this - ships rarely did multiple battles and almost always returned to port after a battle.

Implementing crew as a finite resource is easy.  The major drawback is the travel time. Do a couple of boardings and you lost most of your crew. If you are far away from your national bases you are screwed. 

 

What do you guys think?

 

So long as the number "killed" in a successful boarding is moderately low.  If I have 50 crew, and I board, losing 11 (because there were 25 someodd people on the other ship), I should get back somewhere between 7-9 as the wounded "heal".  Losing a boarding should cost a lot more killed or "lost", maybe 50%.

 

Add local villages to refill men, add survivors on the os that can be picked up. Also, wounded sailors would heal back and some % will be restored back over some time (depends on the surgeon you will use. ex. master surgeon can restore up to 80% of lost crew).  

 

Agreed with Wind, and I love the idea of a Chirurgeon (Surgeon) type officer.  You could have something like: Bloodletter, Barber, Surgeon's Mate, Surgeon, Physician - allowing better recovery of crew after loss.

[Hra_N]

Press crew from the captured/destroyed enemy ship?

[DeRuyter]

Crew management will be improved - we plan to add options to control your crew distribution better, which will allow control of bigger vessels with less crew if you know what you are doing.

 

On crew as renewable resource or as a finite resource that you have to refill.

The difference with real life is this - ships rarely did multiple battles and almost always returned to port after a battle.

Implementing crew as a finite resource is easy.  The major drawback is the travel time. Do a couple of boardings and you lost most of your crew. If you are far away from your national bases you are screwed. 

 

What do you guys think?

Don't forget putting a prize crew on the captured ship as well. This would include a commerce raider taking merchant ships who may or may not have put up a fight.

If the OW boarding works the same way as ST, ie; the losing ship goes to zero crew and strikes, you'd need a mechanism to calculate the actual losses vs. simulated morale loss. In other words most boarding actions did not result in a high % of losses at least to the winning side. Having said that real crew losses after a battle would provide strategic decisions for captains especially after a major battle. I would also add that ships would often have to put back to port because of structural damage rather than high crew casualties (the frigate combats in the War of 1812 are an example of this).

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Press crew from the captured/destroyed enemy ship?

 

I don't believe this was ever done historically, not during time of war at least.

[Ned Loe]

I don't believe this was ever done historically, not during time of war at least.

It would be true with pirates only. Surrendered crew would join pirates in some cases. 

[maturin]

We should just assume that the crew is automatically picked up from sinking vessels.

 

Ships in Naval Action sink hundreds of times more frequently and hundreds of times faster than actual vessels. So there is no point dwelling on the logistics and ramifications of this gameplay shortcut, IMHO.

 

In my imagination all these sunken vessels are surrendering or slinking off anyhow.

[Johny Reb]

     Although it sounds very immersive to have to hire crew after a fight, I think many fail to see the ramifications of this idea and the conflict with stated positions of the developers to make it easy to return to battle. For instance, the devs have given us repair kits that can be used on the open ocean during the invulnerability period after a fight so that one, we can fight again quickly and two, it protects us against "ambulance chasers."

     Its not hard to envision how the open world will play out. There will be some solo players that will hunt the middle ground between areas that see the heaviest fighting in hopes of finding that lone player that imagines hes safe now that he is no longer near Vasques. For this player your ideas of crew replacement could work provided that the loosing ship didn't fight till the last man and therefore you only loose a minimum of your crew. In the areas that will see the most contention another story plays out. Here there are few solo pvp'ers and after every major fight between factions there will be the crowd of "ambulance chasers" to finish off the victors who with limited crew are hindered from properly handling their ship. Even if you believe the invulnerability will give the victor time to seek refuge these savvy "ambulance chasers" will figure out which ports you will likely return to for crew and camp the approaches leaving you the choice of running the blockade in a weakened state or to seek shelter elsewhere which could take you twice as long and prevent a timely return to battle.

[akd]

There needs to be a way to make crew loss meaningful if the devs want to capture some of the spirit of battle of the day (honorable surrender, meaningful sacrifice, etc.).  Crew shouldn't just be a recharging energy bar with captains only concerned about the physical state of their ship.

 

Also, the concern that crew loss will limit ability to stay continuously in combat may be misplaced.  This only applies to winners, as losers will be returned to port to refit and replenish crew regardless.  There probably should be a logistical limit on operations to force players to make careful choices about when and where to attack.  Along with some interesting replenishment mechanics (pressing sailors out of national ships, etc) and more realistic loss ratios, it would certainly add an additional layer of strategy to the game.

[Johny Reb]

Your right, it only effects the victors but can't you see how this is a problem. Its like in Warthunder arcade mode tanks. There is a flag that must be taken and held. The tanks come in and have a battle of 5v5. The victor is left with 3 heavily damaged tanks and the looser respawns with fresh tanks, drives back to the flag and summarily destroys the weakened tanks that are left to guard. The victors have little to no chance.

It will be like this in the open world if a ship returns to the high seas missing many of his men. Others will be waiting out side so they can prey on the weakened ship that has little to no chance.

It makes terrible game play and the immersion you gain by crew loss during battle is overshadowed by the loss of immersion when you reappear on the OS with a herd of blood suckers on top of you.

[Mulcaster]

I think crew loss would have to be linked to crew quality.  An experienced crew would be quicker with the sails, reload faster, etc.  Losses could be replaced,but only with a less experienced crew.  Losers in a battle might be able to return with a full crew, but that crew would be less experienced.  Victors in a battle would have crew losses, but they would have benefits from being more experienced.  Of course, there would have to be a formula for what percentage of new recruits would lower quality by what amount. 

[akd]

I think crew loss would have to be linked to crew quality. An experienced crew would be quicker with the sails, reload faster, etc. Losses could be replaced,but only with a less experienced crew. Losers in a battle might be able to return with a full crew, but that crew would be less experienced. Victors in a battle would have crew losses, but they would have benefits from being more experienced. Of course, there would have to be a formula for what percentage of new recruits would lower quality by what amount.

Yeah, that would be a pretty good compromise solution for making crew loss meaningful, especially if combined with better boarding mechanics. In battle crew loss leads to degradation of crew experience (which itself would only provide marginal bonuses to certain stats and possibly morale if incorporated), but at the same time crew experience would be fairly easy to earn (you could have a trained-up crew after only a few battles).

Total loss of your ship in battle (sinking, blowing up) could then take things to a step further and come with a chance to lose officers (who would have more long-term experience earning potential and special skills). This would greatly up the risk factor for fighting to the death, provide a good and logical motive for honorable surrender, and avoid the issue where a person in a ship with only one durability point remaining might treat it as a suicide vehicle if they think they are going to lose (since the physical ship itself will be lost regardless).

[scepo]

Your right, it only effects the victors but can't you see how this is a problem. Its like in Warthunder arcade mode tanks. There is a flag that must be taken and held. The tanks come in and have a battle of 5v5. The victor is left with 3 heavily damaged tanks and the looser respawns with fresh tanks, drives back to the flag and summarily destroys the weakened tanks that are left to guard. The victors have little to no chance.

It will be like this in the open world if a ship returns to the high seas missing many of his men. Others will be waiting out side so they can prey on the weakened ship that has little to no chance.

It makes terrible game play and the immersion you gain by crew loss during battle is overshadowed by the loss of immersion when you reappear on the OS with a herd of blood suckers on top of you.

If you can not deal with aftermath of a conflict then you did not win, I see this as one prolonged engagement across multiple instances. To win a fight imho you have to kill your original target and then deal with whoever you encounter on ow. This is not death-match this is sandbox 5v5 is poor planning.

[Johny Reb]

If you can not deal with aftermath of a conflict then you did not win, I see this as one prolonged engagement across multiple instances. To win a fight imho you have to kill your original target and then deal with whoever you encounter on ow. This is not death-match this is sandbox 5v5 is poor planning.

With all due respect you clearly don't get it.

 

This is a game not real life. People have modern day communication capabilities and the worlds scale is much smaller then the real world so it allows your battle to be found very easy. There is NO planning that you can do to prevent people from camping your battle. None! All you could do is arrange a fight way out to sea so that your fight would be hard to locate, but well, thats not very immersive either, is it? So it boils down to this. You WILL get attacked every time you leave battle and you WILL most likely loose because you will be at a huge disadvantage. At least this will take place near ports and such. Random battles between islands may get lucky.

 

I for one, once advocated for a mechanic similar to this but I see how its untenable. I like the idea of a crew having skill and automatic resupply of crew would lower the crew that replace the dead can be treated as untrained.

[scepo]

A ship can currently be operated at 70% crew capacity with a non crippling penalty to maneuverability and reload time. I think that boarding should be a big decision with tactical ramifications. You always have an option to sink the enemy and not board him. And if you do board him then beter plot course for port or fight at a disadvantage.

If permenant crew loss is not implemented I think crew exp is a good alternative.

Edited May 18, 2015 by scepo

[SYN_Bloody-Bandy]

... Do a couple of boardings and you lost most of your crew. If you are far away from your national bases you are screwed. 

 

What do you guys think?

 

Rarely, if ever, would a ship-to-ship melee result in the complete loss of life for one or the other ship.  As it became apparent that a ship was going to be lost in hand-to-hand fighting, one side would/should concede defeat rather than waste the lives of men.  Of course, online players do not care and will want to fight to the last man, but much of that decision should slip out of their hands as the battle turns worse for them.  Right?

 

As mentioned many times (and yes, we know the current boarding party mechanic is a stand-in) ship-to-ship battles must be refined to take intangible variables into consideration, such as the symbolic capturing of the helm, or the capture of ship's officers, and/or the captain.  These 'outcomes' can lead to a morale-check for various segments of the defending crew; some of the crew will break morale and surrender, others may fight on.

 

If the attacker (or defender) breaks enough of the morale of the enemy crew, they will give up, and so a ship does not need to loose "most of your crew" in a few engagements, though I agree, a captain should be smart and head to port at the earliest possible moment.

[maturin]

Crew management will be improved - we plan to add options to control your crew distribution better, which will allow control of bigger vessels with less crew if you know what you are doing.

 

On crew as renewable resource or as a finite resource that you have to refill.

The difference with real life is this - ships rarely did multiple battles and almost always returned to port after a battle.

Implementing crew as a finite resource is easy.  The major drawback is the travel time. Do a couple of boardings and you lost most of your crew. If you are far away from your national bases you are screwed. 

 

What do you guys think?

 

I think that crew should be a finite resource, but the vast majority of boarding casualties should be restored after a battle instance ends. That should allow for a good series of boarding combats. Furthermore, I think that a crew of 100 men that has taken no losses should be able to defeat a crew of 150-200 men who have been decimated by grapeshot.

 

It's very rare for mass combat of any kind to result in casualty rates of over 10%, and the majority of casualties will be non-lethal.

 

When I see my enemy's crew count ticking down to zero, that number should represent the number of men left willing to fight, not the number left alive.

[SYN_Bloody-Bandy]

It's very rare for mass combat of any kind to result in casualty rates of over 10%, and the majority of casualties will be non-lethal.

 

When I see my enemy's crew count ticking down to zero, that number should represent the number of men left willing to fight, not the number left alive.

 

Pretty sure that's what I was advocating, you just did it in fewer words...   Cheers!