1 on 1

[admin]

What is a good one on one encounter for you?

Describe please your ideal ship duel? lets say Frigate vs Frigate.

 

how long is the battle, what do you do, what does your opponent do.. what makes 1 on 1 interesting?

[Cherry Ice Cream]

Perspiration maybe?

 

For sure a lot of manevring's... Dynamic, fast fight's.  Battle should be for me like 10-30 min's. there should be a lot of aming u damage good part of enemy, a lot of turn's to make your dps faster. 

[Verhoeven]

S!

 

The question brings up some nostalgia.

 

A good frigate battle would start pretty far from each other with fair winds (lets say 3 to 4 beaufort). 

A tactical race for the wind you desire would follow. Like a chess game. A game of fake movements, of gaining the best position, of luring your opponent into making a mistake. The ultimate frigate battle is highly manouvrable where both captains undertand the dynamics of wind and the physics or their ship. It may end up in a slug fest exchanging broadsides, but for me it would be matter of cornering your opponent into a position where his stern is exposed again and again. It should also be a matter of who masters the actual manouvering technically. It should not be simply turning the bow. Use of the sails, trimming, the rudder, etc.

 

A frigate man does not like the line, he wants the dual, not the far away broadside salvos until one is a wreck. He wants to break out of the line, and behaves like a predator when he is released. Get close and go for the kill.

 

Personally (and most of the guys of the old RSN in AOSII) I loved the bold action. Pointing your bow towards the enemy at the right wind condition and when your opponent least expects it. Taking the advantage of an astonished enemy who keeps asking himself 'what on earth is he doing? this can't be true, this is suicidal'. Only to find out he can't turn without ending up in a bad position. Yes, it takes the guts to receive a pounding, but when succesful it is so rewarding.

 

For me the best 1 vs 1 frigate battle is 75% positioning and 25% close combat, and I would not mind if it takes 40 minutes to an hour. :-)

 

Yours faithfully,

 

Verhoeven

[Marquiz]

Good said mate, its like chess game, strategic possitining and gain wind advantage. 

I add this link maybe it helps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-ship_action#War_of_1812

[Digby]

Listen to Verhoeven, he's sunk my frigates many a time! A 1 on 1 ship duel between small ships is a game of wits, daring, cunning and skill. By the time the actual shooting starts, one of the captains has already lost. If you're in a losing position when the first salvo is fired your only option is to cut and run.

 

1 on 1 combat between ships of the line however is far more about good gunnery and steady crews rather than good sailing.

[Barberouge]

A good 1v1 is interesting gameplay and good players. A wide range of tactics should be exploitable but depending on ship types, outfittings or weather conditions, one of the tactics could be more viable. Each tactic should require knowledge and experience to be well run.

 

Get the wind or engage downwind ? Target the sails to board or load red cannonballs and set fire ? Turn now or wait for the batteries to be reloaded ? Keep the distance or try to setup the combat range closer ? Hit with one battery or wait for the full broadside ? Put some men on the pumps or keep the best rate of fire ? Keep the wind or maneuver to shoot a broadside on the stern ? Maneuver to protect a damaged flank or just plug the leaks ? Shoot another grapeshot or throw the grappling irons ?

 

Most of the opponents characteristics and the chances of a random effect to happen should be known, to avoid critical rock/paper effects and keep the gameplay based on knowledge and tactical choices. As for the duration I'd say between 10 and 20 minutes, sailing included.

[Adair]

I'm in line with Verhoeven (again!). A good battle requires lengthy maneuver and is often decided before the first shots start flying.

 

I'm going to point to the O'Brian books here once more. In most '1v1' situations, Aubrey spent so much time studying the enemy to learn its sailing qualities. How quickly do they tack? What's she like on a bowline? How sluggish or quick are the crew? He'd often put his own ship through a tricky maneuver to force the enemy's response just to learn their capabilities. And, more than once, he'd play lame duck trying to draw them in, force them into committing, then flash out in a rapid turn to gain the decisive advantage. This is the kind of gameplay I'm interested in. Chess game, all the way.

 

So, some realistic mechanics you can derive from this:

 

Crew allocation is important. Are you shooting or maneuvering? If a bad guy can trick me into a maneuver when he's lined up to take advantage of that, then he deserves to capitalize on that. Vice versa too.

 

Positioning is important. Getting the weather gage gives you control of the engagement, with everything that signifies. If he's trying to come up, I can rake him. If he's trying to run, I can chase. Note that if mission success isn't always dependent on sinking/taking the enemy, then the weather gage becomes even more important. In a sloop vs lineship battle, the sloop can outmaneuver me in a flash, but he doesn't dare get within range. And if my goal as a sloop is to escape his blockade, then me having the weather gage is actually a detriment. I've got to get past a huge friggin ship with vast firing range, and I can only run off the south end of the map. I'm going to have to trick him into committing into a maneuver and hope to get by. Or wait for the weather. Or hope his crews are slow.

 

Sailing qualities are important. I need to know my ship through and through. Just how closely will she lie? How quick are we in stays? What's our leeway? And gearing becomes important here too. How many spars do I have on hand in case the enemy knocks away something important? What condition are my masts in? In the Aubrey books he always contrived to have a mainmast that was rather overgeared for the ship he was in. In MASTER AND COMMANDER, the first book, he deliberately cracked HMS Sophie's aging mainyard to get a beautiful new one from the yard.

 

Oh, and information is important. If I know I'm up against Verhoeven in his bark, then I probably have a good idea what he's about. For that reason, I think matchmaking should be anonymous until after the battle is won or lost. I can't tell you how many times in POTBS I'd hear that French Privateer X was cruising Matthew Town. I knew the guy was a rageboarder, so I'd quickly load up with tough masts and boarding defenses, lure him into attempting to board, he'd fail, then I'd grapple him. Yawn. Not knowing what I might find and discerning their tactics through observation is way more fun.

 

Concerning time for a battle, I'd say no more than an hour. An average fight being about 30 minutes would suit me. Some mission types could even be timed. Heck, some might need to be, just to put pressure on one side or the other (or both).

 

Also, knowing how many encounters a particular journey is going to give me is important. Or the ability to log out mid-journey and resume when I come back. That would be very useful. I can't tell you how many times I'd have a half hour to play POTBS, look at the map, and determine that I was better off just playing something else. Other games have the same sort of issues. EVE for one. Star Trek also, although their 'transwarp to mission' feature helps a lot.

[FLGibsonJr]

I would say for 1 vs 1, my preference would be for Frigates evenly matched, identical attributes (perhaps both having identical USS Constitution attributes). Some of the most memorable and exciting battles for me in AOSII, took from 45 minutes to 2 hours. I do have to say however the larger the battle in terms of players the more enjoyable it was, I remember 4 vs 4 being incredibly fun. Connectivity was an issue with the largest battles, but that was 12 years ago.

Regards,

Gibson

[adambomb]

As they have said, chess game for the wind advantage and then blast away.  Length of battle just depends, best on how close were the combatants when battle started, or if one could get down wind advantage to escape the one that had the wind advantage. If you can't get away, blast away.  Your game is going to be great, good idea to get troops involved.. Star Citizens is doing the same,, up to 15 million funding today. That's going to be a great game, but space ships,, not like this game. 

As in the above thread. Is the crew setting sail, are they aiming cannons, are they lowing sail, how fast can the ship turn, that's when you decide how to take your enemy down. (do all crews respond as fast to guns, sails, are they tired, or fresh.) /crew responds is very important.

[Tori Parker]

For me the ideal time would be 15-20 minutes max, no more than 30. If I want to log on for 10-15 minutes I'd like to be able to have a 1 v 1 battle. PotBS used to be perfect for me, as some battles ended in 5-10 minutes. I don't want to have to commit huge amounts of time at once for ONE 1 v 1 fight.

[Blackie]

I would agree with most of the comments made here on ship to ship encounters.  But there are a few things that I would like the designers to consider as they work on ship combat.  Because there are many more factors at work than the combat, wind direction, wave mechanics, ballistics, crew assignments, etc. that have been mention. 

1. Age of Sail ship to ship battles were mostly leisurely affairs simply because the wind could push a ship only so fast.  Naval combat in Assassin's Creed 3 is much too fast as if the ships are all powered by diesel engines limiting the time you have to assess the current situation, make decisions, and then give the orders to carry them out.  It was more like an arcade game which required more reflexes than brains.  That is wholly unrealistic and gives you no time to take into account the multiple factors involved with sailing, the relative positions of the two ships, and plan your next move to gain the advantage.  Please do not set a time limit like 15, 20 or 30 minutes on a typical battle and then adjust ship speed to accommodate it.  The game should be as realistic as possible in terms of real world physics. 
2. The initial encounter on the main map is just as important as the battle map.  From the moment a sail is sighted on the horizon, a captain must make a number of decisions.  Should he investigate by altering course to intercept or give chase or continue on his present course and watch to see what the other sail does?  If he gives chase, does the other sail run or turn to face him?  If he decides to stay on course, does the sail continue on it's course or does it give chase?  Does he then change direction to meet the ship or pile on canvas to outrun?  Or maybe draw closer to telescope range to get a better look at the ship and perhaps it's colors?  Does he run up false colors in an attempt at deception?  Finally, a decision to engage or an attempt to outrun must be made. 
3. Starting positions on the combat map will be critical.  There should be enough room between the two ships to provide the time necessary for maneuvering to close the gap and gain advantage over the enemy, but not so far away as to eat up too much time for this phase.  The relative position of the ships, the wind direction, the weather conditions, and other map features should be same as those that existed on the main map prior to the encounter. 
4. There was a wide range of tactics available to captains during naval combat aside from maneuvering for a broadside, a rake, or a boarding action and a choice of cannon shot.  Marines or sailors could rake the enemy decks with musket fire.  Primitive hand grenades could be used against concentrations of enemy crewmen.  Pistols could be used as well in boarding actions to quickly cut down the enemy numbers.  Fire ships or bomb ketches were a favorite tactic used in small to large fleet actions.  Sometimes in fog or darkness and under limited wind conditions, a long boat filled with gunpowder could be rowed next to an enemy ship and detonated.  Or fill the boats with men and board the enemy ship.  Of course these various items cannot be used unless the wise captain ensures that they are in stock and available to use in a fight. 
5. After the battle, there are also more decisions to make.  If the enemy ship has been sunk, do you rescue the few survivors and if so what do you do with them?  Kill them, throw in the brig, or press them into your service?  Salvage a few cargo items floating on the sea or leave them?  If you have taken the enemy ship by boarding or damaging or surrender, do you repair the ship and put a prize crew aboard or simply loot and sink it?  If you keep the ship do you add it to your fleet or sell it at the next port?  Or does it become the property of your king, if you're a naval officer with perhaps a small reward for your efforts? 

[Barberouge]

1. Assassin's Creed 3 is not a naval combat game. It's naval combat is speedboat vs speedboat with machine guns xD

 

 

 

2. Interesting subject. All the approach should be done in the navigation view. If a fleet has the possibility to attack another one (faction at war), catch it (similar top speeds) and beat it (similar or better strength), then it can engage it. This subject also brings up questions about what will be displayed about a ship in the navigation view ? Ship type, ship outfittings, ship damage, ship name, player name, faction, guild ? Will that be more realistic than in PotBS ?

 

I like simulating false colors with specific ranges. When you sight a ship you only see a sail, then a ship type, then its displayed colors, then its true colors. However, the true colors should be most of the time revealed before closing to engagement range. Otherwise, each fleet should have to be checked in an encounter instance. Look-outs usually had enough knowledge to determine a ship's faction (ship type, hull paintings, cannons disposition...).

 

- Though the true colors range could be be shortened, but with limitators: a ship could fake only one faction at a time, and some parts of the "colors" couldn't be changed after leaving the port (ship paintings, as opposed to flags or crew disguise). If a player would discover a fake, he would give the information to its allies in the same area. The more ships sailing together, the easier it is to discover a fake.

 

- And it could be extended aswell: a faction (or only a guild ?) could use a secret flag message to recognize its members. Also if some players would decide to show their faction, guild and personnal colors, those who wouldn't would become more suspect. Navy players couldn't hide their true colors of course.

 

- Maybe, when all the conditions would be met, the true colors range could be shortened to the engagement range. Then the prey would see a red flag hoisted inside the encounter instance (we lack fun smileys BTW)

 

I'm not a historical professional, and the use of Team Speak-like programs shouldn't be forgotten, but it could lead to a more exciting navigation gameplay. And it could be linked to ship management: paying for painting a ship, hiring skilled look-outs ?

 

 

 

3. BTW, maybe the best fakes could decrease the spawning range ? On subject, PotBS tried the 2 possibilities: making the spawn look like in the navigation view for all the ships, or making the spawn look like in the navigation view for the 2 ships that engaged (gathering the fleets around those 2 ships). The second solution was way better, because with the first one, if both fleets sailed tightly, a single millimeter would make for fleets scattered several miles away. Fights with each full fleet at one spawn point were also usually more interesting.

 

Maybe there's a possible third solution: if a group of ships is sailing tightly enough, it is considered as a fleet that can't be scattered in the encounter. This could be represented as a circle around the admiral ship. If a ship is sailing out of this circle, it could spawn far away from the others. Also what is very important, is to make the reinforcements spawn on the same side as their faction.

 

Another solution would be to represent a fleet as one item in the navigation view (a bigger ship, or multiple sails but linked together). Then only the admiral would be able to navigate. It's less immersive, but to be honest sailing tightly wasn't the most interesting part of PotBS. It also depends on the maximum number of ships in one encounter. Trafalgar was 30v37. That's a lot of ships in a navigation view.

 

 

 

4. Sounds fun Greek fire FTW !

 

 

 

5. A captain can't die (am I right ?). If a ship is destroyed, it is transformed into a wreckage where the captain is holding on. If he is rescued by another team mate, the captain jumps into this player's view. If this player captures another ship, the captain can take it. If the player doesn't, the captain has to wait for a port to get a new ship.

 

If he isn't rescued by one of his team mates, he is rescued by the opponents. Then he has to pay a ransom, and is transported into the nearest allied port. If he is a pirate, he escapes from jail and steals a launch from the nearest port of the opponents faction.

 

If he isn't rescued by either, he builds a raft out of the wreckages and sets sails (rows ?) in the navigation view xD

 

If a ship is captured, one should be able to take the risk of towing it into an allied port, or just get the cargo and the crew and scuttle the ship. A towed ship would be represented as an NPC with no fighting capabilities, following the main ship. It would decrease the speed of course. A towed ship could be scuttled during a battle.

 

I don't know about commanding 2 ships at the same time. It would be very interesting of course, especially using the second one as a fire ship or using a launch to board, like you described. But giving it more fighting capabilities might be overpowered.

 

 

 

Will there be galleys in the game ?

[Barberouge]

Also about 1v1 graphics, don't forget smoke Lots of smoke !

[Digby]

Greek fire or things like it were not used in this period. Fireships were almost always only used against a fleet at anchor in harbour because ships able to maneuver could easily avoid them. Forts had shot ovens to fire red-hot shot at ships to set them on fire but ships themselves almost never fired heated shot or use combustible weapons because the danger of fire on your own ship was too great. Bomb ketches were not ship to ship weapons, their principle use was to bombard shore targets.

I would prefer the devs to concentrate on the basic combat environment and not waste time on all the silly fancy add-ons which were of little use in actual sea battles. Every ship's crew fired muskets and such at very short ranges. You don't need a specific game mechanic to introduce this, it should just be assumed to take place once ships get very close and so there becomes a risk to crewmen in exposed positions.

[Barberouge]

Greek fire or things like it were not used in this period.

 

Too bad, the comics I used to read featured a ship with 2 enormous cannons, Greek fire from the yards and "barrel organ" muskets on the tops

[Digby]

LOL, yeah, comics tend to have cool stuff in them that isn't real!

[Barberouge]

Whether such a ship would have been buildable and sailable has been studied by historians.

 

- The 2 big cannons couldn't have served as ballast. No forge could have built such cannons in that period.

 

- Greek fire has been rediscovered by Antoine Dupré in the XVIIIth century, and shown to Louis XV in 1759 - who decided to burry the secret (and the man ?) because the type of war it provided didn't fit the period standards of behavior.

 

- James Puckle invented an autocannon in 1718, with the purpose of preventing boardings. The Puckle gun didn't convince much because of its lack of accuracy, but several have been bought for an expediditon in 1722.

 

So rather fictionnal than real, but still possible.

[admin]

Only cannons, carronades, and maybe ship mortars will be in the game.

[FLGibsonJr]

A choice of shot (round, canister, grape, chain, bar, etc) should be available as well aiming (rigging and sails, deck, hull, etc).

Regards,

Gibson

[Digby]

Whether such a ship would have been buildable and sailable has been studied by historians.

 

- The 2 big cannons couldn't have served as ballast. No forge could have built such cannons in that period.

 

- Greek fire has been rediscovered by Antoine Dupré in the XVIIIth century, and shown to Louis XV in 1759 - who decided to burry the secret (and the man ?) because the type of war it provided didn't fit the period standards of behavior.

 

- James Puckle invented an autocannon in 1718, with the purpose of preventing boardings. The Puckle gun didn't convince much because of its lack of accuracy, but several have been bought for an expediditon in 1722.

 

So rather fictionnal than real, but still possible.

As Admin said in one of his posts aabout a week ago, the devs need to focus on how real battles were fought, not on odd inventions that in reality may have existed but were never used. The Puckle gun existed but was impractical - the technology was not there to support the idea and in fact the Gatling gun of the 1870s was a more robust concept. Devs could sink 100s of hours of time into coding those weapons and their effects and graphically making the models and of course players would want to use them and you end up with a stupid fantasy world with every ship toting fantasy weapons and the game ends up nothing like an age of sail game. This is where PotBs went wromg, by failing to focus on the core gameplay and doing odd crazy stuff.

 

The Devs need to focus on what was normal and average in the era, on how battles at sea were fought.

[admin]

As Admin said in one of his posts aabout a week ago, the devs need to focus on how real battles were fought, not on odd inventions that in reality may have existed but were never used. The Puckle gun existed but was impractical - the technology was not there to support the idea and in fact the Gatling gun of the 1870s was a more robust concept. Devs could sink 100s of hours of time into coding those weapons and their effects and graphically making the models and of course players would want to use them and you end up with a stupid fantasy world with every ship toting fantasy weapons and the game ends up nothing like an age of sail game. This is where PotBs went wromg, by failing to focus on the core gameplay and doing odd crazy stuff.

 

The Devs need to focus on what was normal and average in the era, on how battles at sea were fought.

 

Though (and this is important because it might happen and we don't want somebody to get upset over it in the future)

 

We don't discard that we might prototype some of the things that existed or were tried or were proposed to be developed and see how they would work in the game (so to speak what if scenarios) at later stages of the product development

That includes experimental designs of ships and weaponry.

[Barberouge]

As Admin said in one of his posts aabout a week ago, the devs need to focus on how real battles were fought, not on odd inventions that in reality may have existed but were never used. The Puckle gun existed but was impractical - the technology was not there to support the idea and in fact the Gatling gun of the 1870s was a more robust concept. Devs could sink 100s of hours of time into coding those weapons and their effects and graphically making the models and of course players would want to use them and you end up with a stupid fantasy world with every ship toting fantasy weapons and the game ends up nothing like an age of sail game. This is where PotBs went wromg, by failing to focus on the core gameplay and doing odd crazy stuff.

 

The Devs need to focus on what was normal and average in the era, on how battles at sea were fought.

 

I didn't discuss if it should be in game but if it could be in game. Not having Greek fire doesn't make any difference to me of course. But it could be fun and still quite realistic.

 

PotBS didn't fail because of its naval combat IMO, but that's another story. I agree the invincibility didn't make for a realistic combat

[Adair]

I quite agree with Digby on this. Focus on the average for whatever era we're going with, not the bizarre.

 

And, as for shot, my only advice would be to give the various types definitive tradeoffs.

 

For instance, in POTBS, barshot has a longer range than star shot. However, it is WAY easy to just close to star range and engage. Star does a lot more damage, so why use anything else? In reality, ranges were more problematic especially closing with any speed. And starshot was much more expensive. In POTBS, neither of these applied, so why do anything but THE most effective thing in all situations?

 

So, again, my suggestion is to give us real decisions on how to stock and use each kind of shot. Either the sailing must make it desirable to have several types on hand, or the expense must limit our choices. 

[Digby]

But it could be fun and still quite realistic.

It might be fun but I disagree it would be realistic. It would be complete fantasy.

[Bladerunner]

There might be a reason that greek fire wasn't used on sailing ship.

Just set the risk of catching fire yourself and the range at a realistic level and see who is willing to use it...