Nation Specific Differences

[Cpt Blackthorne]

I just read a well researched presentation by the clan TDA. Absolutely well done!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zdlhvmbkgl09hkz/USS%20Constitution%20Research.pdf?dl=0

 

It details why the Constitution should have an HP armor and thickness buff with many RL quotes throughout history from its sailors, shipwrights, and others who witnessed first-hand accounts of it in action against other frigates of other nations. Basically, I agree it needs a buff.

 

In reading this I noticed something this game is lacking: any real differences between nations. In this game's current state, all nations have exactly the same attributes. They can craft the same ships of the same quality and structure, etc. I propose national differences; especially in the construction of ship design, but also in the future "Such is Lord" patch due soon, based on the government structure. But this poll topic is focused on ship-building.

 

1. I believe each nation should be able build only the ships each nation built at the time.

    I.e.: a. USA should only be able to build Constitution, Essex, Frigates (US types), etc.

           b. GB should only be able to build Victory, Bellona, Frigates (GB types), etc.

           c. Spain should only be able to build Santisima, etc, etc, etc for the rest of the nations.

2. Frigates need different sub-categories based on these nation builds.

    I.e. Each nation should have it's own line of frigates available to build WITH the inherent spaced and non-spaced characteristics of each nation.

3. Frame spacing should be different between nations in building ships, which would change the inherent HP and armor of each nation's ships.

    I.e. Based on the details listed in the research by the TDA link above, each nation would have relative spacing per rate of ship. And of course, the USA frigate class to the Constitution should have no spacing, resulting in a hull armor and thickness buff. (This I believe would allow the USA nation to be competitive to the 1st and 2nd rates of other nations)

4. Frame spacing should have different casualty results due to this spacing.

    I.e. According to many first-hand accounts the spacing on other nation ships resulted in many crew deaths, compared to nowhere near as many on the non-spaced USA frigate classes. Image below details such events.

5. I also believe that the labor hours required to build ships of different wood types should match based on historical evidence of the difficulties to produce such materials. The image below quotes the difficulties of producing Live Oak Log as opposed to other Oaks.

6. Finally, I believe that labor hours should not be at the forefront of the economy; that instead labor hours are not built up, but rather that things actually take such time to prepare. As it is, it takes only one to two days to save labor hours to build all materials and the ship (based on crafting rank). Instead, I think it should take a certain length of real-time to build these ships on the same time ratio as the in-game-time-to-real-time happens to be. I don't know what the ratio is, but say it's 50 in-game days per one real-time day. Considering this ratio and that the Constitution took 3 years from build to launch (1,090 days) that would mean it's construction in-game would not be completed for 22 real-time days. This seems like a long time, so perhaps it could be divided by 3 or so. But my main point of this is that the sheer number of ships in game made by players is way out of hand. Having the ability to hand out 3-5 1st rate ships to buddies in time of war, makes for this to be rather ludicrous. The ship replacement factor is ridiculously short and easy and needs to be cut down, IMHO.

 

Vote and discuss

Edited June 23, 2016 by Cpt Blackthorne

[Cpt Blackthorne]

Agreed, but there needs to be some differences between the nations. As it is, most people seem to play the nation of which they are a citizen, closely followed by the nation's history. And if the history of a nation is a popular reason, then these nations need to have some differences in attributes. I hope this will become the case for this game, or at least for NA2

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/13890-why-do-you-play-the-nation-you-play/

[The Spud]

If you make things nation specific, it will have the same effect as now. People will chose the nation that give them the highest chances of victory. I think we need a fair playing field. We can't go talking about the pirates having benefits, and at the same time want to have differences amongst nations.

 

If there should be a difference, it might be better to give smaller nations some sort of economy boost (more goods bought/produced by NPC).

This would be more fair than giving every nation different ships with different specs, it must be realy frustrating to know that even if you field a fleet of your 25 best ships against their best 25 their chances of victory are higher because their ships are just better. Bit like the Victory VS Santi, or the consti vs ingermanland, or the frigate vs BP.

Edited June 23, 2016 by LanderD

[Cpt Blackthorne]

If you really want National differences would you like me to list the ships available to the French, British, Spanish and Dutch during the period because if I did I think it would put most players off playing a US faction.

 

Obviously any Naval game set after early last century would be a different story we would all want to be US  .

 

Sorry I am much more interested in a balanced game than trying to keep players happy because of real National differences, allowing custom names/flags (from the period) would be nice.

Yes, please list the ships in game to their nations. That would be great. And, I'd have to disagree with this list possibly causing people not to choose the USA, as if the frame-spacing was introduced (or at least included in the hull characteristics), I believe people would indeed chose being able to build the Connie over other ships. Ooorrr perhaps not.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Cpt Blackthorne

[Eishen]

   A pity you had intermingled general changes with the nation-specific in your proposal.

 

 Making more than cosmetic difference between nations would be far from an optimal design in a game who aims to be a sandbox (the OW part is  far from a simulation), to be feasible if would need many many more ships to begin...not to speak of them being from too different reference dates    ...as in your own example 

 

    I.e.: a. USA should only be able to build Constitution, Essex, Frigates (US types), etc.

           b. GB should only be able to build Victory, Bellona, Frigates (GB types), etc.

           c. Spain should only be able to build Santisima, etc, etc, etc for the rest of the nations.

 

       So you would like having one nation building only one ship, another with only one trader , and a pair or three with no shipsbuilding capabilities...great design,  ingermanland would be selled as imports from eurotraders?

[Sella]

  

 

    I.e.: a. USA should only be able to build Constitution, Essex, Frigates (US types), etc.

           b. GB should only be able to build Victory, Bellona, Frigates (GB types), etc.

           c. Spain should only be able to build Santisima, etc, etc, etc for the rest of the nations.

 

       So you would like having one nation building only one ship, another with only one trader , and a pair or three with no shipsbuilding capabilities...great design,  ingermanland would be selled as imports from eurotraders?

 

 

I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean it to be implemented with the current amount of ships. Let's not be naive. It wouldnt work. It's probably a late-game development idea when every nation will have a ship of each type.

[Destraex]

I love the idea of "SOME" fairly nation specific ships being locked to a specific nation. But only very nationalistic iconic ships. The rest should be open to all.

Personally I would be glad to see the connie gone from the British line up. 

 

I will enjoy reading the brief you posted and hope it includes armour comparisons with SOLs and also scientific testing with the correct calibre weapons. In fact also SOL weaponry against it's sides. There was a documentary a while back that did do an experiment but it was comical because it only used a tiny 4pdr against a simulated frigate side iirc (was a while ago)

 

Cannot find it but this movie has the real uss constitution in it. It's silent and black and white. So cheesy and over acted it's fantastic!

[Idle Champion]

Unless every nation had the ships to cover every basic role, restricting ships by nation would stagnate the game - low-level ships, for instance, are either American or British with the sole exception of Mercury. Similarly, several ships sailed for multiple nations - would Surprise be restricted to the British as its captors or the French as its builders.

 

National traits - improved shallow water handling at the expense of stability for the Dutch, improved build strength at the expense of labour cost for Americans, things like that, could be cool, placing particular value on trading or capturing for ships where the national trait really complements the specialty of the ship. Cosmetic differences would also be cool - seeing a French-accented Connie like Acheron in Master & Commander.

 

I will say, however, that it was highly disingenuous to introduce the article on the Constitution as 'well researched', or even relevant given that it refers to a much earlier patch and iteration of the armour system.

[Eishen]

I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean it to be implemented with the current amount of ships. Let's not be naive. It wouldnt work. It's probably a late-game development idea when every nation will have a ship of each type.

 

excuse my harshness, only want to point the unwiseness of mixing an unfeasible (at least in this stage as you said)  point with very interesting proposals as  labor hours improvals ...specially one that has all odds to centralise debate for no good

[Sella]

excuse my harshness, only want to point the unwiseness of mixing an unfeasible (at least in this stage as you said)  point with very interesting proposals as  labor hours improvals ...specially one that has all odds to centralise debate for no good

 

I undestand I'm sorry if i was a bit harsh as well.

 

You could make the Russian ships and the "generic" ones with no name available to everyone and then slowly adding specific ships to everyone. And yes i am aware that some of the "generic" ones were actually specific ships with specific nationality. Just a proposal

[SteelSandwich]

It's an interesting subject, whilst in the past i was rather in favor nowadays i'm quite reluctant for such a system.

In a conversation with someone else (who was rather in favor of such a system) i explained how this could play out.

 

Dutch ships are known for their shallow draft, allowing for heavier ships to engage smaller ships. In the example below i stacked Dutch draft to English draft.

Brederode, 54-gunner, Dutch, 1653 - 13 feet, 3 inch

Zeven Provincien, 80-gunner, Dutch, 1664 - 15 feet, 2 inch

Bristol, 48-gunner, English, 1653 - 15 feet, 8 inch

Royal Prince, 92-gunner, English, 1610 (rebuild twice, burnt in 1666) - 24 feet

 

Notable is the armament of the Dutch flagship, which (not initially) consisted of the main gun deck to be 36-pounders. When we convert Dutch pound to English pound, we are talking about roughly 39,4-pounder. Ingame, this would be presented as 42lb. Combined with 18lb on het upper gundeck and 6lb on her topdeck, she is a mighty vessel.

 

Now, consider such a ship able to enter medium port battles, would it not be fun to be playing as a Dutchie?

 

 

 

To extend to the above, i initially made a proposition regarding draft of ships and depth of ports:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12020-redefining-deepshallow-ports/

 

If such a system would be implemented, and i read your posted document correctly, i see the constitution has a draft of 23 feet(?).

Look at the following graph:

 

 

In my proposal i envision some ports to allow ships up to 8 meters, some up to 7, some up to 6,5, some 6, etc. (instead of the aritificial shallow, medium, deep).

This would apply to access as well as the battle for the port. Ships would get respective drafts as well.

Meaning, in this case, your mighty constitution would be confined to very certain ports, due to her draft.

She seems to be only matched in draft by the Vic, Santi and the Commerse de la marseille.

 

Careful what you wish for

[maturin]

 

 

Not this silliness again.

 

Most engagements between British and French frigates had the same lopsided casualty ratios, despite the fact that the caliber of the guns and the construction of the ships was functionally identical. 

 

If you put more rounds on target than your opponent, you will cause more casualties. And if the rounds penetrate, they will cause casualties. When it comes to creating splinters, penetrating a 21-inch hull (with an 18-pounder can do easily) is even better than penetrating a 14- or 6-inch hull.

 

Facepalm at the 'armored battleships' remark. How can you build the 'first battleship' when battleships have been in existence for centuries? How can you build the first 'armored' ship by creating a hull only marginally stronger than those of aforementioned battleships?

[Dick Brave]

Ahm... Yes to all questions... and no to all questions. A 'Yes' wold be fine but only if we would have at least 2-4 ships of every type and every class for every nation. Man, thats a lot of work to do to achieve this. (And you will certainly loose the Mercury, Frigate, Ingermanland...).

[Malachi]

I especially like the 'Guerriere, typically of British frigates...' line. Guerriere, like the Java, was a captured french frigate.

And 'the first armored battleship'? What a load of bull.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

Careful what you wish for

I understand the hull depth would prevent it from entering some ports. But all ports need reworked anyway.  

 

Not this silliness again.

 

Facepalm at the 'armored battleships' remark. How can you build the 'first battleship' when battleships have been in existence for centuries? How can you build the first 'armored' ship by creating a hull only marginally stronger than those of aforementioned battleships?

I believe you haven't read the link and all the articles within it. You are missing the point that this was not a rare case of the Connie to repel shots, but that every battle entered she receive much less casualties than foreign spaced ships did. It wasn't so much the thickness of the hull, but also the wood type and the spacing. Live Oak did not splinter like other oaks did. And the filler-woods used in the spacings of GB, Spanish and French ships made for them to be penetrated more frequently than the non-spaced US frigates. And I am not calling it the "first armored battleship", those in the articles called it that because of the cannonballs that were embedded in her hull that did not penetrate.

 

Ahm... Yes to all questions... and no to all questions. A 'Yes' wold be fine but only if we would have at least 2-4 ships of every type and every class for every nation. Man, thats a lot of work to do to achieve this. (And you will certainly loose the Mercury, Frigate, Ingermanland...).

I do believe this would require the introduction of more ships. And certainly nations would lose the ability to build these mentioned ships, but nothing would prevent them from capturing them.

 

And 'the first armored battleship'? What a load of bull.

I am not calling it the "first armored battleship", those in the articles called it that because of the cannonballs that were embedded in her hull that did not penetrate.

[Ledinis]

Maybe in 10 years when we have 250+ ships and all continents including all nations (as to not delete have of the ship currently in game)

 

Also if it were to come in the far far future, therre would have to be a lot of balancing and BR based port battles.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Ledinis

[maturin]

 

 

You are missing the point that this was not a rare case of the Connie to repel shots, but that every battle entered she receive much less casualties than foreign spaced ships did.

This isn't a 'point.'

 

The author has no point. You can't prove what caused the disparity in casualties, when dozens of evenly-matched frigate duels showed the same disparity.

 

 

Just to clarify: I'm aware that Constitution ended several fights with 18-pdr shot embedded in her hull as partial penetrations. 18-pdrs are more than capable of penetrating 21 inches of live oak and white oak at normal engagement ranges, so this was likely due to double or even treble-shotting guns with reduced powder charges. In other words, as soon as the British learned to charge their guns properly, the 'armored battleship' label would vanish.

 

It would, however, be interesting to speculate on the advantage to be had when your thick hull forces an opponent is required to fully charge their guns in close combat. Besides the inability to use double shot, the larger powder charges would probably reduce their rate of fire as they overheated at a faster rate.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

I believe many people have fallen off the primary target of this poll and into the topic of the Connie. The idea of this poll is to make each nation be different from another with their own ships they can build creating their own attributes in ship building style with different characteristics for those ships. None of this would prevent the capture of other nation ships. And it also would not prevent other nations from building with the materials, but rather would keep the same spaced or non-spaced attributes that those nations seemed to use.

 

And to Ledinis, Sella22 had a great idea for those nations not in this game, their ships could be built by all nations.

 

Please, let's not continue an argument over one ship in particular, but rather on the poll questions. I am curious to know if these nation build attributes would change the nation people choose to play for.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Cpt Blackthorne

[OlavDeng2]

In the end, as steel pointed out with the dutch, certain nations would be largely at a disadvantage or advantage, the british french and spanish would dominate with their first rates in regional capitals, the dutch(assuming their 3rd rates for example get the shallow bonus and cain partake in regular deep port battles) would dominate in those battles, the swedish and danish would be behind since they never really fielded any 1st rates nor(compared to the dutch at least) large ships with very shallow draught for their size. As such i can agree with having maybe 1 or 2 ships being national exclusives, but more than that would be a no go for me.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

 As such i can agree with having maybe 1 or 2 ships being national exclusives, but more than that would be a no go for me.

Now this I like and perhaps I should have had this as a poll question. But do remember, people can still sneak into enemy ports and buy any ship and they'd also be able to capture any ship. So no disadvantages in battles would occur, rather only the time it would take for certain ships to be obtained. 

Edited June 23, 2016 by Cpt Blackthorne

[OlavDeng2]

Now this I like and perhaps I should have had this as a poll question. But do remember, people can still sneak into enemy ports and buy any ship and they'd also be able to capture any ship. So no disadvantages in battles would occur, rather only the time it would take for certain ships to be obtained. 

That is actually not possible since you can only exit using trader ships when using smuggler, and honestly i think it should stay that way. In terms of capturing ships i would imagine say the spanish would be able to build first rates quicker than say the danish could capture them. Granted this could partially be fixed with being allied with one of the 3 first rate nations, but that is not always an option and it feels artificial to me imho to force such alliances. Disadvantages simply due to production capability would definetely occur and people would want to just sail for spanish, british or french just because of first rates favoring those nations in numbers as well.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

That is actually not possible since you can only exit using trader ships when using smuggler, and honestly i think it should stay that way. In terms of capturing ships i would imagine say the spanish would be able to build first rates quicker than say the danish could capture them. Granted this could partially be fixed with being allied with one of the 3 first rate nations, but that is not always an option and it feels artificial to me imho to force such alliances. Disadvantages simply due to production capability would definetely occur and people would want to just sail for spanish, british or french just because of first rates favoring those nations in numbers as well.

I stand corrected as I forgot this smuggler trade ship part. However, it still would not prevent ships from being bought on open market at free ports nor sold by traitors. Most likely you are correct about you last statement, but perhaps not, as I see on many posts that people are preferring to stay with 4th rates and rarely ever use 1st rates due to the limitation of 1 dura, and that the current 2nd rate selection is just not worth it. Many raiders/gankers are sailing in fleets of fast Trincs and in PBs it is a rarity to see 1st rates still to this day.

[Malachi]

Frame spacing should be different between nations in building ships, which would change the inherent HP and armor of each nation's ships.

 

 

Frame spacing may be a neat idea for an additional option when crafting a ship, but restricting it to nations probably is not. Frame spacing, like any other construction methods, depended on the shipwright in question, the size of the ship and the era. If french, dutch or british shipwrights would have seen an advantage in giving a ship zero frame spacing, they would have done so.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

Frame spacing may be a neat idea for an additional option when crafting a ship, but restricting it to nations definitely is not. Frame spacing, like other construction methods, depended on the shipwright in question, the size of the ship and the era. If a french, dutch or british shipwright would have seen an advantage in giving a ship zero frame spacing, they would have done so.

Another great idea! The cost and labor hours to build a non-spaced hull would be much greater than spaced ones. And each spacing you choose would have its own relative changes in labor hours. One the second part, I'm curious as to why no other nation built non-spaced hulls...according to the reads in the OP link provided, it had a lot to do with cost, and availability of materials. Would these have been the only reasons? Or did other nations feel that there really was no disadvantage to spaced? I've no idea.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Cpt Blackthorne

[SteelSandwich]

There is general 'problem' what is occurring with nation having a certain perks.

If the perk is bound to the nation and has effect on the character, it is an unfair advantage.

If the perk is bound to building/crafting/ship/whatever, it can and will be duplicated via alts...

 

So the question is, i think, is nation perks even possible?