ingerad

A couple of questions I didn't see answered here: How would you handle relative wind direction with this setup at battle start? Would you keep it set up similar to how it is now or would you have it default to a certain wind direction at battle start? That's a small one, but it plays into the bigger question, how would you have this interact with the planned changes to bringing nearby land into the battles? I could see these two issues leading to some weird interactions in your proposed plans.

As I said, I would be open to a reduction in teleport timers to a point. But I just can't see the need to teleport somewhere every 15 mins. I also admit, I didn't consider splitting the timers into outpost to outpost and open world. I don't mind the fairly quick outpost to outpost teleports, but does it really need to be less than an hour given the way the game actually plays? This is not a fast game. If you want, I'd be fine with an open world teleport (to outpost of choice) on the same 4 hour timer while outpost to outposts at an hour or so. Also the reason I'm based in Charleston is not in any way related to the teleport timers. It's because I can bring my ship home there quickly. If I could go to a different outpost somewhere and do the same I would be much more willing to change my base of operations (Though admittedly I would need to farm up the cash for another tier 3 shipyard).

Wow, I was expecting a suggestion much lest drastic. Just no to 15 min teleports. Part of the beauty of this game is that travel times matter and it makes the map size significant. Just sounds like you want to be able to make stupid quick trade runs for your own convenience. I could agree to a reduction of an hour or maybe even two to the timer. This is just a "I don't want to sail in my sailing game" suggestion. The thing I would like for teleports though is that they open the world map teleport to something other than just the capital. Let me teleport to one of my other outposts, part of the reason I stick around Charleston is because it gives me the option to bring in stuff easier. If this change is made I would be much more open to changing my base of operations.

As others have said this is just too punishing for folks that have a job. The game already is not casual friendly as it is. I can understand some folks thinking that elites are the bread and butter, but this game has enough of a small market it would be bad to push players away. There are far better ways to undertake this, as others have said, make upkeep/crew costs prohibitive. It costs a ton to outfit and crew that monster, so have some sort of upkeep fee or pay the crew when you sail or something. On the inverse, make frigates and such the best way to earn money in the game from a combat perspective. This is sort of historically accurate, as frigates had some of the best chances of catching merchants. Basically, do something like WoT did, where you have the mid levels be the "sweet spot" for making bank, in a cost/rewards situation. It just takes tuning. That would be a far better way than to only let the people that play godly hours ever hope of controlling a Victory or Santisma. Edit: Another method would be to make "Frigate Only" Missions that focus on frigate-level gameplay that have a better chance of dropping good rewards. Or perhaps hold events that encourage people to play ships of a certain tier. Whatever you want really. I think people do have to get used to the idea that yes, eventually most people that play the game seriously will have access to a 1st rate. That isn't always in and of itself a problem, it's just the nature of gaming.

This would work for me. Right not the investment really amounts to a tax. This isn't something I would use all the time, but I would definitely use it occasionally.

While I wouldn't mind some changes to the whole labor hour system, I don't think sticking them up for sale in a port is the best method. At that point they just become yet another commodity for sale and that is really just boring. It also, as others have pointed out, could result in certain players just leaping ahead in the craft levels. Part of me also doesn't like the idea that you remove some degree of player interaction with such a change as well. The idea to somehow tie them to buildings is interesting, and makes more sense. It would make a crafting player very different from a production player. If you had a building for each crafting type (Woodworking, Casting, etc.) each with it's own crafting hour pool that could be interesting. It would also likely stimulate the market more, as extra hours from one building could be used to place items up for sale. Anyway, as others have pointed out, you can buy hours already. Either through specific interactions, "I'll buy X hours for Y gold", or through the purchase of parts in a port. Heck, of late I've made it a point to stick up buy contracts in ports for certain mats to try and coax folks into crafting them. I do agree, part of the problem with crafting currently is there are either people that want to do it (Myself included) and those that just aren't interested. But a better solution is needed than a simple commodity buy button. I think to stoke interest there needs to be a better defined sense of progression with crafting. It should really be a valid way to "play" the game rather than a simple thing you spend a bit of time doing occasionally once or a few times a day. Something as simple as some sort of "Crafting Mission" would be at least one simple way to ignite interest, it could just be a "Make X of Y for some gold". Just make sure that the items end up in the port for sale or something. Even if they aren't, more people would be interested just by virtue of using the system rather than forgetting it exists. Maybe some sort of daily mission or something. Another problem that I think turns people off of crafting is that to a new crafter the list of materials for making a ship or w/e is massive and comes off as rather intimidating. Getting folks used to what goes into a ship alone would go a long way. Another alternative to improve the learning curve would be a better UI for crafting. For instance, to a new player just making a simple Lynx, they end up having to flip through tons of different pages to get an idea of what they need to make and what resources are required. At the least some sort of breakdown a la http://www.navalactioncraft.com/would be very useful. Even better would be button shortcuts within the bigger recipe that will craft that specific component, so clicking on the "Iron Fittings" button would make them without needing to flip through lists. Ease of use would be nice for newbies. As a minor aside, I would really like a deeper crafting system anyway. Why not stick the craft XP into separate levels for each building, which you could level up to make "better" versions of the materials. Using better crafted materials could make better overall ships. I think more than anything in order to make crafting more prevalent, we need to make it more interesting. There are plenty of good ideas out there, this idea just sounds like someone wants to spend mega gold to make a fleet at will.

I've been playing it lately, it's not a bad game, but I don't think it will last very long or at least develop a strong core of players as it is currently built. I had very high hopes, of all the WG games, this is the one that I was waiting for (of course it would be the one that took the longest to come out). This though, just feels very arcade like, too much point and click in the combat. It seems that most of the really good points they could have emphasized the skill cap on are really dumbed down. Right now combat is basically find a decent lead on a ship, load AP, hope RNG throws the round into the citadel. It just feels meh. I like playing around in the WWII ships I guess. They also did a decent job with the carriers for the most part. Not OP'd, not UP'd (besides DB which are just awful). But I personally was rather keen on playing a support role in an AA cruiser for instance, but mostly that's just driving next to a friendly BB waiting for the planes to come up. Or I take pot shots at DDs that get too close. The game is fun, don't get me wrong. But I don't feel the depth that say WoT has. At least with WoT knowledge is a huge advantage. In WoWs, sure some knowledge helps, but its not so big a deal. I will say this, Game Labs has in this very hyper-extremely early alpha created a far deeper game than the giant WG beta that has been built over several years. My expectations for NA may have gotten a bit higher honestly by the disparity.

That was what I thought was true as well. I didn't want to say it couldn't be done because I wasn't sure how feasible it would be to roll up a side of a small ship and tack on copper sheeting. I know even large ships could be keeled up in semi-makeshift conditions, but I don't know if it would be done well enough for you to re-copper a bottom. I honestly would expect that sheer lack of the copper sheeting would for the most part remove this as an option for the crew of even a very small pirate. Not even mentioning the difficulty of the procedure.

I was always led to believe this was a relatively expensive process that would require access to specialized materials (rolled copper) of which I'm not sure how available they would be in general let alone to a wanted criminal. It is important to remember that the typical geographic locations that pirates would really thrive in tended to be far from centers of manufacturing. Yes, you can chop down a tree for a mast, but rolling copper and such would take special tools. When the US went to first equip it's first frigates it actually imported the copper from England. Certainly pirates wouldn't need the sheer amount of a frigate, but I have some degree of trouble believing that this would be a common cheap material. I also understand this is a fairly labor intensive process, it probably could be done on a small ship by a band of pirates perhaps, I'm not sure. You certainly would need a good safe anchorage. I don't know if you would need specialized facilities or not. Seems more likely pirates would switch ships around rather than always do this kind of maintenance.

I tend to fall into the camp of folks that find pirates to be vastly over-romanticized by modern audiences. Every schoolkid seems to want to be a pirate, because you know "screw authority". In reality we know pirates were not quite exceptional. They were people, just people. Everyone seems to be getting worked up over how awesome pirate democracies were. I'm not. These guys were bands of highwaymen. Do you really think no where in the world some group of bandits didn't get together and talk things over? That suddenly, you put bandits on a ship and they get smacked on the head by a brick that says "LIBERTY" in big bold letters? I suppose, since they were relatively large groups something could be said for holding some vestiges of democracy. But well, better informed minds than I have pointed out that not every pirate ship was great soil for democratic ideals. Again, I think this is a case of pirate inflation. A few pirates were democratic, so suddenly they all are! This is sort of what disgusts me about modern views on pirates. Don't even get me started on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I to this day have yet to be able to sit all the way through any of them. For all your references to pirate kitting out of a ship, well, as folks have pointed out, none of it is terribly special. Though often I find some of the goals at odds with each other. For instance, if you add guns, you add weight, and are going to sail slower. Certainly, there was a prime emphasis on speed often, but these ships were customized to the crew/captain's satisfaction with what materials are at hand. Though I do guess that if you are only planning a very short voyage, you don't need quite as many stores as if you were making a longer one with no landfall. So perhaps a tiny bit of speed from this. But I'm not sure it really is trying to increase a ship's cargo hold space as a goal. I would also remind you there is a major drawback to this method. You can't choose always what is at hand. That can mean somewhat a mish-mash of parts. It also means your ship isn't going to get the high class maintenance naval vessels get. All this can lead up to a sub-par sailing vessel. Long story short, pirates were not magic. They were small ships that hid from bigger ships, mostly found in the more remote corners of the world. I also have to question to some degree your assertion that these men would often be fine crews due to them being the now un-employed castoffs from the navies. I have no doubt that many of such men were good seamen, I'm sure they could do all kinds of ship board tasks quite satisfactory. But there are many things that make a smart ship. Part of performing excellently is in fact, proper discipline and drill. Do you really picture pirates doing gun drills to any sort of intensity compared to a proper fighting ship? This goes too for handling, part of sailing smart is good attention to detail and practice. I contend that as fine as these seamen once were, I expect there performance may have actually suffered a bit. And this doesn't include any poor souls that lack much training at all, but find themselves reduced to piracy. As brutal as a navy ship was, what it did do fairly well is work the men into wonderful fighting shape. I'm sure these men were to some degree capable sailors. But to think they were crack teams just seems a bit absurd to me, certainly nothing compared to a real fighting ship, especially one at peace time where the officers could better chose men and were not reliant on the press or jailbirds to man their ships.

Yeah but try this. Make sure you're in auto mode and then hit F. It won't switch to manual. That's because F is only the toggle to go into auto. Not between Auto and Manual. That's why I think there's something else going on.

Ah if that's the case then yeah should get a fix. If it isn't a key that adjusts my yards it shouldn't effect manual or auto sails. But as I said, hardly a major problem. Once in a while it will hurt me, but the vast majority of the time it doesn't matter. Fix it, but hardly needs a hotfix lol.

I'll back this up. I have had this happen fairly often with the sails mode switching back and forth. In all my other games/general usage I don't have any issues with keystroke speeds. Just naval action, and honestly just with the auto/manual sail settings. Nothing else in the game seems to read/switch so fast. Edit: Thought about it some more and this could be way off base, but could it have something to do with moving yards? Like you were just moving your front yards a bit before resetting to auto and there is a "lag" (for a lack of a better term) so it thinks you want to self-control them and switches back to manual? As I think about it the "F" key will activate auto sailing, but it doesn't activate the manual in and of itself. Could there be an issue there rather than the F key itself? As I said, I have seen the seemingly touchy toggle back to auto from manual sails fairly often myself (not gamebreaking, just irritating at times) but have never had an issue with any other controls in either Naval Action or any other program I use.

Perhaps before they re-open pre-order access they should look into making what amounts to an obstacle course for new players, one that covers the basic sorts of maneuvers and such. It could also be useful for people to get good practice in certain skill areas. Personally, when I started playing I went around and watched several videos to learn to tack. It still took me quite a while to get it down (and I'm still not THAT great at it). Now, some of it is because I am a big landlubber so I didn't have that real world sailing reference point to draw on I'm sure (ships in the end don't always act as I pictured them initially). But I bet I won't be the only lubber to purchase the game in the long haul. Videos are great, doing it yourself is better however. A simple mission that may be sail your ship from point A to B now with obstacles in the way would be a start. Then talk about how to adjust yards to improve turning and have another obstacle course (with tighter turns required obviously). Then do a part about tacking. Then maybe shooting (maybe with references to some advanced tricks (I just learned how much turning my yards just so can vastly increase range in a Trinco lol). Cover some wind polars and speed tests. So on and so forth. Simply add a simple correction that if the player goes 'out of bounds' he gets reset at the beginning or whatever. It would be a great help to new players and would let some of the intermediate players have a chance to quietly practice their skills as well. I know that development is all in on Open World atm, and that is why I specify the earliest timetable of when they open the game to a new testing wave next. It should give them time to build the mode and it would let the new players get a handle on the most important part of sailing with some actual practice in the game. Part of the reason I am so intrigued by this game is it isn't always a case of drive and go WASD controls. There is a real skill to it, and I love it.

Dear god why? So many absolutely beautiful candidates that are completely historical (and look better)! Though you did give me a neat idea for some in game Halloween event or something. Then we can have the ghost ships come out. But for everyday usage, it just looks kinda ugly.

This would be great but you're missing one major consideration. System Requirements. To model all of Victory's crew it would be a major tax on systems. Honestly I'm a bit surprised they modeled the crew they have already. Especially in early alpha like this. Maybe in the future they can get more creative, but for now I don't think it's the largest concern. However I will say I do think your point about marksmen is completely legit. Having at least the implied loss of crew from them shooting at each other would bring a much needed degree of realism into this. This also goes hand in hand with the boarding mechanism. I'm fine with a generic giving of orders, but the current system is confusing and completely boring for me. I understand the basic concept of rock paper scissors they use, but they need to flesh out a few more commands. One to disengage the boarding for certain (or attempt to). I also don't like the whole fight to the last system being used at all. They should implement a morale system (perhaps with say a rally command and such) so that it's not such a depressing slaughter. Rarely did crews really fight to the end, typically one side would give up. Edit: I should probably point out this is a very early alpha. I understand you will have to crew your ship and probably pick officers and such. I expect you will be able to at least to some degree, customize your crew and officers. It also gives options for say marksmen killing off officers to reduce crew effectiveness. We'll have to wait and see how far they go with this.

I should go on the record to say that I completely understand the desire to see some of the old ships in game. Heck, I think it'd be cool to roll around in say Mary Rose. However, I also find Clipper ships dead smexy as well. Unfortunately, for game play reasons it probably wouldn't be the best thing to see them sailing next to each other. But as I said above, splitting a relatively small and almost certainly niche community (I sadly have little hope of the game becoming something even half as popular as WoT, even if the game play is a thousand times better) into multiple servers would really harm the game. It's the price we have to play for a healthy game. I also second the notion that piracy is irrelevant to this topic. The average Joe is just as apt to want to be Jack Sparrow in 1580 as 1815.

Another issue that would arise would be server/player population. Spreading it too thin across two different games could really hurt.