Lyric

Thanks for this! Great to see the game is getting all due credit at a very early stage. Although I question whether the PCGamer rep who played realized you could "Space" to fire a single shot and judge distance. The way he phrased that paragraph, I suspect not.

I know this now.

Would be interested to get admin's opinion on this.

Of course, telling friend from foe only requires one peek at the flag. However, how do you tell enemy from enemy, and ally from ally? 1) The ship name on the stern [hopefully customizable]. 2) The broad pendant. You can get voice comm instructions from your flag ship, but it might be that you don't know which one is your flagship for example. Which is why looking at the name/pendant should come into play.

I've made a couple of posts which touch on Signals, how pivotal they were in naval warfare and how they just cannot fit in the game because of voice communication software. I think there is a way to beat it, whilst still making good use of programs such as Ts3, ventrilo and mumble. enemy and ally nameplates. At present you can see all the names of allies, however in the linked post below, the majority of people would prefer NOT to see this information as it is at present as it isn't realistic. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/2909-modify-the-names-over-the-ships/ Instead, if you identified ships by using a glass on their name, flags or broad pendant, and get rid of the names altogether Lets be honest, in a typical organised battle, 2 teams will have their formations for about 5-10 minutes of the game, after that it can move into complete chaos with ships scattered from their flag ship and engaging on both sides. Why? Because they have absolutely no concern of being able to find their leader and fall back into formation with relative ease. Make them work for it however and this will change. Voice comm servers will still allow a higher degree of communication, but despite it, you will still have to work to know exactly what ships you are amongst.

100% with this.

A lovely bit of information there zak. Thoughts to, the further you go, the higher the selling price? Typically with goods and cargo, the further you go from it's origins, the higher value it will be if a port the other side of the world has no access to that particular resource.

Imac - dualbooted with windows 7 ultimate 64bit. i5-2400s 4 core 2.5ghz AMD HD Radeon 6750M 512mb 700mhz clock. 4GB Ram Fps on low = 40fps Fps on medium = 18fps it's not great, but all this poor student can afford

Absolutely agree with your points. They are a great build on the idea. 1. Gomez - Instead of Fleet size dictating how many seats on the Faction Council Fleets get, how many islands dictates it. Great. A Much better, and more efficient idea. 2. Scepo - Invulnerable Nation regions with players controlling outside of this. Also agree with this. I think you can incorporate that into Gomez's idea of the AI run nation sending your faction missions based on where your faction is based. For instance, If your Faction island is based in Province A and any islands in province A come under attack, you will receive letter from the AI Nation's Admiralty requesting your aid there. There is no point sending you ships a million miles away for a mission which leaves your own islands/provinces vulnerable, unless of course the reward is quite substantial from a combined armada of fleets. This is one thing I slightly disagree with. I think you were good in originally suggesting seats are gained by amount of Islands, but I don't believe voting points for key matters should be implemented. That I believe needs to be simple co-ordination between the Faction Leaders. It can be unofficial and still work. If a fleet realizes they have seats but they are being heard, they always have the option to find another faction.

Bring on Nelsons biography. If it had not been for the English I should have been emperor of the East, but wherever there is water to float a ship we are sure to find them in our way." - Napoleon Bonaparte It's nice to have fans

Hello! I wanted to discuss Factions and Nations in closer detail, and maybe chuck a few ideas around the table. Here are a few: I think, if anyone has played the game puzzle pirates, they did a really good job of Crews and Flags. Essentially you'd have a crew with the captain [the crew leader] and once you have a strong enough crew, you could join an alliance [a flag] with several other crews, combining resources and power to conquer islands. Idea 1. Here is my proposal. You have a Fleet. Your fleet has a good 30 captains in it and a couple of admirals. You want to create an alliance with 3 other fleets. A faction is born. Each faction has a war council with 8 seats. How many seats each fleet is given, is solely dependent on the strength of the fleet. If you have 2 fleets of 30 and 1 fleet of 10 for example, the stronger fleets get 3 seats, and the smaller fleet gets 2. Similar to how Governments work. So, you have a fully fledged Faction and you're ready to go. We do not get to have the fun of character creating at the beginning of the game [something I love doing], but we could have a completely unique substitute. You could have a ton of diplomatic options that affect the future of your fleet. An example being - You could decide whether you wanted to be a Mercenary Faction within a nation. - You could decide whether you wanted to be an Official Faction within a Nation. The Pros of being an Official Faction - Assistance and Protection around National Ports, especially useful in reducing the risk of your convoys being attacked - Cheaper resupplies and upgrades - The use of their Nation's Semaphore line, enabling faster news of discovered resources, enemies or battles. - More spaces available in National Public Docks The Cons of being an Official Faction Any Islands Claimed or conquered are taxed by your nation - The tax rate for your Faction is higher - Lower rewards for capture or Sinking of enemy ships. The Pros of being a Mercenary Faction - Any Islands you Capture are not taxed by your nation - The Tax rate for your Faction is normal. - Larger Factions accommodate more Fleets.[Resulting in an even lower tax rate per fleet in the faction]. - Larger rewards for the capture of enemy ships. The Cons of being a Mercenary Faction - You will not receive protection from National Ports [higher risk of your convoys coming under attack]. - Higher Priced resupplies - No use of the Nation's Semaphore line. [Encouraging more players to be explorers]. - Not allowed as many spaces in National Public docks. Attached is my vision of what the Faction UI is likely to look like. - CLICK TO ENLARGE Side note: Semaphore lines are a means of conveying information by means of visual signals from tower to tower. Enabling fast communication across miles of land. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_line Idea 2. Skill points? Nope, Faction Structure! I'm sure quite a lot of us have played such MMOs as World of Warcraft or SWTOR, and know about the Tank, Healer, Dps, Dps, Dps setup. Why not take the concept and apply it to factions. Lets say you have 3 types of Fleets. - Military Fleets - Explorers Fleets - Merchant Fleets NOW lets say if you want to create a British Official Faction, with a limit of 5 fleets. You can employ 2 merchant fleets and 3 military fleets. Why no explorer fleet? As an Official Faction, you already get quick messages through the semaphore lines of new islands and discovered resources. This is a slower option, but can have its benefits. Or if you want to build a faction that is balanced, and fairly reliant on island control and island resources, you could go for 2 explorer fleets, 2 military fleets and 1 merchant. The point is, that you can decide what sort of faction you want to be a part of in your Faction Council, which plays a big role in your economic and military strategy. The great thing about this, is that the faction becomes less about individual fleet effort, but more about constant communication between the council. If the merchant fleet needs protection from A, so they can get to B and build ships for their faction, one of the military fleets in the faction would be asked to provide escort duty. Idea 3. Faction Diplomacy On top of managing their Faction, Fleets, finances and what not The Faction Council also should be able to have a range of diplomatic options available to them that they can use with Factions of their Nation. I don't think Faction alliances should be introduced, that should be an unofficial feature. I simply think you should be able to trade, send ships or resources to another faction in return for other thinks. For example, if a pure explorers faction was in close relations with another faction they could receive a lot of money for information etc. Also I think that instead of having some weird ui for guild finding, you just have to know where the faction is based, in one of the public national ports, or if they are bigger, on one of their own islands somewhere. Once you know where a faction is based, you can send letter and open communication with them.You wouldn't really want to open communication with a fleet/faction that isn't close to you so why display them all? It's an efficient way to filter them! The same goes for an enemy faction. If you want their islands but want the easy option, you should be able to demand they give it up just avoid casualties from both sides, or you will crush them! If they are weaker They may comply and leave to cut their losses, or they may request assistance from a larger allied faction to hold the island I'm using bad examples, but I DO believe if possible, diplomatic options should be available. Idea 4. Paperwork I've rambled on a lot about the Faction Councils, lets just say they would have their work cut out for them, and it may seem that every captain will want to be a part of that. Which is why you have to introduce a lot of detailed work for the Captains too. This involves: - Constant Detailed Reports of their Actions + findings at Sea sent to their Fleets Admiralty [ to be repeated in the F.Council if important] ​- Crew maintenance and conscription - Ship repair, resupplies and building - Patrols Idea 5. Fleet Dockyards I think each fleet should have its own ships and its own Treasury which it uses to contribute to the Faction + Island Tax. If a couple of leaders in a Faction have to financially cover for a fleet that just isn't pulling it's weight with their contribution to the faction taxes and what not, they should start to consider finding a replacement for that fleet. I also believe that something in game play mechanics should massively discourage captains to run without a fleet. For a start, making it nearly impossible to gain anything above a medium frigate without the finances of an entire fleet should be implemented. A lone wolf IS realistically not going to be able to afford a SoL by himself. A fleet of 20 people on the other hand, with 2 islands, constant convoys and a business in a national port, should have no problem maintaining for example: - 1st rates x1 - 3rd Rates x4 - 4th rates x7 - Frigates x5 - Brig x3 A lot of these ideas aren't great, you may not agree or you may, or you may like the concept of some, or you may not. Either way let me know what you think and feel free to throw more ideas on the table or tweak these! Cheers!

Sounds complicated? You should play some Eve

So we've talked about the types of timber that could be used in crafting ships here http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/4636-timber-types-used-in-ship-construction-request/ and how effective they may be, but what we've not talked about is being able to use different types of timber for different purposes. This was raised by "Northernwolves" in the above linked topic. - Click to enlarge 1. The Bowspirit. 2. Planking 3. Masts 4. The Stern 5. Armour 6. Knees and Frames. Take the masts for example. How well they are built, and which wood was used to built them can affect everything from how fast they turn, how fast the sails are unfurled, how accurate sharpshooters are, and how durable they are. If you were a small frigate for example you might be inclined to spend more on decent timber for your side armour than your stern if you weren't worried about sterncampers. Thoughts?

Hello! I wanted to note an issue, and an idea that popped to mind. 1. Signalling. Signals played a COLOSSAL role in keeping ships together, informed and efficient. We don't have this, and fitting it is in a bit awkward especially when you put voice comms in the equation but i'll come to that in a second. Luckily despite said voice comms, searching for your squadron in the middle of the Atlantic is going to make you work. Which is great. That being said, I think since we've taken it this far, we could take it a little further. I think that a squadron should be able to fast travel together [once you have an invite to it, much like a party in other MMOs], once you're in a certain radius of the Flag Ship [the squadron leader]. I also think if you are travelling, the Squadron leader [in the picture below, Admiral Hornel] should be able to instantly go to the perspective of scouting ships in front if they call out they have spotted an unknown ship / enemy / ally etc as shown in the picture below. - [Click to enlarge] I also think if you capture a ship, you can designate some of your crew, let by an officer of your choice, to go across and command it, allowing you to sail your ship, and command your captured AI ship with signal orders binded to your keyboard. Thoughts?

slight copy off guns of icarus

It's already been explained that stuff like whaling has been given thought but will not be implemented or thought about until much later in the game development - I knew this at the time of making this poll, but it's still good to get a yes/no off players so the devs have an idea for the future.

So the idea is, like many have suggested, to create Battles based around islands. But to take this even further. When the game is in a good place, I'd suggest next, looking at land battles. It was common when trying to defeat an opponent's squadron, Islands were used. Either for: -Fortresses which were used to protect strategically important islands -Scouting -Coastal Batteries -To draw ships onto the reef. -What I would suggest, in situations where players may try to seize other player controlled islands, is the option to create a landing party of however many men, however many resources you want to spare them, and try and attack the defenders from land. You would have some sort of strategic view which allows you to control your [slightly less active] ship at the same time as controlling your landing party. -If it were a fleet of 10 v another fleet of 10, the attackers could decide which of their ships would be better landing, depending on their crew morale/officers/resources such as cannon size etc. -When landing your party you would have to decide how many officers to send with them [which increases morale], how many cannons [with a limit of about 3 probably, as 32 pounders were nightmares to lug around] and how many sailors/marines. Below are some pictures of the view i'd suggest you'd have. You'd be able to zoom in close enough to see your entire landing party in their boats, and you'd just see the island and your men slowly moving through it, controlling them as you might an RTS game. OR You could, if being really ambitious, make it 1st person from the eyes of the highest ranking officer on the landing party. The great thing about this is, that there is still going to be a naval battle raging on whilst all this occurs. Ships would sometimes sail by islands not even knowing where the suspected coastal battery was and how heavy it was, so having a landing party being able to relay "it's bigger than we thought, stay clear, do NOT cross their firing line" would be pivotal. On the other hand, if it was a bluff and there was a very weak land force from the defenders, ships can then move as they please, and perhaps even one more land to put down more coastal batteries.

We've had that already. SO many games cop out and do the bare minimum. We don't want gold and cargo, we want ISLANDS! we want very own coastal defences, we want our own economy. This is next gen gaming so lets not cop out and do as much as is required. Of course not, after taking an island, realistically they wouldn't just send their reports back to the admiralty expecting a "good, now take the next one" in reply. The amount of repairs, resupplying and organizing you'd have to do after capturing an island would be HUGE! Not to mention if a Nation just got word they lost an island, they'd try and counter attack, so whatever ships are still in decent condition would be sent to patrol and defend the new island.

Credits to: Whaling - ? Lookout - Zakota Assisting a ship - Similon Drunk crews - Bajadian reduce current repairs - Crankey Increased dispersion at long range. Preview of ships - Joao18 Journal - Me. Running aground - Me The idea with the journals is that the game could automatically put in your log you had sighted a strange sail or engaged an enemy, or run aground which you then read out / give to your superior on heading home The running aground is pretty obvious, if you don't know your waters, you could get caught up in some shallow reef and lose your ship.

So, as it's only been briefly mentioned I wanted to bring up the idea of detailed Islands. There has been a lot of discussion about port business, trading and the economy, but I'm looking at this in a much more strategic light. The idea is to make 4 different types of islands, with 4 types of sizes, every one of different shapes & strategic value. Below are the types, the attachment gives a very basic example of the sizes I had in mind, and the names to give them. A grand Island you will notice has an extra small isle attached to it, which can be used by the fleet controlling it. I think there needs to be a good amount of islands in the game, perhaps around 60 in total, but obviously a much smaller amount whilst the game attracts more players, 15-25 to start off with maybe. Each island, obviously located in different parts of the map will have different strategic value and can be claimed or even besieged by Fleets at war with the defenders. An atoll is an island formed from a coral reef that has grown on an eroded and submerged volcanic island. The reef rises to the surface of the water and forms a new island. Atolls are typically ring-shaped with a central lagoon. Examples include the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and Line Islands in the Pacific. Continental islands are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a continent. Examples include Greenland and Sable Island off North America; Barbados and Trinidad off South America; Great Britain, Ireland and Sicily off Europe; Sumatra and Java off Asia; and New Guinea and Tasmania off Australia. Oceanic islands are ones that do not sit on continental shelves. They are volcanic in origin. One type of oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring. Examples include the Mariana Islands, the Aleutian Islands, Republic of Mauritius and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. Some of the Lesser Antilles and the South Sandwich Islands are the only Atlantic Ocean examples. Another type of oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples: Iceland, which is the world's largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen — both are in the Atlantic. A third type of oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the moving tectonic plate above it, so a chain of islands results as the plate drifts. Over long periods of time, this type of island is eventually eroded down and "drowned" by isostatic adjustment, becoming a seamount. An example is the Hawaiian Islands, from Hawaii to Kure, How would you go about business in an Island belonging to your fleet? I think Islands need to be fairly exclusive, available only to the Fleets [guilds/groups/clans] strong enough to capture them, a grand island obviously would need quite a large force to attack. Once you have control of the island, you have a wealth of economic resources unique to that Island, you have another trading port + a stream of money generated from tax in the Large/Grand islands that are actually populated. You will also be able to upgrade the island with finances your fleet owns. Such upgrades would include: 1 Battery [of 9 cannons up to 32 pounders] 2 Batterys [of 9 cannons up to 32 pounders] 2 Batterys [of 9 cannons up to 32 pounders] & 1 Howitzer 3 Batterys [of 9 cannons up to 42 pounders] & 1 Howitzers 3 Batterys [of 9 cannons up to 42 pounders] & 2 Howitzers Martello Tower x1 Martello Tower x2 Martello Tower x3 Fort x1 The upgrades of course would not come cheap, and only islands of real strategic/economic value would be worth investing in. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think

I hope this is a troll. Realism is a key feature of the game, standing and shouting at someone while cannons are flying, boys as young as 12 are being cut in half with a cannonade and snipers picking off your officers won't get you very far. NO SKILLS!

So we've been asked which Nations do we want to see in the game. That question alone opens up so many gaps to be filled either with current plans or new suggestions, so here goes. 1) If, assuming we do actually have Nations, there are going to be a fair few of them because I'm sure NA members will be of many different Nations. Thus, will we get the Globe as it is known today, or to save time and resources will each nation be given a fictional stretch of land? If we DID have a fictional map, it would be slightly better in the sense that devs could perhaps make travel time's shorter, it would also allow for capture of Islands which may not actually exist which leads me onto point 3) 2) Islands. If we DID have a fictional map, we could have groups of islands, some big, some small which offer different economic bonuses on capturing, and depending on their location, varying strategic value. Usually a well dug in island I believe would have up to 3 coastal batteries, a island just landed on would only have 1 battery, each battery hosting about 7-9 very heavy cannons. This leads me also onto my next point. 3)Wars. As far as I can understand the game revolves around PvP. Great. And there are Nations. Right...So are we going to have 20+ Nations constantly at war with eachother? Will that be good for trade with other nations etc etc? Again as you're reading i'm hoping you are thinking of some answers to this too, but here is my suggestion: Each Nation will have a ton of fleets [guilds/groups/clans], why not make a system that allows for members of the more prominent/illustrious fleets to be voted in as Admiralty. Everyone in a nation has a vote, they can pick who they want to fufill which role. Roles: - Lord High Admiral [1] = Overall commander, has the final say. - First lords of the Admiralty [5] = Almost like the High Admiral's war council. - Admirals of the Fleet [10] = Significant leaders of Fleets. What sort of duties would these leaders have? - Providing the safest and most economically stable country for generations to come. - Securing Islands of importance, economically or strategically achieved with constant communication and management of the most powerful fleets. If the above duties require a Nation to declare war on another, so be it, let the PvP commence. Obviously it is difficult to get every fleet to action, especially the smaller ones, which is why it may be worth creating some sort of Squadron linking bigger fleets to smaller ones, each giving each other support when required. Let me know your thoughts & suggestions on all of the above.

My Bellona is called HMS Defence - based on a real 74 ship of the Bellona class.

My suggestion is, on a basic level to increase the level of realism which game labs have so far, done a good job with. What do I mean by this? - The Crew. On a victory there is what, 600 crew members? If you were to search the ship model thoroughly I bet you could fin about 20 of them. - Close combat. you would always have marksmen up in the shrouds picking out the officers, but where are they? That sort of links in to the above point. - A chain of command. It would be great to see ranks implemented or some sort of system that gives a more experienced player leader in a game. This could perhaps give him different colored text to stand out, and just gives him a bit of authority. For me personally, i'd love to see a good 50 people running along the top deck alone doing different duties depending on the actions of the ship. I'd love to see marksmen shooting from the masts. I'd love to see a helmsman, or maybe two helmsmen depending on the weather/sailing mode. I'd like to see the officers, and perhaps even the captain. This is the most important point for me because there are tons of games out there that do the bare minimum, that are happy with the sails just magically unfolding themselves without seeing crew actually do it. Don't be one of those games. I also figured it'd be nice to have a 1st person view from the captain and be able to walk about your ship, but I can understand this may not be a good idea dude to the simplicity of the crew models.