Skully

To give everyone insight into our planning: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14649-courtesysportsmanship-after-pbs/?p=271764 It has all the elements you speak of, a lost port battle, a race to a freeport and finally bad judgement on our part. No mechanics were hurt during the making of that story.

June 13th, The fall of Truxillo History Truxillo used to be the main staging port for AUSEZ. After AUSEZ went to Pirate, Truxillo fell soon without a battle. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14165-the-betrayal-of-the-ausez-to-the-british-empire/?p=264990 Preliminaries In the early hour movement is reported around Black River, which at the time is held by the British. We send out a scout to stalk the place. He reports 2nd rates are moving around Black River, so we conclude an attack on Truxillo is imminent. Truxillo has no value for us anymore, except for the large empty warehouses representing our final investments. So only a couple of us still had outposts in the place. For old times sake we said, lets defend it. It gave us a logistical challenge though as our main fleet was split up between Bonacca and Truxillo. On hindsight (which is the best foresight), we could have TP-ed the entire main fleet in. But alas we did not consider the option and it would turn out to be another jinx which made Truxillo fall. Given the reports that came in it would also be either a close battle or a suicide mission. Nevertheless we decided to sail the best we could bring out individually, so our final composition was 4 1sts, 5 2nds and a 3rd. To buy us some extra time 2 interceptor squads were send out, 1 from Truxillo, 1 from Bonacca. Their main mission, intercept the flag and potentially disrupt enemy movement. The interceptor from Truxillo ran into their main fleet holding station between Truxillo and Bonacca and I myself got stuck into a battle with 2 Pavels. As the flag carrier got tagged, it turned out that this 1 ship difference did not bring enough BR difference for us to hold the flag in ensuing battle. Since half of our main was in Bonacca, we could not undock unless the waters were clear. Thus we waited for the conquest to begin. The conquest of Truxillo was on with ~20 British ships out of which I think 4 Pavels, followed by Constitutions, a couple of Ingermanlands, some Frigates and a Renommee. As out main fleet regrouped at the PB site, time ticked away. One of us got jinxed by a crashing computer. We held position by our main rule, never leave anybody alone. We entered port battle and saw the last British ships exit port battle. The conquest was over. Truxillo once again, had falling without a fight. Aftermath A decision had to be made. While everybody had planned on spending time in a (port) battle, we had real life obligations as well. So how would we ensure all ships would be back safely before downtime? Staying in Truxillo simply wasn't an option anymore. Only one option really remained, we sail together now to Bonacca! As we sailed out of Truxillo bay, the British started to undock. While we moved slowly sailed north-east, one-by-one British Constitutions and Frigates appeared on the horizon behind us. We approached the straight of Ruatan with some British ships pulling up on our starboard side and we got jinxed again with a crashing computer. As always, we don't leave anybody, "Sails down!". At this point everybody who was not part of the main fleet, undocked from Bonacca to come down for escort. Unexpectedly the British fleet made a hard starboard turn away from us. They had no desire to engage us at all, while some of us were starting to get itchy for a battle. Effectively we were blocking the straight. The British made a choice send a part of their fleet around the east side. Hence we turned up at Bonacca before they did and started to blockade it. One-by-one our numbers dropped as people ran out of time. A lone British Pavel was spotted, potentially teleporting away. Since we had not had any fight yet, we charged in, without real thought. Our escorts had docked up and were gone. Without any tackler present, we sailed into the blue for 15 or so minutes looking at the British Pavel racing to Santanillas. It was at that point, we said to ourselves to TP back to capital and call it a day. So at the end, this was probably the worst possible outcome, no real battle had taken place. But we simply made due with the cards being dealt and a good story came out of it.

I consider this topic not about removing the existing mechanic of Random fog, but rather about adding more in relation to battles. But yes, there were no negative choices, so I fixed that. (It broke the first question though, because existing votes stayed in.)

Very true. So back to my original point, lets call it Army or Invasion Army which you setup at an enemy port (or really some close-by landfall). Then you get something like: http://www.awiatsea.com/images/NPE76/Landing%20on%20New%20Providence.jpg http://www.awiatsea.com/images/NPE76/First%20Landing.jpg

Right, but where does an Assault Fleet construction start? An owned port or an enemy port? Or do you mean every own port can start construction of an Assault Fleet to any enemy port? And then we need to escort it in, or something. That actually sounds like fun.

Off topic, please go to: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14536-to-gank-or-be-ganked-that-is-the-question/

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/5590-the-economy-and-other-things/?p=134641 Please continue coding (and reading).

I forgot to mention that it also nullifies the benefit of sitting with a scout / bait ship outside.

Add to that, if folks log-off the fog can be lifted as well. No longer do you have to wait around idling away.

[edit] I broke the questionnaire. I need to redo this topic. Please hold your votes. How about having (dense) fog where people are on their battlescreen? Coming out of http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14485-hiding-in-battle-screens-solved/?p=271155 and http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14485-hiding-in-battle-screens-solved/?p=271532. Somebody who is in a battlescreen can get an outside view via external means. (Calling in a scout.) Somebody sailing on Open World can not get an inside view of the battlescreen with any means. So, the balance is broken. For enticing people to come out (from the battlescreen) and play, I amended http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14627-where-is-the-action. This, however, does not address the above statements. It does not need to be exactly centered on the battle, nor does it need to replace existing fog banks. It can work in addition to the red dots or on its own. Ships will no longer magically appear on Open World, but turn up through the fog. Yes, it might be extremely close, but then again you sailed into a fog bank. You have been warned that you are taking a potential risk. People will just have to sit on the tip of their chairs sailing through fog. :evilgrin: (We might need to add a 30 second timer for mandatory sitting in battlescreen, so the fog bank can come up.) Likewise the anti-gank will have a hard time as it'll need to be coordinated while the fog slowly lifts. [edit] June 14th 2016, changed the poll to allow for negative choices.

How and where is the Assault Fleet setup? We don't want a repeat of some cabin boy setting up the Nation's Assault Fleet on some silly point. How about renaming it to Army and give everybody the option to deliver initial troops to any enemy port? Or is that too much? It may even be some form of rumor system that tells everyone troops have been seen sailing out of a port. Then let the attacking army suffer attrition, so if nobody (or just that one cabin boy) supplies the attacking army it will simply shrivel away. It also gives the assaulting party a slight influence over the potential attacking time window. As long as a single player can't influence the window too much as not to ruin the play for others, we should be good.

It could be an added option, but as long as sitting in battlescreen creates a red dot then it just lets the game make a decision for you. Which I don't like, decisions should be made by players.

I hope it'll be in the nation's language. (For the Pirates we can just do "Yarrrr!" for everything. )

Hence you have the option to log-off after each battle. A free port represents risk and it is clearly marked on the map. If you are not prepared to face the consequences of that risk, don't sail to them. I'm very curious what plan was made by the port battle fleet for the eventuality that you would lose the port battle? To me, coming out 1-by-1 without a scout or escort fleet present is the worst option. (And that goes for every 1st or 2nd coming out of a battlescreen anywhere.) How come every ship that sunk in that PB didn't join the escort fleet? Did your fleet members simply abandon you? Now if you win a port battle, you can't enter port as long as there is somebody in that battle. That is just a bug to me and it needs to be raised top-level. Apart from that you can't blame mechanics for poor foresight.

If technically feasible, then it makes sense. Personally I liked the positional part of the positional reinforcement and, as you, hated the overshooting. A technical problem I can foresee is that this creates a N*N problem, because both the ships and battles involved are theoretically limitless. But this is more something for the devs to fuzz over.

It is not meant for pvp battles, but folks sitting in the battlescreen. Basically: Create an incentive not to stay in the battlescreen, but enter open world.

Your proposal is based on a claim that is impossible to happen. You can't get ganked out of a friendly port. Now sailing to a free-port is a different matter, it requires skill or dominance of the area. Otherwise you'll lose. And trust me we've lost millions of gold and thousands of hours, because we took a risk. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14165-the-betrayal-of-the-ausez-to-the-british-empire/?p=264990 As for the tagging, an unsubstantial claim: "Not once has an enemy ship managed to get away from being ganked." That's the point were I stop reading the paragraph. But I'll give a go at it. Leaving port is always a save proposition, just sit there. Look around. Take a sip of coffee, tea, whatever. Assess the situation (look also at the wind direction). Then dock back up and immediately undock (if you haven't been tagged yet ). Sails up and there you go. Leaving a battlescreen is always a risky proposition. You should work to mitigate that risk. If enemies are known to be around, log off, take a break. Otherwise ask around, get some intel and then make a judgement call. The way I see it, you fail to see the role of the scout. Even when you and enemies are invisible to one-another, the enemies are visible to the scout and he can just direct the invisible ganker fleet. And voila a coming-out-of-invisibility gank achieved.

Coming out of http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14612-suggestion-pvp1-fight-zone/?p=270951 Actually the "PVP1 Fight Zone" topic gives me an idea: what if all battlescreens (not battles, but post-battles) show up as a red dot on the open world map? Optionally fading away with time or disappearing right away when folks go open-world. http://forum.game-la...e-4#entry269696 It gives an indication where action might be at. It should not show any sort of composition of ships or nations. It solves the problem of not generating intel as I outlined in the linked post. It might solve the hiding in a battlescreen problem as folks can either avoid the general area or leave battlescreen quickly to not leave a mark. (I've added a poll, because there is no dislike button on topics/posts.)

I'm moving this up to a new topic. We don't want to pollute this one. [edit] moved to http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14627-where-is-the-action/

He went Dutch. To me it looked like his plan backfired as the Dutch were probably supposed to conquer those ports. The British stepped in instead, so he went back to British.

The gank itself has already happened, plus it gives the ganker fleet a serious advantage. Take a look at our 2 videos at http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14348-sorvesteons-naval-action-videos/?p=270174 In particular the fleet composition. We continuously have 3 squads: Forward gank squad Reinforce gank squad Scout squad In the first video the forward squad chases a lone Pavel into his mission. The Pavel (and part of forward) escapes and it gets ganked by the scouts. D4mi4n comes out of Port Antonio to be ganked by the reinforce squad. Everyone rotates squad as situation dictates. We always have scouts sitting outside on the lookout. So picture us having 3 minutes of invisibility, while the scout directs us. The only thing that can get at us is an organized interceptor fleet. Maybe you should ask Tommy Shelby from the Swedish. [edit] The Pavel got chased into his mission, hence he could escape.

I think we need the "Do tell us which mechanic you think is supposed to safe a single Pavel from a ganking squad?" question answered here then. As you put it, the single Pavel is not happy with 100 seconds extra (almost 2 minutes) in which buddies can help him and would rather stick with the current mechanism. I doubt that though.