Fluffy Fishy
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Posts posted by Fluffy Fishy
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15 hours ago, Sir Lancelot Holland said:
For the bulk of every navy it was the Frigates that were the mistress of the seas, more economical than the Lineships, they fought in many of the famous battles, and, more than a few lesser known ones too, patrolled endlessly, they were the ultimate in blockading ships, equally at home in Blue waters, or, inshore, wherever there was trouble you'd find a frigate, yet, there was never really enough of them to go around.
While looking at something almost completely unrelated I came across this:
There is, of course, nothing wrong with desiring to sail one the great ships of the line, as a group we can work our way through the small ships and sail some of the most prestigious ships in Naval history, perhaps, without much thought about the Frigates, the Jack of all trades, the true mistress of the seas.
The article you posted is a curious one, it doesn't seem very well researched and has a lot of inaccurate pop history in it, The frigate evolved from construction methods during the 16th century centred around galleys, not galleons, they also have a fair bit of their design ancestry involved in the larger galleass, especially as it was the galleass which was the first type of ship to be designed with scientific principles. Frigates began their history in Italy, then were adopted by Spain and then through them The Netherlands, France and England. Its also probably worth pointing out that Britain didn't build the finest frigates but they did typically build the most sturdy, while the best all round frigates were the ones built in France or the Italian states, with France taking most of the spotlight as one of the major naval nations of the era.
Something that does strike me as surprising with frigates is that they aren't actually much more economical than ships of the line when it comes to build and maintenance cost, they do however benefit from lower crewing costs which could actually range quite wildly during the period with typical 74s costing anywhere in the region of £35,000-£65,000 + a fitting cost of anywhere between £10,000-£25,000 while Frigates could cost anywhere between £20,000-£50,000 with fitting costs typically around £7,500-£20,000, where the lower end of costings was dominated by the 26-32 gun ships.
Its also probably worth pointing out that Britain didn't really dominate the seas until the mid to late 18th century, with power mainly residing in France and Spain, who could field larger and better supplied navies until the 7 years war when things started to turn, even during the American war for independence the British navy was outnumbered by both the French and Spanish fleets and were roughly outnumbered 3-1 during the conflict.
Hope this helps
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16 hours ago, jodgi said:
Heh, It's the other way around for me. Poor Wapen is so unappealing to me with it's lego pirate ship looks and abominable vertical bowsprit I couldn't sail it if it was the best ship in game...
That goes too far the other way for me, I'm quite picky with ship aesthetics. My favourite ships are all from the 1780s. I'm most fond of designs from this period when the waist is fairly enclosed but still a feature. It doesn't really matter if its a frigate or a line ship either I just like a nice bulwark without the enclosed design of spardecks which I think look a bit square and blocky but I don't like the lego pirate ship vibe either 😄
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I don't normally like spardecks but I really like this one, its such a shame she's out of period for NA.
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I have spent the last few days dipping into Battlefield Gothic: Armada 2, it will be interesting to see how these two games compare, although no doubt I much prefer the age of sail setting to the Warhammer world, I have no interest in warhammer its just what looks like one of the few tactical "naval" combat games on the market right now. I'd be interested to hear if the dev team here has played any Battlefield Gothic and what they have liked, disliked and how it might inspire features of Ultimate Admiral. I have to say I find the broadsides in space quite satisfying, although I don't like the more gimmicky parts of Armada 2 like the extra powerful abilities. I'm also not a great fan of the campaign urgency mechanic or the lack of a grand campaign but its not the end of the world. Its still an enjoyable experience if you like the kind of game, even though I don't care the slightest for Warhammer lore or world building. I doubt I wouldn't drop Armada 2 in a hearbeat to play a good age of sail naval combat game so I'm still itching for ultimate admiral news
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When you are casually admiring the work of Sir Thomas Slade and his designs and you suddenly get reminded how awkwardly racist people were in the 18th and 19th centuries....
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14 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:
Lumping nations together on the basis of the napoleonic wars would actually be something I could accept as historically accurate. Tho the Netherlands wasn't in the british alliance since it.. kinda ceased to exist and had a Bonaparte installed as a figurehead.. The US would be a neutral faction, but I can live with the inaccuracy.. ish..
I wasn't really sure where to put the Dutch, I figured it suits them to be there because that gives 5 of the current factions to each side, realistically they should probably be with the French as the Batavian Republic during the Napoleonic period but that leaves a slightly uncomfortable imbalance with 6 nations to 4, although realistically numbers of nations don't really matter much, with player numbers being the real driving force. It was just a rough suggestion for potential grouping.
You can always add a bunch of other internal flavour nations to each faction leaving you with something like:
1) France, USA, Spain, Denmark, Poland + Kingdom of Italy, Confederacy of the Rhine, Kingdom of Naples
2) Britain, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, Netherlands + Austria, Portugal, Ottomans
3) Pirates + Berbers
Alternatively you could also split potential flavour nations between the factions that represent the same area to create something like:
1) France etc + Batavian Republic, Kingdom of Italy, Confederacy of the Rhine2) Britain etc + Netherlands, Italian States, Holy Roman Empire
3) Pirates
Alternatively you could create a slightly more complicated system of core factions then the additional nations where you use the current Alliance system to block the more loose states like the Netherlands or the USA to belong to either one of the core factions but with the fluidity to swap between the two but thats getting a bit more complex.
Either way establishing two major factions and have as well pirates would at least in my mind be very beneficial to the game and likely sort out some of the major issues the game has with PVP and RVR and the dynamics it currently has.
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I think quite a lot of people have been having this same idea for a long time, the amount of nations currently in the game is crazy and excessive especially when you think of how few actual players the game has retained now. There is no real reason why the game shouldn't have 2-4 factions and it would be better for everyone.
I fully agree with the whole nations within nations idea and we could loosely base factions on say the napoleonic wars and lump together something like this:
1) France, USA, Spain, Denmark, Poland
2) Britain, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, Netherlands
3) Pirates
Then you could always add other nations like Portugal and the Italian states or whoever else you please to give national identity within the factions involved.
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This all looks very exciting, thank you for sharing the screenshots. It looks like it will be quite different and out there, I can't wait to play it. I hope I can get involved in the project somehow 🤞
I will be eagerly watching the rest of the development cycle.
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1 minute ago, sterner said:
We are going to add 2 campaigns describing biography of Nelson and John Paul Jones.
Will there be scope for expanding on these two figures to include a more generalised campaigns in the future, say following for example the 7 years war rather than specific historic figures and their personal service?
This all sounds very promising, I can't wait to hear more.
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This does look like a suddenly interesting something, Sign me up.
Now if only I can work out a way to get into that testing forum.... -
A potential suggestion for the Flags DLC for touchy US players to fly from their Constitution Classics
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For those of you who may not be aware there is currently a large collaboration project going on between a group of youtube creators that is looking in quite some depth at Naval history, one of these videos in the collection talks about ships of the line and provides some fantastic points I haven't really thought about before. Its well worth a watch for those who are interested in the subject. Hope you enjoy
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5 hours ago, Wagram said:
Err...Did you notice that there is a marked discrepancy between that reconstruction of the Leon Trionfante class (1st picture) and the following second and third pictures, apparently contemporary, which you seem to look upon as representations of the Leon Trionfante class was well?
Yes, in the reconstruction there are no stern galleries and just a single storey quarter gallery, while those contemporary pictures show a stern gallery and two storey quarter galleries...
In my opinion, different ship types, maybe, but, definitely, different designs.
Could you comment on that?
The Leon Trionfante class was modified between each series to bring it up to date with the contemporary practices. There were various changes to the various structural elements of the class over the 80 odd years they were being produced. The most notable difference being the stern as you point out, with the older designs having 4 ports and much more decorative features while the more modern ships were cut for 2 stern ports and had much more modest and up to date practical features like stronger bulwarks, there were also various minor changes to the hold and the inner works of the ship to improve the sailing qualities.
There are even more noticeable changes and upgrades between the San Michele Arcangelo class if you check the differences between San Michele Arcangelo and Concordia, of which there are both pictures on this thread (1st and 7th pages). On a more general level ship classes aren't as heavily defined as people might think, ships frequently received upgrades and various minor refits where things like pumps were brought up to date with more modern versions similarly to system upgrades on modern warships today so as to prolong their lifespans, this thought path was also applied to general classes, especially classes that had such a long lifespan as the Leon Trionfante, with a class service history of over 100 years, something pretty rare for warships of the era, especially considering that they were active warships for the vast majority of that time too, rather than being confined to ordinary or used as hulks.
I wrote out a more fleshed out piece on the Leon Trionfante class to give her her own forum post a while back you might like to check out, I haven't really gone into much detail of the various modifications between the 4 different series though.
I hope that helps answer at least some of your questions.
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She's got some pretty interesting features going on there, it might just be the model but those curves are quite unusual, plus her beakhead and bowsprit angle, the tumblehome and pretty much the entire structure over the waterline seems pretty curious.
Are those measurements in french feet? What are her metric values?
Nice post, do you have any more information, especially around her design?
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Honestly I would just prefer the old battle end screen brought back with loot being assigned there, it was far less of a pain than the current mechanics. Looting in a lot of ships is just a massive pain and the idea of looting sinking and captured ships is just kind of gimmicky and doesn't really add anything to the game. It was sad the battle end screen abuse wasn't addressed in a way that maintained the old and now lost mechanic but made it impossible for the people using it to use it in the manner they did.
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58 minutes ago, Captain Jean-Luc Picard said:
Thanks for taking the time to write your answer, is there a particular book you would recommend on the subject?
Probably the best value for money and most available is the Age of the Galley, part of Conway's History of the Ship, they are very cheap second hand online, it gives a pretty good basic history of the entire naval era. Bizarrely the paperback copies tend to be more expensive than the hardbacks too so you can get yourself a nicely laid out fairly comprehensive introduction to galleys.
I've got some other more specialist books that are a bit harder to come by that go into some detail, but they are mainly centred around Venetian galleys though. Galleons and Galleys, Venetian ships and shipbuilders, Fleets of the World The Galley period and Guido Ercole's Le Galee Mediterranee 5000 anni di storia techniche e documenti, Galeazze Un sogno Veneziano and Galee Veneziane per Capo da Mar are all really good books. There are some other really good books out there but I can't recommend them fully as I've not read/owned a copy of them. The French galley La Reale is pretty well documented, its a shame the era doesn't get as much attention or romanticised as much as the age of sail. Hope this helps
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9kn isnt unusual for a swift built galley, the fact olympias is built with sitting benches is a bit strange. Galleys in the gunpowder age had their benches arranged in a similar fashion to the classical era warships so much so medieval era naval architecutre was constantly looking at its ancestors for mathematical inspiration to get the most power out of its oars. Its also worth pointing out that during the high galley period they were also trireme style ships with the core mechanics remaining the same. The benching arrangements of triremes and how they were looked at in the medieval world were actually a major influence in the start of the renaissance, while the birth of modern science and the scientific method of ship design is directly linked to the mathematical principles of rowing quinqueremes, with the first early modern ship using the scientific method being a galleass.
Standing rowing is a universal thing that was common place not only in Europe but Asia too, especially in China, Korea and Japan around the same time. Everyone. Compactness of design wasn't something that changed dramatically over the 5000 years of the galley, sailors just rowed in crampt conditions taking this back to olympias its likely inspired by modern misinterpretation spurred on with almost no architectural physical evidence from archaeology due to finding a preserved ship from before around 900 is almost never heard of.
If you want to see how standing rowing works physically you are probably best off finding a video of a gondoleir or watching a rowing exercise take place in a japanese martial art, both show quite well the use of body mechanics in rowing and how rowing was from a standing position, with the gondola being designed in a way to train Venetian oarsmen during daily life similarly to the more famous Sunday longbow practise training in medieval England.
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Classical oared ships, and to be honest the entire galley period (roughly 4000BC-1571AD) used wind as the primary motor for warships, there are a lot of poor modern interpretations of galley era warfare and seamanship. Oars were used for making port or in battle but rowing was incredibly demanding physically, it wasn't common for an oared ship to row for more than an hour at a time at cruising speed, the much more straining full speed rowing couldn't be kept up more than 15-20 minutes by even the most hardy and experienced benchmen. The large crews of galleys were also necessary to hoist the massive square, and later triangular sails.
Its probably also worth pointing out the use of rams is vastly overstated, with missile weapons being the primary weapon of conflict during the period, but also through hand to hand combat taking place frequently in boarding action. The notable rams on the ancient and early medieval era ships were mainly to create a stable fighting platform or sweeping oars, so as disabling the primary fighting engine similarly to de-masting a ship in the age of sail. Punching a large hole in a ship and being caught up in another sinking would put incredible strain on the hull and drag both ships into the water.
When it comes to slaves rowing, it depended heavily on the nations states involved, some used slaves some didn't. Taking the most famous of the Greek cities, Sparta used pressed men and slaves, while Athens used citizens, while other nations of the time such as Persia used conscripted men, acting as a kind of middle ground. Fast forwarding to the medieval world, most Christian navies used paid oarsmen, but often supplemented with the use of convicts and conscripts whilst the Ottomans and Berbers used a mix of conscripts and slaves, Venice is probably the best example of a nation that was reluctant to use impressed men for the same reasons as Athens in the ancient world in that they performed much better as citizens, although by the end of the early modern period the Venetian navy did have a small handful of convict rowed galleys.
Something that most people aren't aware of is that almost all galleys due to their light construction spent large amounts of time out of the water, being pulled onto beaches or onto slips to maintain and careen, dry out and do various maintenance much more than sailing ships, this is why they spent so much time close to shore, not due to being unstable in open waters. Galleys were perfectly able and did sail in the Atlantic, they were a common sight on the Atlantic coastline in the Ancient and Medieval world, being replaced as trade ships in the mid 1400s.
Lastly something else worth pointing out is that oar driven ships were, unlike they are often depicted in film and media rowed standing up rather than sitting down, the benches while a prominent part of galley design were used as resting areas, similarly to hammocks not as a seat to row from. Rowing was an activity that used the entire body, making the most of the powerful core muscle groups and leverage of a standing position as compared to the relatively static and arm heavy seated positions seen in films such as Ben-Hur.
Also If anyone has any questions I am more than happy to answer them
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I miss the old system, sure it had faults but you could basically craft what you wanted in the way you wanted it. Players should be able to craft and sail the ship that suits them most. I'd happily do away with the RNG and just have flat ships so everyone is equal and it becomes more skill based again. The current system that relies too much on giving your ship the best bonuses you can stinks and destroys balance because changing a ships stats up to around 30% is near impossible to balance properly.
It would be cool to see some kind of system of diminishing returns going on where it becomes increasingly expensive to create a marginally better ship, and as the more you squeeze out of it the lower the gains but it should be controlled by the crafter, giving a proper sense of quality vs quantity that was there historically.
Crafting notes kind of made sense, to make them work better they just needed to be non tradable so you were forced to make them yourself and spend hours on making them, the idea that you can spend more hours on a ship to make it better makes total sense in a MMO world, and if you stagger them by saying something like 0 notes for a basic ship, 2 notes for green, 5 notes for blue, 10 notes for purple and 16 notes for gold it would probably balance fairly well, you'd have access to the ships you wanted.
One of the main issues with the game economy right now is its missing equilibriums and consumer surplus, it would benefit the game so much to allow players to make more market lead choices as they do in real life, crafting needs these aspects to be a fulfilling task, rather than what it is at the moment which is just asymmetrical RNG favouring middle of nowhere ports, ports that take you away from the community and make the experience more grind ridden as a whole and therefore the game experience worse, in the hope it promotes RVR, which it doesn't.
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36 minutes ago, JG14_Cuzn said:
When the only solution to a Le Req is another Le Req we have a problem.
This needs to be addressed and the shop needs to be nerfd.
That is kind of historically accurate, but not for the reasons it should be. History shows us that xebecs are the answer to xebecs thanks to their incredible light construction and fantastic sailing profile giving them a massive edge over more traditional patrol ships, not because they are worthwhile navy vessels. They are perfect for disrupting trade and general raiding, especially in lighter winded areas but dreadful in actual combat.
A Requin being a solution to a Requin isn't a bad thing if its done right, but right now with their unhistorical thick hulls and reasonable HPs its poorly set up both for game balance and history.
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Can we make it so storms also appear more frequently in the areas of the map that are most prone to storms for example the Venezuelan coast os pretty famous for having something like 1/3 of the worlds lightning strikes.
It would also be pretty cool to see more weather affecting ships properly, for example heavy weather meaning you can't use the main gun deck on some of the larger ships like bucentuare and the first rates.
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9 hours ago, LeBoiteux said:
HMS Surprise and La Renommée are 9-pdr frigates, aren't they ? 🙂
That will teach me to post in the morning before my head has woken up, I did mean to write 9 or 12 pounder frigates but I only wrote the 12. Always proof read your posts guys
8 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:I would like to point out requin has structure/armor comparable to Niagara. That's only marginally higher than privateer ones.
Asking for nerfing HPs even more?
Even Niagara is considerably more built up than a xebec. She is properly framed and planked, especially as she was an American ship, doubled up as was standard of warships of the era. Xebec would struggle to be on comparison to even the basic minimum thickness of 45. Nerfing her HP to represent a more historically accurate single hulled vessel makes perfect sense when looking at the two ships historical builds. Requin should be a pretty amazing sailor with great boarding potential but be a massive glass cannon that struggles to exchange prolonged broadsides with the 6th rates let alone the 5ths.
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Frigate! Mistress of the seas, and, jack of all trades
in History
Posted
British dominance at sea is more to do with advances in complementary technology than naval design or building. They built sturdier ships better suited for brawling, they also built ships that had greater stores for longer voyage time at the expense of handling qualities. The sturdy building meant lower maintenance costs and less need for constant repair, which meant the Royal Navy could commission more ships at one time. You see this in the post capture lives of French and Spanish ships they were often brought into service but for shorter time than their home built counterparts. When it came to actual design, while they had Slade who is no doubt the greatest naval architect of the age of sail the vast majority of their hydraulic line work was done by examining French and Spanish captures while Britain worked on advancing their naval technology in other ways, most notably the carronade and copper plating, which were technologies that vastly expanded the firepower of smaller ships and longevity of deployment respectively. The answer to these technologies was met with the rather lacklustre French obusier, and vastly inferior copper sheathing. These two technologies were the real reason Britain could compete while outnumbered 3-1 in the American revolutionary war.
The difficulties in the war of 1812 are quite overstated, mainly thanks to US propaganda drawing attention to a handful of minor victories where larger US ships preyed on smaller British ships but were captured and defeated when the odds were even. Typically the great duels of the conflict we remember today are a small number of actions where the 50+ gun 24 pounder ships of the US navy outfought 38 gun 18 pounder frigates of Britain. Its also something to take into account the sheer cost of these US ships, being much larger and over 3x more expensive than the ships they captured, with build and fitting costs more akin to the heaviest ships of the European navies with the cost of the famous USS Constitution being higher than the 100 gun British first rates HMS Royal George and Victory.
Britain's ability to range in the Mediterranean was mainly thanks to Britain controlling key points within the basin, Gibraltar, The Balaeric islands, Malta etc but basing rights in Naples was also necessary. Venetian neutrality wasn't really too important, the city was still producing some of the most forward thinking designs and doctrines of the period but had clearly fallen to a 2nd rate naval power by the 18th century, although roughly akin to Sweden in projective ability.
British domination of the Oceans was mainly due to internal struggles within its competitors, The Dutch fell first, while an incredible force during the late 17th century the Dutch navy struggled to remain prominent in the 18th. Spain became too inward focussed struggling to maintain its extensive colonies, spreading its naval force thinly throughout the gains they made in the colonial era sapping funding and knocked out of the top spot thanks to the lack of homeland wood supplies and the damage caused by the wars of spanish succession and the 7 years war. France did well to maintain its navy but really it destroyed itself, beheading its most experienced admirals in the revolution and suffering strings of defeats during the Napoleonic wars, they also suffered greatly from the British blockades of which the most notable was Brest, something they never really recovered from giving the sea resoundingly to the British who maintained dominion of the seas until 1914.