Alex Connor

There's nothing particularly wrong with the older 1670-1750 or so ships apart from not having the benefits of the later scientific hull design and a tendency to be overgunned for any given hull size. For example, a 70 gun 3rd of 1700-ish might sound reasonably equivalent to a Napoleonic 74, but the 70 will be about 1050 tons bm, 151ft by 40ft and carry 24lb-9lb-6lb batteries, where the 74 is 1900 tons bm, 180ft by 49ft and armed with 32lb-18lb-9lb guns. The 70 is roughly the same size as a later 50 gun ship, which illustrates the overgunning problem. Combined with the older hullform these ships would be distinctly poor sailors. This is true all through the ratings systems, for example 1st rates are likely to be smaller than later 3rd rates. Although they are more decorated than later ships I'm not sure how much difference that would make to the sailing qualities, not exactly going to help but at the same time unlikely to be more than a few tons difference. Probably wouldn't have any greater cargo capacity either unless you went back as far as galleons. Overall you wouldn't want to pit the older ships against their direct Napoleonic equivalents, but they would still be combat viable if you can fight ships of a lower nominal rating (and this would make sense if the older ships are cheaper or more easily obtained).

That patch was just horrifying. Agonizingly long battles because the damage skills were so weak and repairs near endless. Very few timed skills, just toggle on evasion and repairs and then spacebar the enemy. Oh, and you couldn't properly repair guns, so as the fight dragged out each side would be doing less and less damage. They did achieve their goal of reducing the gap between old and new players though, replacing a beautiful, deep and balanced system that's rewarded learning, practice and thinking outside the box with one anyone could learn in 5min. Only good thing was that if you didn't respec your character you could use the old skillset vs the new and absolutely melt faces lol Thankfully that Khan video showed FLS just how broken their new system was and they dropped it.

Went back and played PotBS for a few days, still got a feeling like no other game. Except maybe NA when it reaches the open world stage Doesn't seem too different, was expecting the accuracy changes to have more impact. Some fun fights, but I think the skill level in PvP has gone down lol, either that or I have taken almost a years break and somehow come back stronger

Lovely models, good to have more variety than just British ships (and one American) You have to stop putting jackstaffs on them though, would never be fitted at sea because ofc they will catch the boom as it goes across the deck I have a question though, is there room for my model of Shannon alongside your model of Trincomalee? There are visual changes between the sisterships because they were built 10 years apart, the bow and the stern gallery are of different designs, Trincomalee has one extra quarterdeck gunport and other less noticeable things. Shannon is probably the more complete of the two at the moment, needing only a little work on the rudder, some small parts of the rigging like chains, one or two deck details and texture mapping.

Among other ships I'm working on HMS Superb, a British built version of the Temeraire class, so more or less Implacable's half-sister. Could probably even use the Implacable's stern gallery for her, the one in these pictures is borrowed from HMS Malta. I can't find details of Superb's stern gallery and would like each to have a unique stern. I believe someone else is working on a separate Temaraire-class model too, but if not we can just adapt Superb, the differences are only stern gallery, bow/headrails, bulwarks and rigging so much less effort than making a whole new model.

Would be a great tool for societies and alliances

First thoughts were "wow, that's a big model ship" xD Little beauty isn't she?

Temporary damage would be much more likely, after all even to hit the topmast you are aiming at a moving 15in or so target at several hundred meters with a smoothbore cannon... And losing a topmast isn't totally incapacitating, just a penalty you'd have to stop to fix. Might decide a chase, but it would be rare and the result of either fantastic aiming or an element of luck, probably both.

The hull damage model is complex and works well, I trust the rigging damage model will catch up to it. Rigging divided into masts, spars, standing and running rigging. Masts are strong, likely to take multiple hits to bring down. Spars less so, one or two hits might well break a spar, although the lower spars are still quite tough. Standing rigging supports the masts, although individual shrouds are easily cut you'd have to cut a lot of them to fell the mast. Running rigging, easily severed and like maturin says damage to this can disable associated rigging until repaired, but won't cause lasting damage. Under normal circumstances in a fight, maneuvering under topsails only and at low speeds it would take a considerable amount of damage to bring down anything important. However, in a chase ships will be running at high speeds, masts and sails under strain. Here, a single shot might cause failure. Although it is still very unlikely for this shot to bring down a whole mast, hitting a topmast, or severing its shrouds down one side (from chase angles these shrouds are nicely lined up to be cut with one shot) could well result in its loss. Same for sails, normally one hit won't do much but under strain it might cause the whole sail to blow out and tear itself to shreds.

Well, that explains a few things I'd been thinking the square bow was an odd choice for an apparently Napoleonic era frigate, as is the lack of a mizzen-topgallant sail.

The generic Frigate is made up from a couple of different plans, so not a specific ship. Thinks she's french, remember seeing her as l'Aurore but the model now has a british-style stern gallery. I hope they give it a name though, make the names all follow a similar style like "HMS Suprise" or "Suprise-class frigate".

I hope so, we have many British ships and few of any other nation. Would offer to build her myself but I have started too many ship projects and first must finish at least one of them

There has to be some system for earning new ships, so just 50% bonus to this, details are not important And yes Gold > Silver, I meant, if you purchase with gold these items are cheap, but to purchase with silver will cost you much more

This is why I feel a premium account system is very important. Sustained income, requires no development after initial setup leaving developers free to concentrate on improving the game. Preferably WoT style (simple 50% bonuses to progression and money earning), with the initial purchase price of the game being one month's premium, and after that you can play for free or keep buying premium. And simple premium content. New paintschemes are 5min work in photoshop/etc when you are the original artist and have the base texture in layers. Everyone starts out with their national color scheme or something and can buy new ones for gold (cheap) or silver (expensive). Same for flags (realistic flags are simple to make). Name changes are only a matter of setting up a system once and adding an area to each ships stern that displays letters. Ship and item recipes, good because they are an integral part of adding new content. Again, cheap to buy with gold, expensive with silver. All this adds up income for NA without unbalancing the game or distracting devs from adding real content.

Don't like the larger society access, and I'd roll up the rest into the bonus for having a premium account, but its not pay to win to me. This is a PvP game, and winning is when you go out and kill the enemy. Someone being able to level up faster or earn more ingame currency does not affect this. Possibly this is true, but look at the success of World of Tanks and the number of games released since that borrow its currency system. And like Mirones said, there is a distinct advantage in using a premium currency over direct purchase only (especially if tradeable), because with direct purchase someone will only spend money on the premium items they want for themselves. However, given the chance to trade the premium currency for ingame wealth they will do so, providing more income for game labs and offering players who don't want to spend real money a chance to get their hands on the premium content.

Chivalry is an FPS with medieval weaponry, so those servers and support required for them are nowhere near the level needed for an MMO. Also, its sold a couple of million copies, so regardless if that's at $6 per copy or $25 per copy that is a lot of money Plus, you could create half a dozen new maps and swords for that game for the same effort required for one NA ship, so their update rate may be good but it wouldn't be satisfactory here. Naval Action will need a strong cash flow to progress beyond simple arena battles, and micro-transactions offers this, so long as the right things are being sold. The line for me here is whether you would need to pay real money to compete and be successful, nothing in this thread really crosses that line

Didn't like BSN myself (unnecessary complication in a game that already had too many currencies), but the idea of being able to trade the premium currency is good. Call it silver and gold for simplicity, perhaps trades could be done on an auction house as mentioned or there might even players setting up as dedicated currency exchange merchants. And of course nothing stopping players trading directly.

Few thoughts From the talk of pre-orders I'm assuming the plan is an upfront purchase price and then micro-transactions to maintain the cash flow. Selling customization items alone probably wouldn't bring in sufficient income, certainly didn't work out for PotBS, and would force more development time spent on this area if it was the main source of money. Would have no problem with selling premium account time, faster advancement is fine so long as the gap isn't too big. Plus, solid source of income that doesn't divert devs from working on important things like new ships and maps. Not a fan of premium ships because they more or less rule out the prospect of loss-based gameplay, but if they are to be sold they should be balanced within the existing ships (meaning not the most powerful or best of any type) and probably nothing above 4th rate size.

So battles take place in the open map? Or will there be a PotBS OS map and separate battle encounters?

Rather no names displayed at all (and no ship types either). Easy enough to call out targets, "third frigate in line" "2 decker missing its foremast" etc.

I have mentioned this a couple of times If dynamic morale is included then combat must be balanced around it. Like dismasting or shooting hull, breaking the enemies morale could be an important and integral part of combat. But this is all still up for discussion.

If morale changes in battle are implemented I'd be thinking along the lines of a simple damaging the enemy raises morale, taking damage lowers morale mechanic. Now this might have the effect of making a battle that's going one way already very hard to turn around, alternatively destroying the enemies morale might be an integral part of victory, providing a way to force surrender without having to batter the ship into ruin or kill most of the crew. Rum could be fun. The daily tot simply raises morale, no penalties. A double tot further raises morale but produces a slight skill level penalty, along with minor risk of guns going off accidentally and sailors falling overboard. Further tots keep raising morale but impose increasingly large skill penalties and continue to raise the chance of accidents. Get the whole crew raging drunk and there is a sizable risk of the ship spontaneously catching fire Good points. Definitely should be the split combat and sailing skills. Different crew types would be great too, the regular crewmen for the guns and sailing, marines for close combat and boarding. Mix and match to suit requirements. Layers to crew management might be a good idea though. At the top you'd just have those average attributes, if you want to play like that could quite happily ignore everything but the need to replace losses in combat. Delve a little deeper and there might be things like crew to promote based on merit, or assign to the jobs best suited to them. Or maybe you want to go from a big ship to a smaller one and make up its crew from the most experienced members of your current crew. Nothing gamebreaking but little advantages for those who put the time in and manage their crew carefully.

I'd suggest the crew has a skill level based on experience (50-100%) and whatever morale rating you have is applied to that. Crew skill level is based on experience from combat time spent sailing, something like a 75:25 ratio in favour of combat, so a warship is likely to have a better trained crew than a merchantman. Not to mention, a much bigger crew.

...............

Also, the position of the magazine is well below the waterline, all but impossible to hit directly. So IMO magazine explosions should only be the result of a ship burning out of control. Orient at the Nile, Real Carlos and San Hermenegildo at Algeciras Bay, Achille at Trafalgar, etc. Makes better gameplay too, ships blowing up what is effectively a single piece of random luck does not favour skillful play.