Idle Champion

On a point of clarification, brought up by this discussion of all ships of smaller rates, but Cerberus is listed as a 6th-rate on the opening list. I know HMS Cerberus was a sixth-rate ship as far as the Royal Navy was concerned, but isn't Cerberus a 5th-rate in game? (second level shipyard, mid grade notes, deep water warship, frigate class as regards the mastery perk, the whole ball of wax)

There are details of some real pirate ships out there. Black Sam Bellamy's Whydah Galley had enough contemporary notes and images from her construction and pre-pirate career to verify the wreck itself and there are model-building plans of her though I don't know what they are based off; it's probably the best-understood Golden Age of Piracy ship. The idea of a commerce raider, faster and more offensively armed than a trader but with more carrying capacity than a warship, appeals to me and a pirate ship is a good way to bring such a ship into the game.

Are we? Endymion and Indefatigable will outgun any fifth-rate presently in the game and the question regarding the Kepler is 'how heavy will it be?', rather than 'will it be heavy?' A newly-arrived ship of the line with Bucentaure, four more definitely in the pipe, with Ocean and Agamemnon suggested to be just around the corner if they are to be tournament prizes. There are nine potential wild cards from the last poll that are heavy frigates or ships of the line, and only four that are corvettes or brigs. Not saying that more diversity would be bad, but Post Captain and up are being looked after pretty well. There's still no real alternative to the Bellona and no Post Captain fourth-rate, but it's the light ships and the bottom half of fifth-rates that need some attention now.

When I said libra grossa I probably should have said converted pounds. I was just curious because he was not just converting to British measurement, but also rounding to British/in-game armament weights and 8-pounder was a break in that pattern; for now I'll assume he's referring to 12ls cannon.

Are those 8 pounders on Enea in libra sottili or libra grossa?

I doubt I'm the only one to do so, but I suggested a version of this using the F1-F4 commands to lock a gun deck to load and ammo commands as well as fire, so you could make the sorts of adjustments being discussed here. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15179-loadammo-orders-and-locked-gun-decks/

The British really tried to keep going with the fifth-rate two-deckers as long as possible, even after they had 18-pounder single-decker frigates with weather deck carronades that could match them or beat them for firepower. There's still Hunt's Adventure-class after the last Roebuck-class ships were finished - meanwhile, the French and Spanish had totally abandoned them decades before. They had the benefit of familiarity, they were cheaper than fourth-rates, and they were available for quite a lot of less glamorous but necessary work, but none of them had particularly great careers. I have to think that stubbornness or an out-of-touch navy board played a part in continuing to order ships that were, compared to their contemporaries like the Perseverance-class frigates, obsolete.

The British would use sloop-of-war, noting the vessels rigging as ship-sloop or brig-sloop, for a vessel suitable for a Commander and post ship (always ship, there were no post brigs) for a ship that suited a Captain but was not a frigate. The French and other continental navies described these ships as corvettes - the British only really adopted the term in the 1830s. Unlike 'ship-sloop' and 'brig-sloop', ship-rigged is implied in corvette; a ship-rigged corvette is simply a corvette, a brig-rigged corvette is distinguished as a brig-corvette. The French Bonne Citoyenne-class is corvettes, the French Palinure-class is brig-corvettes. Lightly-armed ships or brigs that are in naval service but aren't set up for fighting don't count as corvettes or sloops of war. Currently, the Cerberus's armament has been tweaked to make it more like a heavy corvette than a frigate, and the Surprise sits on the margin of heavy corvette and frigate. All of the brigs in game are powerful enough to count as brig-rigged sloops-of-war or brig-corvettes, but none of them are French and they wouldn't be labeled as brig-corvettes. Rattlesnake is the corvettiest ship in the game, and is pretty lightly armed. But yes, I would like to see more corvettes in the 50-100 BR range. Bring on the corvettes.

The Roebuck-class ships, as Talos mentioned, were suddenly becoming useful with the American Revolutionary War providing a theatre that suited them - that might have been enough motive to tinker with them. There are plenty of constructor variations between the Roebucks, but Serapis, Mediator, and Resistance each have their own design variations rather than starting from the same lines. Still, Winfield is my source for Slade being credited with the Roebuck-class design as well as credited with separate designs for the variants above; I'm content to stand corrected if he feels the differences are within the class. Talos, is the Brandywine you're referring to the 1825 American ship?

With the battle rating victory condition in port battles, BR values aren't all created equal. The recent BR tweak for Pavel and Bucentaure, putting them both on 630, is a clear indicator of this. Bucentaure has the heavier broadside by cannons and carronades, the more effective weather deck guns, the bigger crew - even before its speed and turning comes in it is quite simply the more powerful ship and the old 700 vs. 600 BR reflected this. Hopefully once the port battles change there can be an overall finessing of BR. The Diet Bellona, on the other hand, is my least favourite ship. There's no distinctive flavour, no hole card that gives her an advantage over Bellona, just a weaker ship with identical sailing that feels like a placeholder.

The single continuous gun deck is a very late 18th-century/19th-century definition for frigates. Previously, it refers to a man-of-war ship without raised upper works, having a flush forecastle and a quarterdeck only, and tumblehome sides. A 17th-century ship of the line that was frigate-built rather than galleon-built might be called a frigate or a great frigate, and plenty of 18th-century two-deckers and demi-batterie ships were referred to as frigates. Meanwhile, single-decked ships that were not frigate-built were still being referred to as flutes, armed ships, gunvessels or just plain old ships even up to when Roebuck was built. Serapis, along with Resistance and Mediator, were not Roebuck-class ships but were one-offs built to separate revised designs.

That was definitely a pretty major defect of small two-deckers and demi-batterie ships but it was one that did get ameliorated over time as the ships grew up, both in the sense of better designs and of bigger ships. There's a pretty solid size gap betwen the 1745 group Rainbow belongs to the Lark group introduced at the start of the 18th-century - Lark is a 1703 ship and is very much an example of the 9-pounder main, 6-pounder upper gun deck type you are describing. Rainbow isn't just bigger than Lark, she's bigger than HMS Antelope, the largest of the 54-gun ships of the line contemporary with Lark, with very similar length but greater beam and much greater depth in hold; you can also see in the plans for her sister ships that the main gunports aren't the waterline-hugging features of smaller two-deckers and demis. A 9-pounder two-decker that regularly had to deal with the main gunports closed or awash and only had a 150-pound broadside even with them open probably wouldn't be that appealing to play. That said, some of the less powerful demis and two-deckers are still interesting - L'Atalante (1741, 32-gun demi-batterie with 10x12 pounders and 22x8 pounders) would have a penetration advantage over Surprise or Renommee, while something like Tigre (1689, 36-gun Dunkirker with 18x6 pounders and 18x4 pounders) would be a polar opposite for Niagara.

I'm saying initial stability isn't wholly a product of hull form, unless hull is contiguous, watertight, and provides all the necessary torsional rigidity. Without such an ideal hull, construction strength becomes relevant. I'm ascribing a similar relationship between hull form and initial stability as there is between length at waterline and hull speed; a known and strong relationship that can be limited by other factors. Imagine a ship that looks to have good form stability by design but is of weak hull construction. Rolling, pitching, heeling, any of those motions would apply torque to the ship - once the ship approaches the limit of its torsional rigidity it will flex and behave as a tender ship just as surely as if it had poor form stability, with slower rolls through a greater range of motion and slower righting with broader recovery angle. Giving the same ship internal reinforcement to support the hull would improve its initial stability within its other limits, up to the initial stability possible for its hull form. A 1740s ship does not have an ideal hull - not contiguous, not wholly watertight, and providing limited torsional rigidity. I doubt that either a 1740s 44-48 two-decker and a similarly loaded single-decker built using 1740s techniques would have the initial stability possible by their hull forms, but I'm claiming that the two-decker would be the less tender of the two ships by virtue of its torsional rigidity.

I don't see that as an 'of course'. The additional enclosed deck and its framing does raise the centre of gravity, yes, and a high centre of gravity does erode overall stability. But an early 18th-century ship gets most of its structural strength, including its torsional rigidity in every direction, from the skeleton. It may be more often expressed in terms of load-bearing and resistance to hogging but I am using the term to suggest that the additional gun deck, in the absence of later construction techniques and designs that can make up for the loss of strength in other ways, makes the ship stronger and less tender despite the raised centre of gravity. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I wouldn't make the same argument of a late 18th century ship or a 19th century ship, but I would say it of a ship of Rainbow's period - 1769's L'Africain is probably the first single-decker frigate with a broadside weight like Rainbow's.

We may be using the same term for different things here, or you may be using the game term for the sailing characteristic. Stiffness refers to a high degree of initial or form stability - stability characteristics from the hull, its shape, and its materials. Aren't you referring to weatherly vs. leewardly, rather than stiff vs. tender?

There are a lot of suggestions I like in here, and I'll probably repeat a few of them in my own collection of thoughts: 1. Mechanical differences between the pirate faction and nations should be concentrated at the national level, not the player level. The pirate player should have an equal footing, with no impediment to crafting, no unique mechanism for death or loss of durability, no exclusive perks, ships, or upgrades, and similarly no excluded perks or upgrades, or ships. 2. Extending from that, no restrictions on ships of the line, and the Pirate Frigate either removed or made generally available as a Heavy Frigate. 3. Pirates should not be able to take or hold ports, but should be able to build production buildings in free towns. There should be no black dots on the map. 4. Pirates should, however, be able to raid ports. They should be able to raid the heck out of them. 5. The in-development diplomacy and lordship patches should not apply to pirates, or rather should not apply the same mechanics to the pirates. There should not be a centrally-led pirate faction or a handful of pirate players who can direct or limit the piracy of others. Every pirate is an individual, every clan is a collection of individuals, and the pirate faction is a broad label for individuals with varying play style. Then it gets a little weird: 6. Pirates should not be 'universal pirates' - a pirate who has not attacked or joined forces against a particular nation and has in essence committed no act of piracy against that nation should appear as a Neutral and have access to that nation's ports without the smuggler flag. Players should be able to choose just how cutthroat they want to be. 7. Similarly, a pirate should be able to purchase or earn a pardon, restoring their Neutral status with that nation. A Neutral or smuggler pirate should also be able to earn or purchase a Letter of Marque from a nation's ports, enabling them to function as a Privateer for that nation. Privateers should be able to join battles, including port battles of any scale if accepted in a port battle lobby, and while flying their Privateer flag count as a friendly to players of that nation. Players who currently enjoy port battles and piracy together should have some recourse to PBs, and pirate clans that play as privateers and muscle along with nationals should still have that option, even if the pirate faction becomes less 'nation-like' as a whole. 8. Players who become pirates by crimes against their own nation, rather than going to sea as pirates, should have a similar loss of assets and blueprints as national players defecting to another nation. Suggestions not bundled with the above: 9. Aggressive NPC pirates should be added to the open world. The lack of a hostile element or any sort of 'dangerous waters' has a stifling effect on PvE, and this can carry over to some areas and some times in the PvP servers. 10. A pirate ship, such as Black Sam Bellamy's Whydah, should make its way into the game as a commerce raider with a greater cargo capacity than an equivalent warship and more offensive potential than an equivalent trader.

Present-day ships, one a replica of an 1828 ship, one a replica of an 1896 ship, and two-masted, but dubbed as barques latines in the source and the style is described as going back to the 16th century., One pic contrasts the barques latines with a gaff-sail rig dubbed as a galere/ sail galley. Single lateen sail on each mast, single jib headsail, and these two-masted ones have the mainmast near the centre of the vessel and the foremast very far forward but still short of the bow - Vernon Merrill's three-master looks the goods, though the second headsail is different.

Speed is a tough one - very few ships of the period could really approach their hull speed, and there were certainly sailing benefits to the stiffness of an extra deck and fuller lines at the bow. Rainbow was comprehensively refitted in 1775, so she was in good condition when she chased Hancock and was freshly refitted again when she encountered L'Hebe. For Hancock, the 39-hour pursuit indicates only a marginal advantage, but even that could be attributed to weather or damage to Hancock rather than an overall advantage in sailing qualities or outright speed. Even though L'Hebe would have been in excellent condition, it isn't clear that the weather or the Channel itself would have permitted Hebe any avenue of escape, and even if there was an avenue of escape the ship and the crew may have been in need of shaking down. Actual sailing records, complete with information about weather and the condition of the ship (age, recent battles and repairs, time since last cleaned) aren't easy to come by. It's worth acknowledging the importance of balance and role dynamics as well - if an in-game Rainbow was tougher than a Frigate and had chase guns and a slight advantage in firepower, it should have disadvantage somewhere so as not to undermine the Frigate and a sailing or speed disadvantage would not seem unreasonable.

I'm aware that there are plans for 50-60 gun 24 pound 4th rates floating around the shipyard, and I do think the game needs some genuine fourth rates to slot in below the Ingermanland and alongside the curiously-armed Wapen von Hamburg when it's ready. This is less about filling gaps by adding a 220-280 BR 4th-rate like the Dordrecht or Leopard, and more about variety. The Rattlesnake adds variety to the sixth-rates, when it's ready the Christian VII will add variety to the second-rates, and that's the sort of variety I'm hoping ships like square-rigged seventh-rates and two-decker and demi-batterie fifth-rates will bring. The Roebuck-class ship and Rainbow's sister ship America are floating around the forum - from memory the Roebuck has its own thread, and America is in the 5th-6th rate ship collection thread, but these are definitely the sort of ships I'm thinking about. Malachi has a thread for the French demi-batterie L'Amazone as well. Other contenders would be older, less powerful fourth rates with smaller crews like the Goto Predestinatsia (58 guns, but Russian 16-pounders on the main deck).

Currently, the entire collection of in-game fifth-rates are true sailing frigates - long, low ships with most of their armament concentrated in a single gun deck. The Renomee seen in game is one of the earliest examples of this type of ship; for the first half of the 1670-1830 time frame the typical fifth-rate or equivalent ship was a compact two-decker, shorter and more upright than later frigates. These ships tended to have 22 guns or fewer on each gun deck and minimal armament on the upper works of the ship, and were given a range of contemporary labels as broad as just 'ship' to the more descriptive French labels like fregate a deux batteries or frigate-vaisseux de premiere ordre. As an example of the type - HMS Rainbow. HMS Rainbow was built after Renomee and her capture; by the time she was launched, she was unfashionable and obsolescent. Rainbow had a perfectly respectable career and for whichever reason was kept in service while the other ships of the 1745 Establishment group of 44-gun ships was broken up or sold out of service; after HMS Crown was broken up in 1770, Rainbow was the last of her class. Small two-deckers like Rainbow were much cheaper to keep on station than powerful ships of the line and would be more powerful than single-deck frigates for a little while longer, so Rainbow was kept occupied and there was even a small resurgence in two-decker fifth-rates with new ships of the Roebuck-class and HMS Serapis being ordered. In one of the larger naval battles of the American War of Independence, Rainbow and HMS Flora with the brig HMS Victor encountered two frigates of the Continental Navy, Boston and Hancock and the captured British frigate Fox - the elderly two-decker was able to pursue the two American ships and then the Hancock when they separated for thirty-nine hours, eventually coming up on Hancock and trading broadsides until the American ship surrendered. In 1782, Rainbow was chosen as the platform for an experimental armament of carronades, which had previously been sold to merchant ships and privateers and not found favour with naval authorities. Thoroughly obsolete by design and thirty-five years old, Rainbow encountered L'Hebe, recently-launched and the first of her class, in the English Channel. L'Hebe's captain became alarmed when he realised the shot fired from Rainbow's bow chasers were 32-pounder balls, reckoning that Rainbow was a disguised ship of the line. On Rainbow's first broadside, a 68-pound cannonball from her main battery carried away Hebe's foremast while another destroyed the helm; Hebe's captain ordered one broadside fired so as not to disgrace the flag before surrendering. Hebe had an extended career in British service, and the state-of-the-art ship was the basis of the Leda-class frigates of which the in-game Trincomalee is an example. Carronades became a typical part of the armament on the Royal Navy's ships after Rainbow's duel, though all-carronade armaments were only used on marginal ships that would not have had adequate armament otherwise. Rainbow herself was placed in ordinary in 1784 and eventually sold out of service in 1802. Her armament varied over her career between 44 and 48 guns. Her original rating reflected an armament of 20x18 pounders, 20x9pounders, and 4x6 pounders on her quarterdeck. Following repairs and recommissioning in 1762 her armament was 20x18 pounders, 22x9 pounders, and 2x6 pounders on her forecastle. When she was armed with carronades she carried 20x68 pounders, 22x42 pounders, and 6x32 pounders with both the forecastle and quarterdeck armed. Records of both the Hancock and Hebe incidents refer to her firing bow chasers, while the plan of her sister ship America shows gun ports at the level of her main battery below the stern gallery. What might she be in-game? A bruiser. A slower and less agile ship the single-deck frigates, but with decent firepower - a broadside of 280-300 pounds - and durability reflecting the additional enclosed deck and her mass and structure being condensed in a shorter ship (She's 17 or 18 feet shorter than Trincomalee). A way for lower-ranked captains to experience the sailing and fighting style of later ships of the line, and at higher levels a tank among frigates and a watchdog and tagger for ships of the line. If, like other fifth-rates, she had the option of an all-carronade armament, the equivalence between carronade and cannon weights is different in game, and the 68/42/32-pounder setup would be more likely to find expression in a 32-42/32/18-24 pounder setup. Yes, Rainbow is a British ship, but I've been able to find plenty of information about her along with plans and models of her sisters and her career as an old-style two-decker that served in the time dominated by single-deck sail frigates is interesting. There are a whole heap of intermediate two-deckers from other nations but I've largely only been able to find minimal information for them - mostly names, service dates, and career highlights with a sort of two out of three of armament, measurements, and crew complement and without models, plans, or art of them. So while I've opened with Rainbow as an example, I invite anyone to discuss any intermediate two-deckers or demi-batteries that would match the in-game fifth rate.

Hazardous fishing, eh? I suppose there's always that loading screen of the guys firing a musket at the sea serpent. "You have caught 1xLeviathan." "What?" "Leviathan has targeted you. Battle will begin in 20 seconds." "Cancel fishing! Cancel fishing!"

No matter the game, preventing the player from leaving the game in a straightforward manner is bad game design. Giving players the impression that they are being forced to keep playing because there will be an in-game punishment if they leave may keep a player in the game for a time, but it will leave a bad taste. If the finished battle remained visible until everyone either left the battle or logged off from the game, the battle marker disappearing would notify anyone in the area that people had logged off, and the battle marker reappearing would notify anyone in the area that players had logged back in to a battle screen; essentially, whether by ship or by battle marker, logging back in would make you visible in the open world. But as for the idea that people should be rewarded for lurking in the open world to ambush people leaving a battle and logging off from the battle screen constitutes skullduggery, or that players who lost a battle should have any burden of defeat lifted if the players who inflicted said defeat don't provide them with the opportunity for revenge... its a one-sided incentive for ganking.

Look at the bow again, both on the model and on the plan - it's not sharp as in 'pointed' like a wave piercer or a galleon, its sharp as in 'edged.' Her bow isn't particularly full, not apple-cheeked or rounded, but her keel length is pretty close to her waterline length and the bow isn't insubstantial or unsupported. As for judging her sailing qualities based on her hull shape, I'm only judging it in comparison to other hull shapes. Her handling, sail plan, condition include marine fouling could easily invalidate every guess I've made, but her hull shape does reveal things about her water resistance which will affect her possible speed and her natural ability to check heel (which will, in turn, affect how manageable she is close-hauled and how much speed she can carry).

Only claiming to be moderately versed in maritime architecture but that extra-sharp bow means her keel runs almost her full length, and like a good French frigate she doesn't have that much bulk below the waterline (not like the long-term storage capacity built into a British ship). A fine-hulled ship of her length with minimal water resistance would be faster under ideal conditions, but she would be more stable and weatherly. At the same time, she'd be faster than a broader or fuller ship of her length while still probably being more stable (though only in terms of roll, rather than roll and heel together) and weatherly.

Nothing abominable about Blagodat herself - not an especially distinguished career, mainly used as a troop carrier and an abortive battle with the Brits and Swedes. The rigging in the picture is curious, though - the loose-footed spanker and the old-fashioned full length spar to control it, the two spritsails, while having topgallants and royals on every masts. Her armament was: Main gun deck - 26x36-pounders and 4x40 pounder (1-pood) edinorog/howitzers. Middle gun deck - 28x24 pounders and 4x20-pounder (1/2 pood) edinorog. Upper gun deck - 32x12 pounders. Upper works - 24x8 pounders and 12x3 pounders. Her howitzers were not like carronades - they had full trunnion and carriage mounts and were nearly as heavy as cannons. The ship on the river is a restaurant, not a replica. Straight sides and a flared-in, super-shallow main gun deck, extraneous deck houses, the open balconies at the stern galleries complete with a pillar that's 99% sure to be steel give the game away; it could be worse - it could be the Queen Anne's Revenge from POTC.