Hawke

An American Admiral couldn't have stopped the French from firing too high or the Spanish firing at all.

Lovely ships, I know it was mentioned somewhere but I forget, where the devs looking for smaller or bigger ship plans at the moment?

Aye, I think the general disorganization of the combined French and Spanish fleet would have overcome any leadership qualities, American or French. And the rather poor performance of the Spanish fleet in general.

I think people completely underestimate the public and don't consider just how small the forum, and particularly the testing base is. It's pretty telling that the recent "Buffs" poll only has 45 votes, and that's in the general section of the forum.

Something like the skirmish option from POTBS would be great. I've been arguing for ages in the testing forum for an open sea instances with no combat so people can get the hang of manual tacking. But so far there is only PVP and the PVE instances.

It's grand seeing so many people coming together, sea trials should be alot of fun.

I wouldn't get too nervous, the developers seem to have a very good grasp of mixing good game-play with realism, and there are some very knowledgeable people here on the forum that give great feedback to the developers. The game handles great from my perspective, there isn't anything quite like it that I'm aware of.

What Maturin said, fireships should only be useful in something like a surprise attack on ships moored in a harbour or maybe against ships that are heading into the wind and are too slow to get away. Their use should be highly selective and no terribly effective, otherwise you'll have people trolling around sending fireships in to sink a 1st rate you just spend dozens of hours getting.

I don't think that's necessarily true, if memory serves me Sid Meier's Gettysburg had different formation options per regiment (and brigade level) and that came out 17 years ago. I certainly think having a basic column formation is a great idea, enabling you to move faster but you also take greater casualties if you come under fire. Also limbering and unlimbering for artillery would be great.

Come at me Mirones, the Royal Navy will sink Dons any day of the week.

I seem to recall the developers mentioned somewhere that hitting the magazine and causing a ship to explode would be featured in the game, albeit it would be a rather rare occurrence. I imagine it will be one of those features which will be in the game at some point.

The cannon effects are outstanding, this is encouraging to me because it shows the developers know how important the element of sound is to a game, something which is all to often overlooked. I'm sure that as they work their way down the laundry list of items more sounds will be added.

Perhaps an option to toggle enemy damage on and off in the menu? It's not really an advantage, unless you're doing something like switching shot types based on how damaged your enemy is, but if you're deciding to turn off the damage indicator then you should be well enough versed in the game to make those kinds of decisions anyway.

What's your poly count running at out of curiosity?

Simply beautiful the work on the ships is phenomenal.

Tremendous work, I hope the devs take a look at it and give it the chance to get in-game.

Looks like alot of fun. I do hope you started singing to help keep time?

What a beautiful ship. Truly stupendous.

And just for a change of pace, if the battle is going well I get my rock on.

If the goal is early access on steam I think focusing on the ships, ship mechanics and a basic open world is the way to go. Things like customization, NPC batteries and even crew management can come later. Tweaking the combat damage model ([particularly sail damage) adding more variety in the ships and adding in some basic management options seems like a solid plan.

I picked it up again yesterday after months away, and I agree it has a very special feel to it. And I think most of the veteran PVP players have drifted away. Either that or they're xteaming again and they were just on another nation (or yours as the case may be.) That being said POTBS feels like a great MMO. Naval Action feels like I'm really sailing a Man of War. You guys are making something really special here.

The system they have in mind sounds really solid to me. Piracy will be based on the actions you take, for example sinking and stealing from your own Nation. This will affect your reputation and make you a pirate. Presumably this will close all the ports and resources you had access to as a National player, making piracy something you will have to consider very carefully before doing. Additionally if you go pirate with something very valuable like a rated ship you're basically painting a huge target on your back that says "sink me!" The developers intent seems to be very much a short term profit at the risk of long term difficulties.

My understanding was that the only time a SOL had the advantage over a Frigate in terms of speed was during a heavy storm or blow. When a frigate would dip into the trough of the waves during a storm, it's shorter masts would lose the wind and it's lighter weight would cause it to lose momentum, whereas a Ship of the Line with it's taller masts could keep the wind and shoulder through with it's heavier bulk. Bungee has made a good point in that I think this issue will sort out itself. If you're a Frigate captain you're not going to try and line fight against rates. If two focus fired on you, your ship is just floating matchsticks. What would be interesting is a port battle system that limits the amount and type of ship based on the harbor in that port. That could make for some dynamic and interesting battles.

Currents can be important from a game-play perspective. In an open world scenario it ensure people don't spent massive amounts of time doing nothing (sailing from point A to point B ) I think it's a feature that should be implemented in the open world. It would be great to see it in battle as well. An unwary captain could be laid up on a lee shore if he doesn't pay attention.

It certainly feels "inspired by." Sid Meiers Gettysburg is what I thought of when I first saw the game and while the visual style is similar this game is rather deeper. And of course the AI is worlds better.