Marion van Ghent

It's not just about "keeping your stuff," either. It's about making a difference in the game world. Especially frustrating if, as noted, you join the fray late in the cycle.

Nope! Though it is worth noting that the Star does have 19th-century amenities such as improved windlasses and the iron hoops at the foot of the mizzen. All the reproductions otherwise have period-appropriate rigging and equipment, merely supplemented by modern tools that are legally mandated and generally used only in case of need.

I think it only fair to ask Admin if, at this point, the original post contains still-active questions. A lot can happen in 7 months of a game's development! So, has the situation changed? If so, what mechanical or other adjustments did you make to change it, and how has it changed? If not -- or at least, not to your liking -- how can your Navy of Armchair Admirals™ help? For the moment, assuming that the game plays about the same as in August of last year, my intuition from what you described suggests the following. Either: 1) The sailing model is inaccurate (at least as far as tacking goes); 2) UI is not sufficiently providing players what they need to know to tack successfully; or... 3) All of the above. Ships could and did indeed tack during battle. They also could and did miss stays; whether due to poor ship design, poor handling, poor (too weak or too strong) winds, poor sea state, or a combination thereof. I suspect that, if tacking "takes time" enough to discourage players from tacking, it's taking too long. Under most conditions even a SoL could tack through the wind in about 4-8 minutes; wearing would take at least as long -- in fact, significantly longer, closer to 10 minutes, if wearing from close-hauled on one tack to close-hauled on the other -- and cost significantly more leeway. For a game, of course, 4 minutes is indeed a long time -- but I think few expect or desire the game to be carried out in exactly realtime. Even 4x speed -- taking about 60 seconds to tack, and 120 seconds to wear -- will feel agonising to a lot of people, especially if they're used to games like PotBS. But that should make tacking all the more attractive, as your guns will be "pointed the wrong way" for much less time. And if firing rates and accuracy of the guns are balanced proportionally, neither tacking nor wearing should be a death sentence... unless you completely botch it A good video on the topic, though admittedly with a much more modern ship, is this video of the Star of India tacking and wearing. In particular she's tacking in very light airs -- meaning slow ship and higher chance of missing stays -- but still pulls it off in 5 minutes. She wouldn't tack like the Niagara in a 20kt breeze, but she'd still do it in about 3 minutes. Better than a SoL -- but comparable, I'd say, to a frigate.

I quite like the suggestions of L'Hermione or Ville de Paris as alternatives to the Soleil-Royal, should the latter be deemed "too early" for the game.

My laundry list of "little things," some of which are already mentioned: Customiseable flags and pennants that can be changed out on every masthead and flagstaff -- how the bulk of signalling was done until the late 18th century. Firing off salutes (a supplementary signalling method). Being able to select different sail configurations, namely: topsails only; topsails and higher; topsails plus foresail (perhaps THE most common configuration in the age of sail); full sails (what every game seems to do and which is rarely appropriate). Upper yards that rise and lower as appropriate to the sail a ship is carrying. Yards that brace appropriately when manoeuvering. Sails that back against lines and spars that get in their way. Period-appropriate music played on period-appropriate instruments. Wind shadows. Sea state affecting how well a ship handles. Spars and rigging that can go by the boards -- and potentially foul another ship. Manoeuvering being appropriately impacted by the loss of spars, masts, and rigging. Gunports that open and close. The occasional magazine explosion

S! to all you old salts It is indeed good to see some familiar names in the community.

Privyet, Ink! Good to see you about

Speaking personally I don't like the idea of starting in one era and eventually "resetting;" I suspect a lot of players would be quite upset if, say, they joined the game in 1819 and a few days later =poof= it's 1600 and everyone's starting over! I also suspect, in addition to driving the history buffs batty, it would be extremely difficult to balance -- less so if there is a "universal game time" around which nations' technologies vary only by +/- about 5-10 years. This kind of mechanic seems more suited to a single-player RTS than anything else, IMO. I also don't understand how selecting an era (or eras, per server, as per maturin's suggestion) sacrifices "gameplay." Please help me out? What exactly is sacrificed beyond allowing someone to sail a galleon one day and a 44-gun frigate the next -- or is that it? Within any given decade or quarter century I'm sure there's plenty of political, military, and economic opportunity, and a vast selection of vessels to fill all different functional niches of the game. I feel like I'm missing something here, so please as time allows describe what gameplay a mixed historical setting opens up, as opposed to picking an era and focusing content therein. That said, I do appreciate the desire to provide settings in a wide variety of eras -- I just would rather see them not colliding. Again, different servers seem to be the most elegant solution for this, to me; but I appreciate that would mean you'd essentially have 4-6 separate games to maintain and balance, as opposed to one (eventually) put out to several different servers. Again, I think this would be extremely hard to balance. It seems likely that whoever "invents," say, the Constitution or the Rénommée will end up having an advantage and steamrollering the rest of the factions into submission. So this seems to magnify the problem of conflicting eras and conflates it with game balance issues that would be nightmarish to resolve.

I would have to say Le Soleil-Royal, though sadly (for you ) she was completed in 1670 and burned in 1692. The problem with other -- and later -- French ships is that outside of the francophone community virtually none are so distinctive visually, and many of the better ones were captured by the British and used in their navy. I doubt, for example, anyone not enthused about the Napoleonic navy would recognise L'Orient.

Admin, is assistance still needed with developing a deck plan for this ship?

Forgive the necroposting, but this thread was linked from a related and contain much good discussion to which I'd like to add just a little info for nuance's sake. When dealing with the effects of crew allocation/focus on handling, gunnery, and damage control, it's very important to make a distinction between naval and merchant crews. Naval ships were generally well-manned, even over-manned: enough crew was provided, in theory and approximately, to fully man one broadside in addition to tending all sails. So unless a significant number of casualties have occurred, there should not be a significant trade-off between firing qualities and handling. It's primarily when crew is below strength -- or need to be pulled from the sails to man the pumps -- that manoeuverability will suffer. And generally speaking naval captains would tend to sacrifice manoeuverability, rather than gunnery, for damage control. (To oversimplify greatly, gunners = trained specialists, able seamen = general workers; you don't put your specialists to work on maintenance unless you have to ) The situation is quite different on merchant ships. Here, crew is generally kept to a bare minimum, and you don't have more-or-less dedicated gun crews. Good old Gunner Jack can haul a line as well as aim a gun, but he can't be doing both at once! And he can do neither if he's stuck amidships pumping the bilge, so as captain you'd better make up your mind what you want him to do. Note that the mechanic for this nuance is no different between the two classes of ship: a Navy frigate that's lost 2/3 its men has the same allocation problems a West Indiaman at nominal crew, and when the pirates capture that Indiaman and cram it to the gunwales with men, its captain might as well be running a fully-manned frigate (as far as crew allocation is concerned).

This is definitely a must, particularly once the technical specs are released.

I actually brought up the topic here, but it deserves its own thread, so thanks Johnny Reb I vaguely recall Game Labs saying they had no plans for this, at least initially, but the ideal would be a scenario editor through which players could create and store scenarios which could be shared with and used by the community. Being able to set up battles, races, or other missions in which we specify all the initial conditions (wind, sea state, ships, starting positions, etc.) would add tremendous value to the game -- all for the cost of developing the tools and some server space on which to store scenarios. I imagine one concern would be "cheating" by giving certain ships too heavy guns, speed parameters, or whatnot. This could be obviated by having a ship database of pre-constructed vessels which scenario creators could then place in their scenarios. I'm not sure it's necessary, though. One, communities such as this tend not to be "gankers;" if anything we tend to be TOO fair And two, anyone joining a scenario should be able to see the stats for any ship therein and decide for themselves whether or not it looks "fair" or simply presents an interesting challenge. In fact I would advocate against having all "evenly matched" battles. In history there were no guarantees, and if everything were always "fair" we'd have no Cochranes or Nelsons to write stories about! And unmatched scenarios can be quite enjoyable and interesting challenges in and of themselves. Another thing I would advocate against is having open battles in which players are limited to a ship class based on their "rank" or some other in-game metric -- at least as an exclusive form of play. While this would have its place, it would discourage a lot of players from participating if all they could sail were a gunboat or sloop and others are jumping into heavy frigates and third-rates. As for in-game features of match play, there are several things which should be considered in addition to "who fights whom in what." Things like: 1) Messaging -- should it be limited to within a side? Should open comms be available? Should the host be able to turn them off? 2) Signaling -- should there be some substitute for messaging such as hoisting signal flags? How would players know what means what, if so, and how would the sides be prevented from knowing immediately what the other's signaling? 3) Timers -- should there be any, as an option? 4) Sides -- should there only be two per action? Should the number be open, up to and including each ship be its own side? 5) Victory conditions -- who decides them? Are there goals (cut out X ship, prevent ships from crossing a strait, etc.)/finish lines to be reached? Is it based on who's sunk or surrendered? 6) How should dropped connexions be handled? Does the ship just surrender? Does it get taken over by AI unless and until the player reconnects? 7) Boarding combat -- should it be included in match play? How are the ships involved treated when locked in mêlée combat -- as dead in the water? As actively sailing and fighting whilst simultaneously engaged hand-to-hand? Immune to incoming fire? Do the combatants jump to a separate "instance" (as in PotBS) or can this be done seamlessly? Lots of things to sort out when you get right down to it For my part I'd love to see a variety of play options, from racing gunboats or frigates or even SoLs to line battles of up to 20 or more ships per side. I'd like to see host-assigned signaling flags available and the ability to turn off comms to add to the historic feel of actions. I don't care about timers or boarding combat, and would prefer the latter be abstracted -- as captain I'd be given the ability to assign crew from other areas as I see fit and let the server sort out the details. And I fully acknowledge I may hold a minority opinion on some of these things

Actually it was a captain of the Lady Washington who told me they "only set the mains'l when pointing as close to the wind as possible, or for photo opportunities." Sadly I don't remember his name; this was perhaps almost 10 years ago. Obviously when to set which sails is highly context-dependent, on ship, on sea, on wind, on weather, on intentions... but the information I have seen and heard tells me the afterward gaff/lateen/boom/whatever was not that often used, but vital nonetheless for specific purposes. This is especially true on ships of more than two masts, as both the main and mizzen sails are abaft of the centre of lateral resistance and can provide significant torque when reaching. But I say this with basically no sailing experience If yours suggests otherwise I'll defer to it, though my main point stands: the aft fore-and-aft sails were NOT in constant use, and any benefit to be gained by timing how it's handled should be utterly obviated when it's not set It's a detail that's almost always glossed over in games set in the Age of Sail, quite to my annoyance. As for the handling of lateens, it's my understanding that yes, the mizzen sail would often just be set aback if coming about to its "bad tack" in a hurry. That said, it was preferable to clew up the sail, lower the foot of the yard, ease off the trusses, and pass the yard behind the mast and reset the mizzen. This was not as hard as it sounds. On xebecs and with other lateen rigs, the yard would be set outside the shrouds (rather than between them as per northern European practice), and allegedly somehow passed over the mast. I've never figured out how this was managed and the sources I've seen are frustratingly silent on the matter. Obviously I don't expect such detail to be represented in-game, but that's my understanding.

I'm going to voice my own concerns and general agreement with Baggy on "pick a date [or at least a decade] and don't go past it!" It gave me fits and starts whenever I saw a "galleon" in PotBS and was already rather a stretch using vessels designed in the 1740s alongside ships from c. 1680. That said, I'll also note my personal preference is even before what Game Labs seems to be considering -- to wit, circa 1660. Not only was that the "Golden Age" of piracy; not only were the English and Dutch slugging it out at sea and re-defining the very nature of warfare; but IMHO the mid 17th century saw the construction of the most beautiful ships known to all history. Plus, both the early 18th and early 19th centuries have been treated extensively in the genre. Why not try something 'new'

I am surprised no one has linked out to either the Danish Orlogsbasen or Chapman's Architectura Navalis. Admittedly the 1st is very hit-and-miss -- lots of ships listed, only about half of which have plans, and most of the plans are of rather poor resolution but could be reconstructed by someone with some effort and knowledge.

I quite like the gist of what you're saying, Maturin -- though forgive me for now throwing a few minor monkey wrenches into things A.K.A. "The Devil Is In The Details." 1. It's important to remember that square riggers -- even brigs and snows -- only rarely set their fore-and-aft sails, particularly astern. Their main use was when pointing as close as possible to the wind for any significant stretch. Otherwise they tended to be furled and out of the way, particularly on full-rigged ships. So while I very much like the spirit of your suggestion, I need to point out the actuality of it would be a convenient fiction or available only under special circumstances (either of which I'm fine with). 2. Square riggers are likely not to be the only kind of rig encountered in-game -- and even they, at least in older models, also had lateen sails. These are a different beast and worthy of discussion on their own, but I'll point out their handling and animation can get complex, what with (in some cases in some instances) hauling the yard about the mast to re-set on a different tack. (Luckily junk rigs are, from my understanding, a bit easier... but yet another beast to keep in mind!) 3. Also, not all headsails are triangular. The spritsail clung to functionality even as jibs and stays were taking over. And then you have that curious and awkward beast, the spritsail topsail... All this is mainly to keep the devs on their toes and thinking about all the possibilities, especially as they seem to want to open up both the historic range of the game eventually as well as its geographical range. Yes, yes, and yes!

Aha! I was going to ask about just this topic, and am both quite pleased to see admin bringing it up -- and hear what Game Labs is already planning A big thumbs-up on this and Ryan21's suggestions. It's exactly the system I'd come up with one of the times I was considering how I'd design a sailing warfare game... so I'm quite well pleased. I've actually been on one sail of the Lady Washington in Puget Sound, and experienced her tacking. And not just tacking, but turning about 180° in less than a ship length -- and without adjusting her sails. Needless to say the crew was rather confused when the helmsman just put the rudder hard over and no orders were given to haul any ropes... Now, I don't expect oddities such as the Lady's trick in Naval Action; but quasi-realistic tacking and boxhauling would be more than welcome!

Very quickly, I think you make our point whilst attempting to disagree Rolling IS a significant risk and made worse by taking on water -- but a ship of this era heels more because of the wind pressure on hull and sails, and not because water is flooding one side of the ship. Come about and you'll heel the other way -- barring your ballast, cargo, or other heavy things having gotten shuffled over due to the ship heeling over in the first place!

Well! I started reading this thread from a helpful link in another topic and was hesitating to necro it... but Maturin did so anyway, and pretty much captures my reactions as well So I'll divert briefly to the issue of crew surrendering without the player being able to stop it. It could, and did, happen. It was actually a significant mechanic in AoSII; speaking personally, I liked that feature. It added a certain unpredictability to the game, and while occasionally you'd be slapped with a huge whiskey-tango-foxtrot, for me most of the time it added to the edge-of-my-seat aspect of the game -- can I get one more broadside out of this failing ship? or will my opponent squeeze it off first and my crew say it's over? That said, AoSII had no consequences, win or lose. Naval Action is potentially different. So IMO it would be best to provide negative consequences for refusing to surrender if the crew is on the point of mutiny about it -- IF one loses the action. Say recruiting crew becomes harder, morale lower, or crew quality suffers until you get a few victories to wash away the stain of your stubbornness. BUT -- the opposite if you pull it off! To close off on-topic, I feel: 1) A balance needs to be struck between full realism and practicality; 2) Such balance can be achieved by balancing how damage accrues and affects a ship's crew, rigging, manoeuverability, and fighting capacity; 3) Listing should not feature much if at all; 4) Crews should have a limited capacity for damage control (pumps, field repairs), and dedicating crew to that should take away from manoeuverability;* 5) In the end, ships should rarely sink; the player should be compelled to surrender, rather than seeing her ship scuppered. *Because for the most part, gun crews were effectively dedicated to the task, trained specifically for it, and only reassigned in the heat of battle out of dire necessity. Broadly speaking, pumps would be manned by able seamen and ship's boys, who would otherwise be tending the rigging -- therefor pulling them off the ropes would hamper a ship's response in handling. That opens up an optional, special trade-off between guns and pumps should a captain deem it necessary, but it should not be the default.

'Twould seem appropriate to post greetings here, particularly as I see some familiar names amongst the posts I've browsed so far! I just found out about Naval Action. I've been missing doing any 3D shipbuilding of late -- much less sorely wanting a naval combat simulator -- and started searching to see if there were any new games that might sate such needs. Alas, the answer is "no, not yet;" but this seems a promising development! I've long been interested in naval architecture and history. Growing up I was lucky enough to have the full run of "The Seafarers" books, and my naval library has only grown since I enjoyed the old game "Age of Sail II" despite its many, many flaws, playtested its sequel "Privateers' Bounty," and was deeply involved in the creation of ships, flags, and sails for Pirates of the Burning Sea for 4 or so years. (How many ships did I make for that game -- 7?) I'm looking forward to seeing how Naval Action develops, and hoping to see a game that picks up where AoSII left off and other games never went!