Barberouge

From an Open World point of view, I can see 2 big categories: battles which are started from the navigation view (Navigation Battles), and battles which are fought on determined coastal locations like ports (Goal Battles). From a warfare type point of view, here are some potential ideas: 1. Coastal warfare Navigation Battles: There would be land as coast or islands, reefs, shoals with different sea/weather conditions. If the large shoals zones would be indicated on the navigation view, it could create interesting navigation and battle tactics. Ships with less draft would have more sailing options to escape or chase. Goal Battles: If some ports aren't "free ports" but smuggling has to be enabled in that region, I'd see some coastal locations like bays with beaches. The smuggler is caught at night loading/unloading cargo with a launch, and has to quickly set sails to escape the patrol or fight. 2. Fleet warfare Navigation Battles: Same as coastal warfare. If the "navigation to battle" scale enables it, some navigation view coastal characteristics could make for good battle environments, like the Gibraltar Strait. In general, any battle fought close enough to the coast could include some shapes of the navigation view. Sacrificing some escort ships to give merchants some time to escape through islands could be interesting aswell. A naval blockading fleet attacked close enough to a port could generate a naval blockade battle which would include the port defenses, the channel and the harbor, one side having the possibility to enter the safe zone of the port. Goal Battles: Amongst the conquest attack options, one could be to destroy a fleet which is lying at anchor inside a port (fleet destroy battle). Instead of sailing off the coast of the port, the attacking fleet could blockade the entrance of the port itself. Instead of spawning outside of the port, the defending fleet would spawn inside (port blockade battle). Another conquest attack option could be to bomb the port infrastructures or the city (bombing battle). Those maps would include the defenses, the channel, the harbor and its dykes, the outer port, the port. To avoid empty port blitzkrieg campaigns, some time would be given to the defenders to prepare for those battles: the spies got informations about a port attack. 3. Combined operations Goal Battles: In those conquest battles both the defending fleet and all the defenses would have to be totally destroyed in order to land troops on the docks. Those could be plunder battles or invasion battles. If you can code it, another possibility would be to send launches to land troops under fire. That would be quite fun

What would be the biggest map size ? (in miles ?)

Sounds good. What about throwing cannons over board while sailing to fasten one's ship ? But I think the OP was more about new ships that had bad sailing characteristics. The height of the lower gundeck, the height of the rigging, the width of the hull, the height of forecastles sometimes made a ship too slow, hardly maneuverable, subject to leaning, or disabled its lower gundeck in big swell. One deck was then razed to increase their buyoyancy (or even their rigging shortened or the poundages decreased). Badly designed ships wouldn't make for such a good feature indeed, but the possibility to raze the forecastles or the upper gundeck in order to increase the sailing characteristics could be interesting. Then it would be about designing ship types that are slightly different from their original model. It would be both realistic and creating gameplay options: the upper batteries usually made for good close range anti crew firepower. Maybe not necessary if guns can be chosen and removed of course.

Not a question here. I'd rather not have invisible ships. Wouldn't that create some sort of unrealistic feeling ? Especially when it comes to conquest. Also, a server community is from my point of view important in an MMO. Sometimes, the language barrier can also be huge (cyrillic/latin alphabet). So I'd prefer at least a few servers that would enable to actually meet and know the players we are fighting with or against. If the open world isn't built around few important ports, players would be spread across the map. Not 1000 there, but 100 ships can make for a good naval force on navigation view:

2) I found this: By model the sea, I mean 1) Will the ships move directly depending on the sea (the waves) ? 2) If not (i.e. a ship would have pre-determined motion depending on the waves parameters), what would be the waves parameters (speed of the waves, distance between 2 waves, height of the waves) ?

The biggest mistake of Portalus was IMO trying to put realism in a game that was designed solely around gameplay. Rageboards were fun, they needed to be removed because boarding was flawed. Removing invincibility removed the charge possibility in a game where a line can one-spike a ship at long range. Removing the gun poundage and guns number variety killed the frigate skirmishing possibility, and in general a lot of gameplay tuning options. Everyone agreed the ship combat was the best part, they've been nerfing it instead of improving the other parts (in their big plans scheme, some changes are needed before improving the others parts - but players don't have that much time). The devs question has always been "how to retain new players ?" where it should have been "how to retain endgame players ?". All the endgame is designed to get a big turn-over of players. Those who continue playing after a few maps are just the grain of sand in the mechanism. A naval combat should shine in a fleet v fleet environment, not in a 1v1 IMO.The battle plans are quite simple in a 1v1.

I've been playing all the Total War series since Rome. When an opus comes out I put lots of food on the fridge, kick women and play campaigns with all factions in chinese farmer mode. The game has some flaws especially the lack of diplomatical options, but it's still very addictive. Rome II in september is the next one. I've been participating to the World of Warplanes beta, but I need something more than battle after battle over and over again. And tanks aren't my world. PlanetSide 2 lacks endgame, but the battles were terrific. Crossing a plain in a troops carrier to attack a facility, with dozens of tanks on the hills, the sky full of lazers and balls and plasma, planes overtaking us towards the furnace, was for sure the best big-scale battle scene I've been experiencing. The tactical gameplay and character progression also offer a wide range of interesting options. I'll try it again when we'll be something more than headless armored chickens fighting for nothing.

1. Could there be galleys in the game ? 2. How will you model the sea and the weather ? 3. Will the economy in the Open World be based on PvE grinding (missions or NPC fleets) ? 4. Do you already know if there will be multiple Open World servers ?

Well if we consider the endgame as winning one Port Battle, then the endgame was PvP-centric. Anyone being able to PvE grind to join a PB instead of PvP'ers was indeed a problem. I'd be inclined to reverse the statement though: it's because the game (leveling, crafting, winning maps) was PvE-centric that newbies didn't have enough ways (incentives ?) to learn PvP. The only way to learn PvP was to try to join PvP groups, and that relied on the good will of PvP'ers. Being led by a boy without shifted voice was indeed tons of fun, especially when daddies were reluctant to follow but the guy knew how to achieve victories What you describe happened because 3 types of population could join PBs: those who didn't want to learn PvP, those who wanted to, those who already had. Those who hadn't considered those who had as withering (how the hell do they dare telling us to learn PvP first ?), and those who had considered those who hadn't as withering aswell (how the hell do they dare joining without knowing how to PvP ?). "All assholes" vs "all tourists" During the 5 years I've been playing the game, players have proposed a lot of new systems, but devs didn't listen. BTW, the current devs have well spotted the problem and imagined Port Campaigns: multiple battles (PvE, PvP based on actual PvP level) happening at different times to take a single port. Unfortunately this would come too late, and they don't have enough resources anymore to code the system quickly.

In PotBS there are skills that make for an important part of the interest of the gameplay. Remove them and the game is so boring. Without skills in Naval Action, something has to be added to create complexity. And I'm not sure aiming at long ranges and crew management could do that. That was the point about a more complex damage-hull-sinking system.

Will the Faction Warfare and Open World have different progression types ? Because you just said: A friend of mines used to summarize PotBS patches: " - balance the classes - balance the ships - balance the weighing unit - balance gravity " xD

It's not about definitions, it's about facts. The endgame (winning a map) seemed to be PvP on paper, but in reality not only did it require mostly PvE (generating cash, hauling goods, generating unrest, generating contention), but PvE could circumvent PvP (avoiding fights, attacking when everybody slept). 80% of the maps were won by the best PvE grinding nations. Grinding to 50 for the first time was about learning the physics and the skills. PvP started after joining a PvP society and actually learning how to use the skills and perform the group maneuvers. I agree leveling up was annoying, but it only took 3 days. Still 3 excessive days. I've been playing PS2, and the new players ("the zergs") were "useless" aswell. They needed to actually learn the tactics and strategies by joining an outfit and being taught everything. That's inherent to any PvP game.

If there is a mode where a battle is created with a map, weather conditions, number of players, ship types, spawn points - wouldn't a mode where those parameters can be chosen by players be easy to code ? Or is that about funding the game ? I read somewhere that there would be LoL-like funding with maybe having to buy the game. In LoL, players can buy things with either a money created by battles results or with real money. If ships can be bought with real money, players could create their battles for players who bought the ships.

PotBS wasn't PvP centric. There were NPCs, missions, 90% of the world map was PvE only, creating PvP zones involved PvE, participating to Port Battles required PvE grinding. FLS created a PvE game and added PvP here and there. I've been in a full hardcore PvP society, and I've been in a diversified society. In the PvP society, we still had to play against new players, to fleet grind against new players, to participate to PBs with and against new players. In the diversified society, new players gave us more groups on the open sea.

0) I was going to give more feedback about aiming and hull parts, the armor itself and the balls, and the crew management but that may have been OT. I'm reluctant to create new topics because they could be covered by more precise topics related to the actual state of the game, and I don't want to involve too much blind thinking time. But I like the way the first subjects were discussed in topics created by Admin: Marine Uniforms - Flags, Ensigns, Banners - Clan and Guild Content - Wind and its role - 1 on 1 - Sinking ships. So feel free to create new topics (related to what you are working on, or to what you saw in feeback), so that the forums are shaped in a way that fits you and gives users room to express their feedback without OT. Or would you prefer that the players create new topics ? You can experience the "game" already, you know what you will do, might do or not. It's difficult for us to imagine what sinking could be without imagining what the sea, the weather, the hull, the cannons, the game interface could be. 1) The system has been discussed aswell. The names have their importance, especially in a domain where vocabulary is so vast and specific. In your OP, you introduce subjects that aren't directly related to sinking. You said that when the HP hits 20% the ship starts leaking water. But the armor can't be a HP bar. The armor is in fact at least a 2D form with lenght and height (not to mention depth, density or different parts). 2) There is full realism but there is PotBS (for example) where there is HP bar and sinking: no aiming, no lean, no water, the ship disappears when the HP is down to 0. The fact that in this game there will be leaks, water and leaning leads to imagining related systems that could create realism feeling and interesting gameplay. 3) So back on sinking only. The armor retains water or doesn't (holes). If there is side leaning, front/rear leaning could be interesting aswell. Whether there is water coming through the holes depends on many parameters. Some holes will always be under water, some will temporarily be under water. To know how much water enters the ship, what is important is when the holes touch water. This is very complex, because the sea (the swell, the waves) is very complex. There are dozens and dozens of states of the sea (like clouds). Let's consider the hull as a half of a cylinder. Here are some possible parameters: - where the holes are - the lowest level of the water - the height of the water - the lateral leaning - the longitudinal leaning It's up to you to choose some of those parameters, and create formulas. You can choose a lot of parameters, you can choose a few. You can build complex formulas, you can build simple ones. You can choose 4 HP bars, from 20% to 10% the water flow is countered by the pumps, at 10% the ship sinks. The question is: which parameters and formulas will create realism feeling and interesting gameplay ? So here are my questions: a. how did you model the sea ? b. what do you think about what has already been discussed in this topic concerning the sinking system ? (except terms and full realism)

How the sea and weather will be modeled will have a major impact on how a ship will sink, and overall on how battles will be fought. A small ship in a medium swell would feel like a big ship in a big swell. A small ship in a big swell would feel like a floating cap. A big ship in a medium swell would have water coming high to its sides without having too much roll/pitch... Will the wind be steady or will there be blows ? Will the swell direction sometimes be different from the wind direction ? I don't have the necessary vocabulary but you get the idea. Build a complex sea/weather model, and the combat sailing could actually be very interesting.

The hull view would look like this with a simple bow/stern/port/starboard system: Center grey = dry hull volume, center blue = water Brown = planking, white = small leaks, white+black = unrepairable leaks The ship took 2 broadsides on port, repaired but the water continues flowing (still 17% damaged), changed sides, took a single battery on the stern that doesn't require repairs yet, and just took a broadside on starboard. Also, how to calculate the water flood flow: The 17% port damage is spread on the whole side from the "waterline" to the rail. The 15° list is due to natural roll (5°) and the flood lean (10°). It makes for 30% of the side being all the time under water (100% flow), and 20% being either under water or not (rounded to 50% flow), depending on the swell (for example, 2 meters swell). The total side area (from "waterline" to rail, stern to bow) being 300m², damaged by 17% (see picture 1), the average area opened to water is 300 * 0.17 * ( 0.3 + 0.2 * 0.5 ) = 20 m² Water having a speed of 2m/s, the water flow into the hull is 40m^3/s. Numbers are wrong but you get the idea. This enables interesting choices: pump or leak, repair or reload, flood or change tack... The leeward fleet would have an exposed hull zone disadvantage, but the windward fleet may not be able to open its lower gundeck portholes and would have an exposed topdeck. Tactics, tactics With more horizontal and vertical zones, the damage can be split into the bow, the front of the side, the middle of the side, the rear of the side and the stern. And also into under the waterline, from the waterline to the lower gundeck, the lower gundeck, the middeck, the upper deck, the forescastle, the rigging... Making targetting specific zones at close range very interesting. (with cones of damage x,y spreading the balls into near zones) The more zones the more ship schematics needed though. But if the systems are complex enough, the combat will feel fast without breaking the realism effect.

I'll try to answer to your original post, but how a ship sinks depends on how the hull model takes damage, and that depends on the damage model. Basically I agree with Digby: your hull model is much too simple. Let's say a system has to be found to avoid a full ballistic system. 1. Instead of HP, I would call that Planking Area or Planking Integrity. 2. If the planking has to be separated, I'd rather put more zones: the bow zone should be able to be hit from the sides. Solution: more horizontal zones. 3. First problem: the model you propose isn't realistic. Like Digby said, whether a ship sinks doesn't depend on the overall integrity of the planking, but on the integrity of the planking that touches the water. Solution: more vertical zones. I'm fine with water overall flooding one side (port or starboard), but then what about bow or stern ? (see: more horizontal zones) I'm fine with the leaks + DoT + water system. 4. I'm not sure too many men could be sent on the pumps. I think each ship had a limited number of pumps, and each pump had a maximum number of men. Sending men to the pumps shouldn't be critical to the other parts of the ship. However, how fast the men pump could depend on their morale and their tiredness. Pump flow in m^3/minute = maximum pump flow * ( moral + tiredness % ) * number of men / maximum men per pump 5. Which could be related to the vertical zones of the planking. Depending on the natural roll, pitch, the swell and the flood lean, more or less damaged planking area would touch the water. 6. Second problem: the repairs shouldn't be simulated like in PotBS, i.e. I click and the ship is repaired over time until the cool-down timer is up again. Repairs should be simulated like the pump system. A captain sends more or less men (with no limitation ?) to a part of the ship. Repaired area in m²/minute = maximum repairing rate per man * ( moral + tiredness % ) * number of men There would be a maximum area to be possibly repaired, depending on the wood reserves a ship would carry. Also some leaks shouldn't be able to be repaired (or at least not as quickly as the basic leaks). The structure itself could be weakened if a beam or a shelf would take lots of hits, requiring more specific wooden pieces. And large leaks would generate such a water flow that simply nailing planks couldn't be possible. 7. A ship would see its sailing characteristics diminished depending on the volume of water and the area of the big leaks.

Thinking about your answers, one thing comes to mind: is aiming really necessary ? Are we the captain, the master gunner, the battery master gunners, the gunners ? You said managing sails individually was too complicated, and I can understand that: send 10 men on the rigging to hoist the topgallant, send 2 men to position it to 45°... The sails are better automatically managed. So the horizontal aiming would be automatic, but not the vertical aiming ? What about carronades or other topdeck cannons (placed on a pivot) that could have a much wider horizontal angle, that could be directed down to the opponents decks ? How to judge the relative speed if the horizontal angle is automatically adjusted ? What's the point of aiming vertically if we already know the distance ? When I try a ship for the first time, I test the best angle for each battery at each distance, write it on a paper, and read it each time I shoot. That's overcomplicated management, not skill. Also each battery features a specific poundage, each poundage features a specific ballistic curve - so how is it possible to aim with the same angle for the full broadside ? It seems you created the aiming feature with this in mind: "what about shooting a first broadside, and depending on the result correcting the angle ?" I'm not a ballistic professional, or maybe I missed something ? But I have the impression we should only manage the captain decisions: when to shoot a battery and where to aim it (not how to aim it). Also don't forget that in some situations, a full broadside can't be shot. For example, a ship sails perpendicularly very close to the rear of another, trying to hit its stern. When it passes the stern, the cannons have to be shot one after another. 1. So I'd rather see a system like that: the player selects a battery (or the full broadside), puts his mouse on a zone somewhere in the ocean, and the battery master gunners do their duty, aiming all the cannons that have a possible angle to that direction. The cursor would change from a point at long ranges to an horizontal bar at shorter ranges. If you really want a "let's correct the angle" situation, there could be an accuracy increase depending on the number of successive same batteries a player would shoot at the (almost) same range. 2. If you really want some aiming with skill, the master gunners shouldn't do the angle correction for longer ranges: the mouse cursor pointed on the ocean would indicate the cannons angle without range correction. Then there could be an option to apply a range correction angle battery per battery. But the distance shouldn't be displayed. Please correct me if I missed something. 1. or 2. would enable what was the purpose of my questions: being able to target a specific part of a ship when it is close enough.

1. Both vertically and horizontally ? Degree per degree ? 2. If a player can change vertical or horizontal aiming, wouldn't that change the part of the ship the balls are going to ? Let's say at less than 200 yards. 3. Also, how are the graphics affected by a broadside ? 4. Can a player shoot without any target ? 5. Can a player see how the other ships are damaged ? 6. Can a player see the distance to other ships ? 7. I guess aiming is done battery per battery ?

You said in the Game Introduction thread: "Weather and ship conditions will also affect your aim: a pitching ship due to damage or stormy seas will change the way you fire your broadside." Do you mean that the player himself will have to aim ? Can the captain target a specific part of a ship ? Could you elaborate on that please ?

I didn't discuss if it should be in game but if it could be in game. Not having Greek fire doesn't make any difference to me of course. But it could be fun and still quite realistic. PotBS didn't fail because of its naval combat IMO, but that's another story. I agree the invincibility didn't make for a realistic combat

Whether such a ship would have been buildable and sailable has been studied by historians. - The 2 big cannons couldn't have served as ballast. No forge could have built such cannons in that period. - Greek fire has been rediscovered by Antoine Dupré in the XVIIIth century, and shown to Louis XV in 1759 - who decided to burry the secret (and the man ?) because the type of war it provided didn't fit the period standards of behavior. - James Puckle invented an autocannon in 1718, with the purpose of preventing boardings. The Puckle gun didn't convince much because of its lack of accuracy, but several have been bought for an expediditon in 1722. So rather fictionnal than real, but still possible.

Too bad, the comics I used to read featured a ship with 2 enormous cannons, Greek fire from the yards and "barrel organ" muskets on the tops

Yes, and it's easier right now to suggest things about the rest of the game than about the combat itself, since it's difficult to judge without actually sailing the ships Devs don't feed us enough with the problems they face or the dilemmas they have to resolve, we have to board something ! Hopefully they will write some ideas on a paper and use them later.