BullpupBarrie

My vote would be for the following (similar to Ampen's choices actually). Battle 1, Deck 1, Raid but also these which weren't offered as choices but I thought were very different and too nice to overlook - and -

Please please allow a spectator view with no restrictions on where the camera can go and the ability to turn the UI off completely. Your screenshots look fantastic already and it would be a crime not to give people the chance to make nice pictures and movies themselves. Just include a server-side option to disable spectator mode for competitive games or something.

Outgunned French* fleet flees a British* blockading squadron, and makes for a lee shore in an attempt to escape, hoping their enemy won't dare to follow them. A randomly generated shore line could be interesting (obviously I don't know if that's possible), with the French players maybe getting some incomplete maps to represent them knowing the local waters better. This way they could attempt to even the numbers by baiting the British onto rocks. * Insert alternatives to taste.

I agree with CJFlint and would rather there wasn't a global desaturated effect. The colours used in Band of Brothers were meant to emulate old/faded colour footage from the 1940s and aren't really appropriate here. Make it an option though by all means.

Homepage. (Corrections/suggetions in red). Sail is fundamental to the story of the modern world. Great men willingly risked everything sailing into the eternal darkness of the unknown. Traders, Navigators, Naval officers, Pirates and Privateers were roaming the seas in pursuit of fame and treasure. Our goal is to create an exciting and realistic naval combat game. We want to give players the a first-hand experience of the most beautiful period of naval history - when sailing ships ruled the seas. We have started work in February 2013. Naval Action is being developed by professionals who participated in the production of S.T.A.L.K.E.R, World of Tanks, IL-2, Rise of Flight and other less important games. The game will feature (eventually): Multiplayer and Co-Op Authentic ships Realistic ship combat Trading, exploration and crafting Global conquest Our process is going to be very open and iterative. We will actively share what we are doing and why we are doing it. In addition to this, we will let our community to vote on development milestones and help prioritize features. We will always release features early and will improve them together with our players. The most active members of the community will get access to exclusive content. This game is for you and we do really want your opinion and feedback. DISCLAIMER - I don't claim to be an expert on grammar (for example, I can't make up my mind about "the first hand experience" or "a first hand experience" or even just "first hand experience), but since you asked I thought I'd point out the above errors which are kind of jarring to the flow of the sentences. I hope it helps.

I like the overall simplicity of this, and Barberouge's "simple priority system". To answer the original question, I would suggest if most of the crew is at the guns just limit the amount the ship can turn without putting more crew to the sails. Tacking (and wearing) I guess would be completely out of the question too. Yes, this is what I'm driving at too. The player should find out they're trying to sail too close to the wind by graphical and sound effects showing them the flapping sails and the drop off in speed.

I would rather have the ship model in game display how badly it is beaten up without need of a schematic, so that I can judge it's condition just by looking at it. Having officers shout at you - "she's taking on water captain, and down by the bow" (even by text messages) would be so much better than a handy plan with red flashing lights and a big number saying "436 hit points remaining". What I mean is speed shouldn't be known with absolute accuracy. If there was a digital readout of speed then players could just jiggle the angle of their ship to get the sweetspot simply by monitoring the speed. For example - 4.2 knots, turn a bit, 4.25 knots, turn a bit, 4.27 knots, turn a bit, 4.26 knots, turn back a bit, 4.28 knots HOLD HER THERE. This kind of precise information would take away the skill in sailing that should be earned by experience.

I don't think there should be hull schematics showing players exactly what the state of their ship is at any given moment. Similarly, a read-out telling a player precisely how many seconds he has left until sinking is just not necessary. This level of info available to competitive players just encourages a "numbers game" where they can for example work out exactly how many shots they can get off before having to turn away and attempt to escape. I would suggest that players should have to use the graphical representation of the hull and the degraded handling characteristics of their ship coupled with their experience to inform themselves of how serious the damage is. Maybe they could get damage reports from crew members too. Likewise, and off-topic, I would also rather speed was not a UI readout but should be judged by experience. Otherwise, people could just angle their ship to get the most speed out of the wind simply by watching until the readout hits the max. This would take all the skill out of sailing. Sailing should be an art and not a numbers game.

Well that sounds fantastic actually. Please note for my part I didn't mean "hit points" were necessarily a bad, evil, thing - I just don't want to see bright yellow Hit Point Bars in the user interface so please include an option to turn them off if possible. I think the salient point everyone is trying to make is that simply saying a ship starts to sink when its hitpoints are down to 20% is a big oversimplification. All the damage might be to the upper decks which won't cause flooding at all, especially in a calm sea (were naval actions really fought in heavy seas anyway?). If you are indeed tracking each hit as mentioned above, how about just recording the number of waterline or lower hits in a separate "below water hits" attribute? Flooding will only reach critical levels when "below water hits" reaches a certain number? Just a suggestion. EDIT - or you could have an attribute called "seaworthiness" or something, which is reduced by any hits at or below the waterline. Whether or not each hit would count towards reducing the "seaworthiness" value would depend on some, or all, of the parameters mentioned by Barbarouge above.

I agree with Barberouge, the captain (player) shouldn't be aiming the guns. Aiming and firing the guns should be down to the individual gunners (i.e. automatic). I realise the desire is to incorporate some skill into the shooting but 90% of the skill should be in laying your ship alongside that of an enemy - in the most advantageous position you can get. Perhaps the player should have to time the broadsides to coincide with the roll of the ship or something. (Like in Assassins Creed ship combat - don't turn your noses up, if it was slowed down by an order of magnitude, and the developers realised that beating one tough enemy ship is more exciting than two hundred easy ones, it would be a really good reference point for how to make a fun naval game). Whatever system is finally implemented the important thing is to make sure that well practised players are not able to land hits regularly at very long ranges, or we'll end up with extreme range encounters and not the point blank engagements we're after. Regarding the damage/sinking model, whilst Digby's suggestions are everyone's dream outcome, clearly some compromise is required. I was going to suggest something similar to Barberouge - splitting each ship up into horizontal slices - we could call them decks! Thus you would have upper gun deck, gun deck, lower gun deck, orlop, hold or something like that for a big ship. Did ships of this period have watertight compartments? If not then fore/aft or vertical subdivision is maybe not necessary anyway. I think you just need to separate "armour" from "hitpoints" along the lines outlined above by Marquiz. "Armour" (I hate that term in this context but it will do) could be a value that has to be penetrated before damage is applied to whatever is on that deck. For example crew and guns for a gun deck. You could simulate Digby's 15% of strikes against the larger timbers by just having 15% of all shots that hit having to penetrate a much higher armour value.The armour value itself should indeed slowly degenerate as more and more of the planking is shot away. Similarly, 5% of shots hitting could be applied to the deck just below the waterline. Only damage to the deck below the waterline would count for flooding - plus perhaps the next deck up depending on the sea swell. If someone specifically aims for the waterline then this figure could be raised slightly, but i guess most shots then would strike the water first* so it should end up being much more practical to deliver your shots into the enemy's gun decks and reduce their ability to fight back rather than attempting to actually sink them. Also, please no Hit Point Bars, or at least give me an option to turn them off. I don't care about being at a disadvantage, I'd just rather not have them. *As an aside, does anyone know if skipping/ricochets really happened? I know they'll be beyond the scope of this game but am just curious having read conflicting info on it. EDIT - posted this just before Digby's last comment.

First off I must say it's about time someone made a decent naval action game and from what I've seen so far it looks really excellent. My features/requests can be summed up quite neatly by "Virtual Skipper 4 with guns!". Virtual Skipper had noob help assists for those like me who know nothing about tweaking the tension of the sails etc; you just selected the right sails for the situation and angled your yacht to the wind. I think this is just the right level of detail to pitch things at.