Destraex

Texas you want both more guns and more cargo space? Won't that defeat the purpose of military vs merchant ships if you can have both in one ship? The indiaman btw is pretty much the best you are going to get I think. It's got massive armament for a cargo carrier and a large hold. As for ship types we have a lot at the moment: Gunboat - tiny dingy with one gun at each end - a swarm of these historically could take out a becalmed frigate and did. Mortar Brig - Artillery ship for fort attacks A large assortment of smaller ships in between like the snow, cutter, privateer, lynx, yacht, niagara, rattlesnake etc Brigs - navy and normal brig Corvettes - cerberus but more coming Light Frigates like the renomme Frigates like the bell poule Heavy Frigates like the trincomalee Super heavy frigates and unique ships like the constitution Merchants like the gross ventre and indiaman... although I would like to see pure merchants with virtually no guns and better holds to encourage people to take them. 20-40 crew usually 4th rates 3rd rate 74 guns 2nd rate 80-90 or so guns 1st rates like the victory Super 1st rates like the Ocean and Santissima I believe there may be a Xebec coming on top of this which will be a radical new way of sailing because the sails are completely different to anything we have in game at the moment. I would like to see despatch/packet ships and specialised fishing boats as well as whalers (which may be controversial but were a major part of the economy of the day). I would love to see older ships in game, but only if the game did some sort of bi-monthly or longer time period transition. For example. The game does day and night quicker than in real life now. The game could also cycle years in a similar fashion. As the years go by more ships become available until it hits the beginning year again. In this way older ships would naturally be phased out as people took up newer types as the years progressed and more ships became unlocked. Before it started again at the earliest ship year. This could even give the feeling of always having something to look forward to. I mean once you hit the top year and go back to the first year the game will be fresh starting with the older ships... seeing them in their prime before they are finally superseded by newer designs. It will also make sure the game does not look like a strange mish mash of time periods and remains majestic.

Correct. And the ones that did slip in were few and far between and usually not the captain apart from dressing as men. For the purpose of the game though I am not averse to having a small percentage females so that the players can relate to the game.

love to hear a team mate screaming "I lost a rudder!" Because he knows that his ship will now be out of control and he will have to use manual sails to correct until it is fixed. Slowing the whole ship down. But the devs would have to be very careful that this often chance rudder damage in a real battle does not in game become peoples speciality and the only way ships are taken down.

not all ships historically had marines for all nations. Especially the smaller ratings and merchants.

May I ask if rookies will get the option to spawn in rookie zone or nation capital every time they log in or just the first time. Some may never figure out how to sail to capital or teleport their without veteran help.

@Admin... question: Will we be getting different sea states in battle instances soon? I have not really noticed storm weather in battle yet. But cannot remember if I went into a battle when storms were about?

I would like to see a 2min battle screen timer and the ext position based on open world distance for time spent in battle. In other words if you spend 30minutes in battle you appear at the open world distance that equals 30 minutes not the in battle distance sailed

I agree. But their should of course be a minimum crew and the mechanic should discourage a lack of crew in favour of marines on ships. Marines should be very expensive. However perhaps their should be a module for embark soldiers as well at the expense of cannons for troop transports. Check out the battle of trafalgar, the spanish and french had a tonne of land units put soldiers on their ships for that battle. Although I suppose it would be silly unless they cost a mint to replace. You would not expect to permanently embark the 42nd foot on a ship for instance. I would also propose a marine officer to perk up. P.S. I believe in some cases marines helped but in general you want them fresh for boarding actions unless you are desperate.

As per below you are of course correct Admin. It was never completely shelved, but the below does make it sound fairly final especially when adding such core game changing features seems hard to do especially according to patch notes you have in the first post here... where it was said that you want to make changes that may not be popular because it will be impossible after release. So I can kind of understand where both sides are coming from when it comes to the chances of wind getting in. I for one would scream with joy like a little girl if it was put in http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14640-devlog-forthcoming-content-patches-plan/page-5?hl=wind%20speed We are now worried about wind strength after changing/improving damage model penetration improvements. There is a pretty good chance that someone might not like changes compared to what they like currently and it can affect reviews and sales. We only plant to improve (fix bugs) in accel/decel and code in lateen sails for xebecs starting from La Requinn and thats it. Wind strength changes can wait or might never get in. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14640-devlog-forthcoming-content-patches-plan/page-7?hl=wind%20speed "there are more pressing issues requiring attention. focusing on the wind strength might face same reaction as damage model improvements" P.S. Question: These 1 dura ship captures. Will they be anything but basic ships? Do they replace the BP events?

My ping is 300-350 normally on the EU servers where I play and some of my Australian friends have even higher pings. So when I see Americans complain about 200 pings, well that would be a dream for us down here. Lucky that for the most part this game is playable even with that ping. It's one of the perks of having a slower subject matter like sailing ships. But you certainly could be right in that the boarding actions are working fine for high pings... but I still like you, want to allocate my marines to the tops, some to the quarterdeck to protect the captain, others to the main deck with the sailors... have my sailors armed with the weapons I pre-chose when I outfitted the ship (boarding pikes, muskets, axes, cutlass etc in proportions to that I have chosen). Attach deck guns in specific numbers carried when I outfitted the ship. Allocate officers to lead attacks from the different decks of the ship, which may be lesser or more well defended. Well you know. I want what was pretty much the major way ships ended combat in this era, really fleshed out.

not particularly keen on starcraft style spreadsheet and people perfection by analysing and replaying to death when one has unlimited study time. I am a fan of trial be combat and normal drills. Could not hurt I guess but honestly don't think its needed. My 2c.

snoopy. As far as I am aware you guys can press to change boarding action and have it register a split second before time, where we have to do it between 2 and 3 seconds to have it register. Which means you see what we are doing and can react. Its why I don't like the whole boarding rock paper scissors system and would prefer a graphical one with actual tactics rather than micro skill. p.s. I Ron board much so I could be wrong.

I like this idea. But it does require a lot of upkeep and especially maintenance for players who will not necessarily understand why their name has been rejected by the "party police" so to speak. I encountered a player name the other day, I think it was "shipfaced". He was new and I talked to him for a bit because he was looking for a clan. I asked a little later whether his name sake had anything to do with being drunk. He said, something like. Yeah the name is unfortunate. Sounded like he was rash when choosing it or maybe actually drunk. There are plenty of in game names that are very unpleasant already. Some involve the word Herpes, I think the actual player name is "genitalherpes". Who wants to see that on their screen sailing past, especially with youngsters hovering around? Well it happens now even if it is not extreme. I would say just leave it at being able to be reported as in game player names are now. It seems to be working now without people going to extremes just by virtue of some of the examples I list above surviving without being reported and ordered to change.

This would work by pinging the merchant when close enough with a loud hailer asking him\her to accept escort. If they accept then you get added to a special escort group and as long as you stay within 500m of the merchant you accumulate coin and XP. You also get points towards renown of some kind. Some sort of escort badge on your in game profile shown next to your name I guess. I would also suggest that merchants get XP for being escorted and each time they escape the enemy.

I very much doubt that pirates had a "gold standard" for ranks and even if they did, the ranks would not have worked as implied by the title. I mean they were not exactly phoning each other or had a centralised administration unit. Sure you would have had an Elected captain... so there is one rank. But then you miss ex privateer captains, Rule by Fear captains among a bunch of other sorts of pirate captains. You may have had a jumped up quartermaster so there is another. Naval men were superstitious in general probably especially when it came to pirates. So I have no problem with the ranks. When it came down to it though, if pirates had careers of two or three years then they were extremely lucky. Nations did a good job of ignoring superstition and hanging them 99% within there first year of piracy.

steam is fine imho. Prefer my games on steam.

Would love to see ports closed in the open world. However I think in this theatre at least some would be open for ventilation.

Why don't any of you want to fight an even battle? Even though most will still turn out to be BR in your favour if you are quick?

Henry how is "25 on 3" true with the equal BR limit admin is proposing (I prefer equal numbers of ships personally). You cannot be outnumbered and in fact probably still have an advantage, especially since the battle is already underway and you have the opportunity to finish off your target before help arrives? I would also say you have an advantage in that the helpers will come in in penny packets un-coordinated and probably less experienced captains. All this does is give ships that hear the cannon fire or hear about it from semaphore or other ships coming past and reporting it a chance to come and assist. If you are in sight of land you would have been tracked from the shore line for hours already in reality.

Henry. This game cannot replicate many elements of the age of sail. Convoys, convoy escorts and the constant mundane combat patrols are some of them. This has to be compensated for. As for actions outside port and the reaction of a port... this did happen in real life a fair bit. Especially with gunboats. I think you need to consider since time is compressed, the whole of an area around a capital to pretty much be like being right next to port and near it's defences for the purposes of battle timers. With the admins new BR battle limit system you may even get people sailing and patrolling for battle... currently it is pointless. This would bring friendly ships coming into sight to save the day which did happen in real life (especially with a returning escort) back into play. What it certainly will do is make defence viable again and reset the balance. People will know they at least have a chance if they set sail. They will fight harder and with hope... they will not be as likely to just throw in the towel and move games. They will know that their friends in this team game can co-operate with them without having to spend countless hours doing nothing. Personally I don't think a perk should need to be spent to get the BR equalisation rule in place. It should just be a given that you can join battles up to a BR limit once the initial engagement has started.

Admin, personally I think it should be number of ships rather than BR (even number of ships allowed on each side). That would add an element of chance that you are either going to get fast re-enforcement which are not so big or organised re-enforcement which are bigger but take longer. Just a thought. The gankers will still have an advantage as they will be able to beat up the lone ship for a while before things are equalised but this I believe will be as it should be. Personally I don't think a perk should need to be spent to get the BR equalisation rule in place. It should just be a given that you can join battles up to a BR limit once the initial engagement has started.

I agree. But that makes 0.00000000000000000000000001 of captains over the ages. Not really representative. Still I don't have a problem if people want to have avatars as in captains pictures or portraits. Just not actual 3D avatars on the bridge of in game ships I have to look at. Also is there any evidence of it being considered bad luck to have a female on a ship? Seem to remember a lot of books and movies where this is the case.

What I don't understand is why a scaled down map and island size with time compressed movement is considered in what people are saying is realistic sail times. People who do not want defenders to be able to help say that the open world is so much faster but fail to consider the speed at which they were able to sail around and gank in the first place. The person who got attacked could not take the realistic hours to put up a distress flag or for land based observers to see a ship getting attacked right off the coast and prepare ships to chase..... a real chase might take hours and therefore give defenders hours to sail out. This happened plenty of times to people like the real life thomas cochrane when he sailed off the french coast. The french knew via semaphore and sent fleets after him or rallied shore based units to repel his raids. In our scaled down open world you are in sight of land. Remember that. Maybe if you gank in sight of enemy land the enemy should get auto social perk I also don't understand why raiders expect not to be outnumbered right outside an enemy capital... that in my book would be common sense. Sail into the lions den with 1 ship and expect a good fair contact. As for patrolling and escorting. Players are real life people and you can only do this occasionally as time is precious. Patrolling and escorting is a thankless job. Raiding is a very positive one with a positive return.... no waiting, just pick whatever you come across, attack what you want and get out. Where you can patrol/escort for hours and get no return. That is why so many people still get caught alone. We are still individuals with individual login times even when in the same clan. Defenders are never going to compete or be able to put up an effective defence as long as the game relies on patrolling and escorts to happen upon somebody getting ganked and then having the attackers log off at end of battle screen.

Please no large helpings of anime style revisionist history where we get entire crews being amazonian scantily clad females. Is your steam character and officer name not a female name already? I don't think they are going to do officers walking the deck and if they did it would be fairly generic. In real life a female would be hiding and pretending to be male anyways. Side note: I do know of 1 western female captain (temp I think after husband died) and a really famous chinese pirate captain... who was more like an faction leader than an actual active sailor iirc.

Powderhorn. I don't mind where they spawn as long as it gives the attacked a chance to run to safety if their were allied ships within visual distance. Perhaps it should give all within visual distance a popup giving them the option to opt in at their present position into battle in support of their friendly attacked ship.