Henry d'Esterre Darby

Because a true to reality deformation/destruction based model is not economically or technologically sound given today's technology. Again, the real life cues can be difficult to do well enough to give a reasonable accounting of damage that we be easy to see in real life. While we don't need accurate to the single HP health bars and floating damage numbers above ships when they hit, a certain amount of HUD may be necessary to convey an adequate amount of status information to allow the Captain a realistic decision making process.

In real life, you could use your telescope and get an ok idea of how the other ship lay. Stove in gunports, parts of the rigging missing or dangling, how high she lay in the water and handled the seas, blood pouring from her scuppers - a million observable details that helped the officers make decisions. The nature of polygons and damage modeling makes this level of detail nearly impossible in a game of this nature. So the question really is more along the lines of "how can damage be displayed in such a manner as to provide a realistic level of information about the state of your ship and the other ship, while still being technically possible to implement given the level of technology we have to work with?" Most games use health bars and other gauges to accomplish this mechanic. They're ugly and anti-immersive, but they serve an important purpose.

Hehe, "start that man there!"

Beta for PotBS here too, but didn't play after release.

Great point. One should also take into account the extremely poor (by today's standards) medical care available at the time when comparing mortality rates.

By no means complete, just a few I dredged up off of Wiki in the 1700s and very early 1800s: England Companies: Allen and Hanbury's (Pharmaceuticals, London) Browns and Chester (Department Store, Chester - Could traffic in trade goods from other countries) Coats PLC (Textiles, Scotland) Courtaulds (Textiles, Essex) Dowlais Ironworks (Wales) Melingriffith Tin Plate Works (Wales) Seager Evans & Co. (Distillers, London) Thwaites and Reed (Clockmakers, London) Vesuvius PLC (Glassmaker, London) Wilkinson Sword (Guns, swords) Ship Yards: Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Portsmouth Royal Dockyard Chatham Royal Dockyard Harwich Royal Dockyard Sheerness Royal Dockyard Plymouth Royal Dockyard France Companies Debauve & Gallais (Chocolatier, Saint-Louis (Glassmaker, Lorraine) Ship Yards: Navy Island (Ontario, Canada)The Netherlands Companies: Det Bergen Grønlandske Compagnie (Founded/Administrated Dutch Colonies in Greenland) Scheurleer & Zoonen (Precious Metals Traders, the Hague) Sociëteit van Berbice (Trading Company, Guyana) Van Gend & Loos (Distribution Company, Amsterdam) Prussia/Germany Companies: Emden Company (Trading, primarily with China, Emden, Prussia) Verlag Herder (Publishing, Freiburg im Breisgau) Shipyards: Reiherstieg Schiffswerfte & Maschinenfabrik (Hamburg) Spain Companies: Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas (Venezuela - Trade goods like Tobacco and Cocoa Ship Yards: Havana United States Companies: American Fur Company (New York City) Colgate Co. (Chandelry and Soap, New York City) Crane & Co. (Paper, Cotton-based products) DuPont (Gunpowder and Explosives, Wilmington, Delaware) Freeman's Auctioneers (Auctionhouse - could trade in anything, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Fort Pitt Foundry (Ironworks, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Rogers Orchards (Agriculture - Fruit, etc, Southington, Connecticut) Valentine & Co. (Paint/Coatings, Boston, Massachusetts) Ship Yards: Charlestown Navy Yard (Now Boston Navy Yard) New York Naval Shipyard Philadelphia Naval Shipyard

Exactly. The way to attract female gamers is not through portraying women in denigrating, suggestive outfits.

That's just the point. It's extremely hard to focus on what you're trying to say when it's darned near unreadable.

My wife would have me seized to a grate and flogged if I brought something like that home.

This isn't POTBS, they're generally not going to create a custom gank machine for you. A Xebec is going to have its historical benefits and detriments.

Women serving as crew - OK. Not that it really happened all that much in military ships I don't think, but hey, whatever. Women serving as crew in bikinis - NOT OK. Not at all historical, not respectful, and not needed.

I have no direct source of hard numbers. This is all theory, common sense, and what I've personally witnessed over the years I've worked in the software business. There is no hard, set number that can be applied across the entire gaming industry - it will differ based on the particular audience for a game/genre. A twitch FPS that caters to young folks is far more likely to require a higher level of hardware than a strategy game that caters to older folks. Yes, older folks are far more capable (in the main) than the younger ones to have the means to upgrade their rig, but they may lack the urge to actually do so to play. Similarly, the younger folks may have less means with which to upgrade, but they're more likely to be willing to move heaven and earth to grab some new hardware to play a game they like. There is a crossover point between overall hardware price/age, and maximizing your player pool amongst likely players. Any gaming company worth their salt will analyze their users' machines capabilities, estimate how many can/will upgrade to keep playing (or the minimum level they can shoot for and still ensure a majority of their target audience can run it), and then make the determination as to how many it is acceptable to lose if they make a particular development choice.

Because an analysis of the market may show that the best ROI curve occurs when you don't require bleeding edge hardware. Like anything else, it has to be a business decision with an eye towards profitability.

I'd love to read that if you can find the title.

Welcome! As mentioned, lots of folks on the forums can answer any sailing questions you might have.

Except bounties are most often claimed by the offendor's alt or a guild mate of the offender. How does that help anything?

@blackwake It was in PotBS, but it wasn't very well implemented.

And yet without Cerberus, he might not have known a thing about the age of sail, never would have had an interest in sailing games, and wouldn't be here to help support the Dev efforts.

At the same time, you don't want to make it such an advantage to having a crew that to sail without would be hopeless. Regardless, I'd rather have another ship with me (or three or four or ten) than 5 people helping to crew my boat.

Is dying the sails to that degree a modern invention though?

And the bigger question - why would I want an extra player on my ship, when he/she could be crewing a ship of their own and adding so much more to our combined combat power?

In reality, the reinforcement around the area the cannon as well as the overall displacement which was affected by the resting weight of the cannon themselves dictated the ability to equip and operate a particular cannon. The platform, and bolts which maintained the lines that prevented the cannon from propelling itself right across the deck were only designed to take so much punishment - a cannon that was too powerful for the way the ship was built would quickly start to tear the ship apart. In general, ships were designed for a particular weight of throw, and while sometimes that weight could be modified upwards a bit, my general feeling is that upgunning a ship was generally not done without a major in-port refit. One must also take into account the amount of space dedicated to operating the gun - the larger calibers are longer, wider, and heavier. There must be enough space for an entire crew of men to operate the gun safely. When you're dealing with a whole row of guns, each of which has a gunport cut at just the right width for the guns to operate, changing how many or their overall size is not easily done. While one might have a choice between a long-12 or a 26lb carronade, you shouldn't find the option in the game to go from, say a long-12 to a long-24.

That was my takeaway, yes.

Turning faster than while currently stationary makes far more sense akd, thanks!