Leviathan

I wouldn't say it would be an easy task, especially against a much larger ship, but it is possible. Would also depend a lot on range and viewing angle. There would be a lot more 'gray' area. The health bar more accurately depicts the armor or structure integrity. You can easily sink with a decent amount of health bar remaining if you have enough leaks taking on water.

Listing and demasting visuals are in already. The current UI doesn't show if the enemies rudder, pump, or magazine are damaged. It is only visible for your own ship. Everything else you mentioned you can observe in game. *edit* fire is not currently in game but the devs are planning on it.

You're welcome! I'll get some coffee and check back for your results lol

Are you sure they said that Chilly? The only thing I remember them saying was that the last UI was temporary and only for testing purposes. I can't remember them saying the damage indicator would be completely removed. However, I haven't had my allotted amount of coffee for the day so I may be wrong.

That's it Mirones. I thought it had an interesting history starting life as a British slave ship before becoming one of the most infamous pirate ships under the control of Sam Bellamy.

What about the Whydah Gally? I can't post any pics at the moment but they shouldn't be hard to find.

Again, it's based on a percentage if I remember correctly but perhaps the developers can say for certain. Sometimes you may get demasted twice in a battle which would be the extreme end of things. On the other end of the spectrum you may go 10 battles and never lose a single mast. Even during the larger 25v25 AI/player fleet battles not that many masts were lost. Of course there were some but it wasn't like a timber company moved in and started logging masts off ships. If you're in a Cutter and take a broadside from a Victory through your sails your chances of losing a mast is probably significantly higher.

In the game any time a mast is hit directly there is a chance for it to break. It's a very low percentage maybe around 10% if I remember correctly. It's not that common of an occurence and doesn't happen with every shot into the sails, but it's enough to make the battles dynamic. As for repairs, yes they are much faster than in real life, but this is also a game. For the sake of gameplay the repairs have to be faster than possible in real life just to keep the match alive. Keep in mind all of this can still be tweaked based on feedback in the future patch and at the developers discretion.

We need the next patch before we all lose our sanity... well, what remains of our sanity... or my sanity... I need coffee

This sums up the mood in this thread

Very interesting and that painting is awesome.

Do you foresee any changes to graphics and physics with the release of Unity 5?

Nice work. It's looking very good.

That looks wicked. I can't wait to try them out to see how they aim and perform.

Yes, I don't want to see any indicators for range. Stick with the mechanics that we have now for shooting as it's one of the best features of the game.

I understand what you are saying. However, this exact system was pretty effective on pirates online. It was probably the thing that kept that game alive for as long as it did. Granted that game had very arcade sailing physics and combat, but many people played the game just to PvP with fellow crews or attack npc fleets. Several ships were full with gunners and people on repair or running back and forth to do both. I agree that for this to be effective the avcom and sword fighting would have to be as good as the sailing. It can't be an after thought as it was in potbs. Hopefully blackwake can fill this roll and further their development to do so. Lastly, I think Naval Action is fine as it is. The sailing and gunnery system is unique to this game. I've always been a bit of a solo captain and this allows me to be in control of every aspect. The gunnery system is by far my favorite part of the game.

I don't see how this could work in NA at this point since there are no avatars, but I do feel this is an often neglected element that these games beg for. The ability to sail with a real player crew is something that i've only seen in a few games such as Pirates of the Caribbean Online, ArcheAge, and now Blackwake in the future. It's a very unique element and to me seems perfect for this type of game. It encourages teamwork and makes you work as a crew to survive and prevail. For instance, instead of hitting a button to repair, the repair work would have to be completed by players patching holes and pumping water. Also, like in Blackwake, those players can manually load and fire cannons. Then once the enemy is disabled you could board the enemy ship as a crew to try and capture it. Obviously, you could never require a full crew of real players to run a ship as it would be impossible in anything larger than a Cutter due to the amount of crew required. You could however allow 10-20 spots for real players and designate that only the top deck can be fired by the crew, otherwise they would sit dormant. The remainder of the decks would still be controlled by the captain as it is now. The bonus of the crew then being that without them the amount of firing guns is reduced and you can't repair your ship. You wouldn't want to attack a ship while solo only to get boarded and face a full player crew by yourself. This natural dependency of captain and crew would get people working together and make for some very interesting gameplay.

Doesn't this ship share the same design as the HMS Leviathan?

I like the idea of paint buckets as loot or rewards to unlock different colors.

All of the Taste of Chaos Ensemble covers of Mastodon are awesome.

I like something upbeat while heading into battle

I can't argue with that either Wind.

Hopefully the developers will chime in on this. I do hope for the ability to choose the color scheme for my ships to make them my own. Using your idea of realistic pigments of the era would be a way to moderate the game and keep it true to it's original vision while allowing for personalization.

I don't think you can beat the styling of the ships from the late 1600's.

I think you mean Blackwake. It's quite a while from being released.