surfimp

One idea that I wrestle with is whether to allow > 1 uncapturable port per nation. Part of me sees the logic in having 5-6 uncappable ports that would provide all resources for a nation, but then the other side of me questions whether or not the existing freeports don't provide exactly the same thing. To say nothing of the new Smuggler flag which allows the necessary resources to be harvested anywhere. And that's just stuff that's in-game today - we don't even know what new opportunities will come from the alliance & diplomacy mechanics. So I'm less than convinced that more than 1 uncappable port is necessary, and certainly it avoids the issues stemming from people having everything they need at hand within short sail of their capital. One thing I do believe would help protect the "newbie areas" around the national capital are shore batteries. In real life, even blockading fleets wouldn't dare get too close to shore, as they'd be hammered by shore batteries and then forced to leave the line to repair. So, I think NPC shore batteries that would automatically begin firing at enemy vessels once they entered the "Protected by <Capital Name>" area would be a great solution. They could also be purchasable and/or craftable as an upgrade for a non-capital port, but they'd need to have some kind of ongoing maintenance cost and would have to be rebuilt after being destroyed in a PB. Or something along those lines. Probably other buildings should have ongoing maintenance costs as well, although I understand that these are represented by the initial setup fee currently. Also, those NPC fleets sailing around in national waters really need to do something besides provide grinding opportunities. In all my hours in Naval Action I've only ever been attacked by an NPC once... clearly this can be improved at least somewhat?

With all due respect to your status as a tester, I have to strongly disagree that intercepting trade ships constitutes "ganking." "Ganking" means overwhelming a solo player by a group of enemy players such that the solo player has no hope of survival. Or a 1v1 where the ganker has such tremendous and overwhelming advantages that the outcome is equally inevitable.This has been the established usage of "ganking" since time immemorial. Privateering / pirating - the interception of a trade ship by a lone warship - is most definitely not that. And especially not in Naval Action, where trade ships, due to various performance capabilities and a wide variety of game mechanics, are often quite capable of getting away. I think it's an important distinction.

So I don't have experience with other RVR MMOs, but EVE is referenced constantly in comparison to NA, which leads me to ask: how are steamroller / Zerg factions handled in that game? What kind of brakes are used to contain the growth and/or limit the power of a popular (high population) faction? I'm not saying that EVE should be copied, but those mechanics - as well as those of other similar successful RVR games - should be understood. Fundamentally, in a sandbox there should be no artificial limits imposed on faction growth, but there should be costs associated with increased growth - be it in territory, # of ships, or even player population. There should also be means for lower population factions to make meaningful (in game terms) alliances that allow them to oppose the steamroller faction together. NA's devs have hinted at these kind of mechanics being forthcoming. There's the war & diplo stuff (which will hopefully address alliances, at least) as well as crew as a national resource. I am convinced the devs are pretty clever and have good solutions in store, or at the least good ideas that can be evolved though testing into good solutions.

I think the mast loss idea is interesting, but won't it be ripe for exploitation now that masts are harder to shoot down than previously? I.e. position a Basic Cutter (or whatever) in a place where the Victory is going to be unable to avoid it. Now the Victory loses multiple masts and has effectively been crippled, while the Basic Cutter bounces off and goes about his business. Or: Traders actively seek out to be rammed so as to cripple their attacker. Then bounce off and go about their business. I just fear that it would cause many more problems than it would solve.

Not sure, but I think this was changed... testing now Hahah yes, there's now a tickbox for "Show an 'Edit by' line". Thanks devs, you guys are wonderful. And yes, mild OCD has been suggested by a friend with psychotherapy training.. heheh.

If we make ramming punish the rammer more heavily than the ship getting rammed, then the "shoot for leaks x ram for victory" tactic might be weakened somewhat. On the flipside, it would make capturing traders even more difficult, as many of them - in addition to throwing their cargo overboard - will ram their attacker to try and scuttle their ship. If we soften or reduce the penalty for ramming, we address both of those issues but then we encourage a "bumper boats" style of gameplay which will introduce its own set of ahistorical tactics. On a certain level, I think we just sort of have to live with some combination of the above realities and try to balance the ramming mechanic so that skill - in shooting and sailing - is given preference as much as possilbe over gamey tactics. I still feel we're pretty much there, but as a privateer, reducing the penalties for ramming will certainly benefit me, and will they help alleviate the issue of SOLs (or whatever) getting Connie-kazied. So, sure, what the heck. Although I still think they're pretty OK as-is right now.

From a gameplay perspective, if rams don't cause penetrating leaks below the waterline, what is my motivation not to simply ram everything, all the time, as though I were sailing a trireme or something? This would be a rageboarder's dream come true. From a real world / historical perspective, hulls could certainly be stove in by a collision with another boat, a rock, etc. and this collision could definitely result in penetrating leaks and the loss of the ship herself. I feel like, right now, that leaks from rams are strong enough such that you can't just ignore them, but not so strong that some accidental bumping is going to prove fatal. Seems about right to me.

Agreed regarding the need to give Marines something to do when ships are at the oft-quoted "pistol shot" range, but are not yet actively engaged in a boarding action. Last night I decided to sail a capped Traders Cutter into KPR harbor. I got caught out by a Santi, Connie, Surprise and something else. Very nearly escaped by sailing directly alongside and beneath the guns of the Connie's windward bow. In real life, Marines would've run over to the rail and shot my crew to death. In game currently, I was literally a fraction of a second away from the escape timer running out. Only a "by any means necessary" broadside from the Surprise (that also hit the Connie) was able to keep me tagged.

If we all go Pirate, then it's clan loyalty & alliances all the way. Could be interesting, I guess? Would probably make for lots of PVP and double crossing. Game of Thronaval Action

^ This. americano = someone from the USA, probably an anglo anglo = Phenotypically "white" person of "anglo-american" descent gabacho = In the US / México refers to anglos from the US, but in Spain it refers to the French gringo = Foreigner, in US / México often refers to anglos from the US, but elsewhere it just means foreigners güero = Derogatory term for anglos, used mostly in the Americas and particularly México ingles = Englishman yanqui = someone from the USA, probably an anglo

Naw, kicking the gringos out of Cuba

Actually I'm pretty certain IP Board (the forum software this site uses) has a setting for this. It might not take anything more than a couple mouse clicks

I was there, playing for Spain, when the USA and Britain had stomped her down to ONE port, La Habana. I was there, the day off Mantua, when the reconquista began. I saw the hundreds of Spanish ships, united around one goal, working towards the liberation of Cuba. Since that time, the members of SORRY were disrespected by the powers that be in the USA faction, and have taken their revenge by decimating the USA down to a few ports near Charleston... twice. But it didn't have to be that way. Since that time, the Spanish have reconquered half of Cuba and helped push the USA out of the Gulf, and they did it on their own until just the last few days. SORRY is now the dominant force on PVP1, and Spain... we're still doing what we've been doing all along, and will continue doing.

I have been playing as a pirate, erm, privateer flying la Rojigualda for months now, this accord really changes nothing for me, but all things considered I'd rather have [sORRY] fighting with me, than against me

This is how to do gaming. Salute Jeheil!

Well I kept that video short but what's not shown are the dozen (?) other passes I made, at a variety of distances and angles.After a first grape pass which brought the crew down to 228, there were no more kills. Also notice that there were no hull hits being recorded either, although the shots were clearly in target. I'm going with "bugged" and not reading more into it about hit boxes and what not. Stern rakes with grape were and rightly should be absolutely deadly. Captains struck colors before letting their entire crew be slaughtered in that fashion. Edit: should also point out that admin/devs have indicated that bow & stern raking should be deadly. At least until this gets hot fixed/patched, looks like there's not much point to using grape while doing so.

Overall I think some tweaking is needed, especially to grapeshot stern rakes. They should actually kill crew instead of failing to even reset the escape timer. IMHO of course The guy in the LGV I was playing against had a number of pretty on-target shots on my hull but failed to really do much of anything beyond knocking out 2 cannons on my starboard side, killing 3 crew and knocking my sails down to the low 90%. He was mostly aiming for my masts and trying to get me to miscalculate and stall out alongside him so he could board me, but even so his broadsides should've done something a bit more meaningful to my armor IMHO. I was able to knock his stern armor off pretty much the same as always, took about 2-3 broadsides from medium range IIRC. It was only when I'd switched to grape that the silliness began. I made at bunch of completely ineffectual passes before deciding to record the video. It seemed like I was firing actual grapes. I have used the same tactics in the past on a Frigate and brought it down to < 150 crew, have played since Sea Trials, and TBH this is the first time I've ever had trouble getting at least some crew killed when raking the stern with grape. So... I don't mind the overall idea of this new damage model, but it definitely needs to be tweaked to correct situations like the above.

Sounds like Pagan Pete needs a partner in plunder!

Ahhh maybe I misread it - maybe that only happens after the battle countdown completes: "System allowing a much stronger side to exit battle has been reworked. We now take into account only starting battle rating difference situation at the start of the battle (previously it was dynamic). The rest works as before. If you were attacked by a weaker force - stronger side could deny battle and exit during first 2 mins (this is a legacy feature somewhat reducing the effect of trolling by light ships)."

I thought this specific issue was fixed as of patch 9.8? Guess not. Bummer. My understanding was that this BR ratio was calculated at the time the attack was initiated, and specifically *would not* be dynamically overridden by post-attack joins. I thought that was in fact what the patch notes indicated. Maybe it's just not yet working right?

You had me right up until the PVP2 thing.

The change in patch 9.6 or 9.7 that allowed missions of any rank to be requested (which rolled out at the same time that NPC capturing was removed) is a solution for solo players who don't want to craft or trade to earn gold. So they can, for example, keeping pulling 1st rank missions and grinding vs Cutters and Privateers if they want to earn without trading or crafting or PVP. I am also against "no PVP" flags in this game. I understand that other games have used them but I don't care to see them on the PVP server, because every trader in their right mind would fly the "no PVP" flag while trading and this would make privateering impossible (and it's already quite hardcore as it is). In fact the new update allowing people to toggle Smugglers is in fact something like this, except it encourages even more PVP as opposed to less. I like that approach as well as having the PVE server for those who don't.

This is a cool idea, but unfortunately I think short of coming up with two versions of each ship - the normal and razee version - I don't see how it can be accommodated. And developing the razee version would require quite a lot of work, just the same as developing an entirely new ship, in terms of its sailing qualities, hit boxes, armor, etc. For my part, although the idea is interesting, I would rather see the devs give us more breadth of diversity rather than "A" and "B" versions of the same vessels. Just my opinion, of course.

This is a trivial thing and maybe I should just pay more attention before hitting the "Post" button, but: Would it be possible to allow a window of maybe 1-2 minutes after posting for someone to fix gross spelling & grammatical errors without forcing an "Edited by So-and-So" message showing up? For whatever reason, I am quite used to going back and proofreading / fixing my posts after the initial submit, because it's somehow easier for me to proofread that way than in the composer window. As a result, probably 90% of my posts have an "Edited by Sanson Carrasco" message at the bottom... it's got to be annoying for others, I know it certainly is for me. But I'm not going to start leaving poorly written posts here. I get that we don't want to have too much a problem with so-called "ninja edits", so maybe 1-2 minutes would be an OK compromise? Just a thought... obviously very very very low priority! Thanks for everything.