poosd

Dear Devs., Often in the forum's you see posts like "sailing in OW is so boring". Or, "It takes so long to get around on this map". I remember when OW was first introduced and everyone was worrying about if the map was going to be big enough, and then there was "why do our ships move so fast in OW...it's unrealistic". Here is a simple suggestion that I hope would not take too much programing effort, yet may have the potential for increasing the immersion value of Naval Action in a huge way. You've given us beautiful 3D sailing ships and a wonderfully detailed world to sail in. Why not let us stand on the decks (and other places) of these beautiful works of digital art? Here's what I mean. 1. Create multiple camera views (a la flight simulators). How about: a. Two at the helm or tiller of all vessels, port and starboard sides. 360 degree view, plus pan up and down. No spyglass as helmsman would not be equipped with one IRL. b. Two at the quarter deck rail (or equivalent command position on each vessel), port and starboard sides. 360 degree view, plus pan up and down, plus equipped with spyglass with current zoom feature. c. Two in the bow (or "eyes" of the ship) near the anchors or bow chaser guns if so equipped. Again, port and starboard sides. 360 degree view, pan up and down, plus spyglass with current zoom feature. d. One at the highest lookout point (main mast top yard or similar). 360 degree view, pan up and down, plus spyglass with current zoom feature. e. Current "chase view" left just as it is. Views a, b, c, and d would all be synched to the motion of the vessel as it sails through the sea and not be locked to sea level. Eye level would be approximately 5ft. 6" + or - above deck level (eye level of average man), and, until programing time is available for more advance work in this area, all views would be stationary (with the exception of previously mentioned rotations and pan and spyglass zoom features). Think what it would like to sail in a Cutter through an OW storm standing next to its tiller! at deck level ! I imagine views like the old Sea Trail storm instances ! Now that would keep your attention while sailing. Here are some other future enhancements that might complement this idea on views. a. The height of the main mast lookout above sea level would determine when sails of other ships came into view. Thus, large ships with lookouts high above sea level would spot other vessels farther away as it is in real life (taking weather conditions into consideration). b. When in one of the "view modes", your sound programmer (Demetri?) could add appropriate sounds. On the main deck views, crew talking, music playing, rigging creaking, sails flapping, sounds of the ship, wind and sea (you already have these now). The main lookout view might only have the sound of the wind howling through the rigging and sails flapping. A little touch, but something to hold us over until more advanced crew graphics can be considered (or not !). c. These views could lay the foundation for more advance UI graphics for our beautiful ships. Picture this... you're at the quarter deck view. You turn and see the ladder way or hatch way leading below deck. You move your cursor over the ladder or hatch and discover that it is a click spot. You double click on it and are taken to a below deck view. At first a generic below deck view can be created for all ships. You face aft and see a door leading to a cabin, another click spot. You click on it and you are able to see your level, gold, chart/map view, etc. things related to the captains cabin. If you turn forward, you see compartments related to your ships hold, gun decks, pumps, etc. All these UI features come out of the expanded views created and can be fleshed out as programming time permits. Sure would be a different Open World viewed from the decks of our own beautiful ships. If you carried this "views" concept in to the battle instances as well, with the creative nature of your current customer base already known, I bet some truly amazing after action reports or sea stories would be created. Add weather related damage and terrain damage effects (i.e. running aground damage and sail, spars and mast damage in storms) to these new view; sailing through your beautiful Open Water world in a ship that you, as her captain truly feel a part of would become a WOW! experience for new customers and your old jaded testers. I know others have recommended similar ideas, so I make no claim to original thinking here, but if you have made similar comments, or like this idea, jump on in and see if we can't get the Dev's to consider this for a quick upcoming small patch To the Devs, thank you for your time. Dean

Dear Devs....Might you consider... Putting the OW clock to display in the Port Screen (all ports) so that captains can know and plan times for departing a port. Should tides or other OW issues be added in the future, knowing the time from within a port may be important. Putting the OW compass with wind direction in the Port Screen (all ports). This would eliminated players from having to jump in to and out of port to see prevailing wind directions. Both of the above issues could be done by leaving current UI as is (until detail work is ready) and just making current UI compass and clock display in Port UI. Future considerations: Any captain in a port should be able to see all other captains names, ships, and nation/clan that are currently in that port. Looking out at the harbor, or going into a local bar would yield this same information. Along those same lines, but not as simple, any captain using his new OW telescope, and being with visual range (to be determined by devs) should also be able to determine what ships are in that port. Displaying current weather conditions at port....i.e. storming, foggy, clear (I guess for now that's the only weather options we have). Again, related to wind at port. Keep up the good work gentlemen, Dean (poosd)

Thank you gentlemen for your time and knowledge. Dean

I just purchased a fast, high end gaming computer and am in the process of setting it up for NA use. Is there an optimum screen dimension setting to make the beautiful ship models have the highest level of detail but also have their length v width ratio appear appropriate. I have been doing some experimentation, with both my monitor settings and the graphics settings in NA, but don't seen to have hit on the right ratio. I also noticed that when I went into a battle instance some of the UI (Compass, ship damage, guns, etc.) appeared to overlap on to each other. This machine has more brains than I do, so any assistance would be appreciated. The ship models in NA are so detailed and beautiful that I'd like to be able to use them at the highest setting possible. Thanks, Dean

Hello all, I originally posted this as a separate post, but it only got a few comments, so I've reposted it here thinking that this may be a more appropriate place and generate more discussion. Moderators....If I've violated some forum rule by doing this, my apologies and I'll understand if it gets deleted. I open this discussion with the hopes that the Developers will respond at some point and provide some information on what their thoughts are on the subject or if it is even a feasible concept. I of course welcome the thoughts of my fellow NA members. 1. One distant ship model (sail icon) in OW equals one actual ship instead of a fleet or multiple ships. Reduce AI fleets to one or two per nation at national capital or roving to allow server capacity to keep up and allow this one model=one ship displayed. If this were possible, then vessels on a one-to-one basis could be displayed that are at anchor in or outside of ports. Granted you would have to make them invulnerable to attack to be fair, but if you wanted to know what ship are currently in port, go look and see, they would be displayed. 2. You have a sequence that is followed when you see a sail on the horizon. Detect, Classify and Identify (yes I know that is a modern naval process, but it still applies in NA OW). A. Detect. Please increase the "click spot" on or around a distant sail. If it's too far to make out details, in the Hail/Attack screen, just give us something like "Sail spotted" and nofurther details. At least we know we hit the click spot. It's very frustrating on trying to click on a small, moving single pixel to get the Hail/Attack screen to come up. If you are viewing the van of an approaching group of ships, you see the closest one first. When the second ship gets closer, another sail appears, and so on until all ships in the group are visible. In this manner, a group or fleets formation can now also be determined from afar. Very important tactical information! The player decides whether to alter course and avoid, or close to investigate further. For this example, player chooses to close the distance. B. Classify. At the appropriate range another click on the sail opens the Hail/Attack screen and gives the following information on the individual ship being selected. "4th Rate. Flying No colors", or "2nd Rate. Flying Spanish colors", or "Lynx. Flying no colors". The idea of whether to display colors or not, or how and when colors would be displayed is another topic that I will leave for others to discuss. Eliminate the "Trader Brig carrying contraband" and "Trader Lynx carrying contraband" stuff completely. How would any captain of a revenue ship or warship know what another ship had in it'shold at these distances. A smuggler's sailing behavior may tip them off, and NPC's with contraband might be programmed to immediately flee or avoid, but simply viewing the ship would not tell you if they are dirty. This simple change also opens up an entire sub-game, i.e. smuggler vs. revenue ships. I have to close, board, and inspect if I want to see if you're a legal traderor a smuggler. Signals or other message passing options also come into play here. Lot's of new play possibility there. C. Identify. You would only be able to make a positive I.D. to include the ships name and possibly the captains name and rank in the actual "instance". Giving the players the ability to name or customize their ships could come in to play here, but again, there are other topics related to customizing our vessels. It would be in the I.D. "Instance" where the shot across the bow, heave to order would take place and the boarding inspection could be done. Some work would need to be done to address the use of ships boats to board and inspect. Maybe that could be abstracted like current boarding/melee is? This would allow for the "Smuggler vs. Revenue Cutter", or blockade and interdiction type scenarios to be developed. In the RW, I imagine that it would be very rare for any nation to have more than one fleet, or maybe a fleet and a detached squadron or two operating in our current OW area at any one time. If players want more fleets? They organize themselves in to fleets for specific future operations, or hire individual NPC ships as needed. I would hope that this would reduce the number of NPC fleets to allow for the one-to-one ship display idea to be effective. This would also allow for a large addition in NPC merchant shipping which, in my oppinion should be the most frequent type of vessels encountered by warships at sea. Dumb idea? Totally unworkable? Thoughts? Comments? With respect, Dean

Booyaah, Thanks for giving it a try. I didn't even think about all the distortion issues you mentioned. Again, appreciate all your efforts on this project. Dean

Booyaah, As your map has become the standard working map at this point, would it be possible or desirable to extend the X and Z axis lines across the map thus creating our own lines of lat. and long. ? If this is possible, would they be able to be seen at all magnifications? Just a thought. And thank you for all the effort you've put in to this project. Dean

Sir Muttley, Welcome to Naval Action ! I came in with the second group of OW invites....I've moved up to a Cutter and have a couple spare Lynx's lying about, but I'm one broke Jr. Lt. That being said, I'm enjoying this game immensely! I'm a casual player and get a limited amount of time game time in each week due to RL work. I would recommend to all new players to spend time in the forums. There are a lot of very experienced and helpful people here. Did you do something wrong when you got sunk? No ! That's the great thing about computer games and simulators....we can die over and over again getting smarter each time. You'll see a lot of stuff on the forums about making this segment or that segment "more balanced". "I got jumped by three pirates...that's so unfair". I say that's great! Just like in RL, you got to be careful. It's a big, bad, mean world. There is always someone faster, stronger or smarter than you out in the OW looking to eat you. Just like RL history...one faction, country, group was picking on and taking over another. When to run? When to fight....? that's the question...not just in NA, but in life...is it not. And another thing....at some point we are all going to get busted down to private as different phases of Alpha testing continue. So everything you have now....is just temporary.....like safety...or wealth....or health, just like in RL. You can't take any of it with you in the end. Go forth....have fun...try new stuff. Remember also....just like life, there's no instruction manual for NA OW right now. We are all just making it up as we go along. With respects to all, Dean

Re MikedaBikes post above. Right off the bat, I'm not very experienced or very good at NA, but enjoying the hell out of it, so take these comments as "newbee" or "carebare" views. I entered a battle chasing a Trader Snow in my little 3 dura Lynx (that tells you how I've been doing in game). Shortly after the instance began, the screen froze for a second and "poof" an American fleet appeared behind me. Not having experienced any large battles yet, I was a bit surprised, but thought, "ok...got some back up here." The screen froze again and ...."poof"... a Spanish fleet of SOLs appeared. Before I could even break off my attack on the Trader Snow, I took a broadside from a nearby Spanish SOL. Ships were catching fire and blowing up all around me...the graphics were GREAT ! Being badly outclassed in my Lynx, I crept away as fast as I could and got out of the instance leaving the NPC fleets to duke it out on their own. At first I thought that the battle was pretty cool. Reminded me of some of the large Sea Trial battles of yester-year. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked the fact that these big fleets seemed to appear out of nowhere and without invitation (I do not recall seeing them anywhere in the OW area when I went in after the Snow). Shortly after this battle, I also went through my first storm. Very interesting. Please consider at some point putting in a wind "speed" indicator of some type. Also, when in a storm, is there "any" direction that you can sail to get more than 1 -2 knots out of your vessel? I look forward to seeing my first fog situation as well. Again....great graphics...love the fires and explosions. The storm was fun (but it was my first time). It appears that the NPC mechanics still need some work. I'm sure you all will figure it out. Keep up the great work and keep those patches coming. Thanks for your efforts. Dean

Booyaah...Great job on the map ! Which link is the most current to the locked down map? I see two on the original post. Also, I noticed on one map there is an X-0 line. My understanding is that any location west of this line is displayed at - ####### (negative coordinate) and anything to the right is displayed at ##### (positive coordinates for our Caribbean map only). That being said, there appear to be several ports in the Bahamas particularly where it seems that according to what the coordinates show for the port, they would be on the other side of the zero (X) line. I guess my question is, are the port X - Z coordinates correct or is the X-0 line accurate? I wonder how the coming wipe will effect this map? Keep up the great work Booyaah. Thanks again. Dean

Prater, I just found your post about the ships logbook ! Thank you for being so humble and not rubbing my nose to the fact that I was so far behind your ideas with my little compass, sextant, and clock, as to look like quite the dork! I love your work! As you could see from my ideas, all I was doing were the graphics. I lack the talent to produce any code to make the graphics work in game. I hope the devs pull some of the ideas that I see throughout these forums and can use them in the final product. Meanwhile, while awaiting my return to OW...I will keep drawing. You learn so darn much in these forums! Dean (poosd)

Ok....fess up....Who was the guy in the lynx flying the British colors that sank me (Captain Dean...formerly know as poosd also flying the British colors) after I spent 30 minutes just relearning how to sail! You bum! ;>) All excited about being invited to play. Can't make much sense of what's going on....so...not being one to waste time on silly things like instructions...I just jumped right in and start sailing. Immediately ran aground. Cool...terrain....that does something. Did notice that my little vessel submarined through a few waves. Managed to get facing seaward and saw some other vessels...Alright...I am not alone! Again....cool. I tried to sail up to a couple of ships, but the unsociable blokes ran off. Probably for the best...I didn't know how to talk to them other than chat anyway. ....And then...BOOM! Time warp. Wow, I guess this is what they call an "instance". Look here comes a fellow lynx, flying the British colors. Maybe he can share some tips with me. Well he shared alright. I slowed down all friendly like...he slithered up close to my larboard side...and WHAM! A broadside right in the kisser! Once over my wtf moment...I let off with a broadside of my own...then sent a kind message on chat to the effect of "hey....aren't we on the same side?...or did you leave your pirate flag in the other locker" The chat silence was deafening...then followed by another well aimed broadside into my now quite beat up little ship. I then implemented the tactics I learned so well in sea trials after being pounded to shreds by so many of you....I ran screaming like a little girl (no offense meant to little girls) for the boarder...then realized I couldn't see the boarder like in the arena. Not good. Flooding quickly. Popped all repairs and still going down. And my new FRIEND is still pounding hot shot into me. Well, I didn't make it....You know....sinking in OW feels very similar to sinking in the arena, an act I've come to know and love. I don't know whose got my little tub...but your welcomed to her now that she at the bottom of the sea somewhere off St. Thomas (I think?). Oh great....I've got another lynx to go sacrifice to the splinter gods! Took this one out and CAREFULLY started exploring. Then it got dark. Beautiful. Stars, clouds, very, very pretty. Then it really got dark...I mean dark like my system CTD (crashed to desktop). And that was it for the night. I CAN'T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN! It was fun. Very different, but fun. Yes there are bugs, but NA, thanks for letting me be part of finding and fixing those issues while at the same time having a lot of fun doing it. Now....where is that SOB that jumped me....I'll be looking for YOU (if I can figure out how to look for you). Captain Dean (formerly know as poosd)

Just a thought from a simple soul. Didn't most warships have a midshipman or some other rank assigned as a signals officer? This could also tie in to crew skill levels (Comm. level?) The ranking officer selects some pre-canned order or movement sequence, the flags go up on the flagship (this can be shown graphically or not depending on how deep you want to program), and friendly ships in range and with visibility (line of sight not blocked by smoke or limited by weather) get a 1. text display to screen with the order or message 2. "message waiting" text alerting you to go to your "Signals" screen where you send and receive signals 3. an actual spoken voice saying "orders from flag, all ships form line" or something appropriate for a naval battle. In Silent Hunter 4 someone from your crew is always echoing your orders, telling you what is being detected and letting you know if a radio message has come in. Maybe something along those lines might be possible. Now, I am in the Realist camp when it comes to the Age of Sail. But as Prater says "combat is way too fast", and, if you make me jump to another screen and decode a flag signal message based on "todays code cypher"....well.....you guys think I crash into you a lot now when fighting! I'll be like a fire ship floating through your fleet....No one will want me on their team....and that would hurt my feelings. Just a thought. Dean poosd

Come on you Lobsters and Jarheads..... Tun Tavern....It doesn't have to be in Philly / USA. Do the Lobsters-Red Marines have a similar historic birthplace? Dean poosd

It is simply amazing the things that you can learn in the Naval Action forums. FANTASTIC! I wonder if the Developers are seeing the depth of esoteric historical knowledge that their customer base (and this is just the Alpha customer base!) bring to this product. I can get lost for hours just reading the forums. Thanks to all of you for providing this stuff! Whether is 1700 - 1800' ballistics of Naval guns, or how to sail a square rigger, somewhere in these forums we have answers. Hell, we've even learned about Kraken's....I know....subject locked. Please, keep it up! Dean (poosd)