CommodoreWesley

I guess I am the only person who has not regretted calling myself CommodoreCommodoreWesleyTestDutch...

Or, we can just not put them into the game. It's already bad enough that people will deliberately not put out their fires just to explode in the middle of the line... But this is off-topic, and this thread should just remain being about Dutch Ship Plans. It's better to make a new topic in the suggestions thread to talk about it. Right now, I have been looking for ships that fought in the Third and Fourth Anglo Dutch Wars, as well as the Napoleonic era under the Batavian Republic. Although it is not the glory time of the Dutch, it is era that this game is set in. One ship that might be able to be found is the Wilhelmina, a 36-gun 12-pounder armed frigate. Renamed Die Furie after the formation of the Batavian Republic, and was captured by the HMS Sirius. (P.S. The HMS Sirius does have a pretty interesting career, and possibly be a good ship to add to the game, but alas, she's not Dutch.) Another is the Den Briel (Brill?), which fought an action on the 30th of May in 1781. She severely damaged the HMS Cresent by demasting her and surrendered, but another British Frigate, HMS Flora, having defeated the Dutch ship Castor nearby, forced the den Briel to abandon capturing the Cresent. Two battles that I am looking at is the Battle of Camperdown (1797) and the Battle of Dogger Bank (1781) to hopefully find some more ships.

Huzzah! I guess my glorious name CommodoreCommodoreWesleyTestDutch will soon be a distant memory... But nevertheless, still looking forward to it!

I'm sick of neutrals of stealing all my resources... On the accounts issue, I lean more towards having only one player for one account. For me, multiple accounts are just too exploitable with the current crafting system. Now, if the crafting system was real-time based (each ship and ship part takes actual time) rather than storing up crafting points to build something instantaneously, I would be more open to multiple characters, but only if they can only play as one faction.

The Newcastle is not a Razee. A razee is a ship that was originally a larger ship that had her topdeck removed. In the time period of this games, most razees were older ship of the line that were later re-purposed as frigates by cutting off the top deck. The Newcastle was a purpose built heavy-frigate, not converted from a ship of the line.

While I find this project interesting, the sheer number of these battles may slow things down for you... One thing that might make it easier is to try and divide battles into wars, for example the current active conflicts are Danish Conquest of Puerto Rico (longest running war currently), Second Franco-Dutch War, and the Second Anglo-American War. Of course, this may be a bit confusing as one could consider all of these conflicts to be part of the same war as Great Britian (SLRN) is theoretically involved in all of the wars. I could write a brief history of the DAS if people are interested, however I would prefer the diplomacy overview to be made in a separate thread rather than in the history section, and only fleet/guild/clan leaders and diplomats should be able to post there.

Yes, I do think we need ships to fill the gap, say some 44-48 gun frigates armed with 18-pounders, however, my argument is that the Essex from her design is not the ship meant to fight against the Trinco.

I was going to make a different thread about this, but I guess I could bring it here... You can't raise and lower nor turn your yard arms while you are in gunnery or survival mode. In turn, your guns will not reload in survival or sailing mode. Would change a few things, make changing your crew focus at the right time a lot more important, and less battles of constant turning. It is probably too extreme, but at least there does need to a more of a significant difference between the crew focus modes than there is currently. The main problem however is that it might penalize people in smaller ships more.

Lol, you can just play the game and compare the ships that are already in. There are actually quite a few ships that probably need tweeking, like the Trincomalee, but pretty much all ships need a bit of adjustment. However, I do strongly support release more of the ships prepared for early access to more people so that we can fully test their stats out and balance them if necessary. (Like the Bucantare has a battle rating of 300 in the game files, and she's only a 80-third rate...) This game is also still in alpha/beta. Many of us here like testing things. Yes, I have read those discussions and they are very good, and I really hope that they do change. I personally believe that smaller ships are a bit under armored while first rates are overly armored. I'll try and find that discussion, and try to put the Essex through the recalculations that others have proposed, however, the stats I suggested in the original post are really only there to balance her with the other ships currently in the game. However, stats in general do need to be worked on, but we can suggest and discuss changes on the forum while we still have the chance to talk about them.

Actually, the main thing that that having a distance associated escape window will change mainly is that more Ships of the Line will be lost in large battles as it it will be practically impossible for the ship to escape out of the battle instance once they are severely damaged. That would be more of an effect to the game than people trying to tag people to keep them out of the big battles. Also, a distance system is exploitable, if a Pickle and a Victory attack a lone enemy Sani, the Victory can just sail away while the Pickle run towards the Santi to "stern camp" it, preventing the Santi from leaving the battle. However, this would require that the enemy would have to have a close or equal battle rating to the enemy that they are fighting. Baltic also has a good point about the amount of data being transferred may increase, which might be a penalty for people with poor internet connections (like me...). It would be nice to see if someone would be able to make a calculation about how much data that will be. I don't think it will be a lot, but I have little to no knowledge on the transfers of server data.

Gents, don't get bent out of shape by the Admin's comment. I've created a naval modification for Napoleon: Total War, so I understand what the Admin is talking about completely. It is like comparing apples to oranges. Most/all of the time, the values you put in the code do not have a real life measurement, therefore it is impossible for you to change something to be exactly accurate to real life data events. All that I am comparing is the Essex to the rest of the ships in the game as that ensures for her balancing. If I can compare something in the game to something else in the game, then they can be compared with each other properly and accurately because both are being modified by the same functions. Basically, instead of asking if a Essex can go 13 knots, the real question is "is an Essex is faster than a Belle Poule or not?" I say yes, therefore, I set the Essex to be faster than the Belle Poule. To do that, I set the max speed value to 13. I can go to bed and wake up without worrying about the mathematical formulas and complexity of converting that 13 to make it be in exact accurate scale to the real world. Anyway, back to the topic. Currently from my tests, the crew is very well protected on the Essex, as I hardly suffer casualties from ball shot from my sides (which is kinda ironic as she lost nearly half her crew due to ball when she was captured). In my opinion however, I don't think that barricades/bulwarks would necessarily improve the structural integrity of the hull to resistance to water coming in, therefore shouldn't count much to the hitpoints.

Distance system. Once a ship is 2000 units away from any enemy ship, that ship will be able to escape from the battle. It makes sense, and I don't think that there needs to be any more extra features added like timers and such. (max carronade range is 500, max medium is 1000 and max long is 1200 I believe) And for those that worry that this will make players able to escape from them early on in the battle instance, then the attacker did not engage them close enough on the Open World before dragging his target into the battle instance. Also, the attack circle can also be set to be the 2000 units away mark, solving the issue.

Really, to be honest, she wasn't a 12-lber super-frigate. I would call her an ordinary frigate. The reason why I kept the speed high is that she does have more modern lines, as well as having top royal sails. The stats can be trimmed, and the sailing qualities might been due to the condition of the ship, being bombarded to lose 50% of the crew is obviously going to do irreversible damage to a ship. Also she may of had a problem of hogging over time, she was reasonably pretty old for a frigate (15 years) by the War of 1812. Also, using Maturin's little quote:

I am one of the few that has received the USS Essex, and I have taken on the duty of testing her and seeing how she fits into the game. Most of her reviews, I hate to say, have been mixed. And it is not just due to her lack of bow chasers either, but that her stats do not feel appropriate for her size and role. From my inspections, the current stats of the Essex seems to be designed as a contender against the Trincomalee. Both have similar speeds (with the Trinc a bit faster), and the exact same turn rate. If the Trinc is crafted with armor with mind should be able to have more hitpoints than the Essex. The Trinc however has a lot more firepower, being able to mount more guns and 18 pounders instead of just 12 pounders. The only true advantage the Essex has over the Trinc is that she have 360 crew in comparison to the 315. Other than the crew size, and decent hull armor however, she does seem to be an odd ship to be compared to the Trincomalee Below is an image of stats of miscellaneous frigates that the Essex would most likely fight against: If by looking at the stats, (which are not truthfully accurate in representing each ship type stats, as they are different woods and qualities of ship building) the Essex seems to be a bit odd. The hitpoints of the Essex is extraordinarily high for a 12-pounder frigate, nearly twice the armor of the Surprise, and 1.2 times the armor of a Live Oak Belle Poule. The Turn rate of the Essex is as full degree slower than the Frigate and the Surprise, which would make sense because they have less armor and hit points, yet that full degree makes a massive difference in battle, which would make the Frigate be able to be able to completely out maneuver the Essex. In turn, the Essex completely out classes all of her competition in crew size. While this may be fine, as the Essex appears to be designed to fight the Trincomalee, looking at the ship in comparison to the others, the Essex’s size and hull does not appear like to be an armored beast to fight 4th-5th rate Frigates: Here, it is easily seen that the Essex is significantly smaller than the Trincomalee and Constitution, yet is the same size as a Frigate. With her hull lines being shaped like this, it does not make sense that she has so many hit points. It also does not make as much sense why her turn rate is as slow when she is shorter than Trinc. Also, after a brief search, I did not find a time where the Essex was crewed with 360 crew, instead I found mentions of her crew only being in the range of 250-300. Also, most records call her a light frigate, of course, for the United States. Her hull construction was mentioned to be made from white oak, therefore her high armor value should not be as great, if not equal to most other frigates in other navies. She was known for her speed however, which should be her key advantage. Therefore, with this, here are the stats that I suggest for a basic Essex with no improvements or penalties: Max Speed: 13.00 Turn Rate: 2.60 Side structure (L/R): 3000/3000 Bow: 800 Stern: 350 Sails: 3400 Crew: 300 Battle Rating: 190 These are up to debate, but basically, this is a nerf to most of the stats, but a boost to the turn rate. The Speed can be higher, but that can influenced by modules. The turn rate is what needs to be tuned the most, as it is just too low. It’s still the lowest of the rest of the lighter frigates but that is the tradeoff for her speed. Wood types will also greatly influence her performance, where she can be more armored or built more for more speed. My changes also are not to make her a badass frigate, but to balance her out in a role she can better play in rather than being ignored as a sub-par Trinc. Please discuss below.

Jodgi, you can always just go into the game files and look yourself, Steam>SteamApps>common>Naval Action>Database>DesignModel>Modules. To open the XML file, just need to open it with a word processor, like Wordpad. It's really easy, of course. Just read the lines of code, which XML is both readable for both computers and people, just that there are a lot of < and > signs in it, and a bit of scrolling to find the one item of information you want to find in it.

A system suggested in the original post would be greatly beneficial in the game. First off, a system like this with the resources transported over the open world map would be vital in the importance of having control of strategic areas. Controlling the ports near where the transports are passing will greatly reduce the risk of them being attacked, thus providing an incentive for fleets to control ports. The transports would be an easy and profitable enterprise for the smaller ships, making them more important to the game's affairs. It would also discourage people from having outposts far away and in the middle of enemy territory to transport goods as those trade ships can be attacked. The final reason is that this game is called Naval Action, therefore, I honestly believe that the majority of players will prefer to sail in warships rather than merchants, so with having the AI transport the goods, players can sail in their war ships to protect their own merchants. There are probably many more reasons to add a system like this to the game, but in my opinion, adding a feature like this could be possibly be more important to the game than even port battles.

I'm tempted, however, I'm an American. However, I have confused a British security guard at the London Airport wondering why I have an American passport with a British accent...

I replied on the other thread that this ship is not the Dutch Minerva. The only Dutch Minerva that I came across was a 26 gun sixth rate http://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=1515 The document itself, translated to English: Corvette 36 pieces from ca.1790. Very detailed drawing. A. Lange drawing. B. Side of the hull to the waterline, as figurehead: Minerva. C. Halfdekplan and vertical elevation to the waterline. D. Truss Drawing. E. Fully bow view. F. Full view mirror. With text: "Long 132, Broad 37, Hol 17.5 Foot, 24 pieces in the steerage, 12 lighter pieces on the slippery deck." NB The body also comes in the details entirely consistent with the model of the "Prince Willem Frederik Hendrik" and "Minerva" of 26 pieces, 136-36 3/4 - 13 10/11 built in 1787 for Zeeland. No watermark. With scale: 1 foot = 0.5 cm. Thus document states that this ship is not the Minerva, but appears to be similar to her. I personally think this ship model here might be of the Argo, as it was built in 1790, with similar dimensions and same number of guns on the top decks as well as lower. http://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=16094 The only problem is that the Argo's length is 139'8" while the document states that it is 132. I could not find a Dutch 36-gun frigate with a length of 132 Amsterdam feet that would of existed in the 1790s.

Robbie, if you going to make a 3D model of this ship for this game, all the devs need is the hull if I remember correctly. I also have a bit of a love affair for this ship myself, and would love to see it in the game. However, when looking up the ship on Three Decks, I have not been able to find a 36 gun-frigate of the name Minerva. I did however find a Danish one which seems to have the same gun arrangement: http://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=17810 If it is Dutch, I would think that ship could be the Argo, however the Argo seems to be longer. http://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=16094

No, I'm still sick of fighting first rates.

Good evening sailors, soldiers, pirates and gentlemen! Recently, we have all been testing the new port battle feature, which has been all fun and games, yet there are hardly any instances were there has been a defending side in these ports, therefore we are hardly really testing out the feature. I believe that many people would prefer that these ports to be more sufficiently defended by players. Now, several members of the Dutch faction are willing to engage in testing PvP port battles. However, due to geographical difficulties and a lack of people attacking our own ports, we ourselves have been feeling a bit bored, and I bet other factions are feeling the same. ~~~~~ As of now, port battles done by the Dutch will largely only be for the PvP purpose, as we have really no other need to capture any more (as we have way more than enough resources). We are willing to engage in port battle PvP with any faction that wishes so. This may possibly include factions that we have friendly relations with. This is not a declaration of War. We are not fighting for hostile reasons, but just to test out the mechanics. ~~~~~ Yet, because we want these ports to be defended when we attack, we are looking for suggestions for organizing port battles so that we can properly test them. One suggestion is that we will announce the port or area that we will attack in 24 hours in advance. By doing so, there should be sufficient time to create a defense, and even perhaps interesting fleet battles trying to intercept the flags before they reach the targeted port. The other is to have a week long competition in a certain area of the map (most likely Haiti). Feel free to add your own suggestions or thoughts below.

Well, judging by the amount of stone forts that have been destroyed and garrisons lost in the past few days, clearly either we need to start building walls out of oak or we need to start importing stone and getting some engineers to rebuild what has been destroyed. Fortress rebuilding anyone?