Longboats and various uses for them

[Aetrion]

I would really like to see the ability to launch longboats added to the game. These were absolutely essential to everything a large sailing vessel did back in those days, and I think there are some interesting uses for them in this game as well.

 

Every ship would have a number of longboats it can carry (at least 1) and you would be able to launch them to undertake different kinds of missions.

 

The procedure to launch a longboat would mechanically work similarly to a cross between preparing a boarding crew and switching your ammo type. You would hit a button, this would open up the menu of long boat missions, you'd hit the corresponding button to what you want that longboat to be able to do, and then a counter would go up as your crew get into the boat.

 

Once fully counted up the boat would be in the water and become a kind of AI companion that can be commanded on battle map, and also can be commanded to carry out it's special function.

 

 

The missions you could equip a longboat for:

 

Boarding

You row a longboat over to another ship and attempt to capture it. This would put 20-30 men into the boat, so it would be a very high risk maneuver. This would basically be done in conjunction with the new upcoming crew system where you need to keep people deployed to repell a boarding attempt. If someone manages to sneak a longboat up on a ship that has nobody ready to stop it the boarding crew might wreak a lot of havoc and capture the captain or something.

 

Sabotage

You row a longboat up to an enemy ship and inflict all kinds of damage to it. Throwing grenades through open gunports, taking axes to their rudder, dousing their hull in oil. There are all sorts of nasty things you can do if you manage to get that close. You just better be ready for a hail of musket fire when they notice.

 

Relief 

This basically works the same as boarding, but instead of initiating a fight on an enemy ship you row to a friendly ship and simply give them 20 of your crew. 2-3 more men then row the longboat back to you.

 

Kedging

The technique used to move ships around when using the wind was not an option. Basically you'd load a small anchor onto a longboat, take it as far out as it would go, drop it in the ocean, then haul it in to move your ship toward the anchor. Don't know how useful this would be in the game, but it is how ships were moved around when sailing or towing wasn't an option.

 

 

 

Combat wise a longboat wouldn't have a lot of health, and even small cannons could kill it pretty easily. Grapeshot would be devastatingly effective against longboats. The biggest threat to a longboat would be the musketfire coming from the decks when up close, but in an ongoing battle the large amount of floating debris, and powder could make it hard to spot a creeping longboat. Maybe longboats would be able to fire muskets themselves if small arms fire is ever implemented as a way to inflict crew damage at very short range.

[Wicked Mouse]

I was talking about this the other day when I was looking into the USS Constitution. I was wondering about the stern of that ship and bumped into some photos of an excellent Constitution model and that reminded me again of the use of longboats. I already noticed the tackle system on sterns of some ships and the mounting area on the Belle Poule and that made me wish to see them, even if it would be static.

[Falcon]

I like the kedging idea, especially once land is introduced in battle instances, as it will be a genuinely helpful means of pulling a larger ship off the shallows, or even the opposite, setting up a larger SOL as a battery, and preventing an either-side-of-the-line situation like Abukir Bay. 

 I also rather like the reinforce idea, especially to help ships close to the epicentre of an explosion, as that tends to devastate crews.

 

 However, while the main parts of the game are still being worked on, I'd personally prefer this to be a fairly low priority option, the animations are already a little off in battle, and I doubt an unanimated pixie-powered longboat toddling about would add much to current immersion. 

 

  One other thing to bear in mind in regards to seeing the longboats is that there is a considerably smaller amount of seaborne debris in game than in the real world; in PvE it wouldn't be too hard to implement, just give a low 'visibility' value for the AI to play with, but in PvP it would be a death sentence for the troops involved, especially as the low mass and armour of a longboat would make it a nice painless ramming target for careless players, and an easy kill for those more attentive.