Idea to make 'Stiffness' desirable again.

[Cragger]

Stiffness mod on a ship now days is pretty much a junk stat. While it does have value in reducing a ships heel speed is always preferred even on ships that heel badly. This can be seen just by looking at the ships for sale at the active ports and it's all stiffness ones counting down due to the lack of desire. Long ago wave action use to influence the vertical dispersion of the guns as they fired but it was removed to make long range shooting easier.

 

Now I doubt wave action on cannons as they fire will be brought back but I was thinking that if you made stiffness also give a bonus to reduction in dispersion much like pellow's sights that it would make stiffness more desirable and be realistic in an arbitrary way.

[312_JS]

Heel is a very important aspect of ships performance in battle.

It's certainly lovely to be 0.5 knots faster than a ship with the stiffness trait. But remember that every time you have to de-power your sails to be able to:

a - Lower the cannons for a close range broadside

b - Deny your adversary the pleasure of shooting into your belly

Edited April 22, 2016 by 312_Jura

[scubasteve04]

I wish they would just make speed and stiffness as selectable options not random. Its annoying trying to try a fast 5th rate and get stiffness, essentially giving you a garbage ship that you have to do-over.

[BungeeLemming]

lesser heel also means lesser exposure of your waterline which means lesser leaks in your weakspots

[Cragger]

lesser heel also means lesser exposure of your waterline which means lesser leaks in your weakspots

It's not enough to make it more desirable then speed atm however, that's the point.

Heel is a very important aspect of ships performance in battle.

It's certainly lovely to be 0.5 knots faster than a ship with the stiffness trait. But remember that every time you have to de-power your sails to be able to:

a - Lower the cannons for a close range broadside

b - Deny your adversary the pleasure of shooting into your belly

 

 

Heeled away the leaks won't leak and to lower your guns you only need to drop your stay sails for a second.

[Slamz]

I actually think this should be a selectable stat, not a "random" stat.

 

"Random" = "pay for the same ship repeatedly until you get what you actually wanted and then sell the others".

 

 

Not real sure what the point is. On the expensive ships I guess you'd have to live with it but then, I don't know that it really matters if you get Speed or Stiffness on a 1st rate. They are slow anyway and don't heel that much so it doesn't matter. Where it does matter, it's not hard to just afford another one until you get what you wanted to begin with.

[akd]

1. You can put an immortal mod on your ship that reduces heel. You cannot do that with speed.

2. You can put 3 mods on your ship and max speed into a characteristic that gives absolute dominance (or guaranteed escape) in many circumstances. You can only have two mods total for heel, and maxing out heel does not provide dominance in any circumstance.

3. "Depower" with "T" is overdone (you can instantly check your heel even with 0 men in sailing focus).

[Prater]

You shouldn't be able to specify you want speed.  Keep it a random secondary bonus.

[Inigo Balboa aka Ronda]

lesser heel also means lesser exposure of your waterline which means lesser leaks in your weakspots

 

the only ship actually having heel issue is Trinco.  But for many players it's an advantage, not a problem  And it makes stiffness even more useless and annoying for crafters.

 

PS: Wish it would be random between build strength and speed if no option to choose.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Inigo Balboa aka Ronda

[jodgi]

You shouldn't be able to specify you want speed. Keep it a random secondary bonus.

Why?

[maturin]

The original idea was to hide the mods entirely and let people discover what their ships were good at.

[jodgi]

I've said it before: I'm no fan of mystery or RNG.

[maturin]

Yeah, people would have to spend time playing instead of hunting the meta.

[NorthernWolves]

In reality the way the Trincomalee heels at full sail on the beam reach should be the default heel for all ships, the game is extremely forgiving in that respect. If this were done we would see people using battle sails often and for the duration of a close fight, as was historically done. Ships did not zip around fighting each other in circles at full sail.

 

Stiffness should affect the rate of roll and the rapidity of return to an upright position. So ships without stiffness will not necessarily heel a lot further, but they will be slower to recover once heeled.

 

This is my first post in over 6 months. Hi Maturin. 

[maturin]

Hi yourself.

 

I've heard Admin muse about increasing heel in the past. Although realistically speaking, most ships would be very stiff, except in high winds. SoLs were supposed to heel only a very few degrees even when close-hauled in a topgallant breeze.

 

Boudriot specifies 6-7 inches of heel as ideal in this case. That's under 2 degrees! Although admittedly I suck at math,

 

 

Stiffness should affect the rate of roll and the rapidity of return to an upright position. So ships without stiffness will not necessarily heel a lot further, but they will be slower to recover once heeled.

I'm pretty sure in-game stiffness does apply to heel as it should. Not sure whether optimized ballast affects heel or roll, or whether the game distinguishes at all.

[Blackjack Morgan]

Speed is going to become even more important for a lot of people who venture out into enemy waters alone or a small group. It already was important but the changes to the 1.5 BR reinforcement mechanic combined with reinforcements being able to spawn in front of a pursued target and it becomes virtually mandatory. Frankly, at this point with these two changes I could care almost zero about any other stat on a ship besides speed. Should stiffness be reworked? I personally wouldn't mind if they did change it to perhaps a better turn rate....I'd find that more useful hands down. However, until they rework the BR mechanic or the reinforcement spawn I still wouldn't want it on my ship.

[jw62]

OK, as a purely technical real world note, a stiff boat is usually a faster boat. When a sailboat heels over, she spills the wind over the top of the sails. Or mathematically, you are decreasing the aspect area which the wind is pushing on.

True, a super stiff boat can have them chucking over the rails worse than a boat heeling over like a sailor on liberty after a four week cruise.

When a boat over heels the rudder loses "bite", think about it, the boat is heeled over 20deg - now when you turn the rudder to go downwind you are doing a couple of things, you are using part of the force to push the bow underwater, and same as the sail, you are reducing the apparent area (which apparently does matter).