Paint-Schemes Customizable Feature for Ships

[admin]

Besides the initial painting, are there any plans for maintenance costs for the boat (beyond battle or storm damage)?  I could see paint weathering/wearing out eventually if not reapplied, or speed decreasing if you don't pay to careen once in a while due to hull growth.  

 

the game should always be there once you decide to come back.. if any - maintenance cost will only be applied when you are at sea or at combat..

if you ship is safe in port.. there is no reason to punish a player if he does not log in.

[AKPyrate]

Sorry I didn't specify there, I did mean in game time as the basis for maintenance costs.  I completely agree with not punishing a player if he's gone for a while.  Thanks for the reply, admin.

[Baggywrinkle]

Hull paint: some level of customisation good. Allowing a choice of pre-defined paintschemes with 'only' historical colours (that's still an awful lot of choice) should allow for nice variety whilst maintaining some sort of cohesion. It would also allow for those lovely Cochranesque attempts at disguise and deception, which would be very very cool. I also like the mentioned idea of paintworks being part of the economy. Maintenance is cool in my book - it's a very real consideration IRL.

 

Sail paint/dyes: historical customisation good. No massive symbols, no mental colours. Natural canvases vary in colour a lot from the bleached white through various flaxes and linnens in myriad off-whites :

 

 

 

 

They get dirty from the tar and tallow on the rig:

 

And tanned canvas (listed in fishing equipment inventories from 1677, patents records for various mixtures from 1768) can leave a sail anything from bright red to deep brown. Not a thing that I've ever come across for naval vessels, or square-riggers in general, but definitely big with European working boats of all kinds:

 

 

 

 

Which should be enough to keep a bit of variety and individuality without going mental with colours.

 

Baggy

 

ps. Nobody mention Alexander von Humbolt...

 

 

 

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Is dying the sails to that degree a modern invention though?

[AKPyrate]

The Alexander Von Humbolt's sails are anything but traditional.  Additionally, some square riggers did use the tan bark treatment on their sails, though I do agree that they were much more common on smaller, fore-and-aft rigged boats.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

Is dying the sails to that degree a modern invention though?

 

For sure, most red sails you see out and about now are dyed synthentic canvas, rather than barked natural stuff...but checking back through paintings to black and white photographs to colour prints it seems that a) there was huge variety in shade and some were very dark, and some very bright. 

 

Nice pics AKP Have you come across any from back in the day?

 

Baggy

[AKPyrate]

I haven't come across any paintings of them back in the day, but the following is a 1750's era description (second hand, so I'd have to search for the source-but it came from a trusted historian).

 

"The sails of fishing-vessels are generally tanned: lightermen, &c. use the following composition to colour and preserve their sails, viz. horse grease and tar, mixed to a proper consistance, and coloured with red or yellow ochre, with which, when heated, the sails are payed over. 

The following method is also much approved, viz. the sail, being spread on the grass, is made thoroughly wet with sea-water, and then payed over, on both sides, with brown or red ochre mixed with sea-water to the consistence of cream, it is then well rubbed over, on both sides, with linseed oil. The sail may be used within 24 hours after being oiled. 

The tanning of sails in the royal navy has been tried, but is not approved of."

 

My interpretation is that tan bark sails were expensive, but effective in prolonging the life of the smaller sails.  However, larger sails probably wore out much faster from the stresses than from natural degradation.  For those larger sails, the labor and material intensive process of tanning them (all of them!) would just cost too much, but for the smaller coastal craft, Thames barges, and fishing boats, that investment on their smaller, small number of sails would pay off in the end.  I have also run across sources that mention tan bark sails wearing out faster in warmer climates, and possibly even decreasing the life of the sails (or at least not having as notable effect due to the ability to dry the sails more often).

 

Lastly, I've heard that coastal craft liked them more than offshore craft because they were less conspicuous.  Essentially, they provided some camouflage against the land and just didn't stick out as much as white sails (especially on a brighter moonlit night).  However, on the high seas, this wouldn't have the same effect.

 

So, since most of the square rigged boats were designed for ocean trade, not inshore trade (and generally fore-and-aft boats are better inshore anyway), they would not bother with the expense of tanning their sails, or at least it would not be as common.

[Zakota]

Thank you all for your expeditious and informative replies earlier

 

I've recently been doing some research into French paint-schemes and I thought I'd share my results here With a mind to help aid the Devs' clarity.

It seems that the national paint-scheme (if we could call it that) favoured by French vessels for at least the first part of the 18th century was brighted sides (i.e. plain wood, varnished), with smalt blue upper-works (everything above her gunwale or sheer rails), with gilded carved-works (on stern and figurehead) and occasionally blacked lower wail and white undersides (before coppering became the norm).

All of this is deduced from its widespread use in the numerous and glorious paintings of French marine painter extraordinaire Claude Joseph Vernet, as well as numerous period descriptions and models.

As examples, several of Vernet's paintings: 

 

http://www.insecula.com/PhotosNew/00/00/02/91/ME0000029163_3.JPG

 

http://www.allpaintings.org/d/106799-1/Claude-Joseph+Vernet+-+View+of+the+Gulf+of+Bandol_+tuna.jpg

 

http://artandseek.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Vernet_A-Grand-View-of-the-Sea-Shore-Enriched-with-Buildings-Shipping-and-Figures.jpg

 

This seems to have remained popular well into the 1770's, by which time the stately and simplified elegant paintwork of brighted or yellowed topsides with black lower-wales and gundecks that we associate with pre-Napoleonic French naval vessels came into vogue.

Examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saint_Kitts#/media/File:Battle_of_Frigate_Bay.jpg

https://troisponts.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/commerce-de-marseille-2.jpg

 

After the Revolution, from what I gather, the common paint-scheme we associate with Napoleonic warships comes into vogue: red sides with punctuations of black – albeit there was variation, and it could be large, as exemplified by the description of vessels present at the Battle of the Nile, which has already been posted in this thread.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Zakota

[Ned Loe]

Take a look at this:

 

http://www.todoababor.es/vida_barcos/nav.htm

[Sir Cloudsley-Shovell]

As long as we dont end up with Pink or flourescent green ships i think this is a great idea.Ships from time to time did change their Paint schemes especially if they wanted to look like an enemy Vessel.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Sir Cloudsley-Shovell

[DeRuyter]

Take a look at this:

 

http://www.todoababor.es/vida_barcos/nav.htm

Excellent site - Thanks Wind! 

[Sir Darric Vandhelm]

I agree with the comments above, painting the ship is essential but it needs to be tasteful. Ideally break the ship into lots of areas to paint so you could make various schemes as per the pics by Mirones and RAE_Cmdt.Cavero.

I dont like the idea of looting paint and feel it should be bought, either from npcs or a player trader. I just can't reconcile not being able to buy paint, but it's looted from other ships.

[Bart Smith]

Few approved paint schemes should work fine i guess...

[BungeeLemming]

some ship customization is already prototyped (only colors for some elements)

but it will be tested after sea trials 2 or maybe even 3. 

.. here you go. Nothing for the near future. But something we can look forward to someday

[Henrik]

It would be great to actually see ships belonging to a nation have the correct paint schemes. Will this be implemented in the game at some point?

[Arnaud Arpes]

I was thinking of this just the other day. Something like:

[Macjimm]

Would like to an answer to this question and as the paint applies to OW.  Would be ecstatic if the answer is YES!

 

National paint schemes and spyglasses in OW would result in improved awareness.

[Malachi]

As long as I get a pink Victory, I´m a happy bunny.

[Arnaud Arpes]

Would like to an answer to this question and as the paint applies to OW.  Would be ecstatic if the answer is YES!

 

National paint schemes and spyglasses in OW would result in improved awareness.

I wonder, would captured ships have their paint schemes altered once in the hands of a captain from a new nation?

[Henrik]

I wonder, would captured ships have their paint schemes altered once in the hands of a captain from a new nation?

Hope not for that adds to the feel of sailing a captured prize, eventhough i do believe that it was the way to do it back in the days, re-paint a captured ship!

[D. Federico de Gravina y N]

I was thinking of this just the other day. Something like:

For Spain, real paint schemes:

 

» Different types of design paintings of Spanish ships .

 

 

the type of pattern to paint the ships was already regulated in the Royal Navy since 1776 and in subsequent ordinances that left to the discretion of each commander or engineer stockpile paint a ship outside the established norms. But these rules were not always met and often painted ships was quite different to what should be a desired uniformity , in many cases following the prevailing fashion in the navies of other countries. It is also true that these cases had occurred more often before the official or in the early stages of the same regulations .

Thus we have the picture ( F) of a ship of the line of the early eighteenth century. Batteries are not highlighted with any background color and the black paint is limited to a thick black stripe on the waterline . At that time is not yet forraba copper the hull , which is painted, usually white , the same .

Illustrations ( C , D and E) represent different paint patterns , adopting the black helmet on all of them and only changing the design of the yellow line of the batteries, which could range from a fine line between the bridges , only one battery or both totally apart.