"Fire as she bears", or firing in succession

[akd]

Well, they could transfer aiming and timing to crew, make it realistic so that they usually miss unless laying broadside to broadside, then add a bunch of perks and mods to increase crew aiming skill. That way combat will truly be determined by equipment and we can do away with this player skill nonsense once and for all.

[Hethwill]

So the firing as she bears would translate into simply giving the order and then observe the AI gun crew to fire automatically ( auto lock of sorts ) as she would pass the enemy ship quarter side or stern, etc, is this correct ? I am trying to understand exactly what is proposed.

[jodgi]

That way combat will truly be determined by equipment and we can do away with this player skill nonsense once and for all.

I chuckled.

[Bulwyf]

Auto fire option is bad.

 

If you cant rake and hit 70-80% of your shots that is your fault.   I am sorry but if you time your shooting pattern with the speed of your ship vs the angle of attack, you should spend more time at the range (shooting NPC ships).  

 

I honestly don't think some of you practice on anything just mash buttons and hope for the best.

 

This is just rubbish, Captains didn't aim or give the command to fire to individual guns. Each gun captain fired individually unless a full broadside was called for, usually after the initial broadside the guns fired independently anyway with the captain positioning the ship. Rakes were very often done at point blank range and while a rake can be done at range using convergence in game, that is pretty ahistoric and I have never seen anyone in game duplicate the types of rakes delivered in real life even when they could get all the balls to hit. Take into account lag, convergence etc and it is very difficult to get the straight down the decks shots that happened.

[Hethwill]

So the firing as she bears would translate into simply giving the order and then observe the AI gun crew to fire automatically ( auto lock of sorts ) as she would pass the enemy ship quarter side or stern, etc, is this correct ? I am trying to understand exactly what is proposed.

 

Can someone answer please ? I still don't get what the suggestion is about and if my interpretation is correct.

 

What could de done is the SPACE option to stagger fire, keeping pressed the rolling fire initiates and goes on until unpressed. Normal tap would discharge gun by gun as we have it of course.

 

Would give a half way between battery fire and the full rolling.

[Vernon Merrill]

This is just rubbish, Captains didn't aim or give the command to fire to individual guns. Each gun captain fired individually unless a full broadside was called for, usually after the initial broadside the guns fired independently anyway with the captain positioning the ship. Rakes were very often done at point blank range and while a rake can be done at range using convergence in game, that is pretty ahistoric and I have never seen anyone in game duplicate the types of rakes delivered in real life even when they could get all the balls to hit. Take into account lag, convergence etc and it is very difficult to get the straight down the decks shots that happened.

True. And Captains typically didn't make mundane sailing decisions on anything above a brig. Sailing Masters did. Should we just plot a course on the map and have it auto-sail too?

I understand your original point I just respectfully disagree.

[Cecil Selous]

And that is what you do when you left click, order a full broadside.

 

You can fire individual guns like a gun captain would by using the space bar.  I do this pretty often, fire by gun, when I am sailing close hauled towards the wind and going to slow to perform an accurate rolling fire.  Or to far away to hit with the shots accurately I will fire one gun at a time, and still hit with over 80% of my shots.

 

 

So I find your argument invalid, when the mechanics for this is already in game.

 

Not really a good comparison. You can't chose the cannon you want to shoot individually and very often you wait for a good moment to fire just to see a new cannon reloaded and screwing your whole aiming in the process.

 

And with space you fire just deck by deck, so first you have to fire all your weatherdeck cannons and after that the gundeck. Additionally shooting with space is very slow. 

Sure, you can F1, F2, etc like crazy but that's just awful. 

Holding space like Hethwill suggested to fire until you release the key sounds interesting.

[IndianaGeoff]

Make fire as you bear a very expensive perk.  You can have it but it will remove other useful options.  Skilled captains will not take it, those needing some help will take it for sure.

[Lurken]

It would make raking very easy, and because of that, you wont need skill to do a good one.

sounds supergood, now the game whould require no skills at all. Perfect how could they not have thought of that.

 

add a "shoot rudder" and "shoot masts" firemode aswell, where your entire broadside hits the masts 100%

[Fargo]

Odd that I then have been possible to do that and still does, both by snugging the enemy ship so you wouldnt fit a human being standing straight up between the ships and from further away.

 

You dont get my point. Lets assume you are able to land all shots that close on full speed, try it with battle sails then, going upwind, or when the enemy stern is turning with your ship... close raking is not an option.

[maturin]

You dont get my point. Lets assume you are able to land all shots that close on full speed, try it with battle sails then, going upwind, or when the enemy stern is turning with your ship... close raking is not an option.

Well then you have not maneuvered for sufficient advantage, and don't deserve to land every shot.

 

IRL raking fire from a distance was not effective.

[Kiithnaras]

...when the [new] command is selected it will section off the cannons in a 2 wide x number of decks formation and they will all fire at once. Then it will proceed back [or front] along the ship with the captain manually firing as they line up with the enemy ship. This will also require at least a bit more skill and focus rather than just being a fire and forget system...

Really like this as an alternative to the current options between single-shot ranging fire and full broadsides. I'd be comfortable keeping the ranging fire delay if this proposed method of operation would not have any cooldown (the next zone would start firing as soon as the player clicks). Maybe call this mode Sectional Broadside or something

 

To really be effective, each ship would need to have their fire zones mapped, though, and it would need a little more work on the dev end of things, especially with heavily-armed ships like the Vic and Santi. The main reason for this is ships like the Surprise and Trinc whose weather decks are not continuous, but separated into fore and aft sections. Middle section gun decks would not have weather deck guns associated, so it wouldn't be as simple as just pairing from front to back on all decks. Ships like the Renommee would even start its sectional broadside with only gundecks, ending with its two weather deck guns with the last section.