Give Ships Melee Values

[Fluffy Fishy]

Something I would quite like to see put into the game is a clear indication of a ships combative ability in a melee. It would be nice to see different ships gain a more of a visual number, with some being given higher values than others with potentially including an offensive or defensive value based on various points. This may even add some interesting new tactical thoughts into the faster ship, usually one being built lower and longer having a poorer ability to board a slower higher sided ship.

The values I see as being important are:

• Height - The advantage of height in combat is quite a substantial one, being able to send musket volleys and grenades down from above gives you a huge difference in combat effectiveness
• Prominence of Fore/Aft Deck - Similarly to height, a strong fore or aft castle/deck is a very difficult place to attack, although not so prominent in this period as only a couple of ships feature these to much degree.
• Number of Cannon Ports - Attacking a ship with lots of holes in it leaves for easy pickings compared to one with a solid hull
• Angle of Hull - Climbing a vertical hull is a lot more taxing and difficult than one with a shallower angle to it.
• Covered/Uncovered Quarterdeck - Covering a quarterdeck comes somewhat under the fore/aft decks but again having a more structured and covered deck leaves much greater defensive values
• How open the weather deck is as a whole - This includes how filled in the waist is, a single sparred deck without a waist will suffer in hand to hand combat when compared to a deck composed of many different levels.

Less important might factors include:

• Length - The length of a ship is somewhat important, as it means there is generally more chance for a counter attack to be mustered. It can also mean that forces are more spread out
• Larger Masts - Larger masts and arms will mean more opportunity for ropes to be used to swing men over, it also means there are better positions for snipers to hide.
• How open the gun decks are - While not quite as important as the weather deck, the designs of the gun decks and how difficult it might be to manoeuvre around them, a more open deck is also more easily traversed and attacked by an unfamiliar aggressive crew.

These values should also interact and affect the importance of each other, where for example the height of the ship will be somewhat negated by having a large number of gun ports, for example the Santissima is a very high ship but its massive amount of gun ports leave it vulnerable to attacks from better equipped and drilled marines attacking the exposed gun crews. Taking another ship as an example, the USS Constitution, would be an interesting case as she is relatively exposed with a long almost continuous weatherdeck, however she again is very high, almost as much as her contemporary 64s and not far off the 74s, meaning she would really struggle in an engagement with ships taller than her but be really quite effective against those who have a shorter profile.

Ideally I'd like to see a fluid system where each of these and possibly more can interact to make a more natural combat system, where ships have strengths and weaknesses in combat that are properly represented as is now, where it makes a lot more sense to use various actions over others and try to force play to the best of your ship, hopefully as part of a system that breaks away from the rock paper scissors of today.

If anyone has any extra ideas for this kind of thing I would love to hear them, as ever thank you for reading

Edited July 14, 2017 by Fluffy Fishy

[Aussie Pastor]

Plus my big issue is the Old Stren Raking.

It should only take out number of Crew to the same percentage of the stern hull HP.

WHY?

You really think that a Ship Captain will have ALL his crew at the stern to be graped shot?

The Game tries to be close as it can to be realistic.

This would be a great improvement, to be added to the information you added above.

[CaptVonGunn]

6 hours ago, Aussie Pastor said:

Plus my big issue is the Old Stren Raking.

It should only take out number of Crew to the same percentage of the stern hull HP.

WHY?

You really think that a Ship Captain will have ALL his crew at the stern to be graped shot?

The Game tries to be close as it can to be realistic.

This would be a great improvement, to be added to the information you added above.

Huh?  You know how Raking from the stern worked right?  a War ship is basically a Long wooden hallway with gun ports in it after it clears for action. the Ball and grape travel the length of the ship That is why on a perfect Rake you can kill Hundreds on a SOL...

[Aussie Pastor]

13 hours ago, CaptVonGunn said:

Huh?  You know how Raking from the stern worked right?  a War ship is basically a Long wooden hallway with gun ports in it after it clears for action. the Ball and grape travel the length of the ship That is why on a perfect Rake you can kill Hundreds on a SOL...

Ball; Yes!

Grape; No!

There was many ways to protect the crew from constant bombardment.

That is why a ship was either smashed up so badly it wasn't saving from actual Ball shot and fire.

Or it needed to be swamped by the hordes to capture it.

 

The act of just smashing up the rear end to then expose the crew is a fairy tale.

 

Like the original poster stated many factor needed to take place to win in a boarding Combat.

But are you seriously going to try to tell me a little lynx can stern rake the USS Constitution or even the famous Surprise?

if you do,lease give me your number I got a bridge to sell you here in Australia.  ?

[Hodo]

All of this information except the mast height thing is taken into account in boarding currently.  

No one actually Errol Flynned over from one ship to another.  

But the deck height is taken into account on these actions.

-Grenades

-Deck Guns

-Attack/Counter Attack

 

Some ships have additional modifiers for morale and attack/counter attack bonuses.  Like the Privateer, Lynx and I believe the Rattlesnake have a bonus to the morale of the ship and gain some bonuses to melee.  

Your number of guns on the weather deck effect your deck guns attack in boarding.  A Snow, is worse than a Brig because the Brig has 8 guns on the weather deck vs the Snow's 3.   

Lastly if there is a more than 2 deck difference in height the ship there is penalties applied to the lower ship.   This is where ladders come into play.  

 

There is a lot of detail in the current boarding mini-game but it isnt presented well.   

 

[Hodo]

58 minutes ago, Aussie Pastor said:

Ball; Yes!

Grape; No!

There was many ways to protect the crew from constant bombardment.

That is why a ship was either smashed up so badly it wasn't saving from actual Ball shot and fire.

Or it needed to be swamped by the hordes to capture it.

 

The act of just smashing up the rear end to then expose the crew is a fairy tale.

 

Like the original poster stated many factor needed to take place to win in a boarding Combat.

But are you seriously going to try to tell me a little lynx can stern rake the USS Constitution or even the famous Surprise?

if you do,lease give me your number I got a bridge to sell you here in Australia.  ?

Some of the things have been nerfed in favor of the game play aspect.  BUT in real life a stern rake on the Surprise would have been devastating.   The crew on the HMS Surprise gun deck was pretty exposed from stern rakes.  There are NO walls aside from the cabin wall, which was pretty thin and wouldnt stop grape shot, which was the size of a pool/billiards ball.   You have to do some imagining and use some common sense.  

The  gun deck of the Surprise would have around 120men on it, crammed in an area not much bigger than the space of 4 city buses parked 2x2.  

 

[CaptVonGunn]

1 hour ago, Aussie Pastor said:

Ball; Yes!

Grape; No!

There was many ways to protect the crew from constant bombardment.

That is why a ship was either smashed up so badly it wasn't saving from actual Ball shot and fire.

Or it needed to be swamped by the hordes to capture it.

 

The act of just smashing up the rear end to then expose the crew is a fairy tale.

 

Like the original poster stated many factor needed to take place to win in a boarding Combat.

But are you seriously going to try to tell me a little lynx can stern rake the USS Constitution or even the famous Surprise?

if you do,lease give me your number I got a bridge to sell you here in Australia.  ?

Once the area around the Captains cabin has atken a good pounding there is NOTHING to block grape on that deck.. If the Crew and captain were so bad they let a Lynx sit back there then yes it could in theory.. Problem is angles which this game does not really deal with well.. To get a shot down that sweet spot the lynx would need to be a long way out . since the shot goes in a straight line for a bit... and once it is out that far it is going to get Creamed by the Chasers before it can do any serious damage.... That is completely separate from the concept of those ships ever actually fighting each other..  In a real world no Captain or crew would take on those odds because it is a 1% chance of Maybe losing their ships.. they would run

[Prater]

On 7/14/2017 at 2:33 PM, Aussie Pastor said:

Ball; Yes!

Grape; No!

There was many ways to protect the crew from constant bombardment.

That is why a ship was either smashed up so badly it wasn't saving from actual Ball shot and fire.

Or it needed to be swamped by the hordes to capture it.

 

The act of just smashing up the rear end to then expose the crew is a fairy tale.

 

Like the original poster stated many factor needed to take place to win in a boarding Combat.

But are you seriously going to try to tell me a little lynx can stern rake the USS Constitution or even the famous Surprise?

if you do,lease give me your number I got a bridge to sell you here in Australia.  ?

Grape was rarely fired on its own.  Usually it was a double shot of grape + ball.

[theprof739]

On 7/14/2017 at 3:33 PM, Aussie Pastor said:

You really think that a Ship Captain will have ALL his crew at the stern to be graped shot?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ball; Yes!

Grape; No!

There was many ways to protect the crew from constant bombardment.

As prater said above usually grape was never used alone but in conjunction with Ball, usually double or even treble shot. but as a little counter point when HMS Victory raked Bucentaure at Trafalgar, nearly 200 were killed and another 85 wounded. And its not like anyone had "dropped" Bucentaure's Stern armor either, Victory was first to cut the French line. Now I honestly don't know what Victory had loaded in her guns when she raked Bucentaure, perhaps one of our Naval historians can enlighten us, but as for was the protect the crew, Bucentaure couldn't do a darn thing about it. Villeneuve and the rest of the ship watch Victory coming at them for over 40 minutes when Victory cut the line. That's plenty of time to break from the line of battle or get the crew out of the gun decks, which probably would have been the only way to "save" them. Either of those actions would have been foolish in a battle and thus Bucentaure did what was the most sensible as they watched Victory approach, kept the crew at the guns trying to blow her out of the water. 

I agree that a lynx vs the larger 5th rates and above is absurd, and maybe in the future that might be adjusted in some way, but Raking was a devastatingly effective tactic at the time.

[Fluffy Fishy]

5 hours ago, theprof739 said:

As prater said above usually grape was never used alone but in conjunction with Ball, usually double or even treble shot. but as a little counter point when HMS Victory raked Bucentaure at Trafalgar, nearly 200 were killed and another 85 wounded. And its not like anyone had "dropped" Bucentaure's Stern armor either, Victory was first to cut the French line. Now I honestly don't know what Victory had loaded in her guns when she raked Bucentaure, perhaps one of our Naval historians can enlighten us, but as for was the protect the crew, Bucentaure couldn't do a darn thing about it. Villeneuve and the rest of the ship watch Victory coming at them for over 40 minutes when Victory cut the line. That's plenty of time to break from the line of battle or get the crew out of the gun decks, which probably would have been the only way to "save" them. Either of those actions would have been foolish in a battle and thus Bucentaure did what was the most sensible as they watched Victory approach, kept the crew at the guns trying to blow her out of the water.

The opening broadside to Bucentaure was loaded with a treble shot of round, and that the full broadside fired weighed 3444lb (1566kg/1.9 Imperial tons). The record doesn't state any grape/cannister being involved.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Fluffy Fishy