Little things you'd like to see

[Johny Reb]

Add the need to (what was it called again) "throw the lead"  Basically, drop a line to check depth. Make that an active part of sailing the ship in shallow waters not just a statistic that is always available. I bet you would have more people running aground during fights that way. It would be great fun. It could also set a mechanic for a well placed anchor or one not so well placed.

 

I look forward to hearing the call, while sailing off miami beach one day, "2 fathoms, sand and broken glass"

[Baggywrinkle]

Haha! For it to be a useful feature then knowing where you are, and the dangers of not, must be very real and 'traditional navigation' as it is now stupidly known would really have to be modelled in full... Sounds good to me, but in this age of GPS, AIS, mobiles and internet at sea, I imagine it'd risk putting a few people off unless decent tutorials are made.....

Baggy

[Johny Reb]

I don't know if it would have to be to difficult. Your gonna probably see the shoal areas as you sail. Greener water or breakers. When you need to sail closer in to these shoals you drop sail, give the command for the lead, and pick your way through. Of course if you design this function you need to design a mechanic for running aground and getting yourself off. Probably throwing cannon overboard or stores. Anyway, it doesn't have to be a complicated affair if shallower areas are easily identified by sight.

[Ryan21]

I have a suggestion on a bit of ship customization.  Certain ships should be able to upgrade their topgallantmast sections.  Often in the winter lofty royal poles would be taken down and replaced with shorter "stump" topgallantmasts.  If you could alter the length of the topgallantmast, and say purchase a lofty topgallantmast with a long royal mast, and have the ability to set royals and perhaps skysail's as a deck set add on, your light weather speeds and handling could be much increased, but the point at which you damage the rig or say just blow out your royal or skysail, would be much lower.  Alternately if you equipped your ship with stump topgallant masts and only carried topgallants, your heavy weather keeping could be much better. 

 

If there was a way that the bottom corners of the sail graphic could simply detach from the yard below them and flap around simulating a blown out sail, that would be really excellent.  It would teach people to use caution in higher winds.

 

Also much more sail can be carried when running downwind in heavy weather than when close hauled.  Close hauled in a gale the sideways strain on your mast sections is enormous.  Ive read merchant shipping accounts of gales in the north atlantic where close hauled they were only able to show two close reefed topsails.  And then one night later in the journey, a gale rose from astern, and they had the fore topsail set with only a single reef, and reefed topmast studdingsails on either side of the topsail, they had the reefed fore course set as well, they tried a lower stunsl' and it carried away instantly.  The two men at the wheel could barely control her, but she was running something like 16 knots, this is an large 1830's hide trading vessel.  Eventually the topmast studdingsails carried away, but they held for some time and the mate was jumping for joy and acting crazed and euphoric hahaha, as would I be.

[Johny Reb]

I'd like to hear sea shantys being sung.(Sir Thorne actually turned me on to this idea. We were brainstorming together)

 

This is how they would work,

Like titles, levels, fish you've caught in potbs, emotes - there are sea shantys you can learn. If your crew is singing them and someone is within hailing distance or so they would hear your crew singing them as well. These shanties would be collectable items that you would find in hidden haunts around the maps. Maybe even something the devs could sell. Another way to learn them would be to hear them sung, say 3 times, by someone else's crew in its entirety. Your crew would then learn them and the shanty would be available to you.

[Ned Loe]

Watch this!!!!!!! I want such animations/physx in this game!! This is amazing!

 

 

[maturin]

Watch this!!!!!!! I want such animations in this game!! This is amazing!

 

 

You saw how it took 8 HOURS to render, right?

[Ned Loe]

You saw how it took 8 HOURS to render, right?

you can use simple ways to copy that similar effect...

[Mirones]

i would like to see if a sail in a bay with a large player controlled town/shipyard that the Ship that is being build shows up in some diffrent stages:

 

1 keel and Spars added basicly the framework gets laid down with some planks here and there

2 hull and decks are getting more planks

3 some more planks, because everyone loves planks! and some work on the masts

4 hull finished mast almost complet and some minor work on dekoration.

5 Fully finished ship standing ready to get launched. maybe we could at this point inclode a button where the shipbuilder can chose the time to launch it?

   so you can make a small event out of it with alot of players standing on the pier watching it slide in the water. mostly for the first 4th/3rd rate or other first build ships    of a soc that took some days to complet. that would be something that wasn´t seen befor in a game exept some cutscene.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Mirones

[admin]

you can use simple ways to copy that similar effect...

 

that effect could never happen on a sailship - this wake is for a battleship or cruiser going 30 knots at least

[maturin]

On the other hand, an impressive bow wave animation will be worth having for high speeds and heavy seas, especially when close-hauled.

[Marion van Ghent]

My laundry list of "little things," some of which are already mentioned:

 

• Customiseable flags and pennants that can be changed out on every masthead and flagstaff -- how the bulk of signalling was done until the late 18th century.
• Firing off salutes (a supplementary signalling method).
• Being able to select different sail configurations, namely: topsails only; topsails and higher; topsails plus foresail (perhaps THE most common configuration in the age of sail); full sails (what every game seems to do and which is rarely appropriate).
• Upper yards that rise and lower as appropriate to the sail a ship is carrying.
• Yards that brace appropriately when manoeuvering.
• Sails that back against lines and spars that get in their way.
• Period-appropriate music played on period-appropriate instruments.
• Wind shadows.
• Sea state affecting how well a ship handles.
• Spars and rigging that can go by the boards -- and potentially foul another ship.
• Manoeuvering being appropriately impacted by the loss of spars, masts, and rigging.
• Gunports that open and close.
• The occasional magazine explosion 

[Ryan21]

That is phenomenal.  Sailing ships can have very large bow waves.  Especially if they are being pushed hard and have a less than modern bow shape.  Here are a couple of going fast.  Niagara especially throws out quite a bow wave when shes flying, both the Swift and Niagara in this video are doing 9-10 knots.  In fact Niagara has a very sharp clipper bow, most of the warships from this era had a much more round bow and threw out more bow wave because of the blunt mass smashing through the sea at 10-14 knots.

 

The animation itself is good but the shape of the bow wave is a little off base for sailing ships, it sort of makes it look to much like a solid mass.

 

 

[maturin]

Ha, I like how someone has written 'foretopmast' in chalk.

[Ryan21]

Yes that was the first trip of the season.  Niagara gets meticulously down rigged every season down to lower mast sections, and every one of her mast sections, yards, boom, gaff, sails, comes down..  Everything is organized carefully in the erie maritime museum rigging shop, labeled, put on pallets, and the spars on racks, and tucked away to be ready for next season.  Some of the spars get worked on in the shop during the winter as well as various articles of rigging.  It is a very large undertaking and its completion in a timely manner each year is a feat of seamanship seldom seen in the modern world.

[admin]

hmmm 

some guy who worked on Age of sail and POTC was fighting with us with foam in his mouth that wake is only for motorboats. 

Are you sure big wake is possible? Because we can make it big))

[maturin]

I'm pretty sure Ryan21 was talking about the immediate bow wave.

 

As you can see in the video, that large V-shaped wake that trails out from the vessel is inappropriate. Something like that only appears when the ship shoulders through a swell.

[Ned Loe]

hmmm 

some guy who worked on Age of sail and POTC was fighting with us with foam in his mouth that wake is only for motorboats. 

Are you sure big wake is possible? Because we can make it big))

It all depends on how calm is the ocean.

 

 

[admin]

Well 

all those ships on videos have an engine. so we cant be sure.

[maturin]

Niagara and Lynx definitely weren't motoring in those videos, with winds like that.

 

But you can see that the very large V-shaped wake is only a momentary thing from when the bow blasts through each discrete swell.

 

What do wake and bow waves look like in the game at the moment?

 

And remember that 5 knots is the general 'no wake' speed in ports, meaning that much of the time nothing will be produced at all. And sailing vessels are rather long for their beam, compared to the tugs and modern workboats that are so stubby and create the big waves.

[Ryan21]

Of course I am sure, this is what I did for over a year!!!  None of these vessels had their engine on in these videos!!  Seriously...  Why would I even post them..  We sail the hell out of these ships.

 

I would never take a video up aloft to watch us MOTOR

 

There is a wake, but it doesnt really create large waves like the animation, its just a long smooth patch behind the ship with foam on the edges.

 

Read some more about these ships in heavy weather and you will find descriptions from Captains talking about the ship throwing up a frothing 10-15 foot bow wave and sending foam flying back aft as far as the quarterdeck.

 

Sailing these vessels is a matter of pride for us, we do not try to fake sailing, all of the vessels I have shown are capable at travelling at higher speeds under sail in the right conditions than under motor.  Lady Washington will only motor about 7 knots in a flat calm, but she has been sailed well over 11 in a gale, Niagara Regularily cruises under sail averaging 6-10 knots, and has a hull speed of 14-15 knots. 

 

I aplogize in advance for being so prickly about this but we get people coming on tours of the ship all the time that say things like "you dont actually sail this thing right"  or "you always have the engine on right" or my personal favourite..  " you guys dont actually take that thing out on the ocean do you?  I thought it was just a tourist attraction for people at the dock"

 

I'm going to let you in on something.  In the modern world, the most magical part of sailing a tallship is when you get sail set and the captain turns the motor off, all the noise stops at once, and its just the sea, just the wind, just that hissing of water down the side.  200 tons of wood being propelled by nothing but the wind!  Heaven for me!

[Ryan21]

This is what a sailing ship wake looks like.  If you really don't believe me I have no reason to be on this forum.  You can see a little bit of a trail in the middle, this is from the non moving propeller creating drag through the water, engines off.  Doing 10+ knots, there is wake, and there is usually major bow wave.

 

Lynx, Niagara, and the Swift are fast as all hell.

 

[Ryan21]

Still dont believe me?

 

Heres a cargo running Brigantine called Tres Hombres that has absolutely NO Engine and is doing about 10 knots

 

[Ryan21]

Your guy who was "foaming at the mouth" arguing that sailing ships don't make any wake, has no idea what he's talking about and has clearly never sailed on one, Big ship charging through the water at 10 knots creates a lot of turbulence around it, simple as that, doesn't matter whats pushing it.  That's whats so funny about the internet.  People will argue you to the death on a topic that they have no idea about, never experienced, and never actually studied.  This is probably one of the main reasons alot of the age of sail games are such utter failures.  Being at sea without the internet is such a relief sometimes..

 

I will say that the animated bow wave on the ship on the previous page is the wrong shape, to me it looks like a tug boat bow wave.

[Brigand]

I love this argument for the sake of Ryan presenting us all those nice little video clips .

 

On a more serious note, I can't imagine why a ship under sail would not create a bow wave and leave a wake. A point that is also (in my mind) clearly shown by the videos.

 

~Brigand