Ideas for new gunnery mechanics and also swivels baby!

[Percival Merewether]

6 minutes ago, BPHick said:

What about a hybrid, gunners start off dumb but get smarter with each knowledge slot you unlock.

I’d prefer to encourage skill.

The more he plays the better he gets = skill unlocked without the need for knowledge slots.

If you make something in-game hard enough for the player to learn, then there’s no need for artificial skill-trees exp-points and knowledge slots.

[SKurj]

I think for it to be 'skill based' it should not be buffable or modifiable at all by any upgrades.  Its one of only 2 things in game that come down to skill, positioning/sailing and aim  (perhaps thats overly simplified)

I don't think a  new player should suffer from higher dispersion just for being new....  

[GrubbyZebra]

1 minute ago, SKurj said:

I think for it to be 'skill based' it should not be buffable or modifiable at all by any upgrades.  Its one of only 2 things in game that come down to skill, positioning/sailing and aim  (perhaps thats overly simplified)

I don't think a  new player should suffer from higher dispersion just for being new....  

well, with the exception of adding a sighting mechanism as an upgrade or perk, I think that reload and accuracy should be gained automatically through ship XP and not be a buffable item at all....Same with ship trim and repair effectiveness. But then we are getting back to the Officer idea replacing knowledge books.

[maturin]

7 hours ago, admin said:

Great ideas in this topic - for some reason missed it

Interesting question to discuss here is should we remove the smart gunners from guns or not.

Smart gunners
Gunners adjust aim for coming wave automatically (smart gunners) when firing a broadside
As a result coming waive raises your ship but smart gunners are lowering guns in advance to counter it
=
Predictable aiming no feeling of randomness

Dumb gunners
Gunners do not adjust aim for coming wave and expect you to do so.
As a result any minor coming wave will make you guns spray and prey. 
=

Unpredictable shooting, you can plan ahead but usually you will miss half or more of your broadside.
 

Smart gunners are in game since original sea trials, we tried to test internally once without the smart gunners and its basically impossible to hit anything further than 100m unless its a first rate.

What if we had a patch where we turned off the 'smart gunners' for Rolling broadsides. Smart gunners on Random Fire only. (Because if you can't choose the best moment to fire if you need to rigidly follow the other crews.)

I think we would see far fewer masts come down.

 

I also don't know whether you've read my ideas for higher horizontal dispersion when you aim high into the air. It will prevent laser-accuracy dismasting, but not affect hull shooting.

Edited February 19, 2018 by maturin

[Slim McSauce]

2 hours ago, maturin said:

What if we had a patch where we turned off the 'smart gunners' for Rolling broadsides. Smart gunners on Random Fire only. (Because if you can't choose the best moment to fire if you need to rigidly follow the other crews.)

I think we would see far fewer masts come down.

 

I also don't know whether you've read my ideas for higher horizontal dispersion when you aim high into the air. It will prevent laser-accuracy dismasting, but not affect hull shooting.

Even though I like this idea I think there's too much difference between non-gryo stabilizated gunnery and gryo assisted to only have it one one firemode. But I like the idea of random fire getting some use to it. Maybe faster reload since you 're not bound by the the slowest gun crew.

 

[maturin]

1 hour ago, Slim Jimmerson said:

Even though I like this idea I think there's too much difference between non-gryo stabilizated gunnery and gryo assisted to only have it one one firemode. But I like the idea of random fire getting some use to it. Maybe faster reload since you 're not bound by the the slowest gun crew.

 

Well I really meant as a 3-day test.

But experimenting with inaccuracy for rolling fire is worthwhile. Good fix for dismasting.

[Slim McSauce]

cannons are too accurate, that's for sure.

[Norfolk nChance]

@Cecil Selous

 

Great Idea and love the photoshop work. The 3 target states on the UI just wonderful.

TestBed is sat there doing nothing at the moment. Why not use and see if this might work?

 

I know its pain in the ass but I would like to see a return of a properly working fully functioning [CTRL] + L as well

 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Norfolk nChance

[Tomasso il Fortunato]

@Cecil Selous

I am agree with you suggestions but one think . It will increase the battle time . It will be harder to fight an enemy . Not all players like to dedicate all of them time to a game . If a battle will be during 2-3 hours its useless to play .

[Tomasso il Fortunato]

Yes , probably they can make a gameplay settings where you can activate/deactivate "smart gunners".

[Norfolk nChance]

34 minutes ago, CaptainSparckles said:

@Cecil Selous

I am agree with you suggestions but one think . It will increase the battle time . It will be harder to fight an enemy . Not all players like to dedicate all of them time to a game . If a battle will be during 2-3 hours its useless to play .

I have to agree. Balance between gameplay ability and authenticity tis a tightrope we’ve walked before. One could see with something as good as what @Cecil Selous has done that we’d need to nerf the Armor HPs to then bring battle length back into line?

 

[Tomasso il Fortunato]

In this case the armor HP should be decreased to be easier to defeat the enemy .

[Capt Jubal Early]

+ a million for op. I could get down for this.

Balance is the key. Make broadsides devastating if they all land to counteract the difficulty.
Increase chances of de-mast from perfect rake.

[Percival Merewether]

I'd love to see smart gunners disabled and HP decreased - this means that broadside-to-broadside (touching hull) will be devastating and can end a fight very quickly. It will encourage fighting at a medium distance in battle sails. it will also make moving in for boarding much more dangerous.

[Tomasso il Fortunato]

I'm the history de-mast wasn't so easy . In this case , the chances to de-mast shouldn't be increased .

[Tomasso il Fortunato]

How much I know , a broadside is devastating for any tipe of ship under 4th rate .

Edited February 20, 2018 by CaptainSparckles

[Percival Merewether]

4 minutes ago, CaptainSparckles said:

I'm the history de-mast wasn't so easy . In this case , the chances to de-mast shouldn't be increased .

It's not increased assuming the HP for masts stays the same - you still need the same amount of hits, but hitting will be harder.

2 minutes ago, CaptainSparckles said:

How much I know , a broadside is devastating for any tips of ship under 4th rate .

I'm not sure I understand? 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Percival Merewether

[Tomasso il Fortunato]

Here is an example:

Look at this video and you will understand . It's from the serial Black Sails .

Edited February 20, 2018 by CaptainSparckles

[Dakk Elleron]

First, I would like to say, what an excellent write up this was. Very thorough with some excellent ideas. 

However, I believe there is a lot of knee jerk reactions here. I have read some suggestions of increasing cannon damage to offset the increased chance of missing broadsides. Or decreasing armor and thickness to offset the missed shots, or a combination of both. The problem with this is that by changing damage, hp, or thickness; you are trying to change to many variables to fix only one, the de-masting.

Additionally, a full broadside from an Agamemnon (for example) against a smaller ship like a Renomee (for example) is already devastating. Reducing armor HP/Thickness or increasing canon damage will only make this worse. My concern is that it will push people away from sailing smaller/weaker ships. Albeit, they will potentially be much more difficult to hit, so maybe not.

It seems there is a much simpler solution to de-masting. Why not just increase the "cone of fire" as you increase in elevation your point of aim.  

[VonVolks]

Great post. I have 2 points.

 

1. I agree that guns are a bit unrealistic and too accurate and too fast re-aiming. However I think that changing things will involve changing the gun controls a bit to keys not just mouse, as they move to fast otherwise?

 

2. Smart gunners v dumb gunners. Why not make each full manned cannon have a "Gun captain" who is the best trained "smart gunner". Then every time you take crew damage there is a %age chance that one of your smart gunners dies and that renders gun still operational but "dumb" in terms of aiming (and I already assume slower loading due to less crew on guns)

[Slim McSauce]

On 2/20/2018 at 11:16 AM, Dakk Elleron said:

First, I would like to say, what an excellent write up this was. Very thorough with some excellent ideas. 

However, I believe there is a lot of knee jerk reactions here. I have read some suggestions of increasing cannon damage to offset the increased chance of missing broadsides. Or decreasing armor and thickness to offset the missed shots, or a combination of both. The problem with this is that by changing damage, hp, or thickness; you are trying to change to many variables to fix only one, the de-masting.

Additionally, a full broadside from an Agamemnon (for example) against a smaller ship like a Renomee (for example) is already devastating. Reducing armor HP/Thickness or increasing canon damage will only make this worse. My concern is that it will push people away from sailing smaller/weaker ships. Albeit, they will potentially be much more difficult to hit, so maybe not.

It seems there is a much simpler solution to de-masting. Why not just increase the "cone of fire" as you increase in elevation your point of aim.  

That doesn't really change the fact it's extremely easy (point in click) to aim your cannons, which doesn't match up with RL, or the sailing/damage we have in game which is pretty representative of how it was done.

Gunnery is the only part of NA combat asides from maybe boarding that doesn't match up with RL. It's as arcade-y as arcade-y can get, and it keeps us from having fully realistic damage. Simply making cannons have huge spread would just make the arcade-y system broken. Turning off gryo assisted gunnery (where the start and end of your broadside is always where you aim regardless of ship heel in that time) Would MAYBE be a suitable solution but it still wouldn't match up with point and click aiming and people would probably not like it so much.

I say if we go realistic like we did sailing, go all the way not in between.

[Knobby]

On 1/28/2018 at 7:09 PM, Cecil Selous said:

Furthermore, the change of horizontal orientation and elevation of cannons should be a bit slower. Cannons were manhandled with handspikes to change these parameters. This took time and to instantly fire a cannon during this (like we can do now) wasn’t possible. So cannons in game should not be able to fire while being traversed or elevated.

Vertical adjustments or elevation should be fast and should not result in much accuracy loss. Elevation was adjusted by an elevation screw or a wedge shaped block. Much faster and more precise than the horizontal adjustments with handspikes.

[Hethwill]

Elevation screw was not faster, actually the opposite, and was found wanting to the ever shifting of the combat at sea.

Still was much better than the blocks and the rods due to precise elevations when needed.

 

[Slim McSauce]

When was this pinned? 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Slim Jimmerson

[Wick]

Aiming and accuracy should be also tied closely to the ship's speed and movement. 

We are able to swing the small ships around at such high speed, then let off a broadside, swing back and do it repeatedly with such an accuracy that we are able to de-crew a 5th rate in a Snow or Prince in a few rakes. When a ship is turning or running at higher speeds accuracy suffered considerably. Battle sails were used to "steady" the decks to allow accurate shooting. 

If we can at the minimum, have a system where slow means current aiming and clever gunners, fast sailing means vastly reduced accuracy. That would be something very good for game-play and tactical depth.