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Stern rake and damage model


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Greetings,

this may be discused already but:

1.)Stern rake is too weak at the moment it should be far more devastating plus it should crew shock the raked target thus depriving player of all control of the ship effectevly puting it out of action for some time.

2.)Damage model is wrong atm structure should be replaced with moral bar if it reaches zero ship surrenders on its own and only way to sink the ship would be underwater leaks or sinking it after boarding. Moral should be prety much mainly based on crew loss.

what do you think?

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I agree with the first.

I recently posted something similar to your second point. it went something like this:

The mistake many players seem to make when analyzing games like this is focusing on realism, rather than capturing the essence of realism, which I think this game does very well for the most part. The biggest issue I see in the game as far as combat goes is how much and how quickly players are able to rebuild their ships (often more than once) half way through a battle. I think its especially demoralizing for new players who see all the damage they do undone. Combat is centered around who can out repair the other. Instead of removing repairs, change the damage to a tier system, I.E. once your hull or sail goes below 75% you cant repair above that, then again for 50%  then 30% 15% and so on. It would maintain a bit of the essence of reality while keeping it fun to play. Also when you go into rigging shock the sails should go wild instead of staying in whatever position they are in at the time as uncontrolled sails like to do as they please.

Edited by asuspiciousbear
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10 hours ago, Lovec1990 said:

Greetings,

this may be discused already but:

1.)Stern rake is too weak at the moment it should be far more devastating plus it should crew shock the raked target thus depriving player of all control of the ship effectevly puting it out of action for some time.

2.)Damage model is wrong atm structure should be replaced with moral bar if it reaches zero ship surrenders on its own and only way to sink the ship would be underwater leaks or sinking it after boarding. Moral should be prety much mainly based on crew loss.

what do you think?

to 1: Stern rake is modeled weak, so inexperienced have a chance and dont lose/get a chance to recover after the first rake. (We tested it as it was hardcore and majority was against it)

to 2: I agree  Structure looks odd to me as well. But the mechanic behind it  is ok. To make it based on crew loss is just wrong. If it would be a moral bar then shocks, enemy amount and ships (BR) have to play a role as well but it wont be a fun gameplay anymore.

Edited by z4ys
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1 hour ago, Banished Privateer said:

Stern rakes are very devastating if you know how to shoot properly, the only problems I see:

  1. Structure damage on rakes is minimal. Usually, it takes off 1-2 bars and then it stops. It works properly only on 7th and 6th rates. I would say that Stern rakes should normally take the structure down by 30-40% after many rakes
  2. Mizzen mast is now rarely destroyed due to rakes, it used to be much better. Now I need sometimes 20-30 rakes to destroy mizenmast
  3. Bow raking is super weak, that's the real case. It's nearly useless as shooting masts is much more beneficial and effective.

hms-victory-cross-section-model-ship-pre

Why should a perfect center rake kill any structure in a SOL (cross section of HMS victory)? On small ships its fine because its hard to do a perfect center rake. In most cases the rake will hit the right or left inner side of the ship.

Edited by z4ys
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7 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

1. 5th and 4th rates are not exactly SOLs. Why are you talking about SOLs? 

2. When SOL receives a perfect rake from a 1st rates, that should really hurt the structure. Santisima rake with 68 hits is no joke.

hint: think about caliber penetration. 6th 7th rates are the one end and Sols the other. 5th rates are a combination of both extremes

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23 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

1. 5th and 4th rates are not exactly SOLs. Why are you talking about SOLs? 

2. When SOL receives a perfect rake from a 1st rates, that should really hurt the structure. Santisima rake with 68 hits is no joke.

What structure are you damaging?

The reason you take more structure damage form when the sides are depleted is because that's where the knees are, the thin pillars in the ship aren't really there for major structural integrity they are mostly to limit hogging but aren't properly load bearing, they just stiffen the ship while large cross beams distribute the weight of the decks into the frame. If the vertical supports are destroyed they wouldn't lead to many issues beyond a bit of sagging, but there is little to no damage done to the cross beams or knees from a rake, the masts also tend to offer support for the deck areas too, which are too thick to do serious damage to low down. The main issue of rakes is they bounce about and ricochet inside the ship, losing meaningful stopping power that is able to as they do but doing considerable damage to crew and guns, as is reflected in the game fairly well. A rake simply doesn't have the stopping power to significantly damage the arrangement of structure lengthways down the ship, even when its a 1st attacking a 5th.

3d5c550c291ec4b10b97fef30bf90e74.jpg

Edited by Fluffy Fishy
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Rake at an angle. Kill less crew and guns, hit more wood.

Devastating rakes were tested in the Test Server when the Structure bar was added.

Bottom line was - half structure gone, 3 masts down. ( right now both mizzen and fore mast can be brought down, have yet to bring a main mast down though )

My 2 cents - batles are designed for 90 minutes, not 15. 

I like the morale proposals, worth proper discussion and testing - crew shock should totally disable all functions in earnest - control, reload, reset preparation, all of it.

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People tend to forget that combat in NA is way sped up - tacking a SoL ingame takes a minute or two at max. whereas IRL the whole manouver could easily take 15 minutes.

Same goes for any other manouver. ships are way more responsive in game. As a result you get the possibility to rake quite often, whereas in reality you couldnt just "swing back around" and go for another second rake a minute later.

That is why individual rakes cannot be as effective as they are in reality.

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In even battles I would agree that stern raking is usually not the best, but I often get to fight bigger ships then the one I sail (lets face it, I like smaller ships) stern camping and raking allowed me to win the fight more than a few times.

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7 hours ago, asuspiciousbear said:

Instead of removing repairs, change the damage to a tier system, I.E. once your hull or sail goes below 75% you cant repair above that, then again for 50%  then 30% 15% and so on. It would maintain a bit of the essence of reality while keeping it fun to play.

I like this idea. This would allow the player to always attempt a repair after cool-down, but would reflect the diminishing amount of crew available to do the repairs, plus the accumulated amount of damage to the ship over the length of the battle.

For me, it's this or limited repairs. I like this idea better.

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8 hours ago, Lovec1990 said:

1.)Stern rake is too weak at the moment it should be far more devastating plus it should crew shock the raked target thus depriving player of all control of the ship effectevly puting it out of action for some time.

I haven't had a problem with stern rakes. A good ball rake, Constitution vs Victory, will take ~40-70 crew and ~5-15 cannons, plus you remove all the stern armor. Follow it up with a proper grape rake and you should get ~150-200 crew and a Crew Shock if you aim even marginally well. More if you aim better. Do that a couple times and you'll have the Victory at a low enough crew level to board. Carronades are your friend when you are raking.

If you are raking frigate vs frigate, or 3rd vs 3rd, etc...the same strategy still applies: rake with ball to remove the stern HP and take out some cannons and a bit of crew, then move in with grape, you'll easily crew shock the enemy.

As others have said, we've already tried the "realistic" rakes where a decent ball rake crew shocks the enemy. It was fun but not very balanced. I think if we go back to that, we have to go back to paper masts and lower ship thickness and HP again. Not a good idea, IMO, as it seems to have taken ages to get the combat model somewhat balanced as it is now. Although I agree, endless repairs are just dumb. Go back to the old system: 1 hull, 1 rig, no necromancer to bring back the crew. Or, at most, 2-3 repairs of each type per battle. With the old system, uneven battles, or even semi-even battles were more challenging and you saw fewer lopsided victories where a few good players sink twice as many, or more noobs sailing bigger ships. Also, if you took a ship out of the fight, chances were that it would stay out of the fight, even if he repaired and got back some HP or some masts, he would never be able to sail back into the fight with a brand new ship 24 minutes later, as we can now. Also RNG wind ruins a lot of the tactical choices in battles these days, but thats another topic.

8 hours ago, Lovec1990 said:

2.)Damage model is wrong atm structure should be replaced with moral bar if it reaches zero ship surrenders on its own and only way to sink the ship would be underwater leaks or sinking it after boarding. Moral should be prety much mainly based on crew loss.

Regarding structure damage and demasting with hull-shooting. I think its fine as it is. If you increase it significantly, stern-camping will be rampant again. Right now, if you aim well and have a bit of luck, you can take any mast (even the mainmast) by shooting the hull of a ship when the HP is down on that side (or bow, or stern). If you land a lot of ball hits in the bow or stern of a ship, you'll see the structure drop some. I've finished off the last bit of structure of the enemy by doing that.

I don't like the idea of a moral bar and auto surrender. It would, again, encourage only stern-camping to remove that bar...thats not a good combat meta. Combat is balanced when hulling, demasting, raking, chaining, and boarding are all equally useful. We are close to that now, if it wasn't for unlimited repairs and RNG wind.

Sinking a ship....the HP and structure system we have isn't realistic really, but its the best way I can think of to model a ship being removed from the fight permanently...if you must, you can think of it as the ship surrendering after being pummeled so hard by the enemy, that it is no longer fit to fight. The graphics show it as a sunken ship. :) Also, if you want to sink a ship with leaks, that is entirely possible to do...in just one well-aimed broadside :ph34r:

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6 minutes ago, William Death said:

it wasn't for unlimited repairs and RNG wind.

Its not unlimited repairs thats the issue its how much people are able to repair. you see guys rebuilding their ship and throwing up new mast after mast. A tiered system would solve that. I disagree with you on the wind, the rng is good. If it was stagnant then that takes away a major factor of the time period.

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29 minutes ago, asuspiciousbear said:

Its not unlimited repairs thats the issue its how much people are able to repair. you see guys rebuilding their ship and throwing up new mast after mast. A tiered system would solve that. I disagree with you on the wind, the rng is good. If it was stagnant then that takes away a major factor of the time period.

Actually the amount that you can repair *seems* to have gone down recently. I took all the masts off of a ship a few days ago and he was only able to repair the lower section of his masts in one repair. If he'd had time to go and repair 2 more times, he'd have come back into the fight with a brand new ship, basically. With the old repair system (pre-wipe), he'd have gotten one full (or nearly full) mast and 2 partial masts back. Even though I hate the idea of re-growing masts and massive amounts of ship HP, people will complain way too much if they have no ability to repair their masts or hulls. The old system was better, in that regard: you get a limited amount of each repair per battle. Use it wisely.

I like having some wind shifts, don't get me wrong, but it shouldn't be every 15 minutes and a random amount of degrees. It should be a very slow, but constant shift over a 30-40 minute time period, and no more than 90* from where it started. It ruins one of the major tactics: gaining the weather gauge. I feel sometimes like the game is: "Oh you just spent 10 minutes carefully planning that maneuver and waiting on your enemy to make a mistake so you could gain the wind? Guess what? SURPRISE!" RNG Wind strikes again!

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8 hours ago, z4ys said:

to 1: Stern rake is modeled weak, so inexperienced have a chance and dont lose/get a chance to recover after the first rake. (We tested it as it were hardcore and majority was against it)

to 2: I agree  Structure looks odd to me as well. But the mechanic behind it  is ok. To make it based on crew loss is just wrong. If it would be a moral bar then shocks, enemy amount and ships (BR) have to play a role as well but it wont be a fun gameplay anymore.

Lmao I remember dueling Mr.Doran when stern raking with double could decrew in like 3 broadsides, it was probably more realistic, but also not very fun.

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1 hour ago, William Death said:

Even though I hate the idea of re-growing masts and massive amounts of ship HP, people will complain way too much if they have no ability to repair their masts or hulls. The old system was better, in that regard: you get a limited amount of each repair per battle. Use it wisely.

It makes more sense to carry as many repairs as you want, but only be able to repair a max amount of damage, if you go under 50% you cant repair higher

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On 6/3/2018 at 9:03 AM, Lovec1990 said:

Greetings,

this may be discused already but:

1.)Stern rake is too weak at the moment it should be far more devastating plus it should crew shock the raked target thus depriving player of all control of the ship effectevly puting it out of action for some time.

2.)Damage model is wrong atm structure should be replaced with moral bar if it reaches zero ship surrenders on its own and only way to sink the ship would be underwater leaks or sinking it after boarding. Moral should be prety much mainly based on crew loss.

what do you think?

Stern rake doesn´t seem weak to me. Pehraps a matter of opinion or personal interests but to me it may even seem a bit too powerful. A bad angle and it may seem weak, as it should but in a good angle, to me it seems that sometimes it is too powerful. A large ship can measure about 40 or 50 meters and if i am not mistaken, i saw rakes where at the distance of about 2 large vessels, a rake withy grape can be devastating in game.

I do believe grape should not be so effective at 100 mts. at less than 50mts i would think it would be a absolute nightmare to the enemy deck, if marines were getting ready to board.

Also, pehraps a 5th rate rake should not be so effective to a SOL as it is in game at present time. A rake made by a SOL to another SOL at short range could be devastating and well... A SOL against a 5th rate would only need a broadside to be devastating.

 

As for the moral, absoluly a good sugestion. I would love to see it.

To sink the vessel, i also agree with your sugestion, leaks (enough to win the pumps) and boarding then deciding to scuttle. I would add fire (out of control and maybe the explosion).

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