remove sniping

[z4ys]

that hitting a mast is luck and gunnery skill

[Angus MacDuff]

I'm not a fan of mast sniping mainly because i'm not good at it therefore its not part of my game play.  My fault there, obviously.  To be fair to history however, I don't believe dismasting was a general tactic.  Masts were generally taken down by accident as a result of the vast amount of iron that is thrown at an opponent.  This resulted in structure and rigging damage that eventually would bring down a mast with the help of the wind. We all know we don't want to match history exactly so the question is, how close do we want to get in the game?  I personally think dismasting is far too easy in the game and should be more difficult. 

[z4ys]

2 minutes ago, Oberon74 said:

I'm not a fan of mast sniping mainly because i'm not good at it therefore its not part of my game play.  My fault there, obviously.  To be fair to history however, I don't believe dismasting was a general tactic.  Masts were generally taken down by accident as a result of the vast amount of iron that is thrown at an opponent.  This resulted in structure and rigging damage that eventually would bring down a mast with the help of the wind. We all know we don't want to match history exactly so the question is, how close do we want to get in the game?  I personally think dismasting is far too easy in the game and should be more difficult. 

its easy for people that played 1000h+ its not easy regarding the mimi in help chat that is caused by the demasting exam

[Dibbler (Retired)]

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Edited August 2, 2018 by Dibbler

[Hethwill]

Link rigging condition to standing masts "resistance" to damage. Abstraction of damage done to shrouds and support lines linking the masts - bow mast support to foremast support to main mast support to mizzen, all supported by lateral shrouds.

Sniping, as in sharpshooting is highly efficient with modules/refits and books/encyclopedia. The individual gun aiming shade can be reduced to the point where deviation is non existent.

All mechanics are woven together, same as the elements of a ship.

You cannot touch a thread of the web without shaking everything else.

When comparing history to serve an agenda, it works the same.

We do not have catastrophic misfires of barrels exploding in the gun deck and provoking horrendous loss of life. Luck and unluck play a part in real events. How do we simulate that in a game ?

 

[Angus MacDuff]

3 minutes ago, Dibbler said:

 

 Demasting was a tactic often used by the French as against Nelson, but it was swathes of broadsides with chain/bar shot.

 I can demast (although not my greatest ability in game) and tbh is a game so  gameplay/reality has to be bent.  I do think though that more dispersion on single shots should apply (especially stern guns), but am happy as things are.

 The demasting exam is easy.

In fact, the French used chain/bar shot as a tactic early in an engagement to damage rigging.  They had no realistic hope to bring down a full mast.  The intent was to degrade speed/maneuverability.  The Brit tactic was to hit "twixt wind and water", and they tended to prove that that was the superior tactic.

[Dibbler (Retired)]

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Edited August 2, 2018 by Dibbler

[Angus MacDuff]

5 minutes ago, Sir Hethwill the RedDuke said:

Sniping, as in sharpshooting is highly efficient with modules/refits and books/encyclopedia. The individual gun aiming shade can be reduced to the point where deviation is non existent.

 

Herein lies the problem.  Get rid of the crazy mods (and stacking) that gives this advantage to a select few.  Yes they earned if from thousands of hours investment, but it makes for an incredibly uneven playing field 

[Guest]

Fit a french rig refit and laugh as shots at your mast are wasted. Theres no problem here.

[AeRoTR]

We are coming to a nice point.

Why not reduce mast resistance with decreasing sail hitpoints. This may simulate all that broken lines, damaged rigging that makes masts vulnerable due to uneven forces.

So mast slightly buffed when sails are in good condition. Very difficult to demast, when sail hp is high, as sail hp gets lower, easy to demast.

Currently it is a repair game until you go out of chain in long chases etc. Now you should repair early to prevent mast fall. More strategical and skill game compared to current system.

what do you think @admin ?

[Limpear]

Flinch, its true... we have many upgrades that make your must untochable. Just lazy peoples want to take +5% to reload when can take + 20% to hp masts and stay safe. This topic does not require fixes

[AeRoTR]

4 minutes ago, Limpear said:

when can take + 20% to hp masts

Hp or thickness ? Should be thickness, I suppose.

[Limpear]

I can say that hp its very nice buff for masts, if we talk about fight when opponent work in your musts and you work in his hull you have better chance to win. U just need to use repeir before you loose your main mast. And here work your experience in NA  - The distance at which your masts are focussed and an approximate understanding of how much they will stand. Its not magic its just skill and understanding

[admin]

15 hours ago, hoarmurath said:

I suggest the sniping use of single ranging shots to be removed, by preventing single shots from damaging ships, so only broadside firing would actually be useful for damage.

 

Discuss...

you are right about one thing

single shot is slightly more accurate than broadside fire. (it is done to replicate the fact that carefully aiming a single cannon with a gun captain was a bit more accurate historically)

this in game of course creates the implication that it is easier to do some things with the single shot than with broadsides. 

[Old Crusty]

5 hours ago, z4ys said:

 gun crews would fire as they pass and have target in front of them. Which is actual like single shot.

Even if the Captain ordered the initial broadside fired all at once ( common for the first broadside in a line of battle ) the gun crews were then ordered to load and fire as fast as possible. Each individual crew loading and firing their gun independent  from each other at the target that the Captain has designated. It was extremely rare after the initial broadside for all guns to be fired at the same time.

   If you are unhappy with the accuracy of single shots and the speed at which a mast can be brought down that is a different discussion that I would be agreeing with you on. But to eliminate single shot starts a new problem. When doing a stern rake The order from the Captain would be “fire as you bare” (what I quoted from other poster) without using single shot if you ship is not going at the same speed that your guns fire from front to back you end up missing a lot of you shots because you are to fast and have passed the ships stern, or to slow and your guns are fired to fast.

   Thinking about this I believe that an extra choice in your broadside should be “fire as you bare”.  We have front to stern, stern to front, and random. Yes add fire as you bare.

[Old Crusty]

1 minute ago, rediii said:

aiming is one thing but front and back fire mode already works correctly. Also on a wasa

No. The guns to fire first on the Wasa are the top deck guns that are on the back half of the ship. To be fired correctly the top guns would not fire until the forward guns on all decks were fired.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Old Crusty said:

No. The guns to fire first on the Wasa are the top deck guns that are on the back half of the ship. To be fired correctly the top guns would not fire until the forward guns on all decks were fired.

That’s absolutely false. If you fire a full broadside using the bow to stern system, it will start with the forward most gun and work it’s way back to the stern. The broadside does not jump back and fourth even on ships like the Wasa, Renommee, Hercules, etc.

[Cecil Selous]

If you single shot yes. Therefor you can deactivate single decks. When shooting a whole broadside the cannons closest to the bow fire first.

But I know what you mean. It is annoying when you try to aim a single cannon and just before you are about to fire a cannon from the top deck finished reloading and is now the preferred one.

 

1 hour ago, Flinch said:

Fit a french rig refit and laugh as shots at your mast are wasted. Theres no problem here.

 

1 hour ago, Limpear said:

Flinch, its true... we have many upgrades that make your must untochable. Just lazy peoples want to take +5% to reload when can take + 20% to hp masts and stay safe. This topic does not require fixes

That works quite well if you are in equal ships. Had a battle with a connie and he didn't care about my french rig and and winged-out ballast frigate. His hull took heavy damage but in the end he won because of his excellent accuracy and single shooting my masts. Even an early repair didn't help. To be fair he was a far better player and the end result was kind of expected when you think about super-frigate vs frigate but it can still be frustrating. And I bet that this is also very demotivating for newer or just casual players who get introduced to pvp in bigger ships and who doesn't have access to all the good mods not to speak of the rare books. I damaged him heavily (although his crew loss on hull shots was minimal) and even raked him a few times while I sustained almost no hull damage. I simply couldn't avoid his shots to my masts. The full carro loadout on my side also didn't help there  and of course determined defender.

It just becomes strange when you think about that later. You can fill an enemy vessel with cannon balls and wreak havoc on the enemy decks but in the end the better mast sniper wins if you aren't faster in sinking him. In my case he was also the better sailor in the bigger ships with bigger cannons but in common encounters with casual players it can be kind of odd. 

[HachiRoku]

32 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

It doesn't, ships like renomees and other always start aim with the highest deck, not the front cannons. Renomee/Hercules/Wapen highest deck are at the rear of the ship. So "front" fire starts at the back...

He means the entire broadside. Single shots start on top deck first gun but once you click it starts in the front of the boat. 

[Old Crusty]

15 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I think @Old Crusty and @Banished Privateer are referring to when you are single shotting since it starts with the top deck.  But the solution is simply to disable your top or middle deck when single shotting and then enable them before firing your rolling broadside.

You of course are correct that when firing the broadside with Front/Back, the rolling fire starts from the cannons furthest forward and rolls along the ship with cannons on each deck firing more or less in sequence.

Yes, thank you for making sense of me😄.

when firing the full, front to back broadside on the Wasa or Hercules the aim is from the first gun on the top deck, middle or rear of ship, but firing starts from the front. It is taking a lot to get used to but I am getting used to it. The aim should start from the front.

[William Death]

Once again, to the people saying demasting wasn't a tactic and happened "by accident." Thats just silly. Do some research before you say that. It was a tactic, used in many naval engagements, not just by the French vs Brits, US vs Brits, etc. Downing a mast would cripple a ship, at least till the mast could be cut away. It was certainly something that guncrews could be trained to do. Captain gives the order to demast the enemy, the gunners aim for the shrouds, chainplates, topmast caps, and the masts themselves.

Also I'm very skeptical of the idea that a pine mast could "bounce" a 42pd iron cannonball simply "because the mast is round." I'd like to see something to back that up. Everything I've researched regarding the power of these naval cannons says that, unless you've got some massively thick oak timbers, you won't be bouncing much.

 

One note to people who complain about getting demasted in game: you know that there are no less than 5 mast-specific modules that you can run that will make your masts literally impossible (or very nearly impossible) to shoot down, right? You can even stack some of them!  But don't confuse mast thickness modules with mast HP modules. The first type (+mast thickness) are great. If your mast is thicker than the penetration value of the cannon you're being shot with, at the range it is fired, it will do no damage. The second type (+mast HP), however, is nearly worthless. Mast HP values are so low that buffing them, even 10-20% can be worth as little as 1-3 extra cannonball hits before the mast falls. What a waste of an upgrade slot.

So don't complain you got demasted. Next time run a Kiritimati, Elite French Rig, stacked French Rig and Pino Ocote masts, or some other combination (I think there's a PvP-mark permanent upgrade for mast thickness...navy mast treatement or something like that); and you won't get demasted, at least not nearly as easily.

 

The game caters to the iron mast crowd too much already, IMO. No need to make demasting more difficult (we tried that not even a year ago and found gameplay suffered with default iron masts). I think the ideal balance for demasting could be achieved as follows: 

-mast HP very high

-mast thickness very low

-1 rig repair, 1 hull repair, 

With this, demasting would take a very long time (especially with small guns vs a big ship's masts), but could be done with smaller guns, and at longer ranges.

Edited August 2, 2018 by William Death
posted too soon by accident, edited to complete post

[vazco]

39 minutes ago, Old Crusty said:

Yes, thank you for making sense of me😄.

when firing the full, front to back broadside on the Wasa or Hercules the aim is from the first gun on the top deck, middle or rear of ship, but firing starts from the front. It is taking a lot to get used to but I am getting used to it. The aim should start from the front.

This could create an additional effect of aiming not working well for consecutive single shots. as you wouldn't know which deck you're shooting now. With guns changing horizontally, you get graphical indication of which gun you're shooting.

It could be probably better to simply start aiming shots from the bottom deck and still go horizontally, as most ships have guns all over the bottom deck. It would be probably simpler to implement as well.

There are a few exceptions, however they would still work better than with the current model.

 

ps. the downside would be that you're loosing a few shots from the biggest guns  One of the alternatives could be for some ships to have their top-most decks having lowest priority while shooting single shots.

Edited August 2, 2018 by vazco

[Norfolk nChance]

To the OP I disagree...

Ranging shots are important, but locking other decks is a given. Why are you ranging with the top deck when wanting to deliver Low then Middle broadsides? If sniping is the issue, then that’s the mechanic accuracy applied above the broadside and default reload importance. Sniping is a tradeoff between time taken to lock in the target that then deflates Horizontal and vertical dispersion to firing the ball. Edward Pellew and his sights in real life might be worth a look.

Aiming...

Aiming normally is top to bottom unless you’ve lockout the upper decks and reload lower first, then the next then the next. Try it, but takes too long. Different cannons will load at different times. If you FIRE a full all deck broadside at the same time then YES, the top deck will always look to reload first...

It isn’t, if you have full crew. They all reload at the same time but the top deck will always finish earlier due to size. Also, the progress circle will confirm this. Gunnery crew loss would affect lower decks more than upper as a percentage as they carry more guns with more crew needed per gun.

Re-loading...

Multiple single sniping results have some issues here. Even closing decks to just one. Re-load time what ever cannon your using say 20 seconds. After that first snipe, with focusing the next shots you should get two other shots away before the first cannon reloads.

Once the first cannon reloads, this becomes the NEXT default inline to fire whether you are at 5 or 6 down the list. Also, needs re-aiming etc. Might want to change this to have the single snipe continue to the end?

Delivery...

Delivering front to back broadsides while travelling in the same direction will result in you missing with the last 30% of your shots. The enemy Player or AI should turn into you increasing angle (shortening boat length) and increasing planking thickness as well. Back to Front will allow for a more effective delivery and turning into the broadside would still result in the front cannons landing...

Is it a de-masting issue...?

Either, increase the time it takes to focus in on the target. This will affect broadside as well. Or don’t allow for the dispersion improvement from the single shot. Or better still, don’t allow number 1 cannon to override next shot priority...

 

Norfolk.

Edited August 2, 2018 by Norfolk nChance

[Limpear]

30 minutes ago, William Death said:

Mast HP values are so low that buffing them, even 10-20% can be worth as little as 1-3 extra cannonball hits before the mast falls. What a waste of an upgrade slot

What about top mast? Its very low thicknes or fights with near distance (or your fights is 1.5 hour joke in 700+m)? You dont have ricochets in masts

you will not have ricochets

[Dibbler (Retired)]

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Edited August 2, 2018 by Dibbler