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The effect of Pirate Rig Refits. Food for thought.


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EDIT: Some of my points have been debunked. What still stands is that a single permanent upgrade (Elite Pirate Rig Refit) can on some ships have about the same effect as a combination of Navy Hull Refit, Bovenwinds Refit and Trim - Speed. The same probably goes for the Spanish variant (have no hard data on that though).

My hope is that when upgrade stacking will be adressed (which in this specific case would make the Elite Rig Refit excessively powerfull), this balancing issue will be adressed as well.

 

After getting lucky and crafting a Teak/White Oak, Very Fast, 5/5 Prince I did a little test. Just some food for thought on how strongly Elite Pirate Rig Refit still affects balancing the Requin every Ship with spankers/gaff sails on all masts.

Ships Tested:

Prince de Neufchatel: Max Speed in port UI: 15.35 knots
Teak frame, White Oak planking, "Very Fast" special trim
Upgrades that affect speed: Copper Plating, Navy Hull Refit, Bovenwinds Refit
Installed Books that affect speed: Art of Shiphandling, Trim - Speed, Optimised Ballast.
Repairs: 100 Rum, 20 Rig, 20 Hull
 

Le Requin: Max Speed in port UI: 14.20 knots
Teak frame, Bermuda Cedar planking, no special trim
Upgrades that affect speed: Copper Plating, Elite Pirate Rig Refit
Installed Books that affect speed: Art of Shiphandling,
Repairs: 160 Rum, 45 Rig, 60 Hull

 

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Le Requin setup picture hidden by request of ship owner.

Test Result (Speed tested in battle instance, hence 0.5 knots rounding error as the dial only shows one decimal):

unknown.png

 

In case the prince has to run, it is doomed unless the tag was relatively far away, so that it ycould escape at relatively low speed going at a broad reach of 160+° to the wind.

Hypothetically, if the Requin was craftable that one would all in all be worth around 4 million I'd guess. That (dead) Prince on the other hand is so damn rare in that combination I'd give it a starting price of 5 million plus 4 million in upgrades (at very low price per upgrade, that is). I don't think the Requin in general is the problem here, apart from the fact that (Elite) Pirate Rig Refits have no negative effect on it because it has no square sails).

Maybe the Elite Rig Refits in general need another slight nerf, don't you think?
Critical factual feedback welcome!

Edit: Also, please try to keep things civil and on topic :ph34r:

Edited by Tom Farseer
Le Requin setup picture hidden by request of ship owner.
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Maybe 'doomed' is too strong a word.
The Requin can go closer to a beam reach (increasing speed significantly) to chain the Prince at an angle and then turn back without losing too much speed, though. And we all know how hard it is to effectively chan a Requin with it's weird hitboxes. Disclaimer: Hitboxes being weird are hard to prove for a player as it could be desync issues. Still, I saw chain hit sails often enough without any hit registering. Much more often than on any other ship.

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10 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

Try Prince with Elite Pirate Rig, it will be a speed demon.

That's my point exactly. Elite Pirate Rig is still too strong in my opinion. Btw,  the Prince will lose significant speed downwind, because of it's square sails. The Requin doesn't.

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2 minutes ago, Tom Farseer said:

 the Prince will lose significant speed downwind,

not true

You still have in mind the old p rig refit (before spanker force was added). While the prince has spankers as well as jibs the speed downwind with p rig is now faster as without 😉

Edited by z4ys
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3 minutes ago, z4ys said:

not true

I don't have data on that (yet). But seeing as the Prince has her foremast fully square rigged I would expect her to lose some speed when at a broad reach as the force of those sails gets diminished by pirate refits.

3 minutes ago, Aster said:

The price is faster with the wind, has bow guns to chain, generally turns better, gets control. As said with elite pirate they will both be speed capped into the wind so that just negates the requins advantage in speed.

It diminishes the advantage upwind, but also the disadvantage downwind.

Edited by Tom Farseer
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3 minutes ago, Tom Farseer said:

I don't have data on that (yet). But seeing as the Prince has her foremast fully square rigged I would expect her to lose some speed when at a broad reach as the force of those sails gets diminished by pirate refits.

the spanker force on her is strong :P

Same goes for privateer by the way

Edited by z4ys
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will test that.

One Point still stands though. On those ships ONE upgrade (EPR refit) will have the same effect on speed as Navy Hull, Bovenwinds and Trim - Speed. I took Copper and AoSH out of the equation since they were used on both ships.

Edited by Tom Farseer
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Elite Pirate Rig works as intended on all ships (except Requin, because she has no square sails to get negatives from).

Why, pray tell, should your Prince have a chance of upwind escape from a ship fitted to chase upwind ships?

Furthermore, the high ship-card speed of your Prince will allow you to easily outrun the Requin at many angles in OW (I have outrun Requins in OW a little more than 90° off the wind with a fir Constitution). 

If you're worried about your Prince getting caught, use a regular pirate rig refit (less than 400k at major freeports). You'll see your speed spike over the Requin's speed around 90° off the wind and further downwind of that too. As it stands, you've got (and both your chart and the base sailing profile chart show this) 5-8 distinct points that you can outrun a Requin at, and only 4-6 where he can catch you.

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I understand the frustration that 1 permanent mod can basically replace several other expensive permanent mods. This becomes more annoying when said single permanent mod is very expensive and in short supply. I hate the RNG system for mods and books. I dislike the limited crafting resource system. I dislike the upgrade system. Our old (and still flawed) system from 2016 was much much better than this. But I can't change it back, no matter how much I'd like to. So I've adapted. 

Beyond the availability aspect, I think rig refits are alright, considering the other dumb books and mods we've got floating around with mega bonuses (game was so much better when we had just a few mods with small bonuses). I thought they were alright at 30% before their nerf. Every ship (except Requin) receives a nerf at some sailing angle for using the mod. (Though I think the nerf affecting Lynx and Privateer is so small as to be non-existent except in the case of sail-force affecting manual sailing). Elite Spanish Bellona loses speed close hauled (fleeing ships should run away close hauled not run downwind and whine that they got caught). Some ships, even, do best with no sail force modifiers because they lose too much of their sailing profile fitting one way or another (ex: Connie, Endy, Trinc). 

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14 hours ago, William Death said:

I understand the frustration that 1 permanent mod can basically replace several other expensive permanent mods.

Luckily I have enough stuff to do not to get frustrated about pixels 😊

The post was not about me whining beause I'm afraid I will lose a virtual ship, it's more an effort to keep balancing discussion going. Perspectives can change, as mine did.

However if @z4ys info on speeds with pirate rig is correct -which I trust it is, considering he sails (Topsail-)Schooners galore- any ship that has Spankers/Gaff sails on both masts, such as The Prince, Privateer, Lynx, Requin (Lateen modeled as spanker/gaff) does not lose speed on any angle. Thus eliminating any negative of both Pirate Rig Refits.

That puts it out of balance with the Spanish Rig Refit which applies it's negative aspect to any ship you put it on. The concern I have is that when mod stacking get's nerfed, there might be no alternative to Pirate Rig Refits, elite or not, for keeping Schooners fast, which is their main defensive strategy in OW encounters. Any single refit that affects speed will be inferior in combat instances (though not in OW). That will kill variety of speed mods instead of enhancing it.

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1 hour ago, Tom Farseer said:

The post was not about me whining beause I'm afraid I will lose a virtual ship, it's more an effort to keep balancing discussion going. Perspectives can change, as mine did.

Understood. I was just pointing out that none of the mods in discussion are useless. Inferior for certain applications (Navy Hull < Elite Pirate for Requins in battle), but perhaps superior in others (Navy Hull > Elite Pirate for Requins in OW).

1 hour ago, Tom Farseer said:

However if @z4ys info on speeds with pirate rig is correct -which I trust it is, considering he sails (Topsail-)Schooners galore- any ship that has Spankers/Gaff sails on both masts, such as The Prince, Privateer, Lynx, Requin (Lateen modeled as spanker/gaff) does not lose speed on any angle. Thus eliminating any negative of both Pirate Rig Refits.

Somewhat correct. All the ships listed, except Requin, have square sails (only topsails on the schooners, but more on Prince), so they get *some* negatives. For the most part, the negative to square sails isn't enough to outweigh the bonus provided by the gaff mainsails of the schooners, except maybe at 180* (but I haven't directly tested the same builds with and without pirate rig; I just always equip pirate rig on the troll boats because they're useless downwind anyways). But the negative to square sail force most definitely applies (even if it isn't strong enough to actually affect anything) to those ships since they do have square sails. This means the square sails have less power: to manual sail with, when chained, when using various sail configurations (half, battle, full, etc.). The ONLY ship in the game to receive absolutely no negative, either in practice or on paper, from using staysail mods is Le Requin (because there are no square sails to have a negative applied to). Granted the schooners don't get a practical negative, but at least they do *have* square sails for a negative to apply to. It may make a noticeable difference manual sailing but in my bit of practice with them, it doesn't.

But the issue with Requin having 100% bonus and no negatives when using pirate rig refits is why I and others have proposed she not be able to equip pirate rig refits at all. Or code in something special for her that applies a negative when going downwind. Perhaps the same should be done for the schooners (and any future xebecs) too, since they don't get a negative...

1 hour ago, Tom Farseer said:

That puts it out of balance with the Spanish Rig Refit which applies it's negative aspect to any ship you put it on. The concern I have is that when mod stacking get's nerfed, there might be no alternative to Pirate Rig Refits, elite or not, for keeping Schooners fast, which is their main defensive strategy in OW encounters. Any single refit that affects speed will be inferior in combat instances (though not in OW). That will kill variety of speed mods instead of enhancing it.

Valid point about Spanish Rig, see my suggestion to code in negatives for the schooners and xebecs, as above.

I think schooners will have zero problems keeping speed, even if you equip no mods on them. Sheer sailing profile alone will let a lo/wo Lynx escape any square rigged ship in the game, provided the skipper not venture within chain or demasting range.

I don't know exactly how the new mod system will work. Will the rig refits be classed as speed mods (same as navy hull, copper, naval clock, etc)? Or rigging mods (meaning the same category as mast mods, sail HP mods, and Bovenwinds refit as they are now)? If they are classed as rig mods, you could still stack one of those and a navy hull. If they are speed mods, then your point holds and you pick between superior speed in instance, or in OW.

But I'm not sure that's an issue with larger ships. I enjoy my Elite Spanish Rigged ships. But if I had to choose between sailing them with copper plating or with Elite Spanish...I'd pick the copper plating at least 70% of the time. Because that's bonus all the way around, not just at certain angles and not just in instances. But sometimes I'd wish I had the Elite Spanish Rig instead...tough choice there.

 

What would be better than all this balancing mods and new mod equipping system (all of which are band aid fixes for the glaring mod issue that has sprung up over the past 1.5 years since we went from 1-3 mods per type to 5-6+, sometimes even more per type), is going back to the old system. Handful of each type of mod, most craftable easily. Have the rest in the shop for PvP marks or combat marks. All bonuses are reasonable. Skill means more. =better system, IMO.

Even if we stick with the current system, if we make everything more available by putting it in the admiralty shop for PvP and combat marks I think it would make the entire issue better. We'd all be sailing meta modded ships, but at least then everyone has equal access to the mods super books and nobody can whine that they got sunk because I had Cartagena and Art of Shiphandling and they didn't (because Carta is too expensive for them and AoSH is too rare). 

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Thank you! That is the kind of post I was hoping to read here. Well reflected with assumptions being marked as such and not sold as definite knowledge. I will provide a tested speed curve for a prince with and without pirate rig in a few days, just so we can turn assumption into factual knowledge on that aspect. 😃

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