Game inbalances or cheating?

[Durin]

thats a connie, just for your information slim

[Beeekonda]

Doubloon price for Connie Note probly needs to be lowered

[Slim McSauce]

Just now, Durin said:

thats a connie, just for your information slim

Oh so it's the same thing except better, gotcha.

[DeRuyter]

7 hours ago, admin said:

I think Constitution should be re-classed as a third rate and buffed accordingly. Which will bring a necessary variety to the 3rd rates. 
2 more ships should then also be buffed and re-classed as 4th rates  (Trincomalee and Endymion), as they feel out of place compared to other 5th rates like surprise.

Another side effect of such proper classification: 5th rate missions will feel better (hard to fight endymion in a cerberus)


 

Please don't do this. The Constitution has already been moved up to a 4th rate. Part of the issue is that we have ships built 100 years apart in game, so you have the  development of larger frigates with heavier guns ultimately leading to the 24 pdr armed "super frigates" which were still 5th rate ships according to the RN and the USN. The Constitution  is really a 5th rate but sure for game purposes equivalent to 4th rate. Ok she was bigger then most frigates and had some unique design considerations for the time, but she was not a SoL or meant to stand up to a 3rd rate 74 gun ship.  So in game we have the 4 rates as a mixed bag of ships - one of the newest ships Constitution, with one of the oldest, Ingermanland, an one that arguably could be a 3rd rate, Agamemnon. If you wanted to re-class one of the 5th rates it should be Indefatigable as a razeed 64 gun ship she was larger than the others. IRL 4th rates normally had 2 gun decks, really smaller SoLs. A late 4th rate would be the HMS Leander a 50 gun ship for example. 

As for 5th rate frigates there was also the development of heavy frigates which in the RN were mostly the 38 gun 18 pdr ships Leda class like the Trincomalee. The few ships fitted with 24 pdr batteries like Endymion were also considered heavy 5th rates. They were really of similar size to the other 38s anyway. But you still had the light frigates like Surprise in service and classed as 5th rates. Wasn't the Cerberus a 6th rate anyway? I forget which one we have in game the 1757 ship was a 6th rate.  

Perhaps an easier game solution would be to  vary the 5th rate missions so that they could be done with all sizes of 5th rate frigates. A more difficult 5th rate mission may mean a larger opponent rather than just more opponents. 

6 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

By RN standards, the US frigates were 5th rates though. 1 gun deck. 

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/243286.html

The funny part is the 6th rates  - basically cruise frigates with less than 32 guns ? ( someone correct please )

So, number of decks, number of guns.

 

 

Exactly. You may be thinking of the term "Post ship" referring to a larger 6th rate cruiser  requiring a post captain as its' commander. 

[van der Clam]

9 hours ago, admin said:

I think Constitution should be re-classed as a third rate and buffed accordingly. Which will bring a necessary variety to the 3rd rates. 
2 more ships should then also be buffed and re-classed as 4th rates  (Trincomalee and Endymion), as they feel out of place compared to other 5th rates like surprise.

Another side effect of such proper classification: 5th rate missions will feel better (hard to fight endymion in a cerberus)

Eh....no thank you. A Connie is a high rated 4th pushing the 3rd rate class, but is limited by number of decks and guns to fit into the 3rd rate. If you reclass the Connie, then you must reclass the Hercules, as it fits highly in its class also. The Trinc is no way near a 4th rate, no matter the build with any of the  mods....however, perhaps the Indefatigable could be. 

[Licinio Chiavari]

1 hour ago, Durin said:

thats a connie, just for your information slim

Lovable ship.

But.

A - You are speaking. And you know how experienced you are. It's like discussing how to balance Requin because I (not being any close to NA elites) killed a couple of Bucetaures noobs 1v1, or about LGVR granted I stern camped and boarded a Bellona.

B - among similar skill levels, such a Constitution is dead against any Bellona, being faster and simply badly out-dps-ing her. Our standard PZ (so not super light nor going full speed) Bellonas are usually faster.

And you can imagine the pain to survive a couple of experienced light frigates (or 2 requins - and you had that kind of fight... With a Bellona. And it was very close. Again: on a Bellona) simply sterncamping. And I would remember Constitution crew is only 450. Dropping her to 200ish very fast stuff.

 

The problem for a ship is not risking to sink in ONE of proposed situations.

It is being in danger in BOTH cases.

Anyhow (not taking into account cases of personal "love" for Connie) how much is she so used?

The reply shows off if she is OP, balanced or subpar.

[Durin]

2 hours ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

Our standard PZ Bellonas are usually faster.

That speed is with 100 hull, 100 rig and 400rum in the hold. If i use a few reps the speed goes up to 12kn (12.35 or so empty). But even with the same speed the Connie will be slightly faster upwind and tack the wind better. A lot of fast bellonas also use spanish or elite spanish rig and will therefor suck hard time at tacking the wind. But anyhow that ship is gone now. Had a dissconnect in battle and got borded. I hoped for more but i got 4 players with it today. All of them outturned me pretty well, 2 where faster and the other 2 outgunned me by a lot. Skill or no Skill, if it where that underpowered like some ppl say here i should not had gotten any of those:

Bellona with brit rig outmanuevered me big time when sailing downwind but lost to superior side thickness an better upwind performance. tacking the wind back and forth let me protect sides while beeing able to do a lot of dmg to the bow section, wich eventually let to enough side dmg so i could finish it.

Herc that was at least 2 knots faster then me scewed up on Open World. The Connies 15x 24 pd per side let me demast it fast enough so it could'nt get away anymore.

Empty fir Indiaman tried to run with superior speed but died to 24pd firepower aswell.

Pood Agga outturned and out dps me big time aswell, 24pd accuracy won me the demast fight, alltho he did a lot of dmg to me.

Sure all of those did some mistakes but im not perfect either. Had a few screw ups in the fights vs the line ships aswell. And keep in mind, the Connie is not ment to fight ships with superior firepower. Its a commerce raider and frigate hunter. Considering that and how some ppl here claim its utterly useless i think the ship did very well. If played to its strenght it definatly has its place in my oppinion. (but a little bit more speed would be nice indeed, lets say 11.9kn instead of 11.7kn with that loadout?)

o7

Edit: After thinking again im not sure if it needs extra speed, that ships has no build in upgrade and still did well. If you get one with very fast bonus and use
Navy Hull instead of Navy Structure it should be way faster. Sure a fir fir Bellona  or an other crazy speed build would probably catch the normal one in the picture but would it win the gunfight vs that thickness? I doubt it. But as you know, no ship is completly safe.

Edited January 14, 2019 by Durin

[Sir Loorkon]

15 hours ago, Slim McSauce said:

https://gyazo.com/ece2af30a3d963bf7bb70e3696161107

"a standard t/w 3/5 without bonus."

                        ?

So you have one slot on this ship - nearly no experience. WO/WO is really crap. It might be usefull on some special ships, but not on this one. Slow and not thick enough. I do not wounder any more.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Sir Loorkon

[Durin]

35 minutes ago, Sir Loorkon said:

 I do not wounder any more.

I do however wonder how much of his oppinion on this is pure bias. Its about an american ship afterall. So its probably not enough that the american ship Trader Lynx is the fastest trader ingame. Or that the american ship Niagara ist the best 6th rate. Or that the Constitution ist the biggest and most powerful frigate. It also needs to be fast enough to catch any other frigate and have a turnrate high enough to defeat any SOL. While we are at it, it should probably also have the original hull thickness, what was it? 1 meter? Would'nt hurt ofcorse if it also had a boarding prep bonus since it boarded so many ships...

[Licinio Chiavari]

49 minutes ago, Durin said:

I do however wonder how much of his oppinion on this is pure bias. Its about an american ship afterall. So its probably not enough that the american ship Trader Lynx is the fastest trader ingame. Or that the american ship Niagara ist the best 6th rate. Or that the Constitution ist the biggest and most powerful frigate. It also needs to be fast enough to catch any other frigate and have a turnrate high enough to defeat any SOL. While we are at it, it should probably also have the original hull thickness, what was it? 1 meter? Would'nt hurt ofcorse if it also had a boarding prep bonus since it boarded so many ships...

Indeed I'm not American... not pro-USA

BUT, that Constitution needs a bit more love, as stated like a few more 0.1s kts speed, cant be seen as unbalancing. IMO exactly the contrary.

[William Death]

Since we're showing off some of our ships per request of @Slim McSauce, here are a few of my "super OP meta ships" (that I only use on MY terms and in certain situations because, honestly, standard 3/5 does well enough against the players I most often encounter and is much less painful when I get ganked).

So basically...these are dock queens unless I'm feeling extra fearsome that evening 

Purple clocked Endy, taken from a US player in a 1v1 using my fir/fir Diana (remember though, only noobs sail fir/fir):

A nice Victory, maybe similar to the one that beat the OP of this thread's L'Ocean (but LO/WO cartagena Ocean is meta nobody sails anything else )  :

The Indefatigable I won for completing a VCO challenge several months ago:

My 'daily driver' Bellona. Over a year old and veteran of the Russian conquests (back when I was playing for Russia a year ago), plenty of random OW engagements, a 4v17, a 1v7, a 1v4....no matter what silliness I get into with it, she hasn't failed me yet (but it needs Elite Spanish Rig, right???):

And lastly, the scourge of the US players, veteran of countless PvP battles (bought it for the LOLs because it was like 700k old money [remember when that was nothing?])....I even managed to blow up a LO/WO L'Ocean with it (I was going to board him anyways...). Fir/Fir 4/5 old-school Connie: not even a Connie Classic. But don't worry, only noobs sail Fir/Fir so you'll easily beat me if you come across me in OW:

 

A note about these, the speed stats are wrong, I did this intentionally because I'm sneaky .

Nah actually I was just too lazy to jump in each ship...and I have to keep some secrets. Anyways, this happens with the way the game calculates speed, unless I get into the ship in port, it won't apply the negatives for guns and hold weight, and the book-bonuses don't always seem to apply either unless you're in the ship, so you're seeing a few of these ships (but not all) with higher-than-actual speeds. You could calculate them if you're bored enough, though figuring out which ones have speed books applied and repair amounts could take some effort 

 

NOT SHOWN from my stash of pretty ships:

• Purple Endy (other one)
• Purple Trinco
• Gold Trinco
• Purple Surprises
• Purple Ingermanlands
• Blue 4/5 Santisimas 
• Purple Victory (other one)
• Purple Lynx
• Purple Hercules
• ...thats...thats about all the pretty ones I can think of right off....
   
• ALL THE OTHER BLUE 3/5 SHIPS THAT I USUALLY USE TO SINK PEOPLE WITH

 

Gear meta is real. Gear makes a huge difference. Gear doesn't give you a win button (if it did, my fir/fir Diana wouldn't have beaten that purple Endy in a 1v1). Skill is still the greatest factor in Naval Action. What gear does do, is widen the gap between veterans (who are the most likely to be sailing a fancy ship & know what to do with their upgrades) and casuals (who might get a nice ship but have no idea what mods to put on it or how to play it). We should try to remember this in our discussions about mods: the majority of ships you see, outside of PBs and the hands of veteran clanmembers....are "non-meta" modded and construction.

And even when you see a skilled player...he might just be sailing a "normal" 3/5 ship (as @Beeekonda showed in his screenshot), and as I often do (standard mods for one of my OW ships: navy hull, copper plating, and bovenwinds; which can all be found in the shops or bought for doubloons).

 

I, too, long for the days when wood types, mods, and perks all combined account for less than 10% deviance either way from base stats....but those days are long gone and I regret to say I don't see them on the horizon...hopefully I'm wrong.

[LeBoiteux]

On 1/14/2019 at 8:01 PM, DeRuyter said:

As for 5th rate frigates (...)  you still had the light frigates like Surprise in service and classed as 5th rates. Wasn't the Cerberus a 6th rate anyway? I forget which one we have in game the 1757 ship was a 6th rate.  

According to threedecks.org following R. Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793 - 1817, all four Pandora, Surprise, Renommée and Cerberus seem to have been considered as 6th Rates by the RN. I don't know the reliability of these sources though and know little about RN ranks.

However, the historical RN/US/whatever classifications are not the be-all and end-all in a game mixing time periods and such miscellaneous ships currently rated 5th-Rates in game as frigates carrying 9-pdr up to 24-pdr and built between 174x and 181x..

Edited January 16, 2019 by LeBoiteux

[DeRuyter]

9 hours ago, LeBoiteux said:

According to threedecks.org following R. Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793 - 1817, all four Pandora, Surprise, Renommée and Cerberus seem to have been considered as 6th Rates by the RN. I don't know the reliability of these sources though and know little about RN ranks.

However, the historical RN/US/whatever classifications are not the be-all and end-all in a game mixing time periods and such miscellaneous ships currently rated 5th-Rates in game as frigates carrying 9-pdr up to 24-pdr and built between 174x and 181x..

I agree.  As I noted in my post, the time period covered creates issues and not just for frigates. I should say the interaction with game elements, missions, modules, etc and the historical classifications conflicts. While you did have older ships taken out of front line service and used in various ways historically, that doesn't work well in game in a mission for example. 

The French used a similar classification system correct? 

[jodgi]

On 1/15/2019 at 2:40 AM, William Death said:

Gear meta is real. Gear makes a huge difference.

Thank you!

On 1/15/2019 at 2:40 AM, William Death said:

I too, long for the days when wood types, mods, and perks all combined account for less than 10% deviance either way from base stats....but those days are long gone and I regret to say I don't see them on the horizon...hopefully I'm wrong.

It sure is a beautiful dream! 

[van der Clam]

On 1/14/2019 at 6:57 PM, Durin said:

I do however wonder how much of his oppinion on this is pure bias. Its about an american ship afterall. So its probably not enough that the american ship Trader Lynx is the fastest trader ingame. Or that the american ship Niagara ist the best 6th rate. Or that the Constitution ist the biggest and most powerful frigate. It also needs to be fast enough to catch any other frigate and have a turnrate high enough to defeat any SOL. While we are at it, it should probably also have the original hull thickness, what was it? 1 meter? Would'nt hurt ofcorse if it also had a boarding prep bonus since it boarded so many ships...

Niagara the best 6th rate? Fire only grape at it and see how worthy it is with no crew in 3 broadsides.

[Durin]

1 hour ago, van der Decken said:

Niagara the best 6th rate? Fire only grape at it and see how worthy it is with no crew in 3 broadsides.

and what ship are you proposing to shoot the grape from? if its a 6th rate it will long be demasted and sunk by the niagara 22x32pd guns

[LeBoiteux]

2 hours ago, DeRuyter said:

 The French used a similar classification system correct? 

Louis XIV set up a classification with 5 ranks for ships of about 100, 80, 60, 44, 36 guns (in 1689).

However, this classification was less and less significant during the 18th century and was totally abandoned in 1790 (with the Revolution) as the standardization of the total number of guns, of the number of guns per deck and of the caliber per deck were sought. For example, what's the use of saying 'This is a 'French 3rd rate built in 1730" as only 64-gun ships were built in this Rate. Likewise, in 1770, 2nd-Rate ships consist only of 74-gun ships. They were called "74 gun ships'  (thus, the title of Boudriot's book...). However, 4th-rates were still composed of Ships carrying 50-56 guns.

In 1790, no more Rate classification, but only a gun classification with 3 types : 118 gun-ships, 80-gun ships and 74-gun ships.

For frigates, there was a classification by caliber (also used by Boudriot) : 'une frégate de 12" is a 12-pdr frigate, etc.

Given the tendency to standardization, the term 'frigate of 8-pdr' gives an idea of the caliber, of the number of guns (total and per deck) and a period of building. For example, a 8-pdr frigate (like La Renommée) was built between 1740-1774 and most likely have 30 guns in total, 26 x 8-pdr on the GD and 4 x 4-pdr on the Fc/Qd (however, a few have slight variations such as 24 guns on the GD...).

Likewise, 90% of the 12-pdr French frigates have 26 guns x 12-pdr on the GD (a few have 28 or 30 guns on the GD). They were built between 1748-1798.

Moreover, calibers like 4-pdr and 6-pdr were progressively abandoned during the XVIIIth century for certain types of ships. So it is easy to guess the caliber of the guns on the Fc/Qd.

To sum up, because of the search of standardization during the 18th-century, the best 'classifications' for French ships are often the number of guns for the Sols and the caliber for the frigates, not really the Rates.

The issue for NA is the contrary : the diversity of in-game ships and how to group them into categories of 'equal' force.

Btw, this relative French indifference for Rates may explain why I see no problem in making the Constitution a 'third' Rate or a 'whatever' Rate.

Edited January 16, 2019 by LeBoiteux

[van der Clam]

1 hour ago, Durin said:

and what ship are you proposing to shoot the grape from? if its a 6th rate it will long be demasted and sunk by the niagara 22x32pd guns

Either DLC ship can sail past it in milliseconds with massive grape damage. Heck any ship that rides slightly higher than the Niagara. Plus when you fire grape at the Niagara you do so when you are on the downwind side, effectively hitting his deck and negating his ability to shoot your mast. 

[Sir Max Magic]

On 1/14/2019 at 1:51 AM, Durin said:

I really like the Connie and therfor i would like it to be better with a higher turnrate and more speed. But to be honest it does work fine how it is. It can escape vs SOL's upwind if need be and vs frigs its king.

Got one since 3-4 days after the last big wipe when you needed pvp marks for the permit. That thing saw a lot of action and so far nobody took it off me wich speaks for the ship.

Hi mate

...dont forget to mention that its a Gold 5/5 Connie with Naval Clock amongst others, which i learned today the hard way...  

No wonder you didnt lost it up today, which speaks for the theory that Perfect builded ships with perfect mods in the hands of good players are nearly unbeatable...

 

As you remember, i had a blue Teak/Teak 3/5 Connie with 3 speed mods and i was confident that i could outrun yours...nope as i found out soon !

Later on, in our nice talking, you told me that your ship of heavier woods goes nevertheless 0.3 knots faster in combat (dont tell here the exact numbers of your ship for obvious reasons), even when you had triple the amount of repair kits on board !!!

And when i turned to fight you, i would had eexpected a more flimsy ship, but no again:

- your ship was faster

- could turn tighter

- had better cannon reloading

- was more bouncy

- had much better masts

- had much better penetration

You know the results, you sunk me quite easily

All this Golden Ships advantages (with which i could live atleast), coupled with superior mods, coupled with far superior skillbooks (i had only 1 knowledge slot unlocked with bad skillbook, you had ofc all 5 with the best books) coupled with superior captain leaves newer captains or comebackers like me, in the dust !!

The most problems i have are those insane skillbooks which turn a Cerberus into something like an Agamemnon but with turnrate as a Herc...

 

The gearcap is just insanely high and until we all start again with the same ships and skillbooks, we never will find out, whether all these good Captains are really that much better as those average players, who just doesnt have the gear  

 

...when i am thinking about release and that we all, so the very good PVPers also, can keep their skillbooks, i fear for the game !!! Because what will happen with newbs with no to little knowledge to the game, if even returning vets with thousands Hours but without books, get obliterated by the top players  

 

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, Sir Max Magic said:

Hi mate

...dont forget to mention that its a Gold 5/5 Connie with Naval Clock amongst others, which i learned today the hard way...  

No wonder you didnt lost it up today, which speaks for the theory that Perfect builded ships with perfect mods in the hands of good players are nearly unbeatable...

 

As you remember, i had a blue Teak/Teak 3/5 Connie with 3 speed mods and i was confident that i could outrun yours...nope as i found out soon !

Later on, in our nice talking, you told me that your ship of heavier woods goes nevertheless 0.3 knots faster in combat (dont tell here the exact numbers of your ship for obvious reasons), even when you had triple the amount of repair kits on board !!!

And when i turned to fight you, i would had eexpected a more flimsy ship, but no again:

- your ship was faster

- could turn tighter

- had better cannon reloading

- was more bouncy

- had much better masts

- had much better penetration

You know the results, you sunk me quite easily

All this Golden Ships advantages (with which i could live atleast), coupled with superior mods, coupled with far superior skillbooks (i had only 1 knowledge slot unlocked with bad skillbook, you had ofc all 5 with the best books) coupled with superior captain leaves newer captains or comebackers like me, in the dust !!

The most problems i have are those insane skillbooks which turn a Cerberus into something like an Agamemnon but with turnrate as a Herc...

 

The gearcap is just insanely high and until we all start again with the same ships and skillbooks, we never will find out, whether all these good Captains are really that much better as those average players, who just doesnt have the gear  

 

...when i am thinking about release and that we all, so the very good PVPers also, can keep their skillbooks, i fear for the game !!! Because what will happen with newbs with no to little knowledge to the game, if even returning vets with thousands Hours but without books, get obliterated by the top players  

 

Thank you, this is perfect. 
Top players aren't even good anymore, 
Most of them use these ships to pad their wet skills.
Long gone are the days of ship mastery, 
knowledge is now supplemented

Edited January 17, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[Licinio Chiavari]

Both to @Sir Max Magic and @Slim McSauce

Yes and no.

Gear gap exists. But skill (and I would keep preferring calling it 'experience' more often) exists too.

And you were speaking of @Durin.

@huliotkd and me fought him on his Bellona with our 2 requins for full battle timer. And it was a draw. Because he was close to perfect, nimble manouvering, using rum as needed (and than on CD), never tacking if close to boarding numbers (he had DD), mast sniping Hulio's requin... While sustaining 893 total crew losses to my rakes (the BS of rum+DD is another matter).

A couple days later we crossed another Bellona. Top rank player and quite active, not a pvp noob.

He lasted 20 minutes. Experience and skill exist. And matter.

On the other hand also gear matters. As long as I have more HP on side, and higher damage output per broadside, both being pure gear, I have simply to glue to enemy side and dismantle him.

But also in this very simple example, first I need to know that this is the situation (experience, knowledge of hard stats) and then how to get in such position not letting enemy to break the contact (like a right timed chain while he's repairing hull); that's skill and experience.

The real problem is when gear gap is coupled with experience (and infinite repairs): in such cases a random bunch of average/casual players find not defeat, but utter humiliation.

And this lead to the real problems.

The infinite repairs, that helps more those knowing how and when use them.

And the gear, that matters but... Real issue is accessibility to it, due to rarity+costs. So the experienced veteran has the richness (and the contacts) to have access to it. Widening more and more the already big gap (NA learning curve is steep) between those who knows and can... And the poor souls who dont know and moreover cant.

[Slim McSauce]

1 hour ago, Licinio Chiavari said:

 

Your story isn't impressive. Requin's are easy ships to sail, and it sounds to me you wasted that bellona's time probably repairing who knows how many times just to stay in battle.  It's just glorified kiting sitting behind a ship can't retaliate with musket/swivel fire. When damage is calculated by cannon weight you'll see
 

Edited January 17, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[Licinio Chiavari]

42 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

Your story isn't impressive. Requin's are easy ships to sail, and it sounds to me you wasted that bellona's time probably repairing who knows how many times just to stay in battle.  It's just glorified kiting sitting behind a ship can't retaliate with musket/swivel fire. When damage is calculated by cannon weight you'll see
 

First.

If there's a difficult ship to sail... It's the Requin. If you have her, you should know. If you have not her, you should not speak about something you do not know at all.

Second.

What part of other veteran's Bellona (others I could add) losing in 20 minutes and Durin's lasting till battle end you missed? It was meant to underline he's not a random old player.

Third.

Having fought against both Durin and Sir Max, the latter - no offense, had zero chances.

Forth.

Indeed the point was underlining, again, that skill matters, but it's the stack of experience and gear that unbalances hard the game against average captains.

Fifth.

If there's a ship already living being able to "eat" barely one full SoL broadside (and just a couple of carro frigs too)... It's the Requin. May be you're missing, that her armor HP are less than h.rattle ones.

So I will be one suffering less the eventual change.

[Durin]

16 hours ago, Sir Max Magic said:

dont forget to mention that its a Gold 5/5 Connie

that is a new one to replace the one in the picture. you where the first, but hopefully not the last victim of it. thanks for letting everybody know about it btw, next time i will sink your ship instead of giving it back to you after the fight 😜

[Durin]

16 hours ago, Sir Max Magic said:

1 your ship was faster

2 could turn tighter

3 had better cannon reloading 

4 was more bouncy

5 had much better masts

6 had much better penetration 

1: true

2: wrong, yours could turn slightly better due to lighter wood

3:wrong, i had all long plus marines and only 5%reload from skills, you had top deck carros, your dps was a lot higher but you made no use of it

4:true

5:wrong, cartagena refit gives plus 2cm wich is nothing

6:wrong, we fought close quater, your carros have better pen then my 12pd long, main dack was same