Stern rakes and fire Sails

[Slim McSauce]

Stern rake means to take one in the neck, it's a very damaging blow for a ship. What stern rakes now do well is taking out cannons, eliminating crew, and not so often remove a mast. The one thing I feel is missing is the devastating effect of an explosion and a fire. We have the fire but it's weak, and hardly does anything unless the person on fire lets it go into shock, same can be said for an explosion, it's ultra rare and usually only is used as a final move.

So what if fires were more devastating, and explosions were smaller but more frequent, and perhaps resulted in fires? This would require a few small changes. Fire's would have to be ignited more often, fires caused by explosion, for the sake of time you add 1 more explosion type that's smaller than a magazine hit explosion, and takes out 10-12 crew along with a cannon or two, as well as starts a medium sized blaze on the ship. 

This fire won't do much structural damage, but it will spread to your sails if it gets too big. How this would or should be done is by only having bottom sections of the mainsail take damage. The fire effectively can take one of your mainsails fairly quickly, there for you'd want to not only have a good way to manage a blaze, but you'd want to have your sails lower in the half-slow range that way you can quickly raise/drop sails in a combat situation.

For this reason, I would make this fairly often in combat, and to be expected during a rake. Large ships shouldn't feel this so much from small ships, but it still should be a factor when the rear of a ship is taking massive total damage, because very simply roundshot to the stern should not be absorbed, and fires/explosions should be a bit more chaotic and frequent, respectively.

There's my idea, you've heard it before but this time even better. When was the last time you were in combat and a fire made you panic?

Edited January 13, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[Anolytic]

Historically ships could suddenly explode from random stray shots hitting the magazine. Would make for great gameplay /s

Fires are ignited somewhat randomly (from my experience there seem to be certain things you can do with your broadside to slightly increase chances of ignition though). In a single player game, random events such as fires affecting battle outcomes could work well. In the game like Naval Action is, the battle being entirely determined essentially by a coin toss would make for bad gameplay. It's good that fires have relatively minor impact on a battle

What would be potentially more interesting is if firing guns at full sails would have a great probability of causing fire to the sail, as is historical, forcing us to use battle sails more.

[Abram Svensson]

To big random factor in my opinion.

1. Luck gets a too big influence in a skill based game.

2. Raking becomes too strong.

3. Decrewing and boarding someone would too often end in a fire and the loss of a ship. Before the enemy can board my ship i just let the fire from raking rage on.

 

I would maybe work on the defense of Fire. When you get a fire you need to send crew to the right place. The captain needs to select the deck or the ship section where the fire is going to fight it effectively. (front, middle, back section / bottom deck, lower deck, etc.)

 

[Slim McSauce]

14 minutes ago, Abram Svensson said:

To big random factor in my opinion.

1. Luck gets a too big influence in a skill based game.

2. Raking becomes too strong.

3. Decrewing and boarding someone would too often end in a fire and the loss of a ship. Before the enemy can board my ship i just let the fire from raking rage on.

 

I would maybe work on the defense of Fire. When you get a fire you need to send crew to the right place. The captain needs to select the deck or the ship section where the fire is going to fight it effectively. (front, middle, back section / bottom deck, lower deck, etc.)

 

How is it it random? A ball traveling through the ship fast through the unarmored rear will have a better chance at igniting a fire or causing a minor explosion in the hull than one that's just penetrating through the thick side or bow.

I'm saying we have the small fire that does almost nothing, we have the massive explosion that knocks out everyone around it  that happens every one in 10,000 battles, what's missing is the mini match like explosions  that happen when you hit a ship in it's vulnerable back with heavy round cannon shot. Haven't you seen or heard of that before?

 

Edited January 13, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[William Death]

...Magazine hits are a thing...they're just not that common because the powder magazine is pretty hard to hit (fortunately).  

Naval Action deserves skill-based combat. (temporarily ignoring the mod/repair meta we currently have) Anything that introduces more RNG into it, I'm against. No RNG explosions necessary.

How frustrating would it be to spend a lot of time assembling the perfect first rate, only to have it go boom the first time you receive a rake from a frigate? "Realistic"? ...maybe (IRL, a 5th rate would never think of coming close to a first rate).... Good for gameplay? Nope. 

 

2 hours ago, Anolytic said:

What would be potentially more interesting is if firing guns at full sails would have a great probability of causing fire to the sail, as is historical, forcing us to use battle sails more.

I am a fan of this. Bow/stern guns and lower deck guns on multi-deck ships should be exceptions (since logically the lower deck guns would not be able to send sparks into the sails and the chasers would have a gun-crew carefully ensuring that all flammable canvas near them is doused with water).

Any upper-deck guns; and ships with single, open gundecks, should receive an increased chance of catching the sails on fire. 

 

Do this and implement lower mast HP (not thickness) for a ship with all sails set, and we'll see more battles happening with reduced sail.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, William Death said:

...Magazine hits are a thing...they're just not that common because the powder magazine is pretty hard to hit (fortunately).  

Naval Action deserves skill-based combat. (temporarily ignoring the mod/repair meta we currently have) Anything that introduces more RNG into it, I'm against. No RNG explosions necessary.

How frustrating would it be to spend a lot of time assembling the perfect first rate, only to have it go boom the first time you receive a rake from a frigate? "Realistic"? ...maybe (IRL, a 5th rate would never think of coming close to a first rate).... Good for gameplay? Nope. 

 

I am a fan of this. Bow/stern guns and lower deck guns on multi-deck ships should be exceptions (since logically the lower deck guns would not be able to send sparks into the sails and the chasers would have a gun-crew carefully ensuring that all flammable canvas near them is doused with water).

Any upper-deck guns; and ships with single, open gundecks, should receive an increased chance of catching the sails on fire. 

 

Do this and implement lower mast HP (not thickness) for a ship with all sails set, and we'll see more battles happening with reduced sail.

Irl a first rate would never sail alone. A 3rd rate would be at the mercy of frigates (plural - not singular), 3 or more frigates would be more than a match for any 3rd rate. IRL that is. Ingame... Well the game is anything but realistic.

[Custard]

12 minutes ago, Lars Kjaer said:

Irl a first rate would never sail alone. A 3rd rate would be at the mercy of frigates (plural - not singular), 3 or more frigates would be more than a match for any 3rd rate. IRL that is. Ingame... Well the game is anything but realistic.

I suggested that in the past and was shot down by one of the local experts

First rates did sail alone regularly and I am not even sure a 3rd rate would have failed to sink 3 frigates

[Thonys]

> First of all..... no RNG for catching fire or explosion to a ship

> the only thing for catching fire is the full sail method where safety is denied and where half sail is a safe way to fire the guns

> but what i would suggest is a deliberate blowup of the ship with a fuse in the form of an officer perk (6points) : "blow up powder room fuse" detonation time 45 seconds (with a warning  only  4/5 rate )  it is still a game.

 

In short, the movie : when the rebellion people from Belgium would capture the ship in the harbor of Antwerp the commander of the ship put his cigar in one of the powder barrels and the ship exploded where a great part of Antwerp was blown up.

Captaion J. Van Speyk becomes a Hero and by Royal decreet, there is always one ship in the fleet bearing the Name: " Jan Van Speyk" .

Edited January 13, 2019 by Thonys

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

There were many precautions taken aboard ships to try to prevent fire in combat, the use of sand and water on deck to increase fire resistance, and prevent spilled powder from igniting, furling or reefing the lower courses to prevent the type of sail fires described above which generally started from burning embers from the guns of ships close aboard or even their own guns.

Magazine explosions were a fear, also, they were a rare occurrence, there were probably more magazine explosions in the 20th century than in the age of sail, mainly due to poor cordite handling procedures than blind luck, the battle-cruisers at Jutland,  and very probably HMS Hood all died primarily to magazine explosions, the film footage of the last moments of both Hood (the sight of Hood exploding 8 miles away  from Prinz Eugen is to say the least, both, awe inspiring and blood chilling, that 3 men survived that explosion out of 1500 was little short of a miracle) and Barham show only too well why such events were feared. 

It was, by gentleman's agreement, the case, that, line-ships would not engage small ships  when sailing alone,  unless, they were fired upon, in a battle, all were fair game, so it was generally safe to sail Line-ships independently, that it is not in game, is a 20th century value imposed in an 17th/18th century era game,  unless, of course, Captains in game are willing to implement such an gentleman's agreement. Ships like Victory took many years to build, were very expensive to run, and, were considered to be a huge investment, such an agreement preserved them, until,they were needed to perform their role in war.

[Busterbloodvessel]

deleted

Edited January 13, 2019 by Busterbloodvessel

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

2 minutes ago, Busterbloodvessel said:

I wonder if Battle Sails were used both to limit ship heal and to raise the sails nearest the top deck to stop the discharged wadding from your own guns igniting the sails? If so, sail ignition could be a hazard when firing your own guns if Battle Sails are not set.

As usual this is purely a wandering thought and, as usual,  in no way fact based.

Buster (a spark in the  wind)

There was a significant risk on the gun decks that powder spilled in the loading/ priming process could ignite, keeping the decks damp reduced the risk some what as did swabbing the barrels of the guns to extinguish burning powder in the barrels before reloading. Powder bags for  the guns were filled on board from barrels in the magazine, and spillage from the bags was inevitable during loading. At close ranges the guns could not be elevated enough to hit sails but there was a risk of burning matter entering the ship via the gun-ports and igniting combustibles on the decks or bulkheads where the hammocks would be stowed during the day.

Reducing sail helped to stabilise the ship, there was less heel and pitching making running out, and, aiming the guns easier and more accurate, or as accurate as you can get with no sights!