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Cannon diversity


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I know most of the players on this game don't wanna hear or change the things surrounding cannons and other factors that would and could help out on the battle, specially if this totally changed the dynamic on pvp battles, but let's be honest here. Why isn't there any diversity or more diverse types of cannons that we could potentially equip our vessels to give that boost that we all need.

I'm pretty sure the 12lb cannons at that time were already powerful enough and we could potentially tune down the cannons to make those smaller ones more stronger than it is right now, since a 12lb sometimes can't even penetrate someones hull because they are too buffed w/ structure hp and thickness upgrades, and it makes impossible for more even battles and even surprises that might come when engaging someone that has a completely unknown build.

My suggestion is; why can't we simply get stronger cannons (or make those smaller ones more powerful) and/or simply go beyond the historically accurate factors about those ship models that we currently use in Naval Action. Like why can't I equip 32lb cannons on my Endymion, because the max cannons that I can equip are 24pd ones and 9pd on weather~bow&stern. Why does the game keeps blocking me of that possibility?

 

If we could tune down cannon strength~penetration~damage to some more realistic numbers and take that restriction off the players, make the strongest and deadliest ones really expensive ones (like they were) and more difficult to craft, wouldn't it make more sense? Imagine you're in a SOL or even a frigate, you engaged a player and you're trying to figure it out what type of cannons that player are using and you definetly know the default build (24pd cannons, 32pd carros), but suddenly you realize that it's doing even more dmg than you thought it would and you realize that...that frigate could potentially be using 32pd mediums, longs or even 42pd carros for that matter. That would balance completely and make battles even more scarier and careful to engage, which should be. At that time you could indeed equip better and stronger cannons, if you had the money to buy them tho, and I don't really get why we can't do those types of things in this game, that would completely break that famous ~safe battle~ that pvpers and even pvers have, that safe zone is completely faul in this game and makes things too predictable at times, when there shouldn't be. Anyways, let me know what you guys think of this suggestion and I'm sorry if I'm going too off historical accuracy with this suggestions, but common...

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What cannons were considered ordinary/normal to be used by ordinary merchant/pirate and naval ships and which cannons were the strongest and deadliest ones that were encountered by enemy ships and told in history how they handle in battle? Can someone bring me a little bit of history here? I'm a little bit off about those types of subjects.

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2 minutes ago, Portuguese Privateer said:

What cannons were considered ordinary/normal to be used by ordinary merchant/pirate and naval ships and which cannons were the strongest and deadliest ones that were encountered by enemy ships and told in history how they handle in battle? Can someone bring me a little bit of history here? I'm a little bit off about those types of subjects.

Well it depends. One of the balancing problems in NA is the long timeline. So before say 1760 most frigates carried a main battery of 12lb long guns or 9lb guns and carros had not yet been invented. By 1800 the 18lb armed frigate was the standard with a few exceptions for 24lb armed heavy frigates. Also instead of 6lb guns on the QD&FC they now had carros either 24lb or 32lb.Just off the top of my head most smaller merchant ships and privateers would be armed with 6lb long guns or a mixture of 4lb, 6lb, 9lb and 12lb for larger ships. I am not counting Indiamen in that though. Pirates and privateers relied more on large crews for boarding than weight of broadside shot. 

BTW most of the frigates in game never ran full carro loadouts. The big exceptions are the Surprise and Essex. The Captain of the Essex protested the rearmament of his ship with mostly carros and he was right in the end. Just go to the Wiki entry for the USS Essex and you'll see the downsides. Usually only small 6th rates ran a main battery of carro because it really increased their firepower. 

 

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Not sure what's gained from making smaller cannons "stronger" (physical damage doesn't really scale linearly, as-is, so do you mean penetration???). I'm just sort of confused because in the first couple of paragraphs, you suggest making heavier cannons weaker, but then in the last paragraph you say you want them to be expensive, rare, and dangerous. Maybe something is being lost in translation.

As far as allowing heavier guns on smaller ships, I think we would need a more dynamic model for ship weight and boyancy. Sure, you can put those 32 lbers on Endymion, but don't get mad when it capsizes during a hard turn, can't slow down to save its life, or loses 2 knots of top end speed, or whatever would be appropriate for a severely overloaded and unbalanced ship. Crew requirements aside, there were physical constraints that limited what guns could be on what ships IRL, so lines have to be drawn somewhere in the absence of those physical constraints.

Some of those lines can appear a little arbitrary, but they can always be fine-tuned.

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I didn't suggest make smaller cannons stronger, I suggested tuning down the scale of cannon-strength~penetration to fit the proper damage done by those small cannons. A 12lb is capable of devastating ships and should be, but gameplay wise is weaker because we usually keep grinding till we get to the big boys,  but overall those 12lb cannons were actually the choice of captains to equip because they were cheap and they usually didn't need too much men crewing it (I think). And of course, for the time, those 12lb were strong enough to handle what they were fighting in open sea.

But yeah, I think the thread got lost on the translation, I don't know, maybe I'm just tripping or going over my head about it.

Edited by Portuguese Privateer
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well there are Russian guns 

developers  could ad more different guns like dutch guns 

and many more other  types of guns 

but i dont know if the developers want more gun types in the game.

 

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39 minutes ago, Thonys said:

well there are Russian guns 

developers  could ad more different guns like dutch guns 

and many more other  types of guns 

but i dont know if the developers want more gun types in the game.

 

Well, they just got done adding a stack of new trade goods and upgrade modules.  Aside from storing more stuff in players' inventories it's just a few extra numbers to indicate a different set of characteristics.

However, I'd rather have more ships. 

 

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14 hours ago, Portuguese Privateer said:

What cannons were considered ordinary/normal to be used by ordinary merchant/pirate and naval ships and which cannons were the strongest and deadliest ones that were encountered by enemy ships and told in history how they handle in battle? Can someone bring me a little bit of history here? I'm a little bit off about those types of subjects.

Really depends on the "naval action" era.

Practically speaking, any private owned vessel ( a pirate ship is private owned ) would equip with what was available for public auction at the time of refit. Most numerous models found are 6 pounders with the odd 8, 9 and 12 pounder. And a lot of 1 and 2 pounders, on swivel or carriages - privateers want the prize, not sunk merchandise.

And add to that non standard mix of iron and bronze pieces, with decades of life in between :) Another big issue was the access to gunpowder and shot; hence prizing enemy ships that bored any guns was even more interesting.

Carronades came in play and suddenly there's a lot of sloops-of-war, 3 masts but not ship rig, completely changing the guns complement to carronades - most notably for the 1812 war or anti privateering duty during the Revolutionary & Napoleonic wars.

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

Really depends on the "naval action" era.

Practically speaking, any private owned vessel would equip with what was available for public auction at the time of refit. Most numerous models found are 6 pounders with the odd 8, 9 and 12 pounder. And a lot of 1 and 2 pounders, on swivel or carriages - privateers want the prize, not sunk merchandise.

And add to that non standard mix of iron and bronze pieces, with decades of life in between :) Another big issue was the access to gunpowder and shot; hence prizing enemy ships that bored any guns was even more interesting.

Carronades came in play and suddenly there's a lot of sloops-of-war, 3 masts but not ship rig, completely changing the guns complement to carronades - most notably for the 1812 war or anti privateering duty during the Revolutionary & Napoleonic wars.

 

 

 

for being a privateer and  having of the really big guns from the sol s is actually a no-no i agree.

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6 minutes ago, Thonys said:

for being a privateer and  having of the really big guns from the sol s is actually a no-no i agree.

*chuckles* Of course...

Tell me... are we privateers or are we country navies ? :P 

Because 1 of the latter costs as much as refitting 50 of the former.

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8 hours ago, Hethwill said:

*chuckles* Of course...

Tell me... are we privateers or are we country navies ? :P 

Because 1 of the latter costs as much as refitting 50 of the former.

it depends on what ship we as privateers sail

a privateer in an ocean is a bit odd don't you think.

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14 hours ago, Thonys said:

it depends on what ship we as privateers sail

a privateer in an ocean is a bit odd don't you think.

Of course. But that's not the game design though. We do not play a "one captain career", we play a "entire naval private company". One player can have almost 30 vessels ( that's more ships than some Royal Navy fleets at the peak of Napoleonic Wars... )

 

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true true 

but development can do something about ship equipment (gunwise) if they want.

and make the distance of the privateer and the navy captain more different

but i agree that is not the game structure design

although the new DM seems to go in that direction.

what is a good thing

more gun types can make the game more diverse though(that is why i asked for Dutch guns to close gaps between ship types and firepower

Edited by Thonys
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3 minutes ago, Thonys said:

true true 

but development can do something about ship equipment (gunwise) if they want.

and make the distance of the privateer and the navy captain more different

but i agree that is not the game structure design

allthoug the new DM seems to go in that direction

Yes, not NA design. Plus, the sandbox nature provides tools. Immersive players do pursue type of gameplay to emulate history types. Hence pyrates and privateers will go after trade. And in that the revamped DM affects little.

Only for the meta mmo gangs does it do anything.

But sure, we can dream of a "silent hunter type of game" single player design age of sail right ?!... 

 

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1 minute ago, Hethwill said:

Yes, not NA design.

But sure, we can dream of a "silent hunter type of game" single player design age of sail right ?!...

 

it sometimes feels like it in our "dreams" :) 

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