Mortar Brig vs Forts

[Aegishjalmur]

So is it intentional that the Mortar Brig has to be in firing range of a fort now to be able to hit it, while dealing almost no damage to it with mortar hits? Are forts supposed to be indestructible in battle now and if so why has the mortar brig's reload and accuracy been nerfed instead of simply removing it from the game entirely? Am I missing something?

@admin @Ink Please clarify, thank you.

[Hammerhaj]

On 7/6/2019 at 12:14 PM, Liq said:

Doesnt sound like you have actually tried it in a pb.. We had two brigs shoot a fort for like 20 minutes and they only managed to deal about 5% damage and kill 10 crew.

 

I was one of those dudes if it was Santo Domingo (second try), it was my first battle in MB - I missed the first few shots but saw that the aim circle had to go 'underneath' the fort to hit on top. Had at least 40 hits directly on the fort walls or center and I saw Njord hit it every time. 0 dmg was made.

Seems broken ^^

[Raekur]

17 hours ago, Hammerhaj said:

 

I was one of those dudes if it was Santo Domingo (second try), it was my first battle in MB - I missed the first few shots but saw that the aim circle had to go 'underneath' the fort to hit on top. Had at least 40 hits directly on the fort walls or center and I saw Njord hit it every time. 0 dmg was made.

Seems broken ^^

Like I said, they have made mortar brigs ineffective. Best to just leave the MB out of port battle and just send in a more capable warship and avoid the forts entirely.

[Vernon Merrill]

Forts were far too easy to kill previously....   They are currently in a good place, IMO.

The fort is lucky to get an odd hit on the mortar brig at maximum range while the mortar brig can lock on once he finds the range.  

Previous to this change, they were an actual liability, providing the attacker with easy points.

[Aegishjalmur]

Do you have any post-release replay of anyone actually taking down a Fort in a PB? Feels like you need 10 MB firing for 30min at the fort, all while taking fire from the fort and being open to attacks from enemy ships, since there is not really much space for ships guarding MBs in a PB fleet when you need so many MBs already...

They would be in a good place, if you gave Mortar Brigs 6 mortars or so, I guess.

I just want to see a complete replay of a PB where the attacker takes down the fortifications and wins the battle aswell.

[Liq]

12 hours ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Forts were far too easy to kill previously....   They are currently in a good place, IMO.

The fort is lucky to get an odd hit on the mortar brig at maximum range while the mortar brig can lock on once he finds the range.  

Previous to this change, they were an actual liability, providing the attacker with easy points.

Doesnt sound like you have actually tried it in a pb.. We had two brigs shoot a fort for like 20 minutes and they only managed to deal about 5% damage and kill 10 crew.

[Vernon Merrill]

10 hours ago, Liq said:

Doesnt sound like you have actually tried it in a pb.. We had two brigs shoot a fort for like 20 minutes and they only managed to deal about 5% damage and kill 10 crew.

Sure have...  was one of three Mortar Brigs at the Bluefields PB that killed the two forts despite being chased around by Xebecs

Were the Mortar Brig captains perked for the task?

 

Edited July 6, 2019 by Vernon Merrill

[Aegishjalmur]

13 hours ago, Vernon Merrill said:

one of three Mortar Brigs at the Bluefields PB that killed the two forts despite being chased around by Xebecs

Do you have the replay of this recorded? Destroying two forts while being chased by Xebecs sounds like a BS story to be honest... or the enemy fleet was simply highly incompetent. Also why do the devs not answer the thread and only their shill, if the MB vs Fort balance is fine? I see admin post on many less important and interesting subjects... 

Edited July 7, 2019 by Aegishjalmur

[Vernon Merrill]

Hahaha.  You’re a peach.  Do your own homework, champ.  

[huliotkd]

it's a really good thing that mortar isn't anymore OP.   forts are now useful in pb, before they were useless target. 

the purpose of the mortar is just to deal more damage than cannon but at cost of firing range, it fire vertically non horizontal as guns. youc an try to destroy a fort with a line of 1st rates due to high caliber guns as it was in the past in 1800. mortar brig is also a ship , so it moves with waves, wind , ricochet of gunfire etc etc...forts is a fixed battery so it has to be more accurate and more dangerous than any ship at sea.

now a fort is a strategical defence that needs a strategical attack manouver to destroy it or avoiding its gun fire.

[Aegishjalmur]

3 hours ago, rediii said:

they were bad and didnt hit at all thinking if therr is a "hit" in the top it means he deals damage even tho we told him 20 times he is hitting land and has to adjust

I saw my balls hitting the actual model of the fort, the actual walls... it did hello kitty all. Why can admin not simply give us some hard numbers, if it is fine? Also I am still waiting for a full replay of a winning PB fleet taking down the fortifications. How come nobody has one, when every battle is always recorded by someone? inb4 Forts getting ninja nerfed next hotfix without any communication from devs...

 

3 hours ago, huliotkd said:

now a fort is a strategical defence that needs a strategical attack manouver to destroy it or avoiding its gun fire.

Can you link a replay of such a strategical attack, please? So I can learn...

 

@rediii Do you have a replay recorded of this? And how do you get hit markers by hitting land???

Edited July 8, 2019 by Aegishjalmur

[Hethwill]

1 minute ago, Aegishjalmur said:

And how do you get hit markers by hitting land???

Pufff of dirt outside the fort. Easy to see by the spotter.

Mortar team - Mortar + assigned spotter ( which may well be the brig shield )

[Aegishjalmur]

9 minutes ago, Rabman said:

exact part of the square wall

Well, I did hit the top of the wall and it did damage, just so little it was barely noticeable. Do you know how many hits it would take to destroy a fort? How many Mortar Brigs would be needed to do it efficiently in a actual PB?

[Aegishjalmur]

1 hour ago, Aegishjalmur said:

Do you know how many hits it would take to destroy a fort?

 

3 minutes ago, Rabman said:

as far as I know, no one has tested it against the new model.

@Vernon Merrill @huliotkd @rediii So have any of you actually tested it in the new model or are you just claiming it is fine without having tested it?

5 minutes ago, Rabman said:

The old model was like 5 minutes of sustained fire to bring it down, which was nothing really with the full mortar perk.

I agree it used to be way too easy to take down forts and it would make no sense with the new system but they really overdid it, like they always do, it seems...

I really want to know how long it takes with say 5 Mortar Brigs fully modded for reload.

9 minutes ago, Rabman said:

You should find a hostile ship near a port that has a fort and test it with a friend, who can draw fort agro while you gun it down.

Probably hard to find ports with forts and little enough enemy activity to let a MB have a go at their fort but I might try that.

[Raekur]

The biggest issues I have with the new MB is that the accuracy is complete crap. As far as the notion of having to have a "spotter" ship there is also garbage. EVERY ship in a port battle should be able to contribute to the battle without having to depend on another ship. Otherwise what is the point of the MB. You could simply being in a different vessel and ignore the forts entirely. And for the idea of a spotter, they are always located at the same location as the artillery piece due to communication limitations. Looking at some of the data from the civil war era mortars they do have a flight time of 30-42 seconds, but they also had a range in excess of 9100 yards not the 3000 that they have in game (assuming that each square is 1000 meters). At this point even a fully outfitted mortar brig will have a very difficult time taking out a tower and the notion of firing while being chased and still achieving hits is BS at best with the current capabilities of the ship. Even sitting still I have watched the rounds land on opposite sides of the targeting circle.  And I do agree that the targeting circle needs to be changed for easier viewing on land as all it does right now is slide below the graphics for the land and the best you can do is guess.

[Njord]

2 hours ago, rediii said:

I'm not claiming it is working good atm. I'm saying that the mortar brigs @Liq is referring to didn't hit their target most of the time.

I don't know about the other dude but I definitely hit all my shots ( saw them land on the edge of the walls with stone splinters coming off ) after I was set up until I was asked to fire upon the heavier SOLs instead due to the absolute pathetic damage done to the fort. The first shots I missed were the ranging shots, because I tried to set up outside of the forts range, which was not possible and ultimately resulted in it completely demasting me due to the prolonged and inevitable bombardment of the fort battery. 

I really hope they check back on this and tweak damage a bit or at least let mortar brigs fire from outside the range of the fort. I know I won't play it again until they make the whole mortar brig vs fort play more interesting and balanced. Playing the mortar brig feels even more unrewarding and boring than before. I wish the mortar aiming was more realistic and skill demanding. Good mortar brig captains should be a threat to slow SOLs. At the very least I would like to see a damage buff of +100-200%. Or what about reducing the reload speed of the fort battery while under mortar fire? I mean was the BR of the mortar brig even adjusted to compensate for the nerf to mortar + buff to forts? 

The damage and reload nerfs did not only nerf the MB vs forts but also vs ships and I hope the devs consider this.

1 hour ago, Raekur said:

As far as the notion of having to have a "spotter" ship there is also garbage.

I don't understand this idea of a spotter for MB to be honest... I mean you can clearly see where the balls land and you have the aim marker?

[Raekur]

11 minutes ago, Njord said:

I don't understand this idea of a spotter for MB to be honest... I mean you can clearly see where the balls land and you have the aim marker?

The issue is that when you are aiming at a land based target, the circle you use for aiming does not stay on top of the graphic for land, it slides underneath it so the MB operator has to guess on where it is and can only rely on the little "poofs" of dirt when they miss. This ONLY works if the shots land to either side of the target, not if it lands behind it. If you are very lucky you will see the shots hit the top of the target and then hope that the movement of the ship does not screw that up.

Also, the circle should be a different color than white as it blends in with the land far too much when viewed at maximum distance.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Raekur
additional comment regarding color

[Njord]

6 minutes ago, Raekur said:

The issue is that when you are aiming at a land based target, the circle you use for aiming does not stay on top of the graphic for land, it slides underneath it so the MB operator has to guess on where it is and can only rely on the little "poofs" of dirt when they miss. This ONLY works if the shots land to either side of the target, not if it lands behind it. If you are very lucky you will see the shots hit the top of the target and then hope that the movement of the ship does not screw that up.

Yeah, they should probably fix this but I don't find it too problematic. I simply aim and fire at the the upper part of the side that is facing me.

[Raekur]

Still would be easier if the circle did not blend in with the sand in front of the fort. With every other ship it is easy to see where the shots are going all the way to the target, with the mortar brig you do not have this perspective since you only see the shells landing for a split second if your lucky. Some changes are needed to improve the mortar brig if it is to be considered on equal footing as far as usefulness in battle. Failing to get these improvements there is little need to have a mortar brig in a port battle instead of just taking in another warship and just  sinking the defending ships and stay out of range of the towers thus making them a zero threat item that the port owner spent a large amount of time on.

[Rabman]

we used to get a colored red target circle which helped somewhat. However the spotter piece is only needed once or twice until you get dialed in, then its done. So as you're sailing to your capture circle or to the main line fight you'll help the MB operator get dialed in faster so the fort is down fast for your 500 points. Atleast that was our way for some 50 port battles.

[huliotkd]

20 hours ago, Aegishjalmur said:

@Vernon Merrill @huliotkd @rediii So have any of you actually tested it in the new model or are you just claiming it is fine without having tested it?

yes i tested it. before release there was already new model and in st john's PB (swedish time), russians joined too close to forts getting demasted and damaged.  but they used 3 mortars brig so 2 of them was much less damaged and 1 of them positioned the ship in a blind spot of firing arc of forts. they lost battle anyway but they tried something new

now, with new model, you have to use a good strategy to avoid gunfire...you can bring a useless ship as a fake target for the forts, or bring more than 2 mortars so 1 will survive or find a blind point of forts or destroy fort with close range fire of all the line of 1st rates...there are a lot of new strategy vs forts now, no more boring un.-sinkable mortar brigs that fire from 2095496369'3965035'4583688 km away from fort.  admins gave a good use to the 60k stone invested.

 

[Aegishjalmur]

On 7/9/2019 at 12:02 PM, huliotkd said:

yes i tested it. before release there was already new model and in st john's PB (swedish time), russians joined too close to forts getting demasted and damaged.  but they used 3 mortars brig so 2 of them was much less damaged and 1 of them positioned the ship in a blind spot of firing arc of forts. they lost battle anyway but they tried something new

now, with new model, you have to use a good strategy to avoid gunfire...you can bring a useless ship as a fake target for the forts, or bring more than 2 mortars so 1 will survive or find a blind point of forts or destroy fort with close range fire of all the line of 1st rates...there are a lot of new strategy vs forts now, no more boring un.-sinkable mortar brigs that fire from 2095496369'3965035'4583688 km away from fort.  admins gave a good use to the 60k stone invested.

Ok, cool. But is there a replay of such a "good strategy" battle where the attackers take down the fortifications and win? Would be neat to showcase how the new model works? All I read is "It's fine", "It simply takes a more strategic approach now" and "people can't aim or aren't properly perked / geared" etc. but where is the replay of just a single PB that would demonstrate how it works now? No doubt you can destroy the forts but at what cost? Maybe with 5 Mortar Brigs firing from behind and island ? That's 5 ships and a bunch of BR less for the attackers, only to deal with fortifications and since accuracy and reload was nerfed on MB, they are much less useful against ships aswell as already mentioned several times...

[Raekur]

On 7/10/2019 at 12:47 AM, Rabman said:

So your goal is to simple be dense and pretend you don't understand the above described items. Seems legit, very happy you've come along.

Considering you are describing things that do not exist in the game how am I being dense? If you mean the remote camera view, then describe it as that, otherwise chose better words to illustrate what you are trying to convey. 

 

On a different area, I hear that now forts have a longer range than the mortar brig, if this is true then the mortar brig is about worthless now as in order for it to defeat a tower a mortar brig has to take constant damage or have another ship draw the aggro. Neither approach is good and makes little sense. It is not like the mortar brig is a strong candidate for ship vs ship combat in a port battle. It primarily has a single function, destroy static defenses. Now that task has been effectively taken away since i am pretty sure that mortar brig vs tower the tower would win (taking into account rate of fire and accuracy)

[Rabman]

Pretty much since forts were introduced if you didn't hit the exact part of the square wall, you'd score no hit. You score no hit for the center, but can get a false positive for the rocks surrounding the walls, which is why you need a spotter to tell you if your shots are good.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Rabman

[Rabman]

1 hour ago, Aegishjalmur said:

Well, I did hit the top of the wall and it did damage, just so little it was barely noticeable. Do you know how many hits it would take to destroy a fort? How many Mortar Brigs would be needed to do it efficiently in a actual PB?

as far as I know, no one has tested it against the new model. The old model was like 5 minutes of sustained fire to bring it down, which was nothing really with the full mortar perk.

You should find a hostile ship near a port that has a fort and test it with a friend, who can draw fort agro while you gun it down. That's how we tested the old system.

[Raekur]

Before that may well have been true but for at least the last few years the circle has been white. Upon release though the mortar brig is more effected by wave effects and I have been sitting still and watched the circle sweep a couple hundred meters from side to side so without the circle being colored it will be very difficult to center back in on a target now. My main argument is that the mortar brig needs to be self reliant just like any other ship. While the concept of dedicating another ship to act as a spotter may seem to be a viable solution it does in fact remove a combat vessel from the fight until the mortar brig can reacquire targeting. Keep in mind my reference is towards a mortar brig that is not fully experienced out to have all the boxes open. Considering that most all captains will start off this way is the reason I use this as a point of perspective. I know that the perk and knowledge book help quite a bit but it can not be a solid answer to "fixing" the issue.